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More Of Moriarty’s Holiday Marathon Catch-Up! MARIE And BLOOD DIAMOND And PERFUME And LIVES OF OTHERS And VEIL!!
You know what happens when you see something like 35 movies in a week?
You wash away all the hype. How hyped can you be when you’re watching one movie after another like this? How much can one film overshadow all the others? You level the playing field, and each film either works or doesn’t based on its own merits.
I’ve been watching both newly released DVDs and Academy screeners, and I’m down to a handful of films before I publish my list. It’ll probably get posted over the weekend depending on how fast I can write it all, but I think I have a pretty firm handle on how things are going to shake out. I don’t think it looks like anyone else’s list this year, but then again, I always think it’s boring when the same five Oscar-ready movies get endlessly blown by a parade of people hoping that they’ll have some impact on an awards show that is, in the grand scheme of things, pointless. I don’t want to influence the Oscars. Fuck, I barely even want to watch the Oscars.
So that’s why I take my time, watch as many films as possible, and don’t struggle to publish my list before the ballots are due. This way, it’s about the films, and not about some other agenda.
One of my very favorite authors is Philip K. Dick, and one of the things that makes me saddest is the way he’s been treated by Hollywood. Not only did they wait to discover him until after he was dead, thereby guaranteeing that he never enjoyed all the option money they throw at his estate, but they also seem to love to stripmine good ideas from his work while throwing out most of what makes it genuinely special. It’s a constant source of frustration for those of us who really admire his writing.
I’m not sure why I missed A SCANNER DARKLY in theaters, but I did. I have always been a vocal fan of Richard Linklater’s, but I think I was traveling a lot when the film was screening, and then just missed it during its regular run.
Now that it’s finally available from Warner Home Video, I was able to catch up with it, and I ended up watching it three times in a week, drunk on just how right someone finally got one of his books. Even if they never get it right again, I feel satisfied that at least once, there’s a film that captures this writer’s peculiar world view with accuracy and empathy. I think the animation done by Bob Sabiston’s team is much better here than it was in WAKING LIFE, and I think it’s also used here to greater purpose. Linklater perfectly evokes the feeling of having your receptors fried from a prolonged derangement of the senses. The whole world has a crazy film over it for Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) and his friends, and it’s because they’re always pretty much ripped on Substance D. There’s a bit of a mystery built into the film, and it only really resolves itself in the final moments, but I find it one of the most realistic and unnerving ideas in Dick’s novel. I would be shocked if there aren’t already a few Substance D’s in the works. It seems... inevitable.
There’s a great deal of oddball comedy in Linklater’s film, and that might seem inappropriate at first, but I think Dick had a bent sense of humor, and I think he would be enormously entertained by the surreal Three Stooges quality to the scenes between Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Reeves. Rory Cochrane and Winona Ryder also do excellent supporting work, and I love how all of these actors seem to have fully adapted to the idea of the animation. Downey and Cochrane in particular turn in some remarkable, idiosyncratic performances that are alternately sad, silly, pathetic, and menacing. When I hear people dismiss this film by saying, “It’s just a bunch of stoners sitting around talking,” it saddens me. There are a lot of great dynamics playing out in the film, and what they’re saying isn’t necessarily what they’re talking about. There’s a palpable paranoia that builds from the very start of the film, as reality becomes more and more liquid, and there are a number of levels of reveal that take place. This may be a film about drug users, but I don’t think this is the sort of film where you should fire up a doobie and sit back to enjoy. It’s sad. Haunted, even. The break-down of personality is a terrifying thing, and by the time Bob Arctor realizes something is wrong with him, it’s way too late to change anything. The film makes it clear that Arctor isn’t the tragedy, but is instead just one more symptom of the larger tragedy, one more name on a list of names, just one more lost friend.
I wish I liked BLOOD DIAMOND more, because I hate sounding like a broken record. I don’t wish Ed Zwick any ill will. I don’t think he’s a bad filmmaker on a technical level. It’s obvious he can get some big films off the ground, and he turns in work that is quite striking when you look at it in bits and pieces. The script by Charles Leavitt (K-PAX, THE MIGHTY) has a great adventure movie set-up, and the first forty-five minutes or so were really working for me.
