Shotgun wedding

Hobo with a Shotgun: Reminded me very much of Jacobean drama, particularly The Revenger's Tragedy. It features a man who wants to live a peaceful life, but then is confronted with a society which is so evil that the only course of moral action open to him is to take up arms, but, in doing so, is also committing evil acts and must ultimately himself perish rather than return to normality. The sheer level of violence is also pretty Jacobean.

Se7en: Enjoyable mystery, revolving around murders committed on the theme of the Seven Deadly Sins and consequently having an air of literacy and creativity to it. Made in 1995, the film is notable for the absence of mobile phones, PCs or the Internet, all of which would have been unavoidable even two years later.

A Clockwork Orange: Film about feral teenagers looting, raping and murdering for kicks in the Greater London area (not to be confused with current reports on the 24-hour news channels). The book is disturbing for its personal exploration of Alex and final suggestion that Alex can, indeed, grow up to have a normal life as an ordinary member of society; the film, instead, is disturbing for its exploration of the way Alex's bloodlust is fueled and given a kind of tacit permission by the society around him, with its violent sexual popular culture, its lack of support for parenting, its opportunistic politicians, trend-driven scientific establishment, and rigid bureaucracy. Part of Nyder's British Urban Violence Season (see following post).

Movie count for 2011: 97