Netflix update: 1/21/05

In the past week, I watched Fever Pitch and Seven Samurai. I gave up on Rashomon - I just didn't have the patience for it.

Fever Pitch was disappointing, and not just because the memoir that the film is based is fantastic. Colin Firth wasn't convincing as the prototypical Nick Hornby hero, and it was hard for me to gather any sympathy for the characters. Plus, having to watch the end of that awful, awful final match of the 1989 season was agonizing. Not terrible, but not recommended either.

The problem with Seven Samurai, like a lot of "groundbreaking" films is that it was so revolutionary at the time, techniques and elements have been copied and developed so many times over by future directors, so there's no novelty or discovery. And I was quite ashamed to concede that I couldn't follow the Japanese dialog without the subtitles. I couldn't deal with the pacing or the overacting, but I was still entertained.

Previous update: January 3, 2005