Pan's Labyrinth

Here it is, the promised review, as spoiler-free as possible. It will be rather biased, though, because I loved Pan's Labyrinth to bits and will hence proceed to rave about it and about how perfect it is in every possible way. Well, almost. If you haven't seen it already, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GO. WATCH. NOW!!

Right, so, where to begin? A brief synopsis might be in order here. Well, Pan's Labyrinth is set in Franco's Spain and juxtaposes the story of the antifascist struggle against the regime to young Ofelia's retreat into an extremely creepy fantasy world. The film takes place almost entirely in a military campsite deep in a mountainous and forested area, with lots of eerie-looking woodland to add to the setting. There's Mercedes, one of the servants, there's Ofelia, there's Ofelia's mum, and then there's Ofelia's mum's husband, the Capitan. The Capitan is a bad, bad man. Ofelia doesn't want to call the Capitan 'father'; all she wants is to read her books and sit with her depressed mum and be left alone. But she's also extremely observant and curious and innocent, and she discovers a portal to a hidden world, one day, guided by a slightly shifty-looking faun. She's not going to be left alone after that.

The interplay between fairy tale and reality is astonishing. Ofelia's fantasy is populated with typical fantastic creatures and, very much in the manner of classic fairy tales, she has several 'tasks' to fulfil. My memory of the literary conventions of fairy tales is somewhat rusty, but I do remember Karl Popper and the elements he identified. Popper talked about protagonists and antagonists, tasks and magical helpers, balance and disequilibrium. Ofelia's tasks may be all rather magical in nature, but her antagonist is human and unambiguosly real. Her helpers are the Faun and Mercedes; one magical, one human. The disequilibrium is constant and overwhelming; people get murdered in this film, but not by monsters; by other people.

This, perhaps, is what makes the film such a powerful experience. Well, that and the fact that the acting is amazing, the storyline gripping, the ambiance just the right amount of eerie.

The fantasy world and the real world are so tightly interwoven that the viewer (in this case, me) entertains serious doubts as to the fictionality of Ofelia's world. Is it really just in her imagination, or is it somewhat more concrete than that? Del Toro never gives us a definitive answer, but to overemphasise this question would be, in my opinion, deceptive. It doesn't really matter if Del Toro meant for the Faun and the giant toad and the Pale Man (see below, but don't be scared, it's just a photo) to be real, or if he meant them to be figments of Ofelia's imagination. What matters is that they are there and that they feel real to Ofelia.

That's the point, I suppose. Believing is what counts, it's what brings hope and makes everything better. Another point is that you shouldn't stress children out by smashing bottles into people's faces (don't look at me like that, it happened in the film!), because otherwise their fantasy world will have fairies that look like grasshoppers and toads that live in the dirty, dirty mud. Ew.

Next review: Music and Lyrics. Best romantic comedy I've seen since You've Got Mail.

The Fantastic Bore

In which eloquent excerpts from a chat conversation between TPF and Pan are used to illustrate the utter crappiness of the movie The Fantastic Four, which, for the record, both TPF and Pan watched on TV, and therefore for free, because they would both rather eat raw liver than pay to watch that movie. Because it is that bad. Oh, you might want to know that in this conversation, the characters in the movie were referred to as follows: Reed Richards=Reed, Sue Storm=Jessica Alba, Johnny Storm=Johnny, The Thing=Ben, Von Doom=Cole (because the dude playing him is Cole on Charmed).

[The audience is introduced to the underdeveloped, 2-dimensional characters]
Pan: i used to be totally into this cartoon, like badly
but he was always married to sue
never saw the start of it all
TPF: um, who's married to sue?
who's sue? jessica alba?
Pan: richards
yeah
TPF: who's richard?
Pan: i never got his first name
reed, i think
TPF: the dude in the elevator right now?
Pan: yeah, they eventually get married
and the human torch fire dude is her brother
TPF: oh
Pan: his name is Johnny
TPF: I thought he was her boyfriend
Pan: :)
TPF: that's what it looked like in the trailer

...

[A scantily clad Jessica Alba appears onscreen, wearing revealing clothing for no apparent reason. This distracts viewers, even female viewers, so it must be even worse for hormonal teenaged male viewers. Also, the choppy plot advancement is mentioned]
TPF: omg look at jessica alba! OMG DUDE SHE'S
Pan: BOOBS
TPF: BOOBS
Pan: BOOBS
BOOBS
TPF: stop looking at her boobs, Pan
Pan: okay, have stopped now
TPF: yeah, because shes not onscreen
Pan: they're already in space? that was fast

...

[Pan and TPF note the hotness of Cole, the only member of the film's cast who can actually produce expressions other than a blank look]
TPF: cole is a jerk
Pan: even in charmed
TPF: a hot jerk, though
in charmed he's sexy evil
Pan: totally. he's totally typecast
TPF: PAN! i didn't know you watched Charmed! I SEE BLACKMAIL MATERIAL HERE!

...

