![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Super-fast movie reviews
A brief (for me) word on two movies I've seen recently.
In The Day The Earth Stood Still a super-glow-ball lands in Central Park, spits out Keanu Reeves and a giant cylon and then...well, nothing much happens. Keanu has never been a great actor, but his performance as Klaatu is so wooden it puts the rainforests to shame. In his attempts to portray an alien with little understanding of humanity, he essentially imitates Mr Spock...but he lacks Leonard Nimoy's expressive eyebrow and the result is truly bad.
Alongside Keanu is a stellar cast (Jennifer Conelly, John Cleese, Kathy Bates) betrayed by a script that really would have been better served as a 42 minute TV episode than being stretched out into movie length. The special effects are okay, the message is garbled but worthy at heart, but the whole thing just doesn't work.
By contrast my other movie of last week, The Secret Life of Bees has no special effects, great acting and really only one fault...but that's a biggie. It's the story of a young girl, Lily (Dakota Fanning), haunted by the death of her mother (whom Lily accidently shot when she was four), who runs away from her abusive father in search of her mother's past. The story is set in 1960's America, at the time the Civil Rights act was signed, giving African Americans the right to vote. And that leads me to the big fault of the film: it's telling the wrong story.
The interesting story of this film is the African American family who take in Lily and her black friend Rosaleen. They are a fascinating bunch, these three sisters, each with their own story to tell. August (Queen Latifah) is proudly religious and a strong personality, almost a cliche in that respect, a mother to everyone. June (Alicia Keys) is gorgeously feminist yet utterly insecure in her romantic life. And then there's April, a fabulous performance from Sophie Okonedo: the mentally disturbed sister whose tragedy should have been the emotional climax of the film. There's also Rosaleen, the African American housekeeper who accompanies Lily on her journey. She starts the movie by proudly marching into town to register to vote and is accosted by a group of white men intent on stopping her. She is arrested (being beaten to a pulp by white boys is evidently a crime) and when Lily "rescues" her from the hospital she becomes, technically, a fugitive. I say technically because little is made of it and apparently no one was really looking for her. Her journey, both physical and emotional, is relegated to the C plot, but by comparison a teenage white girl angsting over her dead mommy is boring.
It's a disappointing film because of that. There's so much it almost gets right: the attraction between Lily and a young black boy which, of course, gets them both into trouble, the civil rights theme stays prominent without being overwhelming and there's not a poor performance anywhere in the cast. But it would have been so much better if they'd left the white folks in the B story where they belong. (You couldn't eliminate Lily's story - she's the catalyst for much of what happens but that's what her role should have been: instead she's the focus, and her story just isn't that interesting.)
I am totally in love with the gothic black Christmas trees![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thanatos_kalos and I saw on Saturday. Black trees! Black and silver baubles. Christmas done Goth! I love it. If I ever get to have Christmas the way I want it, I'm gonna get one...and stick a blood-soaked angel on top. Maybe with a stake of holly through its heart. (There was also a brown tree in the same store, but this puzzles me. Colours not-from-nature I understand, but if you're gonna buy a fake tree, why would you get one that looks dead???)
In The Day The Earth Stood Still a super-glow-ball lands in Central Park, spits out Keanu Reeves and a giant cylon and then...well, nothing much happens. Keanu has never been a great actor, but his performance as Klaatu is so wooden it puts the rainforests to shame. In his attempts to portray an alien with little understanding of humanity, he essentially imitates Mr Spock...but he lacks Leonard Nimoy's expressive eyebrow and the result is truly bad.
Alongside Keanu is a stellar cast (Jennifer Conelly, John Cleese, Kathy Bates) betrayed by a script that really would have been better served as a 42 minute TV episode than being stretched out into movie length. The special effects are okay, the message is garbled but worthy at heart, but the whole thing just doesn't work.
By contrast my other movie of last week, The Secret Life of Bees has no special effects, great acting and really only one fault...but that's a biggie. It's the story of a young girl, Lily (Dakota Fanning), haunted by the death of her mother (whom Lily accidently shot when she was four), who runs away from her abusive father in search of her mother's past. The story is set in 1960's America, at the time the Civil Rights act was signed, giving African Americans the right to vote. And that leads me to the big fault of the film: it's telling the wrong story.
The interesting story of this film is the African American family who take in Lily and her black friend Rosaleen. They are a fascinating bunch, these three sisters, each with their own story to tell. August (Queen Latifah) is proudly religious and a strong personality, almost a cliche in that respect, a mother to everyone. June (Alicia Keys) is gorgeously feminist yet utterly insecure in her romantic life. And then there's April, a fabulous performance from Sophie Okonedo: the mentally disturbed sister whose tragedy should have been the emotional climax of the film. There's also Rosaleen, the African American housekeeper who accompanies Lily on her journey. She starts the movie by proudly marching into town to register to vote and is accosted by a group of white men intent on stopping her. She is arrested (being beaten to a pulp by white boys is evidently a crime) and when Lily "rescues" her from the hospital she becomes, technically, a fugitive. I say technically because little is made of it and apparently no one was really looking for her. Her journey, both physical and emotional, is relegated to the C plot, but by comparison a teenage white girl angsting over her dead mommy is boring.
It's a disappointing film because of that. There's so much it almost gets right: the attraction between Lily and a young black boy which, of course, gets them both into trouble, the civil rights theme stays prominent without being overwhelming and there's not a poor performance anywhere in the cast. But it would have been so much better if they'd left the white folks in the B story where they belong. (You couldn't eliminate Lily's story - she's the catalyst for much of what happens but that's what her role should have been: instead she's the focus, and her story just isn't that interesting.)
I am totally in love with the gothic black Christmas trees
thanatos_kalos and I saw on Saturday. Black trees! Black and silver baubles. Christmas done Goth! I love it. If I ever get to have Christmas the way I want it, I'm gonna get one...and stick a blood-soaked angel on top. Maybe with a stake of holly through its heart. (There was also a brown tree in the same store, but this puzzles me. Colours not-from-nature I understand, but if you're gonna buy a fake tree, why would you get one that looks dead???)
no subject
Which then leads me to wonder how true to the book it is. I've been told to get it, just haven't yet. Hm.
Black trees are AWESOME, but yeah. Why brown? That makes no sense.
no subject
That's a good question. I've not read the book, but I think perhaps I ought to.
I don't wish to pre-judge, but it would be typical of Hollywood to screw with the plot. I can just imagine some exec deciding no one will watch a movie about four fabulous black women, so let's make it all about the cute white kid.
no subject
My stepmom's sister read it and highly recommended it yet... I wonder if our tastes could remotely be similar (she's very religious, very naive, etc etc, so some things she rec'ed were immediately disregarded, lol)
It would be totally typical of Hollywood. Not like they're frequently idiots or anything. ;-)
no subject
no subject
*wanders in randomly*
Re: *wanders in randomly*
Re: *wanders in randomly*
Re: *wanders in randomly*
Re: *wanders in randomly*
Right now I have a tiny space and the black trees I saw were all 6 foot or bigger. My max right now is 4 foot.
But it's a plan for next year...or more likely 2015! Someday!