estepheia | Entries tagged with movies

Hiya. Has anyone seen Casanova yet? Is it suitable for kids? Or too talk-y and high-brow? the kids have seen Pirates of the Caribbean and loved it. Is Casanova in the same vein or does it require a great deal of historical knowledge? I don't want them to be bored...

Current Mood: curious

It didn't suck. I didn't think it was terribly good either. ( My spoilery thoughts can be found behind the cut )

I finally got to watch Alexander. Boy, that's two and a half hours of my life that I'll never get back. That movie managed to be even worse than Troy and that's saying something. The narrative structure was painful, the dialogue dire, the acting stilted, and the music overdone. I hope this ended Oliver Stone's career. Personally, I wouldn't give that man another dollar to make movies. He wouldn't know 'subtle' if it bit him in the ass. As for the open gayness: Yawn. The scenes between Alexander and Hephaistos were wooden and badly written. The costume department did a good job and the sceneries were great, and it was great to see the phalanxes march. Every thing else sucked. And Colin Farrell was awful. Almost as awful as Angelina Jolie. And none of the characters felt like flesh and blood people. Give me Bloom's Paris any day!
*goes off to cleanse brain with something intelligent: an epi of House*

Current Mood: pissed off

Thanks to

romanyg I just saw the trailer for V for Vendetta. Oh. My. God! How could I have missed that they made a movie out of my all time favorite comic book? Squee squee! With Natalie Portman (perfect!), a screenplay by the Wachovski brothers (teriffic), and McTiernan as a director. Sounds very promising. Squeee!

I used to work for Quality Comics, the publishing house in which Alan Moore published his first acclaimed comics. Okay, so I only did the mail order stuff and sold comics in the shop and I never actually met Alan Moore, only Garry Leach, who inked some of AM's early comics, but still. I was heartbroken when Warrior magazine was cancelled before the V for Vendetta storyline was resolved. Thankfully DC comics took over and published the whole series.

Flight of the Phoenix - the Remake rocks. I admit I was angry when I found out they were going to remake one of my favorite childhood movies. Without Hardy Krüger! What an insane idea. Well, I confess my error. It's a solid movie, good drama, with an able cast, good camera work, and many very satisfying moments. Giovanni Ribisi rocked as Elliott. I won't buy it when it comes out, but I'll definitely buy it when it's affordable.

I started work on my

slashfest fic. *feels virtuous* I have 250 words typed, and maybe another 500 words of handwritten notes. Not sure if the notes will make it into the final version, but at least I'm working on it. I'm confident that I'll be able to produce something on time. It may not be my best work ever, but it will get written.

I also tinkered with Four Fear today. My 'vision' is getting clearer. Maybe I can put in an hour or two tomorrow.

Unfortunately the summer holidays begin tomorrow. Meaning the kids will be home all the time, leaving me precious little time to write. We'll celebrate Tina's straight A's with a movie and ice cream.
On Sunday the whole family will hopefully go to Berlin for a week. Meanwhile, a friend will look after the house, the garden, and the fish. :-)
I won't post in that week, since I won't have internet access. But I'll take my computer and notebooks and I'll definitely write. And I'll definitely take a stack of books to read. Hopefully the new Harry Potter which I ordered via Amazon. Hopefully it will land on our doormat on Saturday.

I grabbed a good friend last night and dragged her off to a late night movie double bill. First we saw War of the Worlds and then Batman Begins. Boy am I glad we watched them in that order. WotW was utterly creepy and made a lasting impression (especially to me, since I am a mother of two). I was glad that we had the rather mediocre Batman on top to obliterate the unsettling effect of watching aliens massacre everything that moves (and if you think that's spoilery, I can only say puh-leaze). I have always been an avid fan of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, relishing Richard Burton's booming voice, and the power of the narrative (and I wish I could trade in my LPs for the CDs, because the CDs are frightfully expensive). IMHO the new movie is an excellent variant on the story, and Tom Cruise gives a fine performance. From what I hear he's a total asshat, but I find him utterly pleasing to look at, especially when he looks 'normal', and I liked all the movies he made in the past few years. I haven't seen Vanilla Sky yet. I guess I have to.

As for Batman Begins, well, Christian Bale looks attractive when scruffed up, but in his Batman gear? Not so much. The movie had a few nice ideas and a wonderful Michael Caine (but then I always like Alfred), but the editing was abysimal, the lighting crap, the script too formulaic and Liam Neeson attractive but underchallenged. With all the money the film makers had and the able cast, they still only managed to make a mediocre movie.

The trailer for Fantastic Four looked like crap. And Jessica Alba should be lynched by a horde of outraged brunettes for blonding up. Frankly, it looks wrong for her. But the King Kong preview? Da-yum. That looked utterly fantastic. *bounce*

After four hours of sleep my friend and I had to get up, and a little bit later we were off to Wolfenbüttel, a neighboring town, to run a five hour workshop on short prose and characterisation. The first hour was bumpy, but after that the students slowly warmed to our tag team style. Some of the students wrote very promising stories and it was a very satisfying morning.

