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grrgoylAnd my god, I do watch a lot of movies.
I'm cutting these because again I can't be bothered to sort out spoilers (although I'm sure no one will complain. You all secretly despise my excessively long entries, admit it). Hence, if you choose to click I can't be held responsible for any ruination of the film you might experience.
First up, An Awfully Big Adventure. Although you'll see this would more appropriately be titled An Awfully Big Adventure: After seeing this movie I'll admit it must have been a bitch to sell to anyone, movie studios, actors, production crews and audiences alike. So either every aspect of marketing was an enormous inside joke or they just threw up their hands and made no effort whatsoever, beginning with the title. It sounds for all the world like a high-spirited romp, possibly involving a car chase or a hot air balloon, a hilarious case of mistaken identity or the desecration of a native burial ground with catastrophic results. However it is none of these things (okay, possibly mistaken identity, though far from hilarious).
Briefly, the movie is about Stella, a young girl trying to break into theater in 1947 Liverpool. Here is the blurb from the back of the box (bolded words are where I take exception): Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman star in director Mike Newell's engaging comedy about a starstruck young girl lured into the grown-up world of the theater. From a crush on the company's heartless director (Grant) to her first sexual encounter with the show's biggest star (Rickman), young Stella Bradshaw quickly discovers what it takes to make it in the theater. An intriguing blend of comedy and passion, this provocative story is a hilarious look at what really goes on when the lights go down.
So yeah, basically accurate except for all the gushing, positive adjectives thrown in.
It's possible that all the "hilarious" bits took place during the first hour of the film, where I could only understand one word in five due to their thick accents. This is coming from a lifelong Anglophile with a more than trained ear, so those are some thick accents. Stella gets a job at the local theater, where her "big adventure" consists of scrubbing out dressing rooms and getting groped by the younger male actors. She sticks it out though because she's developed a crush on director Hugh Grant. Unfortunately for her he's gay, a fact I picked up only through his subtle body language and from reading reviews on Amazon. And she picks up on it not at all until much, much later.
This plot develops painfully slowly until we finally see the introduction of Alan Rickman, a big-shot actor returning as a favor to Hugh to play Captain Hook (which is one of the few places this movie goes right). For literally the first 10 minutes he's on screen he has no lines at all, just reacting to his colleagues with twitchy facial expressions. GAH. The Voice, the Voice! Stop teasing me, Mike Newell. After enduring the first Rickman-less hour of this tripe, there is nothing cute about you acting coy. So Alan finally starts talking, and inexplicably latches onto young Stella. And I mean, REALLY young Stella... I think she's like 16. Fortunately I'm used to picturing him with a 17-year-old boy, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me when they start bumpin' uglies (all kidding aside, some lovely simulation from Alan that is worth every penny of my $2). She doesn't like him all that much but puts up with it, imagining she's gaining experience for her eventual union with Hugh. In return, he doesn't mind her crying out Hugh's name while he's doing his thang. Why he has no problem corrupting a girl's innocence but draws the line at informing her that the love of her life is a pillow-biter is never fully explained.
"....an outspoken, warmhearted comedy with a surprising finale..." was taken from the Playboy review for the box. "Surprising finale" is the understatement of the century. Alan eventually realizes Stella reminds him so strongly of a past lover because she is in fact his daughter, abandoned by her mother who left for America. In classic reverse Oedipal style, Alan flees to the docks to scream out his despair, trips, cracks open his head on a gangplank, falls into the ocean and drowns. How's THAT for a surprising finale? Well, it certainly surprised ME, although I'm not generally one to try to guess at the ending.
"engaging....warmhearted comedy"???? "Hilarious"????? The message here is if you're going to lie, be big, bold and bare-faced about it.
Ummmm, 1.5 out of 5, and that's ONLY thanks to Rickman's Captain Hook *slurp*
The Forgotten: I watched this while waiting for Tery to get home, and wouldn't you know the end credits began to roll EXACTLY at the moment she stuck her key in the front door? Okay, not so interesting to anyone else, but I got a small thrill out of it.