[More bad plotting, ridiculously bad acting, tiny Sin City reference and special effects that would make even Buffy and Charmed fans cringe]
TPF: dude, is she flriting with two different men?
WHORE
Pan: yeah, well, she's jessica alba
TPF: yeah, she can afford to even have sex with bruce willis
Pan: she can flirt with 10 men if she wants
TPF: :) yeah
dude, btw, are these people willingly allowing themselves to get radiated by a cosmic storm?
Pan: reed is a crappy actor
TPF: or is there going to be a mistake?
oh
'It's impossible! It's got to be 7 hours!'
that explains it
Pan: aah
totally explains it
she's pretending to be clueless
how stupid!
i cant see her boobs
im annoyed
TPF: oh but she looks hot in that suit
omg, bad cgi
Pan: poor ben, i always feel sorry for him. he becomes red and ugly and unattractive
TPF: BAD ACTING JESSICA!
Pan: ha! bad effects
TPF: poor ben
Pan: i know
rather bad effects
TPF: yeah
rather bad
is cole going to get radiated too? and become evil?

...

[The only decent special effects are commented upon]
Pan: OMG
he's burning
TPF: JOHNNY IS CATCHING FIRE!
PAN: I KNOW
HOW COOL IS THAT? WAIT TILL HE STARTS FLYING
TPF: OMFG!
HE FLEW!
Pan: and he just did
TPF: HE'S NAKED!
Pan: hot

...

[Feeling sorry for the only likeable character, Ben, and more mocking of the terrible, terrible special effects]
Pan: no one's going to love him now
TPF: What will his wife do?
don't tell me
Pan: how horrible
TPF: i want to see
Pan: i'd totally leave him
TPF: omg, she's going to leave him, isn't she?
Pan: i dont know what happens
he's like an ape now, who wouldnt want to leave him? i would
BAD EFFECTS
TPF: MUHAAHHAHAHA
Pan: he looks like hagrid
TPF: the hand looks like plastic!

...

[The Fantastic Four cause a huge pile-up on a bridge and then are hailed as heroes for saving the people whose lives they endangered in the first place. Pan and TPF comment on the idiocy of this and, once again, on the hotness of Cole]
Pan: why do people love them so much? theyre the ones who caused the accident
TPF: oh! cole!
Pan: jessica alba is so totally dumping him
right now
TPF: why isn't anyone wondering where cole's symptoms are?
Pan: i know
it's silly
TPF: the only person in this movie who can act is cole
Pan: i know. it's almost a b movie
with bad actors and effects
TPF: almost as bad as buffy effects
OMG! COLE IS MADE OF METAL!
i like the fire effects though, they actually look nice

...

[Pan feels sorry for Cole, and Jessica Alba's bad acting and revealing wardrobe are remarked upon yet again]
TPF: oh jessica
bad acting
Pan: she cant act at all
BOOBS
she's like in it for the boobs
and then there is cole, who's finally changing
everyone's so mean to him, including his own girlfriend
TPF: aaaaaaaw!
poor evil mastermind!
awww
Pan: no wonder he goes evil
i would if everyone hated me
someone needs to hug him
why arent the others being nice to him?
TPF: because he's evil? he's a bad bad person
Pan: he's evil because they're not nice to him
it's a vicious cycle, like the poverty cycle
TPF: no
they're not nice to him
because he's evil
Pan: no, hes evil because they're not nice to him
TPF: fine

...

[A bad explanation is given for how the Fantastic Four's uniforms resist their superpowers. TPF, with her eternally inquisitive and analytic mind, cannot believe her ears, and wonders how on earth it all actually got made into a movie]
TPF: its silly that the radiation modified the uniforms too
Pan: i know
TPF: i mean
the uniforms are not organic
they have no genes. how can they mutate?
Pan: yes, sweetie
TPF: it's really stupid
Pan: I know

...

[Generic bitching about the utter lack of plot, even past the 1-hour mark. Expressions of disbelief on the badness of the movie]
TPF: dude
this is such a bad movie
Pan: bad acting
TPF: nothing is happening
NOTHING at all
ben is the only one who's acting
Pan: i cant believe we're seeing this
TPF: neither can i
Pan: they could at least make out. why are they not making out?
how silly
TPF: can jessica do anything but look mildly sad?
is she able to do anything else? does she have other expressions?
Pan: she cant do anything
she has to show her boobs
aah evil ben
TPF: dude
do you think there'll actually be a plot one day? a plot that lasts more than 10 minutes?
Pan: well Cole is getting evil. and they have to stop him
TPF: yeah, well
the movie's almost over
Pan: cole looks even hotter now
he' got a metal face
oh great, he has a mask now. why couldnt they come up with a better mask?
he's darth cole now
TPF: MUHAHHAHHA! DARTH COLE!

...

[Oh yes. It really is a bad movie]
TPF: this is a really bad movie. really bad
Pan: i know
TPF: like so bad it's almost funny
Pan: they destroyed half of new york
and people still love them

...

[The obligatory romantic ending is bad. Very bad. Worse than usual]
TPF: AAAAAAAAAAAAAW
how romantic!
NO MORE THINKING
NO MORE VARIABLES
SUE STORM
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
what kind of surname is storm?
Pan: he's just asking her because she can get invisible
TPF: yeah

Thankfully, the movie ended at this point. It was bad. Really, really bad. In case you hadn't realised.

