In which I prove that my mind is firmly in a reasonable facsimile of the past.
Brief (and not so brief) comments on a few movies that I watched recently (by which I pretty much mean “sometime this year”) and liked, but never got around to posting on.
Beneath: A modern Gothic about sisters with a psychic link, only one dies in a car accident resulting in the other spending years apparently in and out of asylums. And then she goes to her brother-in-law’s house and her niece says there’s a monster and she starts having visions and her creepy drawings start coming true. It was awesome.
The Duchess: Movie from 2008 and Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire in the late 18th century. Keira Knightley does a good job despite physically looking very wrong for the job. (I’m very fond of her and think she does a good job in her period roles, but she’s so thin that I have a hard time believing the people of the time would have thought her healthy looking, especially with a character whose ability to bear an heir is rather crucial to the plot.) An interesting look at life of upperclass women of the times, but also a rather harrowing one at times.
Mrs. Henderson Presents: WWII set movie about a widow who’s told she needs a hobby, and so she opens a vaudeville showhouse and turns it into a nude revue. Very entertaining, and for a movie centered around using nudity as a lure over anything else, the nudity is surprisingly non-gratuitous. The widow’s motivations are a rather out-there turn of logic, but also rather touching. But then, she is played by Judi Dench. Also based on a true story, but I’m not sure how authentic it is.
My Man Godfrey: Batty socialite (Carole Lombard) hires a hobo (William Powell) to be her butler, only he isn’t what he seems. Naturally, they fall in love, despite his sense of self-preservation. Utterly hilarious. And you know, I’ve seen I think a dozen movies with William Powell, but only 2 without Myrna Loy.
The Ring: I am no longer one of the 5 people who hasn’t seen this. Initially a rather dull horror movie, the last leg is packed full of things like interesting meta about fiction and scenes that made me sing “Teeeee-aring down the yallow wallpaper in the at-tic!”
Penny Serenade: Better-than-a-summary-makes-it-sound movie with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne about a couple on the verge of divorce, chronicling many of the ups and downs of their lives together. And Cary Grant playing with a baby with amazingly long suffering expressions. I don’t care as much for the end, though, which almost seems to wipe away their problems with a reset button for their marriage.
Stage Beauty: Restoration-era movie about Ned Kynaston, one of the last men in England to play women on stage because women weren’t allowed to act, and Margaret Hughes, one of the first women to take the stage once it became legal for them to. The movie plays it as her breaking the law to act resulting in the law being changed, but I’m not sure how accurate that is. I remember seeing trailers for this ages ago, but remember dismissing it based on the trailers as a ripoff of Shakespeare in Love, and only remembered it thanks to an exchange in the trailer where Kynaston essentially says he likes playing women because they die beautifully, and Hughes responds that no woman would passively die prettily, but that she’d fight to live. I’m not sure what I think about the overall message regarding Kynaston’s sexuality, but I’m glad that the movie didn’t portray Kynaston and Hughes as being wildly in love as much as people who had cared for each other prior to their lives being turned upside down who were still attracted to each other after becoming rivals, and I liked how they made it clear that studying acting a woman all your life didn’t mean you understood them, but at the same time, being a woman portraying a woman onstage didn’t mean you’d automatically be a good actress.
Also, Netflix sent me The Last Legion and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I expected both to be awful, but while neither was necessarily good, they both entertained.
TLL has a rather dull plot that serves as a prequel to Arthurian legend (and I like Arthurian legend, but I kept zoning out on plot parts) but it also has Aishwarya Rai and Colin Firth with swords. Once they were swinging swords and running through castles and jumping off ramparts into the sea, my needs were serviced. When it comes to pretty people with swords, I can be easy. In a remarkable turn for this type of movie, Rai was actually sensibly (if not historically accurately) dressed and only had one fanservice scene. The movie also managed to followup on the claims regarding her fighting ability, and didn’t have her suddenly lose half her skills when a guy needed to look good. I think Colin Firth had problems not staring at her prettiness in awe, and so they just made it a plot point. The important parts are summarized in this MV with its oddly perky song:
I expected the third Mummy movie to also be the worst thing ever, but I think the negative reviews made my expectations so low that nothing could meet them. But then, I have a fondness for wuxia and pulp adventure and supposedly-retired adventurers who are bored senseless. Wuxia-prologue: Glee. Bored retired adventurers: entertaining. Kid whining about how mommy and daddy were too busy saving the world to have time to love him even though he seems to have gone on most trips with them? Shut up, brat. He got better when he quit whining, though. I feel sorry for Maria Bello, though, what with most people preemptively hating her for not being Rachel Weisz. And, honestly, I liked the character she was playing, but it wasn’t quite Evie. I’m exceptionally annoyed at who killed the villain, though.
I don’t really do much for New Year’s Eve/Day. Going out drinking isn’t my thing (I’ve never deliberately had alcohol, and have no interest in changing that) and while my brother’s anniversary is the 1st and my nephew’s birthday is the second, they don’t live here, and his birthday party isn’t until next week. I do, however, gleefully do those year-end polls, and shall no doubt spend all of tomorrow on that. Except for the part where I possibly try to go to The Princess and the Frog. That depends on how crowded the theater looks when I drive by.