I had a mild interest in seeing this (though obviously only to the extent of catching it on cable, not going to the theater or even renting it) but it was actually better than I expected. Julianne Moore keeps insisting her son was lost in a plane crash a year ago. Everyone around her is just as insistent she never had a son. Which is the truth? I didn't know it was about alien abduction, which honestly might have turned me off (too convenient an explanation), but I didn't mind when I saw how the aliens did the abducting in this version -- literally just plucking people off the ground and up into the sky, no sign of a ship or anything. That was AWESOME. The only other effect in the whole film is the one CGI done with the alien's face, but it was pretty frightening. So for a simple, low(er) budget film relying only on good acting, I'd have to say this was really well done. Julianne Moore naturally, but Dominic West as well. Odd, but despite not being a child lover at all, I will be the first to weep at any kind of scene involving them and any kind of pathos. When Julianne finally reunites with her son, sure, but even more the scene where Dominic suddenly remembers his daughter and breaks down. God.
EDIT: Just caught it again while cleaning the house, and found a GINORMOUS continuity flaw that ruined the whole thing for me. The aliens are able to erase all evidence of the existence of the children they abducted -- videotapes, photos, human memories. They can even go back and edit old newspapers to remove relevant articles. So how/why did they miss the artwork in Dominic's daughter's room? This is a crucial plot point, the only clue Julianne Moore has that she isn't insane, making it all the more glaring and unforgivable. I'm afraid I'll have to remove at least half a point because of it.
However, the second time through I was pleased to notice something I missed the first time, namely that an alien presence is suggested subtly throughout by every establishing shot being filmed from high above the ground and slowly moving in straight down, kind of like a flying saucer POV. Cool, but sadly not enough to redeem revelation #1.
Good movie, but probably won't hold up to repeat viewings once you know the ending. 2.5 out of 5
Crash: I'll admit, I was childishly boycotting this after it beat out Brokeback at the Oscars, but my sister Amy insisted, nay demanded, that I watch it. I knew there was a reason I listen to her recommendations (well, I learned my lesson after I foolishly ignored her rec of Amelie for months and months to my own detriment).
I generally don't like films about racism, not just because it's uncomfortable subject matter, but because there is an undercurrent of a threat of violence at any moment that I don't enjoy very much. Cases in point, American History X and Higher Learning. Crash takes an unflinching and very thorough look at racism in our culture. It carefully interweaves the lives of, Christ, more people than I can count, yet still avoids completely confusing the viewer. Amy rightly compared it to Magnolia in the way that those who at first glance appear to be extras in the background take off on a tangent and have their story told, eventually all coming back to be part of the main story in one way or another. It's a balancing act and a ballet, expertly choreographed. It looks at the different ways racism affects all of them and the pervasiveness of it, and how their lives are changed because of it.
Most of all it carries a message not to judge people by appearance. The "gangbanger" locksmith is actually a loving family man; the poor Chinaman who gets run over by the carjackers was in the process of selling his own countrymen into slavery; Ludacris, the "angry black man," goes off on a rant about hip-hop music keepin' the bruthas down when in real life he himself is a rapper (and please don't lecture me if there's a difference. You kids and the noise you call music today....); and the Iraqi mother is Counselor Fucking Troi: "Captain, they tink we are Arab!"
Tery and I can't watch a movie together, any movie, without MSTing it just a little. 15 minutes into it I leaned over and whispered, "I thought this was a comedy..." which is half true. Ryan Philippe's cop character is told the only way he can get reassigned to escape Matt Dillon, his racist prick of a partner, is to feign embarrassingly excessive flatulence. The next time we see him he is alone in his own cruiser on the radio. Tery jokingly signed off for him, "10-4, out pffffffffft". She said he'd have to carry a whoopee cushion with him to keep up the ruse. Sandra Bullock, as the poor oppressed white woman whose biggest stress in life is the Mexican maid's failure to empty the dishwasher in a timely fashion, garners very little sympathy until she slips and falls down the stairs, getting rescued by the maid she has just finished haranguing. Tery did her best Rosario impression from Will & Grace: "Look lady...I'll get you to the hospital when I finish putting your damn dishes away." Oh, she cracks me up, even in the middle of high drama.
But of course it wasn't all fun and games. It rarely is with such heavy material. But just so brilliantly done. Simple, wordless scenes that spoke volumes. Beautiful soul-wrenching music that rips your heart straight out of your chest. Slow motion kicking in at just the right time for maximum effect. Perfect casting, perfect screenwriting, perfect everything. But my god, who wants to live in LA if everyone is so freaking TENSE??
