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January 19, 2004
willowgate
so yesterday i happened to catch the ninth gate from the beginning. in the first scene, corso's total lack of conscience and morality is quickly and elegantly established, and i found myself giggling with a certain wicked glee.
why? why do i take joy in the portrayal of such calculated behavior?
i watched that episode of buffy recently where willow and anya accidentally release a troll from a crystal. this episode is one of the many where we see willow's burgeoning disregard for morality when her own desires conflict with what is right; she steals supplies from the magic shop freely, disregarding anya's protests.
far from taking any pleasure in it, willow's behavior really bothers me, because she's in denial that she's doing anything wrong. corso knows exactly what he's doing when he bilks a mute parapalegic's family out of tens of thousands of dollars; willow admits to no wrongdoing for many years until xander finally prevents her from destroying the entire world.
i think the thing that really bothers me about willow's behavior is that i worry about that kind of thing sneaking up on me. my moral compass is attuned enough that i think i'm in no danger of attempting to destroy the world, or even steal supplies from the magic shop, but sometimes i look back on things i've said or done and i'm a little horrified.
one of them was actually spilling water all over rick's floor friday night and not offering to clean it up, though now that i've heard about the beer-soaked pillow i feel slightly less bad, but only a little. there have been numerous rude things i've said and realized only later how terrible they were. that makes me think there are many terrible things that i never realized i've done.
i guess i don't have anywhere more to go with this.
Posted by lisa at January 19, 2004 10:28 PM | TrackBack
Comments
I caught some of the ninth gate, too, but at some point it got really stupid and I changed the channel. I'm trying to remember that point right now, but it's eluding me. It was some point where the suspension of disbelief suddenly leapt up by an order of magnitude, I'm sure.
But I did like the beginning, character-establishing part...
"Don't fuck with me!"
"I thought I just did?"
Oh yeah. How did he get out of that fight? They cut to commercial and then he was walking down the street when he came back.
Posted by: Jason on January 20, 2004 09:57 AM
i'm rather fond of the movie, myself. i think i saw it in theaters when it first came out (it's johnny depp, after all).
the film gets pretty badly cut-up for tv. there's a scene at the very end which is a pretty important scene and it gets butchered for tv (i think... been a while since i've seen the unbutchered version).
having the chick suddenly fly through the air to help him in a fight is a little hard to take, i will admit. no matter who she's supposed to be. especially since his response to that is basically no response. oh yeah. chick flying through the air. sure. where's my booze and my money?
Posted by: lisa on January 20, 2004 10:22 AM
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.