This is one of those ugly days where I have obviously gotten up too early. But once I'm up and about, like I am now, I find it near impossible to convince myself to go back to sleep. Instead, I am doomed to stagger around in a zombie-like half-dead state, always feeling tired on the inside. Sigh, I must confess that I do not care much for this feeling. It also means that I am not in a fit state to do anything mentally demanding (I suppose it says a lot about my blog that I can still post here though, eh?), which means I am left to waste time till my body somehow suppresses my sleepiness completely.

I saw House Of Sand And Fog yesterday, and I quite liked it. I can't say I'm head over heels or anything, but I liked how the story contrasted the life of the two protagonists, showing how people can fundamentally be the same, yet, at the same time, be different (if that makes no sense, don't worry). It's ultimately a sad movie, though; after all, it is founded on the clash of the dreams of two very different people, of whom neither is willing to make a compromise.

There was an interesting review on Amazon (if memory serves) that talked about how the house for Jennifer Connelly's character was a house that represented dreams of the past, but for Ben Kingsley's character it represented dreams of the future. At the same time, I think that Connelly's character wants to avoid the future she has obviously played out in her head, with her life spiralling out of control, and Kingsley's character wants to forget the past that has caused him so much trouble.

Also, I am curious as to whether there were allusions to Jesus in the scene where Connelly sleeps in the car, and the camera moves to her feet, which is obstructed by the door lock - maybe it's just me, but it looks as if it's a nail that's stuck in her foot. Of course, a few minutes later, Connelly does get a nail stuck in her foot, which to me brought up images of Jesus. Of course, such an allusion makes no sense! So maybe it was just a bit of foreshadowing, and I just have an over-active imagination.

I wish I could be as optimistic about Ghost In The Shell, which I saw the day before. This is of course of the more famous anime movies to come out in the last few years, and nearly every review praises it to the sky as being an amazing sci-fi story, blending technology with philosophy, and so on. I, however, found it quite lacking - perhaps I just had too high expectations?

For starters, I was quite unimpressed with the fact that the protagonist seemed to have this peculiar condition that made her remove her clothes whenever she turned invisible. Maybe if it were done just once I would have put it down to them trying to be artistic or something, but it happens at least four or five times, and I ended up thinking they were just performing fan-service, and it was not in good taste.

The overall impression that I got towards the end was that the movie tried to bring up these philosophical questions, but it actually ends up treating them very superficially - there is no real substance to any of them. There is clearly the question of "What does it mean to be human?" being asked, but this is just left to bubble under the surface, and never really receives any treatment. Unlike, say, Bladerunner, which has a similar flavour to this movie.

And what's worse is that I found there to be very little character development, not that I can blame them, considering the film is just under an hour and a half in length. Two crucial elements to me, but not present in any satifsactory sense. I realize that perhaps I should judge these as quite different beasts, with a completely different set of criteria than what one would traditionally use, but I don't think I can overcome my biases just yet.