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annuinSo a generally quiet weekend, which is par for the course I guess. We did get through all 3 of our current Netflix movies, which were enjoyable.
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
I think my biggest problem with this movie is Denzel Washington. It's nothing to do with the movie at all, he just bugs me as an actor and I really don't like watching him particularly much. I have no idea why, it might be his voice, or the fact that I want to rearrange his teeth (there's just something about them). It's a very intangible dislike, that has no real bearing on his talent. So the fact that he stars in this took some of the pleasure out of it for me.
I've never seen the original, though it's languishing somewhere on our Netflix queue as well.
The basic premise is as follows: Bennett Marco (Denzel), along with Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) served together in a unit in the first Gulf war. Shaw as the rebelling son of a senator (Meryl Streep) had taken an infantry commission, rather than the officer's commission. Out on a routine patrol they are ambushed. Two of the unit are killed, and each remaining man subsequently remembers Shaw as being the hero who saved them all, and he's awarded a medal of honor as a result.
Skip ahead a decade, and we find Major Ben Marco holding a speech for a bunch of boy scouts and others. Afterwards he is approached by one of his former unit buddies, who asks him if he too has the strange dreams, and who tries to show him strange pictures and clippings that he's been making and collecting over the years. Marco initially dismisses him as someone who needs psychiatric help, and pays him no mind. However, this encounter triggers more dreams of Marco's own, and soon he's trying to piece together what really happened in the Gulf.
His main link is Shaw, who is now a senator in his own right. Trying to convince Shaw that he's not a lunatic is just the beginning of it, because he now also has to deal the formidable, and manipulative, Senator Eleanor Shaw, Raymond's mother, who is primed to thrust her son into the vice presidency and who will brook no disappointment and who will go to great lengths to succeed. Lengths that have their roots in what happened in that altercation in the Gulf.
The plot really is no great surprise, at least it wasn't to me. You basically already know where it's headed early on (and probably in no small part due to the trailers). Though the ending wasn't quite what I expected, so kudos for that.
All in all it's a tight thriller by Jonathan Demme, suitably paranoid (helped by the very close up face shots sometimes). I enjoyed Liev Schreiber in his role, I find he's generally a bit underappreciated as an actor. Denzel did good work, but I just don't like him :P
House Of Flying Daggers
A movie by Yimou Zhang, whose previous offering was Hero which PreZ and I saw last year and enjoyed a lot. We missed this one in theatres, due to it having a ridiculously short screening life, as usual.
Much like with Hero, this movie is also set in a historical setting. This time towards the end of the Tang dynasty. The dynasty is falling apart, the government is corrupt, and the people are fed up. A revolutionary group called House of the Flying Daggers has arisen to fight the government. They antagonise the government in true Robin Hood style... steal from the rich and give to the poor and such.
The story starts with the provincial police being told that they have 10 days to find the new leader of House of the Flying Daggers. Their only lead is the fact that one of the showgirls at the Peony Pavillion might have connections to the group. So one of the police captains, Leo (Andy Lau), sends the other, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), in undercover as a customer and then the cops rush in and arrest the girl, Mei (Ziyi Zhang), who turns out to be blind.
In an effort to have the girl lead them to the House of the Flying Daggers, Leo and Jin decide that Jin should stage a prison breakout and rescue Mei to win her trust. He does and they set off as fugitives towards the House of Flying Daggers' hideaway.
It's worth mentioning here that the literal translation of the film's title isn't "House of Flying Daggers", but "Ambushed From Ten Directions", which probably is descriptive enough as to what happens next. There's plenty of deception, betrayal, love and heroics in this movie to keep the viewers entertained and guessing.
Visually, it's a feast, much like Hero. Stunning scenery, sets and costumes. It's like looking at an exquisite delicacy in every frame. Then there's the ballet of the wirework martial arts that are also amazing.
Well worth the rental. I just wish I'd seen it on the big screen, it would have been so much more impressive.
The Importance Of Being Earnest
Based on an Oscar Wilde play, starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon and Dame Judi Dench.
A comedy of mistaken identities, where we get to see the protagonists digging a hole for themselves deeper and deeper. Similar in a way to certain events in An Ideal Husband, another of Wilde's works.
Colin Firth plays John/Jack Worthing, a man who mostly lives in the country. In order to be able to go to London at will, he devises an imaginary brother called Earnest. As such, everyone in London knows him as that, including Gwendolen, a woman he's courting. Rupert Everett plays his friend Algernon Moncrieff, who lives in the city, and similarly has an imaginary friend with failing health called Bunbury, who serves as a convenient excuse to escape to the country.
