Microreviews
June 29th, 2003
Frida: Life mixed with art mixed into film rather than biopic; makes you dream in color; Hayek injects life into the character and the viewer.
Emperor’s Club: Moralizing parable that tries not to be heavy-handed and fails, despite Kevin Kline’s presence; cliché-fest in which every actor is upstaged by the campus of the Emma Willard School (which also had a cameo in Scent of a Woman).
Adaptation: Irony-laden ouroboros of a film plays off of similar themes in Being John Malkovich, (nearly) sans said actor, and hovers at the brink of film school “high concept” stupidity and brilliance (while, naturally, reflecting said brinkmanship in the story itself).
Charlie’s Angels, Part Deux: Take the trailer, drop it in water, it expands to two hours; which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a summer popcorn flick.
The Fourth Hand: Unlike The World According to Garp, a Prayer for Owen Meany, or the Cider House Rules, this Irving novel about a man who has sex with many women, falls in love with one, and has his hand bitten off by a lion is unlikely to be the next film adaptation; unless Charlie Kaufman options it. (Update: turns out that the first third of a Widow for One Year is the next one up, later this year.)
June 30th, 2003 at 4:30 pm
Hmm, didn’t Trotsky get assasinated at Frida’s house? Was that in the movie?
June 30th, 2003 at 5:22 pm
The assasination was in his own home, and his ashes are still interred there, I think. But yes, the assisination appears in the film. Trotsky and Kahlo had an affair, and Kahlo was also acquainted with his assassin, which led to her questioning after the assassination. On the other hand, she renounced Trotsky after his death, and the last portrait she painted in her life, which was left unfinished, was of Stalin, whom she admired greatly.