Posts filed under 'Movies'
Amazingly, just after I posted about watching LolliLove, in which a clueless rich couple forms an organization to give out lollipops to the homeless, I myself had a lollipop encounter in the accessories department at Macy’s. Dormouse and I were standing there looking at scarves when a woman came up to us and asked, “Excuse me, would you like a lollipop?” I almost died. It turned out it was part of a Clinique promotion, which seems odd, but at least it’s not posing as charity.
Now for the distressing news: Entertainment Weekly and TiVo have both failed me. EW claimed that last Friday’s “Doctor Who” was the season premiere, but it turned out that the premiere had aired the previous Friday, along with a two-hour between-the-seasons special. That’s three whole hours of David Tennant that I missed! To compound my angst, our TiVo for some reason claimed to be recording “Doctor Who” last Friday, while it was actually recording “Battlestar Galactica.” I accused Porpoise of deliberately trying to sabotage my DT obsession, but he claims innocence, so I guess we’ll have to blame the TiVo. Still, I checked to make sure it was properly set up to record the first installment of Casanova last night.
I suppose I should wait until I’ve seen the second half of Casanova before commenting on it, but I have a few things I’d better say while I’m thinking about them. First of all, I forgot that another Casanova came out last fall: a big-screen film starring Heath Ledger and Sienna Miller. Don’t know anything about that movie. I suppose I should Netflix it for comparison’s sake, but it doesn’t look that interesting. I admit I’m biased, but I don’t see how Heath Ledger can be as interesting a Casanova as David Tennant. Ledger is good-looking in a more traditional (i.e., hulking, oafish) way and therefore rather boring. Casting someone with Tennant’s quirky good looks means that the actor has to suggest that there’s some appeal to Casanova other than merely the physical.
This appeal, in the BBC Casanova’s case, is his outrageousness and cheekiness, not to mention his undying ardor for the one woman he can’t have (though of course that doesn’t stop him from sleeping with lots of other women). Casanova screenwriter Russell T. Davies (the Welshman also behind many of the recent “Doctor Who” scripts) wanted to make Casanova a more sympathetic figure than he’s often been. Says Davies, “When I sat down to read Casanova’s autobiography - all 12 volumes of it! - I discovered that our modern-day impression of a lascivious, misogynist man is hopelessly wrong. . . . This man genuinely loved women, and respected them with an astonishingly modern mentality. I also discovered that, outside his love life, Casanova was a wonderful, barmy, inventive man. And what a fraud! Like an 18th century Jeffrey Archer, but funny. He wasn’t born an aristocrat, he lied his way into jobs and positions of power with charm and cheek. He’s just irresistible.”
The style of this Casanova is also rather barmy and inventive. Porpoise commented as we watched that it almost felt like an episode of “Doctor Who” (and this was before we looked up Russell T. Davies on IMDB to find out why his name sounded so familiar). It has electronic music here and there, a fast, almost goofy pace, a mix of humor and occasional pathos, and intentional anachronistic flourishes. In fact, the latter made me think of Sofia Coppola’s upcoming Marie Antoinette film, much of which is set to 80’s music.
Anyway, Casanova is certainly more risqué than most Masterpiece Theatre miniseries, though I suspect it’s been toned down a bit from the BBC original. Still, I would advise parental discretion (meaning: parents, you probably don’t want to see this). It has its merits, though, especially in the portrayal of Casanova and his lady-love Henriette as two low-born posers scrambling to get by any way they can in class-conscious eighteenth-century Venice.
October 9th, 2006
Last fall, when we were driving to Boston with Porpoise’s parents, we passed through Scranton, Pennsylvania, where “The Office” takes place. I begged them to stop the car so that we could go see Jim and Pam and Dwight and all my favorite folks at Dunder Mifflin. Porpoise told me that they’re not real people, and that they don’t actually live there. Sigh. I still refuse to admit that Jim isn’t real, and if I ever meet John Krasinski and discover that he isn’t just like Jim Halpert, I will be greatly irked. But, having now seen “Pam” in something else, I can acknowledge that she is a character played by an actress named Jenna Fischer.