After failing to procure an engagement with Gwendolen thanks to her mother (Judi Dench), Jack fesses up to Algie and decides to hang up his guise of Earnest, and to go back to the country. Algie meanwhile has become intruiged by the mention of a young beautiful ward, Cecily (Reese Witherspoon) in Jack's care whom he'd like to meet, but Jack doesn't want him anywhere near her, as Algie is such a dissolute creature. The problems start arising when Algie arrives in the country posing as Earnest, and Gwendolen comes to the country looking for her Earnest to get engaged against her mother's wishes. Hilarity ensues.
What can I say... it's Oscar Wilde, and it's got Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Dame Judi Dench. Well worth your 90 minutes.
And one from last week's viewing:
Lemony Snicket
We never got around to seeing this when it came out in theatres, so finally our shot at it.
The story is about the three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, who are orphaned at the onset of the movie. They are subsequently sent to live with Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), who basically treats them as slaves and wants to kill them as soon as possible to lay his hands on the Baudelaire fortune. After an incident involving a train, they are taken away from Olaf and placed first with Montgomery Montgomery (Billy Connolly) and later with Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep). Count Olaf is still conspiring after their fortune, and the hapless executor of the Baudelaire's will, Mr. Poe, is deaf to the children's complaints about him... because of course adults never listen to children. Mr. Poe is so deaf to their complaints that after a series of unfortunate events, they're actually placed back with Count Olaf, who then also finds out that even if the children die, he won't inherit the fortune. So it's on to plan B...
I haven't read any of the books, so there can be no book-movie comparisons. I have to say I really enjoyed the movie. Assuming the Count Olaf in the books is as dastardly and goofy as he's played by Jim Carrey, he's not actually miscast. Carrey's also not over the top enough to really steal the show, which is nice, and his regular vivacity actually matches everything else in the movie rather than overshadowing it all.
The costuming and set design are gorgeous, but then those people are the folks who work on Tim Burton's movies, so we really couldn't expect anything less. Yummy yummy yummy!
The director wins bonus points for casting Billy Connolly as Dr. Montgomery Montgomery. I love Billy Connolly, and he was a darling in this role. The super deadly viper was also a hilarious scene. Meryl Streep was fabulous as the paranoid and neurotic aunt Josephine... but when isn't Meryl Streep fabulous in a role? I loved the actors cast as the kids, nicely matched together as a family, and not obnoxious or precocious.
One of the things that amused PreZ and myself the most was the subtitling they did whenever Sunny, the bite-crazy baby, would make some baby ga-ga goo-goo noise. The stuff they'd put in the subtitles was hilarious.
And I got me a Jude Law fix :P
Also well worth a rental if you haven't already seen it.
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
I think my biggest problem with this movie is Denzel Washington. It's nothing to do with the movie at all, he just bugs me as an actor and I really don't like watching him particularly much. I have no idea why, it might be his voice, or the fact that I want to rearrange his teeth (there's just something about them). It's a very intangible dislike, that has no real bearing on his talent. So the fact that he stars in this took some of the pleasure out of it for me.
I've never seen the original, though it's languishing somewhere on our Netflix queue as well.
The basic premise is as follows: Bennett Marco (Denzel), along with Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) served together in a unit in the first Gulf war. Shaw as the rebelling son of a senator (Meryl Streep) had taken an infantry commission, rather than the officer's commission. Out on a routine patrol they are ambushed. Two of the unit are killed, and each remaining man subsequently remembers Shaw as being the hero who saved them all, and he's awarded a medal of honor as a result.
Skip ahead a decade, and we find Major Ben Marco holding a speech for a bunch of boy scouts and others. Afterwards he is approached by one of his former unit buddies, who asks him if he too has the strange dreams, and who tries to show him strange pictures and clippings that he's been making and collecting over the years. Marco initially dismisses him as someone who needs psychiatric help, and pays him no mind. However, this encounter triggers more dreams of Marco's own, and soon he's trying to piece together what really happened in the Gulf.
His main link is Shaw, who is now a senator in his own right. Trying to convince Shaw that he's not a lunatic is just the beginning of it, because he now also has to deal the formidable, and manipulative, Senator Eleanor Shaw, Raymond's mother, who is primed to thrust her son into the vice presidency and who will brook no disappointment and who will go to great lengths to succeed. Lengths that have their roots in what happened in that altercation in the Gulf.
The plot really is no great surprise, at least it wasn't to me. You basically already know where it's headed early on (and probably in no small part due to the trailers). Though the ending wasn't quite what I expected, so kudos for that.
All in all it's a tight thriller by Jonathan Demme, suitably paranoid (helped by the very close up face shots sometimes). I enjoyed Liev Schreiber in his role, I find he's generally a bit underappreciated as an actor. Denzel did good work, but I just don't like him :P
House Of Flying Daggers
A movie by Yimou Zhang, whose previous offering was Hero which PreZ and I saw last year and enjoyed a lot. We missed this one in theatres, due to it having a ridiculously short screening life, as usual.
