So to start of my first blog post I have chosen to go a simple route an just to stick with something I know, movies. Well in fact I will stick to a movie I have just recently watched. First off let me say that I am huge fan of movies. I mean I will watch almost anything at least once. Sometimes I will watch the movie for a specific scene or style. Or maybe something the camera did. I loved Children of Men the movie was o.k. but the tracking shot of Clive Owen. That was fucking brilliant. I even have some movies that I question why I own them. ( The last two Matrix movies) crap but crap on a huge scale. So to call me a movie buff, yes. A critic? Yes. Someone that likes a shitty movie. I try and keep it limited.

To get this blog moving I will just tell you that I am a big believer in Netflix. In no way am I getting any money from saying this. Really. I just think they rock. I mean think about how insane it is to get as many movies as you can watch for 20 bonesa month. I mean that is unheard of. See you later Movie Gallery. Eat shit and die Hollywood Video. Blockbuster Video is going to soon try and tempt people to come into the store by free blow jobs and twizzlers. Your days are numbered and I feel like I am movin on up (Thanks Mr. Jefferson)

Anyways my most recently watched movie (in the last couple of weeks) from Netflix was drumroll please....."In Bruges". A great film with Brendan Gleeson (From the Harry Potter movies as Mad Eye Moody) and Colin Farrell. I know what you are thinking. "CJ! You just said Colin Farrell was in a good movie!"
I know, I know I will get to that in a second. Let me finish talking about the cast and then we will talk about that. Ralph Fiennes is in the movieas well playing an excellent bad guy and then there is a dude from "24" and a midget people that are great in the film but I am just going to focus on the big three.

Anyway just a quick rundown of the movie. Farrell and Gleeson are hitman that have messed up a job in London and are on the lamb in Belgium. They are in Bruges to be precise and they are waiting for their boss Ralph Fiennes who plays "Harry Waters" to give them a call to figure out what to do next. Pretty simple eh? Well Farrell character "Ray", hates Bruges. Despises Bruges. Wishes he was in a Thai whorehouse, having his kidneys removed with rusty knives would be a better "vacation" than to be in in Bruges. Ray would rather be banging chicks and or getting pissed (drunk). Gleeson character likes it. He likes the buildings and oldness. He likes the culture. Or at least it is a change of pace from England (Which has plenty of it fine churchs and canals of its own). Farrell worried me about this movie. His track record is not very good. Granted I do like some movies he has made before....OK so "Tigerland" was so far his best movie till this one showed up but I always thought he had the potential. I mean I just figured he can act. He just had a lot of misses and I will give him credit for sticking it out. He plays his character so dead on for someone that has ever traveled to a foreign country and just hated it because well sometimes you really do hate someplace that you travel to. It happens deal with it.

Fiennes while short in screen time squeezes life out of character his Harry every time he opens his mouth or raises his eyebrow's. He is a boss of some group that kills people. ( I am sure that these people exist and it is even harder to get a job interview with them) and he is very upset that they messed up and as you may have guessed he is going to make them pay the proverbial piper.

Gleeson also does a bang up job. You feel for him every time he tries to get Farrel's character to you take in the sights and sounds. That while you may have not wanted to be in Bruges you still can appreciate it and have a good time. A lesson many people traveling should try and understand.

I have to say the writer/director of the movie Martin McDonagh wrote a great script. It would have the kind of script I wish I could have written. There is plenty of swearing but that is how the fucking world talks. The characters at first appear very vague and one might wonder why two men from London are stuck in a bedroom together in Bruges a place that Ralph Fiennes character Harry likes to say is "like a fairytale town, isn't it?". McDonagh does a great job of slowly giving the us a little information about both men and their own trials and tribulations.
McDonagh just seems to have a way with words. I think writting the part for Ralph Fieness may have been the best. Lines like,

"An Uzi? I'm not from South Central Los Angeles. I didn't come here to shoot twenty black ten year olds in a drive-by. I want a normal gun for a normal person."

McDonagh also plays on this idea that Bruges is not Heaven, nor Hell, but rather purgatory. A fact that he has a lot of fun with in the movie.

So a movie about hit man. Check. Redemption Check. Cute foriegn girls. Check. Swearing that would make Scorsese blush. Check. Funny lines. Check. A movie that makes you think. Check. These are things that make a good movie. Well sometimes. Out of five stars I give it a five.

Check it out on www.IMDB.com if you are interested.