Next: A Public Service Announcement
That is, it’s next up; and it’s about Next.
Sometimes I’m so clever I amaze myself.
At any rate: Next. Nic Cage, Jessica Biel, Julianne Moore. Las Vegas magician can see 2 minutes into the future but only about himself. How could it possibly not be an awesome B-grade flick??
I spent most of the movie wondering just how much clout you have to have before you get away with having really, really bad hair in a movie. Because in this one, Cage’s hair is distractingly bad. Worse than his acting.
Oh, and the movie? Avoid at all costs. Rarely have I seen worse.
LOTR
Don’t enjoy LOTR (Kate)? Just look away now. I am happy to count myself among the myriad fans of the series.
I re-watched the LOTR movies the other day: my love was out a number of nights, and I wanted to watch something I knew he could take or leave, and they fit the bill. I do like them, a lot. Much of the action etc is, as far as I am concerned, true to Tolkien’s intention. However, I realised again that there are some characters who rather hard done by, in the films.
Saruman: odd choice, perhaps, but I think that to imply that he just stays happily in Orthanc after his plans are ruined sells him short. The white wizard, planning to share Sauron’s glory, stays cooped up in his tower? I think now. Plus, how much more satisfactory is it to know that he goes from magus supremo to hedge wizard, accompanied only by Wormtongue?
Tom Bombadil: utterly, utterly hard done by, due to his complete absence. I can narratively understand why he was left out, but that doesn’t make me any happier about it. Besides, how can a viewer have the appropriate fear of Fangorn Forest if they havne’t first experienced Old Man Willow?
Ghan-buri-Ghan: as for Bombadillo.
Treebeard: why, the movie makes him out to be positively hasty.
The Shire: no chance for the Cottons et al to show their mettle? Very sad. No Scourging of the Shire was one of my greatest disappointmentswith the films.
Aragorn and Arwen: give up on each other?? I don’t think so, sunshine.
I might have to go read the book again.
I love fans
I love the internet, and I love fans.
Because truly, Star Trek as the A-Team? Does it get any better?
Just the titles… but surely this could be the start of something bigger?
Two utterly different movies
1. Aeon Flux. I love this movie. I love the look, I love Theron, I love Csokas… it’s just wonderful. I’ve never seen the animated series and from the stills I don’t want to. For me, this movie exists in glorious isolation. Yes, there are vague resonances with cloning issues today (and it could be interesting to draw parallels between it and Children of Men), but they’re not important for my enjoyment of the film. It’s just cool, and it remains so – this must be the third time I’ve seen it, and I could probably rewatch it every year or so.
2. Dukes of Hazzard. One that, frankly, I thought I would never bother to watch, but it was just sitting there, and J convinced me we should give it a go. So, OK, it’s hilarious in spots. And there’s not quite as much of Jessica Simpson’s boobs as I had expected. The car chases are fun to watch; Luke and Bo are an enjoyable duo, and it’s played well by Scott and Knoxville. Boss Hogg could have been a bit more evil, I thought – he wasn’t quite as hateful as I anticipated. And heck, who doesn’t like a spot of Willie Nelson being a moonshine-swilling, Korean War vet? So it was entirely appropriate fun for a Saturday night.
And I didn’t even know there was something missing
From my life, that is. Until now.
Now that I am 15 minutes into Barbarella, I realise that there had previously been a gaping hole in my life. No longer! Filled with Jane Fonda, hairy wallpaper, Jane Fonda’s boobs, a lot of plastic and the knowledge that Duran Duran is the name of a character in the movie. Which makes them even more screwy than I previously thought.
Oh, and now there are nasty biting dolls after Our Heroine. Hmm, an excuse to remove more of Jane’s clothing, clearly.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch the whole thing, to be honest.
A few movies from the last few months
Just out of interest…
Chronicles of Riddick: I was inspired to re-watch this after reading a post about how bad it was as a sequel to Pitch Black. I loved Black, but I actually saw it after Riddick so perhaps my reference frame is a bit skewed. For me, they are best viewed as essentially separate movies, since that’s what they feel like. Yes, if you’re looking for more of the sparse, mildly terrifying, barely-any-scenery action of Black, I can see why you might be disappointed. But I just adore Riddick. I love the crazy costumes, I adore Crematorium as a planet, the mercenary is hilarious, and – was it Karl Urban? – he and his missus are basically Macbeth and his lady in space, which is always going to be a winner with me.
Henry V: I thought for a while there I was going to go through a little Shakespeare on the silver screen mode, but have decided against it. I did, however, watch this – the Brannagh version, with a little Emma Thomspon cameo that I wasn’t expecting. I haven’t ever read or seen this one, and had even forgotten that it was the one set at Agincourt until it actually started. I have a story about Hamlet and cliches which I’ll recount sometime, but it applies equally here: there were so many of them! Seriously, there were a good few times where, after the first line was said, I knew what the response or capping line would be because it was so well known. I’m no Bard-idolator, but my goodness the man knew how to write a pithy phrase.
