Danny ChaiSo I saw two movies that take place in Chicago recently. My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Chicago. MBFGW was fine, not great. Jieun also thought it was fine not great. One thing I did like though. I think maybe John wrote something like this before, but this and the Sopranos helped me realize how a lot of the Asian American experience isn’t unique to Asian Americans but is true of the second generations of many races. Just like the feeling of being in between two cultures, not feeling fully comfortable all the time in “American” society, maybe being embarrassed a bit by one’s family, different stuff like that. I dunno, that’s just interesting to me.
Chicago I was very entertained by but the more I think about it, the less I “like” it. What it is is it’s so unrelentingly cynical. That just kind of depresses me. So I’d give it 3 stars. 4 stars for quality and such minus 1 star for how it made me feel. Like the opposite of my deep movie thing. Does that make any sense? Oh well, it’s my rating system, sucks for you.
The rest of this might be a spoiler so might want to skip. Anyway yeah, so unrelentingly cynical. Like, the only good person in the entire film is the biggest loser in the film. Nothing good happens to him. Everything’s a show, notoriety pays, morality is elusive and irrelevant. I dunno, that just kinda depressed me. Is this really what Chicago is like? I mean, the atmosphere? There’s a couple lines, one where Queen Latifah says that murder is entertainment in this town, another where Gere is summing up the amoral nature of the town and says, “That’s Chicago!” At that point I was just thinking, is that really Chicago? If so, remind me to never live there.
Maybe the movie was making a statement about modern times, and that’s fine. But still, so unrelenting. Geez.