PS: Pan and TPF don't really call each other Pan and TPF on random msn conversations. In fact, they never call each other Pan and TPF. They actually have real names.

The Da Vinci Crap. Code. I meant Code.

It's not that bad, actually. The movie, I mean. I haven't read the book. I will never read the book. I wouldn't touch the book with a ten foot pole. I don't know why ten feet and not twelve, or thirty-eight for that matter. But ten it is.

But I did see the movie.

Alas, your last bulwark against the onslaught of mass media hype, your remaining fortress of anti-bestsellerism, the final frontier of the war against so-called literature, in other words this blog, has fallen.

I have succumbed to the pressure. I have seen The Da Vinci Code. With a capital D. I was probably amongst the first few people in Milan to do so, in fact, as I watched the 2 o'clock showing. We even got cheap tickets. We being Pan and I. Yes, Pan was there too. Had you any doubt?

What, you think I am shamelessly procrastinating the moment in which I will have to reveal what I actually thought of the movie? Well spotted.

I liked it.

It wasn't that bad.

From here on, there shall be spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.

The first half was good. Reasonably paced, reasonably mysterious, reasonably reasonable. The self-flagellating albino monk was successfully creepy. Overblown music served to highlight moments of astounding revelation. Tom Hanks was kind of endearing in a slightly bloated, 'I used to be this great star when I made quality movies and movies with Meg Ryan but then I sort of, uh, wasn't anymore,' way. Audrey Tautou ruled, even though from Amelie to The Da Vinci Code is as big a cinematic quality drop as they make them. And the whole trasure hunt thing that worked so well in National Treasure worked well in this movie too.


Tom Hanks: A clue! Let us follow it!

Evil monk: KILL! KIIIIILLLLL! Flagellate.

Tom Hanks: ANOTHER CLUE! Let us follow it more!

Random characters: We are good! We are helping the heroes!

Tom Hanks: Great! [gets hit in the head numerous times]

Random characters: HA! GOTCHA!

Tom Hanks: You're evil? B-But...

Audience: Dude, you're the only one who bought it.

Tom Hanks: [mopes] But I fell in a well when I was little. So now I'm claustrophobic.

Audrey Tautou: A-HA! Let me heal you with my magical powers.

Audience: Um, is this a hint?

Audrey Tautou: No. By the way, my parents died when I was little.

Audience: Awwww.

Tom Hanks: No time for interesting backstory! I have discovered yet another clue! We must follow it at all costs and make sure to pointedly ignore the fact that an evil monk is after us and he's clearly better than us at various methods of violence, therefore it would make sense for us not to turn our backs on him, but you know what? What is an action movie without the action heroes doing exactly that?

Audience: Hear, hear!


Et cetera.

As you would expect, this got old after a while. Eventually, Ian McKellen, the quirky yet endearing cripple, came into the picture.


Ian McKellen: I am quirky yet endearing. Also, my connection to Tom Hanks is obscure. Oh, and I am a rich Englishman.

Tom Hanks: Hi. Help us. Also, we need someone to do the exposition.

Ian McKellen: Allow me to expose, then. The Holy Grail, yadda yadda yadda, Knights of the Templar, yadda yadda yadda, Mary Magdalene, yadda yadda yadda, in conclusion, Jesus was married and had children. This is the Church's uber-secret. Please try to ignore the fact that my explanation has been completely ineffectual in clearing up the question of who's after whom and why.

Audrey Tautou: But then it's not an explanation...

Tom Hanks: Whatever. Watch me as I pretend to disagree with Ian McKellen. Overlook the fact that my acting skills are less than convincing.

Audience: OK. But only because you used to make movies with Meg Ryan.


At this point, I gave up on understanding the plot. Mind you, it's probably just me. I'm not good at getting plots. Unless they're obvious.


Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou: [after having numerous near-death experiences at the hands of the creepy monk and the police] Woah. We might have actually reached the end!

A clue: No you haven't!

Audrey Tautou: NO! NOT ANOTHER CLUE!

A clue: Geez, kidding.

Audience: OH THANK GOD!

Tom Hanks: Here we go, then-

Ian McKellen: A-HA! That's what you think!

Tom Hanks: Ian? What? You're supposed to be in mortal peril! More importantly, you're not supposed to be here!

Ian McKellen: WRONG! I AM EVIL! MUHAHAHHAUHA. And a pitiful excuse for a plot twist. Which is also evil.

Audrey Tautou: [sighs] This will never end, will it?

Audience: Sorry.


Eventually, the French police appeared out of nowhere and arrested Ian McKellen, which is a pity, because he was doing a great job acting slightly unhinged. Almost as cool as Magneto, in fact. And then, the big revelation.


Audrey Tautou: Uh, aside from displaying my lovely French accent and my above-average acting skills, what exactly was my purpose? Oh, right, I am related to the old chap who died at the beginning.

Tom Hanks: No you're not! You're related to JESUS!

Audrey Tautou: Well, you sure appear pretty calm for someone who's delivering momentous news. I don't believe you.

Tom Hanks: [tries harder] You are related to JESUS! You are the Holy Grail!

