#whatshouldwecallfinals

During finals

I'm like:

After finals

I'm like:

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My last final is tomorrow! To celebrate that, I have a cheerful video for you.

#whatshouldwecallessaywriting

When I first start my essay on Postcolonialism in 19th century literature...

I'm like:

Two hours later...


I'm like:

#whatshouldwecalldarcy

When I've been using Pride and Prejudice as background noise, and Darcy's proposal scene comes on.

I'm like:

Hey folks! Finals are coming to an end in a couple of weeks, and that means freedom & more movie reviews. Stay tuned. 

Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989)

          

            My brother and sister-in-law are both fans of PBS's Poirot, and since I spent the weekend in New Hampshire with them this spring break, we watched several episodes starring Agatha Christie's mustached Belgian detective.

            The charming Mr. David Suchet plays Hercule Poirot who, judging from his accent, I thought was from French from France rather than French from Belgium. French-Belgian Google promptly corrected me.

        So, yes, Poirot is Belgian, but the actor playing him is from London. And although the French will follow you around from France to Canada (my favorite neighbor) and everywhere else, Suchet is English. Not French-English.

            For the sake of this review, I've watched the first episode of the entire series on my own. This one is called the Adventures of Clapham Cook, and Christie wrote it somewhere between 1923 and 1935. The story is actually from a series called Poirot's Early Cases, and

And now, for the List of Five...

1. Life Partners

            Just as Sherlock has Holmes, Poirot has Captain Hastings. I'm not even sure this counts as a bromance as much as a partnership, and I certainly wouldn't ship them like I do the loverboys in Sherlock. This is almost solely because Poirot and Hastings are not eye-candy. In fact, at their age, they have probably already developed a homonormative relationship.

2. Likeability

            Poirot is the clever man with a mustache and accent who makes deductions and explains important case points to Hastings, the Audience Substitute. Poirot is charming, eccentric, exotically foreign, intelligent, opinionated, and funny, while Hastings is an enjoyable representative of the "average English bloke." In this case, that means reasonable, pleasant, and interested. Bottom line: I'd hire Poirot and his sidekick to solve MY mystery, but literally.

            On Hastings v. Poirot

            A jerky train station employee: "I'm talking to the engineer, not the oil rag."

            But we would never say that about Hastings, because we <3 him.

3. Back to the Belgium v. French Issue

            The episode establishes that Poirot is Belgian.

            Policeman: Who are you?

            Poirot: I am Hercule Poirot. Who are you?

            Policeman: Sod (Sergeant? Mr. Sod?), there's some French gent at the door.

            Poirot: No, no, no, no, no, I am not some French gent. I am some Belgian gent.

            He and French-Belgian Google share an attitude problem regarding this. As if we can all tell exactly where your French accent comes from. *sigh*

4. Time Period

            As I wrote before, Christie wrote this story somewhere between 1923 and 1935, but descriptions of the TV show say 1930s. I actually found it difficult to grab screencaps because of the difference in video quality (I'm so used to high quality now that I don't know when the "best" shot is to show off the costumes. It all looked fuzzy to me.)

 

5. My Overall Impression

            I've never been a big lover of mysteries, although I do consume the popular products of this genre (the recent Sherlock Holmes craze in movies and TV, a Miss Marble novel here and there, etc.) As far as mysteries go, Agatha Christie's Poirot is pretty good. It's dated with regards to filming quality (simply because of advances in technology,) but the fashion and makeup are 1930s-based. It's unlike many other films or TV shows where you can usually tell when a film was made solely from the makeup and hair (1940s faux-historical costumes, 1960s makeup, 1980s shoulder pads on dresses that did not have them.) 

           I enjoyed it, and although I'm not likely to watch it very often, it's definitely a safe bet with family members. My brother, sister-in-law, and my mother all love Poirot, and it won't make an evening at home uncomfortable with any slippage of anything we don't want to see with family members present.

** If you would like to see me review anything in particular, please leave the title and year below in the comments.

Hello Once Again (Or Once Upon a Time)

 

Hello Victorian and movie / TV history lovers!

