Quickie reviews

[grysar]

Saw Chicago and Adaptation yesterday, thought both were good, but not as amazing as I expected.

Adaptation was quite funny, although I thought the big ending was sort of a let down. I get what the ending was supposed to be, but I'd have preferred one that was either far more over the top, think Bowfinger, or was more in the quirky style of the rest of the film. Though on the whole still an extremely funny and quite intelligent flick. Also on a random note, I think I got a rather different experience by knowing a key piece of info that all the reviews mentioned.

Chicago was all right, but it wasn't anything more than a movie doing a stage adaptation of the musical, with some witty court room satire, and big stars. Oddly enough for most of the movie I thought the blond wasn't Renee Zellwigger and was trying too hard to imitate her, turns out it was her. Main gripe was that I'd like the numbers to have taken full advantage of being a film, like Moulan Rouge did. Which is all right I suppose, but it relegates it to being a good movie rather than a great one. I also only really like several of the numbers, but that's more a critique of the original musical than the movie.

Comments

Hmph!

[hello-world.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad Omar and I went to go see Adaptation without you. And to think we were waiting around seeing if you were coming home! SUCK!!!!!

Re: Hmph!

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I did say I was going to see a movie and the evening, either Chicago or Adaptation. Knew I was gonna see one in the afternoon but didn't know which.

I do apologize for noty getting in contact with you though. The 5 pm think I went to ended up lasting til 8 pm rather than 6:16 pm as I initially suspected it would. Couldn't remember your number.

Nonetheless, I protest that I do not, in factm suck. :P

What'cha think of it?

Warning: Long convoluted post

[hello-world.livejournal.com]

I liked it lots, I thought it had lots of cool themes and threads that you could pick out. Like male fantasies. Thought processes of losers. (or the painfully self-aware) That screenwriting (or I suppose creation) is a arduous process of self-discovery. Or the disconnect between people. (I loved how the two brothers would talk past each other) [I'm impressed Nick Cage can play a loser so well!]


I think the movie had a lot of good observations, besides being funny. It was awfully self-indulgent too! Just like the snake mentioned (Eirboros) halfway between the flick. It made me wonder, are the Kaufman twins real? (I've been too lazy so far to check it out) Because either way, the self-referencing is cool.

The ending seemed fine to me. Actually, haflway thru, before I realized it was written by twins, I thought the movie itself was a perfect amalgam of what the two brothers would come up with: The beginning was really angsty, the second half featured stuff the more outgoing twin would like: car chases, a love angle, and DEAAAATH. The angstier twin would have appreciated that (at the beginning) there seemed to be no plot (was there?) and that change came from the characters themselves. I liked the humor. :)

I think the ending was about the change in the angstier twin. He was able to take a step in the direction he wanted, instead of masturbating to his fantasies (heh). He was filled with hope cause even tho he was rebuffed, he was still thinking he could move forward.

That's one thread. I think the biggest theme that stuck out to me was the one hidden in the title of the movie itself: Adaptation. Cause it really wasn't about some balding screenwriter trying to adapt a book based on a column about orchids. I thought it was about the adaptation of the people themselves. How one twin adapted to the other's viewpoint (a bit). I don't think he totally adopted it, but at the end he did go to the screenwriting class (haha, that was funny, and a dash of desperation was in there too) and adopted a sort of respect for his brother's attitude. The point is, he changed a bit. And the movie showed (esp with the disconnects and such) that adaptation can be a hard process.

On the same theme of adaptation, the journalist versus the front-toothless man.. she changed too, and adapted (or changed) to fit him.. and we were shown how the toothless man had changed over the period of his life too. He was the easiest guy to handle change/adapation, cause he simply forgot/left behind old pursuits to begin new (more or less).

The journalist was the hardest person to accept change, or maybe acknowledge it. Okay, so she became a orchid-sniffing cheating wife in love with some guy down in Florida, but she didn't want the world to know. Which is why she tried to kill the twins, etc etc.. and later she was punished for it, (bwa ha ha!). Poor guy. You could interpret that as maybe, if she had been more accepting of her change, maybe they wouldn't have ended up in that swamp and the toothless guy wouldn't have been attacked by that alligator. Or you could take the stance that bad things just happen, and you have to take them (adapt) as they come.



I really enjoyed the movie, evidenced by my long post. I think there's a lot in the movie you can ref back to themes (like the toothless guy's explaining how orchid and insect have changed/adapted to fit each other) as a metaphor for people changing. Disconnect could be taken as part of the adaptation process; hmmmmm.... I also liked how the characters kept chasing after one another; the journalist coveted the orchid guy; the screenwriter to the journalist. And what the journalist really wanted wasn't some dumb flower, but the passion that guy had for his things. (*thoughtful* Hmmm..)

Anyway, I hope I'm not going into the obvious; I thought the movie was good; the acting was good; and the key lime soda I sipped esp good!

I think I yelled "Loser!" and "Yeah!" (in agreement) at the screen a couple times, probably to the chagrin of the people behind me (haha.) I think Omar and I were the only young people in a theatre of old fogies.