This afternoon we spent watching Kenneth Branagh's Henry V - and I finally understood why the name and face of Christian Bale had always been familiar: he played the young boy in Henry V, the banner bearer. I also confess that I finally realized that underneath all the make up Falstaff was played by Robbie Coltrane, and that Bardolph was actually played by the same actor who plays Hero's father in Much Ado. That tells me that it's been way too long since I watched Henry V last. And boy, it's still a damn fine movie!

Watched the 1954 version of Sabrina with the kids today. They loved it (although they complained about the lack of color). Toyah in particular is a real sap. She loooves love stories.

I missed doing my morning pages two days in a row. Will now do today's pages. Better late than never. Then I'm off to bed. Hubby takes the kids to play chess tomorrow. Yay! That means I have the whole morning to myself. Maybe I'll work on Four Fear.

Current Mood: tired

Into the West rocks! No, it's not terribly ground breaking, it's not even terribly unpredictable so far, but if you have a thing for American Natives and the Lakota language and subtitles, and visions, and parallel montage, and if you liked Dances With Wolves or A Man Called Horse then this is just the thing for you. The story is pretty archetypal, the photography beautiful, the pacing intelligent. I am reminded of Hanta Yo and the Harka-books that I read as a teenager. I just watched the first part and can't wait for the second. Although I must admit that there hasn't been an overabundance of Westerns movies lately, so I'm a bit starved...

And since I'm talking about Western shows/movies, here's a list of my favorites:

- Outlaw Josey Wales - because I love how the movie plays with clichés and the way the characters end up together almost by accident
- High Plains Drifter - because the idea is nifty, and it's fun watching Clint screw the towns people. Plus great twist at the end.
- Unforgiven - because its a masterpiece of disenchantment but not entirely cynical (and Clint rocks!)
- Once Upon a Time in the West - because of music, camera angles, and the sparse diaglogue. A classic!
- El Dorado and Rio Bravo - because the banter is good, the heros are broken, and friendship rules. Leigh Brackett rocked!
- Support your Local Sheriff - because it's funny and charming and I adore James Garner.
- Big Country - because Gregory Peck makes a wonderfully resourceful greenhorn.
- Silverado - because both story and cast are excellent. Plus it's pretty.
- Dances With Wolves - because it's beautiful and Kicking Bird is cute.
- True Grit - because John Wayne is so wonderfully grumpy.
- Man in the Wilderness - bizarre but fascinating story about the power of sheer stubbornness.
- Little Big Man - because... well, do you really need to ask?

When I was a kid I read what I could about American Indians, I even tried to take Indian names apart in order to create my own vocabulary of Indian terms. And while I'm otherwise a pretty forgetful person, I can still tell you that matto = bear, sapa = black, uitko = crazy or wild, etc.

Got it! *brandishes Constantine DVD* Hurrah.
We recently joined a German netflix equivalent. Reasonably cheap. Watched Disney's Three Muskateers today. Brilliant! I love Donald as a cowardly muskateer. Very very archetypal stuff, extremely formulaic and also very funny.

I was wondering, are there any fervent LotR fans on my flist? Do you know any good LotR fanvids that I could download? Or competent vidders who vid in this fandom? *makes puppy eyes*

Earlier today my brain kinda nose-dived. Have you ever had the feeling that half of your IQ never made it out of bed in the morning? Maybe I need more sleep...

Current Mood: content

Haven't written a word of fanfic in a whole friggin' week. Am XXC (=extra extra cranky) today. Won't have time to write today because I'm teaching.
Okay, lets not dwell on the bad stuff, think about the good stuff. Yes!

On Tuesday hubby and I managed to see THE SITH - which is nice, because we had our first date EVA for STARWARS, the original one, when it first came out, waaaay back in the seventies. My memory, although customarily hazy, vividly remembers a stocky boy with incredibly black hair, a dreadful sweater, and the customary olive army jacket who leaned suavely against the wall next to the window with the movie poster, reading a pulp SF mag. I, of course, arrived with a girl friend in tow, because, dude, it was a date with a BOY!!! One I'd never met before. We'd talked on the phone and exchanged letters, but this was, like, face to face!!!
Anyway, STARWARS will always have a place in my heart, no matter how bad some of the movies are, and the last one is actually a pretty damn satisfying movie. Thank you, George, for not screwing this up.

Anyhow, cheer me up. Share a movie memory with me. Doesn't have to be STARWARS, just a fond memory. Or a funny one. No tragedies please, unless you want me to bang my head against the wall. Share share share, come on, you know you want to!

