My Ben Affleck phase was over ten years ago. He was the main reason I saw Armageddon so many times (although not the only reason for multiple viewings of Shakespeare in Love) and the only reason I saw Forces of Nature at all. I quite enjoyed Good Will Hunting although I thought it was a little overrated--at the time, most teenage girls were either a Ben fan or a Matt fan and I was definitely in the former camp. By the time Pearl Harbor rolled around and then State of Play, he wasn't enough to draw me in. I liked State of Play a lot but not because of Ben.
When I saw the posters for The Town a few weeks ago, however, I was hopeful--and not just because Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall and Jeremy Renner were in the cast. I knew Affleck Major would be acting as well as directing but I didn't realise he would be playing the anti-hero. Anyway, the boy did good. The Town is an action/heist thriller set in the Charlestown neighbourhood of Boston, which is described at the beginning as a 'hood filled with wannabe bank robbers and other assorted lawless cronies. Funny: when I was last there, it seemed perfectly nice...
Doug (Ben Affleck) and his buddies rob banks but not in the charismatic way of Billy Bob and Bruce in Bandits; more like the Ex-Presidents in Point Break. No, they go in guns blazing and have their wicked way thanks to inside information supplied by Pete Postlethwaite playing a florist/criminal. In the first job of the movie, they decide to kidnap the bank manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), blindfolding her and taking her out to a beach before letting her go and telling her to "walk until her feet get wet" before taking off her blindfold. Enter Don Draper, FBI agent. He thinks Claire let the baddies have the money all too easily and so puts her under surveillance. Doug, meanwhile, decides to track down Claire (he has her driving licence) and find out what she knows and what she told the law. Except, of course, they rather like each other and start dating--Claire doesn't recognise Doug's voice so it's all great. But then Ben wants to quit his criminal ways and run away to Floria.
His crony Jim (Jeremy Renner) isn't happy about this betrayal--he wants Doug to stay in Charlestown with him (Jim) and his sister Krista (Blake Lively), a slutty coke whore with a two-year-old daughter she claims is Doug's. Postleflorist isn't happy about Doug's desire to get the hell out of Dodge either; he doesn't trust the rest of the gang to execute his perfectly laid criminal plans without Doug. So Doug just has to do one last heist before he and Claire can run off into the sunset. Like that's going to go well...
Overall, I thought it was a solid thriller with some good action sequences and plenty of tension. Hall's performance reminded me of her role in Red Riding, in some ways, and Ben, directing himself, did a decent job, although I mainly had eyes for Don Draper. The most surreal scene was between Don and Serena van der Woodsen in a dive bar. Don wants information about Doug and co, and knows Serena has been trafficking. Later on, the charm returns when Don comforts an upset Claire with a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Serena's wardrobe was, interestingly, the same in The Town where she plays a rather different character to the spoiled, rich girl from the Upper East Side she plays in Gossip Girl. Old habits die hard...
25 September 2010
09 September 2010
Via Media
1533 wasn't a good year for Mary Tudor. Her father married his second wife and then several months later had his marriage to Mary's mother annulled and it was less than four months later that half-sister Elizabeth arrived. Naturally, 17-year-old Mary was highly unimpressed to have her princess status withdrawn and her household reduced, all in favour of this bastard daughter of a whore. Three years later, though, the whore had been executed and the bastard was offiicially bastardised (Elizabeth remained, technically, bastard because Henry never reversed this legislation and although Mary reversed her own bastardy, Elizabeth didn't want to risk opening old wounds by making any official or legislative statement on her own legitimacy).
Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, is often credited with bringing together Henry's two daughters and fostering good relations between them. Maybe she helped or maybe Mary, by then 20 years old and despite many promised matches with a range of royal European hotties, was unhappily single and probably enjoyed mothering her much younger sister. Besides, they were both bastards then and so on equal footing and thanks, perhaps, to their new step-mother, Henry started to show them both more favour.
Catherine Parr, Henry's last wife, despite being only five years older than Mary herself, is also credited with bringing some unity to the Tudor family. The trouble started, though, after Henry died because then the sisters' younger brother Edward was king and he and those who ruled on his behalf weren't terribly keen on Catholics like Mary. Elizabeth, meanwhile, was having a whale of a time living in Chelsea with her step-mother and the step-mother's new husband, the rakish Thomas Seymour. Romps in the bedroom? Sure! Play fighting? Absolutely! Inappropriate shenanigans? Hell, yes. This was all sanctioned, though, because Elizabeth and her sort-of-step-father were under the watch of Catherine. Meanwhile, Catholic plots centred around getting Mary back on the throne.
