The Worst Movie Ever!

Ohmigawd!  This movie was recommended by Ching and Brian during dinner at Red Robin’s.  What we heard was that it was great, and as a plus for Ray-ray, we were promised a lot of Scarlett Johansen nudity.  Seriously, not even the latter as consolation.  Ray has asked to let Ching know that he has lost all respect in her taste in movies and must now redeem herself, I agree.  And Brian, what is your definition of nudity? 

The most drawn out, boring, and predictable set of characters ever put together to sleep walk through an opera based soundtrack.  Seriously.  If you liked opera music before, Woody Allen will make you despise it!

That’s all I’ve got to say about it, really.  I have my Crime and Punishment book, 2nd copy purchased yesterday.  Out of sheer delight of being saved from poorly made movies I’ve decided that even though I was halfway through the book when I lost the 1st copy I will still start from page one, and reread the beginning half.  I’m sure I will be done with the whole thing before the weekend anyway.  It’s certainly a lot more interesting than Matchpoint.

Tristan and Isolde

Oh, what a long drawn out tale.  Though believe me the literary version(s) would have been longer, more drawn out and a lot more confusing.  (Since according to the book Isolde’s mother was also named Isolde and they were both alive during the whole story.)

It had a lot of good fight scenes, which is always a must for me.  A good fight scene is anytime you yourself feel like jumping up and beating someone.  Yeah, it had a lot of those.  It also had a lot of “Run, idiots! You’re gonna get caught!” moments, which was almost torture.  And in the end you do get teary-eyed for the two lovers, but I won’t say why or I’ll ruin everything.

Some things that did bother me.  The main characters somehow forgot that they were in a scene of medieval Ireland and Brittany, and so they forgot their fake accents.  The acting itself would have probably been made fun of back in my high school drama stage.  Seriously, a little effort would have gone a long way.  Having the fake accents would have atleast compensated for Uncle Mark’s scene-stealing lazy eye, and the fact that Tristan is being played by a tool.

I’m sorry not a lot of great remarks about this movie. 

On a brighter unrelated note:  I am done with my HTML/CSS class.  I got a B on my final and I just turned in my two final projects, I’m feeling confident about them, but no grades yet so I will post as soon as I get them.  Thursday at 1:30pm will be my Tech Math finals, so I will be spending a good part of tomorrow preparing for that.  So excited for fall classes, so everyone send well wishes.

“Thanks, but I prefer it my way.”

Lord of War DVD – the main character Yuri Orlov, played by Nicolas Cage, is an arms dealer.  He narrates the story starting from how he first became an arms dealer. 

The story seems to drag on.  The main character points out the advantages and disadvantages of being an arms dealer and we see three scenes for each.  Some of the scenes are graphic, especially if you have an aversion for small children and women getting wacked and massacred, which I hope you do. 

The biggest surprise of the movie was the character Andre Baptiste, the dictator of Liberia, who according to Wikipedia.org was based on Charles Taylor.  This a big quinky-dink because just two days previously I had picked up the latest issue of Mother Jones.  (Yes, I read political magazines.)  On page 28 starts the story of Charles Taylor, now 58 years old, was already exiled to Calabar, Nigeria and awaiting trial.  He is being charged with 650 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

I ran straight upstairs after the movie, thinking I had read and watched about the same guy, but seeing the names were different and not suspecting it had been changed for movie purposes, I shook my head unbelieving that there could be more than one saddistic asshole running around.  Of course, there are more people like Taylor.  I believe there will be one for each generation.  My political and moral views will have to wait for another blog however.

Anyway, I wanted to blog about the movie, and of course, being bored as I am I went ahead and tried to find the real Yuri Orlov, since the movie said it was based on a true story.  The name must have been changed as well, because the only Yuri Orlov I found is a human rights activist (ironic?) and was born in 1924.  Charles Taylor escaped from a Massachusetts prison and ran to Libya in 1985, and did not overthrow the then Liberian president Samuel Doe until 1989.  That would put Yuri Orlov at 65 years old.  To add to this the peace agreement they mentioned in the movie, when Baptiste visited Orlov at his home unexpectedly, that would have happened in 1996, that places our real Orlov at 72 years of age already.  So we have the wrong guy.

Anyone who decides to do further research on this feel free to do so and comment what you find.  I am highly interested, obviously, with history and politics.

This image is of Charles Taylor resigning from the office of President of Liberia before going into exile.

Casanova on DVD

We’d bought several DVD’s but with our increasingly hectic to-do lists, we’ve been unable to watch them all.  Last night we were finally able to watch Casanova.  Just a light-hearted romantic comedy about a legendary character, but it had it’s moments of hilarity and suspense. 

I’m definitely not mad for not seeing it in the theatres, but I’m glad to have watched it anyway, sort of thing.  The story line becomes a little predicatable but I won’t hold it against anyone, since it’s very hard to find a unique story line these days.

I also found a list of some interesting movie “oops” moments pointed out by moviemistakes.com, some we noticed and some that escaped our scrutiny.  Do not read, as it could be a spoiler if you still have plans on renting or buying this DVD.

Mistake #1 In the bedroom scene the bedding at the head of the bed slightly changes from one position to another and then back again.

Mistake #2 When we first see Francesca and her family in their house, in any wide shots showing Francesca’s brother, Giovanni, his mouth is not moving in sync with what he is saying.

Mistake #3 The tiny hot air balloon that Francesca released in the debate room would never be able to support Casanova’s weight.

Mistake #4 Francesca gives Guardi the note via the pig that “your services are no longer required,” yet it is stated later that Guardi can neither read nor write.

Mistake #5 The historical Casanova’s first name was Giovanni, not Giacomo. It may be that Giovanni Bruni, who, according to the movie, assumed the mantle of Casanova and later wrote down the many exploits of the legend, went down in history as Casanova, not Heath Ledger’s character.