Movie Maven

I finally stopped being a dumb-ass and put a site-meter on the blog.

This post was supposed to be about my experience watching Tarsem's (of "The Cell") new film "The Fall," which is supposed to be a flawed, if visually stunning feature. But I became grievously ill last Saturday and, alas, was unable to go. Hopefully I can see it this week before it leaves theaters, and will be able to comment this weekend.

So, instead, for those of you who may be in the New York City area, there's a documentary about camp visionary Derek Jarman playing, starting today at the Museum of Modern Art (you may know Jarman from the quote under the title of this blog.) "Derek" features highlights of Jarman's work mingled with reflections by one of his former actresses, the luminous Tilda Swinton. Jarman was an indie film revolutionary until his death from AIDS in 1994. I grew to know and love him after watching his gay camp version of "The Tempest," which features dancing sailors and Elisabeth Welch singing "Stormy Weather" at Miranda's wedding. It is spectacular, to say the least, and a beautiful reverie on the discovery of new worlds. Stephen Holden most astutely described the experience of watching a Jarman film in his review in the New York Times.

As excerpts from Mr. Jarman’s films whiz by, a common element is a sense of the actors playing games of dress-up after rummaging through a trunk in the attic.

Also of note: as soon as the blasted Netflix has deemed it appropriate to send me my effing DVD, I will be commenting on Season One of "The X-Files" in preparation for the film coming out next month. Hurrah for post-Cold War paranoia! Hurrah for young adorable David Duchovny!

Directed by: Jon Favreau

Written by: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges

Whilst I was away at the OH Bureau I did manage to get my monthly prescription of Bad-ass from "Iron Man," not once, but twice within about two weeks. The film about Marvel Comics' weapons monger-turned-superhero is hardly perfect, but it's got panache and a devoted sense of death-metal infused spectacle that feels less like a movie and more like you've just sped down Highway 1 in a muscle car. In other words, it's an awesome dude movie.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a heartless businessman who surrounds himself with babes, toys and everything else that an endless amount of money can buy. But then he gets captured by a vague Arab-based terrorist organization, meets a nice doctor who teaches him what's really important in life, and escapes by building the first Iron Man suit out of metal scraps that he finds in a cave. He then becomes a crusader, destroying the weapons he made that have fallen into the wrong hands. He's flanked by his dedicated assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and military man Lt. Rhodes (Terrence Howard), and must grapple with his former partner with the kick-ass villain name of Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges).

This is a film that doesn't really hold up to repeat viewings. The first time I saw it, I was blown away by the spectacular action sequences, the excellent soundtrack, and Downey's intense, frenetic performance. It's the giddy sense of being blown down that highway with an engine humming under your body. But with a second viewing the seams start to show. I was continually irked by the film's vaguely sexist tone (at one point, Stark's being asked important questions by a Vanity Fair reporter; the next scene is of her fucking him) and it's weird romantic affection for capitalist excess. The plot began to feel lurching and cumbersome after a while; I found myself checking my watch. And there was the overwhelming sense that despite the vague themes of wealth and power and a man's place in the world, the film ultimately rings hollow. There's not much in "Iron Man" beneath the slick veneer of cool gadgetry and awesome stunts.

To it's credit, though, the movie did manage to capture something about America's ambiguous role as crusader for justice. At one point, Stark's suit is able to pick out civilians from terrorists in a besieged village. His guns shoot all the terrorists, leaving the civilians standing looking stunned in the carnage. Both times I saw this, a smattering of applause broke out in the theater. It was the one moment where something like a soul emerged from the movie. It was a recognition that our deepest wish as a nation is that we could have the ability to pick out friend from foe.

There is also some sharp writing in the script, made all the more vibrant and witty with Downey at the helm. Downey's madcap, interrupting delivery is perfect for the role. His Tony Stark is not a brooding, melancholy soul a la "Batman"; he's in many ways a riotous teenager, with more money than sense and a subconscious that's all id. One of my favorite extraneous moments is when he consults with Pepper on whether to buy a Jackson Pollock.

