I'm No Ebert, But. . .
So, the roomie rented two movies yesterday, Monster's Ball and I Am Sam. At first, I wasn't sure I wanted to watch either of them, but since the only thing I could find to watch on my own television was an early and poor episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I ambled upstairs, plopped myself on the couch opposite Amy, and settled in to watch Monster's Ball.
It was your typical man meets woman story: a white man executes a black woman's husband for some sort of crime that apparently justifies execution, even though you never actually learn what it was he did; man's son (who is trying to follow his father's footsteps as a corrections officer but was kind of put off by the whole execution thing) kills himself shortly after the execution while a disinterested grandfather looks on; man goes to a Cafe to eat ice cream, served to him by the black woman who's husband was executed a few scenes earlier; man quits job as corrections officer, burns uniform, and buys a gas station; woman tries walking home with her overweight son, who is then hit by a car, even though you never actually see that happen; man drives by the woman and her son and notices that they're in some sort of distress; man and woman load the overweight and car-struck child into the man's car and take him to the hospital where he dies; man decides suddenly that his longstanding intolerance of black people is probably not justified so he starts offering to drive the black woman to work, where he continues to order ice cream (and a plastic spoon); man drives woman home from work, at which point the coolest sex scene in all cinema history ensues; man realizes he just slept with the wife of the man who's execution sparked his own son's suicide, so he throws up; man names his newly-acquired gas station after the black woman; black woman meets the man's unfathomably racist father and runs off, justifiably horrified that anyone can be so icky; man puts his insanely racist father in a home and spruces up his own place with a nice new coat of paint; woman gets evicted and man invites her to move in with him in his spruced up and racist-father free house; man initiates cunnilingus to a much appreciative woman; man steps out for ice cream; woman suddently realizes man was the corrections officer attending her husband's execution; man returns with ice cream; man and woman sit outside eating ice cream; man says "I think we're gonna be all right." End credits.
Are you confused yet? Good, because it's a confusing movie. A brilliantly acted confusing movie, but a confusing movie nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed the sex scene between Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton. I give that scene a 3/4 engorged penis. So, to recap, Monster's Ball features a lot of death, a lot of ice cream, a gas station called Letitia's, an ultra-awesome sex scene, and a strange love between a woman and the man that attended her husband's execution.
So, should you see it? Sure, why not? Go ahead. It's not like you have anything better to do.
Posted by Ryan at July 9, 2002 11:37 AM
Stumble It!
