Baghead

One of the so-called DIY, mumblecore movies. According to Wikipedia, these movies are characterized by "ultra-low budget production (often employing digital video cameras), focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors." However, to my mind, these movies are characterized by bad acting, bad scripts, and a complete lack of story. I must say, though, of the mumblecore movies I've seen, "Baghead" is by far the best. Considering how the others I've seen are unwatchable, that's not saying much. But still, the movie has a good premise: a pair of couples go to a cabin for the weekend to write a movie, but things go awry when a man with a bag on his head makes an unexpected appearance. What follows is supposed to be horror, I guess, but "Halloween" was more terrifying and was also made on a fairly small budget. So if you want to see horror, watch "Halloween," but if you want to watch mumblecore horror . . . just watch "Halloween" instead.

Though this critic watched the whole thing, the Just Bourne Critic was not as excited and continued to sleep. Thus, this critic happened to catch most of "Something New" on the Oxygen channel. A few observations. One, viewers of the Oxygen channel must love diets and perfume. Two, I was left with a few questions about "Something New." Usually in a movie like this, where two opposites attract, each one learns a little about his- or herself before they come together at the end. Here, he never changed; she never taught him anything. That seemed odd to me. Also, we never really get to see his friends. Again, in the opposites attract genre, I think it's typical to see both sides. But since "Something New" is told from her perspective, and it's all about how she changes and how her friends and family view the situation, I'm willing to live with those aspects of the film. After watching it, some may ask themselves, why would any man put up with someone who can be condescending, high-strung, and high-maintenance. If you want the answer, take another look at the actress.

The Still Sleeping Critic also let this critic catch some of "Fargo" on AMC, where the language is edited. A few observations. One, it's a great film. Two, the f-word was used as an adjective three times before I stopped watching, and each time it was replaced with a different dubbed word: frozen, frugal, and then fruitless. Interesting.