World Enough and Time

This evening and I watched two Oscar contendeders, The Wolf of Wall Street and Gravity.

I didn't want to see The Wolf of Wall Street because I can't stand Leonardo di Caprio and don't like any of his movies. I decided to give it a try because of its Oscar nomination - not that I necessarily think that's a mark in a movie's favour. There have been plenty of Oscar movies I disliked, with or without di Caprio. This did nothing to change my mind: it's the anti-fajrdrako movie, with nothing in it for me at all.

Gravity, on the other hand, was as good as I expected: excellent script, great directing and cinematograpy, terrific acting by Sandra Bullock, whom I do always like. And Clooney, too. Though Ryan Stone made me feel like an underachiever.

Went to see a documentary at Alliance Française called "Les origines du langage", about how speech and language developed originally in homo sapiens. Apparently once it happened, it happened fast, because it was such an evolutionary advantage. They said the same parts of the brain which deal with gesture and patterns are the parts that deal with language.

It wasn't too difficult to understand the French, though when they first started talking bout "Les Austrolopithèques" I thought "the who?" The easiest person to understand was a linguist from the Université du Québec à Montréal, which probably means my ear is pretty much attuned to the local accent and speech patterns.

I'd like to see it again.

Gotta be the best review of anything I have ever read... A review of Iron Man 3 by Laura Hundson and Jim Rugg. They nailed it. Sequential Stark: Wired Reviews Iron Man 3 — In Comic Book Format.

Especially the parts about identity.

A review almost as clever as the movie.

There aren't many movies I really care about going to see these days. There was a time I liked going to a movie every week - but most of the new movies don't look interesting to me.

Least of all are they worth seeing late at night. Midnight screenings? I'm the get up at dawn girl these days; so it's the rare movie that lures me into the late hours of the night. Even when I see things, I don't often think they're worth it.

So... Iron Man 3. Worth it.

I loved Iron Man 1, mostly hated Iron Man 2. Ads for #3 made me fear it would be like #2. No need to fear: it isn't.

I just heard an IMDb interview with Robert Downey Jr.. He says, "People are happy that it's kind of clever and defies expectations." That's certainly true in my case: it's very clever and kept defying my expectations over and over. Expectations based on lot of comic book reading over the years, and a long knowledge of how these stories work.

And it isn't just changing things for the sake of changing them, randomly. It's... clever changes. Things rooted in the comic, and in the set-up of the previous movies. Surprises that all make sense, but you don't see them coming. At least, I didn't.

It was wonderful. I love surprises.

On the non-surprise front: Too many explosions. I did expect that. No big deal. If a lot of explosions sell a good plot, I'll live with them.

Mind you, some of it was due to a year or two of clever misdirection in terms of movie publicity and promotion. Those clever dogs.

Okay, ( spoilery comments now...... )

Last night some friends got together with me to watch the Academy Awards.

Now, I've watched the Academy Awards before, on numerous occasions, and I usually find myself kind of baffled. I've usually seen one or two of the movies nominated for Best Picture, seldom more. I usually don't get most of the jokes, and usually only recognise about ten per cent of the celebrities. I usually think the dresses on the women are ugly and all look alike, the men have too much facial hair, and the worst possible movie gets the award.

There are exceptions.

Last night there was much to love and much to hate. The bottom line: all those Oscar nominated movies I wanted to see? I'm not sure I want to see them any more.

Keeping in mind that I saw practically no 2012 movies, here is the list for my own special Fajrdako Awards for movies of 2012:

Best Animated Movie: Brave
Best Picture: Skyfall
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Craig
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Scarlett Johansson. Black Widow isn't exactly the lead of The Avengers, which is an ensemble cast, but she was outstanding. It wasn't a great year for female leads.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Ben Whishaw
Best Actess in a Supporting Role: Judi Dench
Best Cinematography: Skyfall
Best Costume Design: The Avengers (Okay, so they were designed by Jack Kirby in 1963 - they are still terrific designs, and well adapted to film.)
Directing: Sam Mendes for Skyfall
Documentary Feature 56 Up
Special Effects: The Avengers
Music: Skyfall
Makeup and hairstyling: Les Miserables
Best Song: Adele's Skyfall
Production Design: The Avengers
Visual Effects: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
WRITING - Adapted Screenplay The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
WRITING - Original Screenplay Skyfall (and it almost breaks my heart not to be saying The Avengers here, because I thought that screenplay was brilliant; but Skyfall was even better. I have the same problem in choosing between Sam Mendes and Joss Whedon as directors.)

As you can see, the Academy and I have only two selections in common: Brave as Best Animated Feature and Skyfall for Best Original Song. I know the Academy is going for outstanding quality in filmmaking, but I often think their choices are pretentious, and based on 'the most serious' or 'the most depressing' movies of the year; and sometimes, as with Django Unchained, I'm just at a loss.

