rebness

I keep meaning to post about so many things and then find myself caught up IRL. Anyway, for posterity, I wanted to write some brief reviews of a few films I've seen recently that really stuck out and also add in the requisite two pence worth on Potter. I won't put the films behind a cut because everyone knows that Edith Piaf is dead, Man on Fire is nearly four years old and everyone needs to know about Rope. DH of course, is behind a cut.

Man on Fire

I have never seen a nastier, more morally depraved film than this one and bear in mind that I thought Hostel was a riot. Everything offended me, from the stereotypical Mexican characters, the propaganda with the noble American torturing people and that being okay because hey, he was rescuing the cute WASP girl, to the mean-spirited screenplay that tried to justify psychotic revenge. I don’t expect my films to be akin to watching an episode of Saved by the Bell with a neat moral lesson at the end, but I do expect it not to shove such asinine patriotic crap.

To top it all off, after painting the people of Mexico as nothing but corrupt, lawless animals and Mexico itself as a hellhole, the film ended with a tribute to “the wonderful people of Mexico city.” GTFO.

La Vie en Rose

For the last half an hour of this film, my chest was hurting me because I was weeping and breathing so heavily at each horrible thing. I never realised what an interesting and strange life Edith Piaf had, much less how songs like Les Trois Cloches and Je Ne Regrette Rien were so suffused with personal tragedy for her. I am so glad that I saw this film at the cinema; only the surround sound of the theatre could do her amazing voice justice. Wow.

Rope

I just want to say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a slashier film, ever. Definitely one of Hitchcock's best - that 99% of the action takes place on the set is really effective. But still, if one of the main characters didn't so horibly resemble David Walliams, I'd have to seek out the inevitable slash fiction for this film.