YOU DA MONSTER: I finally got around to renting the DVD of "Monster's Ball" over the weekend. I thought it was an excellent film that was worthy of both its critical acclaim and Halle Berry's Best Actress Oscar- I'd put it the sixth-best of 2001's films, after "A.I.," "The Royal Tenenbaums," "Mulholland Drive," "Lord of the Rings," and "Memento," and just ahead of "Donnie Darko" and "Black Hawk Down." What I liked most (in addition to Berry's performance) was that the script never took the obvious route- it never suddenly turned into a story about race or about the death penalty, but rather remained a character study, which is what it was meant to be. I also loved the scene in which Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), after sex with Berry's character, walks into Berry's bathroom, sees a picture on the wall of Berry's late ex-husband (played by P. Diddy) and promptly vomits. If I walked into a woman's bathroom, post coitas, and saw a picture of Diddy on the wall, I'd probably vomit too. I bet J.Lo's boyfriends have that same problem.
Posted by Stephen Silver at July 3, 2002 12:45 AM