You Know What’s Not Worth it?

Sitting through Youth Without Youth.

I believe my reaction at the end was “What the hell did I just watch?”

I’m also wondering if Coppola has gone mildly insane.

Honestly, I need someone to help me figure out what the damn plot was.

The Maestro for the Religious: Copying Beethoven

The best I can say about this film is that it had some excellent shots. But, well…

How can I word this?  There are a certain number of things wrong with this film.  1) Jilted camera angles and movements.  2) Overacting on the part of 2/3 of the cast. 3) A Been-There, Done-That Storyline.

If I tried really hard, I’m sure I could make the list grow, but the film really isn’t worth my time.

The story is Anna Holtz, a charming 23-year-old musician-to-be who has been sent from her conservatory to do some work under Beethoven.  Of course, Beethoven in a rude brute who no one understands, except for OMG Anna!  How tremendously convenient that the only person who can understand Beethoven came in time to be his copyist before the Ninth Symphony is performed on Sunday.

In between being snarled at and having zen conversations about music and God, Karl, B’s nephew, drops by and is a rude, spoiled brat looking for some money to waste gambling.  Of course, even though he looks like some heroin addict, Karl is actually a very sympathetic character, because he doesn’t want to play the piano!  O, woe is he for having an uncle who adores him like a son.  Then he runs away, to return to further his weasely ways.

Anna is staying at her great aunt’s convent while she’s in Vienna and is encouraged to drop her silly dreams of becoming a composer, because girls can’t become composers, silly.  Her aunt, the Mother Superior, tells her that dreams are dangerous, but beautiful, and that she once had the dream to study under Salieri.  Let me tell you, that explains a lot about Anna’s aunt and her taste in music.

So, Vienna is agog at Beethoven and his 2-hour long symphony and the fact that he wants to conduct (But he’s deaf! Vienna shouts).  And Martin Bauer, the beau of Anna, is the most annoying person in this entire movie.  He is an engineer of the future and has really, really awful lines about building bridges to the future.  As far as I can throw him, he’s all that’s bad about the industrial era in a nut shell for this movie.

But Anna, o she loves him.  She thinks.  Well, the chemistry ain’t that great, but it’s a helluva lot better than that shit from the Star Wars prequels, is all I can say.  While Martin works on his bridge, he has a tangent about how no one listens to Beethoven anymore, blah di blah.

Then, the symphony!  Only Karl’s not there, so Beethoven can’t compose.  Not unless Anna’s onstage with him, composing from the orchestra.  So they do and it takes up a lot of time.  Probably the best use of time in this entire film, but only for the music.  There’s a montage in here that will make an epiliptic seizure and a lot of close ups of Beethoven cutting to Anna cutting to Beethoven cutting to Chorus cutting to Beethoven cutting to audience cutting to orchestra cutting to Anna cutting to Beethoven cutting to WTF Karl?  Who looks even more like a heroin addict now than every before!  Then he disappears and everything is apparently resolved in that area of the world.  Meanwhile, the standing ovation scene is a complete rip off from Immortal Beloved.

After the Ninth Symphony scene, everything is about God from here on out.  Beethoven whines to Anna about God, Anna says nothing.  Beethoven is the Zen Master of Music: The Language of God.  Anna tries her hand at composing.  Beethoven works on his new Quartets.  Anna questions God because Beethoven makes fun of her composition.  Mother Superior tells her that she would be safe in the convent, away from all of that dirty, dirty Viennese trash and deaf composers.  Then Beethoven begs for forgiveness and we’re back on the religious track!  Yippee.

Martin presents his bridge design for a contest and Beethoven just comes by and smashes it with his cane.  The design was the basic iron bridge design, nothing really special anyway.  Anna and Martin break up, because they can’t really stand eachother.  Anna turns to Beethoven for yelling matches and… more talk about God.  Then he asks her to bathe him. (You think I’m joking, but I’m not).

No one understands Beethoven’s new quartets, which is a pity because they’re rather nice.  Then he collapses and Anna nurses him back to health.  He goes to sleep and when he wakes up, he has a new idea for a song.  Anna dictates while he sits in bed, and this scene totally isn’t a rip off of Amadeus, why do you ask?

One final conversation about God and Music and END MOVIE!

Copying Beethoven has a maturity level somewhere under Beethoven Lives Upstairs.  I can’t even sit lose myself to the pretty landscape or to the costumes because Vienna is portrayed as bland and dismal while the costumes are drab in greys and browns, except for an occassional blue.  The direction isn’t my taste when it comes to a historical film.  Lots of cuts and jags and Seizure-inducing montages.  The film isn’t about Beethoven really, or about his music.  It’s about Anna, which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t such a Mary Sue.  She’s entirely too boring, even in her costumes.

The easiest portrayal I can say is that this is Beethoven for the Religious, or for those who want to create an idea of Beethoven as being religious.  Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.  In the books I’ve read, he’s neither one way nor the other, but spiritually searching, always.  To some, I’m sure this speaks volumes, but I look more towards other aspects of a historical figure’s character.  With Beethoven, I want to see the Romanticism through him or the tortured individual, but Copying Beethoven delivered neither.

