movie challenge : may
May. 29th, 2017 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bond_girlThanks to Peri's gift of the Penny Dreadful comic book, I suddenly got big bad Gothic cravings and of course, I went. all. out :D
3. A movie with an Oscar AND a Golden Globe : The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it. | with Alec Guinness
• War or POW movies aren't my favorite genre because they often come with torture or massive death count, so I dreaded this one a little. It turned out to be really good, asking interesting questions about what drives men to care about duty. I especially enjoyed the long and complicated standoff between the British and the Japanese colonel - and it was personal, far deeper than just the conquered not wanting to submit to the conqueror. In a parallel subplot, a crafty American escapes from the camp and has a long trek through the jungle and local villages to freedom - only to have to return back to his personal circle of hell on a mission.
• Roger Ebert gave it a thoughtful review: HERE. His take on the movie is that it's about men's madness.
• In short : a war classic that pays attention to individuals rather than to large causes
12+13. Two film adaptations of the same book :
Jane Eyre (2011)
• A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret. | with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender
• This was such a ride! From the gorgeous Gothic-porn cinematography to the unbelievable actor chemistry, it was a treat. I did feel that romance took the back seat to the unstoppable sexual attraction, but hey, that's not a bad flavor of Jane Eyre.
• Mia Wasikowska has such a good take on Jane who is both intelligent and naive, strong and vulnerable in great quantities. You can easily see why Rochester would want to break the law and moral codes to get hold of her.
• Fassbender's Rochester is a firecracker. When he proposed to Jane, I freaking DIED. My heart plummeted somewhere in my underwear and stayed there until the end of the movie :D Coming from a massive classic, it wasn't like any plot turn in their affair was exactly a surprise, but I was DEAD, DEAD, DEAD.
• The romance here is a sexual explosion, a need, a ravaging. We have no doubt that both of them want to rip clothes off each other, and frankly, I was wishing for it!
• Judy Dench as Mrs. Fairfax was a pleasant note of fussy kindness in this storm of passions. And Jamie Bell's St John was brutally pure and demanding in a way that was almost sexually perverted. As I'm saying, this movie was HOT.
• In short: a passionate Jane Eyre adaptation that gave me cravings for watching and reading more bodice-ripping romance
Jane Eyre (1996)
• A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret. | with Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt
• The house has the most creepy, tangible atmosphere and the mystery buildup is genuinely chilling. Overall, this adaptation feels the most true to the spirit of the book.
• At first glance, William Hurt's Rochester was definitely not as exciting and passionate as Fassbender's (and definitely not as sexy, lol!), but he remained cold, selfish, and aloof in ways that really grabbed and held my attention. He's not an open book and he's not an entirely good man, and like Jane, we wonder about the nature of his feelings and intentions for her. Until we see how he reacts to seeing Jane again in the end of the movie and, god, it gave me the biggest goosebumps. This Rochester is all still-waters-run-deep.
• Charlotte Gainsbourg's Jane is perfectly cast: she's not classically attractive and she doesn't suddenly become glamorous and beautiful just because a man is in love with her. External attractiveness is truly of little consequence here as she's such a beautiful, proud, wounded bird of a person - I know Jane specifically denies being compared a bird, but that's how she came across to me :)
• The romance here is between two messed-up people who barely dare to love another. The feelings are delicate and complicated, and I loved these subtleties so much.
• Honestly, Mrs. Fairfax and St. John weren't really impressive here, but Joséphine Serre's Adele was quite memorable as a girl who has quite a mind and personality of her own whether her guardian Rochester likes it or not. And Anna Paquin plays young Jane here with a lot of sulk and attitude. There was a definite f/f crush vibe in her Lowood school friendship, but maybe I was just coming down hard from the 2011 version and seeing sexual overtones in everything :))
• In short: an excellent, emotionally rich adaptation, very true to the book and giving you plenty of food for thought
• In the end, I honestly can't choose between two adaptations! They are both excellent, for slightly different moods: 2011 is passionate and compelling, and 1996 is macabre and emotionally complex.
