Lounge of Tomorrow - Miscellaneous Movie Musings

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- - Miscellaneous Movie Musings (http://74.208.121.111/LoT/showthread.php?t=3573)

Watched The Queen. Well acted but I can't really go along with Helen Mirren for best actress. First of all, I'm not keen on "impersonations" winning unless they are truly spectacular. Especially when 90% of the impersonation is being stoic.

I wrote this elsewhere but it captures why I'm ambivelant about the movie. I foresaw this problem but wanted to see it anyway because I'd heard such great things about Mirren's performance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Me, somewhere else

The big problem is that it is a story I don't really care about. The fame of Princess Diana was, to me, a slightly more dignified version of the fame that Paris Hilton has. Yes, she was doubtless a better person than Hilton but both were famous simply for being famous. And to a large extent I found the outpouring of "global grief" for Princess Diana to be as tacky, outrageous, and inexplicable as I would if a similar thing were to happen following the sudden death of Paris Hilton.

So while watching the movie, that was part of the problem. I was at odds with the sentiment. I find the continued existence of the monarchy to be a weird form of political religion (either be a monarchy or be a republic but why pretend to be both?) so I don't personally invest much into the tradition and dignity of the institution. However, since the institution does exist, I find myself much more in the Queen's view of how Diana's death should be handled. Anyway, well acted but in the end it didn't give me any reason to care more about the events than I did when they were really happening. I remember quite clearly the day she died since it was a long evening of me whining to Lani that I wanted to go out as we had planned and her wanting to watch CNN all night.

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman (Post 109858)

I find this stance hypocritical

Is it? or is it just inconsistent?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mousepod (Post 107929)

Alex, based on your most recent posts, I strongly urge you to check out the Lower Depths DVD set from Criterion. It includes Jean Renoir's 1936 adaptation of the Gorky play and Akira Kurosawa's 1957 take on the same source material.

So I put these on my queue and have both right now.

I tried to watch the Kurosawa version this afternoon. So far I have fallen asleep three times, paused to make dinner. Done a couple loads of laundry.

With rewinding to watch stuff that happened while my eyes were drooping (not good with subtitles) I am now about 44 minutes in. About a third.

Needless to say, it isn't grabbing me. I'll try to finish it tomorrow just in case I'm not in the mood today. Then I'll see if I find the Renoir version any more engaging.

That said, I do find the subtitle translation on the Criterion edition to be interesting. I assume it is a recent translation since it uses language that wouldn't have been used decades ago.

(re The Queen):

Alex, I would think being of the opinon that DianaGriefMania was absurd would make the story more interesting. It's about a clash of cultures, and I would has assumed identifying more with the Royals as people (notwithstanding your feelings about them as an institution) would provide an enjoyable perspective.

But I must say that I agree with you about impersonation performances. Good as they may be, I can't give them "full marks," as it were.

Quote:

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke (Post 109862)

Is it? or is it just inconsistent?

Perhaps it's ungenerous of me ... but I tend to ascribe hypocrisy to matters of moral outrage.

I did find the insight into the royal household to be interesting but I was also stuck wondering how much of it was fact and how much of it was supposition or creative license. I doubt Queen Elizabeth sat down with the screenwriter to tell him how the big buck made her cry.

There were elements I found interesting. But at core, the movie is based on the assumption that the death of Diana is interesting and therefore the conflict over how to grieve for her is interesting. For me, the former is not true so the latter is merely academic. That's an intellectual connection, and only a slight one, not an emotional one.

I haven't see "The Queen" (yet) but Capote comes to mind when talking about impersonations. PSH did a MEAN Truman, and yet, it really was no more than an impresonation. Didn't he win best actor last year?

The going ga-ga over "impersonations" is a relatively recent fad but over the years many have won.

Last year three of the five best actor nominations were characters that were real people (Truman Capote, Edward R. Murrow, Johnny Cash) and the year before it was four out of five (Ray Charles, Howard Hughes, J.M. Barrie, Paul Rusesabagina).

But in 2004 it was zero. 2003 it was zero. 2002 it was two (Muhammed Ali, John Nash). 2001, one (Jackson Pollack).

Hoffman's Truman Capote was dazzling and I have no complaint with him winning, but generally when playing a real person, particularly a prominent recent person, the performance starts in a hole with me. This can be overcome but I think it is harder to earn full credit from me.

Not entirely rational, but maybe I fear that if I accept Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash as an acting tour de force then I'll have to think of Rich Little as a great thespian and I have incredibly negative Rich Little associations.

I have to interject a slight derail here to say that I think the world is a better place for having Princess Diana in it, and I wouldn't compare her to Paris Hilton. Diana did a lot of valuable charitable work in her role as princess. I don't believe Paris has done anything for charity on a personal level, and probably won't ever do any unless mandated as part of community service.

I haven't seen "The Queen" yet, but I will likely go see it this coming weekend.

Like I said, I have no doubt that Diana was a better person.

But I'm talking about the source of her fame. She was famous for being famous. She didn't do anything remarkable to become famous she just had (acquired) famous relatives and famous money. And yes, she did good charitable works but so do millions of people.

Part of the irony of the whole situation, to me, is that people only cared about Diana because of her connection to royalty and then bitched when that very royalty acted like royalty.