Movies, Yaaaaayy!

Films I've seen for the first time in the past couple of weeks are 'Crank', '3 burials of Melquides Estrda' and 'The Assassination of Richard Nixon'.

Crank - Do not make the mistake of assuming the title is not cockney rhyming slang. I watched this one evening, after spending a lovely day with friends eating cake in the sunshine, as a fun way to wind the day up. I knew it was going to be a trashy action movie, I didn't know how much I'd regret watching it. The story revolv - ha ha ha ha ha 'story'! It's about a gangster who's been poisoned in his sleep, when he wakes he's got about an hour to live - if he keeps his heart rate sky high. Mayhem ensues in what is, ultimately, a blank cheque the film makers had written themselves.
If you ever find yourself in the position where you've been kidnapped, you know the police are going to bust in and rescue you in about 90min and your kidnappers say "you've got a choice, we'll either kill you now, or you can watch 'Crank' with us and then we'll kill you", just tell them to get on with it and kill you right there and then.
This film is so brash, mindless and misguided it even features, what is essentially, a rape scene (which is played for laughs), where the audience is put in a position where it's expected to cheer on the lead character who is committing this atrocity.

3 burials of Melquidas Estrada - Tommy Lee Jones directorial debut, brilliant (in it's true 'shining brightly' sense)!
It's about the promise made by a Texan (Jones himself) to a Mexican friend that, should the friend die in the US, he'll return him to his home town in Mexico for burial. Melquides (the friend) does indeed die and the journey back to Mexico is made all the more tense by the kidnapping (by Jones' character) of the killer, to accompany and assist him in the task.
Actually that's not what it's about, that's the story; it's about loyalty, friendship, trust, grief, US/Mexico relations, hope/ambition, isolation and penance.

The assassination of Richard Nixon - Sean Penn is awesome in this! Set in the early 70's, this is about a man who is so committed to honesty and fairness, that when it means he's actually unable to function in a corrupt world, his commitment turns to bemusement and, finally, to an anger focused on the most significant abuser of power and truth of the time - Nixon. Lots of comparisons had been made to taxi driver, and rightly so for a number of reasons, but I would cite one of the main differences as being how identifiable the main character is. This, obviously, adds enormously to the horror.

One of the things I do from time to time, if I know I'm going to be busy, or there's alot of films on their way I want to catch, is list them. I thought this might be an interesting place to make and keep that list.

The lives of others
This is England
Half-nelson
Fast-food nation
Days of glory
Inland empire
Spider-man 3
Grindhouse

Any thoughts?