Sci-Fi* at MovieNight? You betcha! Specially if it’s as clever and funny as this. And Blu-ray to boot! Sadly, I don’t expect we’ll find another movie that compares to this for quite some time. If we do, I hope that Steve Coogan will be in the lead role.
*Btw, former Sci-Fi MovieNight features included Blade Runner and Brazil.
I can remember loving this film for about as many years as I can remember loving any movie. It is an unusual mix of comedy and drama, which just works somehow. Well, it would have worked a lot better if it weren’t for about 12 missing minutes. In what we can only hope is the last of a current string of technical snafus, somebody (me) didn’t pay attention to the little voice asking, “Why does the DVD player say this is 1 hour and 53 minutes, when the film is supposed to be 2 hours and 5 minutes?” Ah, the little voice… it’s the one that’s ever-so-quiet when it initially asks the question, but ever-so-loud when you remember it asking the question post f**k-up.
As a result, we missed three scenes (which I call, “How many martinis?”, “Tennis racket spaghetti toss”, and “Brother-in-law punch”). This is pretty unacceptable, and if anyone wants, I’m happy to rescreen the intact work, on, say a Wednesday night. Let me know.
Taking our third foray into the classroom this season, we found ourselves in suburban Paris, with a bunch of unruly and yet somehow adorable children (I was tempted to make a comparison to the MovieNight audience for a minute, but you guys have been pretty well behaved of late). Of course, Esmeralda was eminently strangleable, but then, so am I sometimes, I hear.
So much has been written about this film… the critics pretty much gave it a ‘B’ even though they seem to have felt compelled to write at great length about it; try finding a short review! Viewers, on the other hand overwhelmingly give it an ‘A’. We thoroughly enjoyed watching this masterpiece again, in glorious HD (except for when the disc froze and had to be re-started. What a pain!), and appreciated the presence of those who made it here.
Particularly Misha, who managed to keep his review quite brief: “Long movie.”
First, let me apologize for the recent paucity of blog posts… what can I say? So many blogs*… so little time… Anywhich (as Flea would say), what a beautifully observed film we watched this week! Susanne Bier is not a director who likes to let you walk away feeling like grabbing a Felafel and calling it a day, but After The Wedding was, believe it or not, the lightest directorial offering we have experienced of hers. It would be great to show her original “Brothers” before the Hollywood remake comes out… but that would mean showing it on Thanksgiving Friday. Hmmm.
*Flea’s blog and MyOldBanana (a work in progress)
The posts that didn’t get written in a timely fashion might have been like this:
This hauntingly beautiful Swedish vampire flick was our post-Hallowe’en Hallowe’en special; post-Hallowe’en because Zofi was afflicted with ye olde (newe?) h1n1 the week before (after watching her suffer, I’d have to recommend not catching it… definitely not fun. Thankfully, I managed to ward it off, with a combination of Tamiflu, vitamins, oregano oil, cordyceps and gin!), and we thought it best not to expose our friends to that, even though she was technically not contagious by that point.
Our guests enjoyed some spicy treats and home-made brownies with Pumpkin cream cheese spread. Sadly, our projector was away for repair, and a the substitute projector really wasn’t up to the task of showing anything but a gray murk in the dark scenes. Ironically, the disc projected was Blu-ray, and would have looked so goooood… nevermind. At least the projector is fixed now, and we got a new bulb for free! Of late I have become something of a letter-of-complaint writer (emailer). There comes a time when the standard of service we’ve been lead to believe is normal just isn’t good enough, and it seems that the squeaky wheel does indeed get the oil, as the old saying goes.
Ryan Gosling as teacher, mentor, crack smoker. Shareeka Epps as his pupil (or was she his teacher ultimately?). Half Nelson was the second in our unintentional** schoolroom drama series. We might have one or two up our sleeves, but time will tell. Now there’s a great expression if ever there was one: “Time will tell.” I digress. HN was a great, earthy flick which was somewhat unobviously set in BKNY. Did you notice?
Tangential Trivia: Director Ryan Fleck once hosted a rip-roaring, Patron-sponsored fund-raiser here, and left a wooden salad bowl that often comes out at MovieNight when the popcorn buckets are all dispensed.
**As you might have figured out by now, the MovieNight programme is spontaneously arrived at, with each week’s feature being chosen according to what takes our fancy. It’s better that way, we think.
and then Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (again). This was definitely an upgrade over the hastily-chosen “Death and the Maiden”. It had been a busy week, and being wracked with indecision (as I often am, when it comes to movie selection), I thought it would be simple to show a tense, Polanski thriller… after all, Roman’s been in the news again, and several of you have been asking for a retrospective of sorts. I recalled having watched Maiden a few years ago, and although a vaguely unpleasant feeling accompanied that recollection, I attributed it to being a Polanski. Aren’t his movies supposed to make us uncomfortable? The reviewers were absolutely polarized by the film: Roger Ebert hated it and Time Out loved it, for example. That pairing of critiques usually makes for a great MovieNight selection.
Anyway… while doing a screen/sound check on Wednesday evening, we got drawn into watching the film about half way through, and I remembered clearly why I hadn’t felt comfortable with it the first time around. It was adapted from a play (as was the previous week’s feature) and the dialogue seemed stilted – the performances over the top, especially that of Ms. Weaver.
Although one shouldn’t expect every MovieNight selection to be chock full of laughs, there should at least be something to smile about. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring delivered plenty of smiles.