Once Edward had died, very young despite not being a very sickly child, and Mary had dealt swiftly and decisively with poor Lady Jane Grey and the people truly responsible for LJG's coronation (mainly her grasping new father-in-law, also Edward's second Lord Protector, the self-proclaimed Duke of Northumberland), she set about turning back all of the reformist changes to the English church that had been brought in during the reigns of her father and brother. Naturally, then, plotters of a reformist bent (such as Thomas Wyatt the younger et al.) tended to focus on getting quietly Protestant Elizabeth back on the throne. Usually Elizabeth knew nothing of the plots until she was accused of conspiring with the rebels but that mattered little to Mary's distrustful advisors.
Perhaps Mary was too naive though. Although she was pushing 38 at the time of her coronation, she was desperate to marry and since her father preferred to let the promise of his eldest daughter serve as a more useful bargaining tool in international diplomacy than actually marrying her off, she had to organise this herself. Luckily, her cousin Charles V's son Philip was up for it (well, up for assimilating England into his evil empire) and Mary assumed children would soon follow and so she wouldn't have to worry about Elizabeth inheriting the throne.
Instead, she was more concerned about Elizabeth's soul and tried very hard to convert her to Catholicism--for her own good. This drove Mary's advisors crazy--as long as Elizabeth was alive, she would (willingly or otherwise) be a focus for any plots against Mary--but Mary refused to condemn Elizabeth to death no matter how badly Elizabeth's actions seemed to contravene her own beliefs. Specifically, why wouldn't Elizabeth go to mass? In her own reign, Elizabeth tended to follow the "via media" (middle road) in terms of religious policy--going back to a sort of reformist church but not to the extent of Edward's reign.
Ultimately, though, Elizabeth was a politician and after years of arguments and tantrums, she realised that if she just said the words Mary wanted to hear and do the things Mary wanted her to do, that would be enough to keep the peace. So she attended mass and although Mary's advisors said she was just going through the motions, Mary refused to believe them. Elizabeth had finally shed her stubborn shell and, in the name of just moving on, offered a compromise. Sometimes, it is the easiest thing to do.
Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, is often credited with bringing together Henry's two daughters and fostering good relations between them. Maybe she helped or maybe Mary, by then 20 years old and despite many promised matches with a range of royal European hotties, was unhappily single and probably enjoyed mothering her much younger sister. Besides, they were both bastards then and so on equal footing and thanks, perhaps, to their new step-mother, Henry started to show them both more favour.
Catherine Parr, Henry's last wife, despite being only five years older than Mary herself, is also credited with bringing some unity to the Tudor family. The trouble started, though, after Henry died because then the sisters' younger brother Edward was king and he and those who ruled on his behalf weren't terribly keen on Catholics like Mary. Elizabeth, meanwhile, was having a whale of a time living in Chelsea with her step-mother and the step-mother's new husband, the rakish Thomas Seymour. Romps in the bedroom? Sure! Play fighting? Absolutely! Inappropriate shenanigans? Hell, yes. This was all sanctioned, though, because Elizabeth and her sort-of-step-father were under the watch of Catherine. Meanwhile, Catholic plots centred around getting Mary back on the throne.
Once Edward had died, very young despite not being a very sickly child, and Mary had dealt swiftly and decisively with poor Lady Jane Grey and the people truly responsible for LJG's coronation (mainly her grasping new father-in-law, also Edward's second Lord Protector, the self-proclaimed Duke of Northumberland), she set about turning back all of the reformist changes to the English church that had been brought in during the reigns of her father and brother. Naturally, then, plotters of a reformist bent (such as Thomas Wyatt the younger et al.) tended to focus on getting quietly Protestant Elizabeth back on the throne. Usually Elizabeth knew nothing of the plots until she was accused of conspiring with the rebels but that mattered little to Mary's distrustful advisors.
Perhaps Mary was too naive though. Although she was pushing 38 at the time of her coronation, she was desperate to marry and since her father preferred to let the promise of his eldest daughter serve as a more useful bargaining tool in international diplomacy than actually marrying her off, she had to organise this herself. Luckily, her cousin Charles V's son Philip was up for it (well, up for assimilating England into his evil empire) and Mary assumed children would soon follow and so she wouldn't have to worry about Elizabeth inheriting the throne.
