Movies

I saw two movies over the weekend - Garden State and Troy. Garden State was excellent. It was written and directed by Zach Braff, the lead on Scrubs. He also starred in the film. Clearly, it was a bit of a vanity project. Nevertheless, it was wonderfully written and the characters were achingly real and complex. Natalie Portman plays the lead female character. She's such an amazing actress with a wide range. Contrast her role in Closer with her role in Garden State, and you clearly see someone who has the talent to become one of our best actresses. In contast, I have a feeling this was Zach Braff's one movie and we won't see much more of him.

Troy was surprisingly good, as well. I had low expectations and it certainly didn't knock me off my feet, but it was enjoyable. It's been a long time since I've read the Illiad, but with a little internet searching, I found that many of the characters who lived in the movie died in the Illiad. Ah well. I enjoyed the battle scenes and some of the character stuff. As a fan of this sort of movie, I probably enjoyed it more than the average person. I do think Eric Bana stole the movie from Brad Pitt. Hector was a far more interesting character and that was mostly due to Bana having some acting talent to draw from, whereas Pitt's acting talent consists of looking off into the distance pensively.