But then it turned into another one of those bullshit Hollywood movies where the heroic white guy helps the noble black guy. Sure, in LAST SAMURAI, he traded “black guy” out with “samurai dude,” but same difference. It’s always the white guy in Zwick’s films, coming in to save the native culture from itself and from outside threats. It’s the one Hollywood formula that pisses me off above all others, and I think it’s because of the arrogance, the insulting assumption that I can’t watch a film with a black lead or an Asian lead or an Indian lead. I don’t need a white face onscreen to empathize with someone. I just need a good film, a strong script and a good performance. Djimon Hounsou is, simply put, one of the best character actors working. When I saw him in AMISTAD, none of that film’s flaws mattered to me because of the power of his work. And it wasn’t the dialogue. It wasn’t even the scenes he played. It was the physical presence he brought to the role, the emotionally bare reality that he played. I’ve liked him in films like GLADIATOR and THE FOUR FEATHERS and BLUEBERRY and CONSTANTINE, even if I haven’t loved the films. I would compare his work throughout his career to the way Brando incorporated physicality into his early work. And given the right material, Hounsou can be amazing. IN AMERICA was another milestone for him, and I think in BLOOD DIAMOND, he does commanding work. But he should have been the lead. Relegating this incredible performer to the supporting role and miscasting Leonardo DiCaprio in the Humphrey Bogart role is a mistake, a bullshit Hollywood mistake, and it’s the sort of thing that ruins a film for me. Takes me out of it by treating me like I’m stupid. The film is well-made, and there are several large scale action sequences that are quite stunning, but even with a smiling Jennifer Connelly (a rarity these days), I can’t recommend this one.
Hey, remind me why people didn’t like MARIE ANTOINETTE.
I think Sofia Coppola is the real deal. I think she’s an interesting filmmaker with a strong personal voice. I think her first film, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, is a tremendous debut picture. Watching it is like slipping into a familiar dream, losing yourself in this sad little collapse of a family, the atmosphere thick and languid. LOST IN TRANSLATION was her crossover hit for a reason, and the chemistry between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson is special, something a filmmaker lucks into. Her style is evident in the way it develops from the first film to the second, and with MARIE ANTOINETTE, she takes her wafer-thin screenplay (I read it last year, and it was so slight it was impossible to judge what her film might be) and translates it into a lush, funny, wistful film, a point-of-view experience in which a girl allows herself to be married off for the good of Austria, her homeland. She becomes a royal in France, wife to a Prince, and loses herself in this insane, extravagant, disconnected way of life that is Versailles.
As with LOST IN TRANSLATION, Coppola’s first shot is an evocative work of art in its own right, and I think it sums up exactly what she’s trying to do. You see Kirsten Dunst stretched out on a couch, feet up, being attended to, pampered. She reaches out to one of several tables around her laden with pastries and sweets, and she dips her finger in the frosting of a small cake. As she licks it off, she looks directly at the camera, directly at the viewer, as if to say, “Yes... this is probably all you know about me. Spoiled. Let them eat cake. Well... this isn’t that story.” And it’s not. Maybe the French who freaked out about this when it played at Cannes couldn’t handle the notion of a Marie Antoinette you feel empathy for, but that’s what makes the film so lovely, so moving in its way. Jason Schwartzman plays Louis XVI as a clueless bubble boy, and the first half of the film (or maybe more) deals with Marie’s attempts to get Louis to consummate their marriage. This plays out over years. It’s not all about politics and skullduggery and speech-making like so much of what passes as period drama. Instead, it’s a film that observes small behaviors, scenes where there’s no overt drama, but where the way people occupy a room, the way they relate... that’s what says it all. That’s the drama. It’s hard to explain if you don’t tune in to what Coppola does, but I think she creates films that capture what it must feel like to live through something and then think back on it.