There isn't a doubt this was far, far more deserving of Best Picture™ than Brokeback. 8 out of 5 (wrap your mind around THAT if you can)
Last but not least, A History of Violence: Which I'll grant you is an odd choice for someone who doesn't like an undercurrent of a threat of violence in her movies. But I DO like me some Viggo, and Cronenberg always makes interesting movies. And my sister also highly recommended this one. Perhaps not as life-changing as Crash, but not bad. Viggo plays Tom Stall, a small-town diner owner who reveals, when two random thugs pass through and try to make trouble, that he is a little too well-versed in the art of killing a man for having such humble beginnings. Eventually big-time Mafia boys from Philly (Ed Harris, et.al.) come looking for Tom, only they think his name is Joey. Tom protests they've got the wrong guy until he can't deny it any longer. To stop the threat of the Mob to his family, Joey!Tom ends up killing Harris, et.al. and returns to Philly to finish the job by killing his own brother, Mob boss William Hurt. Yep, there isn't just the threat of violence here. There are honest-to-goodness actual large amounts of the real thing about every 6 minutes. At the end it is left to the viewer to decide if his family will get over the betrayal of his double identities, in classic Cronenberg fashion.
Yes, violence galore, but I liked it. Cronenberg doesn't make violence cartoonish like Tarantino. It is understated and believable. Viggo moves like a puma in his fight scenes, effortlessly taking down man after man, but you still believe it. And for a 47-year-old he looks mighty fine. I know this because Cronenberg doesn't skimp on his sex scenes either (when we read the rating screen as the movie began, I said, "Rated R for nudity and graphic sexuality. Well, they make those sound like BAD things when they put it that way.....") A nice touch I noticed was how Tom gradually slips into a Philly accent after being discovered...very subtle, very nice. And Viggo is equally adept at playing good old hometown boy, father and husband and stony, cold-blooded killer. Very good choice.
Which isn't to say the movie is without its problems. His old Mafia buddies find him again presumably by seeing the news coverage he receives after saving the diner from the random thugs. But for all we are shown, he only makes it to local channels. Even his son fantasizes about making it onto Larry King Live (they really ARE backwater if he considers this the zenith of media fame). So why are big city Mafia types watching the local Virginia news?
And I don't think William Hurt was a good choice for the big, scary boss. Ed Harris would have been good even without the scarred eye prosthetic, but William Hurt? He's just too mushy and...harmless. He's like the Pillsbury Doughboy. And oy, his accent, how it came and went. Not good at all. There was one hilarious bit on the featurette, however, when Viggo's co-star Maria Bello sends him back to Philly to spend time with her Uncle Pete to pick up the accent. They recorded a phone conversation when Pete says (in a thick Philly dialect) "Yeah, I'm here in a car with the Lord of the Kings king." Tery wasn't enthralled with the featurette but I was fascinated. I would love to work on a film crew like that.
Rather anti-climactic after Crash. 3 out of 5
I'm cutting these because again I can't be bothered to sort out spoilers (although I'm sure no one will complain. You all secretly despise my excessively long entries, admit it). Hence, if you choose to click I can't be held responsible for any ruination of the film you might experience.
First up, An Awfully Big Adventure. Although you'll see this would more appropriately be titled An Awful
Briefly, the movie is about Stella, a young girl trying to break into theater in 1947 Liverpool. Here is the blurb from the back of the box (bolded words are where I take exception): Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman star in director Mike Newell's engaging comedy about a starstruck young girl lured into the grown-up world of the theater. From a crush on the company's heartless director (Grant) to her first sexual encounter with the show's biggest star (Rickman), young Stella Bradshaw quickly discovers what it takes to make it in the theater. An intriguing blend of comedy and passion, this provocative story is a hilarious look at what really goes on when the lights go down.
So yeah, basically accurate except for all the gushing, positive adjectives thrown in.
It's possible that all the "hilarious" bits took place during the first hour of the film, where I could only understand one word in five due to their thick accents. This is coming from a lifelong Anglophile with a more than trained ear, so those are some thick accents. Stella gets a job at the local theater, where her "big adventure" consists of scrubbing out dressing rooms and getting groped by the younger male actors. She sticks it out though because she's developed a crush on director Hugh Grant. Unfortunately for her he's gay, a fact I picked up only through his subtle body language and from reading reviews on Amazon. And she picks up on it not at all until much, much later.
This plot develops painfully slowly until we finally see the introduction of Alan Rickman, a big-shot actor returning as a favor to Hugh to play Captain Hook (which is one of the few places this movie goes right). For literally the first 10 minutes he's on screen he has no lines at all, just reacting to his colleagues with twitchy facial expressions. GAH. The Voice, the Voice! Stop teasing me, Mike Newell. After enduring the first Rickman-less hour of this tripe, there is nothing cute about you acting coy. So Alan finally starts talking, and inexplicably latches onto young Stella. And I mean, REALLY young Stella... I think she's like 16. Fortunately I'm used to picturing him with a 17-year-old boy, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me when they start bumpin' uglies (all kidding aside, some lovely simulation from Alan that is worth every penny of my $2). She doesn't like him all that much but puts up with it, imagining she's gaining experience for her eventual union with Hugh. In return, he doesn't mind her crying out Hugh's name while he's doing his thang. Why he has no problem corrupting a girl's innocence but draws the line at informing her that the love of her life is a pillow-biter is never fully explained.