They are not, of course, popularist awards. The movie-goers vote with their pocketbook there, and I noticed that the that the films which make a lot of money and the films which are chosen for artistic merit don't have much overlap. Entertainment value per se is clearly not a criterion.

And yet, the show itself always features the popular choices. The cast of The Avengers, for example, presenting an award. The tribute to the James Bond films. And so on....

Best moment: The Avengers cast presenting an award together. Samuel R. Jackson was particularly funny, with Jeremy Renner as his straight man.

Runner-up was Daniel Day Lewis' acceptance speech. And our glimpses of the charming, charismatic Quvenzhané Wallis, who was amazingly poised and articulate on the Red Carpet for a person of any age. And she's nine. Nine!

Worst moment: The boob song. I couldn't believe my ears: aren't we supposed to be honouring these great actresses, not shaming them and making fun of them? And what was the Gay Chorus doing there, contributing to that mess? Was this deliberate misogyny, old-fashioned sexism, erotophobia, or something else I couldn't even guess? Why did anyone allow that to happen? What were they thinking?

Other things worthy of comment:

• Charlize Theron. I'm not really familiar with her movies, but my goodness she was gorgeous. Such presence. Jawdropping.
  
  
• Is it a new trend, for actors to bring their mothers to the Oscars with them? Do their mothers not get to come otherwise?
  
  
• Almost all Seth McFarlane's jokes went over my head. I'm told it's just as well. All in all, I think William Shatner was right, and it's too bad that Shatner's segment lacked humour and charm, since Shatner himself can show a lot of both.
  
  I think Hugh Jackman should always be the MC; he was the best I've ever seen. And I liked Whoopie Goldberg when she did it, too.
  
  
• I have complained some years that all the dresses look alike, and they tend to follow colour schemes: all white one year, all black the next. This year we had some interesting variation, and though there were some trends I don't like - I'm still not crazy over strapless dresses in general - there was lots of visual variety and style. I particularly liked the dresses worn by Halle Berry, Jennifer Lawrence, Olivia Munn (who is she?) and Jennifer Garner.
  
  The dresses I most disliked were those with cleavage down to the waistline. Looks bad to me.
  
  
• Jane Fonda looked marvellous in a striking yellow dress that stood out among all those pastels. I guess it's not to difficult to look great after you've spent decades making fitness videos, but she's an amazing advertisement for her own work and lifestyle.
  
  
• Barbra Streisand. I admire her as a person and an actress but I've never liked her singing. It isn't her voice I dislike, it's the way she arranges her songs. This was an exception: I thought she was perfect. She looked great and sounded fabulous.
  
  
• Adele. She was a little drowned out by the orchestra, but how I loved her singing Skyfall.
  
  
• Goldfinger sung again by Shirley Bassey. What a joy.
  
  
• The dance numbers.
  
  
• The men did have too much facial hair, including men it really doesn't suit.
  

Bottom line: the thread of bad taste was an odd counterpoint to the general seriousness of event, as if they are trying to be lowbrow and highbrow at the same time, and failing with both. The winners were generally delightful to see and hear, and I enjoyed the evening.

Pim and I had a James Bond double bill this evening: we watched Goldfinger, followed by Dr. No.



I wasn't very impressed by Goldfinger which, except for the the bit with girl covered in gold, struck me as sort of hokey and pointless. But Dr. No - what an unexpected treat! It was old-fashioned fun like I remember from The Man From U.N.C.L.E., with an interesting and bizarre villain and Bond being, well, Bond-like. And I really liked Jack Lord as Felix Leiter - I haven't liked any of the other actors I've seen in the role. I even surprised myself by liking Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder.

Good Jamaica setting, too.

Marvel has announced that there is going to be a Doctor Strange movie coming up. This had me wondering: Doctor Strange recently has had a low profile over the past few years at Marvel. He was demoted from the position of Sorceror Supreme. He has appeared in the Illuminati - and I heartily approve, I like the Illuminati - but those appearances are few and far between, and Strange hasn't been particulary highlighted by them.

So: is it going to be like Thor and Iron Man and even Loki, where success in the movies accompanies a fresh and improved revival of the comic book character? Might we actually get some focus on Stephen Strange, with one of the top-notch writers?

... I hope so. After a promising beginning, the depiction of Strange in the recent series of The Defenders was most disappointing. And I'm not sure anyone has drawn him right since Frank Brunner.

Most of the online commentary I have seen has been the casting game. Who could play Strange in the movie? I'm hoping for a brilliantly talented, charismatic unknown who will transform the personality in the way Robert Downey Jr. redefined Iron Man. I did see the suggestion that Aidan Gillen could play the role. That appeals. Most of the people who strike me as physically right for the part are British or Irish - which isn't to say that they couldn't play American. Hmm. Perhaps Jim Caviezel?

