May 20, 2005
No, I haven’t left the house to go see it in the cinema, I watched the leaked Star Wars work print after coming home from work today.
I agree with what most people have been saying: best of the three.
The rollercoaster start was exciting and funny in places too. Too bad Hayden Christensen has no comic timing at all. Those Jedi powers are godlike, how else could Yoda sense ‘much fear’ in this lad? Never mind the bad acting, it’s the lack of joy and the glaring absence of passion in his performance. He’s good at the athletic stuff — great with the lightsabre. Those are the sequences I like best anyway — I didn’t grow up on Errol Flynn for nothing.
Leave the acting to R2D2. I’m serious, that bit at the start where he has to stop and start the elevators — that little droid had a lot more character than, um, let’s say Natalie Portman. Yawn. Seemed such a strong lady in Part I. Now she’s got her man she’s dependent and weak and bloody annoying.
McGregor’s believable as always. I do believe he tries to emulate or hint at what Alec Guinness did with the character, especially at the start of the film, in the accent, even. And he kept his troosers on, thank god.
I’m never keen on the politics of things, so the middle of the film with the meetings and war kind of sagged for me. I was watching it on TV and you could have predicted the moment I got up to make tea: the Anakin / Padmé scenes. Then came the high drama part, the turning to the daaaaark side and it all got a bit campy, especially the fight between Palapatine and Windu. Seriously, what *was* that? At other times I felt as if I’d walked into a showing of Return of the King. Dragons? Oozing lava? Then there was what seemed to be a rather heavy handed anti-current-administration vibe. Not sure what to think of it, it felt clumsy, though I appreciate the leaning.
Anyway, a good swashbuckling ‘finale’ to the franchise. Might even go see it on the big screen.
Mar 19, 2005
Listening to Michael Geoghegan’s Reel Reviews podcasts has rekindled my interest in film and I picked two classic movies on DVD today (both of which I have seen before): Once upon a time in the west, and Scarface. I hope I’ll start paying more attention to film and filmmakers again, like I used to.
It got me thinking about films that I *haven’t* seen or may have forgotten about. For example, I’m not sure I’ve seen It’s a wonderful life, but I *must* have because you couldn’t switch on the television in the early 70’s or James Stewart was on it.
Anyway, here’s a list of classic films I should have seen but haven’t (and I’m vaguely using IMDB’s list of Top rated 250 movies as a guide):
It’s my intention to remedy these gaping holes in my cultural upbringing this year. (Made a quick trip to the video store… they only had the two Kurosawa films on DVD, none of the other ones.)
I’ve made ‘best film’ lists before, but here’s a short list of films I’ll never forget seeing, for whatever reason.
(A propos of Michael Geoghegan’s name, he pronounces it ‘go-hegan’ – but I think in Ireland it would just be Go-gan.)
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Feb 2, 2005
Funny French. The Cannes festival has in the past refused to show Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot (awards), and Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game (awards).
The only Irish film to open at Cannes has been John Boorman’s The General. Fuck sake.
Oh well… cross fingers for Petit-déjeuner sur Pluton.
Jan 7, 2005
God, sorry, Anton Corbijn is set to direct a biopic of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. It’s going to be Anton’s first feature film. This is great news and hopefully only the beginning of this new twist to his career.
More details at NME.com, who seem to think Anton’s German. Arseholes.
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Jul 2, 2004
Broadway theatres are dimming their lights tonight at 8pm.
I suggest we all open our windows and holler in honour of the man:
“Steeeeeeelllaaaaaaaaa!!” (mp3)
Zeldman’s lovely obit
New York Times obit
Hollywood Reporter
Brando movie quotes
Metafilter thread, some – but very little – good stuff.
Apr 3, 2004
From ‘Citizen Kubrick’, The Guardian:
“The fan letters are perfectly preserved. They are not in the least bit dusty or crushed. The system used to file them is, in fact, extraordinary. Each fan box contains perhaps 50 orange folders. Each folder has the name of a town or city typed on the front – Agincourt, Ontario; Alhambra, California; Cincinnati, Ohio; Daly City, California, and so on – and they are in alphabetical order inside the boxes. And inside each folder are all the fan letters that came from that particular place in any one year. Kubrick has handwritten “F-P” on the positive ones and “F-N” on the negative ones. The crazy ones have been marked “F-C”.”
Mar 5, 2004
(I accidently posted this instead of keeping it a draft — but the title should say enough about what I thought of this film which won a crazy amount of awards at every festival on the planet… perhaps it’s the New Zealand effect? )
Feb 17, 2004
Why I should watch two films starring Nicole Kidman on the weekend when I have never felt any emotion watching her perform other than ‘meh’, I don’t know, but I did.
Cold Mountain. Nothing more than airport novel drivel — like Bridges of Madison bloody County. But beautifully filmed. Interesting cast of supporting actors (and thankfully no Meryl Streep) but I never felt more than a faint echo of passion between the two leads and certainly no reason why they should pine for each other as much as they do. As for Jude Law, eyes like a British Udo Kier, head shaped like a Roman bust. Brooding, distant, untouchable. Certainly a better face to see on the big screen than the wet blanket blandness of the Cruises and the Pitts.
I didn’t watch Lars von Trier’s Dogville, I had it on in the background. One step up from the so very annoying The Idiots. (I never saw Dancer in the Dark) Fascinating, a candidate for a longer, more concentrated viewing. I liked the one scene between kid and Kidman — the innocence of children’s always been overrated, how refreshing to see one evil adult in the making.
Jan 10, 2004
Fascinating and funny interview with (Lord) Chistopher (Haden) Guest (Film maker and Spinal Tap’s ‘Nigel Tufnel’, husband of Jamie Lee Curtis): “”In real life, people fumble their words,” says Guest. “They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don’t listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that because it doesn’t look good on the page. It looks like they don’t know how to write dialogue.”