"....an outspoken, warmhearted comedy with a surprising finale..." was taken from the Playboy review for the box. "Surprising finale" is the understatement of the century. Alan eventually realizes Stella reminds him so strongly of a past lover because she is in fact his daughter, abandoned by her mother who left for America. In classic reverse Oedipal style, Alan flees to the docks to scream out his despair, trips, cracks open his head on a gangplank, falls into the ocean and drowns. How's THAT for a surprising finale? Well, it certainly surprised ME, although I'm not generally one to try to guess at the ending.
"engaging....warmhearted comedy"???? "Hilarious"????? The message here is if you're going to lie, be big, bold and bare-faced about it.
Ummmm, 1.5 out of 5, and that's ONLY thanks to Rickman's Captain Hook *slurp*
The Forgotten: I watched this while waiting for Tery to get home, and wouldn't you know the end credits began to roll EXACTLY at the moment she stuck her key in the front door? Okay, not so interesting to anyone else, but I got a small thrill out of it.
I had a mild interest in seeing this (though obviously only to the extent of catching it on cable, not going to the theater or even renting it) but it was actually better than I expected. Julianne Moore keeps insisting her son was lost in a plane crash a year ago. Everyone around her is just as insistent she never had a son. Which is the truth? I didn't know it was about alien abduction, which honestly might have turned me off (too convenient an explanation), but I didn't mind when I saw how the aliens did the abducting in this version -- literally just plucking people off the ground and up into the sky, no sign of a ship or anything. That was AWESOME. The only other effect in the whole film is the one CGI done with the alien's face, but it was pretty frightening. So for a simple, low(er) budget film relying only on good acting, I'd have to say this was really well done. Julianne Moore naturally, but Dominic West as well. Odd, but despite not being a child lover at all, I will be the first to weep at any kind of scene involving them and any kind of pathos. When Julianne finally reunites with her son, sure, but even more the scene where Dominic suddenly remembers his daughter and breaks down. God.
EDIT: Just caught it again while cleaning the house, and found a GINORMOUS continuity flaw that ruined the whole thing for me. The aliens are able to erase all evidence of the existence of the children they abducted -- videotapes, photos, human memories. They can even go back and edit old newspapers to remove relevant articles. So how/why did they miss the artwork in Dominic's daughter's room? This is a crucial plot point, the only clue Julianne Moore has that she isn't insane, making it all the more glaring and unforgivable. I'm afraid I'll have to remove at least half a point because of it.
However, the second time through I was pleased to notice something I missed the first time, namely that an alien presence is suggested subtly throughout by every establishing shot being filmed from high above the ground and slowly moving in straight down, kind of like a flying saucer POV. Cool, but sadly not enough to redeem revelation #1.
Good movie, but probably won't hold up to repeat viewings once you know the ending. 2.5 out of 5
Crash: I'll admit, I was childishly boycotting this after it beat out Brokeback at the Oscars, but my sister Amy insisted, nay demanded, that I watch it. I knew there was a reason I listen to her recommendations (well, I learned my lesson after I foolishly ignored her rec of Amelie for months and months to my own detriment).
I generally don't like films about racism, not just because it's uncomfortable subject matter, but because there is an undercurrent of a threat of violence at any moment that I don't enjoy very much. Cases in point, American History X and Higher Learning. Crash takes an unflinching and very thorough look at racism in our culture. It carefully interweaves the lives of, Christ, more people than I can count, yet still avoids completely confusing the viewer. Amy rightly compared it to Magnolia in the way that those who at first glance appear to be extras in the background take off on a tangent and have their story told, eventually all coming back to be part of the main story in one way or another. It's a balancing act and a ballet, expertly choreographed. It looks at the different ways racism affects all of them and the pervasiveness of it, and how their lives are changed because of it.