Much like with Hero, this movie is also set in a historical setting. This time towards the end of the Tang dynasty. The dynasty is falling apart, the government is corrupt, and the people are fed up. A revolutionary group called House of the Flying Daggers has arisen to fight the government. They antagonise the government in true Robin Hood style... steal from the rich and give to the poor and such.
The story starts with the provincial police being told that they have 10 days to find the new leader of House of the Flying Daggers. Their only lead is the fact that one of the showgirls at the Peony Pavillion might have connections to the group. So one of the police captains, Leo (Andy Lau), sends the other, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), in undercover as a customer and then the cops rush in and arrest the girl, Mei (Ziyi Zhang), who turns out to be blind.
In an effort to have the girl lead them to the House of the Flying Daggers, Leo and Jin decide that Jin should stage a prison breakout and rescue Mei to win her trust. He does and they set off as fugitives towards the House of Flying Daggers' hideaway.
It's worth mentioning here that the literal translation of the film's title isn't "House of Flying Daggers", but "Ambushed From Ten Directions", which probably is descriptive enough as to what happens next. There's plenty of deception, betrayal, love and heroics in this movie to keep the viewers entertained and guessing.
Visually, it's a feast, much like Hero. Stunning scenery, sets and costumes. It's like looking at an exquisite delicacy in every frame. Then there's the ballet of the wirework martial arts that are also amazing.
Well worth the rental. I just wish I'd seen it on the big screen, it would have been so much more impressive.
The Importance Of Being Earnest
Based on an Oscar Wilde play, starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon and Dame Judi Dench.
A comedy of mistaken identities, where we get to see the protagonists digging a hole for themselves deeper and deeper. Similar in a way to certain events in An Ideal Husband, another of Wilde's works.
Colin Firth plays John/Jack Worthing, a man who mostly lives in the country. In order to be able to go to London at will, he devises an imaginary brother called Earnest. As such, everyone in London knows him as that, including Gwendolen, a woman he's courting. Rupert Everett plays his friend Algernon Moncrieff, who lives in the city, and similarly has an imaginary friend with failing health called Bunbury, who serves as a convenient excuse to escape to the country.
After failing to procure an engagement with Gwendolen thanks to her mother (Judi Dench), Jack fesses up to Algie and decides to hang up his guise of Earnest, and to go back to the country. Algie meanwhile has become intruiged by the mention of a young beautiful ward, Cecily (Reese Witherspoon) in Jack's care whom he'd like to meet, but Jack doesn't want him anywhere near her, as Algie is such a dissolute creature. The problems start arising when Algie arrives in the country posing as Earnest, and Gwendolen comes to the country looking for her Earnest to get engaged against her mother's wishes. Hilarity ensues.
What can I say... it's Oscar Wilde, and it's got Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Dame Judi Dench. Well worth your 90 minutes.
And one from last week's viewing:
Lemony Snicket
We never got around to seeing this when it came out in theatres, so finally our shot at it.
The story is about the three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, who are orphaned at the onset of the movie. They are subsequently sent to live with Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), who basically treats them as slaves and wants to kill them as soon as possible to lay his hands on the Baudelaire fortune. After an incident involving a train, they are taken away from Olaf and placed first with Montgomery Montgomery (Billy Connolly) and later with Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep). Count Olaf is still conspiring after their fortune, and the hapless executor of the Baudelaire's will, Mr. Poe, is deaf to the children's complaints about him... because of course adults never listen to children. Mr. Poe is so deaf to their complaints that after a series of unfortunate events, they're actually placed back with Count Olaf, who then also finds out that even if the children die, he won't inherit the fortune. So it's on to plan B...
I haven't read any of the books, so there can be no book-movie comparisons. I have to say I really enjoyed the movie. Assuming the Count Olaf in the books is as dastardly and goofy as he's played by Jim Carrey, he's not actually miscast. Carrey's also not over the top enough to really steal the show, which is nice, and his regular vivacity actually matches everything else in the movie rather than overshadowing it all.
The costuming and set design are gorgeous, but then those people are the folks who work on Tim Burton's movies, so we really couldn't expect anything less. Yummy yummy yummy!
The director wins bonus points for casting Billy Connolly as Dr. Montgomery Montgomery. I love Billy Connolly, and he was a darling in this role. The super deadly viper was also a hilarious scene. Meryl Streep was fabulous as the paranoid and neurotic aunt Josephine... but when isn't Meryl Streep fabulous in a role? I loved the actors cast as the kids, nicely matched together as a family, and not obnoxious or precocious.
One of the things that amused PreZ and myself the most was the subtitling they did whenever Sunny, the bite-crazy baby, would make some baby ga-ga goo-goo noise. The stuff they'd put in the subtitles was hilarious.
And I got me a Jude Law fix :P
Also well worth a rental if you haven't already seen it.
