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Yesterday was a looooong day. I woke up really early and stayed up for 22 hours. I think I slept for about 7.5, which is about as good as I can hope for. Today's plans include lots and lots of homework, and trying to avoid the demon internet so that I can get (something, anything) done.
At least, as it turns out, this chunk-o-Nietzsche that I have to read for school is not the 100+ pages of the last gruelling Nietzsche assignment (Twilight of the Idols in the Viking Portable Nietzsche, read in under a week - I kept falling asleep), it's just five pages. But I also need to catch up on the reading, and that's a few hundred pages. Baaaaah.
I may go to a play later tonight, if I can get cheap tickets. I do get a student discount, at least. I may also go to this local cultural festival.
So! yesterday. I decided to go to the movies to see The Count of Monte Cristo, but it was actually sold-out when we got there. Then we said fine, we'll go see LOTR again... this is the last theater in the area where it's still playing. It was an afternoon showing, a late matinee. ALSO SOLD OUT. (How long has that movie been out?) So against my wishes and better judgment, I went to see... Queen of the Damned.
OW, MY EARS!
Movie review: The script sucks ass. Multiple asses. There is, particularly, some howlingly bad expository dialogue (check out the press conference at the beginning!). The sound was up waaaaaaay too loud - we had to get it turned down a notch, but this seems to be a feature in most theaters, because I've read similar complaints in several reviews from around the country. The movie was fun to mock. Even so, there were a few saving graces.
A secret: about ten years ago... a little more, now... I was a bit of a vampire spud. The Vampire Lestat was my favorite of the Anne Rice books, and I stayed with them until Memnoch The Devil, which I couldn't finish. Queen of the Damned always seemed to me like something cinematically paced, the first of the novels that didn't entirely have a first-person narrator. Lots of threads, a compelling backstory. Not the best book ever, of course. But a pleasant escapist read for a ninth-grader.
I was really disappointed that a lot of my favorite things in the book were left out of the movie. Anne Rice writes historical fiction much better than contemporary fiction, and her Egyptian backstory was almost entirely discarded. The character of Lestat was also changed a lot: instead of being a picked-on younger-brother then vampirically created by an insane vampire who didn't teach him a thing, they made him the protege of Marius, who was not much like his character in the books - no Romanitas. This made a good portion of the movie seem like a simple, irritating rehash of Interview With the Vampire, watching Lestat educate Louis. The "family tree" was just as I had imagined it, only smaller and outdoors. Other major characters appeared towards the end of the movie (recognize Pandora? Mael? Armand? I did...) but had no story accompanying them, and ended up really just seeming like nameless weird kids in eccentric costumes and makeup. Some of these things had to be trimmed, obviously, but since other parts of the movie were just gratuitous and silly....
Stuart Townsend is indeed as hot as I'd heard, but... he reminded me, especially in terms of playing Lestat, of several sexy-but-annoying goth boys I have dated. That took away some of the charm. He and the actress who played Jesse had fantastic chemistry, though, and the scenes where they were together were the best in the movie, rising above the bad script.
Although David Talbot was not as described in the books (younger, I think), I very much liked the fact that he was used in the movie. He's a character I've always liked.
Poor Aaliyah. Because the backstory was never told, aside from her nifty ability to cause spontaneous combustion with a flick of her bored little hand, the audience had no idea why Akasha was really supposed to be so evil and awful. She looked great, albeit on the anorexic side.
Special effects were decent. Hair and makeup were generally, um, interesting, and well done. Does it seem to anyone else like the band and especially their videos were based on Smashing Pumpkins, even if the songs were written by Jonathan Davis from Korn? I didn't hate the songs. Not really my cup of tea, but the Lestat-as-rock-star conceit always seemed to me like the most unbelievably dorky part of the book, and they did what they could to try to pull it off. & apparently these people have never been to the average ookyspay oncertcay. they aren't that big, usually, unless you get a lot more than spooky kids and the random Metal Chick.
Some cracks I made during the film:
"I am the TANpire Lestat!" - (when he discovers that he can withstand sunlight)
"Ow, damn, I just got staked by the spikes on that kid's collar! - *poof*" - vamps standing in the audience at the concert.
"Where's Buffy when you REALLY, REALLY need her?"
oh, there was a lot more, but you had to be there.
end result: while it has a few good scenes, and I was generally entertained, I don't think it was a very good movie. Slick, and better than some other horror movies, but it would have benefitted from a better script with fewer plot holes; as a miniseries on some cable network it might have been great. It's ripe for the MST3K treatment.
