Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Gemini Cricket]

Fool's Gold = 9% on rottentomatoes.com.
How sad.

[Alex]

Saw In Bruges the new Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, and Ralph Fiennes gangster movie.

One of the reviews I read said something like "this is the movie that Guy Ritchie has been trying to make." Talk about screwing up my expectations. Accents and gangsters is about all it has in common with a Guy Ritchie movie.

Once I got out of the groove I was primed for and into the groove the movie actually wanted it is pretty good but I can't quite recommend going out of your way to see it theatrically. DVD will be fine. The last 30 minutes does an unusually fine job of tying up the various elements that preceded it and seemed like random foolishness at the time and yet still feels very organic.

It was also my first time at the Kabuki in San Francisco as a paying customer since they completed their conversion into a Sundance theater. I don't give a damn about upscale chocolates and Mexican Coke at the snack bar but the seats were nice, I do love me reserved seating, and we'll definitely have to try the balcony bar on a future visit.

[mistyisjafo]

Just saw 27 Dresses. I disliked it IMMENSELY. I didn't find it funny, cute or even remotely heart warming. I didn't care about any of the characters and as it slowly dragged its way to an obvious ending I was more angry and annoyed at the main character than engaged.

I admit, I'm a cynic of the worst caliber but I've like many a comedy romance movie. This one just made me want to roll my eyes and hope for a great spoof movie!

[Gemini Cricket]

Can I just say that I adore the film Gosford Park. I can watch it over and over.

But...

Can I also say that I completely loathe Ryan Phillipe? God! Every time I see him, I just want to punch him in the nose. Ugh. Good-looking, talentless piece of scrod. It's like Keanu in Much Ado about Nothing. Bleck.

[innerSpaceman]

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is not the train wreck the critics made it out to be.

It wasn't quite up to the standards of the first film, but I found it an admirable companion piece. For once, I found it appropriate to have a sequel made a decade later, because the characters can be noticeably older ... as appropriate to this particular story.


I liked the different lighting scheme (Golden Age indeed) and loved the costumes and thought Cate was great as Liz, and Clive Owen is hubba hubba as always.

I think we forget how schmaltzy and melodramatic the original was. This one's just a tad more cheesy.


Curious though. In the Cate Blanchette films, Elizabeth has two love affairs, and in the Helen Mirren miniseries, she has two different love affairs.

Were they all true?

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Curious though. In the Cate Blanchette films, Elizabeth has two love affairs, and in the Helen Mirren miniseries, she has two different love affairs.

Were they all true?

First was Robert Dudley. The Earl of Leicester. Her favorite. He was played by Jeremy Irons and Joseph Finnes. He apparently was a lover of Elizabeth's although everyone concerned considered her to be a virgin for the record. He died of cancer. Stomach, I think. She was destroyed after he died.

Second was another Robert, Robert Devereaux. The 2nd Earl of Essex. The treasonous rogue. His father was Walter Devereaux. He was the first Earl of Essex. Therefore, I think the father/son thang in the Mirren version is incorrect. He was beheaded by Elizabeth and apparently she became devastated by her own decision (as with a number of them) to have him killed. There are speculations that he slept with her as well. He was played by the yummy Hugh Dancy in the Mirren version.

Edit to add: Dudley was Essex's stepfather. That makes more sense...

As for Walter Raleigh, it's not for certain whether he was a lover of Elizabeth's but he was a favorite as well. There is skepticism on whether he banged her or not.

[Gemini Cricket]

As far as Elizabeth I goes, I have favorite portrayals and not so favorite portrayals concerning her.

My favorite portrayal is by Glenda Jackson in BBC's Elizabeth R. It's a 70's telling of the story. It looks dated, but I find it to be the most accurate. Jackson's portrayal is not glamorous nor glossy, I liked it tremendously. As far as the Essex and Dudley, they were adequate.

I enjoyed Mirren's Elizabeth I. The story seems iffy in places, but it's okay. She is terrific, she plays the edge she had well. Jeremy Irons was great as Dudley. Dancy did a good job showing the impetuousness of Essex.

I also like Cate Blanchett's take on Elizabeth, but the movie is not great. (I have not seen the 2nd one.) I liked the way the relationship of E and Dudley was portrayed. The big dance number between the two was a bit much, I thought.

I absolutely disliked the Elizabeth in the 2005 Virgin Queen. I also hated the modern music that accompanied the story. It was a weird attempt to youthify the story and make it more hip. Ick.

I adore the relationship between Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love. Because he did, in fact, write the plays for her. And I have a soft spot for Mirren but moreso for Judi Dench. It's a great display of what her latter years were like. She was quite a wreck, but still very much in charge.

There are many, many more but these are noteworthy. I avoided the 2nd part of Blanchett's Elizabeth because the reviews were horrid. I figured it could wait.

So, if you're looking for an excellent portrayal checkout the Glenda Jackson Elizabeth R. I'm not too fond of the Bette Davis portrayals of her.

[Alex]

I never saw the first one but I just watched Elizabeth: The Golden Age this weekend and it was thoroughly atrocious in my opinion. Definitely not a good weekend of movie watching:

La Vie en Rose: Wonderful singing but the movie itself was dreadfully boring. Standard musical biopic arc of tough childhood, sudden stardom, descent into bad behavior. But the singing was amazing. They should have just cut the rest and released it as a soundtrack.

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts: All were unimpressive, most felt like art school finals where the goal was not overall coherence but display of animation techniques.

Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts: Not horrible but not amazing either. The best of the bunch wasn't really a short and the best short was amusing but nothing I'll remember in a year.

Rambo: Was convinced to finally see this because of some friends saying it was good butt kicking action. It wasn't. It was just gory gunfights. However, when I'm 60-something I want Stallone's forearms (the only muscles put on display) even if it means years of chemical inducement.

Untraceable: For a suspense thriller involving a lot of computers it wasn't horrible. They goofed badly in not taking into account the way the internet likely would have really reacted to such a scheme but if they had there wouldn't have been a movie.

Jumper: An interesting idea ruined horribly by two decisions: casting Hayden Christensen and the horrible hair on Samuel L. Jackson. The woodenness of Christensen almost makes me think his acting in the prequels wasn't Lucas's fault (except for the fact that everybody else in the prequels was horrible too). Played more like a high-end TV pilot/movie than a standalone big screen affair. The eye was definitely too much on the next movies that will surely come. After a very impressive go at the first Bourne movie, this is a second major face plant for director Doug Liman (the other being the truly reprehensible Mr. and Mrs. Smith).

[Not Afraid]

Essex was a definite lover and her companion for quite a whiel, but it's been ages since I went through my Elizabeth reading phase so I don't remember if Leicester was really a lover or not.

[innerSpaceman]

Um, Alex ... you do realize that the singing in La Vie en Rose was all Edith Piaf, and that the actress was lip-synching??


For a standard arc biopic, I loved it. Can't help it if Piaf's life followed a standard artist arc. Maybe there's a reason there's a standard artist arc.