Memories of Van Helsing

For some strange reason, I love this movie.  I hate it and love it, in that I recognize that it is a bad movie. 

I have good memories associated with it though.  I saw it in theaters with best bud Natelie, and we adored it.  I think we were about thirteen and edging our way into the weary world of film at this point.  Also: Anything with vampires, we latched onto.  Particularly, Dracula (this might be around the same time I watched Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the first time, too, now that I think on it).

Anyway, I caught the last thirty minutes or so of Van Helsing while I was channel surfing and realized that this is further proof that I will watch anything with vampires or Hugh Jackman in it (and I didn’t even know that I liked him that much).  And yet, it follows.

This movie makes me want to go to Transylvania in the 19th century.  Everything looks rather weird and creepy, which is what I expect from movies with some sort of gothic aspect about it.  Scenery must follow suit, and it does.  I don’t know if Transylvania actually looks like this.  Because I haven’t watching the Anthony Bourdain Romania episode yet.  Somehow, I doubt that it does.

But oh, that crazy Action Flick, Poorly Thought Out Plot of it all…  It reeks of wanting a sequel or prequel, doesn’t it?  What with that possibility of Van Helsing, going out to fight evil in other areas of the world (or at the very least, Europe).

So, my first memory of seeing Van Helsing:  As I said before, I was maybe thirteen at the time.  My friend calls me up, randomly and out of the blue because that is her style, in order to see Van Helsing and I jump on it.  We are Action Movie Hors at his moment, going to see movies because the trailer looks cool.  No other reason is good enough.  My mother gives me a brief look when I mention what we’re going to see. 

“I heard it was bad.”

“I do not care.”

And then, we’re off, and only slightly late for previews.  The seats we snag in the crammed theater are close to the front, nay, the only two seats we could find in the dark comfortably.  Around us are guys and their girlfriends or best friends, and maybe some other shady characters of the preteen sort.  And then the movie rolls, and we are reminded what made that trailer look good.

To this day, I can’t remember.

Occasionally, Natelie and I will look at each other and whisper things like “So cool!”, etc etc.  And the lights come on, and we have come to the agreement that it was a Very Good Movie and that we will buy it ASAP.  Maybe a year or two later, I go to Suncoast and pick it up because it occurs to me to do so.

Moving on, my Van Helsing DVD does not go to waste.  Instead, it is used at many sleepovers for late night fodder, whereupon I promptly fall asleep because I’ve seen it too many times already for it to keep me awake.  My friends and I discover Van Helsing in 15 Minutes and come to our senses, a little, over how bad a movie can be. 

A few months ago I thought that I might as well try selling my DVD, or give it away to someone who would make better use of it.  Then I see a clip on TV, and I remember how much cracky Goth-Action fun is in Van Helsing.

Mock, if you will, but this movie somehow became important to me, in a very weird way.

One of Those “I Watch it For the Hot Guy” Movies: Attila the Hun

Sooo…. Attila the Hun.  Made by the USA channel to showcase Gerard Butler, as I understand.  Or rather, as I want to understand it.

Taken, with respect, from http://images.teamsugar.com/files/users/2/20158/14_2007/sjm_s_attila_gb03.jpg

As Andrew the Actor pointed out to me, it really is a terrible movie.  Terrible, but I enjoy it because… hot guy!  Hot guy in a wig that both makes me want to touch it and cut it all off at the same time.  I think this might have just knocked Phantom of the Opera down from it’s pillar of Guilty Pleasure movies because

Hot Gerry WIth a Sword beats Singing Deformed Gerry (and… the whole Joel Schumacher thing taints Phantom for me anyway, when I really come down to it).

Clearly, this is not the blood-craving tyrant who looks rather Mongolian that Google wants us to believe.  This is the Good Guy Attila, the Destiny Chosen Attila, the Attila who fell in love with a woman who can kill just as much as he can and who has red hair!

That is what they make the biggest deal of in this movie.  The woman with the red hair, who chose Attila over his fugly brother because… well, when two of the most powerful men in the tribe are fighting over you, go for the handsome and nice one.

The basic story isn’t really raped from history, just Attila actually going to Rome.  (And, as my History teacher would say, “They cut out the best part!” Apparently Attila didn’t sack Rome because the Pope talked to him and… no one knows what they said to each other because neither would talk about it after that.  So.  There you go.  I didn’t finish this, so I don’t really know how it ends.  Most likely in bloody vengeance).

As the film portrays it, Attila is wooed to Rome and it’s hot baths by Aetius, the Roman general who hates the Queen Mother, What’s Her Face, more than her useless son Valentinian III.  Afterall, it’s much simpler to control somone who’s an idiot.  But even before the sojourn to Rome’s hottest baths and princesses, Attila has this God complex and is convinced that it’s his destiny to rule the Huns.

Which it is.  But from where I left off, I felt like the movie was making some statement about misplaced trust and arrogance, and blah blah blah.  This entertained me because I was having a bad week and need a shitty, arrogant, pretty-boy’s in it movie to let my mind seep away so that I didn’t have to think about college application essays for a brief period of time each day.