Instead, she was more concerned about Elizabeth's soul and tried very hard to convert her to Catholicism--for her own good. This drove Mary's advisors crazy--as long as Elizabeth was alive, she would (willingly or otherwise) be a focus for any plots against Mary--but Mary refused to condemn Elizabeth to death no matter how badly Elizabeth's actions seemed to contravene her own beliefs. Specifically, why wouldn't Elizabeth go to mass? In her own reign, Elizabeth tended to follow the "via media" (middle road) in terms of religious policy--going back to a sort of reformist church but not to the extent of Edward's reign.
Ultimately, though, Elizabeth was a politician and after years of arguments and tantrums, she realised that if she just said the words Mary wanted to hear and do the things Mary wanted her to do, that would be enough to keep the peace. So she attended mass and although Mary's advisors said she was just going through the motions, Mary refused to believe them. Elizabeth had finally shed her stubborn shell and, in the name of just moving on, offered a compromise. Sometimes, it is the easiest thing to do.
07 September 2010
Ceci N'est Pas Normal
Despite la grève, I managed to catch a train to Nice today; three or four trains ran between the two towns throughout the course of the day, it seems. When you leave the train station in Nice, you reach avenue Jean Médecin, the main drag in the new town, fairly quickly.
Today, though, despite the sparse but heavy droplets of rain, there were more demonstrations/strikes going on, involving a huge march down Jean Médecin. There seemed to be assorted aggrieved people including EDF workers, GDF workers and the firemen. The firemen were on strike in Cannes last week and were, apparently, spending their time off at the beach. Not so in Nice where they seemed to be setting fire to stuff and throwing explosives around. Exciting! Luckily, the police were on their Segways (!), ready to step in to mediate if the need arose (assuming they weren't on strike too, of course).
I wandered around the shops for a while and almost even bought an item of clothing in H&M but because it is physically impossible for me to shop for pleasure in France, I changed my mind. I ate my lunch (crêpe jambon et fromage; when in France...) in the Place Masséna, a large square at the boundary between the old and new towns. I was sitting next to one of the vélib hire stations (or vélo bleus, as they call them here). Note the lock and decent-size basket. As it was still raining, I decided not to take one of the bikes for a spin and instead purveyed myself a chocolate macaroon from Le Nôtre (when in France...).
A second near-purchase came later on when I spotted a very Magrittesque book shelf in a shop in Vieux Nice. It's a clever idea and you can even choose your own cover design from a selection (although if the shelf is being used, you wouldn't really see the cover). I felt 45 euros was a little too surreal a price, however.
On the way back to the station, I spotted a cafe whose name embodies the French trend of picking one or two random English words and pairing it/them with another English word or a French name. Why Nice in this case. Why, indeed, you may well ask. As there wasn't a question mark, it may just have been an exclamation: "why Nice, you sexy little town!" Qui sait?
ETA: This may also have had something to do with the craziness in the streets of Nice today.
Today, though, despite the sparse but heavy droplets of rain, there were more demonstrations/strikes going on, involving a huge march down Jean Médecin. There seemed to be assorted aggrieved people including EDF workers, GDF workers and the firemen. The firemen were on strike in Cannes last week and were, apparently, spending their time off at the beach. Not so in Nice where they seemed to be setting fire to stuff and throwing explosives around. Exciting! Luckily, the police were on their Segways (!), ready to step in to mediate if the need arose (assuming they weren't on strike too, of course).
I wandered around the shops for a while and almost even bought an item of clothing in H&M but because it is physically impossible for me to shop for pleasure in France, I changed my mind. I ate my lunch (crêpe jambon et fromage; when in France...) in the Place Masséna, a large square at the boundary between the old and new towns. I was sitting next to one of the vélib hire stations (or vélo bleus, as they call them here). Note the lock and decent-size basket. As it was still raining, I decided not to take one of the bikes for a spin and instead purveyed myself a chocolate macaroon from Le Nôtre (when in France...).
A second near-purchase came later on when I spotted a very Magrittesque book shelf in a shop in Vieux Nice. It's a clever idea and you can even choose your own cover design from a selection (although if the shelf is being used, you wouldn't really see the cover). I felt 45 euros was a little too surreal a price, however.