Cleopatra: oh me, oh my. How could I have called myself a lover of antiquities or an old-film buff without having seen Liz, Richard and Rex doing their thing in this insane extravagance of a movie? I got the 4-hour version, split over 2 discs, from BigPond, and the split is basically right in the middle of the movie – and about 5 minutes after the death of Caesar, thus almost exactly split between Harrison (quite an old Caesar, which was probably about right actually) and Burton (oh, lovely lovely voice!). One quite weird thing about watching this is that I knew pretty much every detail of what was going to happen, before it got on screen. There aren’t that many books-turned-film where I can do that, so it was an unusual experience. Liz was a bit too over the top as Cleopatra, for me; the sets were stupendous though.
Dark Knight: actually in the cinema! You don’t need me to tell you about it; if you haven’t seen it, you should, if you are an action fan. If you’re not an action fan, you likely won’t like it. You should know, though, that my appreciation of Ledger as the Joker has zero to do with the fact that he is dead. That performance was breath-taking.
Charlie Wilson’s War: had wanted to see this at the cinema, and didn’t manage to. I am so-so towards Hanks, but thought he was marvellous in this role. Julia Roberts, too. She looked a lot older than last time I saw a picture of her, or saw her in a movie. I was impressed that the movie mentioned the screw-up of reconstruction the US made of Afghanistan (does this haunt them today, I wonder? – I mean, I know policy makers must have thought about it when the US invaded (some of them anyway), but is it part of the reason for sticking around in Iraq so long?), but thought that section could have made the point much more forcefully. And there was no mention of bin Laden, which was something of a surprise. Brilliant movie, anyway.
There have been others… but that’s enough ruminating for now.
Across the Universe
Finally saw this yeaterday, with the squister. I loved it! I don’t know what to say about it, exactly, except that it was awesome… the actors were all good, and the music fit the storyline superbly. ‘Sadie’ was clearly channelling Janis Joplin. I loved all the silly little references to other songs (“she came in through the bathroom window…”), and I’m sure there were lots I missed – I’ve never heard of Mr Kite before, and let me say Eddie Izzard is something of a genius. The sets were brilliant, the costumes delightfully stereotypical, and it was not as saccharine as I had at first feared. As a hyped-up, wishful version of the 60s, it worked very well and dealt with some of the issues we now think of as pertinent to the era rather well. The Vietnam bits were poignant… the parallel scenes, and the dropped-in bits, were powerful.
My squister loves Jude. He’s a bit too broody for me.
Am I that strange?
So when we went to see Indy (which I should blog… sometime…), we went to a cinema with allocated seating. When we got to buy our tix, we were both – shall we say – a bit excited. My love asked if we could be in the middle, and I said “Up the front?” at the same time. The dude looked at his screen and said we could have off centre, near the back. My love frowned and said, “How about up the front?” The dude looked surprised and replied “I thought you were being sarcastic!” So we got row 5. No one in front of us.
Hello?! If I go to the cinema, I want to really be at the cinema: I would prefer not to have anything in my peripheral vision except more screen! How is this such a strange thing? Because there were very few people near us, for Indy.*
Then tonight, my love and I went to IMAX, to see U23D (which will also be blogged, and was awesome). It was IMAX, so we didn’t go too crazy: we sat in the third row, which was quite close enough. There was a couple sitting behind us (who insisted on talking… grrr…), but no one else in our row and no one in front.
Are we strange? Tell me there are other people who sit up the front!
*Except for a dad and three kids under eight. I looked at the kid who sat next to me and told him, gravely, that he hadn’t been born when I started looking forward to this movie. The dad laughed; the kid ended up moving… which maybe wasn’t a bad result  ;]
Making The Labyrinth
Further to my entire afternoon of cooking, I am now being entertained by the ‘Making of’ doco on my copy of The Labyrinth. It’s really long!! And it has interviews with Brian Froud, both Hensons, Jennifer Connelly (who is all of about 14 at the shooting of the film), and David Bowie… and a lot of the production people, too. It’s a real, proper, making-of: I reckon they don’t often get done like this these days. Insight into the production process, the recording process, and a huge amount about the making of the puppets – which was brilliant, because goodness they were amazing: pulleys and levers and remote controls… and there’s actually someone inside Hoggle!! And two people alternated inside Ludo.
Truly it’s an awesome movie. (Ah ha! I thought I caught sight of George Lucas on set – he wasn’t interviewed – and the opening credits say it’s Henson and Lucasfilm, so I must have been right.) I never knew Terry Jones was one of the writers! – but he was; he got quite a bit of time in the making-of (in fact, according to the credits just now, he is the screen writer. No wonder it’s so damn good). Impressively, I think I could re-watch the doco; I just like watching the behind-the-scenes stuff of the puppetry, I think.
So, in case you hadn’t guessed, I have started watching the movie proper… so back to Sarah and Jareth, and making curry, for me.
Randomly Yours, Alex 