She weaves persuasive memories, and it’s such a particular filmmaking skill that I understand people who don’t appreciate it. I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss her by saying that she leans too heavily on her soundtracks. I think the way she uses music in MARIE ANTOINETTE is canny and makes poignant comment on what we’re seeing. I liked this film quite a bit, and I think it was underrated unfairly by many people this year.
I’m not sure I would recommend PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER to every audience, but I was captivated by Tom Tykwer’s wild ride through the mind of an amoral monster, a man born wrong and never loved. Ben Whishaw stars in this adaptation of Patrick Suskind’s novel, loved by many but thought to be unfilmable. I can totally see why. It’s a sensory tale, all about the miraculous nose of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in the smelliest stall in the smelliest corner of the smelliest fish market in movie history. He’s literally popped out into a pile of fish guts and left for dead, and overwhelmed by that insane wall of smell, Jean-Baptiste struggles to life and draws his first breath, his world forever defined by scent. Conveying that in a visual medium is tricky business, but Tykwer proves to be more than up to the challenge. One of the things that helps is the way he openly embraces the absurdity of the piece. He injects a wicked sense of humor into things like the fates of all the people who meet Jean-Baptiste over the course of his life. As soon as he moves on, something terrible befalls each and everyone one of them, sometimes to ghoulishly hilarious effect. He also chooses to stage the climax (pun fully intended) of the film as dark, dark comedy rather than for sensual or erotic impact. Even when it is completely deranged, though, I find there’s an undercurrent of powerful sadness that makes PERFUME one of the most unexpectedly moving movies I’ve seen in a while. Great stuff.
Are you a fan of Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION? If so, you’re going to love Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s feature debut THE LIVES OF OTHERS, a sensational cerebral thriller about what happens to the people who spend their time in the shadows, watching and listening as other people laugh and love and plot and plan and live and even die. It’s about the toll it takes on someone’s soul to watch without ever being able to touch. And finally, it’s a film about how much an unexpected kindness can resonate in someone’s life.
The Cold War era continues to be a rich source of material for storytellers, particularly filmmakers who were directly impacted by it. The national identity of Germany is still struggling with various stages of its history, and digging into the surveillance techniques used by East Germany against its own citizens offers an opportunity at healing and understanding. Ulrich Muhe is a great German actor who has appeared in a number of Michael Haneke films, including his classic FUNNY GAMES. Muhe’s got one of those great movie faces, and so much of this film plays out as he’s listening in on Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) and Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), an actress and a playwright who appear to be loyal East Germans, but who are suspected of secret sedition. He starts his assignment pleased to be spying on them, irritated by Dreyman on general principle. This is the second great role I’ve seen Koch play in the last month. He’s also in Paul Verhoeven’s blistering BLACK BOOK, playing a Nazi. Here, he manages to give Dreyman a complexity that is haunting. He wants to survive in East Germany. He wants to be free to create his art. He believes he knows how to balance his freedoms, how to get by within the system. But it takes a toll on him, and no matter how much he wants to be a good East German, it’s not easy. Fate keeps pushing him in ways that would make even the most blindly loyal person question what he believes. What I find most compelling about this script is the way it never once turns these characters into simple political symbols. This is not a movie about East Germany in a symbolic sense, and it doesn’t strain at some greater metaphor. By telling a simple human story against this backdrop, it makes its points with both power and precision. Exceptional.
Chris Noonan hasn’t directed a film since 1995’s BABE, a classic by any standard. Eleven years is a long time to wait for a follow-up, and MISS POTTER is a mild-mannered way of getting back in the game. This twee little ditty about Beatrix Potter, author of the PETER RABBIT stories, is obviously aimed square at the audience for FINDING NEVERLAND, and Noonan works hard to pack the movie with quirky little visual flourishes. But it’s ultimately very familiar stuff, and no matter how charming the cast is, the film seems way too calculated to be effective. Whimsy is one of the hardest things to do right, and the script by Richard Maltby Jr. is too thin to pull it off.
