Movie Night

Last night I was watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, directed by Jonathan Liebesman. The film is a prequel to the 2003 re-make of the original 1974 horror film. Set in 1969, the film deals with the deranged Hewitt family, who depend on the local slaughterhouse for both food and employment. However, when the slaughterhouse closes, the family find a horrific alternative meat supply, as four unlucky teenagers on a road trip soon discover. As with most horror films of the past few years, this one focusses primarily on rivers of gore and sharp instruments in dirty, dimly lit rooms. There is very little suspense, or surprises however, and in focussing primarily on the cannibal family, much of the impact is lost, especially from the iconic but now thoroughly demystified Leatherface. However, as in the 2003 re-make, the star of the show is R. Lee Ermey as the sadistic local sheriff.

I also watched The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, who also stars in the film. It's kind of a modern Western, in which the corpse of a Mexican worker is found near a small Texas border town. The local police just want to dump the body and aren't even bothered to fully investigate it, despite the fact that the man had been shot. However, the dead man's best friend is determined not to let the matter drop and determines too find the culprit and force him to accompany him as he takes the body back to Mexico in order to fulfil a promise he made to return the body of his friend to his family and bury him in his hometown. It's a very impressive and very powerful film. In fact, it was one of the best films I've seen in ages.

I went to my parents house for lunch today as usual. It was nice. We had spaghetti bolognese and listened to the radio celebrating the fortieth anniversary of BBC Radio Two.