I'm going to start this blog up for the semester, and I'd like to switch from movies to TV for a second in order to target discuss Once Upon a Time. Or, Once Upon A Cliched and Yet Addicting TV Show That Totally Doesn't Belong Here Because The Historical Context is Completely Bastardized (AKA, Not Really Meant to Be Historical.) If you've never seen it before, it's about a town of misplaced fairy tale characters trapped in our dimension due to a book-related spell of some sort, and the show splits its time between showing the characters in the "Real World" and the Fairy Tale World.

I have tried and tried again to figure out why I enjoy this show so much, despite its predictable plot and cliched script (Not to spoil a scene for anyone, but I know a typewriter box when I see it) and I have my narrowed down irrational fondness into a list.

1. I love fairy tales. Especially when we get to see their stars in faux-historical outfits. I will apparently watch a whole show just because of this.

"Even my eyebrows are awesome. Look at them."

2. *sparkle* Robert Carlyle *sparkle* is acting Gold to me (and he plays Mr. Gold / Rumplestiltskin in Once Upon a Time.) If you've read my review of Plunkett & Macleane, that mashup of 1999 and the 1700s, you know that I give him major props for his acting skills (and for existing in a cloud of Baddassness.) Similar to the fairy tale theme, I will watch him in anything.

3. I am a fan of Elvira, Buffy, Xena, and Showgirls, so I like movies or tv shows with a B movie feel, whether it was on purpose or not. So, do your thing, Rumplestiltskin! Rock those red contacts and that reptilian skin!

You can watch the first season on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/once-upon-a-time

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Caligula (1979)

Caligula (1979)

Full cast: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080491/fullcredits#cast

From inside the private offices of Penthouse Films International -

Executive: … and constant nudity, incest, uniforms only consisting of tunic – uuumm, OH RIGHT. A red machine of death.

I have a sad confession to make about this film before I review it.

My Censored Story (Disclaimer):

I finished watching Caligula and, just when I was about to chalk up my lukewarm reaction to 21^st century desensitization, I did a bit of research. I knew it was controversial, but reviewers were calling it tantamount to hardcore porn, and I was wondering where I missed that. It was then that I realized that I had seen the censored version and not the full monty. Disappointing! On the upside, my review might suffer, but at least I don’t have a stock of new images to gradually forget with time.

So, here is my list of…

Several Shocking Aspects of a Censored Shocker: Caligula!

1) Out of all the things they chose not to reveal, the least they could have done is to censor a little bit of Peter O’Toole’s face. I am a big O’Toole fan, but this particular Miscellaneous Illness involved bloody gashes, which were not pretty to look at. They were supposedly various sexual diseases transmitted by his “little fishies” (his words, not mine.) I am not surprised that he and Caligula share a family.

2) The fact that I found Caligula’s concern for his sister touching, despite the incestuous nature of the relationship, surprised me. There are maybe two instances of genuine human caring in this film, and sometimes Caligula shows that minimal caring towards Drusilla. He loves her. Incestuously. But it’s love. I’ll take any positive (?) emotion I can get.

3) Bruno Brive played Caligula’s young half-brother, Gemellus, but was two or three decades too old for the part. He came off as a grown man playing a twelve-year-old. It was a sincerely creepy experience. Has anyone seen MadTV’s Stuart? They wore almost the same amount of makeup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4aAUq_AiPg&feature=related

I can’t find Brive on the internertz, but I’m sure that his birth date would not line up with the Gemellus character.

4) Young Helen Mirren and the fact that I did not recognize her at once. It took me a few close-ups to even realize it was Mirren. I’m used to her rocking the white hair. And I think she looks more attractive now than she did then. SOMEONE aged really well.

5) Everytime I saw Malcolm McDowell as Caligula, I saw a less attractive Rupert Graves, but a more attractive Yellow Man From Sin City. It must be the nose and wide forehead. Also the cheekbones. Also the whole face. As for sanity, Caligula is in the middle between Mr. Graves and Mr. Yellow Man. I wouldn’t mind being in the same room as Rupert Graves, I sure as hell would not willingly be in the same room as Caligula, and I would probably not walk out of the room alive if I were in a room with the Yellow Bastard.

