De-Lovely

If you love Cole Porter, and who does, then this film will probably not make you all that happy. Kevin Kline does an outstanding job of playing both the old and the young Cole Porter in a film that shows you just how little there was to the famous song writer.

Like Porter's pathetic Broadway shows, the movie uses every excuse to have someone in the background singing a Porter tune. The songs are the movie's showpieces, just like the musicals that they come from, and are awkward and out of place most of the time. And to really drive home how boring and uninspiring Cole Porter's songs often were we get to hear them rendered by the likes of Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morisette. Gag me. The reality was that Porter's music was never very special and even the best of it is just Broadway fodder.

The movies highlight is definitely the incredible acting of Kevin Kline who should not have to lower himself to this kind of film. I don't want to say that the film was awful, but he is excellent the film didn't live up to him. The biggest problem with De-Lovely is that Cole Porter just doesn't seem to be a film worthy subject. He did little that is impressive, he wasn't a nice person, he wasn't incredibly evil. He was just a nobody that wrote decent music that didn't fit into any musical but had no purpose without one that somehow became famous when almost none of his work ever did. Everyone is familiar with "Anything Goes" but who has bothered to see it? I have never heard of a person who was happy after seeing a Porter show regardless of their opinion of his music.

That being said, the movie was well done, except for the bizarre musically performances, and did a good job portraying Porter's unexceptional life. The only truly amazing performance of the film is Kline himself.

Overall the movie was fine but slow and basically boring. There was little to really hold your interest as the characters of Porter's life were generally less interesting than he was himself.

Closer

The first and most important thing that I should mention about this film is that it is absolutely inappropriate for children. This is definitely an adult film. For once you can feel confident in taking the "R" rating seriously. The entire film focusing around the lives of four young adults living in London and cheating on their significant others. Other than that, the film doesn't really have any significant plot. The actors involved, all very fine in their own rights, include Clive Ownes, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Jude Law. And considering that the film garnered two Golden Globes and was nominated for two Oscars (but who really cares, like the Oscar committee has ever watched a film - I mean really, who are we kidding here?) you should expect some good performances. But the film lacked substance. You don't come away feeling anything, really, other than relatively disgusted by the people in the film.

This falls into the category of what I call a "feel bad" movie. You can't really connect with anyone in the film. You end up disliking or possibly hating them all. There are no ups or downs or climax or resolution since you wind up just not caring about anyone in the movie. It makes it hard to stay interested.

If you are bored and it is all that is around, you could do a lot worse than Closer, but if you spend any amount of money on it, like I did, then you are losing just about every penny.

Sin City

Sin City is a very difficult movie to describe. After having seen it, I find it difficult to determine exactly what the creators where attempting to make. The movie did some really interesting things with backgrounds, perspective, black and white with "hand colouring", etc. But in the end, I came away wondering "Why?" What was the point of this movie. Was it an action flick? No, it didn't pull that off. Comedy? No, definitely not. Drama? Maybe just a little, but it wasn't deep enough to be a drama. It wasn't a period piece - nothing seem to fit into any particular period. It was surreal and all over the place.

I really like the black and white with hand colouring. It was really effective without letting a very over the top violent movie get too gruesome (it was pretty gruesome as it was.) I don't think that I liked the super-surreal strange computer graphics everywhere. It wasn't an accident, the effect was intentional but I don't think that I liked it. I am not much of a fan of comic books and it was very much a comic book come to life effect. There was way too much gratuitous nudity, sex, blood, gore, violence, etc. I realize that the theme of the movie was "Sin City" but that leads most people to think of Las Vegas (which IS sin city) not just a commentary on corruption in a surreal world.

Am I trying to say that the movie was bad? No. It was, cautiously good. It falls into that "I am glad that I watched it but am really glad that I didn't end up buying it" category. This movie is definitely not a classic. It didn't break any ground. Nothing in it was extrordinary. It wasn't even all that interesting to watch. It had a lot of good people in it all doing very good jobs. The directing was good but not great. Effects left a lot to be desired but it will probably do well in the effect award categories since it is so cheesy.

Bottom line: It is a mediocre adult film.

Monarch of the Glen (TV)

It isn't very often that we get a chance to see a successful television series produced by BBC Scotland but 'Monarch of the Glen' is a clear winner. Monarch is a difficult show to categorize but for Americans who are familiar with our own 'Northern Exposure' from the early 1990's, we have a good starting point for understanding the premises of 'Monarch.' 'Monarch' takes place in the remote Scottish Highlands which smack of central Alaskan wilderness but with far better scenary. Both shows have a goofy cast of characters and involve a central player who is a successful, more or less, big city type who find himself thrust into wildnerness life. In the case of Exposure, a New York City doctor that must intern in the Alaskan wilderness to pay for school or in Monarch's case, a London restauranteur who must return to the highlands to rescue his family's estate.

However, before you connect the two shows too much, Exposure manage to ruin itself becoming lost in its obvious racial vendetta against all people native and by eventually becoming unable to maintain a coherent universe lost in all of the patently absurd characters that they were using. Monarch does not do these things. Monarch manages to bring the audience into a personal connection with the quirkly cast of highland characters. Don't be surpised if you find yourself planning a vacation to Scotland or even calling your handy UK real estate agent looking for a manor house of your own.

Monarch makes the most of the Scotish scenary, both the landscape and Dawn Steele who found fame through the show and is now considered Scotland's most beautiful native. The show is centered around the relationships of the people who live and work at Glenbogle and the show is an interesting, if unrealistic, look into Scotish life and entertainment. Not everything about the show is wonderful. Some of the characters are too over the top weird, obtuse and/or anoying and often act very unrealistically which can make any show hinting at drama lose a touch a respectability. But the show is immensley enjoyable none the less and well worth a time investment. But be sure to watch it on a good monitor - the show is shot in HDTV with a 16:9 ratio that is preserved on the DVD and it really matters for a show like this one.