If Prof. Blanchard can do a TV update, let me discuss some movies, although not without seconding Ken's endorsement of Dr. Who, which is now the best thing on television in my opinion. While that's not a high bar to get over, in the case of Dr. Who we have some truly excellent writing and acting. And isn't the previous Dr. Who, Christopher Eccleston, now on Heroes?
We really wanted to go to 3:10 to Yuma last night, but wouldn't you know that the film is not in Aberdeen. Curses! So we rented a couple films. One is Prestige, which I can recommend. It has a gripping story and fine performances by Hugh Jackman and Michael Caine. Christian Bales is also in the film, but I must say his lower class English accent comes and goes. The film has a superb build-up while the payoff is a bit weak. It tries to have a Sixth Sense kind of twist ending, but it doesn't quite work. Still, worth recommending. We also took in The Queen. A fine commentary on the decline of nobility in the modern age. The film does a fine job of getting you angry at Queen Elizabeth only to slowly get you to see the soundness of her point of view and lament the indignities she is forced to endure. Is this the fate of the modern age, that it must pull down and destroy in the name of equality and fashion all that is noble and lasting? I want to point out that there was nary a curse word in either film. Yet both were still gritty and real. A lesson, perhaps. On the other hand, there is Hot Fuzz, which we've recently seen, and which is extremely vulgar and extremely funny. If you can take harsh language and a bit of gore at the end, you will like this film. Laugh out loud funny from the guys who gave us Shaun of the Dead.
I noticed at the video store that they had many copies of Shooter and most had been rented. That's disappointing. We saw this film on the way back from the U.K. in June. It has made my anti-Pantheon of all-time bad films. I started laughing at the movie it was so cliched and poorly written. Shortly after seeing the film I happened to hear a radio interview with Stephen Hunter, film critic of the Washington Post and, coincidently, the author of the novel on which Shooter is based. You know you've got a bad movie when a man who is both a film critic and the author of the novel on which the movie is based lambastes your movie. Hunter hated what they did to his novel. And if you have any taste, so will you.
Also note Denise Ross's account of Into The Wild, and you should check out Julie's old post on the same subject. I recently asked a friend from Alaska what people up there think of Chris McCandless, and he said, "Everyone up there thinks he was an idiot." There is a fine line between courageous and foolhardy. The first is a virtue, the second a vice. Whatever one ultimately thinks of Chris McCandless, his story, much like The Queen, does provoke us to ask whether modern life fully fills the human soul.
Recent Comments