Cowboys and Aliens: one of the worst movies ever.

No, really. It was ghastly. Murky cinematography, minimal plot, nonsenical evil aliens, pointless mumbled dialogue, and lots of slow, ponderous movement punctuated by explosions.

Why'd I watch it? For Daniel Craig, of course. Despite my current Daniel Craig pash, I'm not sure it was worth it. There were some lovely shots of him moving gracefully in rough terrain, but the script didn't give him much to work with. The only character in the movie who had any real personality was Paul Dano as the hideous brat Percy Dolarhyde, who I thought might have some interesting character development - but sadly, he was kidnapped by the aliens early on, and had no story at all, let alone a developing one.

Harrison Ford as the tough-guy town-runner simply made me think sadly of Harrison Ford as he was in Star Wars or Witness.

Between the froggy aliens, the laconic cowboys, the virtuous whore, the yelping Indians, the sad-eyed dog, and so on... there was no cliché untouched.

The idea of cowboys and aliens is terrific. Just look at Firefly. Okay, no real aliens there (and all to the better), but just think what Joss Whedon could have done with this. He might have given us characters with personality, and the occasional joke. The aliens might have been convincing. He might have made it fun.

Oh, it was so sadly lacking in fun.

You know what really bothers me? It was directed (badly) by Jon Favreau, who (badly) directed Iron Man 2. And they've given him Iron Man 3 to direct. I was really looking forward to Iron Man 3. Now I just have to hope that Jon Favreau has developed a smidge of directing talent in the past year or so. Because this was so very, very boring.

John Keats. I read several biographies of him in my teens; I read piles of his poetry. Back then I was reading piles of poetry by all the Romantics, and Keats was not my favourite. My love was for Shelley; Shelley admired Keats, but Keats didn't reciprocate the friendship. I liked Keats, but he seemed passive and bloodless compared to Shelley's manic social theories, Byron's outrageous histrionics, or Robert Browning's smooth storytelling. The sad story of John Keats - 'unrecognized brilliance, lived poor, lost his love and died young' - perhaps resembled my sense of myself too much: sickly, struggling with life, love, and creativity. If I wanted to read about dying tragically in Italy, I'd choose Elizabeth Browning, whose story is more romantic. I admired Keats, but didn't ever love him.

This didn't stop me from making a pilgrimage to his grave when I was in Rome.

Still: a movie about a Romantic poet, and set in 1818 - how could I resist? Well, auriaephiala said it was sad. So I didn't get around to it for a few years.

But then I saw Skyfall, and fall in love with everyone in the movie, including Ben Whishaw, who plays Keats in Bright Star, and suddenly the movie rose to the top of my list.


Had I known the director was Jane Campion, I might still have resisted seeing it. The Piano is one of my least favourite movies ever. When I watched the extras on the Bright Star DVD, I saw that Jane Campion talked about wanting to show the passion of the characters and their story.

Problem is, I don't see much passion here. It seems to me to be the Dreaded Doom of some historical movies: emulate the speech patterns of the time, make everyone a little bit mannered, put in a lot of long silences and ambiguous glances. Boring before it starts. Fleshless.

Or maybe I'm just allergic to Campion's style. I know Whishaw can act brilliantly; I've seen it. I saw it in Skyfall, where in a few brief scenes he shows more personality than in the whole of Bright Star. I didn't see the depths in Keats that I wanted to see, or the strength of his love for Fannny. Nor did I find Abbie Cornish very interesting as Fanny Brawne - and I'm pretty sure that Jane Campion was not trying to say that Fanny was a dull person. In fact, the only character I really liked was Mr. Brown, played by Paul Schneider. He seemed real to me, and three dimensional. No one else did.

And Brown's love for Keats seemed more sad, more selfless, more hopeless, and more heroic to me than Fanny's. He broke my heart when he said, "I failed John Keats. I did not know until now how tightly he wound himself around my heart." The only problem with him was his ugly plaid trousers.

...And yes, that was another problem. In lieu of strong story and gripping emotions, I wanted to enjoy my favourite period for costume and style. Sadly, I thought Janet Patterson botched it. The point is made that Fanny Brawne designed her own clothes: the character and the designer between them managed to make clothes of my favourite period look ugly to my eye. Fussy where they should have been simple, multipatterned when they should have been plain.

I didn't think it even did much justice to Keat's poetry. The poems, of course, speak for themselves. But the readings were somewhat monotone, read in lowered voices which substituted timing for intonation. Uninspired, regardless of who was reading them.

I'm not sorry I watched it. Actually, I watched it twice. The second time confirmed my first impressions. I loved the cat; and Fanny's little sister; and I'm getting close to the point where I'd watch Ben Whishaw in anything. But this wasn't the movie I wanted it to be.