Ian McKellen: [from his prison cell] A-HA! You finally got it! But didn't you realise from the SUBTLE hints I threw in throughout the movie, such as but not limited to the famous saying 'We often don't see what's right in front of us' paired with a meaningful look towards Audrey? And her generosity towards a random heroin addict in a random park in Paris? And her magical healing powers? And the fact that she got way too much camera time for someone who was supposed to just help the hero?

Audience: Uh...

Tom Hanks: Oh my God, I am standing in the same room as Jesus' last living relative. Can't you see how shocked I am from my lack of expression? Oh my God, you are Jesus' descendant. Uh, wow?

Audience: How?

Ian McKellen: [from his prison cell] I AM EVIL! MUHAHAHHAUHA.

I still don't get why Ian McKellen was evil, though. It's not like he tried to kill anybody.

Anyway. Audrey Tautou is Jesus' great-great-great... something.

This was followed by moments of enlightenment on the beauty of faith, a chaste kiss on the forehead delivered by Tom Hanks to Audrey Tautou, and the random appearance of random people who are randomly assigned to protect Audrey Tautou because guess what? She's related to Jesus!

Why the outrage, I wonder? I'm sure the book made a decent thriller, bad writing aside. The movie made a decent thriller too, average acting aside. But two and a half hours of treasure hunting and inane plot twists sure aren't enough to destroy the Church. Especially as the movie takes so much care to be politically correct. I learned more about Opus Dei through an article on Time magazine than I did through the movie.

Besides, the final revelation is kind of ludicrous.

Oh well. I suppose it counts as a plot twist.

Well, that's all, folks. TPF has voluntarily spent money on The Da Vinci Code. You can now proceed to mock her. But seriously, it wasn't that bad. And hey, you can thank me for putting myself through the torture in your stead. Or hate me for revealing the twists. Whatever tickles your fancy.

PS: Despite the movie's title, there was very little about Leonardo and altogether too much on unintelligible plot points. Movie script writers would do well to remember that quality, not quantity, makes a movie decent. Twenty minutes of exposition will do nothing unless the exposition makes sense. Yes, I'm still bitter about the whole not understanding the plot thing.

Natalie Portman in 'Dude, where's my hair?'

I'M BACK!

Ahem.

Exams are virtually over. I have the last two next week, but I don't really need to study. I mean, they're Italian exams and I kind of know Italian (that's what happens when you live in a country for 16 years) so studying won't really get me anywhere, but it will make me cranky and cut from my valuable bloghopping time! Which is why I'm not studying until Sunday evening. And that's that.

Moving on.

I read this a while on Overheard in New York and, well, how hot is Natalie Portman? No, seriously. Does she even fit on a scale of 1 to 10? And not only that, she's smart too. And rich. And she got to make out with Hayden Christensen! And she can act (she pulls off the British accent in V for Vendetta better than James Marsters, and that's saying something)!

As if that wasn't enough to prove the existence of a cosmic force of unfairness that governs our lives, Natalie Portman is also one of the select few people in the world who look good without hair.

A before/after to make the message clearer:

before:










after:


How is this fair, I ask you? if I shaved my head, I'd probably look like some kind of animal/vegetable. But if Natalie Portman shaves her head, she looks like a goddess! More so than she did before!

WHY? WHYYYY????? WHY HER AND NOT ME???

Um, apparently because the shape of her face is right. Go figure.

Other people who look good with overly short hair: David Beckham (who looks good in any hairdo, because he is a demi-god on earth, after all, and there's no denying that), Daniel Day-Lewis, Brad Pitt (need I explain?)...

None of them females.

Damn you, Natalie Portman, for managing to pull off the 'short-hair-for-movie' thing better than Demi Moore!

The movie is, of course, V for Vendetta which I watched a few weeks ago (a time I like to call 'ante-IB') at Pan's and since I knew that, at a certain point, Natalie Portman's hair was just going to go, I spent half the movie nagging Pan (who'd seen it before).

'Are they going to cut it now? Oh God, Pan, when are they going to cut it? Oh no, tell me it's not the next scene! How much till they cut her hair? Oh dear, it's going to be terrible, isn't it? Oh God, Pan, I'm scared! They can't cut her hair! That's... that's ebil!'

That's what I get for watching trailers. Half a movie ruined by the expectation of the hair-cutting.

This kind of reminds me of Along Came Polly. Trailers ruined that movie for me because all the funny stuff was in there (also, the movie was rather bad. That also ruined it). But then, some trailers don't make much of a difference, do they? I mean, I knew the ship was going to sink before I watched Titanic, but that didn't ruin the movie at all.

Yes, I admit it, I'm one of those lame-ass softies who cried during Titanic. Twice, in fact. Once, when the orchestra kept playing despite the imminent death by drowning. The second time when the old Kate Winslet chucked the necklace into the sea.

But apart from the movie-ruining tense anticipation of the awful moment when they were going to cut Natalie Portman's hair, I actually enjoyed V for Vendetta. Pan and I had to fight not to squee at the obvious 1984 references, and I had to fight tears (because I'm a romantic at heart) when she kissed V.

'He doesn't even feel it, you dolt. She's kissing the bloody mask!' said Pan.

