In Bruges.

I rectified the little issue I had of not having seen In Bruges, for which Colin Farrell was nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Celebrity-Stalkers Association. Here's the sweet and lowdown: it's awesome.

Sometimes these little movies don't seem very movie-ish. I don't know if it's the low budget, or the self-indulgence of the writer-director, or what, but I definitely watch these film festivalish movies with a healthy dose of patience. But In Bruges transcends its small screen trappings, skips right on past the "intertwined lives" crap that Hollywood thinks is so clever post-Pulp Fiction, and manages to mix irony and earnestness in just the right way.

Colin and Brendan need no exposition to catch us up to the moral crossroads that they, as hitmen on the down-low in Bruges (get it?), have come to. That the movie respects us the audience to be able to patch together their backstory, and that the movie has a coherent enough backstory for us the audience to patch together is just the bees-nees. This little snapshot in time is more than a snapshot -- it has a true beginning, middle, and end. With that, and letting us laugh at the most un-PC of jokes (what a relief!), this fable ends up feeling so much bigger than a little movie.