Nyotaimori

ha ha ha!!! i really liked this movie. if i can drag anyone in the bay area to see it (erica. nuala.) i will. because come on, colin firth discussing someone’s testicles. CUTE boy. bulging eyeball amanda bynes girl was marginally objectionable with that laugh, but otherwise easy to ignore in the face of the delightful fluff of the movie as a whole.

so the movie as a work of art is a piece of shit. the movie as a fun thing to watch, laugh at, and enjoy in a silly girl fashion is top of the fucking line.

i believe that my enjoyment was heightened due to the extremely Drunk Boy sitting next to me. he came in 15 minutes into the movie and started asking his girlfriend what had happened, all the time reeking of beer. later on, colin firth is demanding why he didn’t know he had a daughter, and DB made the delightful observation of, “well, what do you expect when you fuck kelly preston?”

later on even than that when DB was getting intensely fidgety and aggravated with the teeny-girly-bopper movie he had been dragged to, “this is the gayest movie i have ever seen. the GAYEST.” at this point his GF let him leave to return to the bar. he returned during the credits only to address me directly.

“so did you like the movie? was it good?”

“uhhhh….yeaaah….no.”

“that’s what i thought. i knew it was a bad movie.”

good lines from the movie itself:

“…frantic kissing in the cloakrooms!”

“he hasn’t been nice to anyone since he ate lord blank’s testicle.”

“that’s awful.”

“not as awful as the fact that lord blank is still reproducing.”

nuala told me this morning about how some people are in a huge tizzy over the fact that amanda bynes in the poster is wearing red, white, and blue in front of two british royal palace guards flashing a peace sign. people are retarded. but in a wholly fascinating and absurd way that i can only appreciate.

i’m sorry but this movie–it kind of sucked.

there were points when i was either cringing at the acting or stifling my giggling at the acting. there were points when i wanted to shoot him myself just to make it end. ok it wasn’t that bad. and colin farrell is hot. but it was pretty bad. pretty damn bad.

“it’s speed. in a phone booth.”

-ellie

she has a good point. only possibly we should change that to “speed 2: cruise control” since i LIKED speed. but phone booth and speed 2 have a lot more in common shitty shitty acting and plot wise.

i probably should have known what i was getting myself into when the movie started with an infomercial narrated by what’s his name 24 guy (kiefer sutherland) about PHONE USAGE. plus the little pop up video windows everytime the man was on the goddamm phone….oooooooooggggghhhh frantic hair messing. it was bad. i am so glad i paid matinee price.

p.s. forrest whittaker and radha mitchell in particular sucked major ass.

you like ‘sex, lies, and videotape’? than most likely you will like laurel canyon. that is the best comparison i can give it.

most of you, i am betting , have never even heard of this movie. i will give you a very short plot synopsis (i will not give away critical information).

sam (played by christian bale) and his girlfriend/fianc�e, alex (played by kate beckinsale) move to california. He’s doing this medical internship where he meets Sara (played by natascha mcelhone) and Alex is going to work on her PhD thesis. they move into his mother’s (played by a young and hot-looking frances mcdormand) house in laurel canyon (north of LA a little). she’s supposed to be gone, but is still there working on a record (she’s a record producer) of her newest group (fronted by alessandro nivola). what ensues is a loss of innocence, a crumbling/rebuilding of the family structure, and a couple of pool parties.

this movie follows some of the dogma95 rules. the sound quality is often broken up by exterior noise. the lighting is relatively natural. the acting is so good that it’s not like they’re trying it’s more like they’re just BEING. case in point this scene between Alex and Jane (mcdormand) in the kitchen. Jane is trying to convince alex to come listen to the record and jane is flustered and trying to be polite while getting out of it. and the thing is that it was obvious that kate beckinsale for some reason had moved beyond trying to act like she was uncomfortable and unsure and was just actually being timorous.

the movie is also all dialogue. nothing else goes on. it’s just them talking, having relationships, evolving, which is sort of refreshing when you’re normally surrounded by action blockbusters! horror shymalan! ditzy teenagers!

christian bale’s eyebrows were funny looking, a small complaint but there all the same. alessandro looked amazing and could actually sing pretty well. admittedly the lyrics to the second song were atrocious (ellie attempted puking on them), but he didn’t suck. kate beckinsale looked gorgeous as ever. and frances mcdormand was a fucking revelation. i always thought of her, ‘eh, not that attractive.’ but holy sweet jesus she looked incredibly hot in this movie. and natascha mcelhone, she was good. i don’t know, she wasn’t as striking as the rest of them because she was pretty calm and not as psychologically fucked.

some favorite lines (speaking of which, the writing was great.):

“he’s a puritan. he quotes proust and wears tweed.” -said by alex about her dad

“i don’t need a green nightie to cover up my supple skin and eking soul in this barren wasteland.” -said by a completely naked girl in the psych ward