Current Mood: curious

Kingdom of Heaven rocked!!! I loved it from beginning to end. *sighs happily* I never got the 'Orlando Bloom pretty' until today. He carried the film well. I liked the cinematography, the script, everything. I am pretty hard boiled when it comes to battle sequences, but this made me wince - which is good. Ridley Scott definitely ranks as one of my favorite directors. Much much better than Troy. Plus I liked the anti-religious lunacy message. Yes!

Mr. Estepheia and I went out tonight. For a quick meal (lamb chops, mmmm) and a movie. We both enjoyed Daredevil a lot. I had heard a lot of negative comments, so we didn't expect much, but I must admit I liked it better than Spiderman. I liked the dark tone and I particularly liked Ben Affleck's performance. I never really thought much of him. He was pretty in Dogma and Reindeer Games but didn't strike me as particularly talented. But he did give a good Daredevil.

I also liked the brilliant Soundtrack. I love Evanescence.

The action scenes and stunts were as silly and disjointed as is customary in this genre. Some of the camera angles were repetitive, but I liked the story and I liked the characters. Meaning the hubby and I had a lovely evening.

Current Mood: tired

Did you know that a skilled archer can fire an arrow every 10 seconds? Apparently, Peter Jackson didn't.
( Read more... )

*Sigh* The secret slasha is driving me nuts.

And watching Saving Grace with one eye doesn't help. Man, those Brits make the funniest comedies. Ever. Absolutely brilliant!

Current Mood: nerdy

A big hurrah for Mr. Estepheia. He's always a nice man, but today particularly so. I felt crappy this morning, so he took the kids to kindergarten, came home from work early, at lunchtime, did stuff in the garden, then picked up the kids, took the eldest to her gymnastics class, came home, kept them out of my hair so I could nap, and when I got up and found out that the movie Four Feathers would be shown for the last time today at the local cinma, he said to me, "off you go then!" Lucky me!

As for Four Feathers: it was an old-fashioned adventure movie with lots of costumes, battle scenes, great acting and old-fashioned themes. Meaning I loved it but most other people probably didn't. Heath Ledger is a very talented young man who can pull off being dashing, brave, sad, afraid, suffering, rash, mad... plus he doesn't look silly in historic costumes (which endears him to me a lot).

Other men who don't look silly in ethnic or historic costume: Sean Connery, Alan Rickman, Johnny Depp, Mel Gibson, Gabriel Byrne

Men who DO look silly in period wear: David Boreanaz, Charlie Sheen (and most of the other musketeers, except of course Kiefer Sutherland), Leonardo di Caprio. (Naturally, neither list is complete)

Anyway, Four Feathers was pretty brutal stuff. Years and years ago I saw a movie based on the same novel and that was already pretty tough, but this version... naked bodies lying in the desert, their heads cut off and dogs licking at them; horrible living conditions in the Mahdi's prison. - No wonder the film didn't do well in movie theatres. Personally, I liked it, but I liked Braveheart, Patriot, Zulu and Henry V - all films with wholesale slaughter in it.

Four Feathers is also interesting because it depicts an interesting era, the Victorian age. While I doubt that a young officer and his would-be fiancé would kiss that often and in front of a friend the film still managed to convey a certain far away air. It's like watching Sense and Sensibilty - you like the characters but secretly you think that everybody in those days must have been insane to act the way they do.

Current Mood: amused

Last night Chenanceau invited me to her Monday night chat, which seems to be a kind of institution. It's always nice to "eeeew" with like-minded people about the horror that is the current season of AtS or discuss the caliber of Charisma Carpenter's boobs.

But that chat takes place rather late. So I climbed into bed about a quarter to five in the morning, only to be woken five seconds later (okay, in truth it was 2 and a half hours later) by my little one, howling into my ear that her tummy and ear have an ouwie. Poor Viktoria has an ear infection and is now on antibiotics.

That threw a wrench into all my plans for today. Shopping was cancelled, writing was cancelled. In fact, I'll be stuck with little one at home for the rest of the week. Meaning I won't have a lot of time to work on my current WIPs. That sucks!

Plus I have a headache. *Sigh*
Right now, I just wish my hubby would pop up by my side, say a few soothing words, make me a nice coffee with lots of hot milk and cocoa in it and amuse the kids.

Okay, enough with the whinging and whining!

I had a great day yesterday. Even got to see "Harry Potter 2" last night, on a big screen and in English. And can I just say this: Not enough Snape! Other than that it was fun. Kenneth Branagh gives an amusing performance as Gilderoy Lockheart. I agree with Herc (Ain't it cool news) that most of Branagh's works are fantastic.

And since I enjoy recommending books, films and such, here are today's (Branagh-related) recommendations:

"In the Bleak Midwinter" & "Peter's Friends"

( today's recommendations )