Tony: Is it a good example of his Spring collection?

Pepper: Actually 'Springs' is the neighborhood
in East Hampton where he worked, not 'Spring' the season-
it's a fair example. I think it's overpriced.

Tony: I need it. Buy it and store it.

Comparatively, when Stark decides to become a hero, he takes a different tack than any other super hero I've seen on screen. He gradually grows to understand that his business has been corrupted, that the weapons he made to protect his nation's soldiers have been used against them, and that his beloved business partner has been plotting against him. During these scenes of illumination, the look on his face is not righteous indignation, or stoic resolve, as it would be for any other budding super hero. It's far more elemental than that; again, more id.

Tony Stark is simply pissed off.

Photo courtesy of gizmodo.com

Written by: Bryan Bertino


There's only one major disappointment in the film, which is the last five minutes or so. It involves two Christian boys on bikes and an end shocker that looks like it was tacked on after the producers held a focus group. Note to everyone making a horror film: focus group-approved endings are lame. Always. There's really no other way to say it. For those who haven't seen it yet, just trust me: walk out of the theater when the pick up truck drives away. You'll feel far more satisfied.

Photo courtesy of firstshowing.net

Well I've returned from the Ohio Bureau of Maven, Inc., fairly intact and well-rested for the daily slog of work. Boston seems to have celebrated my return by dropping its temperatures to the 50s and raining all day.

Oh- and go Celtics.

Anywho, I've decided to keep the new bad-ass layout and will continue to tinker about with the HTML as necessary. Also, I've been weeding the blogroll, removing dead sites and such, and I've added a few for your perusal. The first is The Comics Curmudgeon, where a wonderful man named Josh comments on the daily comics. Never have I more appreciated "Apartment 3G" and the infamous Margot "Finger Quotin'" Magee. Also, my good IRL friend Hillary has recently joined the blogosphere with The Vanguard and I, a missive on life, love, libation and trying to get her Ph.D. in the U.K. She's on my blogroll- won't she be on yours?

It's a week of brothers apparently. I am off to the Toledo, OH bureau of Maven, Inc. today, as my little brother (not so little anymore- he's taller than I am, and his sense of sarcasm is twice the size of mine) is graduating from high school. I've alerted him that this milestone of adulthood is highly inconvenient for me, as there are several delicious events coming up, including Cake at Boston's Earthfest, and John Williams directing the Boston Pops. But family duties trump all, and so I will be reporting from the mid-west for the next two weeks.

Perhaps most unfortunately, I will be missing the Brattle Theater's celebration of film makers the Coen brothers, called "A Gathering of Coens." It started May 16, and continues until Wednesday, with "Raising Arizona," "The Big Lebowski," "Barton Fink," and "Miller's Crossing." I know everyone and their mother loves "Lebowski," but see if you can stretch out a bit and watch Miller's Crossing if you haven't already. It's stupendous.

Directed by: Christophe Honore

The Boston Gay and Lesbian Film Festival was a couple weeks ago, and unfortunately I had to work through most of it (stupid rent). I cannot accurately describe the depths of my despair at having to miss Turkish/Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek's latest feature "Saturno Contro (Saturn in Opposition)." If you have no idea who I'm talking about, go rent "La Finestra di Fronte (The Window in Front)" right now.

This is a film that in the end is saved by moments of quirkiness and charm, though the work as a whole is such a muddle. In one moment, Jeanne enters Ismael's apartment to find him in bed with another woman, whom she assumes in Alice. When she discovers it isn't, she does not respond, but simply lights up another cigarette, sucks it down and stares bleakly into space. It's a throwaway moment, but it's witty and indelibly French.

