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busy day today but am dropping by briefly with greetings and salutations to all and to mention Lord of War.

i realised very quickly that when you go the cinema with a movie critic it's hard to just relax and go with the flow. but i did manage after a few minutes to sit back and let the film carry me where it wanted to take me rather than sitting outside of it looking in. so for what its worth here is my unprofessional reaction to it.

it's not a perfect movie but i thought it was arresting overall. some very clever camera work, nice plot turns, dark sardonic humour, and a strong messsage conveyed through a story with a nice moral shade of grey to keep you thinking. ooh - and a great soundtrack.
it'll make the audience think. or at least, i hope it would. worth the ticket price to see on the big screen IMHO. if you don't like violence i would say don't be deterred - there are some quite shocking scenes but you get nothing gratuitous - in fact how niccol portrayed violence was one of the things i liked most about it: i felt pushed to see some thngs i didn't want to see but not exploited or abused by it.
i suspect left-wing-dyed-in-the-wool-guardian-reading-liberal-pacifist-activists (is that me?) will either love it or think it beneath them. but it's a mainstream market who might never have been provoked to think about the implications of the arms trade that i'm excited about. i'd describe this as anti-gun propoganda wrapped up in an action thriller. and for that, andrew niccol deserves some props. i thought it was a really interesting idea and a brave attempt to get the masses to sit up and pay attention to a deadly serious business.

so, all in all: i liked it. right - i'm off ot see what the critics thought.

oh, on a far more shallow note, both jared leto and ethan hawke are in it. now that's a double whammy.

::thud::

x.