Back in 2002, Jenna Fischer and her real-life husband James Gunn created a mockumentary called LolliLove, about a rich L.A. couple who decide to “help” the homeless by handing out lollipops with cheery slogans like “You Matter” printed on their wrappers. Jenna Fischer’s character (aptly named “Jenna”) is nothing like Pam, and I assume she’s nothing like the real-life Jenna, either. What’s amazing is how similar the style of LolliLove is to the style of “The Office”: the faux-documentary interviews and “impromptu” camera footage, the way each lampoons bigotry by allowing the characters to say ridiculously insensitive things, followed by uncomfortable pauses. What’s different is that LolliLove doesn’t have any likable characters to give you relief from the bigots. Plus, it’s perfectly fine to laugh at “James”’s and “Jenna”’s shallowness, but when the two start fighting with each other, the film gets a little too realistic to be funny. It has its amusing moments, but overall it’s a tad uneven.
However, I’m glad I saw LolliLove, if mostly for its “Office” connections. I’m continually amazed at the creativity of all the actors on “The Office,” most of whom also contribute to the show’s scripts.
Now seems as good a time as any to update readers on what I’m watching on TV this fall. First priority is, of course, “The Office.” Sadly, that means that I’m going to have to wait to watch the new show “Ugly Betty” on DVD, because it’s on at the same time (the description of last Thursday’s episode, in which someone steals Betty’s stuffed bunny from her desk and sends her ransom notes, reminds me of a similar experience with my Mr. Duck–ahem, Jillian).
I am NOT watching Aaron Sorkin’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” because it’s written by Aaron Sorkin. Even though I hear good reports about how there’s a positive portrayal of a smart, funny, evangelical Christian character on the show, I somehow think that when she speaks, she must sound amazingly like Aaron Sorkin. Because ALL his characters do. Plus, I hear that the character is based on Kristin Chenoweth, a wonderful Broadway actress and singer who apparently had the misfortune to date Sorkin, so any merit the character has probably comes from her. However, I think I will give “Studio 60″’s competitor, “30 Rock,” a try when it debuts this Wednesday.
Speaking of debuts, I am celebrating the return of “Dr. Who” (with David Tennant! Yippee!) last night. I haven’t yet watched the episode, but, believe me, I’m looking forward to it. This weekend is doubly blessed with David Tennant, as he’s also appearing on Masterpiece Theatre’s Casanova on Sunday night. How shall I contain my joy?
Who would’ve thunk that I, who had no TV until I acquired one via marriage, would be watching three shows a week?
October 7th, 2006
While we on The Ottery have been discussing whether a documentary focusing on one Pentecostal kids’ camp in North Dakota can claim to authentically and accurately represent all of evangelical Christianity, other writers and bloggers have been raising important questions about “authenticity” as a criterion in films starring or made primarily by black artists.
The Cinematical blog where I first saw the discussion describes an article from The Guardian that raises questions of “why white, middle-class audiences only deem a Black Film “authentic” if it’s about gangs, drugs, and guns . . . and why every Black film is expected to be socially realist (with the authenticity of the film generally being determined by someone outside that cultural group), when every White film does not have to be socially realist.” The original Guardian article appeared on Sept. 29, and it shows that this double standard exists in the UK, too, not just in Hollywood.
I don’t really have much to add, since, if anyone has the authority to say what makes a black film “authentic,” it certainly isn’t me. I just wanted to call the post and the article to everyone’s attention. Plus, it connects to a discussion Mink and I were having recently, after watching Madea’s Family Reunion.
We both like Tyler Perry’s work (at least what we’ve seen of it, which doesn’t include his stage plays), but we admitted that we don’t judge it by the same standards that we might use for, say, an Oscar-baiting drama. If we were to judge by those standards, we might find Perry’s movies melodramatic, unbelievable, meandering. Instead, we agreed, we tend to view them as a genre unto themselves, with their own rules.
