More unsolicited thoughts on movies just seen:

I have an addiction to period films. I'll see anything with a corset or a costume. I have a latent desire to be a set decorator or production designer...or maybe just wear a corset. I'm not sure which. Anyway, I think I'd have done well (with all three). Since that didn't happen, I have to get my fix as an audience member. I saw these three just recently:

Me and Orson Welles: I liked it. Christian McKay (who plays Welles) is incredible. Mainly it made me wish I had seen The Mercury theater's production of Julius Caesar, parts of which are recreated beautifully. Zac Efron's prettiness is very distracting, especially when he asks Claire Danes' character (I paraphrase): "What's it like to be a beautiful girl?" Puh-lease...like he doesn't know. Anyway, he's infinitely prettier than she is, and that's just distracting.
It was a bit rambling, but I found it to be good.

Little Ashes: Along with the pedophile-o-gram, I got this in the mail this week. It wasn't worth the wait at all. The sex scene is all too brief (come on,you know that's the only reason to see it), and the production values are shoddy. It looks like a mid-eighties film set in the 1920s if that makes any sense. Robert Pattinson acquits himself well enough, I suppose (I'd never seen him in anything else, but he's nothing earth shattering.) He looks nothing like Dali, however. The other actor does a fairly good job as Lorca (even looks a bit like him), but the script is just not that good. (F.P.: I wouldn't rush it to the head of your queue, if I were you.)



(this youtube clip is ...umm...so much better than the movie...in so many ways. Maybe if the movie had been scored by American Idol contestants, it would have made more money)

Bright Star: It was a perfect storm for me to love it. Keats is one of my favorite poets of all time. Ben Whishaw (more on the film and him later perhaps) looks nothing like the young Keats however. Abbie Cornish is wonderful, the sort of stuff Oscar™ seems to love. The production values are wonderful and, needless to say, the story is very poignant. I really liked how it managed to work all the cliches of Romanticism (in both regards) without seeming too mannered...again, if that makes any sense. Anyway, I liked it. Except for "An Education" I think it's been my favorite movie of the past few months.