+ As a side note, I am not a fan of how mental illness is portrayed here, so I had to do some mental gymnastics to get over it and enjoy the movies. In the books, at least we read Jane say that it was cruel to treat Bertha this way as she couldn't help being mad. Yes, it was better than a lunatic asylum of the times, but still, her story reeks of ignorance and neglect. This is a really wonderful short The Guardian's article about The Lady in the Attic. By now, I read Wide Sargasso Sea
, the prequel to Jane Eyre, written from the point of view of Rochester's wife - and I'm about to watch both movie adaptations.
+ I also tried and failed to watch Jane Eyre (1943) with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles and (1983) TV mini-series with Timothy Dalton. The acting in both was so over the top, I couldn't handle it D: but I'll probably give another try to the Dalton version.
♥
31. A musical : Dreamgirls (2006)
• A trio of black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way. | a Motown musical
• I actively avoid musicals (with the exception of Mamma Mia!) because - a) it physically pains me when characters randomly break out singing, - b) they are over the top by design. I love Motown, so it sounded like I could handle Dreamgirls for the challenge.
• It wasn't bad, but it didn't make me feel better about the genre. The second half of the movie was a lot better because the conflicts became more interesting.
• Jennifer Hudson was the only truly outstanding thing about it. I also enjoyed brief glimpses into the tumultous Detroit of the times and the side plotline about Eddie Murphy's take on James Brown who couldn't be tamed. Beyonce had a few great singing moments and some gorgeous fashion, of course.
• In short : a modern musical that I survived; watch for Jennifer Hudson's spark
40. A movie about a break-up : Nocturnal Animals (2006)
• A wealthy art gallery owner is haunted by her ex-husband's novel, a violent thriller she interprets as a symbolic revenge tale. | a Tom Ford movie
• Wow, this turned out to be not only style over substance, but also anti-abortion, very rapey, AND painfully slow.
• In short, a man can't move on after a brutal breakup and so 20 (!!!) years later, he writes a book to punish his ex-wife. If the movie stopped there, it'd have been less annoying. However, we also learn that the ex-wife's betrayal and newfound wealth didn't bring her happiness, but only the sense of emptiness and an unhappy new marriage. I guess the lesson is that a woman should be punished for having ambitions of her own and for having agency over her own body. Because any random man's true wuv should be enough for her. In the parallel book story, a man's wife and daughter got raped and die because he was too weak to stand up to the aggressors, and then we have to live through many hours of him slowly manning up to get his revenge. Give me a break omg. This movie only made me angry.
• What gives, Tom Ford? I was rather upset because I loved A Single Man so much.
• Amy Adams is pretty in her new plastic life. Her designer house of unhappiness is unlivable and gorgeous.
• In short : watch it if you hate yourself! and love toxic masculinity and misogyny!
44. A movie about food : Tampopo (1985)
• A truck driver stops at a small family-run noodle shop and decides to help its fledgling business. | an offbeat masterpiece of Japanese comedy
• This "ramen western" was a blast! Tampopo explores our relationship with food, with lots of humor and joy. Food eating or food prep is definitely the main attraction here, taking place of sex and violence. There's the main arc of the widow Tampopo, her truck driver / noodle guru, and her dream of a perfect ramen noodle shop - and a series of hysterically funny or delightfully weird vignettes. The egg yolk orgasm scene alone was worth the price of admission :D
• If you definitively hate mixing food and sex, you might be turned off by some short (!) scenes.
• In short : an original little gem about human nature and food; to watch on full stomach only!
♥
45. An LGBT-themed movie : Orlando (1992)
• The film follows a young nobleman Orlando through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex. | with Tilda Swinton; based on a Virginia Woolf's book
• A gorgeously filmed study on what it is to be a man or a woman; whether it makes any difference in the end. It flows freely and randomly through historical events, and I'm at a loss at how to describe it except that it was a wonderful experience, largely free of traditional plot and not in a bad way! It felt like watching a long poem unfold.
• Tilda Swinton is magical as Orlando: both naive and worldy, aloof and taking a keen interest, always seeming to belong to another time. And she's so beautiful, I just love her in everything.
• In short: a beautiful, poetic reflection on gender
♥
• I had a real shot of finishing the challenge in May, but my laptop's hard drive croaked in the middle of the River Kwai :) - so I'm 4 movies short!