I find myself worrying, though, if by setting up these different standards, we’re being condescending. After all, romantic comedies have their own separate conventions, too, and this doesn’t make me like them (most of them, anyway) any better. Same goes for the frat-boy movie. And yet I feel perfectly comfortable judging them and confidently stating that they stink.
Is it the element of race-difference that makes me hesitant to view Perry’s movies critically? Maybe. It could also be that I’m sympathetic to his Christian messages of forgiveness and healing. It could also be that I find Madea hilarious. Honestly, it’s probably a little bit of all of these, but I think the biggest factor is that Perry’s movies are really allegories, in a way that no other contemporary movies are. As such, they almost have to be judged on their own. That’s my current theory, anyway. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the Madea plays on DVD, now that we can get them through Netflix.
October 3rd, 2006
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been following, as I’m sure many of you have, the discussions and controversy about the new documentary Jesus Camp. Since few big-screen documentaries actually make it to the theaters in my town, I’m probably not going to be able to review this one until it comes out on DVD. But I do have to put my two cents in on what I’ve heard and read so far.
If you don’t know much about Jesus Camp, take a quick look at this video report, which should help orient you (sorry about the scary talking head). If you’re interested, Christianity Today also has an interesting interview with the filmmakers, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.
So far it seems that the general impression the movie leaves you with is: this is why our politics are as messed up as they are, and watch out for these scary evangelical kids who are going to be the leaders of tomorrow!
There are several problems with this message. First of all, as many who critique the film have already pointed out, Jesus Camp only focuses on one kids’ camp (in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, actually), run by one Pentecostal preacher. Lots of evangelicals have been protesting that this doesn’t accurately represent the diversity within evangelicalism, and even Pentecostals have been pointing out that Pastor Becky Fischer and her camp are fairly unusual among Pentecostals.
So I have a very suspicious reaction to Ewing’s response when Christianity Today interviewer Peter Chattaway suggests that the film may promote a stereotype about evangelical Christians and politics, mentioning that he knows evangelicals who voted for John Kerry. Ewing rather condescendingly replies, “But really, Peter, if you look at the numbers, the vast majority vote Republican. So to find the needle in the haystack, you know, I don’t know if that’s our responsibility. I don’t know if that’s very accurate, to portray that there’s a lot of liberal evangelical Christians that vote Democratic, either. If you look at the numbers, conservative people, religious, will usually vote conservative politics.”
But in focusing on this one, on-the-fringe Pentecostal camp and suggesting that it’s the emblem of Christian involvement in politics, isn’t that sort of finding a different kind of needle in the haystack? Plus, Ewing’s comment blatantly ignores African American evangelical Christians, who in large part vote Democrat. Why has “evangelical” suddenly come to mean “white”?
My other big beef here is that, historically speaking, Pentecostals have not occupied the upper echelons of political power. In fact, many lower middle-class or poor whites (or the poor in Latin America, for that matter) are drawn to Pentecostalism because it gives them a sense of worth and agency that they’re not going to find elsewhere. So, in other words, realistically speaking, these kids are not going to be the movers and shakers of tomorrow. They’re not going to have the chance. If you want to look at who’s already got the political power and influence, look at the sleek, middle-class white evangelicals—who have little in common with their poorer, more charismatic cousins.
There’s my little diatribe. The timing of Jesus Camp is kind of funny, because, just having returned from a trip to Arkansas, I’ve been fuming for much of the week about how “monolithic evangelical subculture” has been taking over the more local, more varied expressions of Christian faith that I remember from my childhood. For example, my parents have had such a hard time winning the trust of Christians in their area because they (my parents) are not on the “approved” list of evangelical teachers and writers whose books and DVDs are distributed throughout the country. It’s sort of like a “we can’t trust it unless it comes from Colorado Springs” mentality. Which means that the politics of Colorado Springs get exported, too, and now white Southern evangelicals seem to think they should all vote Republican (whereas many blue-collar evangelicals used to be staunch Democrats).
The furor around Jesus Camp is at least making people (including me) think about how there is diversity within evangelicalism. Who knows? It might even occur to people that there are black evangelicals, too.
Just this week, I came across a Flannery O’Connor quote that struck me in a new way. In her essay “The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South,” O’Connor advises aspiring Catholic writers to draw their primary inspiration from their region, not from the abstract aspects of their religion. The religion, she trusted, would be embodied within the characters and the story, if the writer really took incarnation seriously. The failed Catholic novel, she writes, tried “to make a culture out of the Church, but this is always a mistake because the Church is not a culture.” Rather, the Church must be embedded within a local culture, with different expression of the same faith in different locales. For O’Connor, this goes back to the Incarnation, which validates the particularity of place, and thus Christ is best represented through local particulars.
So maybe we just need a proliferation of needles in haystacks to remind us of the variety within the body of Christ.
September 30th, 2006
Well, ladies and gentlemen, if the Warner Bros. publicity people are trying to discourage Harry/Hermione ’shippers (translation: those who agitate for a romance between Harry and Hermione, rather than Ron and Hermione), they’re doing a phenomenally bad job. Just look at the first of these photos. Once again, all the chemistry is between Dan Radcliffe and Emma Watson, while Rupert Grint looks befuddled. I’m starting to respect Rupert Grint more these days, though, since he has apparently been in a respectable non-HP movie, and unlike his co-star Radcliffe, he does not feel the need to overcome type-casting by appearing naked on stage with a horse. Yuck.
On a brighter note, Imelda Staunton’s Professor Umbridge looks about as perfect for the role as you can get without being my sixth-grade science teacher (to whom my parents kindly referred as “Toad Lady”).
And, finally, I’m pleased that, in the group photo, Ginny Weasley is wearing pants (by which I mean “trousers,” in case any British people ever read this post). She’s the only girl to do so, and it can’t be just because she plays Quidditch, because Cho Chang does, too. In any case, as the only girl wearing pants in my preschool class photos, I applaud her.
I still have my doubts that this movie will be any good. Alfonso Cuaron, come back to us!
September 26th, 2006
Hurrah for Netflix! Without it, I’m not sure we would have ever been able to rent “Slings & Arrows,” the obscure but extremely well-reviewed Canadian TV show about a contemporary Shakespeare theater.
For years, the fictional New Burbage Shakespeare Festival has been giving audiences slick, expensive, comfortable productions of the Bard’s plays, and then encouraging them to buy little stuffed Shakespeare dolls at the theater’s gift shop. The Festival’s Artistic Director, Oliver Welles, was once a genius, but is now so jaded that he no longer cares about producing original theater.
Oliver, it turns out, also dies within the first episode, hit by a truck carrying “Canada’s Finest Hams.” This macabre hilarity pervades all six hour-long episodes of the first season. Oliver also returns as a ghost to plague/comfort his former protege, Geoffrey Tenant, who is called on to replace him as the Festival’s Artistic Director, despite his reputation as a madman.
Geoffrey, you see, went mad on stage years ago while playing Hamlet (in a New Burbage production directed by Oliver when he was still an artiste). Now, the fact that he sees a ghost no one else sees doesn’t help to promote a reputation of sanity. What’s more, Geoffrey is opposed to everything the current New Burbage theater stands for: corporate success above artistic integrity. He’s bound to make waves, and he does, most notably when he challenges Hamlet’s new director to a sword duel.
“Slings & Arrows,” like Stage Beauty, is primarily an ode to the art of theater. When Geoffrey delivers instructions to actors, instructions that make the actors suddenly understand their characters, you want to stand up and cheer. But it’s the simultaneously reverent and irreverent playfulness with Shakespeare’s most famous play that really keeps things moving.
Most importantly, the show also features what may be the best theme-song lyrics ever, in the opener “Cheer Up, Hamlet,” sung by two old codgers who kind of function as New Burbage’s Statler and Waldorf. Here, for your delight, are the full lyrics:
Cheer up, Hamlet
Chin up, Hamlet
Buck up, you melancholy Dane
So your uncle is at hand
Murdered Dad and married Mum
That’s really no excuse to be as glum as you’ve become
So wise up, Hamlet
Rise up, Hamlet
Buck up and sing the new refrain
Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui
Your antic disposition is embarrassing to see
And by the way, you sulky brat, the answer is “TO BE”!