OK, now that I have done this, I am going to go be educationally productive, and twitch while I await the new season of Six Feet Under that starts tonight. oooooh!
At least, as it turns out, this chunk-o-Nietzsche that I have to read for school is not the 100+ pages of the last gruelling Nietzsche assignment (Twilight of the Idols in the Viking Portable Nietzsche, read in under a week - I kept falling asleep), it's just five pages. But I also need to catch up on the reading, and that's a few hundred pages. Baaaaah.
I may go to a play later tonight, if I can get cheap tickets. I do get a student discount, at least. I may also go to this local cultural festival.
So! yesterday. I decided to go to the movies to see The Count of Monte Cristo, but it was actually sold-out when we got there. Then we said fine, we'll go see LOTR again... this is the last theater in the area where it's still playing. It was an afternoon showing, a late matinee. ALSO SOLD OUT. (How long has that movie been out?) So against my wishes and better judgment, I went to see... Queen of the Damned.
OW, MY EARS!
Movie review: The script sucks ass. Multiple asses. There is, particularly, some howlingly bad expository dialogue (check out the press conference at the beginning!). The sound was up waaaaaaay too loud - we had to get it turned down a notch, but this seems to be a feature in most theaters, because I've read similar complaints in several reviews from around the country. The movie was fun to mock. Even so, there were a few saving graces.
A secret: about ten years ago... a little more, now... I was a bit of a vampire spud. The Vampire Lestat was my favorite of the Anne Rice books, and I stayed with them until Memnoch The Devil, which I couldn't finish. Queen of the Damned always seemed to me like something cinematically paced, the first of the novels that didn't entirely have a first-person narrator. Lots of threads, a compelling backstory. Not the best book ever, of course. But a pleasant escapist read for a ninth-grader.
I was really disappointed that a lot of my favorite things in the book were left out of the movie. Anne Rice writes historical fiction much better than contemporary fiction, and her Egyptian backstory was almost entirely discarded. The character of Lestat was also changed a lot: instead of being a picked-on younger-brother then vampirically created by an insane vampire who didn't teach him a thing, they made him the protege of Marius, who was not much like his character in the books - no Romanitas. This made a good portion of the movie seem like a simple, irritating rehash of Interview With the Vampire, watching Lestat educate Louis. The "family tree" was just as I had imagined it, only smaller and outdoors. Other major characters appeared towards the end of the movie (recognize Pandora? Mael? Armand? I did...) but had no story accompanying them, and ended up really just seeming like nameless weird kids in eccentric costumes and makeup. Some of these things had to be trimmed, obviously, but since other parts of the movie were just gratuitous and silly....
Stuart Townsend is indeed as hot as I'd heard, but... he reminded me, especially in terms of playing Lestat, of several sexy-but-annoying goth boys I have dated. That took away some of the charm. He and the actress who played Jesse had fantastic chemistry, though, and the scenes where they were together were the best in the movie, rising above the bad script.
Although David Talbot was not as described in the books (younger, I think), I very much liked the fact that he was used in the movie. He's a character I've always liked.
Poor Aaliyah. Because the backstory was never told, aside from her nifty ability to cause spontaneous combustion with a flick of her bored little hand, the audience had no idea why Akasha was really supposed to be so evil and awful. She looked great, albeit on the anorexic side.
Special effects were decent. Hair and makeup were generally, um, interesting, and well done. Does it seem to anyone else like the band and especially their videos were based on Smashing Pumpkins, even if the songs were written by Jonathan Davis from Korn? I didn't hate the songs. Not really my cup of tea, but the Lestat-as-rock-star conceit always seemed to me like the most unbelievably dorky part of the book, and they did what they could to try to pull it off. & apparently these people have never been to the average ookyspay oncertcay. they aren't that big, usually, unless you get a lot more than spooky kids and the random Metal Chick.
Some cracks I made during the film:
"I am the TANpire Lestat!" - (when he discovers that he can withstand sunlight)
"Ow, damn, I just got staked by the spikes on that kid's collar! - *poof*" - vamps standing in the audience at the concert.
"Where's Buffy when you REALLY, REALLY need her?"
oh, there was a lot more, but you had to be there.
end result: while it has a few good scenes, and I was generally entertained, I don't think it was a very good movie. Slick, and better than some other horror movies, but it would have benefitted from a better script with fewer plot holes; as a miniseries on some cable network it might have been great. It's ripe for the MST3K treatment.
OK, now that I have done this, I am going to go be educationally productive, and twitch while I await the new season of Six Feet Under that starts tonight. oooooh!
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Did you hear they were thinking about making The Witching Hour into a miniseries? Yay!
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