Renee Zellweger plays Potter as a slightly-dotty pampered rich girl who has done her best to defy the expectations of her mother (Barbara Flynn) and her father (Bill Paterson), society figures. Because she comes from money, she is expected to marry money, but she hasn’t liked anyone her mother has presented to her. She’s far more interested in her “friends,” the characters she creates for her books. She approaches Harold (Anton Lesser) and Fruing (David Bamber) Warne, publishers, about them releasing her books. They agree to publish her, but mainly so they can find a project for their inexperienced youngest brother, Norman (Ewan McGregor). He’s put in charge of “the silly rabbit book,” and he ends up totally smitten with Potter and her creations. The collaboration between them creates an instant classic, and they follow it up with another, and another. Potter becomes fast friends with Norman’s outspoken sister Millie (Emily Watson, surprisingly plump these days), and almost inevitably, she falls in love with Norman. The middle section of the movie, the stuff where they fall in love, is actually pretty enjoyable, and Noonan’s got a comic touch that works for the film. But it can’t sustain that level of charm, and once the requisite tragedy kicks in, the film feels like it’s going through the motions. I think Zellweger should give “plucky” a break from her repertoire. She’s done it a lot lately, and it’s wearing thin. I’m also troubled by the way McGregor seems to be going out of his way to avoid playing the lead in anything these days. Would someone figure out what the fuck to do with him already? Please?
When people go through the trouble to send out an Academy screener, you assume they actually think they have a chance at some sort of Academy Awards recognition. I’ve seen movies sent out that seemed like long shots, but I am truly baffled as to why anyone would go through the expense and the bother to send out SHADOWBOXER, a witless and occasionally repulsive thriller/drama from director Lee Daniels. It’s weird that Helen Mirren is going to win her Oscar in the same year that she makes a film as agonizingly awful as this one. She plays a hitman named Rose. She is partnered professionally and romantically with Mikey, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. The two of them are good at what they do, cold-blooded, but they have a secret no one knows. Rose is dying of cancer. She and Mikey are going to take their money and get out of the business after one last job.
Are you rolling your eyes yet?
The “one-last-job-before-retiring” hitman movie has got whiskers on it at this point, but if the film managed to be exciting or at least entertaining, it would be fine. Instead, Daniel seems unsure if he’s making a trashy thriller or a family drama. Stephen Dorff shows up as a crime boss named Clayton, and this is a scenery-chewing hambone turn by Dorff, complete with a scene where he actually pulls his pussy-slick condom-wrapped dick out of a woman and plays a scene fully exposed for no apparent reason. He wants his girlfriend Vickie to be killed, and he contracts (through a third party) for Mikey and Rose to do it. Instead, they show up just as Vickie (Vanessa Ferlito) is giving birth. They not only deliver the baby, but they take Vickie and the baby and they take off. They go underground.
And for seven years, they live as a family. Seriously. This movie takes place over seven years. It’s a rough ride, with cliché after cliché stacking up, until finally I had trouble actually watching it through to the very end. I don’t want to pick on the movie, but it really is sort of incomprehensible. After the halfway point, the ridiculousness accumulates at a crushing pace, and anyone who makes it through to the totally absurd ending deserves extra points. The only consideration a film like this deserves from the Academy is wondering how it got made.
I was a big fan of Chris Nolan’s THE PRESTIGE when I saw it, and for some reason, I avoided seeing THE ILLUSIONIST at roughly the same time because I thought it would suffer by comparison. I really enjoyed Neil Burger’s first film back in 2002, INTERVIEW WITH THE ASSASSIN. I’m sorry I missed this one in the theater now that I’ve finally caught up with it, and I can see why it was a word-of-mouth hit. It’s one of those films that builds up to a climax designed to send an audience reeling out the door, pleased with themselves for putting all the pieces together. It’s far more interested in crowd-pleasing than Nolan’s film was, and that’s fine. THE ILLUSIONIST is a tragic love story first and foremost, and Ed Norton and Jessica Biehl don’t really have any chemistry in their scenes together. Then again, I can’t think of any film where Biehl has chemistry with anyone. She’s hot, but she’s sort of a blank.
