![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
I just found out that the Billy Elliot musical is coming to Seattle for two weeks at the end of March/early April! I am going to try and get a ticket, if I can get a decent seat for a reasonable price... I have one contact through work who may be able to get me something... fingers crossed. The musical is based off the movie, which, if you haven't seen it, you must -- it's soooo good, one of my favorite movies of all time. 
Anyway, the music from the musical is written by Elton John, the lyrics by the guy who wrote the movie's screenplay, and it won a Tony for Best Musical. I've been wanting to see it for awhile -- it was on Broadway the last time Jade and I were in New York, but we were too busy watching Wicked and Avenue Q. And eating pizza.
I actually JUST started listening to the soundtrack this morning, by total coincidence. When I got to the track "The Letter," I started bawling (I always cry during that part in the movie, too). It was a good thing traffic was going 10mph, because I couldn't see all that well from the sobbing.
The original Billy Elliot is Jamie Bell. He won the Best Actor BAFTA for the performance (so well deserved). I'm glad to see that he's gotten work as an adult, the latest being The Eagle with Channing Tatum, though he'll always be Billy to me. And no matter how successful the Harry Potter movies are, for me the best movie/role Julie Walters has been involved with is Billy Elliot as his dance instructor.
Now, for less gushing and more ranting.
The Social Network
- Was The Social Network a good movie? It was fine. Was it Best Picture material? HELLS NO. It reminded me a lot, a lot, a lot of The Pirates of Silicon Valley, that movie about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It was a bit snazzier and better written, but otherwise, practically the same movie. Would you give The Pirates of Silicon Valley a Best Picture award of any kind?
- I will admit up front that I'm not an Aaron Sorkin fan, and he wrote the script. The mile-a-minute talking, where a character says about 50 sentences in the space of half a minute, does not have me as a fan. I find it tedious and unrealistic and affected, but apparently I am alone in this because most people think Aaron Sorkin is so brilliant. (I watched 5 episodes of West Wing and had to stop, however I did love Sports Night, to be fair to AS.)
- Mark Zuckerberg seemed like a total asshole, with like, zero likable qualities. That said, the movie was based on a book that was written without MZ's input, but did have the input of his spurned once-partner. So the partner, Eduardo Saverin, looks very sympathetic. Not sure why something so obviously one-sided would still get such acclaim. Though if even half the things he says are true, MZ is still a massive dickhead. It seems pretty obvious that he stole the idea of Facebook -- not the specific idea, but the genesis of the idea -- from the Winklevoss twins. In any case, the one sentence MZ's lawyer says to him about how Saverin is an unreliable witness does not actually dispel the fact that most of the movie is presented as though it were truth.
- That Justin Timberlake. Even when he's playing a slimy turdball like Sean Parker, he's got such charisma. I can't help but like him! I'm sure I would have the opposite reaction to the actual Sean Parker.
- Ultimately, it was a movie that was watchable, even enjoyable on some level (though not a movie I'd watch repeatedly). I don't understand the accolades it's getting (JUST like the subject, Facebook), but I didn't like No Country for Old Men, either. So maybe it will be one of THOSE Oscar years where I just sit around wondering what everyone else is smoking.
- The one thing I did really like, though? The last scene. MZ sitting there after having sent a FB friend request to his one-time girlfriend, who kind of started him on the whole crusade to make a huge, successful thing, refreshing the page, waiting for her response. That was perfect.
The Kids Are All Right
I had the opposite reaction to this movie. I liked everything (pretty much) but the ending.
I was expecting the feel/look of the movie to be more like a generic comedy, like Date Night or a Ben Stiller movie. It wasn't like that. I thought both Annette Bening and Julianne Moore did great jobs ... I'm not really sure why AB is being singled out as the one who carried it. She was fabulous but not heads above JM.
The one thing I found rather inexplicable, that seems to always happen whenever we deal with a gay couple in popular culture, is JM's affair with Mark Ruffalo (who was awesomely adorable as always). SHE'S GAY. WhyTF would she sleep with him? I mean, they do as good a job as they can explaining why a lesbian secure in her sexuality would do such a thing, but that doesn't make it any less a conceit of the movie. Why can't we just see gay people being gay in movies/TV, instead of being gay, then randomly entering into heterosexual relationships?? Still, the way the affair is dealt with -- at least on the JM side -- is very well done, so I can kind of forgive them for going there.
The misunderstandings/slow dissolution of their romantic relationship between AB and JM was also very good -- but the subsequent making up was not. You never really see what JM sees in AB. Why does she love this woman? Why does she put up with someone who's like that, who treats her like that, who makes her feel like that? AB being a wonderful actress aside, her character is pretty intolerable.