You’re driving poor Ophelia insane
So shut up, you rogue and peasant
Grow up, it’s most unpleasant
Cheer up, you melancholy Dane
Any song that tells Hamlet to “shut up” and “grow up” is fine by me! (No offense to the play, which I do love.)
Alas, this will be my last Ottery entry for a couple of weeks. “K” and I are leaving tomorrow for Istanbul. Yes, Istanbul (or Constantinople, which may be more appropriate in this case, as K is a Byzantinist). We’ll spend a week there and a week in Egypt, mostly at Mt. Sinai. I’m incredibly excited about the travel opportunity and thrilled about my traveling companion, though I will find it very difficult to be without my Porpoise and my Cherub for two weeks. No doubt I will have much Ottery material when I return!
August 20th, 2006
Porpoise, Dormouse, and I just re-watched Joss Whedon’s Serenity on DVD—which is fitting, because we all saw it together in the theater. At that time, I hadn’t yet started The Ottery, I hadn’t yet watched any episodes of “Firefly” (the TV series of which Serenity is a continuation)—in short, my life was sadly lacking.
I’ll always be thankful to “Firefly” and Serenity for allowing me to offer proof that I don’t automatically dislike all sci-fi involving spaceships, just spaceship sci-fi with “Star” in the title. The key, of course, is not actually the title, but the fact that “Firefly” and Serenity are well-written. Now, that said, I know that creator Joss Whedon drew a lot of his inspiration from Star Wars. Bully for him. However, his writing style, his characters, and his world-creation appeal to me much more.
In case you’re not a “Browncoat” (inside term referring to “Firefly”/Serenity fans), both are set in our world in the future, a future in which the U.S. and China, as the two greatest superpowers, have united to form the Alliance. Thus, there are Chinese cultural influences peppered throughout the series and movie—our characters usually swear in Chinese. Also, the Earth “got used up,” and so humans spread out to populate other planets. The Alliance extends its influence over the central planets, which see themselves as the sole representatives of civilization. Planets on the fringes, however, rebelled. The rebels, known as “Browncoats,” fought their quixotic last at the Battle of Serenity Valley.
Skip a few years. Browncoat Malcolm Reynolds, one of the few survivors of the Battle of Serenity Valley, now runs his own spaceship—aptly named “Serenity”—with a crew that assists him in his outlaw life. They conduct their heists mainly on the fringe planets, where life resembles that of the Old American West, only with better technology and Chinese swear words. One of my favorite details: Serenity’s crew refers to their small land hovercraft as “the mule.”
Occasionally Mal and the crew take on passengers, the most notable of whom is River Tam, who, at the time she is brought on board by her brother Simon, seems to be merely a mentally troubled teenage girl. However, she gradually reveals more of her true nature in the TV series, including the fact that she can read people’s minds, and in Serenity, we learn that, due to Alliance experiments upon her, she is a fearsome human weapon, and that she knows a big secret.
From the Serenity trailers, I originally thought that the Alliance Operative was pursuing River because of her ability to kick, punch, and incapacitate people while looking extremely graceful (actress Summer Glau, who plays River, is a ballet dancer by training). But early on in the film, we discover that the Operative is after her because of the secret she knows, a secret that could potentially undo the Alliance.
Through the events of Serenity, the ship’s crew learns this secret. I don’t think I’m giving too much away to say that it involves the theme of trying to eradicate human sin. It’s definitely an interesting theme for me, and it seems to be one that moviemakers think has wider resonance, because you may have noticed that it’s also a theme in the recent Batman Begins. In fact, I saw Serenity and Batman Begins at about the same time, and the thematic similarity of the two were a major part of what made me consider starting The Ottery.
Both Serenity and Batman Begins send the clear message that any attempt to make humanity sinless will fail—and, in many cases, it will even backfire. I wonder whether this is an idea particularly appealing to Gen-Xers and subsequent generations who, having seen the Baby Boomers’ idealism dissipate in broken relationships, have no such illusions about human perfectibility.
