The King's Speech

AOG, London

I just saw the Oscar ceremony, and I have to say I'm slightly disappointed by the election of The King's Speech as the winning movie. As the best movie of the year. 

I had a hard time picturing this film as a contender for the crown in the first place, and given the competition, it is surprising that it won.

I saw it a few weeks ago and I remember leaving the movie theater feeling a bit... well, a bit like nothing had really happened. 

No great climax, no interesting insights, no great idea. 

The story is simple enough, the next in line to the  British throne, the future George VI,  has a speech impediment and an Australian speech therapist (played by  the great Geoffrey Rush) helps him to speak well. 

There you go, that is the whole movie right there. 

You'd think that being a British film (and this is the reason why it won, because in the US, anything British and Royal at the same time is a surefire winner) they could have done a bit more work on the plot. 

But no, in fact, poor Mr. Firth, who is a very good actor, and now one with an Oscar under his belt (yes, though we all know the Oscar is really for his performance last year in A Single Man) pretty much carries the weight of the whole movie on his shoulders.

Helena Bonham-Carter, as the future Queen Mother, is good at, well, at being Helena Bonham-Carter playing a royal person, not at actually playing the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother herself. I saw a similar performance of hers in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland a few months ago. Less manic, but just as "royal".

All this time, when people have asked me about the movie, all I have been able to muster has been that it is a "nothing film". And that is all it is. 

A pretty (though it could have been more spectacular), simple (though it could have been slightly more complicated), very well acted movie based on a few stories concerning King George VI, himself a very interesting character (the last Emperor of India, the last King of Ireland  &c.). 

And it is odd that no more was made of his life, that all that mattered was that one speech problem and that all else was superseded to it. And believe me, there was more. Of the relationship between  George VI and his brother, King Edward VIII. 

Of the strained relationship with Wallis Simpson and what she meant for the future of the monarchy -sadly played by Eve Best, a British actress playing the infamous American divorcée -credited for coining the famous boutade "You can never be too rich or to thin". 

To say nothing of the awful performance delivered by Claire Bloom as Queen Mary. Yes, a miscast. Or perhaps not well directed. 

I remember that whenever she popped into the screen I would try really hard to make myself believe that she was Queen Mary, and not just an actress in period costume. She was too young to play her perhaps. Too...unroyal, if there be such a word.

But I don't want to kill the movie completely. It does have some very interesting performances. Derek Jacobi, for one, is amazing in his part as Archbishop Cosmo Lang. Evil, and nervy, he is a very memorable character. 

As is the  wonderful aforementioned  Geoffrey  Rush as Lionel Logue. 

The movie has a few moments of hilarity here and there, but they, in my humble opinion, were not fully exploited. So, I'm glad it won, it is not a bad movie, but, as I said, it is just a 'nothing film'. 

I would have given True Grit the Oscar. But then, I am slightly biased... 

True Grit

AOG, Madrid

I don't like cowboy movies. I don't like Westerns. I don't like Country & Western music. 

I never have. I doubt I ever will.

I don't much care for cowboys beyond the aesthetics and the images of masculinity they portray. 

I liked Brokeback Mountain because of the story, but I hated that they were cowboys. 

I sort of like Hee-Haw for about 23 seconds back when I was a kid.

I don't know why this is. 

I grew up in Texas and Texas is a very cowboy-friendly state. And I don't have anything against cowboys or cowgirls. Just not on film.

So with this is mind, it is surprising that I've just come back from watching 'True Grit', the Coen brothers film.

It was a combination of things which made me go see it. 

The original catalyst was a friend from French class calling me up. Would I join them around 8:20 PM. 

I asked what they were going to see. When he told me, my first reaction was, no. Not in this lifetime. 

But then, and this all happened very quickly, my mind plucked a long forgotten memory from the past, and I changed my mind very quickly. 

You see, when I was a kid, my sister read 'True Grit', the novel by Charles Portis. 

I remember that she loved it. 

I never read it because, well, because it was a cowboy novel and I didn't like that type of thing. 

And so tonight, a couple of decades and a continent later, I thought, just to see what it was that she liked so much, I agreed. I would go and see the cowboy film.

No, I was not captivated from the start. In fact, I thought the start was a bit slow. But then, it did. It began to take a life of its own. The characters, the storyline, the, well, the everything about it. I have to say that I really liked this movie. But I also discovered something else. I discovered why it would appeal to my sister. 

She too had, has, true grit. She is a fighter. She always has been.  

I have always been the conciliator in my family, the diplomat. 

I signed the treaties, made the peace; and she fought the wars with guns a'blazin'. Yes, that is she. A real firecracker. Just like Madame Mère.

And I could see how a preteen girl growing up in Texas would find comfort in that book. She must have seen herself reflected, if only a little bit, in the movie.

You see, our childhood, was a very trying time for us. Moving all the time, changing countries, friends, schools, subjects, different cultures etc etc.

We somehow survived it.

As we all do. I envy those people who say they had an idyllic childhood.

Ours was not idyllic. It was adventurous and challenging. It was also interesting, exotic, cultured, and wild. Curious, moving, sad, happy, well, I think it was a lot of things, but for better or worse, it is now over. 

I never gave how we got through it much thought. But today, I got a small clue as to how my sister made it through.

I think this book must have given her strength somehow. It probably gave her a role model, a behavior pattern when faced with adversity.

It is so important to have a role model in life, even if it is only in fiction. 

