the last oscar

having just finished a TASTY burrito i shall now regale you all with my tales of...the LAST SAMURAI. staring tom cruise, future oscar contender.
for one, i should point out at the onset that i have...well, i wouldn't exactly call it a FETISH, as it's not particularly sexual - which, in itself, is somewhat impressive, considering this is ME we are talking about - but certianly a fascination, if not an obsession, with samurai. thusly, my opinions of this film are undoubtedly colored by my attraction to the samurai. nonetheless:

we more or less all agreed that this film was, to be mild, a little cheesy, as well as hammy. if fact, as kyle so insightfully put, should it aquire some eggs, it would make a truely excellent omlette. it was this cheese, and ham, which kept me from enjoying it to the full extent of its - or my - enjoyability. this is not to say that i did NOT like it. indeed, there were portions where i almost CRIED, not at something pathetic or laughable, but at moments which were intended to be, for lack of a better word, MOVING. and clearly, i was thusly moved.
perhaps one of the things i enjoyed most about this film is that i learned japan is more or less like the pacific northwest, only with more hills. in other words, it is green, forresty, and damp. it also seems to be somewhere i might like to live, as in addition to the aspects detailed above, it also has samurai, and REALLY HOT WOMEN. unfortunatly, i would apparently have to kill their husbands in order to get in their pants (kimonos?), and killing people, husbands included, has always been something i am somewhat averse to. back to the movie itself: there were, indeed good performances here. sadly, i did not think mr. cruise, in his bid for oscar glory, was one of them. although he did a good job, most of this job consisted of not anwsering questions for not apparent reason (the script's fault, not his), looking "hard", and staring at things profoundly. this includes staring at hot japanese women, something i, personally, have trouble doing with much profudity, and therefore perhaps he deserves "props" for this alone. tom aside, i particularly enjoyed ken watanabe's performance as the heroic general katsumoto, leader of the rebels. he seemed to bring a slightly more realisitc persona to a role that was equally, if not moreso, as serious as cruise's. he did remarkably little profound staring (perhaps because he did not have a love interest), and also managed to be a somewhat more human character - he clearly had a sense of humor, as well as flaws and doubts that were expressed more subtlely; you might say i found more meaning in the things he did NOT do than i found in the things that tom cruise's character did. i appologize if this seems as if it is turning into a bit of a cruise bash-fest. i assure you that is not my intention. i enjoyed his performance, and cared about his character: he was simply eclipsed by katsumoto, who also had a cool gay son.
all in all: if you like epic battles, don't mind lots of death (at least TWO people get shot in the eye), and can deal with a little cheese, i suggest you see this movie. especially if, like me, you think tom cruise looks hot with a beard. as opposed to brad pitt, who looks like a fucking wild man, and not in that good, "take me you wild manimal" sort of way.