If you watch the deleted scenes from Serenity (and I highly recommend that you do), you’ll see that Whedon, though he’s not exactly religious himself, allows the movie to introduce another perspective on sin. Shepherd Book, a preacher who had at one point been a passenger on Serenity, recites the following prayer:
Lord, I am walking your way.
Let me in, for my feet are sore,
my clothes are ragged.
Look in my eyes, Lord, and my sins
will play out on them as on a screen.
Read them all. Forgive what you can,
and send me on my path.
I will walk on, until you bid me rest.
Kind of a high-tech cowboy King James Version of the Lord’s Prayer. I’m sad that Joss deleted it. His commentary track for this scene says that he originally swore he would never cut it, but that he eventually came to see that it interfered with the film’s momentum. Momentum, shmomentum. Give me theme development! (And of course, since it’s me, it doesn’t hurt that this theme development is in the form of a prayer.)
I also liked this scene because Shepherd Book is officially my hero. In the “Firefly” episode “War Stories,” he saves the day by shooting the villain’s legs. Zoe asks him, “Preacher, don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?” “Quite specific,” Book answers. “It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.”
Tee hee! Not exactly my ideal pacifist position, but a lot funnier (and more appropriate to a space-Western).
Anyway, I wish there had been more Shepherd Book in Serenity. In fact, as much as I liked the movie—and I did like it, in spite of being very, very scared of the Reavers—my biggest problem with it was its change in tone from the series. The subject matter does demand a darker tone, but, still, I feel jarred by the discontinuity. Maybe it’s mostly because Whedon had planned to continue the story arc in TV series form, where things could have developed more gradually. As any anguished Browncoat will tell you, though, Fox cancelled “Firefly” in 2003, after 14 episodes. Whedon considers it a miracle Browncoat revolution that this little, ragged, but beloved, show was revived and allowed to continue on the big screen. Watching Serenity, though, I miss the humor of the small screen. There’s still a lot of witty banter and brilliant dialogue, of course, but not as much as in the “Firefly” episodes.
Guns and weapons failed against the Alliance, and I have my doubts that exposing and broadcasting their secrets will defeat them, either. But laughter? Maybe that could bring them to their kneecaps.
August 8th, 2006
This week we Netflixed a movie simply because it had Natalie Portman in it, and we hadn’t yet seen it. The movie in question was 1996’s Beautiful Girls, and the 14-year-old Portman is the best thing in it. (She was 14 at the time of filming, though her character was 13, and she would have been 15 by the time the movie was released. Just in case you were wondering.)
Portman’s age is a big deal here, because one of the many sad schlumps populating this working-class Northeast town has a bit of a crush on her. He’s 27. His name is Willy, and he’s returned home for a visit after several years of trying to make a living playing piano in New York. He’s clearly got family issues with his father and brother, but the movie—wisely, in this case—doesn’t really dwell on these. Instead, it focuses on Willy, his high school buddies, and the various ways in which they each idealize female beauty, while neglecting the real women beside them.
The movie’s pretty blatant about its theme—you couldn’t miss it from ten miles away, even without Rosie O’Donnell’s funny and accurate, but extremely out-of-place, soliloquy about Penthouse, Playboy, and other such magazines. The reason it’s out-of-place? O’Donnell’s character seems to have been inserted into the film simply to deliver this tirade. Actually, that’s the case with most of the characters, male or female: they’re each there to serve a particular function in delivering the movie’s message.
Anyway, back to Natalie Portman. Though Willy has a girlfriend his own age, it’s clear to see why he’s fascinated by Portman’s character Marty. She’s got a rapier-sharp wit, she’s capable of amazing psychological insight, she’s extremely literate, and, oh yeah, she’s pretty. We see all this through a series of outdoor conversations between the two (Marty lives next door to Willy’s father and brother). Despite the obvious age difference problems, Porpoise and I found ourselves somehow hoping that Willy would wait around for Marty to reach legal age.
