Dear God, Why?: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Tuesday was The Boyfriend's birthday, and he wanted to go to the movies. He'd been wanting to see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead since it came out, and as it was playing at the Somerville, he chose that for his birthday movie. Having read up on it, I KNEW that I wasn't going to like it, but it WAS his birthday...turned out that he hated it too. As did the other three people who came to the movies with us. I discovered the only thing worse than a relentlessly depressing movie in which none of the characters are likeable and all the decisions are bad is a relentlessly depressing movie that continually LOOPS BACK on itself, so you actually end up watching the SAME depressing scenes over and over again. Maybe I liked it less than I could have because I hate non-linear story-telling. Or, as I said, it could be because I felt about it the same way I did about Chicago, in that I found all the characters to be shitty people whom I didn't care about. OR it could be that it opened (and when I say "opened" I mean literally the very first scene in the film) with a graphic scene featuring a naked Phillip Seymour Hoffman banging Marissa Tomei doggy style. (Admittedly, everyone DID enjoy Marissa Tomei, who spent most of the movie wandering around topless and looking pouty.) Naked PSH is not something I ever felt a desire to see, and everything just spiraled downhill from there. Definitely not a good date movie, or a film to see with your parents. Not to mention that it's very long, and the first hour or so draaaaaaaaaaags on forever. Maybe I'm just not artsy enough, but the whole thing just sucked hardcore in my opinion. Everyone in the theater seemed to feel the same way--when it was over (the ending is rather abrupt) someone said aloud in the silence "Jesus Christ! Thank God THAT'S over!" and there was laughter and applause from the, like, 12 other people in there. Do yourself a favor--instead of seeing this movie, just take a meat fork and jam it into the side of your head.I told The Boyfriend that this definitely makes him even for the movie I picked out a while ago which turned out to have all the ass-raping in it.