Most of all it carries a message not to judge people by appearance. The "gangbanger" locksmith is actually a loving family man; the poor Chinaman who gets run over by the carjackers was in the process of selling his own countrymen into slavery; Ludacris, the "angry black man," goes off on a rant about hip-hop music keepin' the bruthas down when in real life he himself is a rapper (and please don't lecture me if there's a difference. You kids and the noise you call music today....); and the Iraqi mother is Counselor Fucking Troi: "Captain, they tink we are Arab!"
Tery and I can't watch a movie together, any movie, without MSTing it just a little. 15 minutes into it I leaned over and whispered, "I thought this was a comedy..." which is half true. Ryan Philippe's cop character is told the only way he can get reassigned to escape Matt Dillon, his racist prick of a partner, is to feign embarrassingly excessive flatulence. The next time we see him he is alone in his own cruiser on the radio. Tery jokingly signed off for him, "10-4, out pffffffffft". She said he'd have to carry a whoopee cushion with him to keep up the ruse. Sandra Bullock, as the poor oppressed white woman whose biggest stress in life is the Mexican maid's failure to empty the dishwasher in a timely fashion, garners very little sympathy until she slips and falls down the stairs, getting rescued by the maid she has just finished haranguing. Tery did her best Rosario impression from Will & Grace: "Look lady...I'll get you to the hospital when I finish putting your damn dishes away." Oh, she cracks me up, even in the middle of high drama.
But of course it wasn't all fun and games. It rarely is with such heavy material. But just so brilliantly done. Simple, wordless scenes that spoke volumes. Beautiful soul-wrenching music that rips your heart straight out of your chest. Slow motion kicking in at just the right time for maximum effect. Perfect casting, perfect screenwriting, perfect everything. But my god, who wants to live in LA if everyone is so freaking TENSE??
There isn't a doubt this was far, far more deserving of Best Picture™ than Brokeback. 8 out of 5 (wrap your mind around THAT if you can)
Last but not least, A History of Violence: Which I'll grant you is an odd choice for someone who doesn't like an undercurrent of a threat of violence in her movies. But I DO like me some Viggo, and Cronenberg always makes interesting movies. And my sister also highly recommended this one. Perhaps not as life-changing as Crash, but not bad. Viggo plays Tom Stall, a small-town diner owner who reveals, when two random thugs pass through and try to make trouble, that he is a little too well-versed in the art of killing a man for having such humble beginnings. Eventually big-time Mafia boys from Philly (Ed Harris, et.al.) come looking for Tom, only they think his name is Joey. Tom protests they've got the wrong guy until he can't deny it any longer. To stop the threat of the Mob to his family, Joey!Tom ends up killing Harris, et.al. and returns to Philly to finish the job by killing his own brother, Mob boss William Hurt. Yep, there isn't just the threat of violence here. There are honest-to-goodness actual large amounts of the real thing about every 6 minutes. At the end it is left to the viewer to decide if his family will get over the betrayal of his double identities, in classic Cronenberg fashion.
Yes, violence galore, but I liked it. Cronenberg doesn't make violence cartoonish like Tarantino. It is understated and believable. Viggo moves like a puma in his fight scenes, effortlessly taking down man after man, but you still believe it. And for a 47-year-old he looks mighty fine. I know this because Cronenberg doesn't skimp on his sex scenes either (when we read the rating screen as the movie began, I said, "Rated R for nudity and graphic sexuality. Well, they make those sound like BAD things when they put it that way.....") A nice touch I noticed was how Tom gradually slips into a Philly accent after being discovered...very subtle, very nice. And Viggo is equally adept at playing good old hometown boy, father and husband and stony, cold-blooded killer. Very good choice.
Which isn't to say the movie is without its problems. His old Mafia buddies find him again presumably by seeing the news coverage he receives after saving the diner from the random thugs. But for all we are shown, he only makes it to local channels. Even his son fantasizes about making it onto Larry King Live (they really ARE backwater if he considers this the zenith of media fame). So why are big city Mafia types watching the local Virginia news?
And I don't think William Hurt was a good choice for the big, scary boss. Ed Harris would have been good even without the scarred eye prosthetic, but William Hurt? He's just too mushy and...harmless. He's like the Pillsbury Doughboy. And oy, his accent, how it came and went. Not good at all. There was one hilarious bit on the featurette, however, when Viggo's co-star Maria Bello sends him back to Philly to spend time with her Uncle Pete to pick up the accent. They recorded a phone conversation when Pete says (in a thick Philly dialect) "Yeah, I'm here in a car with the Lord of the Kings king." Tery wasn't enthralled with the featurette but I was fascinated. I would love to work on a film crew like that.
Rather anti-climactic after Crash. 3 out of 5
