Down with Basics

Friday night I watched two movies: Basic and Down with Love. Although different, they shared one thing: surprise. In Basic, the story keeps shifting in a Kurosawa fashion even until the end when we are confronted with the possibility that the good guy is really a bad guy until we find that he’s even a better guy. In Down with Love, the movie plays off those Doris Day sixties romantic comedies in a very stylized and witty, but obvious way, until near the end the entire story is stood on its head within the space of a minute. The first movie worked harder at the surprise. The second was purely fabrication. But for some reason I enjoyed the second surprise more. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was just the preposterous story itself. And the complete disregard for story line. Let me think some more on this because I think there’s something here that’s more important to me than movies.