Stealing From My Livejournal Part XXII

As I use my livejournal for little else except for movie rants and decided to switch over here, I thought I'd recruit some older posts so as to show a history. I'll bother with new ones as they come to me.



From January 16, 2009:

"But what a movie! Frost/Nixon was really good. Really, really good. For my generation especially who wasn't alive in the time on the Watergate scandal and Nixon's time as a prominent political figure (...president) it is hard not to at times think "wow, I wonder if there's another president who deserves some accountability!" But it's not the current political landscape that really makes the movie so good. It's that after you see it you think to yourself, wow, I just sat through two hours with little movement much less physical action or sexual behaviour, and yet that was intense... and amazing. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella both dominated their roles, really making the audience feel for both of them (of course, Langella had the harder job, no doubt) in so many different ways. I never fully loved either of the characters, nor fully hated them, but there was no way I couldn't connect with and understand both of them at times. Of course, the writing certainly helped that (and, y'know, the real life events). But the film as a whole, nothing too particular, is what made the film so strong. It didn't work for your attention. It didn't try to substitute a lack of physical action with intense music or anything that was over the top (unlike Doubt, another play-turned-movie with little action, which I felt really didn't do quite so well with what it had). It simply was a magnificent film, no matter if it matched up perfectly with history or not, it keeps the spirit, so far as I'm aware, of the historical presence it draws from around and alive.

Frost/Nixon stays in my five. And no doubt it'll be in the Academy's.

So here is my five at the moment, the five I hope for, the five I want, the five I've seen, the five I expect
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (well, I don't really want this one as much as the others, but it'll get there. There needs to be some sort of traditionally epic film in there)
- The Dark Knight
- Frost/Nixon
- Milk
- Slumdog Millionaire (which will go on to win)

I'll kick something very, very hard if The Dark Knight gets muscled out. If any of the movies on my list deserves the boot, it's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."