Movie Review: The Pianist

A rare "one-movie" night for me:

The Pianist - The true story of a Jewish piano player and his struggle to survive during the Nazi invasion of Warsaw during WWII. This was a very well done movie. It was very straightforward, with very little direct emotional manipulation, but still powerful enough in its own right that it was emotional. It showed very interestingly the gradual procession of Nazi rule, with life being not much different at teh beginning, working its way up to the horrors that we know about. The only thing that it suffers from is that it's yet another story of personal triumph during the holocaust. Had I not seen Schindler's List (my all-time #1 movie) or Life is Beautiful or others like those, then this would have been a lot more powerful. Still though, it's a very good film, with a spectacular acting job by Adrien Brody. Joey gives The Pianist three-and-a-half stars out of four and recommends it to the Oscar-film-loving set.

Justification

So, I watched an episode of The Fire Within last night. For those that don't know, it's Bravo's reality series about Cirque du Soliel hopefuls trying to make the show. So, yes, I watched reality television.

OR DID I? I hereby state that I did NOT watch reality television. I watched documentary television, which is more real than reality television. The difference? Those people were going to be trying out for Cirque anyway, so it's really just documenting what they were doing anyway. This obviously is a marked difference from the popular reality television in that crap shows like Survivor or Joe Millionaire or The Real World, which create artificial situations and pretend like the stuff is real (which it's not, it's clearly a contrived reality, which I like to call "fictional reality").

So where do The Anna Nicole Smith Show or The Osbournes fall in? Well, they're semi-documentary television. They're just a low low form of said televison for people who like to watch trainwrecks or car accidents or Baywatch. Better than "reality" television, but still pretty stupid.

So my point is that you are all weak-minded hacks who can only get your jollys through the suffering of others. And if you watch American Idol, then you also have poor taste in music. I, on the other hand, am a morally superior human being who can sit upon high and judge you without fear because I am sweet and adorable (arf!) and am not worth arguing with because I'm a hardheaded tool and too stupid to listen anyway.