a notorious baggage

I saw this last night at a local queer film event. It was free, so I thought I’d check it out. 

High Art was… interesting. It was pretty funny in places, which surprised me, but I thought the whole druggy-arty-bohemian lesbian thing was a little clichéd. And the dialogue was all angsty and mostly mumbled and made little sense. It’s worth seeing, I’d say, if only for Ally Sheedy being her quirky wonderful self.

This was an interesting but also completely depressing film. Less Christians fucking everything up, more ladies doing science please. Thanks.

I watched these after reading all three books for my English course (I bloody love arts degrees) on classic children’s literature. It’s safe to say that the book is better is each case, but that’s true of almost any film adaptation.

The cast makes I Capture the Castle stand out: Romola Garai, Bill Nighy and Tara Fitzgerald are some of my favourite actors, and they’re brilliant in this. Cassandra, the novel’s hugely engaging narrator, is played wonderfully by Garai, who shows a perfect blend of sparkling, naïve charm and sad solemnity. The cinematography could have better reflected the novel’s dazzling descriptive passages, but you can’t have everything.

Tuck Everlasting is fine, with Alexis Bledel in her usual bland Rory Gilmore mode, though admittedly on something of a caffeine comedown. And wearing a flouncier dress. The Tuck family themselves, so carefully and lovingly sketched in the novel, are turned into Hollywood stereotypes, which is a real shame. Oh, and they screw around with plot until it almost loses all meaning. The best I can say is that it might encourage people to read the book, which is a truly stunning piece of literature. Go and read it, now.

The most interesting thing about the adaptation of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is that it turns a children’s’ novel into a decidedly adult film. I think it’s the loss of Bruno’s narrative voice that really spoils it. In the novel his misunderstandings and misconceptions are hugely important, and these are sadly absent in the film. There are too many alterations to the plot generally, and they detract from the central horror of the story. One reviewer called it “the Holocaust trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked for a tragedy about a Nazi family”. I might not go that far, but the abrupt and sickening ending - truly distressing in the novel - becomes melodramatic in the film, with too much focus on the personal grief of a deeply unpleasant man. Perhaps casting the rather pleasant-looking David Thewlis as an SS officer and death camp director wasn’t the best idea.

Well. How do I even begin to talk about Third Star? First, a few things about me:

1.  My uncle died at an absurdly young age when I was 13 and I will never get over it.
2.  My mum has cancer right now, and no one has any idea whether she’ll survive it. It could go either way and the wait is purgatorial.

So bear that in mind. And take everything I’m about to say with the caveat that this film made me weep and literally wail at some points with grief and sadness.

I didn’t really like it. And it’s not because it made me sad or touched a nerve – plenty of my favourite films make me cry like a baby – but there was something about it that just wasn’t as perfect as the hype. It’s a very uneven film; it oscillates wildly between a lads’ road movie and a made-for-television, faux-inspirational weepy. Lines like “the sickness may be mine but the tragedy is theirs”, and “you were loved by me and you made my life a happy one … there’s no tragedy in that” seem to be everyone’s favourites, but they just ring false in my ears. They’re greetings-card sickly: a touching sentiment clumsily executed.

Both Cumberbatch and Feild are brilliant, but here they make two deeply unlikeable leads, and the other two actors simply fade into the background. If I’m honest, I could only tell them apart because one was Scottish. Maybe I just couldn’t see straight through the tears.

And that’s the thing. I cried. A lot. But because of the reasons above, and because it’s an inherently tragic subject, not because it was a particularly good film. I expected better of it.

You may all hate me now. 

Meh. It was fine. A bit predictable. Rupert Grint’s pretty good, not too Ron-like. Not really my thing, to be honest, but not terrible.

Oh and there was a really nice song in it. 

Against my better judgement, I watched The Time Traveler’s (sic) Wife. I mean just look at this fucking poster. Jesus wept…

I quite liked the novel but I was about 13 when I read it and presumably didn’t know any better. I just… nothing happens in this film. I mean, a whole lot of shit happens, but nothing really happens, y’know? McAdams is pretty good, but Bana is completely lacking in anything other than dreary self-pity. Henry in the book was a charming, engaging protagonist; here he’s reduced to a big lump of chiselled manpain. Booooored.

I’ve always wanted to watch Secretary and I finally got around to it recently. It’s probably the sweetest and dorkiest film made about a D/s relationship… ever? My friend summed it up as “two geeks falling in love in their own weird way” and we gleefully imagined the audiences who had seen this poster and gone expecting a completely different type of film. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hot as hell, it’s just about so much more than kink.

I could actually write a whole essay about this film and how important and relevant it is to me, so I’m going to stop before I start rambling :)

robert-donat:

epicenenineteen:

I was fairly sure when I sat down with Netflix this evening that I’d already seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and that I could just rewatch it casually while I ate dinner. As it turns out however, presumably after years and years of missing the beginning whenever it’s shown on TV, I’ve actually only ever seen the second half. And oh my God what magnificence I’ve been missing!

It’s so good. Fuck in-depth film criticism: it’s just so good.

And the best thing about it is, of course, Robert Donat. He seduces his way across the Highlands in a big sexy coat; casually jumps out of trains and into box-beds; languidly threatens his bondage partner reluctant companion with an imaginary gun; then proceeds to nonchalantly eat a sandwich while getting a good feel of her legs; and is just unbearably attractive and suave and covered in tweed.

Oh, and the haddock scene! You know what, maybe just read this and this, though I’ll be reblogging most of the latter very shortly. 