'B-B-but... don't you see? He is the mask! He is the idea, and the man behind the idea! And she doesn't care that she's kissing plastic [but maybe it's porcelain] because she loves him! And I bet he totally feels the kiss anyway because she loves him, and he loves her, and they love each other and WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LOVE ME?'

'Oh, TPF, I'm sure your mother loves you.'

'HA! Yeah, right! She totally gave my broken foot the big brush-off!'

My foot is loads better, by the way.

In conclusion: V for Vendetta is a good movie. And Natalie Portman is hot.

Click on this link for a hilarious recap, but beware spoilers.

The Hours

I finished reading The Hours the other day instead of some much-needed studying. I didn't like it.


The movie adaptation of the novel is one of my all-time favourite films. I've seen it four or five times, which is a lot considering that The Hours is neither Mean Girls nor Ghostbusters, meaning that it's hardly the material for amusement. So yes, I really loved the movie, which is why I decided to read the book. Besides, I thought, it won the Pulitzer; it must be good, right? Right?

Wrong.

If I'm picking up a book that won a prize, I'm expecting something other than a good plot and deep philosophical reflection, thank you very much. The movie had all that in anyway. What I'm expecting from the book is style, well-crafted language, interesting parallels, inventive metaphors and imagery. I'm not necessarily looking for avant-garde literary experimentation (which I happen to dislike), but a semblance of competence would go a long way.

And what do I get? 226 pages of present tense. I mean, seriously, Mr. Cunningham, there's a reason if 99% of the world's novels are written using some form of the past tense! There's a whole bloody tense invented solely for use in storytelling (well, there is in French and Italian)! USE IT!

But noooo, you have to do your best to irritate me in all possible ways, just because the present tense is effective.

Newsflash, berk, it's only effective for ONE PAGE. Or two, if you really must.

Oh, and since the only way to win prizes is to do something unusual, you go and make every single character gay, or at the very least bisexual. Which is perfectly fine when Virginia Woolf does it, because guess what? SHE CAN WRITE.

And of course, your pressing need to be cool and original, because that's what the in crowd does nowadays, comes to the fore in some rather interesting decriptive passages which do nothing for the reader (me) but incense her further. Because you thought it might be amusing to write stuff that DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

Example: 'Laura is at once comforted and unnerved.'

Now, I understand that you desperately want to win the Pulitzer, but there's something called common sense. You simply cannot be both comforted and unnerved at the same time. The two terms are, by definition, mutually exclusive. It's not like being happy and sad at the same time, or, taking non-literal meanings into account, clean and dirty. No, this is like suggesting that it might be possible to be calm and nervous, or lost and found, all at the same time.

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!

I don't know, were you going for effect? It just made me laugh. And the worst part is, the rest of the novel is that kind of thing over and over and over again. In the present tense.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to write a one-paragraph 'novel' and get it published and win the Pulitzer. You, my dearest readers, are getting a sneak preview. You have no idea how lucky you are to be given this once-in-a-lifetime opportuniy. Here goes:

TPF walks out of her trendy loft in New York City [because all cool novels are set in New York, didn't you know? You try setting one in Stratford-Upon-Avon, see how many Pulitzers that gets you!] and goes to buy flowers just like Mrs. Dalloway did in that old book, and it's a great idea to have three parallel stories going on like that, I like the idea. Suddenly, TPF notices a beautiful Golden Retriever walking ahead and feels an immediate attraction towards it because if she wants to win the Pulitzer, she must be attracted to dogs as well as men, women, children and priests. So TPF follows the dog and thinks of her life, here in NYC, and decides that it's definitely worth living. She decides to buy a hot dog, because dogs are HOT. She bites it and realizes that it's both hot and cold (don't ask, she has weird nerve endings). She walks back home briskly, yet at the same time slowly, and decides that she loves life. But she hates it, too.

Well, I'm not quite happy with that first draft, I'll have to tweak it a bit, but what do you think? Do I have a chance?



OK, I'll stop being mean now. With that spirit, I shall conclude this post by being nice about Veronica Mars, that weird TV show they've started airing in Italy with the main character who is anything but conventional. I mean, she got drugged and raped at a party! It's risky. I like it.

PS: More about Mr. Cunningham? Read this interview. It's quite interesting, actually.

'I can find only three words to describe the female sex. None of which are worth expressing.'

I saw Orlando yesterday and absolutely loved it.

Orlando is one of my favourite books of all time. I seriously adore that book, it's so much fun but so deep at the same time. So many issues explored with such light-hearted flair! (Please use your imagination to insert other words of praise here.)

Alas, movie adaptations often go wrong. The House of the Spirits, anyone? Not that the book was a literary masterpiece, but it sure could've made an excellent movie.

It didn't.

The movie version of The House of the Spirits is crap. Don't watch it. Please, trust me. It's really really bad.

But on to more interesting matters.

Somehow, they (and by they I mean all those random people involved in making movies) managed not to mess Orlando up at all. I mean, seriously, the going wrong potential was immense! First off, who were they going to cast for the lead role? It's not an easy pick, considering that Orlando changes sex in the middle of the novel (and therefore, of the movie). Also, how were they going to handle the seriousness of the gender issues without glossing over them? And what about the period setting? And how would they adapt a novel with such an intrusive narrator to the screen where the narrative voice device is often cumbersome and results in an interfering annoyance?

