The Movie: Bridget Jones's Diary, directed by Sharon Maguire
Recommendation: H
Reason: Hugh Grant is funny.
Renee Zellweger's really starting to bug me lately (I love Empire Records, I love Chicago...I love Empire Records, I love Chicago...). I keep seeing movies with her in them that bite. Bridget Jones's Diary wasn't awful, but it wasn't spectacular, and I'm really starting to get pissed at the Academy for equating 'physical alteration' with 'great acting'. I mean, goddammit! Renee Zellweger was nominated for an academy award for this movie, playing the same half-crazy, supposedly cute, slightly rebellious character she plays in everything (even Chicago, but her performance was more nuanced there, and she wasn't speaking in an English accent) after putting on 25 pounds. Christian Bale dropped 80 pounds for The Machinist, and he didn't get nominated for squat, despite an excellent performance in an alright suspense film. At least she didn't win. We got Halle Berry instead, who I'm still not quite sure about.
Taking a peek into the trivia I could find about this movie, it looks like it was a bit of a circlejerk, since the director's a friend of the author of the book and the two leading men are mentioned in the book (as themselves, not as the characters they played). I wasn't that much enamored of the story. I think the pinnacles of the British romantic comedy ala Working Title Pictures are still (and probably always will be) Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral. They've got a few good films on the way that I'm looking forward to, so huzzah for the upcoming Hot Fuzz!
To continue this scattered rambling, I spent half of the movie peering intently at the screen, trying to figure out who the hell that squeaky-voiced chick was, and why she sounded so familiar. Shock and awe! It's Moaning Myrtle, from Harry Potter! So imagine my chagrin at learning that Moaning Myrtle's fortysomething. That just adds a whole new level of goddamn creepy to the bath scene in Goblet of Fire, seeing as she was forty and Daniel Radcliffe was fifteen. Ewwwwwwww.
-63/365 down, 302/365 to go
Showing posts with label british movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label british movie. Show all posts
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Friday, March 2, 2007
Can someone please un-pussify Guy Ritchie?
The Movie: Layer Cake, directed by Matthew Vaughn
Recommendation: Me
Reason: I wanted to see how the new James Bond shaped up in his earlier roles.
Guy Ritchie needs to shape the hell up. I'm a huge fan of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Hey, everyone loves a caper movie, right? Ocean's Eleven through Thirteen (just speculating on that one), O Brother Where Art Thou?, they've been decent hits, good movies to watch just to have something to watch. Heist movies live and die on style, and Ritchie had a whole hell of a lot of it. There was just something so perfect about the fast cuts, the writing, the casting, and the directing that Ritchie did on his better known pictures. He was supposed to direct this little number, but he didn't. Passed on the torch to Matthew Vaughn, on a movie that could have been a triumphant return to the genre he'd helped revive.
Vaughn was involved in Lock, Stock... and Snatch as a producer, so it's no surprise he handled Layer Cake so nicely. It has a similar feel to Ritchie's originals. Unfortunately, it's not so engaging as either. The plot twists and turns in some really great (though predictable) ways, but aside from Daniel Craig's stone cold XXXX and a very good ending, it doesn't stand as an equal to the movies it's succeeded.
Daniel Craig is definitely comment-worthy. He's a unique, understated actor with a great unruffled feel about him. His bearing and his tone just fit. I had to give myself a little giggle when XXXX picks up his first gun and immediately strikes a Bond pose-at the time Layer Cake was shot, Craig was probably unaware that he was soon going to become that legendary character. At any rate, Craig alone commends this flick. If you liked Lock, Stock... or Snatch, you might get something out of Layer Cake. It'd also be a pretty decent introduction to the other two, should you be looking to get someone else interested.
-59/365 down, 306/365 to go
Recommendation: Me
Reason: I wanted to see how the new James Bond shaped up in his earlier roles.
Guy Ritchie needs to shape the hell up. I'm a huge fan of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Hey, everyone loves a caper movie, right? Ocean's Eleven through Thirteen (just speculating on that one), O Brother Where Art Thou?, they've been decent hits, good movies to watch just to have something to watch. Heist movies live and die on style, and Ritchie had a whole hell of a lot of it. There was just something so perfect about the fast cuts, the writing, the casting, and the directing that Ritchie did on his better known pictures. He was supposed to direct this little number, but he didn't. Passed on the torch to Matthew Vaughn, on a movie that could have been a triumphant return to the genre he'd helped revive.
Vaughn was involved in Lock, Stock... and Snatch as a producer, so it's no surprise he handled Layer Cake so nicely. It has a similar feel to Ritchie's originals. Unfortunately, it's not so engaging as either. The plot twists and turns in some really great (though predictable) ways, but aside from Daniel Craig's stone cold XXXX and a very good ending, it doesn't stand as an equal to the movies it's succeeded.
Daniel Craig is definitely comment-worthy. He's a unique, understated actor with a great unruffled feel about him. His bearing and his tone just fit. I had to give myself a little giggle when XXXX picks up his first gun and immediately strikes a Bond pose-at the time Layer Cake was shot, Craig was probably unaware that he was soon going to become that legendary character. At any rate, Craig alone commends this flick. If you liked Lock, Stock... or Snatch, you might get something out of Layer Cake. It'd also be a pretty decent introduction to the other two, should you be looking to get someone else interested.
-59/365 down, 306/365 to go
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