This weekend I watched a few fillums. On Saturday evening I found myself in no mood to leave the house, and happily had absolutely no reason to do so - apart from hunting and gathering and that's why modern man invented Tesco. Once fully stocked with supplies I settled in to indulge myself in a bit of musical mayhem in the form of New York, New York with Robert DeNiro and Liza Minelli.
Ok, so I admit it was naive of me to expect simply a glorious MGM spectacular like my favourites of bygone days. You know the ones I mean - Singin' In The Rain, Guys and Dolls, Funny Face, etc. I mean I should have suspected something was up because Bob DeNiro is in it for goodness sake! I think I was telling myself it could be like Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls though, an unexpected delight. Nuh uh! Martin Scorsese directed the thing and that alone should have told me that I wasn't going to get what I was hoping for.
Saying that though, the film is superb. It's shot like one of those fantastical old musical extravaganzas but the subject matter and characters belong more to the 'real world'. Bob's character is an asshole and poor old Liza puts up with it for as long as she can. By the time you get near to the end of the movie and Liza belts out the eponymous title song it really is an anthem of survival and success. It's one of those kick in the balls moments that just has you cheering at your telly. I think Liza's version is, for me, now the definitive version. Sure, ol' Blue Eyes did it well but he wasn't married to Bob DeNiro!
On Sunday morning I dragged my ass out to check out the latest in the Spiderman franchise. That'd be Spidey 3 for anyone not paying attention. I found this film to be... "fnyah" I guess would sum it up. The special effects are good, Tobey MacGuire camping it up for evil Peter Parker is hilarious and it's always wonderful to see Bruce Campbell on screen but apart from that it really didn't leave much of an impression on me. The two villain storyline makes it seem like they're trying to cram 2 movies worth of plot into one and I'm afraid I had a horrible attack of cynicism at the end. All in all, ever so slightly disappointing. I hope Pirates of the Carribbean is more exciting.
I'd gone to see one of the morning screenings of Spiderman so there was still plenty of time for a second movie when I came out. Gosh, I adore my Cineworld card! I couldn't bring myself to go see the movie with Kevin Costner cosying up to some single mother with 4 daughters (Bleeeurgh! I almost vomited reading the plot synopsis) so I decided to take a chance on Goya's Ghosts. I was apprehensive because Natalie Portman annoys me intensely. It's probably not the poor lassie's fault but episodes 1 to 3 of Star Wars and V for Vendetta all just made me quite angry. Oh man, as did Garden State - Stop whining JD, for Bob's sake!!
Anyway, never mind the rant - what about the film? I found this one odd, and interesting. I'm afraid I knew very little of Goya and Spanish history before I went into the movie so to find it set against the background of the late Inquisition was intriguing. Evidently the people of Madrid did not really expect the Spanish Inquisition anymore either as Natalie's character gets picked up and accused of being Jewish because she turns her nose up at roast pig in a tavern. Hideously enough I can well believe this sort of thing went on so the events that follow for her are even more shocking. As the BBC reviewer put it, this film is more about the history of Spain at the time than Goya and he is more like the ghost, observing events as they unfold.
I'm afraid to say I did spend most of the movie going "Hey, is that Robert Downey Jr?" and squinting at the guy who plays Father Lorenzo - Bardem Javier. Obviously he's not Robert Downey Jr but he's pretty dang close - and have a lovely Spanish accent as well so has the edge there methinks. I'm very excited to note that he will be featuring in a film version of Love in the Time of Cholera so I will have to keep an eye out for that. It is much better than 100 Years of Solitude, though a movie version of that would make the whole thing easier to follow - unless all the actors looked remarkably similar. Which they probably would, it being the story of a family. Aw man, they'd all have to wear different hats or something. This is probably why they are not making a movie out of that book.
There were 4 geeky looking dudes sitting in the row in front of me and I have a sneaking suspicion they were just there to see if they could get a swatch at Natalie Portman's tits. Natalie was naked in this movie, but she was covered in filth, sh*t scared and going insane in an Inquisition cell at the time so I certainly hope the little creeps didn't get their money's worth!
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