I'm not sure if any of you have noticed but there are very few movies playing today that would appeal to a reasonably intelligent adult. That's a good situation for reasonably stupid teenagers but what am I to do. What's worse...I have a bunch of free movie coupons carved with care from the back of cereal boxes earlier this spring and their expiration date is June 30th!! Sifting through the rubbish Phyllis and I did manage to find one worthy of the Blob guarantee: A Prairie Home Companion is Robert Altman's latest. See it and if you don't like it (even after I try to talk you out of your opinion) I'll refund your price of admission. Top that Ebert!!
This is a small film with a stellar cast and it's about the death of a time, place, and way of life that may never have existed. It's largely set in an old theater (you can almost smell the mustiness although that may have been my undershirt) on the long running radio show's last night. Altman and writer/performer/creator Garrison Keillor let the nostalgia run rampant and it plays out as an homage to the lost art of the unpolished, the impromptu, the oral tradition in song and spoken word.
The very next night Phyllis and I saw The Da Vinci Code. I hadn't read the book and knew only what little I'd gleaned from the press. Going in I had very low expectations and this film lived up to them. Tom Hanks has little acting to do and the plot is as convoluted and dense as a Byzantine labyrinth (the ultimate in convoluted dense things). I came away with a couple of overriding thoughts 1st and foremost being how clearly fictitious and preposterous the whole thing is. That this story which, I'll admit, was probably much more compelling in written form, could have generated so much controversy speaks to the flimsiness of many people's faith and to their general boredom.
Both these films are rated NEN which is part of my new rating system:
NEN- not enough nudity AEN - almost enough nudity TMN - too much nudity*
* to this point the TMN designation has only been applied to films starring Kathy Bates and the late Burgess Meredith
Ed. note: while these ratings may seem frivolous they are important to some of my readers (see Euphonium)
3 comments:
throughout the movie at opportune moments , when i could interject comments, I would say "my name is amelie!!" if u loved audrey tautou, see"amelie" its fab!!!
Audrey Tautou is cute but she's no Catherine Zeta Jones. I can't believe you'd be so fickle as to even CONSIDER giving up on CZJ the second some cute French chick comes along! (and this after all the hard work I did for you lobbying against Pam Anderson)
I have a general comment about your spelling/grammar, slapper58. I just want to say, obviously my son, the Grammar King, has NOT been reading your blog or he would definitely have weighed in on the various ways you use 'its' vs. 'it's'. So, it's up to me. SHAME on you! Crack open your 'Elements of Style' or read 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'. As an author, its (or is it "it's"? YOU look it up as your first grammar test in forty years) your duty!!
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