Filmography
Jun. 17th, 2012 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyMainly short reviews this time...
The Mad Miss Manton
Another Barbara Stanwyck extravaganza, about a 1920s New York socialite who discovers a murder and seeks to solve it, despite the police's conviction that it's only another prank wasting police time. Stanwyck is excellent and very rude to the newspaper editor who falls in love with her - and the final scene is grippingly tense. I have no idea how I did not discover Barbara Stanwyck until I moved to the States, but I recommend her thoroughly to you.
Source Code
Not as bad as it could have been, but the pacing was all off. Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) has a mission to stop a train blowing up by jumping back in time again and again to discover where a bomb has been placed, but he manages it in time to also have a romanticky ending with a woman he's fallen in love with and the life of a man he's stolen, raising problematic ethical questions that don't ever get properly dealt with. The tension just... doesn't work, really. The problem feels too easily solved, and there isn't a Dramatic Twist that would have redeemed it. Imagine a less intelligent and ambitious Inception, I think, and thus correspondingly less satisfying.
The Ugly Truth
I don't know why I watched this except it was on LoveFilm instaplay and starred Gerard Butler. It's pretty dreadful, although not in the way one would expect. A morning news show producer finds she is lumbered with a neanderthal dating expert on her show, but also discovers (when he takes her under his wing) that his ridiculous advice actually helps her get the boyfriend her own attempts have so far failed to obtain. She is a bit control-freaky, he is outrageously misogynistic, after prolonged contact with each other they actually become human and realise they kind of have fallen in love without noticing, whoops. Bloody predictable, not entirely dreadful, some good lines, better than the usual rom-com nonsense, but not by much.
8 Women
I have said it before and will say it again - if you have not yet discovered Francois Ozon, director of Potiche, you are doing yourself a criminal disservice. Imagine a Bechdel-test-surpassing women-only Poirot episode set in 1950s France, where eight women in a snowed in house at Christmas have to work out which of them murdered the patriarch of the family. Hilarious, touching, insightful, dry, and ever so slightly unhinged and surreal in that sort of way that particularly appeals to me. Just watch it. You can thank me later.
How Green Was My Valley
G wanted to see this.
I'll just let that sink in.
A very American adaptation of a very Welsh novel, that strums upon the Welsh identity heartstrings shamelessly whilst also making a point about 'this is what we are fighting this war to protect!' in an equally shameless way (the film was made in 1941). Most notable for the completely inconsistent accents, and the surprisingly realistic Welsh mining town, given it was all filmed in California. And the Welsh nationalism, of course.
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Again, I blame LoveFilm instaplay, although in this case it's got Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant as a disfunctional New York couple contemplating divorce who are sent into a witness protection program after seeing a murder. They are sent to Idaho. Hilarity ensues. And, do you know, hilarity actually does ensue - it's a gently funny film, happy to mock the New York stereotype and its inability to cope with Life Outside The City, as well as making a point about sustaining relationships in the long term which this sort of romcom material tends not to do (we end at the wedding and don't see what happens two or three years afterwards when the couple have failed to conceive, as the situation is here). Alright, it's a bit drastic to need a week in deepest Idaho forbidden to talk to people back home in order to sort out relationship difficulties, but it seems to work. The ending, however, is a complete cop-out, with the couple managing to both conceive and adopt and be back in New York and be in a healthy relationship, hurrah! Which is unnecessary gilding of the lily - sending them back to New York would have been a perfectly satisfactory end to an unexpectedly wry film.
The Mad Miss Manton
Another Barbara Stanwyck extravaganza, about a 1920s New York socialite who discovers a murder and seeks to solve it, despite the police's conviction that it's only another prank wasting police time. Stanwyck is excellent and very rude to the newspaper editor who falls in love with her - and the final scene is grippingly tense. I have no idea how I did not discover Barbara Stanwyck until I moved to the States, but I recommend her thoroughly to you.
Source Code
Not as bad as it could have been, but the pacing was all off. Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) has a mission to stop a train blowing up by jumping back in time again and again to discover where a bomb has been placed, but he manages it in time to also have a romanticky ending with a woman he's fallen in love with and the life of a man he's stolen, raising problematic ethical questions that don't ever get properly dealt with. The tension just... doesn't work, really. The problem feels too easily solved, and there isn't a Dramatic Twist that would have redeemed it. Imagine a less intelligent and ambitious Inception, I think, and thus correspondingly less satisfying.
The Ugly Truth
I don't know why I watched this except it was on LoveFilm instaplay and starred Gerard Butler. It's pretty dreadful, although not in the way one would expect. A morning news show producer finds she is lumbered with a neanderthal dating expert on her show, but also discovers (when he takes her under his wing) that his ridiculous advice actually helps her get the boyfriend her own attempts have so far failed to obtain. She is a bit control-freaky, he is outrageously misogynistic, after prolonged contact with each other they actually become human and realise they kind of have fallen in love without noticing, whoops. Bloody predictable, not entirely dreadful, some good lines, better than the usual rom-com nonsense, but not by much.
8 Women
I have said it before and will say it again - if you have not yet discovered Francois Ozon, director of Potiche, you are doing yourself a criminal disservice. Imagine a Bechdel-test-surpassing women-only Poirot episode set in 1950s France, where eight women in a snowed in house at Christmas have to work out which of them murdered the patriarch of the family. Hilarious, touching, insightful, dry, and ever so slightly unhinged and surreal in that sort of way that particularly appeals to me. Just watch it. You can thank me later.
How Green Was My Valley
G wanted to see this.
I'll just let that sink in.
A very American adaptation of a very Welsh novel, that strums upon the Welsh identity heartstrings shamelessly whilst also making a point about 'this is what we are fighting this war to protect!' in an equally shameless way (the film was made in 1941). Most notable for the completely inconsistent accents, and the surprisingly realistic Welsh mining town, given it was all filmed in California. And the Welsh nationalism, of course.
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Again, I blame LoveFilm instaplay, although in this case it's got Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant as a disfunctional New York couple contemplating divorce who are sent into a witness protection program after seeing a murder. They are sent to Idaho. Hilarity ensues. And, do you know, hilarity actually does ensue - it's a gently funny film, happy to mock the New York stereotype and its inability to cope with Life Outside The City, as well as making a point about sustaining relationships in the long term which this sort of romcom material tends not to do (we end at the wedding and don't see what happens two or three years afterwards when the couple have failed to conceive, as the situation is here). Alright, it's a bit drastic to need a week in deepest Idaho forbidden to talk to people back home in order to sort out relationship difficulties, but it seems to work. The ending, however, is a complete cop-out, with the couple managing to both conceive and adopt and be back in New York and be in a healthy relationship, hurrah! Which is unnecessary gilding of the lily - sending them back to New York would have been a perfectly satisfactory end to an unexpectedly wry film.
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-17 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-18 07:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-17 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-18 07:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-18 04:04 pm (UTC)8 Women is going on my overflowing list.
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Date: 2012-06-19 11:05 am (UTC)You will adore 8 Women. It is genius.
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Date: 2012-06-18 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-19 11:05 am (UTC)