An Ideal Husband (1999)

The film is the adaptation of Oscar Wild's play with the same title. From some aspects it resembles to "The Importance of Being Earnest" but, I must say, it's nowhere as entertaining. It has a similar main character as "Earnest", a young(ish) gentleman with significant wealth who does not care about anything else but parties, ladies and idling around whole day. About the plot I don't want to write anything as it would spoil it for everyone.

I usually like Oscar Wild's works, his style, humour and wittiness, so I thought I would really like this film. I was wrong. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. The wittiness of the dialogues was there but the plot, well, was kind of lacking. It wasn't bad but it was uneventful. Maybe my expectations were too high.

I liked it, though, that there were a few references to Wild himself and his works, mainly "The Importance of Being Earnest." There was a scene that took place in a theatre while that play was performed, and there was also a character named Bunbury.

Bottom line: it wasn't bad but I expected more.

Movies of the Summer

I was thinking and I could recall a few films that I watched during the summer. So I'll just list them here with a few words long opinion.

Men in Black 3 (2012)

I liked the first two movies a lot so needless to say I was excited to see the third one.

In the story, fourteen years passed by since we last saw the special agents, just like in real life. Or was it fourteen? Anyway, quite a long time. J and K are partners again, which is kind of confusing, since, if I remember well, the second movie ended with K retiring. 

This confusing detail aside, the film was totally exciting. It starts with an alien prisoner, arrested by Agent K a long time ago, escaping from the special jail built for such criminals on the moon.  He travels back in time to change the future (that is, the present) and that's when Agent J has to travel back too, to save the world. Because, yeah, it's not less than the whole planet in danger, again.

As I already said, the movie is totally exciting, full of twists and turns and unexpected events. Just like the first two were. I at least was not smart enough to see the last twist coming. I thought I knew what would happen, but was I wrong.

All in all, I can only recommend it. It's the opposite of boring in many ways. And the character of Griffin is my new favourite movie character. ;)

Two Snow White Movies

Or maybe I should have written "Two Evil Queen Movies", since both have the Queen's figure in the centre. It's interesting how two films that are inspired by the same tale can be so different. But let's see them a little bit closer one by one.

Mirror Mirror (2012)

I was really looking forward to this one. On the basis of the trailers (which totally had almost all the scenes with Julia Roberts) it looked surprisingly promising. The actual movie didn't disappoint either. 

The whole story is told from the Queen's point of view, which already is an interesting twist and at the same time assures that it won't become a cheesy love story. I think it is mainly the Queen's character and humour that makes this movie absolutely hilarious. You can't help but laugh at her scenes even when she is being especially mean or evil. The dwarfs aren't dull either, though and pretty much all the characters have one or two funny lines. The character of Snow White, I don't know, I think she is pretty strong in the original fairy tale too (I cannot be hundred percent sure, I've seen so much modernized versions recently) but here they take it one step further and she becomes a young woman who doesn't really need her prince to save her, she can do it herself, and well too. 

The plot is kind of lacking but I think the humour and wittiness of the dialogues make up for it.

Another thing that must be mentioned is the costumes. They were spectacular, extreme even. And I think they added to the story too by underlining the contrast between the Queen's and the gentry's extreme colourful and huge clothing and the simple, gray and dirty outfits of the average poor people. (But maybe it's just overanalysing stuff.) The whole movie was visually pretty, colourful and fairy tale-like.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

I had my doubts about this one. Actually, I didn't even plan to watch it. I just changed my mind partly because of Charlize Theron but mainly because I had some extra time on my hands.

I think it goes without saying that this movie is nowhere a comedy. It is dark and well, boring. I'm not saying it doesn't have a plot, though that wouldn't be extremely far from the truth but even that small amount of events that happen are dragged out so long that I couldn't help but skip parts more and more frequently. 

I'm not going to detail how talentless Kristen Stuart is, but I'm going to say (what many have said already) that with another actress playing Snow White this film would have been, or well, could have been better. Maybe not significantly, but better.

To say something positive too, I have to admit that the visual effects were pretty damn good.

Bride Wars

I watched this one a while ago but forgot to write about it. No wonder, the whole movie was forgettable as it was. Now I just remembered because of the previous post and Anne Hathaway who links the two films. In Bride Wars the only thing I kind of liked was the title. I don't know why but I like this reference to Star Wars, of course the two have nothing to do with each other and avid Star Wars fans, I imagine, would be thoroughly offended by it (if they would ever watch a movie like this) but still, I kind of like the title. The movie itself was incredibly uneventful and I have no idea why Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway gave their names to it.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

The story centres around a fourty-something man in the middle of his marriage falling apart, a thirty-something womanizer he meets at a bar promising him to help to "rediscover his manhood", a twenty-something lawyer-to-be in front of the bar exam and an important decision in her life, a seventeen years old girl in love with the father of the kids she babysits, a fourteen years old boy trying to win the love of his soul-mate, the fourty-something years old man's wife and the man with she cheated on him. All these characters add up to a funny, sometimes absolutely hilarious movie that hits some serious notes as well.

Wild Target

I've been meaning to write about this movie and the book in the next post for quite a while now but never got around to doing it. Until now. If I were to describe Wild Target really briefly (which was originally the purpose of this blog) I'd say: witty writing, funny story, great acting and awesome music. One of the best comedies I've seen recently. I must admit that one of the reasons why I watched it was the fact that Rupert Grint was in it. A few days before I watched it Harry Potter was on TV and it reminded me a movie with him I wanted to check out. I didn't really remember the story, the title or anything really, only that I had found the trailer funny. (To be honest I also wanted to see him in a film other than HP as among the three main actors there I consider him the only one with any kind of acting talent.)  So that was the "behind story" why I chose it.  I searched for the title and the film itself and was glad to find other familiar and liked actors and actresses playing in it. I liked it so much that I had to burn it out on CD and make my mother watch it. Luckily, she shared my opinion.