an update of sorts
I realized today that my last post is disturbingly similar to my current state. 14 months and absolutely no change, no progress, no movement whatsoever. Wonderful. I'm officially disgusted with myself.
On a less depressing note, The Closer is a relatively awesome show and has been keeping me company while I was cooking the broccoli soup that my dear Lady Dory gave me the delicious recipe for. Only, I was picking all through my cooking of it and therefore, once it was done, I was no longer hungry. Ah, well...lunch tomorrow (and for several days thereafter, I should think).
I saw new movies lately, which I always like posting about, so I will...because it's better than waxing philosophic on my....life.
Movie 1- The King's Speech. I was really excited about this movie. Yes, it's Oscar bait, but it's also Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush Oscar bait, so who the hell cares? I happen to think Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth are pretty darn awesome anyway, so off I went. Add the loveliness that's Helena Bonham Carter and ::squee:: Anthony Andrews and I was sold like water in the desert. I came away with several distinctive impressions.
-The play between Rush and Firth was great. They were pretty awesome, both separately and together. Rush blew me away with his opening scene with Bonham Carter. Love love love it. And Firth was all over the emotional map, in the best of ways. And I believed it...the situation he was in required that emotional range, but I feel that Bonham Carter behind him and beside him through just about everything only enhanced Firth's performance.
-The more I think about it, the more I love Helena Bonham Carter in this movie. She plays beautifully opposite the men and the scene when she hears Bertie reading on the recording, I wanted to cry with her. Hers is truly a supporting role, and her character is a supporting character, in a very literal sense. She compliments the story beautifully and her performance is pitch perfect. She'll be under-rated next to the men and it's a shame.
-There was no drive to the story and the pacing was uneven. I feel a bit bad for the screenwriter, David Seidler. Perhaps the story itself doesn't lend itself well to an arc of any kind, but the movie was in the middle of it's very late-in-the-game climax before I even realized that's where we were. I couldn't feel the build at all. A pity, because the actual dialogue, the scene-by-scene of it was really good. I laughed out loud so many times! But viewed as a whole, it was too even...too much of a straight line.
Movie 2- Black Swan. Darren Aronofsky is a filmmaker I greatly admire. He has great vision and gets obsessed with the things he makes movies about. Or he seems to, anyway. He's also completely dedicated. It's....just awesome. He also is the director of one of my favorite movies of all time-The Fountain. Anyway...I love Aronofsky, I love ballet, Natalie Portman is generally awesome, and Swan Lake is a great ballet. My only reservation was that I'm not a fan of horror movies. As Black Swan is technically categorized as a "Psychological Thriller", my weighing of the pros and cons came down pretty heavily on the pros. So, once again, off I went.
-I had been hearing rave reviews of Portman's performance. I was torn...ish. I totally believed her, but I didn't sit there thinking "This is an awesome performance!". Maybe it's better that I didn't think that, though, because if I did, maybe that would've taken me out of the story too much. She was good, there's no denying that. She played the fragility well...but at times I just wanted to shake her and be like "You're a beautiful dancer! Just LOOK at yourself! I want to see you love the dancing while you're dancing". Perhaps it's because I love dancing myself...her lack of confidence bugged me, but that was *the point*...so...well done, Natalie.
-People really do overrate sex scenes. At least their integration into the movie made sense and did not seem gratuitous to me.
-It was pretty interesting to see The King's Speech and this movie very close together. Black Swan has a fantastic structure and has a beautiful build. The ensemble is great. Vincent Cassel as the ballet master was really good (a bit sceevy but good), as well as Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, and Winona Ryder in supporting roles. The supporting actors matched Portman in their dedication, so perhaps that's another reason why she didn't pop out extremely.
-I was a little disappointed by the dancing. It wasn't the choreography or the execution of it, really. It struck me as a bit odd, because usually I see dance movies and want to run out and take class 5 times a week for several hours :). This movie is definitely set in the dance world, but it is not strictly a "dance" movie. The story is Nina's and dance is one of many supporting characters, not the lead.
-Lighting was really interesting...set dressing and production design was interesting...and I kind of want to watch the movie again simply to pay more attention to the technical elements. Most of the film if not all, was shot by hand. Like I said...Aronofsky fascinates me. It's never just entertainment or art...it's always both and they're so beautifully intertwined that I love looking at the product. And I also love looking at each piece and how it fits within the finished product.
-Despite all of the above...I'm not exactly sure how I felt about the movie. It's really not fair of me to expect to connect to it the way I do with The Fountain, so I tried not to. Still...very interesting and beautifully told by filmmaker, designers and ensemble.
As a side-note, because I really need to get off the computer really soon, I have a new author to follow around until she writes more books. Tana French, author of, so far, In The Woods, The Likeness, and Faithful Place. She writes mysteries, which, with a few exceptions, I'm not usually the biggest fan of. They tend to be a bit cookie-cutter to me...but I love French's style. Her storytelling is awesome. She writes about these really intense situations and still manages to make you laugh throughout the novel. Also, I don't know why Irish cursing is so amusing to me, but it is. Anyway, she's really good, and I'm looking forward to reading In The Woods...the only one I haven't flown through yet :).
