I went to Woodland Park Zoo again to draw the Gorillas. I’m still working on figuring out what times of the week are the most dead for visitors at the zoo and which of those times fit into my schedule. Unfortunately for the most part weekends are flat out so it generally long lunches are the best or quit early on Fridays.
Ultimately I don’t think this was my best session partially because it was an especially bitter and wet day so only three of the inmates were out and I only had an hour to work with because once again I forgot that the zoo closes at five during the winter months.
Also I’m finding that gorillas are much better models than orangutans.
Well it looks like the voice of God has passed away. (I know that compared to Harry Potter, the Metatron from Dogma is his best known role but it’s my favorite so I’m going with it)
Alan Rickman will definitely be missed. That snarky superiority of his just made everything work, is Hans Gruber was one of the best criminal masterminds to hit film. His washed out Shakespearian Actor Spock expy from Galaxy Quest made the film worth watching, And whatever else you think of the franchise just try to picture anyone else as Servius Snape after watching a Harry Potter movie.
So let’s remember him at his best and enjoy all of his scenes from Dogma. (please try to ignore Kevin Smith’s strange obsession with celestial beings having to prove their divine nature by pulling down their pants.)
For this weeks selection I sort of went with dreams or to put it more closely films about personal fantasies… or at least that was the best explanation I can give at the moment for why I thought these two films would go together.
The first on my lis,t Dreamchild, was a film that as a Muppet fan I’d been wanting to see for a whole long time. It tells the story of an 80 year old Alice Hargreaves ne Liddell , the “real” Alice in Wonderland, who has been invited to New York to accept an honorary degree in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carrol.
Alice is the last surviving member of her family and has accepted her mortality as this sinks in to her she begins to remember the events of her complicated relationship with Reverend Dodgson played with wonderfully by Ian Holm as well as starting to relive events of the book with all of the characters wonderfully recreated by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. This is a poignant film about regret, mortality and the fantasy of memory.
For me the best part is how the Mock Turtle sequence is used to frame our story with the Mock Turtle becoming a stand in for Dodgson who, as the Gryphon says, “Has no sorrow, it’s just his fancy”.
The next film on my list was Heavenly Creatures by Peter Jackson. This film tells the story about the lead up to the 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case in Christchurch, New Zealand. Primarily dealing with the friendship between Pauline Parker, played by Melanie Lynskey, and Juliet Hulme played by Kate Winslet in her first role. The two girls meet at school and become fast friends together they start to create an elaborate fantasy world that is far more interesting than the real life in New Zealand. It’s only a matter of time before this world is better than the real thing and becomes tainted by sex, a bond between the two girls that goes far more that mere friendship and fear of being separated eventually leads to their brutal murder of Pauline’s mother.
I’m not sure what to make of this film it certainly is beautiful, written and performed and up to Jackson’s usual level of craft but ultimately I’m afraid I was not the target audience and didn’t really get into it.
Well after a brief holiday break I decided to start the year with something simple and fun with the works of Marilyn Monroe.
The first on my list was Howard Hawks‘ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I mostly knew about this movie through having read about half of the very funny original book by Anita Loos. The movie is a very loose adaptation, telling the story of the beautiful and extremely… innocent showgirl, and unrepentant gold digger, Lorelei Lee played by Monroe.
The plot begins with Lorelei and her best friend Dorothy, played by Jane Russell, traveling to France in a luxury liner to meet Lorelei’s mark… er… finance there. From there hilarity ensues.
This is a fun film in a fluffy kind of way. A lot of the songs feel a little forced but they are done well enough that it doesn’t matter. For me the ditzyness of Monroe’s character gets grating really fast. Fortunately we have the sexy sarcastic Russell to appreciate. Lorelei comes off as the sweet innocent child who doesn’t think anything bad will ever happen to her… Dorothy’s the grownup who holds her hand when she has to cross the street.
Billy Wilder’sThe Seven Year Itch is the film with everybody’s favorite picture of Monroe holding down her skirt as standing on the subway grate (on the posters anyway… the censors wouldn’t allow it to appear in the original movie)
Seven Year Itch is an adaptation of the stage play with the same name starring Tom Ewell as Richard Sherman. Sherman is a New York publisher who’s home alone for the summer having sent his wife and son off to Maine for vacation. Left to his own devices he is torn between boredom of a new diet and nothing to do but his job and the guilt of temptation while staying on the staying on the straight and narrow constantly being judged by his vivid imagination.
Into this comes a beautiful young woman, played by Monroe who has just moved into the apartment above his. A complete innocent who makes him want to throw all of his promises to the wind while worrying that his marriage is falling apart due to a phenomenon known as the seven year itch.
This is pretty much Tom Ewell’s show with nearly half of the movie is him monologuing. Everything else rotates around him with everyone else serving as props and obstacles. In fact there were a few instances when I was watching this I was willing to believe that Monroe’s character was another of Sherman’s fantasies.