March 26, 2003
The Reflecting Skin
I like weird movies. But either I wasn't in the right mood or this movie is too weird even for me. It's set in early 1950s Idaho and follows around a young boy whose life is pretty much hell. Evidently the cinematography was inspired by the paintings of Andrew Wyeth, which results in a striking appearance (at least as much as I could see on our pan-and-scan video from the library), but the script is just so thick with metaphorical allegorical mumbo jumbo that it's practically unwatchable.
Verdict: 1-1/2 stars (out of 4)
Here's as good a place as any to point out the Viggo connection. We've been watching quite a few movies that are a bit out of the way from our usual default fare, and the motivation has generally been the presence of Viggo Mortensen in the film. For those of you who live in alternate universes from ours, Viggo Mortensen has been thrust into the public eye as a full-blown movie star by his powerful portrayal of Aragorn in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. His performance seems to have especially caught the fancy of legions of women who are as surprised by their sudden obsession as their friends are. Becky is one of these Viggoners so she has watched a large part of his oeuvre in the last several months including (in order of release date):
- Fresh Horses
- The Reflecting Skin
- The Indian Runner
- Floundering
- Crimson Tide
- The Prophecy
- Albino Alligator
- The Portrait of a Lady
- A Perfect Murder
- A Walk On the Moon
- 28 Days
And, of course, more watchings of The Fellowship of the Ring (both original theatrical version and the new extended version with another half hour of movie and 763 hours of documentaries and extras) and The Two Towers than it really bears considering.
Anyway, there's a bunch of movies left so I thought I'd let my readers (reader?) know that if you wonder "why the heck did they watch that", chances are you now know the answer.
Posted by jeffy at March 26, 2003 07:28 PM