Movies of the month ♥♥♥:
• Jane Eyre (1996) & (2011) - I loved both of these Janes absolutely
| 2017 movie challenge|
3. A movie with an Oscar AND a Golden Globe : The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it. | with Alec Guinness
• War or POW movies aren't my favorite genre because they often come with torture or massive death count, so I dreaded this one a little. It turned out to be really good, asking interesting questions about what drives men to care about duty. I especially enjoyed the long and complicated standoff between the British and the Japanese colonel - and it was personal, far deeper than just the conquered not wanting to submit to the conqueror. In a parallel subplot, a crafty American escapes from the camp and has a long trek through the jungle and local villages to freedom - only to have to return back to his personal circle of hell on a mission.
• Roger Ebert gave it a thoughtful review: HERE. His take on the movie is that it's about men's madness.
• In short : a war classic that pays attention to individuals rather than to large causes
12+13. Two film adaptations of the same book :
Jane Eyre (2011)
• A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret. | with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender
• This was such a ride! From the gorgeous Gothic-porn cinematography to the unbelievable actor chemistry, it was a treat. I did feel that romance took the back seat to the unstoppable sexual attraction, but hey, that's not a bad flavor of Jane Eyre.
• Mia Wasikowska has such a good take on Jane who is both intelligent and naive, strong and vulnerable in great quantities. You can easily see why Rochester would want to break the law and moral codes to get hold of her.
• Fassbender's Rochester is a firecracker. When he proposed to Jane, I freaking DIED. My heart plummeted somewhere in my underwear and stayed there until the end of the movie :D Coming from a massive classic, it wasn't like any plot turn in their affair was exactly a surprise, but I was DEAD, DEAD, DEAD.
• The romance here is a sexual explosion, a need, a ravaging. We have no doubt that both of them want to rip clothes off each other, and frankly, I was wishing for it!
• Judy Dench as Mrs. Fairfax was a pleasant note of fussy kindness in this storm of passions. And Jamie Bell's St John was brutally pure and demanding in a way that was almost sexually perverted. As I'm saying, this movie was HOT.
• In short: a passionate Jane Eyre adaptation that gave me cravings for watching and reading more bodice-ripping romance
Jane Eyre (1996)
• A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret. | with Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt
• The house has the most creepy, tangible atmosphere and the mystery buildup is genuinely chilling. Overall, this adaptation feels the most true to the spirit of the book.
• At first glance, William Hurt's Rochester was definitely not as exciting and passionate as Fassbender's (and definitely not as sexy, lol!), but he remained cold, selfish, and aloof in ways that really grabbed and held my attention. He's not an open book and he's not an entirely good man, and like Jane, we wonder about the nature of his feelings and intentions for her. Until we see how he reacts to seeing Jane again in the end of the movie and, god, it gave me the biggest goosebumps. This Rochester is all still-waters-run-deep.
• Charlotte Gainsbourg's Jane is perfectly cast: she's not classically attractive and she doesn't suddenly become glamorous and beautiful just because a man is in love with her. External attractiveness is truly of little consequence here as she's such a beautiful, proud, wounded bird of a person - I know Jane specifically denies being compared a bird, but that's how she came across to me :)
• The romance here is between two messed-up people who barely dare to love another. The feelings are delicate and complicated, and I loved these subtleties so much.
• Honestly, Mrs. Fairfax and St. John weren't really impressive here, but Joséphine Serre's Adele was quite memorable as a girl who has quite a mind and personality of her own whether her guardian Rochester likes it or not. And Anna Paquin plays young Jane here with a lot of sulk and attitude. There was a definite f/f crush vibe in her Lowood school friendship, but maybe I was just coming down hard from the 2011 version and seeing sexual overtones in everything :))
• In short: an excellent, emotionally rich adaptation, very true to the book and giving you plenty of food for thought
• In the end, I honestly can't choose between two adaptations! They are both excellent, for slightly different moods: 2011 is passionate and compelling, and 1996 is macabre and emotionally complex.
+ As a side note, I am not a fan of how mental illness is portrayed here, so I had to do some mental gymnastics to get over it and enjoy the movies. In the books, at least we read Jane say that it was cruel to treat Bertha this way as she couldn't help being mad. Yes, it was better than a lunatic asylum of the times, but still, her story reeks of ignorance and neglect. This is a really wonderful short The Guardian's article about The Lady in the Attic. By now, I read Wide Sargasso Sea
, the prequel to Jane Eyre, written from the point of view of Rochester's wife - and I'm about to watch both movie adaptations.+ I also tried and failed to watch Jane Eyre (1943) with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles and (1983) TV mini-series with Timothy Dalton. The acting in both was so over the top, I couldn't handle it D: but I'll probably give another try to the Dalton version.
♥
31. A musical : Dreamgirls (2006)
• A trio of black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way. | a Motown musical
• I actively avoid musicals (with the exception of Mamma Mia!) because - a) it physically pains me when characters randomly break out singing, - b) they are over the top by design. I love Motown, so it sounded like I could handle Dreamgirls for the challenge.
• It wasn't bad, but it didn't make me feel better about the genre. The second half of the movie was a lot better because the conflicts became more interesting.
• Jennifer Hudson was the only truly outstanding thing about it. I also enjoyed brief glimpses into the tumultous Detroit of the times and the side plotline about Eddie Murphy's take on James Brown who couldn't be tamed. Beyonce had a few great singing moments and some gorgeous fashion, of course.
• In short : a modern musical that I survived; watch for Jennifer Hudson's spark
40. A movie about a break-up : Nocturnal Animals (2006)
• A wealthy art gallery owner is haunted by her ex-husband's novel, a violent thriller she interprets as a symbolic revenge tale. | a Tom Ford movie
• Wow, this turned out to be not only style over substance, but also anti-abortion, very rapey, AND painfully slow.
• In short, a man can't move on after a brutal breakup and so 20 (!!!) years later, he writes a book to punish his ex-wife. If the movie stopped there, it'd have been less annoying. However, we also learn that the ex-wife's betrayal and newfound wealth didn't bring her happiness, but only the sense of emptiness and an unhappy new marriage. I guess the lesson is that a woman should be punished for having ambitions of her own and for having agency over her own body. Because any random man's true wuv should be enough for her. In the parallel book story, a man's wife and daughter got raped and die because he was too weak to stand up to the aggressors, and then we have to live through many hours of him slowly manning up to get his revenge. Give me a break omg. This movie only made me angry.
• What gives, Tom Ford? I was rather upset because I loved A Single Man so much.
• Amy Adams is pretty in her new plastic life. Her designer house of unhappiness is unlivable and gorgeous.
• In short : watch it if you hate yourself! and love toxic masculinity and misogyny!
44. A movie about food : Tampopo (1985)
• A truck driver stops at a small family-run noodle shop and decides to help its fledgling business. | an offbeat masterpiece of Japanese comedy
• This "ramen western" was a blast! Tampopo explores our relationship with food, with lots of humor and joy. Food eating or food prep is definitely the main attraction here, taking place of sex and violence. There's the main arc of the widow Tampopo, her truck driver / noodle guru, and her dream of a perfect ramen noodle shop - and a series of hysterically funny or delightfully weird vignettes. The egg yolk orgasm scene alone was worth the price of admission :D
• If you definitively hate mixing food and sex, you might be turned off by some short (!) scenes.
• In short : an original little gem about human nature and food; to watch on full stomach only!
♥
45. An LGBT-themed movie : Orlando (1992)
• The film follows a young nobleman Orlando through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex. | with Tilda Swinton; based on a Virginia Woolf's book
• A gorgeously filmed study on what it is to be a man or a woman; whether it makes any difference in the end. It flows freely and randomly through historical events, and I'm at a loss at how to describe it except that it was a wonderful experience, largely free of traditional plot and not in a bad way! It felt like watching a long poem unfold.
• Tilda Swinton is magical as Orlando: both naive and worldy, aloof and taking a keen interest, always seeming to belong to another time. And she's so beautiful, I just love her in everything.
• In short: a beautiful, poetic reflection on gender
♥
• I had a real shot of finishing the challenge in May, but my laptop's hard drive croaked in the middle of the River Kwai :) - so I'm 4 movies short!
Movies of the month ♥♥♥:
• Jane Eyre (1996) & (2011) - I loved both of these Janes absolutely
| 2017 movie challenge|
