those of you who know me personally are familiar with my deep and abiding love of motion pictures. stagecoach, arsenic and old lace, breakfast at tiffany's, the great escape, the sting, star wars, top gun, the matrix, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, i could go on. i love movies. and i love good actors.
take johnny depp, for example. fantastic actor. if the esteemed oscar judges hadn't pre-determined a sweep for the lord of the rings, he would have had a best actor out of this year's awards for pirates of the caribbean. he is the only actor, in all of hollywood, who could have pulled off that role.
so we got a dvd in a pizza box the other day. (thanks, pudgie's.) don juan demarco, starring johnny depp, marlon brando, and faye dunaway. (dunaway was horrendously underused, but that's a different story.) not a bad movie, all told--sort of a cross between a fairy tale and a seventh-grade wet dream. (the fairy tale is the good part.) the story centers around 'don juan,' depp, who believes (or does he?) that he really is byron's lover of lovers. brando plays the retiring psychiatrist assigned to don juan's case, and dunaway play's brando's wife of many years. anyway, i read some really less-than-satisfactory reviews (poorly written, poorly conceived) by people in high places (roger ebert--yes, that one--and whoever the guy is at the san francisco chronicle) and was inspired to write this little tirade just to set the record straight.
first of all, mr. ebert: ruining brando for those of us not familiar with his work, purely because you've been desensitized to his acting techniques, was unnecessary. his acting wasn't the greatest i've ever seen, but neither was it the train wreck you described. techniques work, that's why they're used. to let your bitterness at his perceived indifference color the rest of your review is--well, 'annoying' is a good word, if generous. and the popcorn scene was cute. so there. where's your sense of romance?
and mr. san francisco chronicle, to go on about marlon brando's (rather excessive, granted) bulk for two and a half paragraphs is a little ridiculous.
back to you, mr. ebert. let's address your last few paragraphs, shall we? the popcorn scene was cute. wait, i already said that. excuse me. to continue: don juan did not fight a duel with his own father. is that in the poem? (i know, i haven't read it, i should be ashamed of myself. i've seen several versions of the opera, does that count?) 'cause it ain't in the movie. don juan also did not "save himself by disguising himself as a woman." a sultan's wife bought him as her sex toy, and SHE put him in drag to hide him from her husband. (and technically, rocco wasn't dancing in the patient's ward, but i'll let that one slide.) did you even watch the movie? o, and your comment about "the next time i see dunaway"...come on, sir, really. we all know you're famous.
mr. san francisco chronicle: you may have misinterpreted what you called don juan's "vampiric" tendencies. that "one-second shot" of a prior conquest wasn't intended to show a woman pining away for the lost love of her life. she was back in exactly the same position she had been when don juan found her--alone in a restaurant, awaiting an overdue companion (not don juan). (and incidentally, it made a nice contrast with the other scene in the restaurant--here's a life with life, and here's a life without.) if there was an "emotional devouring" going on, it was on her part.
and...that's it, really. o, depp had a few cary elwes moments. *grin grin* the "big question" seemed to be, if life is what you make of it, can only the clinically insane make it better than it is?
nice to have a clean floor. why is it that uncluttering my room unclutters my brain?