We're No Better, Only Older.

You can tell your friends that I'm a drunk. I won't argue 'cause it's true. ... and that's basically why I'm not explaining to you step-by-step why Leon (The Professional) is such a fantastic movie. I mean, here I was, watching the movie at a friend's house and I went, "Damn, Gary Oldman looks just like Kevin from Five Year Jacket after going like a week without shaving. But that wasn't all; no, of course it wasn't. It's just a great movie, and I dare say that I would shelve it with Fight Club in the Drama section of a video store, rather than in Action. The non-International Cut, sure, that's Action, but I think the International Cut falls more into the Drama category.

Wait, what the fuck am I talking about? Fight Club is a comedy, just like American Beauty. If you put either of them anywhere but Comedy, what are you doing reading this site? Leon is a film (yes, it qualifies as 'film' in my book) that actually shows a would-be action-hero with a bad streak of conscience, and that makes him different than other action-heroes (read: Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, etc.). There's this whole Freudian level that the film operates on that just isn't there in the vast majority of movies, as well as the fact that the characters in the film actually change during its duration. Okay, maybe except for Gary Oldman, but character change/growth is a rarity in virtually any movie these days; which leaves me begging how Russell Crowe got the Oscar for Gladiator.

In any case, right now I'm wearing off what's left of the after-party beer (thank you, Greg and Krista) that's still in me, and so I'm not in any shape to actually talk about why it is that Leon is such a fantastically great film that actually makes that stretch from movie into film. Maybe it's a sad fact that a DVD is the only thing that kept me from passing out along with everyone else (who, I might add, all passed out in about a ten-minute span), but it's a great DVD. If you want to watch The Professional properly, you've got to watch Leon. One of these days, I'll pick it up on DVD and give you the whole rundown, but for now -in the state I'm in- all I can do is give you a glowing recommendation.

Happy New Year's to everyone, and I hope you didn't make any resolutions, because you know that you're just going to break it about twenty days from now.

AIM: therbmcc71
ICQ, MSN, Yahoo: Yeah, right, like I use those.