ellen_datlow

Aighhhh. I watched two awful movies last night: Elephant Walk with Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Finch, and Dana Andrews. Granted, it was made in the mid-50s but the misogyny, the racism, the Imperialistic privilege....I put it in my queue because I thought it would be nice to see Taylor, Finch, and Andrews together. Ummmm. Finch is rich tea grower/manufacturer in Ceylon who goes to England, finds a bride (Taylor, who runs a bookshop) and brings her home to his huge estate, which is figuratively haunted by Finch's autocratic father and was built in the direct path to the river of a herd of elephants --hence the movie title and the name of the estate. No white women are anywhere to be seen but a bunch of boylike drunkard expats hang out with Finch. Booooring.... and isn't Taylor boooored? Yup. The whole thing is a lot of twaddle. Don't see it.

Then The Fountain, the atrocious yet moving misfire by Darren Aronofsky with Hugh Jackman (yum) and Rachel Weisz. Crisscrossing three periods of time the Spanish age of discovery, current times, and the future, a man searches for the fountain of youth (really life) in order to save his love. From what I can tell, the movie is really about the acceptance of death as a part of life. (or maybe not). Anyway, it sucks big time.

Finished Monk, which was very satisfying and nearing the last season of Angel and yes, the muppet episode was dumb. I realize that they were trying to emulate the brilliant sleeping/flying killers of Buffy but it just didn't work.

Ah and yesterday a friend and I saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which was fabulous. Makes me want to read the novels. Good mystery, violent, fascinating characters, well acted. And of course it's going to be re-made into a dumb, cheesy American film. See it now, in the Swedish with subtitles before they ruin it and make it impossible to see the original.

I forgot to mention that I saw The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice, produced as a musical last week at the Minetta Lane Theater--a small venue in Greenwich Village. I'd never read or seen the play before and knew very little about it but that a friend of mine who had seen it a few months ago hated it. But because it won some awards and it was cheap (through TDF) I decided to take a chance. I enjoyed it. It's dated, but as a snapshot of boring, numbing, bookkeeping work in the 20s it was interesting, and I liked the production. Middle aged guy with horrible screeching, complaining wife goes to work daily and does numbers with a woman helper who obviously is interested in him. Boss fires him, guy murders boss and ends up on death row. Dies and instead of the Hell he expects he ends up in what seems like Heaven, a place he can do whatever he wants. Freedom. Plus, the co-worker (who he was interested in) kills herself because with him gone she has nothing to live for--and she ends up where he is. They CAN live happily ever after, but he freaks out and would rather go back to being a cog in the machine...

Today I went to a matinée performance of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl, with Morgan Freeman, Frances McDormand, and Peter Gallagher. Directed by Mike Nichols. I thought I remembered the play getting mixed reviews --I'll have to check--but it was brilliant. Great performances (some of you might have seen it as a movie with Grace Kelly --who I'd think would have been totally miscast--, William Holden, and Bing Crosby. I've never seen the movie). Once good actor who has been a lush for at least ten years is given a chance by a producer to star in a new play. The actor's wife, the "country girl" of the title, is either a support or hindrance, depending on who you believe.

The last two episodes of the first season of Deadwood--and yes, it keeps getting better and better; I Can't Sleep, a thought-provoking French film by Claire Denis about several "outsiders" in Paris whose lives connect interestingly--told against the background of a series of murders of old ladies based on real murders in the early 1990s.

And Swimming With Sharks, with a vicious Kevin Spacey as a movie executive, Frank Whalley, as his green put upon assistant, and Michelle Forbes (who I'd never seen before but has apparently been on a lot of tv series including "Lost" and "In Treatment") as a producer who is trying to get a deal for her script. Nasty nasty film.