Overall, the movie is alternately funny and moving in parts, without being too heavy handed on any of it. I liked it a lot.
But as I mentioned first thing, I didn't like the ending. I get that they probably didn't want some pat ending, because they were already going for a different look/feel than a typical comedy. But why did Mark Ruffalo get the short end of the stick, with all the shit dumped on him, when JM was EQUALLY CULPABLE in their affair? In fact, he was the more sympathetic of the two! He was actually falling in love with her, whereas for her, it was just a fling -- she was just using him to exorcise her own demons. It wasn't like he was trying to deliberately sabotage his tenuous new relationships with the kids he didn't know he had. Was he a jerk for carrying on an affair with a married woman, one who was raising two children (both biologically his) with her partner? Maybe. Maybe even definitely. But at least he did it out of LOVE, whereas she did it for...????
I think it's total bullshit that MR got totally dumped on, with every single one of them acting like he was to blame. I guess this was suppose to show that regardless of his being their biological father, the kids ultimately sided with their 'real family.' Which, DUH. OF COURSE THEY WOULD. Did MR have to be the fall guy to make that point? That was pretty lame, I must say.
The worst was AB's condemnation, "This is not your family. This is my family. If you want a family so badly, go make your own." And she calls him an interloper. HELLO, THE KIDS SOUGHT *HIM* OUT, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! And he was nothing but cool to them -- and not cool in a, sure, go do a line of coke, I won't tell, kind of cool, but cool in a real dad way! OK, yes, sleeping with one of their moms was not cool. But it wasn't like he set out to maliciously destroy their family. They found him, they all bonded, and he started falling for one of the women -- a woman who gave him, at best, mixed signals. He's as much a victim here as anyone else!
The movie leaves that completely unresolved. He goes to see Joni (the elder child) before she leaves for college to talk to her, and she basically shuns him. AB tells him off, and that's the end of the movie for MR.
Not a very satisfying ending, even though I guess it's SUPPOSED to be satisfying, because then we see Joni off to college with her family, and it's all cheesy, hammering the point home again that THEY ARE A REAL FAMILY EVEN THOUGH THERE'S NO ADULT PENIS IN IT, and AB/JM looking like they are going to be able to heal and get through it.
So a very good movie, but definitely had its flaws. Frankly I can't believe AB is getting Oscar buzz for her role. She was really, really good -- but it was not that intense a role and it was not an Oscar picture. If she gets a nomination over someone like Jennifer Lawrence it'll be really wrong. And she certainly shouldn't win over Natalie Portman.
Anyway, the music from the musical is written by Elton John, the lyrics by the guy who wrote the movie's screenplay, and it won a Tony for Best Musical. I've been wanting to see it for awhile -- it was on Broadway the last time Jade and I were in New York, but we were too busy watching Wicked and Avenue Q. And eating pizza.I actually JUST started listening to the soundtrack this morning, by total coincidence. When I got to the track "The Letter," I started bawling (I always cry during that part in the movie, too). It was a good thing traffic was going 10mph, because I couldn't see all that well from the sobbing.
The original Billy Elliot is Jamie Bell. He won the Best Actor BAFTA for the performance (so well deserved). I'm glad to see that he's gotten work as an adult, the latest being The Eagle with Channing Tatum, though he'll always be Billy to me. And no matter how successful the Harry Potter movies are, for me the best movie/role Julie Walters has been involved with is Billy Elliot as his dance instructor.
Now, for less gushing and more ranting.
The Social Network
- Was The Social Network a good movie? It was fine. Was it Best Picture material? HELLS NO. It reminded me a lot, a lot, a lot of The Pirates of Silicon Valley, that movie about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It was a bit snazzier and better written, but otherwise, practically the same movie. Would you give The Pirates of Silicon Valley a Best Picture award of any kind?
- I will admit up front that I'm not an Aaron Sorkin fan, and he wrote the script. The mile-a-minute talking, where a character says about 50 sentences in the space of half a minute, does not have me as a fan. I find it tedious and unrealistic and affected, but apparently I am alone in this because most people think Aaron Sorkin is so brilliant. (I watched 5 episodes of West Wing and had to stop, however I did love Sports Night, to be fair to AS.)
- Mark Zuckerberg seemed like a total asshole, with like, zero likable qualities. That said, the movie was based on a book that was written without MZ's input, but did have the input of his spurned once-partner. So the partner, Eduardo Saverin, looks very sympathetic. Not sure why something so obviously one-sided would still get such acclaim. Though if even half the things he says are true, MZ is still a massive dickhead. It seems pretty obvious that he stole the idea of Facebook -- not the specific idea, but the genesis of the idea -- from the Winklevoss twins. In any case, the one sentence MZ's lawyer says to him about how Saverin is an unreliable witness does not actually dispel the fact that most of the movie is presented as though it were truth.
