To my regret, I haven’t seen the first Elizabeth movie starring the most wonderful Cate Blanchett. (It was done in the late nineties, and Gwyneth Paltrow got the Oscar in her role as Julia in Shakespeare in Love, not Cate Blanchett for her role as the 15th century Queen Elizabeth. Well, I will not comment that. )Instead, I will comment on the nonsensical tag line of this second Elizabeth movie: Woman warrior queen
. The tagline fits with the image that we seen on posters etc. – Cate Blanchett in armor and with open, somewhat umkempt hair and dramatic sky above her. Wrong image. This movie is about costumes, aesthetics, some love, some drama, some war, but mostly about scenes that are shot and presented like paintings. Some of these were pretty nice, but in general I and the other four people with whom I went to see the movie agreed that it was quite overdone. Not to an extent that would make this a bad or dreadful movie, but to an extent that lessened the grip on the audience. There was not enough story to really keep me involved – even if the cast and the acting were perfectly fine. Many shallow characters, too few surprises or interesting twists… A pity, of course. The trailer, however, is great, so you may watch this and then make your decision if this is a cinema, a home or a not-to-be-seen-at-all film for you.
IMDb entry | Trailer
Posts Tagged ‘Cate Blanchett’
Elizabeth: The Golden Age – Woman warrior queen?
Saturday, November 17th, 2007Not too glamorous, not too moving.
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007The Oscars are over. We spent a long night in front of the TV, watching the same stupid commercials over and over again until it seemed that Pro 7 did not have any sponsors left so that they fell back on only sending commercials for their own products
. I was actually very happy that Das Leben der Anderen won the Academy Award for best foreign movie – in my experience, it was the best movie of the past year. Although I have to admit that I have neither seen Clint Eastwood’s flicks nor Pan’s Labyrinth. It was a good movie season. The ceremony itself however, was not too exciting. Some nice dresses, a good life performance by the Dreamgirls singerettes, a great Forest Whitaker and, of course, a stunningly beautiful Cate Blanchett. For my taste there was much too much Al Gore embracing and too little of the heartfelt political critique as it was expressed by Chris Cooper when he won his award for best supporting actor a few years ago.
Babel – more than words.
Thursday, February 8th, 2007Desert, borderland and the metropolis – these are the places in which the stories of this movie unfold. The places are well chosen, showing how fear and isolation can creep into every part of this world. This movie is quite humanistic, telling us about the difficulties that we face when engaging an other. Difficulties that exists because of the distance between cultures but also in the distance between individuals. I have been told that this movie tells a story about miscommunication. That is true. But it also shows how people interact with more than words. Words and bodies struggle to transport meaning and care, always looking for love or at least some help and sympathy. But they also hurt and might even kill. The film shows a very corporeal form of communication, quite in contrast to the title which seems to suggest that it is about spoken language. Thinking about it, I very much enjoyed this movie, perhaps even more so that during the time I spent in the cinema. However, I certainly won’t complain about that time: Cate Blanchett is breathtaking as always and Gael García Bernal might even be my favorite male actor, the rest of the cast doing very well, too. Go and watch this movie. Do it in the cinema, landscape is important in this movie.
IMDb entry | Trailer
Multi-layered humor.
Friday, March 18th, 2005Finally! I was quite eager to watch The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. After being pointed to this movie by Elizabeth and watching the trailers (see below) I was hooked. This was the most anticipated movie for me since the last part of The Lord of the Rings. Red woolen hats! Bill Murray. Owen Wilson. Willem Dafoe. Jeff Goldblum. The extraordinary, incredible, marvelous Cate Blanchett. What a cast! Absurd low-key humor. It has almost everything that I really like in a movie. Could it live up to these expectations? Difficult to answer. I was not disappointed after watching this movie, but I have to admit that I wasn’t gripped by uncontrollable attacks of laughter during this movie. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed it very much. The humor was less blunt than I would have thought, and I am quite sure that I will discover more and more of the brilliantly funny ideas that made watching this movie really worthwhile when I watch it again. Which I will do. Preferably in English, since I am convinced that something got lost in the translation of this movie. (heh.) There are many adorable characters in this movie. The astonishing cast works out wonderfully in this movie – I am still baffled by how different Cate Blanchett can look and act in different movies – I don’t know any other actor or actress that would be a match for her in this regard. The story is interesting, several strands interweaving, not everything being resolved, some unexpected twist of drama, characters that unfold. The interns were great. Loved the interns. I still have to smile thinking about the fact that Cate Blanchett is called “Jane Winslett-Richardson” – Steve Zissou’s ship is not the Titanic, and we don’t have Leo doing a cameo, but for me, this is just one of the many examples of the fine tuned humor of this movie. To be continued…
IMDb entry | Trailer | Webisodes
Pleasant against-the-grain-ness.
Wednesday, September 1st, 2004It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie done by Jim Jarmusch, but I always liked them. Therefore I was really looking forward to see Coffee and Cigarettes and found a nice opportunity to do so during my stay in Oslo. I did not know anything about the movie’s storyline before going in; I only knew that the cast is great (Cate Blanchett alone would make me go and watch the movie) and that the thing would be in black and white. It was fun to slowly realize how the movie is done, to guess what will come next and how it will be presented. After a while, I was pretty sure that the movie is made up of short segments that seem to be connected to each other mainly by two things: (1) people will sit at small tables with checkered design tops, drink coffee (and once a cup of tea – for the British), and smoke cigarettes. (2) People seem to have problems communicating which each other. Did I think that this is enough of a plot for a good movie? In my opinion it definitely was. I really enjoyed the slow pace, the quiet and funny moments, the strangeness. I hope you enjoy it too.
No glitter necessary.
Monday, May 10th, 2004Yesterday evening I saw Veronica Guerin. I admit that the picture of Cate Blanchett on the movie’s poster was the main reason why I wanted to see this movie, besides it obviously being a politically correct “true story”. The story is indeed politically correct, the fate of Veronica Guerin a moving, but not revolutionary one. Guerin obviously was a very courageous woman, and Cate Blanchett plays her role in a most excellent manner. Other than that the movie is very solidly made, and seems to have been carefully researched, – however, from a cinematographic perspective is has nothing inspiring to offer. Which may be a good thing for this kind of documentary…
IMDb entry | Trailer