Halle Berry Chooses Bad Roles/A Glimpse of Korean Music/Et Cetera

I watched Gothika on Wednesday. It’s another one of those cases where you wonder why so many known people would willingly sign up for such a cruddy, mediocre movie. In addition to Halle Berry, the cast includes Charles S. Dutton, Penelope Cruz, and Robert Downey Jr. All of these actors should have known better. I remember Roger Ebert calling Gothika, “well-made trash.” I guess that’s a good assumption. It looks nice, the directing is competent, and the performances aren’t bad. But the story reeks of everything every ghost movie we’ve seen in the last couple of years. Of course, the ghost isn’t really bad, despite doing bad things to Halle (just like how none of the ghosts in The Sixth Sense or The Others were bad). Maybe the movie would’ve been better if it took itself less seriously. You know the movie’s dumb the minute that Halle ended up in the mental institution she worked at. They should have just run with that. Unlike something like Dawn of The Dead, there is no hint of humor in this movie...which is a shame.

I always seem to watch unusual stuff when I’m up late and watching digital cable. One thing I watched tonight was the Korean Music Countdown on International Channel. So, what type of music was on there? Well, take whatever style of music that is or was popular in America and make the people sing in Korean. That’s it. I’ll give you an idea. I saw two acts that personify this. The first is a group that I think is named HUG. The group is a boy band. Watching their video felt like a trip back to the days of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. The dance moves...the close-ups on individual members...the random girl. I’ll bet they are extremely popular in their country. The other act I saw of note is a guy called H. Basically, he looked like the long-lost Korean 6th member of B2K (in fact, his outfit looked exactly like one Omarion wore in a B2K video). The song sounded like a Justin Timberlake song. The dance moves looked a lot like Usher’s. The video itself looked like a combination of Justin Timberlake and B2K. Shows like this are interesting peeks into the pop culture of other countries. I’m also reminded of my own international CD collection of sorts including artists from the UK (Radiohead, The Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, etc.), Japan (the anime soundtracks I own), Germany (Mouse on Mars), Mexico (Kinky), and even Iceland (who else but Bjork). I have to wonder if any of the acts on Korean Music Countdown will ever make it to the US.

It looks like I'm going to have a decent weekend for the first time in a while. I'm planning to see The Ladykillers later today (this afternoon) and my friend Paul (aka The Blue Giant) is in town and I should see him on Sunday. Of course, I'll chronicle these experiences in this very blog.

Read this blog on April 1st. That's all I have to say.