> > Does anybody know what's up with the sudden surge of rather weird movies
> > Anyone have any idea what's up?
>
> I think "The Blair Witch Project" was more or less a catalyst for most of the wildly different movies out there
right now.

Well, the thing of it is that nobody had even heard of Blair Witch since January, and it certainly didn't get *big*
until the summer. That's not enough time for it to spawn all of the movies that are out right now. Certainly BWP
should be on the list of weird movies released this year.

>
> I saw "Three Kings", and I thought it was great. It's hard to do black comedy well, but this movie pulls it off
somehow.

I agree. Go check out "Bringing Out the Dead" which is hilarious black comedy, if nothing else. I'm a big fan of
dark humor, just wish there was more of it done right.

>
> I also saw "The Matrix" a couple days ago for the first time, after much badgering by my friends that it was
WITHOUT A DOUBT THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE. EVER. Well, I don't agree completely. It
certainly is different, and the base of the plot (machines using us for power) gave me a creepy chill. "The Matrix" is
supposed to be the first part of a trilogy, and I can't wait for the next one.

"The Matrix" was not even the best movie of this year. It doesn't make my Top 5 list. I
guess my problem is that it presented virtually nothing new in terms of plot to me (certainly the action sequences
were incredible). I've read Philip K. Dick, I saw "Dark City" and I'm familiar with Cyberpunk. I've seen "Matrix"
three times now, and quite frankly I'm less impressed each time I watch it. The expositionary scenes are plentiful
but they don't provide any solid information. "Matrix" does a good job of pretending it knows what it's talking
about, but if you really sit and think about the plot it's FULL of logical holes. This bugs me. However, as I said
previously, the movie does have some of the best action scenes ever committed to film. I wish we could have had
more of those (or more plot that was well thought out).

>
> Movies have to continually push the envelope, uncover new ground, new ideas, new ways of thinking. It's been
going on for a hundred years now, although there was a slight pause in the early 90s, with all the disaster movies
and big ooh-ahh explosions, but we can put that behind us, I suppose.

"Armageddon" and "Godzilla" were both last year, bub. And let's face it -- the majority of movies are of average
quality (this being more or less the definition of average). We've certainly had our dull and average movies lately
("Double Jeopardy" was number 1 for like three weeks running), but we've also had an exceeding number of just
flat out weird flicks. I can't figure it out.

>
> Mi "maybe I'm too optimistic" key

Ste "Probably" phen