I finally got around to watching American History X today. If, like me, you haven't seen it, it tells the story of a neo-Nazi who's been released from prison and is trying to prevent his brother from going down the same path he chose. It's a brilliant movie: Ed Norton, who plays the title character, makes that character seem almost appealing in spite of his racism. It's in the way he carries himself, I guess.
The movie also seemed to really show how divided some places are and how easy it is for someone to go down the wrong path. One wrong look, one wrong move... and you're there. The movie showed a lot of events very starkly and with an unflinching eye.
There were a lot of continuity errors and film equipment visible in the movie - more than usual. I wondered why that was and so I did a bit of research. It turns out that the original story was basically about rival drug gangs with neo-Nazism as a side part instead of the focus of the story. There's no drug dealing in the final version, of course. Apparently there are several versions of the movie and the final version - which Ed Norton helped to create - is much better than the next-to-final version. They got this great movie out of the original shots, I don't know... but they did get a great movie. See it if you haven't, and be prepared for violence, full-frontal male nudity, neo-Nazism, and very bad language.
For a complete change of mood...
When Ian got home we watched Superbad, about dorky high school students getting together with cool kids for a party. I thought it might be silly but it turns out that it's hilarious. I was worried that some of the story would be too obvious but it really wasn't. Some of it was over the top but it was always funny. I had quite a few belly laughs while watching this movie. If you haven't seen this movie and you're looking for something funny to watch, check this one out.
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