Turns out, watching three movies in a row is a draining experience. But it was worth it.

I went to watch three movies at Jiffest yesterday: Kala, Into the Wild and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.

Kala is .. different. The art direction's insanely good. The set's so detailed, it's insane. It has this.. noir feel. But no, it's not in b&w. It's just noir. Every shot is beautiful. Watching the movie is like looking at a really, really good photo gallery, stickied on a 35mm roll. Even from the very first scene, I know that the movie is going to be enjoyable to look at. Dodgy story? Plot too contrived? Who cares, it's so beautiful, I want to stay and watch the first scene over and over again.

Then the white demon made its first appearance. And then it pops up every 10 minutes or so. Everything increases in momentum, the suspense is building up, and for a moment it seems as if the story is going to this epic, epic, epic, climax. But it didn't. It never did. The first half of the movie is brilliant, but then it sorts of slows down.. and pretty much loses it during the last 15 minutes. I would want to watch this again though.

Into the Wild is suprisingly good.

I didn't understand what the movie is supposed to be about. But I managed to wake up during its 140-minute run (yes, that's 2.5 hours), and it actually makes sense now. Those random characters are actually there for a reason. When I think about it, the ascetic hippieness of the movie is a bit too.. hippie for me. I don't know. The protagonist has detached himself from society, and it seems cool at first. It's a bit like Fight Club, with its nihilistic and anti-consumerism. ITW is exactly like that. Minus the nihilism + Hippies.

So the protagonist has detached himself from society. But when I saw him starving himself to death from eating a poisonous wild potato, that's when I know he should be sitting at home watching tv instead of going out into the Alaskan wilderness (Into the wild, hence the title of the movie) There's some interesting characters, some memorable quotes, but I don't want to watch it again. I would fall asleep halfway if I was to watch this again on DVD.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.. Shia Labeouf's in it. And Robert Downey Jr. as well. It's Ironman! Woo hoo! Ironman is coming to theatres, soon, real soon. Like 6 months from now. Along with The Dark Knight.

So anyway.

It pisses me off that A Guide is not in wide screen format. Why, oh, why? It's like watching a television. I like A Guide. Some intense emotions. There's an uncensored sex scene. And.. that's about it. I'm not sure what to make of the movie though. It was my third screening, and I was considerably drained.. not to mention that I was thinking which route I should take to get home.

So .. yeah. That's my first day at Jiffest.