artsy fartsy

Last night I attempted to watch "The Tracey Fragments" which I had rented from Netflix. I think I lasted about 5 minutes before I had to turn it off. I believe I have mentioned before that I can't stop any movie or book once I've started it, no matter how badly it blows or how lame its subject. I finished "The Next Best Thing," for god's sake.

But this...this was unwatchable and infuriating. The movie (at least the first five minutes of it) consisted of 4-5 squares on the screen with different, but related scenes playing out in each of them. So your eyes have to be all over the place to get a feel for what's going on. I wonder how long they figured it would take the average viewer to realize, "oooo I get it! Fragments! Like the poor little heroine's shattered life! How symbolic!" and then praise the director for his masterpiece in innovative movie design. It took me one to hate it, then four more to fight the urge inside me to immediately hit eject.

Bruce McDonald: just because something's never been done before doesn't mean it's the good kind of avant garde. Symbolism isn't supposed to be so literal. And maybe if we were spiders and had four times as many eyes, this would work. But with only two, neither of which care to look at any of the crap you put onscreen, it doesn't work.

Instead, I watched Kenny vs. Spenny, which Hector bought last week and I had never even heard of. I watched the entire DVD and was cracking up all by myself in my house. Now THAT is some fine television.