Movie Report

During my period of solitude, I watched a few movies that the other members of my family aren't that interested in seeing. Here are thoughts on what I saw:

• Magnificent Seven: Sure enough, they got as much of the Kurosawa movie in there as they could. The hardest obstacle to overcome (and they didn't manage to overcome it) is that in the Japanese film, the Samurai are actually a separate class--when characters in the movie talk about "farmers" and "samurai," they are talking about hereditary castes. Gunslingers don't quite carry the same weight of status. Loved watching Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen, though--current 'tough guys' like Tom Cruise don't even come close to matching up.
  
• Kill Bill, Vols 1 & 2: The thing about Uma Thurman is that her appearance and her voice don't match up like you think they would. You expect to hear something that corresponds to her exotic-looking face. Anyway, I don't know what the critics said about the movie(s), but I enjoyed the self-consciousness of the storytelling--especially the sequence involving Beatrix' visit to that chinese master. And of course there's the violence and gore.
• Dr. Strangelove: I knew that Peter Sellers plays several roles in the movie, and I spotted him in his two obvious roles, but that he plays the president as well--that's a piece of acting. That said, I'm not used to "Kubrick" and "comedy" being used in the same sentence.