Reticent Man

Uninteresting day.  Had a nice start with a good Chest/Back p90x.  Then Got in at Bay at noon, played til 7, lost.  Then went home to watch TV.

Manic  Didn't really care for this movie.  It's about an anger management teenager in a mental health facility with other crazy teenagers.  The acting is very good but that's about the only good thing.  The story is fairly trite, and pretty boring.  They're doing something aggressive with the camera, always closeup and shaking around during confrontations, but it's really more annoying than interesting.  There are a number of plot unbelievabilities, and a decent amount of Feminism.  Story 2, Style 1, Acting 7 deduction for F/M.


Manic 3/10

Paranoid Park  This movie is highly stylistic.  And the style was hit and miss for me.  There are many slomos of incredible length showing nothing, and it gets to be tedious.  The nonlinear storytelling is ok, but not great.  The music is very eclectic but nice.  The acting is pretty good, very realistic portrayal of teenagers.  I thought to myself just partway into the movie "the director must be gay".  And I didn't know that Gus Van Sant is gay but I just found out he is.  There is enormous overt gay subtext in the movie.  The plot is almost non-existant.  It is supposed to be an intense examination of all aspects of this one event, but it ends up just not being very interesting.  And there's quite a bit of F/M for how little there is of anything at all.  Still it's wall crafted enough to be worth passing the time.  Story 2, Acting 7, Style 6.

Paranoid Park 5/10