"That's why I don't go to the movies . . ."
So said my baby sister Daryl Ann, as she, another sister, and I walked out of a movie theater late Friday night.
Both my sisters had stopped by Friday night to hang out with me and the girls. When my husband got home, he offered to put the children to bed while the three of us had a "girls' night out." We decided to see a movie, but two of the "girls" refused to travel the extra ten miles that would have been required for us to see Capote. We saw this instead. Since I'll never have those two and a half hours of my life back, it seems a shame to waste any more of my time actually writing about the movie, but if I can get a modicum of pleasure out of complaining about the movie, maybe it'll make up for the time I spent enduring it.
My impressions of Elizabethtown:
*Let's stipulate from the start that nobody can mount a horse, take down a Mumakil, or slay an Orc like Orlando Bloom. For that reason, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for him. But Bloom's character in Elizabethtown is about as far from "real man" as you can get without ceasing to be a man altogether. And why, pray tell, is his hair styled in such a way that he looks like he's wearing a hair net for at least half of the movie?
*Bloom will be Exhibit A the next time a smug Brit scoffs at some American actor's attempts at an English accent. Let's just say Bloom's attempt didn't come off as effortless.
*I have no idea what the point of this movie was, and neither do the people who made it.
*The Holy Spirit makes an appearance during a performance of "Free Bird." Don't ask.
* I am so sick of the method of screenwriting that substitutes a soundtrack for character development. My favorite moment was the one where Bloom stands in the parking lot of the motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King was assassinated and scatters some of his father's ashes. What's on the soundtrack, you ask? Since Crowe has apparently abandoned those tired conventions, plot and character, in favor of rock 'n' roll, how can he subtly underscore the "touching" moment? A late Beethoven string quartet? A nice rendition of "I'll Fly Away"? Maybe even Paul Simon's "American Tune"? Nope. U2's "In the Name of Love," of course. You know the road trip's in trouble when people start quibbling with your song selections.
* Cameron Crowe appears to think that nothing significant happened in American history prior to about 1955.
* Susan Sarandon puts the nail in the coffin of the movie's single worst scene, in which Sarandon, widow for about a week, does a stand-up routine and tap dances to "Moon River" at her late husband's memorial service while the memorial hall audience laughs, stands, cheers, and cries. I think the reaction of the memorial hall "audience" was meant as a nudge to the movie audience, but nobody seemed to take the hint. I did hear a few groans, though.
Both my sisters had stopped by Friday night to hang out with me and the girls. When my husband got home, he offered to put the children to bed while the three of us had a "girls' night out." We decided to see a movie, but two of the "girls" refused to travel the extra ten miles that would have been required for us to see Capote. We saw this instead. Since I'll never have those two and a half hours of my life back, it seems a shame to waste any more of my time actually writing about the movie, but if I can get a modicum of pleasure out of complaining about the movie, maybe it'll make up for the time I spent enduring it.
My impressions of Elizabethtown:
*Let's stipulate from the start that nobody can mount a horse, take down a Mumakil, or slay an Orc like Orlando Bloom. For that reason, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for him. But Bloom's character in Elizabethtown is about as far from "real man" as you can get without ceasing to be a man altogether. And why, pray tell, is his hair styled in such a way that he looks like he's wearing a hair net for at least half of the movie?
*Bloom will be Exhibit A the next time a smug Brit scoffs at some American actor's attempts at an English accent. Let's just say Bloom's attempt didn't come off as effortless.
*I have no idea what the point of this movie was, and neither do the people who made it.
*The Holy Spirit makes an appearance during a performance of "Free Bird." Don't ask.
* I am so sick of the method of screenwriting that substitutes a soundtrack for character development. My favorite moment was the one where Bloom stands in the parking lot of the motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King was assassinated and scatters some of his father's ashes. What's on the soundtrack, you ask? Since Crowe has apparently abandoned those tired conventions, plot and character, in favor of rock 'n' roll, how can he subtly underscore the "touching" moment? A late Beethoven string quartet? A nice rendition of "I'll Fly Away"? Maybe even Paul Simon's "American Tune"? Nope. U2's "In the Name of Love," of course. You know the road trip's in trouble when people start quibbling with your song selections.
* Cameron Crowe appears to think that nothing significant happened in American history prior to about 1955.
* Susan Sarandon puts the nail in the coffin of the movie's single worst scene, in which Sarandon, widow for about a week, does a stand-up routine and tap dances to "Moon River" at her late husband's memorial service while the memorial hall audience laughs, stands, cheers, and cries. I think the reaction of the memorial hall "audience" was meant as a nudge to the movie audience, but nobody seemed to take the hint. I did hear a few groans, though.
posted by Kate Marie | 4:47 PM | Permalink
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2 comments
2 Comments:
A chick flick that the chicks hated. . it is a world gone mad.
Haven't seen it. . no intent to do so, but I will say that I could understand Crow using In The Name Of Love, since it talks about the King assassination (althouh Night Shift would have worked too)
Someone needed to tell him he wasn't making Almost Famous again, which was a movie for which a lot of rock music fit well.
Yes, I know In the Name of Love is partly about the King assassination, but that's why I wondered why he was pounding us over the head with it, since the rest of the movie had nothing to do with that moment. Then again, I don't know what the rest of the movie *did* have to do with.
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