This is more about the battle of wits going on between Ed Norton as Eisnenheim The Illusionist and Chief Inspector Uhl, played by Paul Giamatti. Uhl represents the local law, and he serves as a sort of functionary for Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell in raging prick mode). When Eisenheim becomes a real problem for the Crown Prince, it’s up to Uhl to figure out a way to run the magician out of the city or shut him down. It’s a game of one-upsmanship that becomes more and more delicious as things escalate. Giamatti and Norton seem to be having a great time here, but everything’s played quiet, close to the vest. When the film finally reaches its straight-out-of-USUAL-SUSPECTS ending, it’s earned the “holy shit!” that it tries for. This may not be as much of a head game as THE PRESTIGE, but it’s a great magic trick in its own right, and well worth your time.
I wish I could say the same about THE PAINTED VEIL, the other Edward Norton film I just watched. I wasn’t much for John Curran’s last film, WE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE, but I figured Ron Nyswaner’s adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel sounded sufficiently different that it was worth a look. Curran loves misery, and he seems to enjoy punishing his audience and his characters in equal measure. THE PAINTED VEIL certainly isn’t a bad film. It’s quite striking thanks to the cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh (ONCE WERE WARRIORS, LONE STAR, AEON FLUX), and the performances by Naomi Watts, Norton, Liev Schreiber and Toby Jones are fine. It was particularly nice seeing Diana Rigg show up as the Mother Superior in the film. But as a piece of drama, this thing just never gets moving. Kitty (Watts) marries Walter (Ed Norton) after a truncated courtship, and moves with him to Shanghai. She doesn’t love him, but she marries him to get out into the world. She meets the mega-charming Charlie (Schreiber) and has an affair with him. When Walter figures it out, he signs up to travel to the inner heart of the country, where there’s a cholera outbreak. He forces his wife to join him in spite of the danger it poses to both of them, perhaps to punish her. The film is mainly about what happens between them as they live in this dangerous area. Some big things happen, but for whatever reason, I found the entire thing sort of by-the-numbers and lifeless. It’s frustrating to see this many elements fail to congeal into something special, but PAINTED VEIL is one of those films that refuses to add up based on all the talent involved.
I think I’ve actually finished watching films for the list at this point, so I’m going to start working on the list itself. I’m also in the process of gearing up for the return of the DVD column. Lots of good stuff to do, so I should head to bed now and work on shaking this head cold.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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That's a lot.
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...because I disagree with him on almost every film I've seen on that list. I thought Blood Diamond was really damn good, that Marie Antionette was absolute featherweight self indulgent dross (even if it was well shot dross), and that A Scanner Darkly was yet another self aware Linklater wankfest experiment just as the horribly self indulgent Waking Life was (and I'm a hardcore Philip K Dick fan too, and don't particularly hate Linklaters other films). I find that whole rotoscoping angle very gimmicky and distracting, but I was willing to overcome that if everything else worked. But it didn't. Not for me at least. And I so wanted it to. Oh well. I do agree that Miss Potter was pretty damn poor and strictly by the numbers fare, and I still say that Zellweger hasn't given a decent performance since, well, pretty much ever. Strictly a one schtick pony. "If yew need actin' lessons, heyre I yam"...Still, opinions do vary and all, so, yeah.
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"...and the return of the dvd column." We'll have to see it to believe it. Really miss the DVD blog. One movie at a time. Short or long review, doesn't matter.
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I really enjoyed Blood diamond and The last Samurai and I never saw it another way until it was just pointed out. My question is about performance. Do you really think Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise were that bad to bring this glaring issue to the front? Or is it that the Side characters performances are so strong that they make the main roles seem weaker? What do you think would have happened to the story and ambiance if the main characters just weren't there or had weaker roles?
