Why I love the movies

I watched two great movies this weekend. One was A Praire Home Companion, which is Robert Altman's new film. He's slowly becoming one of my favorite directors. The reason for this is that most of his films are very very character driven. Many of them have little plot to think of, but are all about how the characters interact with one another. He also uses long scenes, something that I hate about modern films. I don't want to have a scene cut every 3.5 seconds, thank you. I want to see the actors actually get into the character and have to interact with the people around them as the character would have to.

I also watched Gaslight today, which is a great movie. I would have prefered to be able to doubt Paula (Bergman's) sanity, but you know all along that it is a hoax. Even if I didn't know the plot, you are meant to not like her husband, because you know that he is up to something. I would have much prefered to invest in both characters (rather than just Paula) and have the rug pulled out from underneath me at the end, learning that her husband was doing it all the time.

But instead you don't care about him, and want her to find out the whole movie. When she finally does, you're somewhat disappointed, although the final scene between the two of them is great.