(no subject)
+ From the first hour of the The Oscars, I can gather that Hugo is technically flawless, and I need to see it already.
Instead of seeing Hugo or any of the other nominees I hadn't caught yet, when I went to the movies last I saw The Artist again as rickenbacker hadn't seen it yet - my first repeat viewing of the year. I think it holds up, for the most part, although for me, the final act was entirely lacking in suspense the second go around. And I still can't make out why George reacts that way to the police officer who chats him up outside the formal wear shop. Anyone have Thoughts on that?
B and I also caught a free screening of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011, ***) back on Valentine's Day (yes, that is how I roll). Ewan McGregor is all sensitive and adorable in it, so if that's your thing, don't miss this. Things I liked: the cinematography, the comedic bits, the actor playing the Shiekh and the fact that his arabic accent wasn't terrible, the way Alfred is slowly won over, the hint we get of the central three as a found family. Things I didn't like: I didn't realize I was supposed to be watching a love story until the very CGI'd end, when the film told me. Given the heavy use of CGI, I genuinely wonder if Harriet and Alfred were not originally scripted to end up together, and it was changed in response to early returns from test screenings. I also thought just another two scenes would have made the "found family" dynamic much more fully realized. I think we were missing a scene where the Shiekh and Harriet speak frankly to one another about the project and its chance for success, and she talks up Alfred to him (you know, the implied scene before she tells Alfred that the Shiekh wants to meet him) and you get a better sense of how much he relies on her and how much she wants to make this happen for him. You'll note we got a number of bromance-y scenes of Alfred and Harriet, but I don't think we ever saw Harriet alone with the Shiekh. And we needed another scene at the camp, while the project was still underway, with just the three of them. I think it would have set up the later campfire scene nicely. Also, honestly, you're $50 million into this project only for it to be flummoxed by a manually controlled dam with one motherfucking guard? I also had a really hard time buying Harriet's soulcrushing despair over the disappearance of her boyfriend of THREE WEEKS in Afghanistan. It felt as manufactured to me as the apparent love that developed between Harriet and Alfred while I wasn't looking. Seriously. I could buy that he'd developed a little crush on her, but end his marriage kind of love? Wasn't feeling it. The chemistry just wasn't there. I hate when romantic comedy leads only have friends-chemistry. Throws everything off.
Amr Waked was quite good as the Shiekh! Hope to see more of him in English language cinema.
Forgot to list my January viewing of The Quiet American (2002,***), inspired by my reading of the book, which I was finishing up around the same time (yes, I spoiled the book for myself by watching the movie while I was mid-way through). Brendan Fraser and Michael Caine didn't quite have the chemistry I'd imagined for Pyle and Fowler, but the roles were still well-played. It was an interesting comparative exercise, because the screenplay changes a few things about Pyle, most fundamentally, I don't think you can make any argument that the Pyle of the film is as naive as the Pyle of the book or as good intentioned. The reaction of movie!Pyle to the bombing in the square could not have been more different than Pyle's reaction in the book, and that reaction is one of the things that marks him as a kid in over his head. It's what makes his dogged defense of his involvement all the more heartbreaking later on, when you realize not just that he doesn't get it, but that he can't get it, he's too devoted to theory to see reality and too young to understand there is nothing new under the sun. Movie!Pyle is clearly much more seasoned, more cold, more calculating. For my money, that takes a bit out of the punch of what ultimately happens to Pyle, and pulls Fowler over to the less villianous side of the spectrum. Which is too bad. The dynamic and the tension in the book was, not surprisingly, a lot more textured, and thus more interesting. The one thing I think the movie did right was to add a little bit of personality and depth to Phuong. She's such a central character in the book, and drives much of what happens between Pyle and Fowler, yet I never really got a sense of who she was in that medium. She comes across as much more real in the film.
+ On a wholly unrelated now: I'm not going to start reading Rory/Eleven fic now, am I? Because once I do it, it can't be undone. I can't unring that bell. Someone stop me.