HELL, I tell you!  But most of you probably already know that.  And… I digress. This is the “Please Entertain Me Scruffy Gerard Butler Movie” that cures what ails you (unless you actually like quality cinema).

If anyone out there has seen this and knows the ending, please enlighten me, ‘kay thanks.

Coco Chanel: I watch it for the Clothes

Well, not really.

Not entirely. 

Not… as much as I watch it for the hot guy, okay?

I like the hot guy!  I don’t even know his name! (His character’s name, by the way, was Boy (?!)).  I just remember thinking, “You are so much better for her than the dork with the mustache.”

I was rather excited about seeing this movie, even though it was made by Lifetime, because I like clothes.  I like Coco Chanel, mostly because she’s just neat (and the film pretty much proves that), and I like biopics.

But this is still a Lifetime movie, and I hate bad acting.

Like the hawt menz though, so… keep it coming.  Especially in period costume.  So this, along with Kate and Leopold has become just some movie I will watch to see a hot guy in period clothing, whether it’s Hugh Jackman or That Guy (I will look up his name.  When I feel like it.).

10 minutes later…

Olivier Sitruk.  Well, alright then, Boy.  (?!  I don’t care if that was the real guy’s name, it’s weird.  I feel like I’m calling for a servant like some old rich lady in a different historical film).

I have to say though, for a crummy movie, it managed to cover the forty consecutive years in Paris that I really like, from about 1880 to 1920, with really beautiful costumes.  They would have played folly otherwise, in a movie about Chanel.

But yeah… Sitruk.  He’s a French actor who stars in French films and TV shows that I’ve never heard of, but what do I know?  I’m American and we only care about American, British and Irish actors.  Even better if they’re pseudo-British.

Did this Really Need to Be “The Scarlet Letter”?

Not really indicitive of the fabulous costumes used in this movie ^^'

At the end of The Scarlet Letter, I tried to think of some redeeming cinematic qualities to this film, and it’s a short list.

1. The Costumes  I’m a sucker for a good costume drama.  Or even a bad one, really, just as long as the costumes are gorgeous.
2. The Talent  This was a fairly well rounded bunch of actors and crew.  Gary Oldman, Demi Moore (ish.  I’m still on the fencepost about this performance), Robert Duvall… and those in charge of the setting, it really looks like a colonial town, although I’m not sure every house would have glass windows.  And, again, the costumes.
3. Story  If you ignore the fact that this was based off of a classic piece of American literature with certain themes, characterizations, and such, the story isn’t that bad.  Not really, not terribly.  Love story for half of it and the other half is the trials and Indian woes, and creepy Chillingworth action, et cetera.

But the thing of it is, this movie was based off of a great piece of American literature, even though it would have been fine, really, without that connection.  Change a few plot points and the characters’ names and poof!  you have an okay script for the movie industry.  Yet, it is supposedly an interpretation of “The Scarlet Letter”, and now I must bitch about that.

There are no words to accurately describe how appropriate it was for the producers or whoever to put in the credits that the film was “Based freely on the novel by Nathenial Hawthorne.”  It’s really not the book come alive, and if you think you can get away with watching this movie instead of actually reading the book for whatever English project or essay you have to do it on, march yourself to the nearest library or bookstore and start reading.  For Christ’s sake, they gave it a happy ending.  And a truly horrendous sex scene, which is incomprehendingly cut between a slave girl bathing while a red bird watches on.

The direction is so-so, seeing as it’s not great, but it’s no Ed Wood.  It captures the passion and the red bird of metaphor and the foreshadowing in a way that’s not boring or all that nasea inducing.  I’d also like to give props to the score, which suits whatever it was the director was going for while also reminding me of the score to “Gone with the Wind.” 

In a Nutshell: After getting knocked up by Gary Oldman in a Puritan colony, Demi Moore tries to raise her child and be strong in an ostracized state while her crazy hubbie (Robert Duvall) tries to torture her and the baby daddy.  Half of the movie was the love affair, which was nice in a kind of “This isn’t really the plot” sort of way… in that case it could have just been a nice, fluffy, costume drama romance and we’d be done with it, but no… “The Scarlet Letter.”

Oh, and there’s the Indian plotline, which makes life more actiony, don’t it?  What is only mumbled about at the outliers of Mr. Hawthorne’s novel becomes a way of keeping the men in the audience mildly interested, I suppose.  It leads to some action scene at the end, but that’s more like a calling in of the calvery.

Robert Duvall is crazy as Chillingworth/What’s-His-Face Prynne, who is crazy with or without Indian kidnapping, but it’s unfortunate that his role is a bit more low key than in the novel.  Likewise, no hidden scarlet letter on Dimmesdale’s (Gary Oldman) chest, even though it would have looked better than just a repeat of him scrapping his hand against the gallows.

Watch this if you have a desperate need to either see people naked or in elaborate costumes.  It’s good as a costume movie, really.  I’m sincere in this belief, but I treat most costume movies as light fluff anyway.