6) The Red Machine of Death

I’ve seen it before in clips, but I’m still amazed at its massive size and vivid redness. Not to mention its food-processor blades, which deal death blows to heads and conveniently push them aside afterwards. That baby is big and totally not from early AD Rome.

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This movie actually has many over-the-top surreal bits to choose from.

Ex: The large-brothel boat and the fake-army of nakedness charging into the water and… wandering around in shallow area. I have no idea what they were doing.

Also, the pyramid of hierarchy Caligula sees in the square, and the constant selling of penis sculptures. They were selling gigantic phallus shapes like hot dogs in the street. I didn’t quite get why. They were pretty big, so… I don’t even know.

The thing is, I can see someone insane doing these things, so who knows if some of these images weren’t half accurate? Maybe they had a brothel ship at some point. Who knows?

North and South (2004)

Full Cast

North & South is an adaption of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel (not the American North v. South TV series, although easily mistaken for it in conversation.) I set out to review the series, but found myself focusing on Thornton. So here ya go! A Thornton review.

I think I read Richard Armitage saying in an interview somewhere that he didn’t believe that Thornton was a very romantic character. To you, sir, I say right on. Right. On. You obviously do not know how attractive you are, and I admire that in a super-famous dude. Not that Mr. Thornton is a creeper, but good looks do wonders for making otherwise weird, brooding characters really compelling to female audiences.

Exhibit A) Eddie Cullen

“Aaah, I’m super creepy, but you can’t tell ‘cause I’m so hot.”

 Um, the DEAD, very-elderly guy who likes high schoolers? WTF dude. I’ve been out of high school for one year and I don’t like high schoolers.

Exhibit B) Not needed. Exhibit A was pretty convincing.

The viewer eventually learns that Thornton is not as cold-blooded as Margaret initially believes. He's even sensitive. Crazy mother + Thornton conversations revealed as much. Admittedly, his initial meeting with Margaret, which consisted of him beating one of his workers, did not make a great impression. But let’s just dismiss his unfortunate tendency to get extremely anger and beat people up. That could not possibly interest someone living with him. The reason for his action was something to do with punishing people now so that he can save lives later. Anger justified. Next!

Movie characters have this tendency to have very few friends, or having only a single one that they favor in particular. Unless they have many friends to make a point, no one wants to meet that many extras for the viewer not to care about. So it's not that odd. Girls have their bosom buddies and guys have their best pals. Thornton has...

These guys? Well, they're more like his business acquaintances.

I’ll be your friend, Thorny! He does have Margaret’s father, who is also his tutor / mentor. They share a love of Plato. Other than that, Thornton doesn't really have anyone to confide in other than his mother. She is... difficult. In a starched, "my son is the best and the most worthy" kind of way, not in the Bennett family kind of way.

Eventually, in the miniseries, as in the book, Thornton redeems himself. Richard Armitage plays him well, with some signature dark looks and an extremely deep voice.

Daniela Denby-Ashe as Margaret, on the other hand, drove me nuts with her bashful half-blinks. My mistake was seeing the miniseries a second time, because it didn’t even strike me the first time around. I really wanted to like her, but it stood out so blatantly once I recognized it. It’s like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s roar-gargle. It’s just part of the whole “I'm saying all these clumsy things. How dear and embarrassing.” No, it's not dear at all. :l

Excepting Daniela Denby-Ashe, the rest of the cast was excellent. Thornton Mother and Sister were so unpleasant that I don’t wonder why Mr. Thornton wanted to trade them in for a different female. Yeah, Thorny, you trade those women-folk.

"Marry you? Freck no."

I also loved learning about the differences between the North and South of England. I didn’t think much about that before reading Gaskell’s book and watching this miniseries. Although filters can be overused, I thought they were appropriate in showing the difference between the bright South and the gray city of Milton below:

Margaret's house in the South of England

The land surrounding the house

Stairs of Scary in the Hales' new home (Milton)

Thornton's factory (where he also lives... O_O)

A walk through the park graveyard