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Spoilers, Ho!
Saturday night, we had a spaghetti 'n meatballs festa at my house, and Cher, Bemo, and I watched Quills, which none of us had seen yet. Firstly, what a *gorgeous* movie - not just in that the leads are damn attractive, but in that the whole movie's visual style is just fantastic. Everybody in the movie was, if not actually stunningly gorgeous (Joachim Phoenix looks mighty fine in a priest's cassock), very *interesting* to look at. Having De Sade as the central character your movie circles around means that your movie is going to walk up to and then gleefully hop over a lot of lines regarding sexuality, religion, and madness. Then, the movie added an long look at identity, and what happens when that identity is denied to them. De Sade still has the power to shock today, and the movie let us see his extremes pretty clearly, and there was no attempt to soften him, or make him more likeable.
So Cher kindly lent us her copy of A History of Violence, which Bemo and I watched yesterday. I've been looking forward to it for a while, actually, but for some reason I don't think I heard when it came out on DVD, so I never put it on my Netflix queue. At any rate, I have to say it really lived up to my expectations. (And between watching this and Quills in the same day, it was kind of an overload of sex and violence *g*) History of Violence was taut, intense, and stripped-down in the best way possible, I think. I've read a few reviews about the director and his personal quirks, but not being a moviephile nor having ever seen any of his work (his early stuff was horror, I gather? And then he shifted into more mainstream stuff?) I have nothing to compare the movie to but itself. I think Viggo was perfectly suited for this kind of role - he is a quiet actor to a great degree, and he was able to transition between Tom and Joey very subtly. It was primarily in his voice, at first, and then it starts affecting his physical gestures, but not to any screamingly obvious degree. Very strong, occasionally disturbingly hot, gore but only in small flashes that somehow make it a bit worse because of how the director times them, and an ending that is very nicely ambiguous.
Saturday night, we had a spaghetti 'n meatballs festa at my house, and Cher, Bemo, and I watched Quills, which none of us had seen yet. Firstly, what a *gorgeous* movie - not just in that the leads are damn attractive, but in that the whole movie's visual style is just fantastic. Everybody in the movie was, if not actually stunningly gorgeous (Joachim Phoenix looks mighty fine in a priest's cassock), very *interesting* to look at. Having De Sade as the central character your movie circles around means that your movie is going to walk up to and then gleefully hop over a lot of lines regarding sexuality, religion, and madness. Then, the movie added an long look at identity, and what happens when that identity is denied to them. De Sade still has the power to shock today, and the movie let us see his extremes pretty clearly, and there was no attempt to soften him, or make him more likeable.
So Cher kindly lent us her copy of A History of Violence, which Bemo and I watched yesterday. I've been looking forward to it for a while, actually, but for some reason I don't think I heard when it came out on DVD, so I never put it on my Netflix queue. At any rate, I have to say it really lived up to my expectations. (And between watching this and Quills in the same day, it was kind of an overload of sex and violence *g*) History of Violence was taut, intense, and stripped-down in the best way possible, I think. I've read a few reviews about the director and his personal quirks, but not being a moviephile nor having ever seen any of his work (his early stuff was horror, I gather? And then he shifted into more mainstream stuff?) I have nothing to compare the movie to but itself. I think Viggo was perfectly suited for this kind of role - he is a quiet actor to a great degree, and he was able to transition between Tom and Joey very subtly. It was primarily in his voice, at first, and then it starts affecting his physical gestures, but not to any screamingly obvious degree. Very strong, occasionally disturbingly hot, gore but only in small flashes that somehow make it a bit worse because of how the director times them, and an ending that is very nicely ambiguous.