Director: Doran Dukic
Writer: Doran Dukic, based on the short story "Kneller's Happy Campers," by Etgar Keret
Starring: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits, Leslie Bibb

Normally, films that deal with teenage depression and death are laden with well-intentioned "messages," generally directed to parents rather than to the teens themselves. The story is usually told with de-saturated color and a grimness of purpose that, well, just depresses you. Most think this is an appropriate reaction, but I have long held the theory that within drama there are sad films and then there are depressing films. The first is genuine encapsulation of human emotion. The second is merely manipulation of the viewer.

What a delicious surprise, then, that "Wristcutters," about a boy who commits suicide after breaking up with his girlfriend, is at heart a gently funny road movie. The boy, Zia (Patrick Fugit) commits suicide by the title's method at the beginning of the film, and enters an otherworldly way station for people who have "offed" themselves. He establishes that the universe he's inhabiting isn't terrible or hellish, just kind of depressing. "It's fitting that this place is exactly like life," he says in a voice over, "only a little bit worse." Zia has a job at a pizza place, and hangs out in a dingy bar after work, trying to guess how the other patrons killed themselves. But when he learns that his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) also committed suicide a month after he did, he goes to find her at the edges of the world beyond the city where he lives.

Along for the ride is his Eastern European rocker friend Eugene (Shea Whigham) who electrocuted himself with his own guitar. They take Eugene's car, which has a black hole underneath the front seat they keep dropping things into, and listen to Eugene's music as they travel "East-ish" into a barren wasteland that has the curious look of a Dali painting set in the Nevada desert. They pick up a hitchhiker (Shannyn Sossamon) who says she was put there by mistake and is looking for the people in charge of this humid purgatory to send her home.

Perhaps the strangest thing about "Wristcutters" is that you tend to forget it's about suicide. In spite of the title, the film doesn't dwell on the violence of Zia's beginning act, but rather on his determination that his life can still have meaning, even after it's ostensibly over. It is a sad movie, but it never depresses. Eugene's entire family killed themselves, in various ways and for various reasons. But the horror of their deaths is nonexistent; they all live together in this world and love and support each other, just as they did in life. The point, of course, is that the worst thing that can happen to you is not death, but loneliness.

The three travelers end up in a community run by a man named Kneller (the inimitable Tom Waits,) a place where lost souls somehow end up, and maybe perform some miracles in the process. These scenes where the characters rest and recharge for the road ahead are the most lovingly rendered in the film, and Waits steals the movie as a weary, battle-scarred hippie assisting people with their salvation.

The film is hardly perfect. The ending especially looked a bit sloppily done, the rhythm was sped up too abruptly and the climax was improperly explained (though it did feature a cameo by Will Arnett, and who can say no to that?) The last 20 minutes were filled with action and rushed exposition; it almost looked like it came from a different film from the lovely, delicate nature of the previous hour. And without giving too much away, I felt like the denouement was a bit of cop-out in terms of resolution. But a less than perfect ending is a small price to pay for Ducik's overall vision, which is moving and sad- but not depressing.

(Photo courtesy of Autonymous Films, via The New York Times)

This reporter is much dismayed after recently reading about Warner Bros.' decision to give the ol' heave-ho to both Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, two semi-independent speciality arms of the corporation. Anne Thompson of Variety delivered the bad news May 8:

"The Draconian studio is shutting down not one specialty arm but two, both Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, with the notion that New Line Cinema can handle whatever specialty needs the studio has. New Line chief Toby Emmerich will be given something to do going forward."

