![Screening Log: 23 January 2011
1. /Miss Bala/ (2011, Gerardo Naranjo) Much more effective watching it while I’m not recovering from a minor panic attack. Less a thriller than a horror film. Review forthcoming. [screener]
2. Straw Dogs (2011, Rod Lurie) Hey, morbid fascination. I haven’t seen the original since before I could vote, so I can’t confidently offer a take on its complex and dodgy morals. (My guess is that, while Peckinpah meant for Hoffman’s descent into macho neanderthalism to be a bad thing, he muddled that in execution.) For the record, this tries to copy some of the complexity from the original (Kate Bosworth’s Melissa George stand-in looking shifty at her husband post-melee, for instance), but it’s basically the dumb defense of vigiliantism that the original only reluctantly is. Sam Peckinpah was genuinely wrestling with demons and his own potentially repugnant beliefs; Rod Lurie is just trying to copy a classic. [DVD]](http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lybfjyBgj91qzoio3o1_500.jpg)
Screening Log: 23 January 2011
1. /Miss Bala/ (2011, Gerardo Naranjo) Much more effective watching it while I’m not recovering from a minor panic attack. Less a thriller than a horror film. Review forthcoming. [screener]
2. Straw Dogs (2011, Rod Lurie) Hey, morbid fascination. I haven’t seen the original since before I could vote, so I can’t confidently offer a take on its complex and dodgy morals. (My guess is that, while Peckinpah meant for Hoffman’s descent into macho neanderthalism to be a bad thing, he muddled that in execution.) For the record, this tries to copy some of the complexity from the original (Kate Bosworth’s Melissa George stand-in looking shifty at her husband post-melee, for instance), but it’s basically the dumb defense of vigiliantism that the original only reluctantly is. Sam Peckinpah was genuinely wrestling with demons and his own potentially repugnant beliefs; Rod Lurie is just trying to copy a classic. [DVD]
