read and watch this.

David Denby, The New Yorker film critic, sheds light on current trend in filmmaking. He refers to it as ‘The New Disorder’. This emerging type of film narrative distorts time and chronology and (for me) actually makes fun out of the unsuspecting audience. The Innaritu-Arriaga trilogy which ends in Babel falls perfectly. Others: Traffic, Pulp Fiction.

Some of the directors may be just playing with us or, perhaps, acting out their boredom with that Hollywood script-conference menace the conventional “story arc.” But others may be trying to jolt us into a new understanding of art, or even a new understanding of life. In the past, mainstream audiences notoriously resisted being jolted. Are moviegoers bringing some new sensibility to these riddling movies? What are we getting out of the overloading, the dislocations and disruptions?

***

I’m prolly on my way to a new addiction. It’s called Justice. No I didn’t join the Crusade Against Violence. It’s the legal thriller/courtroom drama which just premiered last night in a local channel, which is a miraculous thing to have (for those who can’t afford cable), given the tons of crap on TV right now.

Victor Garber who played Sidney Bristol’s father in the recently concluded Alias is ballistic on last night’s episode. I can sense his character is way different than his laid-back one on Alias. And there’s Kerr Smith who you may not prolly remember because you were swooning over James Van Der Beek who, by the way, is where now?

I haven’t seen Boston Legal so I have no chance to compare. But I can sense this will be the closest I can get since The Practice.

The lawyers’ swagger and their scorching arguments (objection your Honor, argumentative!). The unbelievably convincing witnesses. The judge who we could care less about. The conniving jury. The evidences (exhibit 288A) and crime scenes displayed and re-enacted in such sensational fashion.

Sounds like fun.