Sin City Keeps Viewers Awake

As someone who purports to have at least some interest in film, I am struck with a somewhat inconvenient affliction: during every movie that starts after 10:00PM that isn’t entertaining from start to finish, I fall asleep - without fail. So I’m trying to develop a scale, from 1 to 120, to rate movies. If I only slept for one minute while watching your movie, then you were one minute from perfection. Pretty good. If you get an 80, then there’s a good chance I didn’t meet all of your characters. This is probably one to skip. I think this is a great scale because it is incredibly useful to the common moviegoer: “If some as*hole who does this for a living slept for 25 minutes during this movie, then what the hell do I want to see it for?” Good question, moviegoer. But you look like an a*shole because you ended your sentence with a preposition. It is also a nice scale, because it allows me to aim for a point when I can get down to a movie review that reads: “OPERATION DUMBO DROP: 63,” and you will immediately know you should probably avoid it. Hell, at that point I could pay someone to attend the movie with me; he could punch a stopwatch when I fall asleep, and then again when I wake up. If I could get him (or more probably, beautiful her) to type it up, then I wouldn’t even really have to do anything anymore. That would be nice for me, and a great example for the kids. Anyway, the whole reason for that drawn out intro is that I caught a 10:30 showing of SIN CITY after a nine-hour shift at my day job, and only slept for THREE MINUTES. This is an improbable rating on my new scale, especially for an independent-minded picture. The greatness of this movie is ample: first, last, and in between, there is Jessica Alba. Note to God – Thanks, Man. That was a really impressive feat. Note to Derek Jeter – If you didn’t try so hard when you played baseball, and live in NYC, I’d probably have killed you by now to try to get to her. Unfortunately, they’re like the Captain of the Football Team and Head Cheerleader: inevitable. She is incredibly sexy in the movie, and forced to act minimally. Thus we don’t suffer from HONEY syndrome. Just turn off your brain, turn on your eyes, and enjoy. She has lots of company in this movie. In fact, I might actually get into graphic novels, because the actual humans that Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez got to replace fictitious (and therefore unconstrained by reality) beautiful women were scumtrulecent (I hope I don’t have to pay Lorne Michaels for using that word). This was practically a Roger Corman picture, and we even got a couple of them to take their shirts off. Full marks, Mr. Rodriguez (note to aspiring filmmakers: once you get Selma Hayek to do nudity, it’s pretty easy from there on in). I suppose I should talk about the movie a little bit. There were a couple of well placed cinematic gimmicks, the narration was very noir without seeming overly pretentious, and the cast was stellar but not distracting. These are all great things by consensus. A point of contention that took place between a friend and I was over the action. My counterpart felt that because it was a gimmick pic, it was unable to have really great action, and thus suffered in the end. I felt that this was actually a good thing, as it allowed SIN CITY to transcend the conventional paradigms of a 2005 action film. I’m tired of slow motion spin kicks and all that shit. I want a great punch, and SIN CITY has divine punches. I also don’t particularly care for explosions, since I realize that the amount I enjoy watching them in unhealthy (and all of Jerry Bruckheimer’s subliminals are taking hold). SIN CITY relies instead on superb acts of violence performed in small numbers. It’s kind of nice: instead of using up 25 casualties on a big explosion, let’s enjoy each murder individually and graphically. My review to the end of the preceding paragraph is exactly 700 words. That’s harmony. See the movie.