Happy Birthday to Brian Wilson, Nicole Kidman, John Goodman, Martin Landau, Errol Flynn, Danny Aiello, Olympia Dukakis, Stephen Frears, Robert Rodriguez and Candy Clark! Yesterday, I enjoyed three very good films (all 8/10), in Iron Jawed Angels (Katja von Garnier, 2003), Mansfield Park (Patricia Rozema, 1999) and, my Curtain Call as best film of the day, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (Stephen Hopkins, 2004), as well as two more short film music videos from Michel Gondry (both 7/10): Jean Francois Coens La Tour de Pise and I Ams Le Mia. I was very pleased with the quality of the two HBO Films productions (the von Garnier and Hopkins films) and with all three films in general. I must admit that after disliking Fire and Tiny Furniture recently, I had put off seeing films by women filmmakers for a while, and truth be told, I had not been acquainted beforehand with Jane Austens writings, and I had avoided filmic adaptations of her works like the plague, and the cover art for Iron Jawed Angels looked very amateurish, so I decided to see both films with much trepidation, but I ended up being very glad I had. I had remembered very much enjoying Rozemas Ive Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987; 8/10), and shes Canadian, for crying out loud, so of course I should give another film of hers a chance. The acting in all three films, particularly by Hilary Swank, Anjelica Huston, Frances OConnor (and in two of the films, mind you!), Vera Farmiga, Molly Parker, Harold Pinter, Jonny Lee Miller, Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola, Geoffrey Rush, Charlize Theron, Emily Watson, John Lithgow, Stephen Fry and Stanley Tucci, was particularly endearing to me--the evening seemed like an acting master class. Many people are put off by the fact--either in biopics such as Iron Jawed Angels (about Alice Paul and her struggle to get the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing women the right to vote) and the Peter Sellers film or in cinematic treatments of literary masterpieces--arent word-for-word but changed somewhat to make them more filmable, but in all three cases, the behind-the-scenes decisions were correct and to be commended. Especially noteworthy was Rozemas decision, also as Mansfield Parks scriptwriter, to go not simply by the novel but by Jane Austens own personal letters and journals, and in the Peter Sellers film the ingenious idea of, as Sellers himself may have done, Geoffrey Rush also at times portraying each of the major characters he comes into contact with the film. Also, the music choices for Iron Jawed Angels were flawless. But, I digress. My Five Stars, for cinematic brilliance, were: --Actor: Geoffrey Rush (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) --Actress: Frances OConnor (both Iron Jawed Angels and Mansfield Park) --Director: Patricia Rozema (Mansfield Park) --Cinematographer: Robbie Greenberg (Iron Jawed Angels) --Soundtrack: Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek (Iron Jawed Angels). Tonight: Probably Salt of the Earth (Herbert J. Biberman, 1954), Glory (Edward Zwick, 1989) and Bhaji on the Beach (Gurinder Chadha, 1993). All the best, to you and yours, on this weekend from Film Club! =)
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 21:17:02 +0000
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