There've been more than I remember. You probably don't mind.
Of course I've seen this before. I mention it only because I haven't
seen it in a few years and I think this was only the third or maybe fourth
time, plus HAO says she wants to put her sister and me in a ring and let
us battle out "Howards End" versus "A Room with a View."
I think I've said this before.
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I love Robert DeNiro. I really appreciate Christopher Walken, but I haven't been as fond of his characters, who let's face it are much less varied than DeNiro's. The first time I saw DeNiro to remember his name was his role as Al Capone in "The Untouchables"; the next time was in "Midnight Run." These characters were the same actor? He's amazing. "Taxi Driver," "Awakenings," "The Mission," even "Heat" and "Casino," he's always a pleasure to watch. Plus in "Midnight Run" he grinned like PSA and in "Awakenings" like CXJ. (If I ever see Plato's Chair of that one phenotype....Luckily, I married it.)
And I wonder if it's in the POW "camp"
of "The Deerhunter" that Christopher Walken got
the watch for Butch.
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Somehow at Christy's birthday party, everyone else
started quoting this movie or at least its key lines. So on everyone's strong
recommendation we rented it the next night. Michael Myers has been okay
in his life. This movie had maybe fifteen minutes worth of good lines. It
was okay. "Heeeead!" So now, referring to big-footed Blake, we
say, "Feeeet!"
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A new Jim Jarmusch with cameos by everyone of note.
As usual, I am at a loss to describe it. An Italian quoting Whitman in "Down
by Law," a Native American quoting William Blake in "Dead Man."
Anyone who doesn't think Johnny Depp can act needs to see this. I need to
get a cast list; everone was great.
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Memorial Day evinced all the vagaries of May this year so instead of endangering our epidermis by the pool for most of the day, HAO and I rented "Harold and Maude," which she'd never seen, and "Romeo and Juliet," which neither of us had seen. MAC had said I must see it; and now that I have, d'you I think I can get her to see the Ian McKellen "Richard III"? Hmm. Anyway.
What didn't I like? The speeded-up Madame Capulet getting dressed. It looked like the sex scene in "A Clockwork Orange"well, not the as in only sex scene, but you know which I mean-which I didn't like anyway as it was a departure from the novel, but then I'm just as glad no one tried to cinematize the novel's parallel scene. Yii. The respective parents and the Montague cousins were quite dull. And if the police were so all over Romeo as all that, why didn't they follow him into the tomb? And why not kill Paris? Unless he survives to marry Juliet's younger sister? No no, that's Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
What did I like? Having a Juliet not be a blazing beauty. Claire Danes
is beautiful in her own way, not in a standard Hollywood way. The point
of Juliet is that she doesn't need to be Elle McPherson. That was good.
There were two points of interpretation that were excellent. If a Shakespearean
scholar scoffs at this flick, let it not be for Mercutio being in unrequited--maybe--love
with Romeo. That jealousy and betrayal add a fascinating layer to the dynamic.
And the interpretation of Romeo not noticing Juliet twitch and flutter on
the verge of waking, of seeing her eyes start open as soon as he's drunk
the poison, of Juliet seeing and understanding what Romeo's done, that's
intriguing and only required rearranging some speeches. I've never seen
the play staged so before. But didn't he have a dagger? A Swiss Army Knife?
Anything more elegant than a pistol. Though even without the pistol, she
is a more elegant Juliet than Harold's third--and
last!--date.
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Well. This is certainly a step away from the big Christian flicks for ol' Charlton
Heston. Cheesy horror vision of the future, okay, but at least "The Planet
of the Apes" has some plot, some action, some tension, some denouement!
But caution whether or not, the final line is just
as cheesy and melodramatic as "You blew it up! Goddamn you all to hell!":
"Soylent Green is people!" BTW, do any of Heston's little conservative
pals remember that blasphemous line? I saw this with HAO
at home on TNT's Monster Vision. RDC and
everyone else were out serenading the populace with various '70s tunes and birthday
greetings; HAO and I cuddled on the
futon until the for-me seldom heard of hour of 2:30 in the morning watching
wretched '70s horror movies. Savor those times when they happen.
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A city I live in in a movie! I never lived in Boston long enough for it to
count--what movies have been filmed in Boston anyway? There are maybe three
scenes that are Denver, not a set: all the cityscape. By the way, that's the
Denver Natural History Museum, not the Colorado Museum of Natural History. I
used to work with the father of an extra, the girl at the ice cream parlor party
who drops her jaw during a fight. Brushes with greatness. Where is that
ice cream parlor? Would it really have good milkshakes?
April 1997
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I love movie clips, and these were interesting ones. I haven't seen all the
movies included and can't judge whether they're intentionally subversive or
only assumed to be so, but I'm happy to believe the latter. The housekeeper
in "Rebecca" definitely. Can we all please stop considering
"Philadelphia" the best movie ever, though, please? It's not so very
good, and certainly not good enough to assuage our consciences as much as we
want it to.
April 1997
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