My Life Story as Written by Walker Percy in The Moviegoer

I'm only on page 3 but this is relevant to my interests:

  After the movie Linda and I stood under the marquee and talked to the manager, or rather listened to him tell his troubles: the theater was almost empty, which was pleasant for me but not for him. It was a fine night and I felt good. Overhead was the blackest sky I ever saw; a black wind pushed the lake towards us. The waves jumped over the seawall and spattered the street. The manager had to yell to be heard while from the sidewalk speaker directly over his head came the twittering conversation of the amnesiac and the librarian. It was the part where they are going through the newspaper files in search of some clue to his identity (he has a vague recollection of an accident). Linda stood by unhappily. She was unhappy for the same reason I was happy--because here we were at a neighborhood theater out in the sticks and without a car (I have a car but I prefer to ride buses and streetcars). Her idea of happiness is to drive downtown and have supper at the Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel. This I am obliged to do from time to time. It is worth it, however. On these occasions Linda becomes as exalted as I am now. Her eyes glow, her lips become moist, and when we dance she brushes her fine long legs against mine. She actually loves me at these times--and not as a reward for being taken to the Blue Room. She loves me because she feels exalted in this romantic place and not in a movie out in the sticks.

Except I would have driven, naturally.

Three Times: The King's Speech

Three reasons to begrudge The King's Speech for existing:

1. The key line in the poster above: "Based on the Incredible True Story." It should read: "Man with Infinite Resources Overcomes Stammer." Very credibly.

2. The King's Speech is a transparent, awards-grabbing "prestige picture." With all caveats about how the Oscars are a joke anyway, it would be a shame if, in a year when America produced two excellent films (The Social Network and Winter's Bone), the biggest award went to a profoundly mediocre British movie. The Academy is also locked into a pattern of awarding "make up call" Best Actor and Actress statuettes to people who probably should have gotten Oscars before. In this case I'm almost okay with it, as Colin Firth (as the only-interesting-because-he-stutters King Bertie) will win even though he really earned his award for A Single Man last year. Geoffrey Rush, as the speech (and several other kinds of) therapist Lionel Logue, could well pull down Best Supporting for general cheeky Australianess.

3. The entirety of the film is contained in the trailer. For viewers with even a passing familiarity with 20th century English history and the conventions of the biopic genre, there is not a single surprise in The King's Speech. And all the big, "meaningful" lines are in the preview as well (many of these are terrible, see below).

Three visual elements that confirm Tom Hooper should stick to directing television:

1. There's one laughable shot where Bertie's head is entirely blocked from view by a gramophone. The irony! Only the machine can make itself heard!

2. The fact that we cut and back and forth to a kettle on the fire as Lionel (literally!) brings his first conversation with Bertie to a boil.

3. Hooper waffles between different visual styles from sequence to sequence. In what I can only assumes are attempts at grandeur, he frequently employs a retreating camera for long shots.  Except the camera doesn't track backwards smoothly, nor does it bounce up and down quite enough for a true handheld feel. Everything he does, he does in half measures. Even simple two shots of characters talking are poorly framed right into the actors' jowls.

 

Three most wince-inducing lines of dialogue in The King's Speech:

1. Lionel: "Why should I waste my time listening to you?"

Bertie: "Because I have a voice!"

Lionel: "...Yes, you do."

2. [royal family inexplicably watching clip of Hitler speechifying]
Little Girl: "What's he saying?"
Bertie: "I don't know but... he seems to be saying it rather well."

3. Lionel [to Bertie in regards to a King George V coin on the table]: "You don't need to carry him around in your pocket."

Three reasons we should have seen a film starring Guy Pearce instead:

1. Guy Pearce plays the reluctant King Edward VIII, whose life is actually interesting. While we worry about how Bertie pronounces words beginning with "P," Edward provides the pithy response, "kinging," to a query about how he's spending his time. His answer points to the two proper activities for onscreen royalty: nation building and fornicating.

2. Edward's lady of Shanghai, Wallis Simpson, is played by Eve Best with the sauciness we used to see from Helena Bonham Carter, wasted as Bertie's boring scold of a wife. The best sequence in the film is centered on Edward and Wallis, clearcutting ancient firs and scouring the ancestral mansion for the best bottle of champagne.

