the awesome/terrifying freedom

quick movie reviews:

fahrenheit 9/11: see it see it see it. and decide for yourself. it's a brilliant display of editing, use of music, humor and horror to make a point. i agree that there are a few too many shots of crying, screaming mothers - but when mothers in iraq and mothers in michigan use the exact same words to express grief, you can't help but be shocked by what the news media have denied us since the beginning of the war: a human face for the iraqis. after seeing that face, no matter what unsupported conspiracy theories or re-contextualized soundbites moore uses, i have new fuel and new fury to see bush defeated.

dodgeball: like all movies of this sort, there are three genuinely funny segments, and the rest of the film is filler to hold the three sections together. it has a fun frat boy humor targeted at teenage boys - no shortage of dick jokes and crotch hits, but it's also filled with geeky humor like constantly referring to espn 8 as 'the ocho.' these ben stiller, vince vaughn, owen and luke wilson, jeremy piven, jon favreau projects all have the same feel - they're all sort of the same guy, they all like each other, and they create projects for themselves and each other. when it works, you get an infectious bunch of guys who are having such a great time you can't help having fun yourself. when it doesn't work, you get the feeling that they had a lot of fun on the set; too bad it's not translating to the screen.

spiderman 2: toby is so cute. and james franco is so cute. a little whiny, but cute. kirsten dunst looks drugged, but a cute drugged. i liked the movie. worthy follow up - scene by scene it's better than the first, but all together it doesn't quite add up. i was disappointed by the unclimactic death of the villain, and by the vague reactions to toby's various unmaskings. but the dialogue is good, and the fights are imaginative and fun. i heard one guy say as we were leaving the theatre, 'i hated it because there is no above-ground train in manhattan.' i wanted to say really loud next to him 'i hated it because there are no SPIDER MEN.' asshole.