Drive

More fuel for my theory that moviegoers don't have any intelligence for filmmakers to respect:
Puss In Boots, an insultingly predictable movie (don't give me any of that "lighten up, it's a kids' movie" bullshit; kids deserve better than mediocre, pandering crap), was the number one movie in the country for two weeks in a row.
On the other end of the spectrum, Drive barely got any attention as an entity and some woman tried to sue because it wasn't like The Fast And The Furious. (And also because there are some racial slurs against Jewish people. Said by Jewish characters. And she doesn't seem to have a problem with the same characters' racial slurs against Asians and Italians.) I cannot begin to fathom how fucking stupid this woman must be.
Now, Drive isn't for everyone, certainly. For instance, I know my mom would hate it. It's tense and stressful and violent. (Oh, the violence. So much violence.) But even if I had hated Drive (I didn't, but if I had) I wouldn't have been able to deny that it's a good movie. A damn good movie. If I had gone into the theater expecting something like The Fast And The Furious and ended up instead with what Drive actually is, I'd be thrilled. When the movie ended and I tried to talk to my friend about it, I couldn't. Drive genuinely rendered me speechless; I couldn't figure out how to say words to express how I felt.
What I liked about Drive was that it understood when to be quiet. It takes its time. It starts slow and even when the action kicks in and the movie goes full tilt violence boogie all over everybody's asses, it still has its fair share of slow, quiet moments.
The acting's fantastic. I'll never understand why my friends think Ryan Gosling is hot but I can't deny the dude's a very talented actor. Bryan Cranston is great, Albert Brooks is frightening (who knew?), Ron Perlman is ... well, he's large and meatheady, which we all already knew he was good at. But still!
I can tell this one's going to stick with me for a good, long while. I just wish I knew how to put into words why Drive is such a great movie. "Great" doesn't really cut it as a descriptor.
You know how sometimes you're watching a movie, but your mind is wandering? You're thinking about other things going on in your life, thinking about what may or may not happen next in the movie, what the characters should have done, what you would have done in their situations, or a million other things? That didn't happen with Drive. It was completely engrossing. I can't exactly say that I wasn't thinking, but I wasn't thinking about anything other than what was going on, on screen, at that moment. It drew me right in and told all other parts of my brain to keep quiet for a little while while it told me this amazing story about a driver who makes friends with his neighbor and winds up in a world of trouble. It's not often a movie can do that.
Films like Drive are rare.
And when they do come along, complete idiots sue them for not being brainless action movies.
And this is why moviemakers don't respect our intelligence.

End of line.
-Sally