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Apr. 12th, 2004 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyTwo films I've seen in the last couple of days.
First off, Master and Commander. Now I'm the last person to be snobby about films, I really am. I hate people that are snobby about things, because... I dunno. It's like they believe that liking more intellectual things makes them a better person, like they had some part in the making of the item or whatever. Likewise, I'm not someone who usually says you should read the book rather than see the film, or at least first... though there are exceptions. The Beach, for instance. I refuse to see the film because Rich was supposed to be *pale* and *dark haired* and *BRITISH* and they cast Leo.
Master and Commander is slightly different. By all means, watch the film. It's a fantastic film, and well worth watching, and if it encourages more people to read the fantastic series of books it was based on then more power to it. However, I think the books should be read first. Even if it's just one. Hell, I've only read two of the books, but I think it genuinely improved my enjoyment of the film because I *had* read them.
The bits of the film that my mother wasn't particularly fond of were the bits that I loved inordinately, because they were so true to the books. Like... the crap joke Jack made. Mum thought that was terribly corny, while I was giggling and feeling all fond of Jack and his 'wit'. Also she kept complaining that RC was too fat, while I argued that he was *supposed* to be! I adore Paul Bettany's portrayal of Maturin, and though I have no particular fondness for Russell Crowe I thought he did very well as Jack Aubrey.
Billy Boyd was mugging randomly in the background, and did pretty well at pretending not to be Scottish apart from a couple of odd pronunciations- rather like Alan Cumming in Goldeneye, in fact.
The action was fantastic- it was brutal and bloody and realistic and harsh. The soundtrack was beautiful- lovely use of Vaughan Williams, which had me choked up. Well worth watching.
Love actually? Actually, crap. Too many storylines that I couldn't care about, because they all seemed to be resolved entirely too quickly. I cared about Emma Thompson, and Liam Neeson, and the kid. That was it. I'm not going to say anything else about it, because I don't want to spoil those left to spoil... but I wouldn't. I really wouldn't.
Life here continues well. I'm staying an extra couple of days, because I need my mum. It's sad, but there it is. Sometimes a girl just needs to eat food that someone else has cooked, to get hugs for no other reason than she needs it, to feel like the responsibility rests on someone else. It's lovely to be here.
Sorry I haven't been on chat so much, but mother sleeps at 10pm and little G rarely gets off the computer before 9. Bloody power pets. I am improving my mind in the meantime... wandering around the house with classical music on cordless headphones and reading books that aren't HP or Discworld.
Oh, and anyone want to ask me anything? Anything at all? Feeling talkative, you might have noticed. ;)
First off, Master and Commander. Now I'm the last person to be snobby about films, I really am. I hate people that are snobby about things, because... I dunno. It's like they believe that liking more intellectual things makes them a better person, like they had some part in the making of the item or whatever. Likewise, I'm not someone who usually says you should read the book rather than see the film, or at least first... though there are exceptions. The Beach, for instance. I refuse to see the film because Rich was supposed to be *pale* and *dark haired* and *BRITISH* and they cast Leo.
Master and Commander is slightly different. By all means, watch the film. It's a fantastic film, and well worth watching, and if it encourages more people to read the fantastic series of books it was based on then more power to it. However, I think the books should be read first. Even if it's just one. Hell, I've only read two of the books, but I think it genuinely improved my enjoyment of the film because I *had* read them.
The bits of the film that my mother wasn't particularly fond of were the bits that I loved inordinately, because they were so true to the books. Like... the crap joke Jack made. Mum thought that was terribly corny, while I was giggling and feeling all fond of Jack and his 'wit'. Also she kept complaining that RC was too fat, while I argued that he was *supposed* to be! I adore Paul Bettany's portrayal of Maturin, and though I have no particular fondness for Russell Crowe I thought he did very well as Jack Aubrey.
Billy Boyd was mugging randomly in the background, and did pretty well at pretending not to be Scottish apart from a couple of odd pronunciations- rather like Alan Cumming in Goldeneye, in fact.
The action was fantastic- it was brutal and bloody and realistic and harsh. The soundtrack was beautiful- lovely use of Vaughan Williams, which had me choked up. Well worth watching.
Love actually? Actually, crap. Too many storylines that I couldn't care about, because they all seemed to be resolved entirely too quickly. I cared about Emma Thompson, and Liam Neeson, and the kid. That was it. I'm not going to say anything else about it, because I don't want to spoil those left to spoil... but I wouldn't. I really wouldn't.
Life here continues well. I'm staying an extra couple of days, because I need my mum. It's sad, but there it is. Sometimes a girl just needs to eat food that someone else has cooked, to get hugs for no other reason than she needs it, to feel like the responsibility rests on someone else. It's lovely to be here.
Sorry I haven't been on chat so much, but mother sleeps at 10pm and little G rarely gets off the computer before 9. Bloody power pets. I am improving my mind in the meantime... wandering around the house with classical music on cordless headphones and reading books that aren't HP or Discworld.
Oh, and anyone want to ask me anything? Anything at all? Feeling talkative, you might have noticed. ;)
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Date: 2004-04-12 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-12 09:37 am (UTC)'Love Actually' I saw three times in the theatre, play the sound track constantly, and have the DVD on order. I doubt I ever would have gone to see it if it hadn't had Alan in it, and that was definitely what I liked most about it, but I discovered I was more of a romantic than I thought I was. I never get through the movie without crying, although oddly enough Emma Thompson does not make me cry. She does a magnificent job, but it's the guy with the signs and the little kid and especially Liam Neeson that get to me. The Brit who travels to Wisconsin, on the other hand, so needs to have not been included.
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Date: 2004-04-12 11:48 am (UTC)Emma Thompson I thought was absolutely fantastic, and the way her character was treated upset me a great deal, though I did respect the lack of happy ending there. It does bug me inordinately when *everyone* gets a happy ending, 'cos life ain't like that. Then again, when I'm in a crappy mood and need cheering up, happy endings for everyone make the world a better place. Again, depends on the mood you're in.
The guy with the signs... I can see that that might get to people. However... I dunno. He seemed kinda spineless to me. I don't like that he never said anything to her before the marriage. And I don't like that he introduces doubt into his *best* *friend's* new marriage. It just seems incredibly selfish to me... but I am the kind of person that will ignore my own wants for other people, and that's a character flaw. I am a doormat. I just didn't particularly respect him, but I would have liked there to be time to find someone else for him.
That was what I took most issue with. The complete lack of time. I'd much rather have one couple that comes to a believable resolution. Even two or three couples, with the others more of a sideline- like four weddings and a funeral did, for instance.
My mother and I were also arguing about the Colin Firth romance- I found it completely ridiculous that they felt they could base a marriage merely on lust, frankly. They'd never had a conversation. They might have hated each other.
Like I said, I'm cynical today.
But I thought Sam (the kid) was adorable. =)
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Date: 2004-04-12 11:00 am (UTC)God, ain't that the truth! Treasure that feeling. It's something that's been missing in my life, because my parents split up within a month of my moving out for good, and I can't get as comfortable in the old house or in my mom's apartment because they have such different expectations of me now.
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Date: 2004-04-12 11:50 am (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2004-04-12 02:10 pm (UTC)I'd love to come to Britain someday. I mean, I like history, and Europe's where the history comes from, right? And while my names are the most German things since spatzel and weisswurst, my ancestry is 75 percent Welsh and Scottish, so I'd like to see what that's all about before I depart the mortal coil. :)