ellen_datlow

Rick Bowes and I went to see Eastern Promises, the new David Cronenberg movie this afternoon. It opens very violently and there's a lot of violence throughout but I loved it anyway. At this point, I'll go see anything Viggo Mortensen is in --I thought he and Maria Bello were terrific in Cronenberg's last movie, A History of Violence.

I only became aware of Mortensen in LOTR, although I recently realized I'd seen him in A Perfect Murder, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas. After LOTR I rented A Walk on the Moon, a movie about the late 60s taking place in the Catskills, with Diane Lane and Liev Schrieber --he's good in those, but not all that memorable. It was in LOTR that I said--wowie!! Who IS that guy? Rick thinks he can't act very well but is a good movie star. I think he's a good actor.

Anyway, Eastern Promises had very good acting all around--it's a pretty horrifying movie about the Russian mob in London. If you're ok with violence, check it out.