Okay...now I'm going to go wash my face, brush my teeth and snuggle into my doonas to watch Castle...and hopefully fall asleep early so I can get up early and make my quiche
On a less depressing note, The Closer is a relatively awesome show and has been keeping me company while I was cooking the broccoli soup that my dear Lady Dory gave me the delicious recipe for. Only, I was picking all through my cooking of it and therefore, once it was done, I was no longer hungry. Ah, well...lunch tomorrow (and for several days thereafter, I should think).
I saw new movies lately, which I always like posting about, so I will...because it's better than waxing philosophic on my....life.
Movie 1- The King's Speech. I was really excited about this movie. Yes, it's Oscar bait, but it's also Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush Oscar bait, so who the hell cares? I happen to think Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth are pretty darn awesome anyway, so off I went. Add the loveliness that's Helena Bonham Carter and ::squee:: Anthony Andrews and I was sold like water in the desert. I came away with several distinctive impressions.
-The play between Rush and Firth was great. They were pretty awesome, both separately and together. Rush blew me away with his opening scene with Bonham Carter. Love love love it. And Firth was all over the emotional map, in the best of ways. And I believed it...the situation he was in required that emotional range, but I feel that Bonham Carter behind him and beside him through just about everything only enhanced Firth's performance.
-The more I think about it, the more I love Helena Bonham Carter in this movie. She plays beautifully opposite the men and the scene when she hears Bertie reading on the recording, I wanted to cry with her. Hers is truly a supporting role, and her character is a supporting character, in a very literal sense. She compliments the story beautifully and her performance is pitch perfect. She'll be under-rated next to the men and it's a shame.
-There was no drive to the story and the pacing was uneven. I feel a bit bad for the screenwriter, David Seidler. Perhaps the story itself doesn't lend itself well to an arc of any kind, but the movie was in the middle of it's very late-in-the-game climax before I even realized that's where we were. I couldn't feel the build at all. A pity, because the actual dialogue, the scene-by-scene of it was really good. I laughed out loud so many times! But viewed as a whole, it was too even...too much of a straight line.
Movie 2- Black Swan. Darren Aronofsky is a filmmaker I greatly admire. He has great vision and gets obsessed with the things he makes movies about. Or he seems to, anyway. He's also completely dedicated. It's....just awesome. He also is the director of one of my favorite movies of all time-The Fountain. Anyway...I love Aronofsky, I love ballet, Natalie Portman is generally awesome, and Swan Lake is a great ballet. My only reservation was that I'm not a fan of horror movies. As Black Swan is technically categorized as a "Psychological Thriller", my weighing of the pros and cons came down pretty heavily on the pros. So, once again, off I went.
-I had been hearing rave reviews of Portman's performance. I was torn...ish. I totally believed her, but I didn't sit there thinking "This is an awesome performance!". Maybe it's better that I didn't think that, though, because if I did, maybe that would've taken me out of the story too much. She was good, there's no denying that. She played the fragility well...but at times I just wanted to shake her and be like "You're a beautiful dancer! Just LOOK at yourself! I want to see you love the dancing while you're dancing". Perhaps it's because I love dancing myself...her lack of confidence bugged me, but that was *the point*...so...well done, Natalie.
-People really do overrate sex scenes. At least their integration into the movie made sense and did not seem gratuitous to me.
-It was pretty interesting to see The King's Speech and this movie very close together. Black Swan has a fantastic structure and has a beautiful build. The ensemble is great. Vincent Cassel as the ballet master was really good (a bit sceevy but good), as well as Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, and Winona Ryder in supporting roles. The supporting actors matched Portman in their dedication, so perhaps that's another reason why she didn't pop out extremely.
-I was a little disappointed by the dancing. It wasn't the choreography or the execution of it, really. It struck me as a bit odd, because usually I see dance movies and want to run out and take class 5 times a week for several hours :). This movie is definitely set in the dance world, but it is not strictly a "dance" movie. The story is Nina's and dance is one of many supporting characters, not the lead.
-Lighting was really interesting...set dressing and production design was interesting...and I kind of want to watch the movie again simply to pay more attention to the technical elements. Most of the film if not all, was shot by hand. Like I said...Aronofsky fascinates me. It's never just entertainment or art...it's always both and they're so beautifully intertwined that I love looking at the product. And I also love looking at each piece and how it fits within the finished product.
-Despite all of the above...I'm not exactly sure how I felt about the movie. It's really not fair of me to expect to connect to it the way I do with The Fountain, so I tried not to. Still...very interesting and beautifully told by filmmaker, designers and ensemble.
As a side-note, because I really need to get off the computer really soon, I have a new author to follow around until she writes more books. Tana French, author of, so far, In The Woods, The Likeness, and Faithful Place. She writes mysteries, which, with a few exceptions, I'm not usually the biggest fan of. They tend to be a bit cookie-cutter to me...but I love French's style. Her storytelling is awesome. She writes about these really intense situations and still manages to make you laugh throughout the novel. Also, I don't know why Irish cursing is so amusing to me, but it is. Anyway, she's really good, and I'm looking forward to reading In The Woods...the only one I haven't flown through yet :).
Okay...now I'm going to go wash my face, brush my teeth and snuggle into my doonas to watch Castle...and hopefully fall asleep early so I can get up early and make my quiche