So I went to see Sin City the other day (again). I did enjoy it, although I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much this time around as I did the first time. Certainly the bits I remember being styley were every bit as styley the second time through (and I definitely seem to be developing a new thing for Clive Owen, damnit). And there was actual acting in there from Mr Willis I didn't remember happening, which was a bonus. And it managed to trigger a dark dive which I didn't really pull myself out of until I did a lot of personal journalling yesterday. But somehow still... not quite as good when seen as a re-run.

Interestingly, what *has* stayed with me wasn't from the movie itself. It was one of the shorts I saw, which seems to have grabbed ahold of my subconscious brain like nobody's business and is even now occupying disproportionate amounts of my cognitive processes. A short for a movie by the name of 'Unleashed' - starring Jet Li, Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins. It looks like it's going to be... good.

Now, granted, I like Jet Li movies generally. The boy can *seriously* move, his acting is fairly passable, and his films (with the possible exception of *coughsplutterchokeInvincible*) tend to be fairly styley in a silly fun action flick kind of way. But my subconscious is not reacting to this short as a silly fun action flick. It's locked onto the release date as some kind of almost-Serenity-level event - and locked onto the film itself as something I'm going to come away from... different.

It's entirely possible, of course, that my inner melodrama queen has simply decided there's not enough happening in my life right now (I'd beg to differ with her, of course, but she has her own opinions and tends to stick to them), and has therefore manufactured an event-of-epicly-proportioned-significance around a simple action flick. This is me, after all, and such possibilities cannot be discounted.

But because I was curious, I went to the official movie site and had a wee look around. I'm not sure if what I found answers any questions or not. Yes, it's going to be a nasty, gritty movie (or at least, it's going to be a movie with some very nasty, gritty scenes and images in it - and we're talking psychologically nasty, rather than graphically gore-laden). Yes, there will be interesting martial arts, although by the sound of it, very different to the way Mr Li usually fights (and deliberately so) - far less finesse and more animal aggression. But the whole point of the movie is (allegedly) about non-violence. It's about a character who's been trained since childhood to be, in effect, a human pitbull, and what happens within that character when he starts being treated as a human being. And it's about (and I'm quoting here) 'the redemptive power of music'. The snatches of acting I've seen in the shorts were... stunning and chilling at once. But maybe that was just the mood I saw them in?

It sounds, I'm thinking, like a movie with some very lofty aspirations... and if it actually realises them, I think I can understand some of why my subconscious has developed this new fixation. The likely reality, of course, is that the aspirations will fall flat, and it will be an OK action movie which I would have enjoyed had I not psyched myself up for something huge and earth-shattering.

Ehhhnh. I'll find out in another month or so (it comes out on October 6th, apparently). Anybody wanna come see it with me and then either pat me on the head afterwards and say 'I told you so' when it turns out to be just another action flick; or (somewhat less likely) give me lots of hugs and remind me repeatedly to ground when whatever it is in there that my subconscious is currently insisting will blow my mind actually ends up happening?

Tags: anticipation, movies
Current Mood: excited