2004-09-15 - 1:49 a.m.

I love Gus Van Sant. I mean I really love Gus Van Sant. But I don�t know if I liked Elephant. I mean, I reserve the right to change my mind at any second, but there�s two things that really stuck out at me--that got in the way-- as I watched his film.

The first thing is the arrogance of doing a Columbine film, but using spares from Apple commercials as actors--in other words, who he casted to cinema-biogra-phatize. Nobody�s really ugly--just movie ugly.

The second thing that made me less appreciate the film was the cinematography. It was brilliant. It was fucking outstanding. Seriously. I can point out a couple of movies from the 70�s (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being one) that were shot as well in dissimilar circumstances, and the X-files had a few moments, but I�ve never seen a movie shot as well as this one.

The problem is, the movie was like a big commercial for cinematography.

It sickens me when Bush wraps himself around the flag of 9/11. It always makes me uncomfortable when white people pull stupid bullshit like invoking the name of Rosa Parks. And I don�t like when brilliant filmmakers I respect, with initials like G.V.S, use a horrible tragedy just to film it vividly. (I think Douglas Coupland wrote it better when he didn�t use it but did in Hey Nostramadus--just make sure to read past the first chapter.)

I�m usually wrong on these things, however. Two days from now I�ll probably be recommending the film to people.

Hell, if those were my only two complaints, then that was a pretty good film.

See? I come around.