Warner Bros. recently absorbed New Line Cinema after "The Golden Compass" became a financial disaster and left the studio unable to remain independent. The vague idea is that New Line can take over where Warner Independent and Picturehouse left off. I've always had fond feelings for New Line (they did produce and distribute the live-action versions of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," which basically defined my childhood) but judging their production line-up on imdb.com, they don't exactly have the adventurous spirit that defined the two now-defunct companies. For example, Picturehouse has an illustrious recent past, with "Pan's Labyrinth," "La Vie En Rose," "A Prairie Home Companion," and "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story." Warner Independent has "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Everything is Illuminated," and "We Don't Live Here Anymore" under its belt. It's true that New Line has a few sort-of indie hits with "Be Kind, Rewind," and "Love in the Time of Cholera." Recently, though, it's been working with dreck like "Semi-Pro," "Mr. Woodcock," "Rush Hour 3," and, God help us, "The Butterfly Effect 2."

The studios will be able to finish work on several films slated for release this year, including Picturehouse' "Mongol" and Warner Independent's "Towelhead." According to Variety, the executives are meeting over the next few weeks to discuss the status of other projects at various stages of production and distribution.

Warner Bros. is staying mum about where exactly they want to take New Line and claims this does not mean they are stepping back from working with riskier, independent films, according to President and COO Alan Horn in Variety:

"After much painstaking analysis, this was a difficult decision to make, but it reflects the reality of a changing marketplace and our need to prudently run our businesses with increased efficiencies. We’re confident that the spirit of independent film making and the opportunity to find and give a voice to new talent will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros.”

Oh Alan, my friend, how I would like to believe you. But, alas, my innate elitism says that New Line, now that it's completely under your thrall, will become a cabal of corporate whores with no sense of artistry. Warner Independent and Picturehouse at least had a small voice of vision and imagination within the robotic drone of the "tentpole" films and focus group-approved family fare. Think about a world with no "Pan's Labyrinth." Now think about a world without "Mr. Woodcock." Which world would you like to live in?

My beloved Lance Mannion posted yesterday on watching the three "Indiana Jones" movies in preparation for the stupidly-titled latest film coming out this summer. He specifically mentioned that the melting Nazis in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" were a bad decision, taking away from the spirit and life of the series. Thus quoteth Lance of the Mannion:

"Great movie with such a disappointing and ill-conceived ending, so far removed from the tone and spirit of all that had gone before, that I'm sure the original audiences would have walked out of the cineplexes befuddled and depressed if John Williams' rousing march hadn't come back on over the end credits and carried us all back to the moment when the whip snaps the gun away from the treacherous guide and Harrison Ford's scarred and scowling face looms out of the shadows and the adventure started all over again in our imaginations."

I respectfully disagree.

I also recently watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on the teevee yesterday. And I love the melting Nazis! The melting Nazis are one of the main things people remember. When you meet someone who doesn't know the films that well and you say "I saw 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' last night," they always reply with "Is that the one with the melting Nazis?" When I was a kid, and my mother brought "Raiders of the Lost Ark" home from the library where she worked, do you know what I was waiting for? The melting freakin' Nazis!

I do agree with Lance that the ridiculous inclusion of the quasi-mystical elements of the film are somewhat randomly included, and pretty darn cheesy. I think it's best when it's a little cheesy. It's best with a little bit of randomness. And however stupid you think the magical Ark is, you have to admit, the sheer visual impact of the melting Nazis is bonafied bad-ass. Not to mention the righteous triumph that Spielberg must have felt in defeating Nazis with a lost artifact that signifies God's covenant with the Israelites. The defeat of the cartoon villain had to occur in a way that was gruesome, ironic and particularly cartoonish. The Ark was an obvious choice.

Also, I agree with Mannion that convincing Karen Allen to come back as Marion Ravenwood was the best decision Lucas and Spielberg ever made. Marion is everything a heroine should be: for God's sake, the first time we see her, she's drinking a Nepalese sherpa under the table. After her, "Temple of Doom's" Willie Scott might as well have been played by Paris Hilton.

I was bored today, so I decided to dabble a bit in the art of Blogger template. I went a little mad, as you can see. I wanted to keep the dark background, which I think works for this milieu, and I used the neon pink and white to demonstrate some sort of art-deco, old-timey movie house, city at night, feeling... thingy.