I understand the typical hollywood drivel gets annoying at times but these movies were the few exceptions in which I didn't feel the need to pay attention to the casting. -
It is obvious is you look for it, and even if you don't, you'll still probably know what's happening before Giamatti's character does. The movie was alright, but I much prefer the smarter and better made Prestige
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It's very interesting to see Das Leben Der Anderen reviece such praise among american online film critics, bloggers, writers, whatever. Yeah...the praise is not that surprising because this is just a good movie. Still I felt a bit disappointed by it when I saw it some time ago. I saw The Conversation shortly after I saw Das Leben Der Anderen and, while I don't want to let these two films collide in a duell, I found the style in which The Conversation manages to portray the topic was exactly what I missed in Donnersmarck's film. While you could argue that the stiff style of Das Leben der anderen was a deliberate choice (my brother liked that Guckkasten mode) I also thought that the cinematic experience was diminished by some quirky points in the plot. I love Ulrich Mühe, he's one of my facorite german actors because he's got that very feminine and sensitive appearance. Actually the whole esemble of this film is great...another outstanding actor: Ulrich Tukur, that scene in the Stasi Kantine where he is telling that joke is great. One question remains for me: Why end a movie with a still picture?
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I'm still anticipating A Scanner Darkly. It may help though to watch 35 movies a week to reach a state that is quite similar to this film protagonists. I don't know if you do the films you watch any justice if you watch 35 of them in a row. In the end though, this probably depends on what type you are..if you've got that habitus moriarty has...it's probably ok.
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But it won't even get nominated, because there aren't Nazis in it. Sorry. No Nazis = No Oscarnom for Germany. Or do you know a better reason why films like "Das Experiment" or "Lola rennt" haven't been nominated?
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Of course
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Wow ... it sure was nice to read these reviews after reading that "cum fountain" review from Harry.
I felt the same way about many of these movies ... and it's funny you mentioned "Shadowboxer." We donated a whole wall section for this movie at the Blockbuster I work at, and even though it consistently rented out, everyone would bring it back with these looks of disgust on their faces. I only heard one person say they enjoyed it, and he was an idiot ... he also hyped up "Date Movie." Alas, I rented that in a bout of depression, and I couldn't make it more than ten minutes into it before screaming and ripping my own flesh off. There are still long gashes on the sides of my DVD player where I was trying desperately to rip that disc out.
"Shadowboxer" has Cuba Fucking Jr. in it ... and without his big teeth, I don't know if there's any reason I would watch him.
He's like the anti-Laurence Fishburne for me. While Fishy went from playing a rhinestone-covered minstrel in Cowboy Curtis to being the bad ass actor he is today, Cuba went straight from stardom into a total mockery of himself. Shit. Thanks for the reviews. -
..No he's not. He's a stand up guy.
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Looked amazing, haven't seen a prettier film this side of Mary Antoinette, and ironically had the same problems with it. In MA the trouble was the anachronistic soundtrack which WILL date the film horridly in about 5-10 years time (we can pray they'll wallop an orchestral score as a secondary track on the DVD) But with Perfume it was the facile dialogue and trite delivery. Not even frim Ben Wishaw who's character was supposed to be clumsy with words but even the narration was written poorly and felt as if it was being spoken to a child.
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Good job Mori. I agree, Richard Linklater is an admirable filmmaker, but even though Mori didn't discuss it, Linklater's mediocre writing and directing effort on his recent Fast Food Nation film was a great disappointment, as was the smugness he demonstrated when he was doing press for the FFN film.
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Great acting does not cover lazy directing and a screenplay that meanders to nowhere interesting.
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Moriarty: Why don't you just continue your dvd blog, instead of waiting for some miraculous breakthrough in the programming abilities of the AICN "developers" that will allow you to post on this site? You can always move your blog posts over to AICN when they have finally figured out how to install WordPress...
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great flick, and everyone i know that actually saw it agrees. love the soundtrack!
