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Book Recs/Movie Recs, 12/8/09
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 03:39 pmIn Books:
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery & The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa: These two separate books just happened to come into my life at the same time, and they're a marvelous pair, entirely well suited to one another in theme and writing style. Both of them are about the bonds and significance of human connection, and the price people pay for hiding their true selves and their talents away from others.
( The Elegance of the Hedgehog: )
( The Housekeeper and the Professor: )
In Movies:
Precious: ( Not an easy movie by any means, 'Precious' is a contentious knot of horrific but transformative character-driven story, strange lighting, and political backlash. )
Alice: This sci-fi (sorry, Syfy) channel mini-series/movie-chopped-into-little-parts was like a really good role-playing game run by a bad storyteller: the ideas were all there, and some of them were awesome, but the actual execution of the whole thing was substandard, and, frankly, rather boring. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are both compelling narratives, but they've been retold in myriad forms already, and the ideas in this version of Alice didn't add anything to the original. An example of this is the Red Queen's (ably played by Kathy Bates) line about being the greatest female character in all of literature. Whoa, that's not just breaking the fourth wall, that's setting fire to it and dancing around the burning remains whilst chanting anti-Fourth-Wall slogans! I thought this would become an important theme of the story, but it was never referred to again, sadly. Also sad was the fight choreography--Alice was supposed to be a black belt in some martial art (karate, maybe), but from the way the fights were edited and staged, it was clear that the actress had learnt only a few moves and rehearsed them over and over again. A true black belt would make it look easy; she made it look hard. And the sad thing is--again!--that an Alice who can fight and hold her own is a great idea, but the execution of that idea was disappointing. (Especially with such a cute and practical costume! So annoying!) So, uhm, yeah. Not a lot of love for this Alice, although I think with another few edits to the script and some more money, it would make a decent episodic TV show.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery & The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa: These two separate books just happened to come into my life at the same time, and they're a marvelous pair, entirely well suited to one another in theme and writing style. Both of them are about the bonds and significance of human connection, and the price people pay for hiding their true selves and their talents away from others.
( The Elegance of the Hedgehog: )
( The Housekeeper and the Professor: )
In Movies:
Precious: ( Not an easy movie by any means, 'Precious' is a contentious knot of horrific but transformative character-driven story, strange lighting, and political backlash. )
Alice: This sci-fi (sorry, Syfy) channel mini-series/movie-chopped-into-little-parts was like a really good role-playing game run by a bad storyteller: the ideas were all there, and some of them were awesome, but the actual execution of the whole thing was substandard, and, frankly, rather boring. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are both compelling narratives, but they've been retold in myriad forms already, and the ideas in this version of Alice didn't add anything to the original. An example of this is the Red Queen's (ably played by Kathy Bates) line about being the greatest female character in all of literature. Whoa, that's not just breaking the fourth wall, that's setting fire to it and dancing around the burning remains whilst chanting anti-Fourth-Wall slogans! I thought this would become an important theme of the story, but it was never referred to again, sadly. Also sad was the fight choreography--Alice was supposed to be a black belt in some martial art (karate, maybe), but from the way the fights were edited and staged, it was clear that the actress had learnt only a few moves and rehearsed them over and over again. A true black belt would make it look easy; she made it look hard. And the sad thing is--again!--that an Alice who can fight and hold her own is a great idea, but the execution of that idea was disappointing. (Especially with such a cute and practical costume! So annoying!) So, uhm, yeah. Not a lot of love for this Alice, although I think with another few edits to the script and some more money, it would make a decent episodic TV show.