Ok. I know nothing about design. But I rather like it. Any of you web design moguls out there have any thoughts? Any tips for further renovations? Do you like it? Does it give you seizures? Let me know!

Your Movie Maven is happy girl this week. I do not have school for eight months, since come July I will be swallowed into the maw of a full-time six-month internship at the arts section of a certain newspaper. I plan to take on a personality akin to Jennifer Jason Leigh in "The Hudsucker Proxy;" so from now I'm "a fast-talkin' career gal that thinks she's one of the boys." Now if only I could find a guy named Smitty...

In other news, the fact that I don't have classes means one thing for me: I get to read for fun. So I went to the library in Copley Square last weekend- America's first large municipal library, doncha know. I came out smelling a little worse for wear, but I had a re-usable tote bag full of delightful goodies to attend to my imagination whilst I'm at my current, soul-sucking telemarketing job.

My first recommendation: Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady." Specifically, the Oxford World's Classics edition. It's tidily enclosed in a small blue cover, perfect for train travel. And it has a nifty introduction by John Updike. I've read it before several times, but I swoon over James' perfect phrases like "dusky pestiferous tracts," and observations like "'If all good people were hidden away in convents, how would the world get on?'" Poor, wonderful, foolish Isabel Archer is my ultimate female character, whom James most exquisitely (and unfairly) dooms, even after it appears that she's won. The ending will frustrate you, but in a way that miraculously still seems complete.

And for those who will ask, yes, I am still reviewing movies. What is the Movie Maven without her cinematic delights? Expect my review of "Iron Man" (God help me) this weekend.

The New York Times has an excellent article compiling five filmmakers' favorite summer films. Especially of note is director Larry Charles' hilarious piece about choosing John Waters' "Female Trouble" for a first date, and director Tamara Jenkins' discussion of the first time she saw "Last Tango in Paris."

I have finished with questioning the writers on "Lost." They're either madmen, geniuses, frauds or some fascinating combination of the three. They will take us where they take us, and I'm willing to let them take the reigns.

But I have one last question for them, completely unrelated to the psychology, metaphysics, philosophy or the stupid polar bears of the show:

Why, oh why, oh WHY do they think that we care at all about the future of Jack and Kate? Because we don't care. We really, really don't.

In addition to endless comic book reenactments and stoner comedies, this summer also brings about the release of "Sex and the City: The Movie," a film much anticipated among the Y-chromosome-challenged and sassy gay boyfriend set.

I've always had a very troubled relationship with "Sex and the City": The HBO Television show. Every so often the show would discuss in the most beautiful, and wickedly funny terms, the issues about being a single woman. One of my favorite discussion was centered around SSB (Secret Single Behavior). I almost gasped in recognition when Charlotte- the innocent brunette with the wide set fish eyes- discussed how she loves to inspect her pores for half an hour before bed, and bemoaned the fact that she couldn't do it now that she's married. And when Samantha- the slutty one- got breast cancer, I was actually quite touched by her steely, yet vulnerable performance. "I just don't want to lose my tits," she declares. "Because they're fabulous." Never had the complex relationship between a woman and her anatomy been so perfectly illustrated in one line.

Most of the time, though, I wanted to kill everyone on the show except Miranda (the snappy redheaded one). As a single girl who lives in a major city (albeit younger than the Fab Four, and a student) I can tell you that we spend a lot less time sipping martinis at noon and chatting on the phone in our Ferragamo shoes and a lot more time...umm...working. Usually two jobs, to pay the rent and grocery bills living as a single girl in said city. I get to sip a martini usually once a month... and it's usually been mixed not by a hot male bartender armed with Grey Goose, but rather by my good friend Zohar. In my apartment. With leftover Smirnoff I found stuffed in the back of my freezer behind a box of chicken nuggets.

