by Amanda Bulman
The Watchman Movie.
The Watchmen looks like it has the potential to be one of those I -don’t want-it-to -end, movie experiences. The previews are visually stimulating, the actress who plays Sally Jupiter is so beautiful as to be frightening, and the script is based almost entirely on the award winning book. So why am I sceptical? Well for one Hollywood has a habit of fucking up books that I love. Pride and Prejudice(excepting the BBC version starring the sponge worthy Colin firth),V is for Vendetta, and A Scanner Darkly are probably the most perfect examples of good literature turned bad via the silver screen.
Secondly I believe that directors, script writers, and producers doubt their audience’s intelligence. Most of the blame for screwing up my favourite books brought to the big screen, lies with direction(and whoever has made the decision to cast Keanu Reeves, but then that’s a different story). Directors seem to think that viewing audiences are mindless and incapable of understanding the complexity of novels, and thus movie goers get to see bland, boring, and simple versions of some of the world’s most beautiful books. The director of The Watchmen already has a few strikes to his name. He is the man responsible for the monstrosity that was 300. The only way that film could have been worse is if the casting director had decided that Arnold Swartzenegger would make a perfect and hard Spartan wife. Even Frank Miller(a man with legendary amounts of arrogance) admitted to being embarrassed after 300 was released. So, due to what will surely be poor directing and the habit of Hollywood to wreck good literature I remain Sceptical.
Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel in the upcoming Biopic
I love the fashion legacy of Coco Chanel as much as the next style obsessed female. I really do. I yearn for a black quilted bag with interlocking C’s. I buy clothes that emphasize my boyish frame. I’ve lived my life in LBD’s, dedicated an unhealthy amount of time to the hunt for the perfect sportswear separates, and I have even attempted to wear a straw boater in public(much to the dismay of cooler friends). But Chanel herself, wasn’t all glamour, good times and high flying friends. She also was not the first feminist fashion designer. In actuality Gabriel “Coco” Chanel was a snobby elitist, who scorned those who didn’t dress in her own simple manner, who appeared to hate those women who were more famous or beautiful than herself, and who was, according to popular rumour, a Nazi sympathizer.
So why is Hollywood going out of it’s way to martyr and celebrate a woman, whose legacy in fashion is large, but whose personal life was riddled with mistakes and highly questionable, even racist, beliefs? I realize that recent popular biopics also featured individuals who made mistakes(Jonny Cash, Ray Charles), but the bad life choices of these
singers a)helped them achieve greatness, and b) seem minute compared to the crime of hating and plotting against large sections of the world’s population. An even better question might be to ask why Hollywood is making a film about fashion and materialism in such hard economic times. I mean I believe in the movies as an escape as much as the next girl, but watching a film about glamour, wine, caviar, and scarily priced hotel suites, when I can barely afford the ten dollar ticket isn’t escapism-it’s torture. And finally why would anyone cast sweet-as-pie, baby faced Audrey Tautou as the hard, and ill-humoured Coco Chanel?
He’s Just Not That Into You
The upcoming release of He’s Just Not That Into You, is the winter movie that inspires the most doubt. The idea of basing a plot driven film on a plotless pop psych book penned by a TV writer (who I’m sure has loads of experience and qualification in counselling psychology) seems completely stupid at best. To begin with, the book and movie could not share a more mean spirited title, it reminds me of the time I spied Depression for Dummies, and The Complete Idiots Guide to Confidence, on the shelves of Indigo. Secondly the message of the book(and presumably the movie ) is that sometimes men that you may want to date, for some inexplicable reason, just do not want to be with you. This advice is so obvious, so simple, and so similar to the advice that moms the world over have been dishing out for years, that I cannot fathom why anyone should be buying this book for twenty dollars, or seeing the movie for ten.
The film also stars a whole host of individuals who maybe shouldn’t be acting anymore. Drew Barrymore may have been cute in her prime, but it’s been awhile since I enjoyed watching her be annoyingly bubbly on screen. And since when did the Mac guy(Justin Long) play serious characters? It’s got an Ashton Kutcher wants to be taken seriously in the Butterfly Effect vibe to it. Finally, I wish I could I deep six Scarlett Johansen from Hollywood for the good of humanity. Knowing that a beautiful woman who can barely emote, can find work in Hollywood when thousands of more talented(but less physically stunning) actors and actresses struggle to find work hurts my head and haunts my dreams. Silly Hollywood.
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