Down with movie reviews!

The woman and I watched Closer last night. I never went to see it in the theatre since the reviews at the time were lackluster, but that’s what I get for listening to someone else’s worthless opinion. It’s got great characters, great and memorable dialogue, and Natalie Portman spends one scene nearly buck naked.

What I liked about “Closer” is that it reminded me of all the sh*t and pain that’s mixed up in love. The entire movie is break-up / infidelity / love / loss / revenge concentrate. It’s every bad relationship experience you’ve had condensed into two hours. It’s real. But, it’s not all negative, just realistic and maybe cynical. It’s not just about relationships, it’s also about how people can be dishonest and screwed up because they’re self-loathing cowards. It’s a cycle: you seek someone to love because you have a hungry hole in your chest, you get involved with someone else because the hole is never really filled, then you betray your first lover and whip yourself with the resulting guilt so that everything falls down around you and you can be even more unhappy and pathetic. It takes work to be happy, dammit. I really believe that.

Like I said, there are some fantastic lines. Clive Owen is the star of this film, without a doubt, but everyone else is really good, too.

Some of my favorite lines:

Dan (Jude Law): You’re an animal.
Larry (Clive Owen): Yeah? What are you?
Dan (Jude Law): You think love is simple. You think the heart is like a diagram.
Larry (Clive Owen): Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist, wrapped in blood!

Anna (Julia Roberts): Why is the sex so important?
Larry (Clive Owen): BECAUSE I’M A CAVEMAN!

3 comments

  1. Hi Chris! How’re you doing? :) Closer IS a good movie!

  2. I’m doing super!

  3. Dave…

    Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future…