Da Vinci Code. 'N stuff.
Today I took the day off - it's my last full day of not having an eight-year-old around most of the time during the first three weeks of summer school vacation. I went out to breakfast at Annie's with my friend Mary, and then went to see "The Da Vinci Code" with our pal Laura.
Breakfast at Annie's was great. We got there in time for the breakfast special, and Mary is my favorite 70-year-old frothy gossip with underlying deep compassion. Well, my only one, period.
"The Da Vinci Code" has a lot of reviewers frothing at the mouth, but why? It's a B-movie, from a B-novel. Laura says it actually works better as a movie, since the script eliminates about 100 pages of unnescessary exposition about 'symbology' that takes up the first half of the novel.
The pace of the thing is ridiculous, of course, and the orchestral score moves constantly from crisis to sensa-wonda and back again about every three minutes. There's always someone stepping in front of Tom Hanks with even more exposition, face-to-face. Poor Tom Hanks looks tired because his character never gets time to sleep, or pee, or change pants, especially after the albino masochist monk dressed in completely unobstrusive dark brown robes and tassled belt starts chasing him and Audrey Tatou all over Europe.
I figured out Audrey Tatou about five minutes after she showed up. How about you?
None of the violence or naked self-whipping felt the least bit sinister. That, in itself, is amazing - this movie would have been banned from public consumption sixty years ago for this stuff. How does Ron Howard manage such a thing? I've never seen a director that can lend a naked bleeding psycho-albino whipping himself with wholesomeness, but that's how it comes across. Or am I just a jaded twerp?
Now, if Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese had directed it...well, it probably would have been completely unwatchable, but at least sinister.
Yeah, hey, it's crap, but it's rather relaxing crap, perfect for a Wednesday afternoon. The novel managed to land smack on the edge of Religious Controversy in an appealingly goofy way, so it sold millions. Millions! Woot!
But seriously - it's just appealing crap. So there.
Now, Martin Scorsese...the last few days I've dealt with "Casino" and "Bringing Out The Dead". "Bringing Out The Dead" is now my new favorite movie, and I'll have to buy a copy. I used to work night shift in a nursing home, so watching Nicholas Cage work night shift as a demented ambulance driver is close to my heart. The whole movie was just a lovely amplification of that year of my youth. I laughed, and laughed! Oh, it's fun!
Maybe not for you, though.
"Casino" is wonderful. Early Las Vegas lives. And dies! A lot! Bang, bang, bang! But it's gorgeous, and insanely well-acted.
Okay!
Breakfast at Annie's was great. We got there in time for the breakfast special, and Mary is my favorite 70-year-old frothy gossip with underlying deep compassion. Well, my only one, period.
"The Da Vinci Code" has a lot of reviewers frothing at the mouth, but why? It's a B-movie, from a B-novel. Laura says it actually works better as a movie, since the script eliminates about 100 pages of unnescessary exposition about 'symbology' that takes up the first half of the novel.
The pace of the thing is ridiculous, of course, and the orchestral score moves constantly from crisis to sensa-wonda and back again about every three minutes. There's always someone stepping in front of Tom Hanks with even more exposition, face-to-face. Poor Tom Hanks looks tired because his character never gets time to sleep, or pee, or change pants, especially after the albino masochist monk dressed in completely unobstrusive dark brown robes and tassled belt starts chasing him and Audrey Tatou all over Europe.
I figured out Audrey Tatou about five minutes after she showed up. How about you?
None of the violence or naked self-whipping felt the least bit sinister. That, in itself, is amazing - this movie would have been banned from public consumption sixty years ago for this stuff. How does Ron Howard manage such a thing? I've never seen a director that can lend a naked bleeding psycho-albino whipping himself with wholesomeness, but that's how it comes across. Or am I just a jaded twerp?
Now, if Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese had directed it...well, it probably would have been completely unwatchable, but at least sinister.
Yeah, hey, it's crap, but it's rather relaxing crap, perfect for a Wednesday afternoon. The novel managed to land smack on the edge of Religious Controversy in an appealingly goofy way, so it sold millions. Millions! Woot!
But seriously - it's just appealing crap. So there.
Now, Martin Scorsese...the last few days I've dealt with "Casino" and "Bringing Out The Dead". "Bringing Out The Dead" is now my new favorite movie, and I'll have to buy a copy. I used to work night shift in a nursing home, so watching Nicholas Cage work night shift as a demented ambulance driver is close to my heart. The whole movie was just a lovely amplification of that year of my youth. I laughed, and laughed! Oh, it's fun!
Maybe not for you, though.
"Casino" is wonderful. Early Las Vegas lives. And dies! A lot! Bang, bang, bang! But it's gorgeous, and insanely well-acted.
Okay!