- That Justin Timberlake. Even when he's playing a slimy turdball like Sean Parker, he's got such charisma. I can't help but like him! I'm sure I would have the opposite reaction to the actual Sean Parker.
- Ultimately, it was a movie that was watchable, even enjoyable on some level (though not a movie I'd watch repeatedly). I don't understand the accolades it's getting (JUST like the subject, Facebook), but I didn't like No Country for Old Men, either. So maybe it will be one of THOSE Oscar years where I just sit around wondering what everyone else is smoking.
- The one thing I did really like, though? The last scene. MZ sitting there after having sent a FB friend request to his one-time girlfriend, who kind of started him on the whole crusade to make a huge, successful thing, refreshing the page, waiting for her response. That was perfect.
The Kids Are All Right
I had the opposite reaction to this movie. I liked everything (pretty much) but the ending.
I was expecting the feel/look of the movie to be more like a generic comedy, like Date Night or a Ben Stiller movie. It wasn't like that. I thought both Annette Bening and Julianne Moore did great jobs ... I'm not really sure why AB is being singled out as the one who carried it. She was fabulous but not heads above JM.
The one thing I found rather inexplicable, that seems to always happen whenever we deal with a gay couple in popular culture, is JM's affair with Mark Ruffalo (who was awesomely adorable as always). SHE'S GAY. WhyTF would she sleep with him? I mean, they do as good a job as they can explaining why a lesbian secure in her sexuality would do such a thing, but that doesn't make it any less a conceit of the movie. Why can't we just see gay people being gay in movies/TV, instead of being gay, then randomly entering into heterosexual relationships?? Still, the way the affair is dealt with -- at least on the JM side -- is very well done, so I can kind of forgive them for going there.
The misunderstandings/slow dissolution of their romantic relationship between AB and JM was also very good -- but the subsequent making up was not. You never really see what JM sees in AB. Why does she love this woman? Why does she put up with someone who's like that, who treats her like that, who makes her feel like that? AB being a wonderful actress aside, her character is pretty intolerable.
Overall, the movie is alternately funny and moving in parts, without being too heavy handed on any of it. I liked it a lot.
But as I mentioned first thing, I didn't like the ending. I get that they probably didn't want some pat ending, because they were already going for a different look/feel than a typical comedy. But why did Mark Ruffalo get the short end of the stick, with all the shit dumped on him, when JM was EQUALLY CULPABLE in their affair? In fact, he was the more sympathetic of the two! He was actually falling in love with her, whereas for her, it was just a fling -- she was just using him to exorcise her own demons. It wasn't like he was trying to deliberately sabotage his tenuous new relationships with the kids he didn't know he had. Was he a jerk for carrying on an affair with a married woman, one who was raising two children (both biologically his) with her partner? Maybe. Maybe even definitely. But at least he did it out of LOVE, whereas she did it for...????
I think it's total bullshit that MR got totally dumped on, with every single one of them acting like he was to blame. I guess this was suppose to show that regardless of his being their biological father, the kids ultimately sided with their 'real family.' Which, DUH. OF COURSE THEY WOULD. Did MR have to be the fall guy to make that point? That was pretty lame, I must say.
The worst was AB's condemnation, "This is not your family. This is my family. If you want a family so badly, go make your own." And she calls him an interloper. HELLO, THE KIDS SOUGHT *HIM* OUT, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! And he was nothing but cool to them -- and not cool in a, sure, go do a line of coke, I won't tell, kind of cool, but cool in a real dad way! OK, yes, sleeping with one of their moms was not cool. But it wasn't like he set out to maliciously destroy their family. They found him, they all bonded, and he started falling for one of the women -- a woman who gave him, at best, mixed signals. He's as much a victim here as anyone else!
The movie leaves that completely unresolved. He goes to see Joni (the elder child) before she leaves for college to talk to her, and she basically shuns him. AB tells him off, and that's the end of the movie for MR.
Not a very satisfying ending, even though I guess it's SUPPOSED to be satisfying, because then we see Joni off to college with her family, and it's all cheesy, hammering the point home again that THEY ARE A REAL FAMILY EVEN THOUGH THERE'S NO ADULT PENIS IN IT, and AB/JM looking like they are going to be able to heal and get through it.
So a very good movie, but definitely had its flaws. Frankly I can't believe AB is getting Oscar buzz for her role. She was really, really good -- but it was not that intense a role and it was not an Oscar picture. If she gets a nomination over someone like Jennifer Lawrence it'll be really wrong. And she certainly shouldn't win over Natalie Portman.
