Booooooooooooooooooo, bad headache is bad. Go away!
anyway movies lol
Lolita (1962): I tempered my expectations going into this because so much of what makes Lolita great depends on the language and the way Humbert uses it to make his crimes seem more palatable, and even romantic. However, this is still disappointing, even with that in mind. There's nothing especially wrong with the performances (Peter Sellers in particular is very good) or how it is made (Stanley Kubrick is the director, so of course it will be well made), but the movie just never seems to fit the story. Censorship is in full force, so many of the racier aspects of the novel are way toned down. I didn't expect graphic scenes of Humbert's relationship with Lolita, mind, but I think Lolita suffers for it because she is presented as just a brash, annoying child who is taking advantage of Humbert (when she is really much more than that). Humbert also suffers -- there is very little to do with exactly why he is attracted to Lolita, and he also comes off as much more sympathetic than he really should. He's not a saint in the movie, but he's so much more subtly monstrous in the novel.
Quills (2000): Good movie about the final years of the Marquis de Sade and his battle to express himself through writing. Geoffrey Rush is pretty impressive as a somewhat toned-down Marquis (because very few people would want to watch a completely unleashed de Sade, I think lol), and Michael Caine is quite vicious as a doctor who wants to put an end to the Marquis' eccentric writing through cruel, tortuous conditioning. Despite how, er, unsavory much of de Sade's writing is, I enjoyed the themes of freedom of expression and knowing one's self.
Hamlet (1996): Notable as the only full-text movie version of the play -- at a bit more than four hours long, it's actually the second-longest major Hollywood movie ever (behind Cleopatra). It's an intense viewing experience, but the production is so lavish and the acting so lively and energetic (and, of course, it's friggin' Hamlet) that the length of the movie is not at all off-putting. It certainly doesn't move slowly, at any rate. The only real complaint I have is that Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet occasionally wanders into overacting, but for the most part he handles Hamlet's various idiosyncrasies well.
Iris (2001): It's a solid movie -- well made and well acted -- but I was a bit let down by it. The story touches upon aspects of novelist/philosopher Iris Murdoch's early career as a novelist and her later years, when she suffers from Alzheimer's disease. This is touching and emotional, but I read a bit more about Murdoch afterward, and the movie glosses over quite a bit of what makes Murdoch interesting -- the way she viewed life, love, happiness and morality. There are sprinkles of her philosophy and views at various parts of the movie, but I wanted more of that.
On the queue for this week: Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)
Total Movies: 15 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris)