Beneath: A modern Gothic about sisters with a psychic link, only one dies in a car accident resulting in the other spending years apparently in and out of asylums. And then she goes to her brother-in-law’s house and her niece says there’s a monster and she starts having visions and her creepy drawings start coming true. It was awesome.
The Duchess: Movie from 2008 and Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire in the late 18th century. Keira Knightley does a good job despite physically looking very wrong for the job. (I’m very fond of her and think she does a good job in her period roles, but she’s so thin that I have a hard time believing the people of the time would have thought her healthy looking, especially with a character whose ability to bear an heir is rather crucial to the plot.) An interesting look at life of upperclass women of the times, but also a rather harrowing one at times.
Mrs. Henderson Presents: WWII set movie about a widow who’s told she needs a hobby, and so she opens a vaudeville showhouse and turns it into a nude revue. Very entertaining, and for a movie centered around using nudity as a lure over anything else, the nudity is surprisingly non-gratuitous. The widow’s motivations are a rather out-there turn of logic, but also rather touching. But then, she is played by Judi Dench. Also based on a true story, but I’m not sure how authentic it is.
My Man Godfrey: Batty socialite (Carole Lombard) hires a hobo (William Powell) to be her butler, only he isn’t what he seems. Naturally, they fall in love, despite his sense of self-preservation. Utterly hilarious. And you know, I’ve seen I think a dozen movies with William Powell, but only 2 without Myrna Loy.
The Ring: I am no longer one of the 5 people who hasn’t seen this. Initially a rather dull horror movie, the last leg is packed full of things like interesting meta about fiction and scenes that made me sing “Teeeee-aring down the yallow wallpaper in the at-tic!”
Penny Serenade: Better-than-a-summary-makes-it-sound movie with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne about a couple on the verge of divorce, chronicling many of the ups and downs of their lives together. And Cary Grant playing with a baby with amazingly long suffering expressions. I don’t care as much for the end, though, which almost seems to wipe away their problems with a reset button for their marriage.
Stage Beauty: Restoration-era movie about Ned Kynaston, one of the last men in England to play women on stage because women weren’t allowed to act, and Margaret Hughes, one of the first women to take the stage once it became legal for them to. The movie plays it as her breaking the law to act resulting in the law being changed, but I’m not sure how accurate that is. I remember seeing trailers for this ages ago, but remember dismissing it based on the trailers as a ripoff of Shakespeare in Love, and only remembered it thanks to an exchange in the trailer where Kynaston essentially says he likes playing women because they die beautifully, and Hughes responds that no woman would passively die prettily, but that she’d fight to live. I’m not sure what I think about the overall message regarding Kynaston’s sexuality, but I’m glad that the movie didn’t portray Kynaston and Hughes as being wildly in love as much as people who had cared for each other prior to their lives being turned upside down who were still attracted to each other after becoming rivals, and I liked how they made it clear that studying acting a woman all your life didn’t mean you understood them, but at the same time, being a woman portraying a woman onstage didn’t mean you’d automatically be a good actress.
Also, Netflix sent me The Last Legion and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I expected both to be awful, but while neither was necessarily good, they both entertained.
TLL has a rather dull plot that serves as a prequel to Arthurian legend (and I like Arthurian legend, but I kept zoning out on plot parts) but it also has Aishwarya Rai and Colin Firth with swords. Once they were swinging swords and running through castles and jumping off ramparts into the sea, my needs were serviced. When it comes to pretty people with swords, I can be easy. In a remarkable turn for this type of movie, Rai was actually sensibly (if not historically accurately) dressed and only had one fanservice scene. The movie also managed to followup on the claims regarding her fighting ability, and didn’t have her suddenly lose half her skills when a guy needed to look good. I think Colin Firth had problems not staring at her prettiness in awe, and so they just made it a plot point. The important parts are summarized in this MV with its oddly perky song:
Click to viewI expected the third Mummy movie to also be the worst thing ever, but I think the negative reviews made my expectations so low that nothing could meet them. But then, I have a fondness for wuxia and pulp adventure and supposedly-retired adventurers who are bored senseless. Wuxia-prologue: Glee. Bored retired adventurers: entertaining. Kid whining about how mommy and daddy were too busy saving the world to have time to love him even though he seems to have gone on most trips with them? Shut up, brat. He got better when he quit whining, though. I feel sorry for Maria Bello, though, what with most people preemptively hating her for not being Rachel Weisz. And, honestly, I liked the character she was playing, but it wasn’t quite Evie. I’m exceptionally annoyed at who killed the villain, though.
I don’t really do much for New Year’s Eve/Day. Going out drinking isn’t my thing (I’ve never deliberately had alcohol, and have no interest in changing that) and while my brother’s anniversary is the 1st and my nephew’s birthday is the second, they don’t live here, and his birthday party isn’t until next week. I do, however, gleefully do those year-end polls, and shall no doubt spend all of tomorrow on that. Except for the part where I possibly try to go to The Princess and the Frog. That depends on how crowded the theater looks when I drive by.