I have the exact same story about 39 Steps.  I was certain I’d seen it before and maybe I had, but I hadn’t really SEEN it through the eyes of a Robert Donat fan.  After watching Good-bye Mr. Chips, I sought this movie out again and I was blown away by it.  It was just so sexy and really romantic, actually. So much of this down to Donat and how he embodies the ideal male that Hitchcock wanted on screen.  He was a bit rebellious, a bit rude, but also completely desirable.  One of things I’ve always appreciated about Hitch, is that he really understood female desire as well as he understood male desire.  Watch Spellbound.  It’s all about a woman looking at a man and liking what she sees. And this movie is about a woman who has made a prejudicial decision against the hero being forced by circumstance into a grudging admission that he is just ducky.  The audience though, never has that prejudice.  We see him with the mysterious woman, and see that, even though he is clearly pretty chuffed to be bringing this mystery woman home for no-strings attached sex, he still tries to do right by her, by making her a slap-up meal with his haddock.  That is what women want really: hot sex and a free dinner.  And he isn’t arrogant or pushy, he’s just nice.  After he realizes that she’s on the run, he doesn’t press his advantage.  He’s a gentleman. 

Fast forward to the Margaret episodes which really show us Hannay’s mettle.  He is forced by circumstances to use Margaret a bit, but it is clear that he feels bad about it.  He’s put her in danger, but she feels it’s worth it.  It takes a tremendous amount of charm to pull that off and not come off as a complete arrogant jack ass. 

And of course the real set-piece in the film is the crazy handcuff adventure with Madelaine Carroll.  Hitchcock knew what he was about with this turning the idea of a “ball and chain” into a wierdly positive thing.  Instead of being a burden, the pair have to learn to work together and fall in love in the process.  And I love that he wasn’t shy about the kinky overtones of it.  Hitchcock used the technique to break the ice between Donat and Carroll.  It certainly worked and the results are on screen.  There was a definite chemistry there, that might not have been otherwise. 

It’s so sad that fate never allowed Hitchcock to work with Donat again.  He would have done so wonderfully well in further Hitchcock films, like Sabotage which he was slated to do.    But I’m eternally grateful that we at least have this one great example of what Donat could do with this kind of character. 

Yes, all of this! This is what I meant but I was too busy being excited to articulate it properly. I think I was watching it waiting, as Caitlin Moran would say, for some sexism to happen. But it’s romantic! It shouldn’t be, the way Hannay drags these women around emotionally and physically, and yet it is. I can’t explain it.

“… even though he is clearly pretty chuffed to be bringing this mystery woman home for no-strings attached sex, he still tries to do right by her, by making her a slap-up meal with his haddock.  That is what women want really: hot sex and a free dinner.  And he isn’t arrogant or pushy, he’s just nice.  After he realizes that she’s on the run, he doesn’t press his advantage.  He’s a gentleman.”

Hot sex and a free dinner. Always. And sometimes with the adjectives the other way around. 

I was fairly sure when I sat down with Netflix this evening that I’d already seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and that I could just rewatch it casually while I ate dinner. As it turns out however, presumably after years and years of missing the beginning whenever it’s shown on TV, I’ve actually only ever seen the second half. And oh my God what magnificence I’ve been missing!

It’s so good. Fuck in-depth film criticism: it’s just so good.

And the best thing about it is, of course, Robert Donat. He seduces his way across the Highlands in a big sexy coat; casually jumps out of trains and into box-beds; languidly threatens his bondage partner reluctant companion with an imaginary gun; then proceeds to nonchalantly eat a sandwich while getting a good feel of her legs; and is just unbearably attractive and suave and covered in tweed.

Oh, and the haddock scene! You know what, maybe just read this and this, though I’ll be reblogging most of the latter very shortly. 

I’m finding it hard to remember The Duchess in any great detail because I found it so dull. There was an interesting critical thread that came to the surface at some places about women and their rights (or lack thereof) and some stuff about mothers and children but it all got tangled up in the fancy costumes and towering wigs.

The hardest thing to grasp was that Knightley and Cooper’s characters (I care so little that even their names have escaped me. I think one of them was a duchess…?)  had fallen in love. I just couldn’t believe it, but whether that was their fault or mine I have no idea. 

Last and least in this little run of Holmes films is Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking: one of those well-meaning but heavy-handed films the BBC have the habit of making from time to time. Everett looks right as Holmes, but ruins it whenever he speaks. Watson is conspicuous by his lack of any real personality and possession of an enormous moustache. Michael Fassbender is good, though his casting retrospectively rather gives the game away, and maybe I’m not straight enough but I’ve never got the hype about how attractive he is.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t very good either.

Next in my Rathbone box set: Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, which takes the (both artistically and financially) inspired decision to make Holmes and Watson “ageless”, and my god is it brilliant. Victorian fog becomes the noirish mist of WWII, the damsel is a gritty femme fatale, and Holmes wears a fedora. Plus Nazis always make such wonderful villains. What more could you possibly want?

Next in my Rathbone box set was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It doesn’t bear a great deal of resemblance to any canon story I can recall, but this doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. And I actually really liked the ubiquitous damsel-in-distress, so. Yes. Another one for rainy afternoons.

In gloomy a post break-up haze I bought the 1940s Sherlock Holmes boxset. I’m slowly working my way through it when I’m not watching Spooks on Netflix working on my dissertation. 

I adored The Hound of the Baskervilles! The atmosphere of the moor was perfect and, in black and white, looked just like I’d imagined it when I read the book as a child. And Rathbone as Holmes is of course extraordinary. It’s the kind of film I’ll drag out on a rainy Sunday afternoon. 

(I sort of love that Holmes is just the background in this poster. It seems to be trying to make Hounds look like a melodramatic romance: so is the random snogging scene in the film that Watson bumblingly interrupts. Nigel Bruce is very much Kate Beaton’s jam-eating Watson.)