Look, the theater offerings have been scarce. I’m looking forward for what’s to come the rest of the month, but for this past weekend I settled on some interesting rentals.
End of the Century – Given that it’s pride month, you’ll be seeing several more pride related films in the weekly round-ups, and this first one came as one of the most highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes. It shows Ocho vacationing in Barcelona engaging in a casual fling with the Javi. Afterwards, it’s revealed that the two had actually met twenty years prior. At the time, both men were in the closet, but couldn’t resist a sexual encounter then either. It’s clear after this second reunion Ocho is catching real feelings. It’s hard to know for sure if the scenes of domestic home life in the last bits of the movie are just Ocho’s imagination or if it actually came to be. Loved the chemistry between these two, especially in the flashback.
A Good Person – Geez. What a bleak film! I mean, in the first fifteen minutes you learn of the tragedy that strikes Allie and Nathan’s almost perfect life. Checking her maps app in a construction zone, Allie car drifts into a backhoe that ends up killing her future brother and sister-in-law. When she comes to in the hospital some time later she is abruptly told of this fate and her whole life deteriorates from there. Even though Nathan stands by her, she breaks up with him and continues on a year-long dependence of pain killers. After one particularly bad night, she finally decides to attend an NA meeting only to find that Nathan’s father is in the same one. Daniel is by no means a perfect person, but he’s trying to do right by his granddaughter and be a good person to Allie. There are the briefest moments of hope in this film, but most of the time if felt like watching someone being strapped down in a bed with no one there to let her free. I suppose that’s life for some people, but this is not necessarily something I would recommend to anyone.
The Doom Generation – Back a few years ago I really wanted to watch Now Apocalypse, a series by Gregg Araki. I never got around to it and it is actually still on my watch list. But in that time, I was reading all about his other films. At the top of the intrigue list was this film, his first “big budget” film and Rose McGowen’s first film role. It’s very much not for everyone, but I found it very interesting. The style is cheap, but the gore is fairly realistic. Even though it does look like it’s made on the cheap there are still plenty of really cool shots and lighting choices. The most interesting part though involves the unlikely threesome in Jordan, Amy, and X as they traverse across California with some dead bodies in their wake. I was bummed that I missed the one night screening of this at my local art house cinema, but was pumped to see it was available to rent a couple weeks later. I look forward to seeing more of Araki’s work in the future, too!