Just to be clear, in case you've seen Ze Governator on the news frowning thoughtfully at waterfilled farms, there's absolutely no flooding in our particular part of California, so don't worry about us.
Oh yeah... welcome to T-ass entering blogdom. Old news, I know, but I'm usually the last one to know these things.
And in movie news, we finally saw the Narnia movie and The Producers, both of which I'd been quite looking forwards to though with some mixed feelings in the Narnia case. After all, the Narnia books are part of the furniture of my mind, to use Douglas Adams' lovely phrase, and I've seen with Lord of the Rings how someone else's vision and the vicissitudes of the movie format can clash with my own mental images. But The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a shorter, simpler book, and adapted to a movie really quite well. The main actors were great and the special effects were so good that you stopped thinking of them as effects (the animals especially; I realized that I wasn't amazed at the CGI, I was amazed that they'd found talking beavers). And Tilda Swinton rocks my world.
And The Producers is great. I think they really kept the stage play/musical feel of it (original "stagy" dialogue, slightly stylized sets, over the top acting) and it worked. Mind you, it's a movie based on a musical based on a movie about a musical, so it's going to be campy. It's been a long time since I've seen the original movie (which I don't think was even a musical? It's been a long time) but if my memory serves they even kept a lot of the blocking.* I can't think about neo-Nazis now without snickering slightly ("Don't be schtupid, be a schmartie! Come and join ze Nazi Party!") which I'm sure was Mr. Brooks' intent.
I recommend both movies. Well, all three movies, since the original of The Producers is excellent also. I mean, Gene Wilder. C'mon.
* There was a slight difference in the plot; the original movie had a hippie playing Hitler, I think. Though the whole "I broke my leg!" running gag seemed familiar, so maybe he just auditioned. I guess the whole hippie thing was edgier in 1967. I'll have to see if I can find the original movie. Netflix to the rescue!
Labels: movies
