I’ll probably watch anything that has Naomi Watts in it. I even watched The Ring Two. It was 21 Grams that sold me on her. And she’s good even in bad movies, so I took a chance on her (and on Ewan McGregor, who is generally good) in Stay. It’s a film by Marc Forster, though I didn’t know, when I picked it up at Blockbuster, that he had also directed Monster’s Ball. In fact it was mostly the creepy cover art and the lovely Miss Watts that drew me to it.
But sometimes that works out. And, in this case, it certainly did. I can’t really say anything about the film, as saying anything about it would risk giving some of it away. It’s a beautifully shot, wonderfully eerie film. It’s not as creepy as The Machinist or as twisted as Memento. But it’s somewhat in the same ballpark.
After years of disappointing me, Woody Allen finally reclaims some respect with Match Point, a tasty little drama about social climbing and (what else) infidelity. Scarlett Johansson is the female lead, and she’s great in it. I liked it even more once I saw the parallels with Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment developing (see, I fought my way through that torturous novel and it’s already been of use to me).