I remember years ago when I was going through a rough patch, like we all do, I was telling her about it. And to this day I remember her words:"Stick to your guns!"

And at the time, I did. And I think, ever since then, whenever things go topsy turvy, I remember her words. 

I suppose she must have gotten it from Madame Mère, this fighting spirit. The two are so alike. And before you say it, no, I'm not adopted. I look just like my mother. 

And I have no clue where the diplomatic streak comes from since I don't think anyone in my family is particularly diplomatic. But there you go, authorship unknown, but still a fact. 

So I'm really glad I went to see this movie, and I will recommend it to friends to go and see it. It has everything a good movie should have: a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Believable characters, and a plot. 

Weak point? I'm nitpicking here, but the hoopskirts the actresses wear are not believable. From watching hundreds of photographs from the era, I can attest to the fact that crinoline skirts  had a different shape  and the fabric hung  and draped over them differently. 

I know, it is only a movie, but, like I said, it is the only thing that made me go "humm".

Will I go back to see another cowboy flick in the future? No, I don't think so. I may do, but listen, I hated back to the Future part III because of all the XIX century cowboy crap. Like I said, I don't like cowboy movies. 

Avatar

AOG, Madrid

Just saw the movie Avatar, by the director James Cameron.

First impressions: very weak writing, predictable throughout, way too long, and, yes, very good special effects.

The movie has flaws as deep as the cheekbones on the Na’vi. For example, if you’ve ever heard of General Custer or Sitting Bull, you are in familiar territory.

The indigenous people are a XIX century caricature of the customs of native peoples everywhere.

They behave a bit like animals sometimes, grunting, growling, and showing their teeth, and in the next scene, they are all doing some sort of Cumbaya around a tree with glo-worms everywhere.

Please note that in the film, the character Neytiri’s mother, the Shaman of the tribe, speaks with a Jamaican accent when she speaks English. And the locals all have braided hair and ride horses like the Apache did.

Oh, and yes, in the future, everyone speaks English on Earth. And the natives, although a different species, can pick it up quite quickly. Handy, yes?

If you’ve seen Aliens (also a Cameron movie), then the Evil Space Corporation from Earth reprise will not surprise you. How ironic that Sigourney Weaver stars in both films.

But there are other things that will remind of you Aliens. Gadgets, insults (like "Bitch"), characters, etc.

There are gaps in the story line, a couple of loose ends, and, unfortunately, although it is meant to be in the future, everything that happens is quite modern. Like all! There is no futuristic moral message.

The entire movie is like watching a Native American tribe being kicked out of their land by white men in 1920. Flying machines versus bows and arrows. Warriors against soldiers. Yes, you’ve seen it all before, but done better.

And no, in case you are wondering, there are no gay people in the future and the Na’vi are a species which likes to paint its body and biologically connect with the local fauna, but nothing which might even hint at homosexuality, though, and this might be a bit of a shocker, zoophlilia is well catered for.

"Feel her strong legs, now her hearbeat and yours are one".

Gimme a break!

There are also no fat humans, or fat Na'vi, they are all slim and tall and athletic, and the blue beings don't age. Or at least not with wrinkles.

All in all, it is sad to see that Sci Fi has not yet moved beyond Minority Report, Aliens, Apocalypse Now, Gorillas in the Mist, Disney’s Cimarron and Predator.

The movie feels a lot like a two-and-a-half hour long video game.

It doesn't help that it looks like a beautiful one too most of the time.

Lions for lambs

AOG, MadridRobert Redford's new movie seems to draw a slight parallel with Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel. Both films share a triangular storyline which is drawn to a centrifuge by a common thread.

It is certainly beautifully filmed, the SX are good enough, and the plot, or plots, are nihilistic which is a welcome change in American cinema. Well, not all plots, this is an American film after all, and, although we are not served a happy ending on a platter, we are instead given a slice of hope, which is very much in line with the movie's feel.

A political story, it seems to reflect current thinking in the US regarding America's War on Terror campaign. If the film is to be seen as a catalyst for America's pulse, then we can assume that the end of the NeoCons is near, and that enough people have begun to question the status quo vis a vis the country's complacency with the post 9-11 world and recent propaganda.

Tom Cruise plays a character who is close to his last bad-guy character in Collateral. He is well in his way to becoming the next Mel Gibson or Kevin Costner. Strong, single minded, and with projection and aspirations, he fits the job description rather well.

Meryl Streep is surprisingly good as a journalist who has a sudden turn of heart. I say surprising, because the character is a feeble yet intelligent woman who finds herself enmeshed in a moral dilemma. Although the character is not beyond Streep's acting capabilities, she does an amazing turn with it and comes up trumps. Once again she proves what an amazing acting range she has and we are grateful for it.

Robert Redford, who also directs the film, is very middle ground in this film. A combination of Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society and Sean Connery in Finding Forrester, he comes across as slightly lost in the character. It lives in his head, but he does not fully bring it out.

We are never fully aware of his motives, only of the fact that he feels he has failed somewhere along the line, though neither he, nor us, get to find out why. Special mention must go to his eyebrows which for some odd reason are dyed a darker shade than the rest of his hair.

All in all, the movie will probably be nominated and win an Oscar or two, and it will be well deserved. You will not be bored and, surprise surprise, it may even make you think.

If nothing else, it will help many to think about the current political situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US.

The Empire Strikes Brokeback