3. But I'll be honest. I really love Pearce in The King's Speech for his natty attire. His aviator outfit is a sheepskinned dream, his tweeds hang just so and my foremost life goal is to one day own a cabled sweatervest half as luxurious as his.

Two Blushing Pilgrims

Because I am a hugely romantic person, I decided the best preparation for this Valentine's Day would be taking in a Gnomeo & Juliet and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet double feature. The former was a sparsely attended screening (and, yes, I did feel the ticket taker judged me for going to see Gnomeo) and the latter was a midnight screening with a nice mix of couples and perverted nighttime wanderers.
 

You might be shocked to learn that Gnomeo & Juliet is not a good film. Kelly Asbury has managed to direct a movie that antagonizes Shakespeare from start to finish, in spite of the permanently blushing gnomes of the title. After beginning by calling Romeo and Juliet a "boring" play, he refuses the Bard's language in favor of sub-Shrekian howlers from "let's go kick some grass!" to "a weed by any other name is still a weed." Not even appearances from garden gnome Elton John help very much. Full disclosure: I did not see Gnomeo in 3D, which might have made all the difference...

I'll move to the only element of the film that is not instantly forgettable: Mercutio's role is (perhaps?) filled by a pink lawn flamingo named Featherstone, a somewhat inspired character. He seems a broad caricature of a Hispanic homosexual in the manner of Agador Spartacus in The Birdcage but, to my great fascination, Featherstone is given a backstory in which he is paired with another pink flamingo. This second flamingo, who never speaks, is differentiated from Featherstone by its mascara'd eyes. It is absurd to think that Featherstone would be paired with a straight female lawn ornament so I got to thinking of possible explanations for this lost love. It occurred to me that the other flamingo could be made up in drag. If I had a chance to interview Asbury, this is the only question I would ask about the film.     

I first saw Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet in the most appropriate setting: a freshman English class in high school. That was half a lifetime ago and, as I recall, there was actual Leo-induced swooning by some of my classmates those sunny afternoons.

Much criticism of Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet places it in contrast to Franco Zeffirelli's well-loved 1968 version. I found myself oddly defensive of the newer film though, perhaps because we all get defensive about our sentimental youth. The most amusing part of the 1996 reviews is the vicious critique of Luhrmann's "MTVification" of the story (how quaint to remember when MTV played music videos). The frantic, small screen style of the editing is richly nuanced compared to what the channel might inspire today--a reality TV Romeo cast on the Jersey Shore.

Certain engaging details emerge when you're not watching Romeo + Juliet on a 20 inch TV from across a classroom. Benvolio has tanlines from his shoulder holster and Mercutio's Queen Mab speech is capped by the Montagues sampling Ecstasy. I was pleased to see that "Post Haste" delivery services fail to leave important packages at your home just as regularly as UPS. And, although I'm in favor of gun control, the "Swords" and "Daggers" are pretty awesome with their custom pearl inlaid grips blinged with Roman Catholic iconography.

What's not awesome is the diction of all the actors in the film except the dearly departed Pete Postlethwaite, with whom some hint of iambic pentameter remains. I understand nothing Mercutio says (on a perhaps related note I don't recall seeing Harold Perrineau in a film since) but Luhrmann frequently has his characters repeat key lines so we get a second chance at comprehension.

The reason to see the film are the moments of greatness concentrated in the first half hour. I struggle to think of a scene that better conveys love at first sight than the aquarium meeting of DiCaprio's Romeo and Danes' Juliet. The tears made of tropical fish. The doomed ballad "Kissing You" from Des'ree. The obscenely handsome baby Leo. The frenetic wonder of the camera.

Back to my 14-year-old ride home on the number 3 bus, reading my Folger edition of Romeo and Juliet. I got to Act 1 Scene 4 and the star-crossed lovers (I thought about how someone had actually coined that term!) started their Elizabethan flirting. "My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand / To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

No matter how you feel about Luhrmann or DiCaprio or Shakespeare, you have to admit: Romeo had some game.