House of Dioxin

Had to work today. Which sucked. I was sitting here eating a bowl of cereal this morning and thinking how quiet it was outside. Then I remembered... "oh yeah, holiday..." The kind of day where you don't beat the traffic, you are the traffic.
Wanted to mention a couple of good movies I've seen lately on DVD and DVR.
Over the weekend I watched The Fog of War, Errol Morris' documentary on Robert McNamara. As always, Morris does a great job of finding visual ways to tell the story or enhance the story that's being told. Good use of the Philip Glass score, altho in a couple of spots the combo of music and images is a bit overly reminscent of Koyaanisqatsi. Morris does a good job of staying out of the way. I think it's obvious that he viewed McNamara's story as commenting on Iraq and how we got to be where we are but that's left unspoken throughout. So while I drew that conclusion, others might not, with just as much validity. And whatever dissembling or misremembering he might be doing, I find I have a lot of respect for someone who'll sit down to be interviewed on the record and decide at some point that he doesn't want to say anymore, he's not going to explain why he won't say anymore -- given the choice between "damned if you do" and "damned if you don't" McNamara, at the end, opts for "don't" and I think there's some grace in knowing when you think you've said enough.
Tonight I watched Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring by Korean director Kim Ki-Duk. First off, it's just a gorgeous looking movie. For that alone, well worth watching. Very quiet. Maybe a bit obvious and predictable, but that's (I think) one of the points of the movie. Very Buddhist, in fact, moreso than any other movie I can think of. I felt there were a few scenes where I was missing some important subtext (it's never unclear what's happening or anything like that) because I don't know that much about Buddhism. Same thing with Korea, about which I know even less. There are several images that Kim uses repeatedly that I'm sure mean something to him and a Korean audience that I'm not getting. I'm thinking especially of the snakes, who appear in most of the 5 sections. The movie takes place at a small monastery set in the middle of a lake in a remote valley. Each section shows us the events of one season, spread over about a 30 year period in the life of two monks, student and master. Contemplative, a bit slow at times, but very involving and well-acted. There are several amazing set pieces, esp. in the "Fall" section. And the "Winter" section is some of the most amazing use of snow/ice I've seen, right up there with House of Flying Daggers or the Winter Guest.