paul bettanyish

my wax_jism, have you seen gangster no. 1?

'o' - remake of othello with josh hartnett and julia stiles

it seems like you can't go wrong with shakespeare, but for some reason, something was just giving me a bad feeling about 'o' from the moment my mom bought it almost a year ago. the fact that they wrote their own script for the modernization further endangered their quality, like think ten things i hate about you instead of romeo + juliet (and don't think clueless because i don't want any rule-disproving here).

the first ten minutes was enough to tell me how awful this movie is. it jumps in with stiff acting, weird setting, predictable plot and no exposition beyond martin sheen favoring othello over josh hartnett to explain the latter's evilitude. julia's acting might have been alright, but it wasn't shining in the midst of the dross. the badness overpowered even her--even martin sheen! my god. i had to stop watching after othello was accused of raping julia and she didn't actually deny it, and then we found out he was a druggie, and then he went and beat up josh's henchman. please, people. the pain.

wax_jism recommended the bounty, but nothing except someone i really, really like is worth watching mel gibson for me. if mom hooks the dvd player back up, i have bonfire of the vanities and cleopatra and south pacific to watch (not to mention the ever-present alternatives singin in the rain, pirates of the caribbean and finding nemo.)

(no subject)

Your Perfect Angel Episode by miggy
Your Name
Angel	calls Buffy in a drunken haze and says they are SO over
Wesley	shoots a gun
Spike	loses the coat. Permanently.
Gunn	shows everyone up with his lawyer-ese
Fred	sticks to a previously-demonstrated skill set
Harmony	hooks up with Angel
Lorne	does Spike's hair
Created with quill18's MemeGen 2.0!

the professional, dark city, a new tautou movie ('he loves me, he loves me not')

the professional i saw once before, but i was little and didn't totally pay attention. so this time i did. fucking great movie. brilliant! and oh, everyone was so cute: natalie was adorable, jean reno (? is that right?) was lovable, gary oldman was the cutest little villain. and it was just... great! yes. great.

dark city was spectacularly noir. the lead performances were all fabulous. rufus was a wonderfully easy place to rest the eyes and the filming was all very sexy, but dark: it takes place in a place of permanent night, which gets wearing on the eyes after a while. it actually reminded me of the holodeck episodes of star trek: the next generation where data is sherlock holmes. jennifer connelly had her real eyebrows in this film. i guess she started waxing them thinner between 1998 and 2002. still beautiful, but her face was rounder then too. the villains were the most disappointing thing about it. but as the interview with neil gaiman said in the extras, it was very comic book.

he loves me, he loves me not: good acting, but really not such a good movie. there was some humor in the sheer freakishness of stalker!audrey, though. if you get a kick out of disturbingness for its own sake, you might be titillated.

on wips

i don't really have any unlikely-to-be-finished wips because i have this compulsive, maniacal streak that won't let me move on to another story until the current story is done. that's why i've been working on karl and viggo's manly-yet-gay adventure since may and why a logical organ took six months to be posted. (the manly yet gay adventure WILL be done, btw. a draft is finished--it's in negotiations with k'sal, my invaluable beta.)