First things first. They cast Tilda Swinton as Orlando. What can I say? She's amazing. Slightly androgynous, a great actress, and the final scene of the movie (which I don't remember happening in the book, but hey, artistic license) is beautiful. She's leaning against a tree, watching her daughter run around, and she cries a little. Wow.

Her falling in love with Princess Sasha is perfectly believable. Mind you, they cast Sasha perfectly too. I almost fell in love with her myself.

The play on gender roles was handled surprisingly well, and not shoved aside in favour of sentimental drivel (making a man play Queen Elizabeth was a magnificent touch). Of course, a lot of the content must be credited to Virginia Woolf, but that doesn't mean that the filmmakers shouldn't be praised. The 'waking up as a female' on-screen obviously has a much greater impact on the audience than the on-paper version has on the reader. That's mostly because cinema has a visual impact rather than a simply imaginary one, so it's bound to be effective, but again, it could have been hugely messed up.

Overall, the movie does a great job of conveying the message that essentially, men and women are the same people... just a different sex.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus my ass!

The costume people were just as good as the casting people (mind you, it's not like I've ever seen Elizabethan clothing first hand, but I have a vague idea of how it's supposed to look). One of Orlando's dresses plunged me into temporary daydream mode where I imagined myself wearing it and gliding around like a princess. Then came a hilarious scene where Orlando, wearing her huge, overly wide dress, had to make her way through a room filled with sheet-covered furniture. She had to turn sideways and make impossible maneuvres and I'm sure there was some symbolic significance to that (women have it much harder than men?) but I was too busy thanking the god of fabrics for inventing jeans.

And finally, the narrator. Well, there were some occasional voice-overs that came over as witty and interesting, rather than irritating. Also, Orlando occasionally looked straight at the camera and shared a private aside with the audience, an intelligent method to get the themes and messages across.

In short, I loved this movie. But you can probably tell that, can't you?

I leave you with some quotes. Read them, they're funny.

PS: I think you'd love this movie, frankengirl.

Caring about Africa

I'm back after a conspicuously long absence. There truly are no excuses for my behaviour. Forgive me, throngs of addicted readers. I hope the abstinence wasn't too hard to bear.

I watched The Constant Gardener last week. It was quite good. The story was engaging, the drama was well-orchestrated, Ralph Fiennes was hot and there were some truly exceptional supporting character performances, including but not limited to Rachel Weisz, who absolutely rocks, by the way.


But there's a but.

It was a good movie, but it wasn't a great movie, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. OK, well, I think I have figured it out now, but at the time, I was a little bewildered, as I could see no obvious flaws in the film's structure, cinematography, acting, storyline et cetera. Yet, the movie ended with me feeling like I'd spend a decent 2 hours watching a decent movie. And nothing more.

I think I finally figured out what went wrong; I did.

A short, quasi spoiler-free, aside: the movie is about evil pharmaceutical companies testing evil drugs with terrible side-effects on the unwitting population of Kenya. Ralph Fiennes plays a British diplomat who is determined to get to the bottom of this all because, um, something bad happens. I won't tell you what out of the goodness of my heart (but you'll find out ten minutes into the movie anyway).

Being a movie about drugs in Africa, there is ample opportunity for the audience (in this case, me) to be presented with a sliver of the continent. Kenya is the focus of the action. I saw mothers with AIDS, babies with AIDS, pretty much everyone with AIDS. I saw starving infants. I saw evil corporations distributing medicine that does more harm than it does good. I saw Rachel Weisz and various other brave knights (in the contemporary sense, of course) toiling and investigating and getting to the bottom of things. And I saw people who are exactly like me dying and suffering and generally having a terrible time just because they happen to be African.

This should have made for a great movie. The love story superimposed on this background should have pulled at my heartstrings, should have made me cry, should have made me care. But guess what? None of that happened. The movie ended and all I felt was a slight discomfort, a slight sense of unease. I didn't cry. In fact, my mood was exactly the same as it had been before the film.

Now I know myself pretty well, and I know that I'm not one of those ditzy idiots who care little about anything but nail polish. I watch the news, I read newspapers, I have strong political views, I get mad and passionate about things, I am not so entirely self-absorbed that I live in my own little world where everything is beautiful and everyone is happy. In short, I am aware, and I care (the rhyming is unintentional).

So when The Constant Gardener failed to make me respond to what it was depicting, I initially thought there was something wrong with it. But then I realised that what was wrong was only to do with myself.

You see, at the root of my strange apathy (because that's the best word to describe it) is a sense of helplessness. For a long time, I watched the news and I thought 'The world sucks.' I looked on the internet and I thought 'The world sucks.' This went on for a while until one day, I watched The Constant Gardener and I thought 'The world sucks and there's nothing I can do about it.'

And that's where I stop caring. Because it's too much. How am I supposed to deal with famine and AIDS and civil war and religious persecution and corporate evil and boy soldiers addicted to heroine and gang-raped women and malaria and have I mentioned civil war?

It sounds selfish and cowardly, but I stopped caring because I felt insignificant. Not in a teen- angsty 'nobody cares' way, but in a 'people are dying all over the place and here I am, unable to do anything much but get worried and organize cake sales'.