Instead of seeing Hugo or any of the other nominees I hadn't caught yet, when I went to the movies last I saw The Artist again as rickenbacker hadn't seen it yet - my first repeat viewing of the year. I think it holds up, for the most part, although for me, the final act was entirely lacking in suspense the second go around. And I still can't make out why George reacts that way to the police officer who chats him up outside the formal wear shop. Anyone have Thoughts on that?
B and I also caught a free screening of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011, ***) back on Valentine's Day (yes, that is how I roll). Ewan McGregor is all sensitive and adorable in it, so if that's your thing, don't miss this. Things I liked: the cinematography, the comedic bits, the actor playing the Shiekh and the fact that his arabic accent wasn't terrible, the way Alfred is slowly won over, the hint we get of the central three as a found family. Things I didn't like: I didn't realize I was supposed to be watching a love story until the very CGI'd end, when the film told me. Given the heavy use of CGI, I genuinely wonder if Harriet and Alfred were not originally scripted to end up together, and it was changed in response to early returns from test screenings. I also thought just another two scenes would have made the "found family" dynamic much more fully realized. I think we were missing a scene where the Shiekh and Harriet speak frankly to one another about the project and its chance for success, and she talks up Alfred to him (you know, the implied scene before she tells Alfred that the Shiekh wants to meet him) and you get a better sense of how much he relies on her and how much she wants to make this happen for him. You'll note we got a number of bromance-y scenes of Alfred and Harriet, but I don't think we ever saw Harriet alone with the Shiekh. And we needed another scene at the camp, while the project was still underway, with just the three of them. I think it would have set up the later campfire scene nicely. Also, honestly, you're $50 million into this project only for it to be flummoxed by a manually controlled dam with one motherfucking guard? I also had a really hard time buying Harriet's soulcrushing despair over the disappearance of her boyfriend of THREE WEEKS in Afghanistan. It felt as manufactured to me as the apparent love that developed between Harriet and Alfred while I wasn't looking. Seriously. I could buy that he'd developed a little crush on her, but end his marriage kind of love? Wasn't feeling it. The chemistry just wasn't there. I hate when romantic comedy leads only have friends-chemistry. Throws everything off.
Amr Waked was quite good as the Shiekh! Hope to see more of him in English language cinema.
Forgot to list my January viewing of The Quiet American (2002,***), inspired by my reading of the book, which I was finishing up around the same time (yes, I spoiled the book for myself by watching the movie while I was mid-way through). Brendan Fraser and Michael Caine didn't quite have the chemistry I'd imagined for Pyle and Fowler, but the roles were still well-played. It was an interesting comparative exercise, because the screenplay changes a few things about Pyle, most fundamentally, I don't think you can make any argument that the Pyle of the film is as naive as the Pyle of the book or as good intentioned. The reaction of movie!Pyle to the bombing in the square could not have been more different than Pyle's reaction in the book, and that reaction is one of the things that marks him as a kid in over his head. It's what makes his dogged defense of his involvement all the more heartbreaking later on, when you realize not just that he doesn't get it, but that he can't get it, he's too devoted to theory to see reality and too young to understand there is nothing new under the sun. Movie!Pyle is clearly much more seasoned, more cold, more calculating. For my money, that takes a bit out of the punch of what ultimately happens to Pyle, and pulls Fowler over to the less villianous side of the spectrum. Which is too bad. The dynamic and the tension in the book was, not surprisingly, a lot more textured, and thus more interesting. The one thing I think the movie did right was to add a little bit of personality and depth to Phuong. She's such a central character in the book, and drives much of what happens between Pyle and Fowler, yet I never really got a sense of who she was in that medium. She comes across as much more real in the film.
+ On a wholly unrelated now: I'm not going to start reading Rory/Eleven fic now, am I? Because once I do it, it can't be undone. I can't unring that bell. Someone stop me.