Of course, in real life, a 27-year-old developing a crush on a 13-year-old would be pretty creepy, not just because of the 14-year age gap, but mostly because Marty’s character is essentially still a child. A very mature child—an “old soul,” as she says—but a child nevertheless. Fortunately for everyone involved, Willy has decided, by the end of the movie, to settle down with his girlfriend, rather than waiting for Marty to grow up or trying to find an already grown-up version of her.
Yet, again, I think part of the reason we found ourselves rooting for Marty-and-Willy was that their conversation truly is on the same level. It’s a problem no doubt familiar to many of us girls from our teenage years. The boys our own age were typically eons behind us in emotional maturity, and yet older men could possibly be predators. Though I certainly wasn’t as quick with the one-liners as Marty when I was 13, I could identify with her character. Growing up, I spent an unusual amount of time around adults, and when I started dating, I actually had to become younger, in a way. My mom, when I was a teenager, told me that she could imagine me marrying someone a good bit older than I was. But then, after Porpoise and I became friends but before we were dating, before Mama Chipmunk had even met him, she had the wisdom to point out that we sounded like kindred souls, even though he was only two years older—because we watched Muppet movies together. That was the key for me: finding someone mature enough to be childlike.
But, when I was a teenager, there didn’t seem like much hope. Despite attending a high school of 3,000 students, I felt like I’d exhausted all the desirable resources by the time I was a junior. No doubt many of today’s teenage girls are in a similar position. No doubt many of them find conversation at their own level online. And no doubt they also find scary older men who are actually looking for relationships with teenage girls. Ick.
Beautiful Girls mostly tells the story from the perspective of its male characters, so it doesn’t really deal with Marty’s side of the dilemma. And that’s fine, because that’s not really what the movie is about. Marty is simply there because she’s one more expression of the tempting, but un-live-able ideal.
Portman plays a rather similar, but older, role in 2004’s Garden State, another movie that chronicles a confused twenty-something boy-man’s return home. The parallels are numerous, though I liked Garden State better. For one thing, Portman’s character, though she displays a childlike joy in life, is only a few years younger than Zach Braff’s, so a believable romance can actually happen between them. The film also addresses emotional healing in, admittedly, some heavy-handed ways, but I resonated more with the theme of dealing with depression and guilt than with the “growing up and accepting reality” theme of Beautiful Girls. Plus, I like Zach Braff’s face.
But I’m glad we saw Beautiful Girls, if only because it introduced us to a charming character.
August 4th, 2006
This just in: Helena Bonham Carter will play Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
HBC is a great actress, but somehow she doesn’t fit my mental image of this particular villain. I’ve always envisioned Lestrange as taller, darker, more angular. Kind of like a mean Cher.
Since I last checked IMDB on Order of the Phoenix, there have been a lot of casting additions, including Luna Lovegood, Nymphadora Tonks (sorry, Dormouse), and the young versions of James and Lily Potter, Snape, Lupin, and Sirius. No pictures of the latter few.
My biggest question about Order of the Phoenix is, of course, whether or not they will include Hermione’s Patronus, which is, naturally, an otter.
P.S. I have just learned from Wikipedia that J.K. Rowling’s favorite animal is the otter. Huzzah!
August 3rd, 2006
Oh, so much excitement. Not only is Hugh Jackman in every single movie coming out this fall (The Fountain, The Prestige, Happy Feet, a.k.a. The Dancing Penguin Movie), but he’s going to be in a musical again. On the big screen.
Unfortunately, this movie musical is going to be Carousel. Blech. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s worst. It’s a hugely important musical in the history of musicals, but as far as I’m concerned, its only real contribution to society is that it provided “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for Eddie the Computer to sing in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (book, not movie).
Still, there will be dancing. And larger numbers of people will get to see Hugh Jackman for the singing-and-dancing sensation that he truly is.
So far he’s reprising Gordon MacRae’s musical roles . . . I think he needs to branch out. What musical remakes (or first-makes) would you like to see him in?
August 2nd, 2006
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