My Week with Marylin (2011)

Another film that is based on a book. It seems that awful lot of period films are based on a book. There isn't that much of plot in this movie, the title pretty much tells it all. Our main character is the youngest (if I remember well) son and also the black sheep of a wealthy British family. His dream is to become a famous director (if I remember well, to be honest it was quite a long time ago that I saw this, as part of the challenge I failed miserably...). He manages to get a job as the second director-assistant or something like that in Marylin Monroe's next movie (one of the last ones) that she happens to shoot in England. She grows to like him, and, I think needless to say, he totally falls in love with her. They spend a week together and pretty much this is what the movie is about. It  focuses on Marylin's growing addiction and her constant need for attention.

Now I must say that first I was kind of disappointed in Michelle Williams' acting but then I thought about it and realised that in each and every movie I'd seen with or about Marylin Monroe she behaved like that. So I think Michelle Williams did a great job with the role after all. I found the character a little bit annoying but it's not her fault. As I saw this quite a while ago, I don't really remember what kind of feelings it evoked but I think it wasn't a bad movie. There were some parts I skipped but then again, there are a really few movies which I can watch without any skipping so that doesn't mean that I didn't like it. I remember liking the music a lot.

(Excuse the style, I didn't really know what to write about this but didn't want to leave out either. Here's this kind of half-assed post as a result.)

Ballet Shoes (2007)

The film is based on Noel Steatfield's novel with the same title. Its story begins in the 1910s when a whimsical paleontologist is presented with an orphaned great-granddaughter whom he is more or less forced to adopt. Years pass by and he returns from each and every of his lengthy journeys with an orphaned baby girl. This is how the family of Sylvia (the great-granddaughter), her Nanny and the three girls, Pauline, Petrova and Posy is put together. The film focuses on the three girls' training in a dance acadamy and their struggles to reach their dreams. I guess it's the dance acadamy part where the somewhat misleading title comes from.

This film was rather easy to watch. It didn't have any serious message to convey or anything but I quite liked it. It was entertaining and cute. A good choice if you just want to have a little bit of distraction. It didn't really had roles that required amazing acting talents. Luckily for Emma Watson. But I will leave evaluating the actors' performances at that.

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.

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.

The Help

During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s Skeeter, the freshly graduated daughter of one of the wealthy white families in Jackson, Louisiana decides to write a book from the point of view of the black maids. The film is about how she comes to this decision, how she finds the maids willing to help her and, of course, about the maids themselves and the stories they tell her. This movie was a lot heavier than I thought it would be. Part of the truth is that the day I watched it wasn't my happiest and sun-shiniest one but I think it has a strong effect on the viewer anyway. It didn't show open violence against the Black, instead it depicted their quiet suffering, and I think this is one of its strengths. It showed how racism was part of everyday life in those days and how from the "separate but equal" phrase "equal" was forgotten but "separate" was put into practice in every aspect of life. Emma Stone is one of my new favourite actresses so I would recommend the movie merely because she has a part in it but, really, all the actors and actresses did a great job and the story was interesting as well. The whole movie was amazing as it was.

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

When I first saw this movie back then a few years ago I wasn't impressed at all. I think I can say I didn't like it. Then a few months ago I re-watched it, or better to say, skimmed it through. That time I liked it better, I managed to get over the fact that it didn't follow the book that closely, that there were some scenes almost entirely changed and I could see how, instead of just telling the story, it focused on Elizabeth's feelings and basically told it (indirectly) from her point of view. Everything, the weather especially, the landscape, the colours reflected how she experienced those events and I liked that a lot. Last night it was on TV and I re-watched a part of it again. This time I realised I really like this version. Although the BBC version is the one that follows the book closely in its plot, the 2005 one seems to be more accurate in many ways. The actors here are significantly younger then in the BBC version (they seem to be, at least), which is great in my opinion, as in the original book the characters are in their late teens/early twenties as well. The Bennets' household seems to be depicted more accurately as well, it is more likely that it was a bit chaotic and messy with the girls wearing wrinkled clothes and having their hair uncombed then everything being in order like in the BBC series. All in all I grew to like this film a lot. Moral of the story: sometimes it's worth to give another chance.