Also I know this has been said before, but it deserves mentioning again: I can understand how Miranda, a lawyer, can afford her lifestyle. And Samantha, who's an advertising exec. And even fish-eyed, useless Charlotte appears to own some sort of art gallery. But Carrie can afford $500 shoes and an apartment on the Upper East Side? As a columnist? For a newspaper??? She doesn't even write for the Times- it's some sort of New York Post clone she works for. In Real Life, Carrie would have been downsized long ago to keep up with the rising cost of newsprint.

Besides this fundamental issue of verisimilitude, I was also just annoyed with Carrie's endless monologues, meant to be her column. I hated her terrible puns and obvious double entendres, and the show's pretension that this is really witty stuff that you should feel privileged to be hearing. They were lame, she's a terrible writer, and the paper should downsize her, if only to spare us her idiotic ramblings about "Poor me, I can't find a man, but I've got wildly overpriced shoes, so it's ok."

But Movie Maven, you ask, what on earth should we look to for an accurate account of the single woman in the city?

For that, my friends, simply look to "30 Rock."

The show about a show, based on one woman's experiences working on a show, is quickly becoming my favorite show on television. It's got some of the sharpest writing around, and though Alec Baldwin gets most of the props, I would argue that the flawless cast gels in perfect harmony to highlight each other's attributes. But the main reason I watch is for Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon, a 30-something single girl.

Liz Lemon is the woman Candace Bushnell forgot.

Fey's Lemon could be pretty much any single girl, in any major city. She has an apartment that's nice, but not glamorous. She has a job that she enjoys, but it's hard and takes up a lot of her time.
She eats candy for breakfast, partially because she doesn't have time, but partially because she secretly enjoys it. She eats dinner standing in the kitchen while watching reality shows on her portable TV. She dresses like a normal woman going to work every day. She's a good person, a liberal and a feminist, but she can be shallow, spineless and manipulative to get what she wants. Last episode, upon being offered Baldwin's Jack Donneghy's lucrative position, she slaps him across the face, then promptly strides into the writer's room and announces "Suck it monkeys, I'm going corporate!"

Basically she's every woman I know. Including myself.

Lemon also has an oafish ex-boyfriend who affectionately calls her "Dummy," and whom she's in constant danger of going back to. One of her co-workers, played by Jane Krakowski, likens the schlub to the cheese doodles Lemon's eating: "You know they're bad for you, but you eat them because it's easier than cooking." This is truer than any other "lesson" on relationships that Sex and the City ever tried to demonstrate.

The true story of single women is that sometimes we are tempted to settle for the cheese doodle, because it's easier than working for something better.

It is pretty obvious to those that follow film that the seasons of the year in America formulate the pattern of films that arise throughout the year. Let's take a look at the four seasons (gauged from mid-Atlantic/ Mid-West weather patterns that I am generally most used to):

Fall

Festival officials will also be holding SXSW's 2nd "Interactive Festival," celebrating new media technology; I'm pretty sure they added that just to make it more painful for me to be in Boston.

Politics, court intrigue and brocade. There is little more a film needs to either be a juicily good medieval, political and psycho-sexual exploration ("Richard III," "The Lion in Winter,") or a hysterically bad costume drama ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Marie Antoinette,") Mining material from King Henry VIII's reign and personal life similarly almost never steers you wrong, and once you include Philippa Gregory, the mistress of vaguely erotic historical fiction, what you should have is the atomic bomb of either guilty pleasures or legitimate cinema.

Which is precisely why "The Other Boleyn Girl" is so terribly disappointing. It's not nearly good enough to be considered a legitimate film in its own right, nor is it bad enough to become a cult classic or even immediate guilty pleasure. It's sense of self-importance is not charming or silly, but simply off-putting, and forgettable.