On the way back to the station, I spotted a cafe whose name embodies the French trend of picking one or two random English words and pairing it/them with another English word or a French name. Why Nice in this case. Why, indeed, you may well ask. As there wasn't a question mark, it may just have been an exclamation: "why Nice, you sexy little town!" Qui sait?
ETA: This may also have had something to do with the craziness in the streets of Nice today.
06 September 2010
Judging Books
I've spotted quite a few people reading books from the Steig Larsson trilogy on the way to and in France; they were, however, without exception, the English editions. So I almost didn't recognise the first book of the trilogy when I came across it in one of Cannes' embarrassingly (but not surprisingly?) limited selection of bookshops. Les hommes qui n'aimaient pas les femmes ("men who didn't like women" -- close to the Swedish original "men who hate women" although I'm not sure why the past tense was used) occupied less shelf space in this Cannes bookshop than its English counterpart but then there are fewer shelves.
Would I have even picked up the book on the basis of the French cover (left)? Probably not, on the basis of the cover alone, although given the hype and volume of chatter about the books this year and last, I'm sure I would have checked the books out regardless. The French cover makes me think of some Flowers in the Attic or other Virginia Adams pulp fiction rather than complex, epic crime thriller.
The Swedish cover, meanwhile, does make me think "crime thriller." I remembered that the original (pre-movie) English cover was red and yellow and had a tattooed girl on it but I couldn't remember its style--perhaps I never looked at it properly and now it's so ubiquitous, I only need to spot a little red and yellow to identify it. Actually, though, looking at it now on Amazon, I do remember seeing rows and rows of it in the window of Daunt Books and my first reaction was, "is this another Amy Tan type book?" Not knowing any more, I was never enticed in to read it until the third book came out and I was eventually tempted into reading all three. And yes, I do prefer the pre-movie English cover to that of the movie edition.
The Swedish cover, meanwhile, does make me think "crime thriller." I remembered that the original (pre-movie) English cover was red and yellow and had a tattooed girl on it but I couldn't remember its style--perhaps I never looked at it properly and now it's so ubiquitous, I only need to spot a little red and yellow to identify it. Actually, though, looking at it now on Amazon, I do remember seeing rows and rows of it in the window of Daunt Books and my first reaction was, "is this another Amy Tan type book?" Not knowing any more, I was never enticed in to read it until the third book came out and I was eventually tempted into reading all three. And yes, I do prefer the pre-movie English cover to that of the movie edition.
05 September 2010
Working Girls
For a town so renowned for its film festival, the movie options in Cannes tonight was somewhat mediocre. Excluding the films I've already seen, my choice was limited to a) a French Kristin Scott Thomas psychological thriller, b) The Expendendables dubbed into French and c) some random Korean film dubbed into French. I had sworn off KST films after seeing the interminable Partir, but I didn't fancy seeing how Jason Statham's cockney accent would come out in French and the translation loss was only going to be worse in the Korean film.
So KST film it was, specifically Crime d'amour. And actually, it was pretty good, not least because KST plays an utter bitch (of the Katharine Parker / Miranda Priestly genre) rather than a very sad woman with a troubled past and lots of moping to be done. There was no moping in Crime d'Amour; instead it has touches of Working Girl with a splash of Fatal Attraction for good measure. KST plays Christine, the head honcho at the Paris branch of some multinational agri company; Ludivine Sagnier plays Isabelle, the number two, although from the way Christine treats her, you would think she was more of a secretary or a personal assistant. Spoilers follow, but only because otherwise I could only talk about the first half of the film.
Anyway, Isabelle works super-hard, staying up late to put the finishing touches on her projects, doesn't have time to see her sister and her family, and doesn't have much of a social life beyond the gym but she is good at her job and Christine tells her so often. But then Christine takes credit for Isa's work one time too many and tells Isa she's got to be more ruthless if she wants to get ahead. So Isa schemes with the help of an admiring (male) minion to make sure the guys in the US office realise who is really the brains behind the company's latest successes. And the US bosses decide that maybe they shouldn't be so hasty in promoting Christine to be the head of the New York office. Natch, Christine isn't very pleased about this and decides to put Isa back in her place (It helps that they're both screwing the same guy, another colleague).
