Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Alex]

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.

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.