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My Life At The Movies
Jun. 26th, 2013 09:19 amIt's the Edinburgh Film Festival at the moment, and I've been to two movies this week. So far (I have tickets for the Liberace flick on Thursday).
The Sea, adapted from John Banville from his own movie, was good. But boy, was it slow, and was it obvious. It looked lovely, but any movie which is full of one-sided dialogue is not going to do it for me. I didn't (quite) get up in my seat and shout "Answer the fucking question, beardie boy!" but I was close a couple of times. In the end, it was a good movie that left me with a hangover. The sort of good movie that I'm glad they're making, but I don't need to watch.
I caught up with Baz's The Great Gatsby last night, and I was quite impressed. Possibly because the book can survive just about any director, I think. I was a bit confused that Peter Parker was working undercover in West Egg, but that was OK. I wonder if I liked the framing device of having Nick write a novel called The Great Gatsby because I love the text so much, and this approach put the text (literally at times) on the screen. Structurally the adaption is a mess (the New York Hotel scenes, especially the second one, just go on and on and on. And on) and it had a tendency to pick up plot points and lay into you with them as if you were being slapped around the face with a wet fish: THE GREEN LIGHT IS AN IMPORTANT SYMBOL AND WE WILL BE REFERRING TO IT EVERY FIVE MINUTES UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THAT. Gatsby's dialogue was approximately 40% made up of "Old sports" and Leo seemed to be playing Redford playing Gatsby more than he was playing Gatsby.
But, overall, I enjoyed Gatsby more than I enjoyed The Sea. I also found both of them a lot more alien than Krypton was in Man of Steel.
The Sea, adapted from John Banville from his own movie, was good. But boy, was it slow, and was it obvious. It looked lovely, but any movie which is full of one-sided dialogue is not going to do it for me. I didn't (quite) get up in my seat and shout "Answer the fucking question, beardie boy!" but I was close a couple of times. In the end, it was a good movie that left me with a hangover. The sort of good movie that I'm glad they're making, but I don't need to watch.
I caught up with Baz's The Great Gatsby last night, and I was quite impressed. Possibly because the book can survive just about any director, I think. I was a bit confused that Peter Parker was working undercover in West Egg, but that was OK. I wonder if I liked the framing device of having Nick write a novel called The Great Gatsby because I love the text so much, and this approach put the text (literally at times) on the screen. Structurally the adaption is a mess (the New York Hotel scenes, especially the second one, just go on and on and on. And on) and it had a tendency to pick up plot points and lay into you with them as if you were being slapped around the face with a wet fish: THE GREEN LIGHT IS AN IMPORTANT SYMBOL AND WE WILL BE REFERRING TO IT EVERY FIVE MINUTES UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THAT. Gatsby's dialogue was approximately 40% made up of "Old sports" and Leo seemed to be playing Redford playing Gatsby more than he was playing Gatsby.
But, overall, I enjoyed Gatsby more than I enjoyed The Sea. I also found both of them a lot more alien than Krypton was in Man of Steel.