Except Christine has underestimated her protégée and how far she will go to get ahead and avenge the wrongs that have been done to her. She goes to Christine's house and stabs her to death having first donned gloves and a protective suit. She then proceeds to frame herself, using Christine's finger to write "Isa" in her own blood on the floor and placing a scrap of material from Isa's scarf in Christine's hand. Isa is soon arrested and sent to prison in an, apparently, drugged out stupor. Of course, we know Isa wouldn't have framed herself for murder without some scheme in mind and sure enough, all of her meticulous plans soon pay off as the police realise their "mistake" and circle in on the "real" culprit. Meanwhile, Isa gets Christine's job and it's looking like she'll be promoted to the US office as well. But did she cover all of her tracks or might one of the minions know something? And what if in ousting Christine, she had to become like Christine and steal a bit of glory on the way up?
Crime d'Amour was entertaining and sharp and I do like meticulously planned plots; Isa really must have a criminal mind. It did amuse me that all the guys in the film were either idiots or cads (or both). Ludivine Sagnier had to be a good 20 years younger than a lot of the men sitting around the company's boardroom table and yet she and Christine have trumped them all. Meanwhile, all the secretaries and more junior employees seem to be men. Is the point just that if you let two women run a company, they'll just waste all of their energy competing with each other and, ultimately, destroying each other? Is the point that this ridiculousness wouldn't have happened if the company was run by men? I don't think the film would have been very effective with two male leads or even with a male boss and female protégée.
Gender politics aside, KST's and Sagnier's performances were very convincing and the film was way better than Les Expendables would have been. And I can't say fairer than that.
So KST film it was, specifically Crime d'amour. And actually, it was pretty good, not least because KST plays an utter bitch (of the Katharine Parker / Miranda Priestly genre) rather than a very sad woman with a troubled past and lots of moping to be done. There was no moping in Crime d'Amour; instead it has touches of Working Girl with a splash of Fatal Attraction for good measure. KST plays Christine, the head honcho at the Paris branch of some multinational agri company; Ludivine Sagnier plays Isabelle, the number two, although from the way Christine treats her, you would think she was more of a secretary or a personal assistant. Spoilers follow, but only because otherwise I could only talk about the first half of the film.
Anyway, Isabelle works super-hard, staying up late to put the finishing touches on her projects, doesn't have time to see her sister and her family, and doesn't have much of a social life beyond the gym but she is good at her job and Christine tells her so often. But then Christine takes credit for Isa's work one time too many and tells Isa she's got to be more ruthless if she wants to get ahead. So Isa schemes with the help of an admiring (male) minion to make sure the guys in the US office realise who is really the brains behind the company's latest successes. And the US bosses decide that maybe they shouldn't be so hasty in promoting Christine to be the head of the New York office. Natch, Christine isn't very pleased about this and decides to put Isa back in her place (It helps that they're both screwing the same guy, another colleague).
Except Christine has underestimated her protégée and how far she will go to get ahead and avenge the wrongs that have been done to her. She goes to Christine's house and stabs her to death having first donned gloves and a protective suit. She then proceeds to frame herself, using Christine's finger to write "Isa" in her own blood on the floor and placing a scrap of material from Isa's scarf in Christine's hand. Isa is soon arrested and sent to prison in an, apparently, drugged out stupor. Of course, we know Isa wouldn't have framed herself for murder without some scheme in mind and sure enough, all of her meticulous plans soon pay off as the police realise their "mistake" and circle in on the "real" culprit. Meanwhile, Isa gets Christine's job and it's looking like she'll be promoted to the US office as well. But did she cover all of her tracks or might one of the minions know something? And what if in ousting Christine, she had to become like Christine and steal a bit of glory on the way up?
Crime d'Amour was entertaining and sharp and I do like meticulously planned plots; Isa really must have a criminal mind. It did amuse me that all the guys in the film were either idiots or cads (or both). Ludivine Sagnier had to be a good 20 years younger than a lot of the men sitting around the company's boardroom table and yet she and Christine have trumped them all. Meanwhile, all the secretaries and more junior employees seem to be men. Is the point just that if you let two women run a company, they'll just waste all of their energy competing with each other and, ultimately, destroying each other? Is the point that this ridiculousness wouldn't have happened if the company was run by men? I don't think the film would have been very effective with two male leads or even with a male boss and female protégée.
Gender politics aside, KST's and Sagnier's performances were very convincing and the film was way better than Les Expendables would have been. And I can't say fairer than that.