Seven Red

I Am Legend – Preposterous.

No Country for Old Men – Masculine toughness is proportionate to degrees of separation from Barbra Streisand. Casting hurt. Of course, I’m still hung up on the “Danny Boy” scene in Miller’s Crossing, so grain of salt. Can somebody explain to me why Woody Harrelson’s character is even in this film?

Atonement – I’m dead inside. I found the film thoroughly unmoving. It was my greatest hope that all the characters would die in a fire. The only thing that could have saved this film is an incest subplot, because it was that thoroughly modernist. For some reason, I never quite caught the faux heft of the constantly invoked “implications” for the little girl’s lies. So two people who love each other are separated. By World War II. Forgive me if I don’t follow the purity of their attraction when the whole world is spinning into massacre and chaos. Let me revise: I don’t give a fuck about these characters. Hollywood thinks I need therapy, I suspect. And it was almost as predictable as that awful The Namesake (she and I worked out the whole plot of that one in the first 15 minutes, the only disagreement being whether the father would die of tuberculosis or – my suggestion – in a fire).

The big revelation interview at the end of Atonement drew an eyeroll. It would have been much better if the older Briony had revealed that she made the whole thing up after too much scotch, not enough sex, and a solid month devouring the works of Somerset Maugham and D.H. Lawrence. You see, when the brother brings the friend home from Oxford, the friend is always an asshole. We know this from every drama set between 1890 and 1940 in every single manor house in all of England. Oxford friend = Asshole. Always.  Moreover, we also know that the son of the housekeeper will be spicey hot and labor pure, a real go-getter who will get both comeuppance for his class passing, and validation for working class grit.  Two cheers for democracy. Now die in a fire.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS |