Kat’s Film and Book Reviews

What a Girl Wants

Rated PG-13

Directed by Dennie Gordon

2003

Thank GOD there are vivacious outgoing American teenagers  to save the British from their overstuffed selves!

Okay, back up.  What a Girl Wants is the story of an American girl named Daphne (played by Amanda Bynes) who goes to England to meet her long lost father, an English Lord running for reelection in the House of Commons (don’t ask, it’s a total affectation).  And of course, Daphne, with her wacky, uninhibited ways, shows the stuffy Brits how to truly live apart from their hidebound traditions, blah blah blah.

It’s ass-numbingly formulaic, but there are actually a few things about it worth watching.  Colin Firth tops the list.  How he can take roles like this is beyond me, but he manages to fill these childishly written lines with pathos and emotion, even a bit of humor.  He really is an amazingly good actor.  It should be a matter of course that any movie that features Colin Firth but headlines Amanda Bynes is one to skip.

Other supporting actors, such as Kelly Preston, Anna Chancellor, and Alastair Payne do great work with their shallow parts, and young Oliver James is an attractive love interest with a surprisingly nice voice.  I was pleased to hear that Amanda Bynes has apparently retired; I wish her the best, and hope she never again attempts to act.

I’ve been so behind that I’ve missed some important passings in the film community, Lena Horne and Danny Aiello III being the worst of them, but this one could just not be let go.  Tony Curtis, a Hollywood legend of legendary proportions, died a few days ago of heart failure at his home in Las Vegas.  He was 35.  The clip below is the bath scene from Spartacus, the one in which the slave, Antoninus, decides he’d better escape from the household of Crassus, played by Laurence Olivier.  Spartacus was one of Curtis’ most memorable roles, one that he took in his drive to play so many different kinds of roles that nobody could typecast him.

Here’s another powerful clip from Spartacus:

A lot has been written about Curtis’ personal life, from his upbringing by a schizophrenic mother to his last marriage to a woman 40 years younger and his estrangement from his children.  In a lot of ways, he was to be pitied–he spent all his life looking for the love from women that he never got from his own mother.  You can get those sordid details anywhere, though, including Curtis’ own memoirs and autobiographies.  What I want to remember is the young actor–intense, athletic, and deeply emotional–who could play any part and hide inside it so thoroughly that you’d be afraid he’d never emerge.  That was true for comedy, drama, action, and even the bad guy bit parts he took on at the beginning.

Here’s a clip from his Oscar-nominated performance in The Defiant Ones with Sydney Poitier.  Incidentally, the character he plays is a racist, but Curtis himself insisted that Poitier get equal billing with him as a co-star in this film, rather than getting billed as a supporting actor.

Here’s the trailer from a film Curtis got to do with his idol, Cary Grant–Operation Petticoat:

Tony, I hope you finally find what you were looking for.  Rest in peace, and thanks for the memories.

Last time our movie quote was this:

There are just too many notes!

That line was from the movie Amadeus, and was given by Jeffrey Jones as the Emperor Joseph II.

Okay, now, here’s next week’s, hopefully.

Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.

Last time, this was our book quote:

When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead,

the table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.

We didn’t have any takers, but the quote was from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis.

Here’s our new one:

[He] crossed to his bedroom on tiptoe, slipped inside, closed the door, and turned to collapse on his bed.  The trouble was, there was already someone sitting on it.

Let me know in the comments if you think you know it!

A little late for Mothers' Day, but I hop you enjoy it anyway.

Charlotte Gray

2001 Rated PG-13

Directed by Gillian Armstrong

One thing about Cate Blanchett is that you can never tell how old she is. She can play anything from a love-struck innocent to an immortal elf queen, and her face, her high cheekbones and slanted eyes, always seems perfect for it. Like a rare few actors, she can convey love, panic, arrogance, pride, fatigue, and despair through the prism of that face without ever seeming to change her expression.

That skill serves her well as the eponymous character in the World War II film, Charlotte Gray. Charlotte is a single Scottish working girl of undetermined age (mid-20’s perhaps, though there is a gravitas about her that makes me want to skew it older), living with two roommates and commuting every day to London. On the train to London, she is coaxed into a conversation with a businessman, who learns two important things about her: she is angry about the occupation of France, and she herself speaks French fluently.

The businessman invites her to a book launch party, where she meets a young RAF pilot named Peter, played with beautiful depth and seen-too-much sadness by Rupert Penry Jones. They fall in love, become lovers, and then as happens in war, Peter is sent on a flying mission into France. His plane goes down, and he is declared missing in action, but is thought to be alive.

Driven by a desire to find him, Charlotte accepts an invitation from the “business people” that had hosted the “book launch,” to train to become a spy for the English inside France. All of this is set-up, because once inside France, Charlotte (now called Dominique) meets Julien, the French Communist resistance fighter played by Billy Crudup, and the story really begins. She struggles to keep her cover as she grows attached to Julien, Julien’s irritable but wise father, played by the ubiquitous Michael Gambon, and two Jewish orphan boys they have taken in but must hide. The body of the film is filled with deceptions, compromises, betrayals, manipulations, and the tentative blossoming of love in so many different manifestations. Julien and Charlotte work together to fight the Nazi oppressors, and to fight the encroaching fear that nothing they do will make that much of a difference.

I didn’t expect to like this movie as much as I did, perhaps because I’ve seen several war-era films recently that disappointed me. And I guess it didn’t get generally good reviews over all, but I found it getting inside of me, almost without my notice. Director Gillian Armstrong keeps things moving at an even, almost pastoral pace that matches the tidy farms and deep green fields of the French countryside, exquisitely photographed by Dion Bebe. The pace is so comfortable, and the French country life so pleasant, that when violence, anger, and betrayal erupt, it is as though the viewer has been tromped on by thick-soled Nazi boots. And cleverly, without calling attention to it, Armstrong brings those Nazis in at just those moments to provide an external expression of the internal turmoil her characters face. Whatever else you want to say about Nazis, you can always count on them to move the plot along.

Billy Crudup also gives a compelling performance as Julien, the Angry Young Man who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Though the movie is named for its heroine, Julien’s character arc is nearly as strong as hers is, and his French accent even better (though it is a bit of a mystery why Julien has a French accent and his father has an English one). Neither Julien’s nor Charlotte’s choices bring much resolution, but do bring home the terrible price that war demands. Only the ending, hopeful but not sentimental, keep those costs from being too high in the end.

Actress Lynn Redgrave died Sunday after a 7-year battle with breast cancer.  She was 67 years old.

Image courtesty of scad.edu

Lynn was the sister of Vanessa and Corin, all of them children of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson.  Corin died just last month, but Vanessa survives.  The siblings, especially the sisters, were always close, and all of them insist that any rivalry between them was made up by the press.  Lynn was a quieter, less flashy talent than Vanessa, but she always worked, and was nominated twice for Oscars.  Her first one was for 1968’s Georgy Girl, where she competed against her sister, but both lost to Elizabeth Taylor.  She was also known for her flexibility and sense of humor, appearing on sitcoms as well as in dramatic Oscar-nom material.  Her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination was for playing the brusque housekeeper in Gods and Monsters, but she took roles on The Love Boat, Desperate Housewives, and Ugly Betty, too.

It’s been a terrible year for the Redgrave family.  Niece Natasha Richardson died in a ski accident last year, then Corin last month, and now Lynn.  I’m sorry she’s gone; she was a steady, hardworking, non-pretentious presence in a crazy, self-aggrandizing business.  I wish her family every comfort and blessing as they go on without her.

Here was our last film quotation:

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.

That classic line was spoken by Captain Jeffrey Spaulding, played by Groucho Marx, in the 1930 movie, Animal Crackers.

Okay, here’s our next one.  This one’s dedicated to my sweetie, but anyone can guess it.

There are simply too many notes!

What do you think?  Can you get it?

Last time, this was our book quotation:

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined.

She was the kind of person who keeps a parrot.

Nobody guessed it–not even my dad–so I’ll just tell you.  It’s written by Mark Twain, from his book, Following the Equator, 1897.

Mark Twain, Image courtesy of Berkeley University

Okay, here’s the new quotation to guess:

When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.

Well, now that the President has thrown out the first pitch, baseball
season's officially underway.  So, to stay with the theme, what do you
think is the best baseball movie ever?  

If it's not on this list, put your answer in the comments.