So I watched The Constant Gardener and felt absolutely nothing at all except a nagging guilty feeling that I should have felt something.

The Constant Gardener is a good movie, but I doubt I'll remember it when I'm senile and arthritic. And that's completely my fault. It's a good thing that there's people who continue caring about the big problems, otherwise we wouldn't even know they existed (and I blame the ruling classes for that; they're not interested in any country unless it's got oil, and if they're not interested, the media's not interested).

Poor reader! You were expecting a proper review, weren't you? And instead you got a whole load of me. Oh well. This is my blog after all...

Munich

Yesterday, I watched Steven Spielberg's Munich. A synopsis for you: a group of Palestinian terrorists kills a group of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Israeli secret service, the Mossad, sends a group to kill those responsible for the massacre.

I shall go mainstream and say that I really liked the movie. I was expecting some politically charged piece of propaganda about how good Israel is and how evil the Palestinians are, even though I'd read reviews praising Munich as fairly objective and more human in approach. Still, being the eternal sceptic that I am, I had trouble believing this. I was thus very pleasantly surprised when Munich lived up to the positive reviews.

The acting was great. Pan and I spent a good part of the movie drooling over Eric Bana's perfectly toned physique. I also fell in love with the French informant, played by a certain Mathieu Amalric (see photo). Pan and I also engaged in the overly distracting activity of trying to remember where we'd seen certain familiar-looking faces before. To our eternal shame, we did not recognize Geoffrey Rush. I still don't know how that happened. Only when we saw his name at the end credits did we finally manage to get rid of that nagging feeling. Oh, and 'the blond guy', as we referred to him during the movie, is the new James Bond. Again, we were really embarrassed at our inability to recognize him.

OK, I know, famous and hot doesn't necessarily make the acting any good, but in this case, it all worked very well. Eric Bana crying was truly heartbreaking and definitely not overdone. Unfortunately, the movie was dubbed, as all movies are in Italy, but the Italian voice actors were surprisingly good this time. I really don't know what could possibly have happened to make them competent.

Now to more serious matters. I don't know how Spielberg did it, but the whole tragic storyline was populated by genuinely human characters. No-one was a killing machine, not even over-zealous blond guy. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want spoilers, but it's not a major spoiler, so you might as well read it. Well, there's this scene where Avner (Bana) is on the balcony of his hotel room, having a conversation with one of the men his team has to kill. Shortly after the conversation, the man goes to bed, and Avner has to switch off the light in his room so that his team can detonate the bomb they've placed under the man's bed. Now Avner has just talked to this guy, who's turned out to be polite, and nice, and decent. How can he just switch off that light and kill him without second thought? It's a beautiful scene, one where the humanity of both men is so strikingly obvious that it's really terrible to watch Avner having to make that decision, and even worse to think of how he'll feel about it later (the other man gets blown to pieces, which is rather gruesome, and sort of makes you forget to feel sorry for him in your attempts not to feel sick).

I also loved Mathieu Kassovitz as the toymaker turned, er, bombmaker. The humanity of that character too was beautifully protrayed, as was that of Palestinian terrorist Ali, played by Omar Metwally, whose justifications for his actions seem to be as valid as Avner's. That's where the film manages to be balanced. You get human beings telling each other their motivations, ignoring the fact that their reasoning might be flawed, because it's the feeling that's important. The movie never really answers the questions that one would expect it to answer, but instead focuses on the human tragedy of it all.

Now to the violence. There were very few instances in which I thought Spielberg would have done better to tone it down a bit (man hanging off ceiling fan, anyone?). Apart from that particular incident, I thought the rest was all meaningful. I guess we have to see what really happens in the world if we want to understand what state it's in. But then, does seeing to much violence reverse that effect and make us less sensitive to it? I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but anyway, I thought the violence in Munich was needed, if not essential.

For example, I thought the juxtaposition of the last sex scene with the airport terrorist killing scene was a masterpiece. It sort of reminded me of A History of Violence, where the two sex scenes are completely different, and you really understand how the characters have evolved.

One last point. Munich could have been shorter, like ten-fifteen minutes shorter. In that respect, it sort of reminded me of the ending of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King which was so over-long that I could almost see Peter Jackson crying over the end of his huge project and saying: 'Just one more scene! Please! Waaah!' Of course, you might not agree with that. Suit yourself.

All in all, it was a positive experience. We saw the 22:15 screening, which meant that we got out at one in the morning, all bleary-eyed and tired. Poor Harry was expecting, quote, 'a nice, historical movie,' but got a traumatizing gore-fest that actually happened in real life. Marry, poor thing, was so tired she almost fell asleep. Random Italian woman made us move seats and went on about it for ten minutes. But really, Munich was really good.

Kings and Queens of pop

For post number three, I thought I'd write an album review. The album in question is ABBA Gold, a Christmas gift from Panacea, who got sick of listening to my personal rendition of Dancing Queen over and over again.
So here goes.

Overall, this is a great album. Being a greatest hits compilation, it's devoid of below par filler that usually accompanies all albums. Consequently, you'll find you won't have to skip anything, or cringe at a particularly unoriginal tune. The only song that I can think of that's missing is Honey Honey, but that's a small loss compared to what you can find here.

