Last weekend I was really excited to finally watch "21 Grams", the critically acclaimed drama starring Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benicio Del Toro.  After all, I had heard nothing but great things about it.  The movie ended up being quite a letdown.

Don't get me wrong.  The acting was nothing short of phenomenal.  Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro turned in excellent performances, and Naomi Watts (you may remember her from The Ring movies) was heartbreaking as a woman whose family is tragically killed in a car accident.  The problem with the film is a near total lack of continuity.  It actually starts near the end, then goes to the beginning, and then just starts jumping around like crazy.  Half the time I couldn't follow what was going on because I didn't know where the scenes fit chronologically.  It really turned me off to the movie about halfway through, but I stuck it out just because I thought it would get better.  By the end, I had sort of figured things out, but I still wasn't very happy with it all.  And that's a shame because acting this good needs a coherent story to go along with it.

So I may be "too stupid to understand 21 Grams", but I do have some recommendations for you all if you're in the same boat.  If you like the idea of a movie that doesn't go directly from start to finish, try "Memento" (which goes directly from finish to start) or "The Butterfly Effect" (which rewrites history several times over as events are changed in the past).  I loved both of these movies BECAUSE of the ways they played with time, NOT in spite of them.  And if you want a dramatic and unpredictable movie about how people's lives are interconnected, check out "Crash".  If you don't like that movie, then there must be something wrong with you.

If you don't agree with me about some of this (or even if you do), let me know.  And if you feel like reviewing some movies, what's stopping you?  Haven't you always been an armchair movie critic?  Now's your chance to really tell people what you think.  This site is in serious need of more movie reviews.  Besides I need some good recommendations for what to see next (or what to stay away from)...