Fall Movie Reviews

Hey everyone! Wow - where did November go? It honestly feels like I wrote a blog entry like one week ago and I look and see it's been a month. I guess it's just that time of year. Utter and complete craziness. Thomas and I have done several things worth blogging about. The first is our venture to the Denver Film Fest with Jen and Dave (the above pic is from the Telluride film fest, so its presence is not quite as random as it seems). We saw two movies. The first was From Subway with Love, a Czech romantic comedy. Since romantic comedies are probably my fav genre, I'm pretty easy to please with a movie like this. The film is supposed to be the biggest Czech film of all time and 600,000 Czechs have seen it. Not sure what this translates in box office numbers but they're quite excited about it. The story revolves around a 20-something girl who gets involved with an older guy (so old he actually dated her mother). All the actors were good and the directing was fine as well, though he did make a few bizarre choices, one involving a fake bear. I was a little disappointed that there weren't more cityscapes included in the movie, as Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It would have been interesting to see what scenery, buildings, etc., a native Czech would want to show off. But this is really my only complaint. From Subway was very enjoyable and I'd recommend it if you're a fan of romantic comedies or foreign films or both, of course. A highlight of going to the festival was that the director came up after the movie to take questions from the audience. Most of the questions were pretty dumb (except for Thomas's of course), and most he answered in pretty good English. But the question of the fake bear came up and he gave an answer in Czech that lasted like five minutes that his interpreter answered it in about 10 words. Talk about being lost in translation.

After that, we saw The White Countess, the last Merchant Ivory film, starring Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson. It's set in the late 30s in Shanghai, the same setting you'll note as the beginning of Empire of the Sun. Unfortunately this movie does not compare in the slightest to Empire, one of my favs and the debut of Mr. Batman himself, Christian Bale. If you haven't seen it (Empire or Batman Begins really, run don't walk to your nearest video store. Anyway, back to the boring topic of Countess. This should have been a good movie. I'm a huge fan of Merchant Ivory (Room with a View, Howard's End, Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, and Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, to name a few). Merchant just died though, so this is the denouement of the famous production duo. Fiennes plays ex-American diplomat, Todd Jackson (doesn't that sound like a character out of a John Hughes 80s movie or at least one of the Todds I dated in the 90s, for in those decades all guys seemed to be named either Mark or Todd) a blind guy who lost his sight and his family in various Shanghai bombings. This depresses him, but doesn't deter him from staying in Shanghai (full of ex-pats from all sorts of countries all hobnobbing together) and opening his dream club. He befriends a Japanese man of similar sensibilities, Mr. Matsuda and hires Countess Sofia Belinsky (Richardson) to be the club's hostess. Sofia, her daughter and various other family members (played by Richardson's real life mother, Vanessa Redgrave and aunt, Lynn Redgrave) are Russian émigrés who've fled Russia thanks to the Communist revolution. They've fallen on hard times and now rely on Sofia to bring in the cash for the family, all the while judging her harshly for her shady occupation. The movie drifts along for a good 2 hours before the Japanese finally start bombing Shanghai and Countess picks up a bit. I enjoyed the last 30 minutes but in no way can I recommend this dullest of films about what should be a very interesting subject.

Since the Film Festival, we've tried desperately to see some other films as the good ones are finally being released. Circumstances have intervened and though we've made it to the theatre several times, we've only actually seen one other movie in the past month. Quelle horreur! That movie was of course, Harry Potter 4. Once again we had a new director. I was a bit upset about this given my fondness for Alfonso Cuaron's (Great Expectations, A Little Princess) brilliant job in Harry Potter 3. But at least they didn't reinstate Chris Columbus. 4 was directed by Mike Newell another good director (Four Weddings & a Funeral, Pushing Tin, Donnie Brasco, etc.). His talent at pacing well served the film as it moved swiftly along and managed to capture all the key scenes from the book. The book is very long so there were some harsh cuts that were made, but they were understandable. For example, the highlight of the movie for both Thomas and me was the challenge where Harry has to capture the golden egg from the dragon. The action scenes were breathtaking. We were both disappointed that they didn't show the other three champions' battles with dragons, but I'm guessing the special effects budget for this was too steep. There was a lot of media attention on the fact that this is the first HP movie to get a pg-13 rating. I was thankful for this. Just as the books have progressed in complexity and maturity as Harry's aged, so should the movies. There's a good deal of focus on the romantic ordeals of Harry, Hermione and Ron. All of this I enjoyed but Thomas was bored by. The dance was especially fun, though I thought Hermione was quite overwrought both in this scene and throughout the movie. She didn't seem so emotional in the book to me. Ron, as usual, is the weak link. I'm not sure what will happen to his whiny character in book 7, but the only fitting end for him will be death or conversion to the dark side. I also have to say the kid who plays Harry isn't aging too gracefully. Perhaps it's just an ugly duckling phase, but a hottie he is not - so will he be replaced come HP 5, 6 or 7 due to his "age"? We'll just have to see. The actor, Danielle Radcliffe, does have some chops though. He brought the high emotion needed to the finale when the infamous first Hogwarts death occurs. So, Harry Potter 4 was awesome - it wasn't as visually interesting as Cuaron's 3, but the story, the effects and the pacing made for an exciting film that did not disappoint this fan of all things HP.

Next time, a Thanksgiving wrap up and pics, provided I can remember how to get them off my camera.

-sunday