'Dancing Queen', first song on the album, is amazing. For some reason, it makes me want to cry every time I listen to it (although in the interests of personal dignity, I usually refrain from doing so). Oh, and it starts with the chorus, which is unusual and quite nice. In any case, the vocals sound unbelievably good, almost sad (which I guess is why they make me want to cry).
Really, the perfect-pop-song-that-everybody-knows status for 'Dancing Queen' is not accidental.

Then we have 'Knowing Me, Knowing You', which has a lovely 'a-haaa' every minute or so. The lyrics are (surprisingly) interesting, and I could probably relate if I'd ever been in a serious relationship (or any at all, for that matter. Alas, I am a lonely heart).

'Take a Chance on Me' is one of those cool ABBA songs where the two men in the group (Bjorn and Benny, that is) make a huge contribution to the singing with a relentless 'take a chance, take a chance' that accompanies the first thirty or so seconds of the song. Their voices almost sound like maracas, which is a strange comparison to make, I guess.

'Mamma Mia' - uber-famous. The title is an Italian exclamation, and even I, single-extraordinaire, can relate. How many times have we thought 'my, my, how can I resist you?' My obsession with Mike is a perfect example. But that's for another day.

This track is followed by my personal favourite, 'Lay All Your Love on Me' - you can dance to this, you can brood to it, you can sing to it, you can do just about anything to it. The tune is so catchy it's almost painful, the drums (even though I'm not sure they're real drums) provide a great background to the beautiful, almost churchlike vocals. The lyrics are great - obsessing over a new relationship is universal, and what is more, they seem to have managed to make everything rhyme, so that it sounds even better. In conclusion, this is one good song.

'Super Trouper' is also good. I especially like the 'supah-pah, troupah-pah' bits sung by the men. The music is pleasant enough, soothing I think best describes it. This is followed by 'I Have a Dream', which seems to be the odd one out, really, as it lacks the exceedingly catchy tunes of the other songs. However, once you listen to it enough times (and believe me, I have), the rousing lyrics, and Frida's beautiful voice, become addictive.

'The Winner Takes It All' is just depressing. Unfortunately, it's also true. The winner really does take it all. I guess the only way to go is to be the winner. The saddest verses?

'But tell me does she kiss

Like I used to kiss you?

Does it feel the same

When she calls your name?'

Waaaahhh!

'Money, Money, Money' is another of my favourites. The tune at the beginning is almost playful, as is the rest of the song, which, predictably, is about money. I think they've used cymbals somewhere in there, but I can't quite tell. Really, I'm just pretending here.

The opening of 'SOS' sets the tone for the rest of the track. This is one depressing song. But, as ABBA always do, there is a chorus that, music-wise, is slightly more light-hearted. Which is definitely of the good. And then comes another of my favourites: 'Chiquitita'. The first time you listen to this, you're like 'o-kaay'. It really doesn't stick in your head, and neither does it seem to have a recognisable tune. The chorus starts more than a minute and a half into it. It's a slow song, and it's also a long song. But, just like 'I Have a Dream', it improves with successive listenings.

There are no words to describe 'Fernando'. It's just, wow. One thing though - the first Heidi-like minute or so could have been a little shorter. But i guess that sets the atmosphere. 'Voulez-Vous' is quite good, although not as remarkable as some other tracks. It is really the ultimate pop song, and very eighties, I think (it was released in 1979). The strange beat of the chorus is unusual, and Agnetha and Frida singing together is very nice.

'Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!' has a cheesy title, but it's a great pop song. Unless you live in a ditch, you must've heard Madonna's new song, 'Hung Up'. Well, she took that painfully catchy tune from this song. ABBA are immortal!

'Does Your Mother Know' is Panacea's favourite, and I quite like it too. It's sung by Bjorn, which is unusual, but it fits the lyrics. The rhyming is a little cheesy on occasion (eg. I can dance with you honey, if you think it's funny...), but overall it's a great song. The guitar (I think it's a guitar) fits really well, considering how 'pop' this song is.

I don't particularly like 'One of Us'. I only like the chorus, but really, I've heard better. The following song also doesn't shine. 'The Name of the Game' is too...I don't know, 'slow' might be the word I'm looking for, but that doesn't necessarily mean bad.

Luckily, the slight boredom of these two tracks is more than made up for by yet another of my favourites: 'Thank You For the Music'. This is probably, after 'Dancing Queen', one of ABBA's best known songs. I simply adore it. I can often be heard singing it, which rather annoys Panacea, but that's just because she's tone deaf, and envies my beautiful voice.

And, last but not least, 'Waterloo'. It's one of the really famous ABBA songs, and rightly so, as it's really hard to forget once you listen to it. It's a loud song, a short song, and the piano sounds great. Oh, and the beautiful line: 'The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself.' For a history nerd like me, finding this in a pop song is just too cool.

And the album thus ends. Unless you're a hardcore ABBA fan, ABBA Gold is really quite enough for your ABBA cravings. Their best songs are all in there, and even the liner notes are cool (I must be the only person in the world who reads those).