Overall, I was not impressed with The Artist.
Unless you live under a rock (and, hey, I'm not knocking the coziness and safety of a nice, solid rock), you know that The Artist won this year's Best Picture Oscar. I finally got around to watching it on DVD, mostly, I confess, because my husband wanted to. I'm not really into silent films, but I've seen some, as well as other good early film classics, so I knew what to expect.
It is a decent tribute to the end of the silent film-making era, but not great. The acting is spot-on, a little like theater acting with exaggerated facial expressions and large body movements. Once I got into that, I enjoyed it and found it quite humorous, as it was meant to be.
I generally like new faces in movies, but in this case, I wish the movie had more known actors in it because it's entertaining to watch an actor you've seen in modern movies, such as John Goodman, attempt a more theatrical old-school acting style like this. But Goodman was the only familiar face for me.
(SPOILERS AHEAD) The movie's depiction of the transition from silent films to "talkies" is clever, but it isn't as well-done as I thought it could have been. Most of the movie is silent, but as the transition takes place, we get to hear a few sounds and, at the end, even words. I think the movie-makers should have run more with that. It was such a little touch it felt more like the movie stepped away from what it was trying to be rather than that it depicted a transition from silence to speech in films. I would have preferred to have all the sounds and speech at the end of the movie following the transition, but instead, the movie goes back to a silent film for part of that. It needed to be "all in" or leave out the sounds altogether, I think, but maybe that's just my preference for modern-day films surfacing.
More than that, however, what I didn't like about the movie was the story, unfortunately. It's about a romantic affair and an arrogant actor who doesn't learn a thing by the end, even after losing nearly everything. Maybe affairs were a big part of the times, I don't know, but for me, morality sometimes makes or breaks a story. With no clear indication that the affair was a reflection of culture at that time, this movie's morality broke it for me. Nothing bad is shown, of course. It's an emotional affair rather than a sexual one. (SPOILERS END)
The MPAA rates the movie PG-13 for, and I quote, "a disturbing image and a crude gesture," which just makes me laugh. There's nothing your little ones can't see. It's more that anyone under 13 (or maybe 20), with the rare exception, just isn't going to "get it."
If you are not familiar with silent films, this could be a good introduction, simply because it's made today and not a century ago and the film-makers are aware of their modern viewers. But if you have no intention of ever watching a classic silent film, there's no reason to watch this modern one either.
Showing posts with label 2012 Oscars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012 Oscars. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Descendants on DVD
I promise I am not on a mission (yet) to watch all the 2012 Oscar Best Picture nominees, as I was last year. Nonetheless, several of them sparked my interest before they were on that list, The Descendants being one of them. It just looked like one of those tear-jerker, heartfelt dramas I occasionally go for. And it was, painfully so.
George Clooney plays a man in the midst of a family crisis as his cheating wife lies dying in a hospital bed while his two daughters seem determined to live destructive lives. Complicating an already hectic week, as he attempts to tell family and friends of his wife's wish to be taken off life support, he must also decide whether or not to sell some virgin Hawaiian land entrusted to his family.
Did I mention it was painful?
I cried so much watching this movie, and at the end, I couldn't decide whether it was a cathartic experience or just unnecessary torture. There's a LOT of heartache. This isn't a movie about a woman who miraculously recovers from a coma. It's about a family saying good-bye to Mom and dealing with anger over her betrayal with another man. But it's also about that family turning from a splintered wreck into a self-comforting unit, and for that alone, it is beautiful.
Emotion, however, isn't the only thing making or breaking this movie. Clooney and the two actresses who play his 10-year-old and 17-year-old are brilliant. And care was taken to make the minor characters multi-dimensional, too. The setting is Hawaii, but as Clooney's character makes clear in the opening lines, that doesn't mean they get to be on a constant vacation from life.
The movie is rated R, mostly for being sporadically peppered with uses of the F-word. I don't normally go for that type of thing, but if any situation might call for it (and I'm not sure any situation does), it's this one. I can take it in this setting, as an adult viewer. I'll even admit, the language provides some much-needed humor in the story, for example when Clooney's character keeps ineffectually telling his daughters to stop the bad language when the audience knows it's right on the tip of his tongue, too.
The Descendants is not a family movie, despite the family message at the end...unless you have this type of family yourself. But it's more hopeful than it could have been, and for that I can give it a higher rating than I might have otherwise. Three stars.
George Clooney plays a man in the midst of a family crisis as his cheating wife lies dying in a hospital bed while his two daughters seem determined to live destructive lives. Complicating an already hectic week, as he attempts to tell family and friends of his wife's wish to be taken off life support, he must also decide whether or not to sell some virgin Hawaiian land entrusted to his family.
Did I mention it was painful?
I cried so much watching this movie, and at the end, I couldn't decide whether it was a cathartic experience or just unnecessary torture. There's a LOT of heartache. This isn't a movie about a woman who miraculously recovers from a coma. It's about a family saying good-bye to Mom and dealing with anger over her betrayal with another man. But it's also about that family turning from a splintered wreck into a self-comforting unit, and for that alone, it is beautiful.
Emotion, however, isn't the only thing making or breaking this movie. Clooney and the two actresses who play his 10-year-old and 17-year-old are brilliant. And care was taken to make the minor characters multi-dimensional, too. The setting is Hawaii, but as Clooney's character makes clear in the opening lines, that doesn't mean they get to be on a constant vacation from life.
The movie is rated R, mostly for being sporadically peppered with uses of the F-word. I don't normally go for that type of thing, but if any situation might call for it (and I'm not sure any situation does), it's this one. I can take it in this setting, as an adult viewer. I'll even admit, the language provides some much-needed humor in the story, for example when Clooney's character keeps ineffectually telling his daughters to stop the bad language when the audience knows it's right on the tip of his tongue, too.
The Descendants is not a family movie, despite the family message at the end...unless you have this type of family yourself. But it's more hopeful than it could have been, and for that I can give it a higher rating than I might have otherwise. Three stars.
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