The story follows a fictionalized account of Henry VIII's (Eric Bana) prolonged affair with Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson), sister to future queen Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman). It had a promising trailer, with hilarious nuggets of dialogue such as "We're sisters- and therefore born to be rivals," and "He came out besotted!" It was adapted from Gregory's novel of the same name by Peter Morgan. Morgan boasts a good resume, with "The Last King of Scotland," "The Queen" and HBO's "Longford" under his belt, but I got the feeling that he didn't quite know what to do with "Boleyn Girl." The dialogue is too meandering, and generally relegated to advancing the plot rather than reflecting on what's happening. Henry switches from Mary to Anne and back several times; the audience is supposed to feel the drama every time, but the triangle becomes monotonous after a while.

Gregory, while perhaps not a purveyor of great literature, has a firm grasp of the genre she writes in. The text has an excellent balance of fact and creative extrapolation, and the tone has a sense of what issues within the book should be taken seriously and what should not. The movie was for some reason unable to take the same approach- it seemed too queasy for a good exploration of the serious bits, and too egotistical to poke any fun at the genre. The supposed incest between Anne and her brother George (Jim Sturgess), for example, was handled very badly. It comes out of nowhere, is resolved too quickly and has a weird mix of delicacy and grotesqueness that does nothing but demonstrate that the producers were not happy with having an incest theme in a high-budget commercial film.

Portman, Johansson, and Bana all acquitted themselves nicely with the material they were given, though none of them stood out as especially grand. The only actor with any meat to her performance was Kristen Scott Thomas as the Boleyn girls' long-suffering mother. Thomas manages to lasso a performance that could have easily been swept away in all the tulle and commands the screen whenever she appears. When she is there, she is the only one you look at. David Morrissey is also splendid as the scheming Duke of Norfolk who pimps out the Boleyn girls.

Bana was fine as Henry. But I wonder if it would not be braver to cast, say, Vincent D'Onofrio as Henry, or James Gandolfini. Or Philip Seymour Hoffman. A larger man, with a sense of girth and majesty would make far more sense than (admittedly smoking hot) Eric Bana. Casting Bana opposite Portman and Johansson also shies away from the fact that the Boleyn girls were 14 and 15 when they were sent to the king, who was approaching his late 30s. Director Justin Chadwick seems to want to show all the soft-focus sexiness of Henry's personal life, but none of the yuckiness.

To create a believable sense of noble life during King Henry's reign it is imperative to first lose any sense of modern culture. The one thing that continually irritated me while reading Gregory's book, and while watching the film was how indignant the Boleyn girls were about their situation. There's a constant stream of feminist critique within the dialogue, and unforgivable lines like "The world's not changed that much yet. Men still rule." It ignores the fact that women were not indignant about their situation in life. They did not complain, nor rebel against their male oppressors. The ones that did, first of all, were burned or hanged as witches. But for most, they were raised to believe that this was their lot in life- this was the proper way things were done. Being pimped out to the king after your married was a great idea. The idea that this was wrong or exploitative would not have occurred to most of them. Wouldn't it be more horrific to simply show how women were basically owned by their fathers until they were sold to be owned by their husbands, rather than telling everyone in toothless, contrived dialogue? Would that not make it even more remarkable that it was not the longed-for male heir that succeeded Henry after his death, but Anne's daughter, Elizabeth? Chadwick seems content to simply have the Boleyn girls make furious shouts to the wind about the indignity of their place in society- something I doubt the real Anne Boleyn would ever have done.

Photo courtesy of Shakefire.com.

on this blog? Many apologies for the lack of programming of late. As usual, I have simply gathered too much on to my plate, and now am busily engaged in choking it all down, bit by gristly bit, until I either finish it all or vomit the myriad responsibilities into the nearest trash can (how do you like that for a bit of nifty metaphorical footwork. And such visuals!)

Anywho, after this week I'll be back at it. Lorda mercy I can't wait until the semester's over.

Josh Levin is officially my hero of the week, for his stunning rip on the woe-begotten state of parodic film, as exemplified by the atrocious-looking "Meet the Spartans."

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it.