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Oh yeah, crap. Crap crap crap crap crap.Spoilers ahead!I was enjoying the movie all the way until the twist reveal. Through the whole film they constantly talk about how ruthless and cruel Rufus Sewell's Prince character is...except they never show him doing anything particularly mean, outside of being a prick when he talks to people. So, in the end, Norton and Biel's plan to run away together ends up costing Sewell's Prince his life, while having showed no real justification for it. On top of that, the two of them played Giamatti's character for a fool as a tool in their plan, costing him his job/profession. Norton and Biel royally fucked over several people, and without reason. That doesn't make them heroes to me, that makes them complete ass holes.
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The whole reason they wanted to run away was that the prince was going to overthrow the emperor ... he was only marrying Biel to get the backing of her family in the coup.
That being said, I did think the twist sort of deflated the film a little ... Sewell was justified in being arrested, and it was nice to see Giamatti finally take a stand against someone who he knew was corrupt, but nothing really satisfied me about the resolution as far as Eisenheim and Biel were concerned.
I enjoyed the movie, sure, but for me ... The Prestige won out by showing off much more complex characters, and the depths at which one will go. -
Uh, I mean - McWeeny GOTTA EAT!
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First of all that was a good review Mori. In fact it had me feeling bad for a moment for not loving the film. Then I thought about it a bit mroe and got my bearings back. The deal with the film is that, while you are right about displaying subtleties, these characters are losers. I mean yeah they are rich and royal but that is literally all they have going for them. Otherwise they are shallow and boring, which would be fine if the film was more of an examination, but it establishes the mentality of the characters early on and doesn't dig deeper. Early in the film I thought it would portray Marie as a girl who, frustrated with her lack of freedom within the monarchy, takes advantage and rebels the only way she knows how, through constant partying and spending, effectivbely duping the institution. But no, she just becomes spoiled and buys alot of stuff and just when it seems like she going to be forced to get over that the film ends. All that I could take from the film was that Marie Antoinette, despite her immense fame, did nothing of note whatsoever except get her head chopped off. Witht hat said the use of modern language int he film was used beautifully and not exploited in the least allowing for characters that at least initially come off as human beings. It certainly wasn't a bad film, I'm just wondering why this is the story Coppola felt she had to tell.
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See, if he had managed to start the Coup, or something like that, sure, that would have made him a "bad" guy (honestly, one monarch overthrowing another doesn't really bother me, they're still automatically assholes for being monarchs), but we really didn't get to see anything concrete about his plans...so, again, he's just an arrogant prick. That doesn't mean he deserves to have his life ruined to the point where he's forced to kill himself. Even _if_ that's the case, they didn't really show how the change in monarch would really affect Norton and Biel, nor did they show that Norton and Biel were particularly concerned with the fate of their countrymen. Anyway, I agree...The Prestige is a thousand times the film that The Illusionist is, and it's been sadly ignored in the awards and nominations handed out thus far.
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Hey Industry killer. I think I'm tired of talkback. I was about to justify why everything Mori said about Marie Antionette and about how I found your opinions insightful, but I disagree. But then I remembered all this stuff is just a matter of taste. Really that's all it is. I've spent the last 6 months trying to figure out why everyone liked Little Miss Sunshine when I think it is one of the worst written movies I've seen in years. Now it's basically a lock for best picture and what do my tirades against it matter? Not it all. So then, Mori, that was some damn good stuff. Thanks.
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Wow. my grammar was terrible in that last post. Apologies. I have to stop writing this crap when I'm distracted.
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This was a good movie. Really shit on for no particular reason. I wrote a review of it as well and similarly I proposed the French couldn't handle a depiction of M.A. that wasn't unabashedly demonic. This movie is extremely well-made and I think the hoopla created at Canne really screwed it unfairly.
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Coppola did an amazing job personalizing the story, but making it universally relevant, not unlike a Shakespeare history play.
