28 posts tagged “movies”
The movie certainly fails to convey the historical context that the book provides but to be fair that's not what Coppola sets out to do. This is not a period piece. What the movie does show is how very young Marie Antoinette is when she enters France and how strict the court rules are. She can't even reach for a handkerchief without breaking etiquette. The movies does a good job of showing how lacking any avenue of expression Marie Antoinette, like many young girls, parties and shops because there is very little that she is allowed to do - and politics have no interest to her so she doesn't bother to understand it. Marie Antoinette and her companions party and shop so extravagantly and spend so little time on anything of substance that it's no wonder the country is in trouble when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become monarchs. And because the movie only captures the bubble that Marie Antoinette inhabits, we see precious little of the rest of France (the mob's arrival at Versailles is quite sudden and almost cartoonish). There are various deliberate anachronisms throughout the movie to link it to the partying of Marie Antoinette's day with reckless young celebrities today but it's not sufficiently compelling to justify two hours. The sets were pretty since the film was shot in Versailles, and Kirsten Dunst performs well with the little material she has to work with but it just wasn't enough. The party is over by the movie's end, but I just can't help but think that the film could have had something - anything - more to say.
Vox Gripe: There's a new ad on the sidebar when I try to compose a new entry. It's very distracting because it flashes constantly and sometimes it moves and interferes with my mouse. It gets especially confusing when I try to add an item from my library into the draft. And No, I do not want to know who in Petaluma has a crush on me. It's terrible but I suppose the price one pays for a free blog. I don't recall the ads being this annoying and hope it's not the start of a trend.
Anyway, I had meant to write about Office Space, which is one of those movies that a lot of my friends would quote or refer to but which I had never gotten around to seeing. The movie is a bit dated now in terms of pacing although not in terms of the sentiments and work situations. I remember seeing the fax machine scene on television close to when it was released and finding it hilarious but the movie is much more muted by today's standards. I still enjoyed it though.
The ad in the sidebar is still moving around and flashing at me. Very annoying. It works as an ad, I suppose, because I keep staring at it but I get very disgruntled when I look at it, which is probably not what they intended.
M has been sick for sometime and although I held out for a month, past the point where the doctor finally gave in and said he did not have a virus and had some bacteria infection and prescribed antibiotics and now that he is feeling better, I've caught whatever it was that he had. I was hoping that since we're catching my sickness before the full onslaught that I would not fare as bad as M but the doctor - who isn't my usual GP - just laughed and said "too late!" Sick people, those doctors, full of schadenfreude. Other than that, the doctor was a very nice man.
Anyway, we have been homebodies and watching many movies - some very bad and some good.
Live Free and Die Hard - I will not bother to post a trailer because no one should be subjected to a minute of this movie. It would have helped greatly if the villain was not a petulant little computer geek. Who is afraid of computer geeks? They tried to make him more menacing by giving this particular computer geek nice clothes and an Asian kung fu fighting girlfriend, but he wasn't very convincing.
Dogville - I'm including the trailer simply because this was a strange movie - not because it was twisted but it's filmed as if it was a play. Rather than actual props there are chalk outlines of apple trees, etc. The movie is slightly redeemed by James Caan who appears for a few minutes in the film and Nicole Kidman, who I don't always think is beautiful but she is beautiful in this film.
I also think that the narrator says rather too much that is needless or shouldn't have to be said to the audience.
Gunslinger Girl - This is a 13 episode anime series about little girls turned into top notch assassins. It's not the best anime I've seen but I thought it was interesting because it's a story where they actually talk about how messed it is to turn little kids into fighting machines - so many animes gloss over this.
The Blue Kite - This one is a Chinese film that has been on my netflix queue for years. It's about a family in China from Stalin's Death to the Cultural Revolution and focuses on how communism tore the family apart. The Chinese government predictably banned the movie but it won a lot of awards. It's good but not what I would call uplifting.
Shall We Dance? - A staid Japanese businessman gets caught up in the world of ballroom dancing. A very cute and fun movie.
Grizzly Man - Documentary about a man who lived with grizzly bears for 13 summers. For the last 5 summers, he brought a video camera with him. It's fascinating to watch because he got wonderful footage of the bears and foxes he lived with and he was such an odd personality. I'm not sure that he can or should be judged for the way he died because he lived exactly wanted to live - although the death of the girlfriend is another story.
The Fountain - M rented this. The images were very pretty but the story was not compelling.
On a tangential note, Sean Penn has a very interesting face, full of crags and lines and asymmetries, so I sketched him as I watched, which was fun. I found it much more motivating than trying to draw from a photograph - which never works for me - and much more relaxed than working with a model.
I do not recommend this movie.
