Disappointed.
Today I rented a movie that was supposed to be really good- it was called 'Elephant' and it was a Gus Van Sant movie. I really like Gus Van Sant. I cannot bring enough thanks to the man who brought Good Will Hunting into existance. What I may have learned though, is that I like Gus Van Sant the director, not the writer. The movie was basically about Columbine without actually saying it was about Columbine. The idea was show the daily life of several students leading up to the shooting. I have never seen a movie so devoid of emotion in my life. The characters said nothing that set them apart from any other stock high school character. While I realize that the idea was to show 'ordinary' students, the problem is that to get an audience involved in a character they have to feel some emotion for that character, whether it be love or hate. If you have a character who's entire conversation consists of "hey, whats up" "nothing, how about you?" "nothing, taking some pictures" "cool, see you man" and then he gets shot, its sad, but you're just not feeling it because you dont feel like that character is real. Even the shooters were apathetic, you just couldnt see their anger. I have a hard time believing that someone would shoot numerous people without having a serious amount of anger. Apathy breeds inactivity and a lack of caring about those around you, but I dont see it fueling a mass murder involving a plan that requires a serious amount of forethought. On a positive note, I thought that he did some really cool perspective things with it- Following a character and then going back to a moment that he/she interacted with another character and switching over and following a different person. Overall though, not what I was hoping. It's okay though Gus, I still love you for Good Will Hunting.