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i was predisposed to be a hater because i think sofia coppola doesn't actually direct films...someone else does it for her (nudge, nudge, wink wink). however, i thought she got it pitch-perfect this time and honestly i thought dunst did too. industrykiller, marie antoinette didn't rebel against anything. she was a puppet of the monarchy and, in point of fact, got her head chopped off because she and her husband spent down the treasury, not because the people didn't love her. they did, in fact. the pathos of her character is just that...she was a woman-child trapped by the system, and the design, the camera, even the music - which WAS canny, definitely - did a great job. i was quite surprised and i think the french making noise about it gave it a bad rap.
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The cinematography was about the only passable thing in my opinion, and there's a beautiful shot of one of the dead bodies amongst flowers, but everything else was awful in my opinion. I didn't feel that he was injecting things with humor, but rather that it was unintentionally funny. Dustin Hoffman's character was all over the place. It was just confusing that everyone Jean Baptiste came in contact with died, and the ending of the movie was just ridiculous with the angel, and the group orgy, and then his body just disappearing at the end. Also, the wholse scene at the party, where there needs to be some clever way for Jean Baptiste to be able to catch Laura, and then someone just yells out "Let's play hide and seek!", well that was convenient. Now, some of my dislike may stem from that I thought it would be more about a murderer, while, the film DOES focus on Jean Baptiste almost exclusively, it felt more about a fairy tale about a love potion, and if it was meant to be that, than that's fine, but to have the subheading "Story of a Murderer" in your title, it clearly shows the type of tone you're setting. Sorry if I'm being a little harsh here, but I saw Pan's Labyrinth right after it, which was great ,and the last bunch of movies I saw have all been fantastic, so I guess I had higher standards here.
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In today's society, we have become predispositioned towards either witty or sincere. With regards to your best of the year, catch up article, The Illusionist harkens back towards those 40s films, except that it is so meticulously well written and executed that there exists no moment which deserves (or expects) a pithy response. That is why this film summarily trumps The Prestige, which is infinitely flashier and obviously has more money. At its heart, The Illusionist is greatly conceived and even better executed. As for Ed Zwick, what about The Siege? Personally, flaws and all, I loved the film because I think it had that sense of cognitive awareness of the world in which it was being made. And I dare you to say that Annette Benning was the "white character" showing the world through the "black guy's" viewpoint. Or how about "Courage Under Fire". Not one of my favorite Ed Zwick's films, but yet again where a major Hollywood director has attempted to step outside the racial box. When was the last time Marty Scorsese tried that? Or aside from Amistad, Spielberg? Nobody decries or denounces Scorsese for the lack of African American influence in his seminal classics. Double Standard? What ever happened to just good old fashioned great movie making? (See the Illusionist).
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Its just an absolute feast for the eyes and ears. Stuffy critics just hated it because it didn't play like your typical period piece movie.
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The rest really havent stood up to the mark. Lost in translation is a boring movie. racist in places and is an utterly grey film to look at. It was too dreamy. Pretenious nonsense of the worst kind. The best scene is the opener with scarlets heart shaped ass.
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around her neck. There is nothing she can do about her name and she is stuck with it. Its like jake scott. Jake Scott is the son of Tony scott and is the nephew of Sir Ridley scott. You dont hear too much from Jake scott these days, pLunkett and Maclean was an awful film. long drawn out and the story was an incoherent mess.
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but for different reasons. I never thought of the whole white guy thing. I just thought it was preachy and sucky at the same time.
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you don't actually feel SORRY for sofia coppola, do you? do you feel sorry for nic cage, also a coppola? for jason schwartzman? for talia shire? sofia coppola is a powerful filmmaker because nepotism is one of the foundations hollywood was laid on, PLUS because she had spike jonze as her right hand telling her how to do everything. she's getting better as a filmmaker because she's smart and paid attention...otherwise, yes, she'd be another jake scott (who is ridley's son, not nephew).
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We more or less seem to agree over Perfume. I'm aware that it was more of a fantasy with thriller thrown in, which is fine, but I was frustrated because it wasn't marketed that way. And yes, that would be a marketing problem, not with the film itself, but the fact that they have that "Story of a Murderer" in it's title leads me to believe that they wanted people to think it was a thriller first and foremost. And yes, 2.5 hours for this film was far too long.
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