Tag Archives: Charlotte Rampling

Orbit Obit

Melancholia
Let Nature Take Its Collision Course
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 136 min

What’s that in the sky?  Is it a bird? A plane?  No, it’s a mysterious blue planet colliding with ours!!!  WHAT!!!?!??!?!?!  Perish the pershing thought!  But would you expect anything less than a date with annihilation with our host being none other than Mr Slap-Happy Go-Lucky himself, Lars von Trier???  No, we wouldn’t, but after whatever the f%^k his Antichrist was (or wasn’t), we’re glad he’s putting us out of our miseries, and the results are sirprizngly not eye slitting out repoopulii!!!  Who knew that R.E.M. could get it so darn right when they said that they felt fine at the end of the world!!  It’s true, well, at least when watching it happen cinematically!

von Trier’s Melancholia starts with a masterfully artsy fartsy prelude bang (the sequence alone is worth the price of admission), and them calmly works its way backwards, 2 days before our time is up.  We meet blushing newlyweds Kirsten Dunst and Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd, who are late to their own party, but with their perma-smiles & nuptial bliss in tow, no one is going to mind waiting hours for their arrival.  Once it all gets going, the reception is to die for (think this is how we’d all love ours to look like), but as the evening progresses, things start to unravel as we learn that nothing in this world can make Dunst happy, even on her most special of special days.  Her bleak mum (Charlotte Rampling), inebriated womanzing father (John Hurt), money matters brother-in-law (Kiefer Sutherland), pushy employer (Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd, shockingly NOT playing the father of the groom… his real life son Alexander), and even her hopeless wedding planner (Udo Kier!!!) are only making matters worse.  The ones trying to turn her frown upside down, newbie husband A SkarsgÃ¥rd, sister Charlotte Gainsbourg, and nephew Cameron Spurr, don’t have a chance on this planet of succeeding.  So where does Dunst, down in the dumps, go from here?

After a nice hot bath, urinating on a golf course, and a spontaneous encounter with Brady Corbet (the fake Michael Pitt), Dunst has fully come undone.  The wedding ends, and so does the marriage!  THAT WAS QUICK!!!  Once everyone leaves, grumpy Dunst grumps about with sister Charlotte, bro-in-law Kiefer, and nephew Cameron at their palatial castle and grounds (see ‘Castle-Free’ below). This is when all the planetary madness comes into play, and for once, Dunst starts to feel at peace (she even planet-tans in the nude at night!!!!!), while her sister starts to lose her shit, in her own way.  Dunst’s performance garnered all of the Cannes attention and awards, but it’s hactually Gainsbourg who has the more challenging, and rewarding role.  Maybe they should have been co-awarded, as two sides of the same coin, flipping the flip flip out

moral of the story: von Trier can create joy out of uncertainty and destruction, and this time he didn’t need to harm any penises in the process.  that in itself can be seen a success, and this might juss be his mos accessible movie to date.  Heil von Trier!!

Castle-Free: LvT made the heavens and earth collide at Tjolöholm Castle, Kungsbacka, Sweden


via this really cool site QOTS!

Verdictgo: Jeepers Mos Worth A Peepers

Melancholia explodes into limited release tomorrow, and is already available on-demand, but this is a theater movie people!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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Carey On Regardless

Never Let Me Go
Spare Parts
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

We could stare at Carey Mulligan and her imperfect perfect lil British face 4evers.  She’s more adorable than a child hugging a teddy bear in a field of sunflowers graced by 9 rainbows.  We never want to let her go!!  Amazing how only 5 years ago she was 2nd (or maybe even 5th) fiddle to Keira Knightley, playing one of her sisters in Pride & Prejudice (we were charmed by Mulli back then, well before any of yous was!!!!), and now the food chain is reversed with Carey as top dog, as seen in Mark Romanek‘s (director of the über-creepy über-awesome One Hour Photo) film version of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s novel Never Let Me Go

The trailer purty much gives away the goods, about young students being groomed at a posh school (headed by classy dean Charlotte Rampling) for something other than being model citizens when they’re adults.  SPOILLLSLSLLSERS ALERTS!!!  One rogue teacher (Sally Hawkins) spills the beans to her students that their actually being raised for vital organ donations, to end diseases and save lives!!!  But love gets in the way for students Mulligan, Knightley and the spastic Andrew Garfield (your next Peter Parker/Spider-Man), and they quickly realize that they don’t want to have their lives cut short.  You’d think they’d want to run away, but they don’t.  They simply stay in place and let whatever happens happen, and that’s the main problem with this beautiful, yet emotional devoid flick.  The characters are helpless, but don’t really help themselves, and in turn don’t really help the audience engage in their struggle.  It’s like Logan’s Run-ning on Empty, and with no cheesy sci-fi robots, like Box!!!

Our (Doppel)Gäng(ers): there be some mad casting geniuseses out there, especially when it comes to Carey Mulligan movies.  in An Education, they rightfully cast older look-a-like Cara Seymour as her mum, and in Never Let Me Go, found a gem in younger look-a-like Izzy Meikle-Small!!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Never Let Me Go is currently stalled in NY & LA only and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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Day For Nightmare

Life During Wartime
Heart & Solondz
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Did you survive Todd Solondz‘ 1998 cringe-fest Happiness?  For a whole decade, we didn’t.  In fact, it had left us so bothersome and icky that we despised it, left it for dead, and got really angry anytime someone brought it up … until our more cynical selves took a recent second look at it.  And the new verdict?  A complete 180 degree turn.  Yes, Happiness is still a boat-load of flinch and wince inducing uncomfortably numbness, but it may juss be the mos beautiful and heartfelt unkind film of our modern cinema age.  How did we get it so wrong?  Had our tastes and refinement not yet reach its fruition during the end of the 20th century?  Did we need to move to NY and became post-9/11 jaded for us to view awfulness in a new light?  These questions are too heavy for a website like this.  Anywho…

With Life During Wartime, Solondz goes back to the same bleak well, one that we never thought in 1000229 zillion billion years was worth revisiting… until we experienced his latest monster creation.   And oh baby, it’s alive!!!!!!!!!!!  Although somehow not as gut-wrenching and damaging to the psyche!!!  It’s probably a good idea that you see Happiness first (but if have and loathe it beyond all belief, maybe you should stop there), as the characters all carry over into Wartime, despite an entirely new set of actors playing em.  Yep, Solondzzzies does it again, playing with our minds and his creations, although not as crazily as he did with Palindromes, where 10 actors of various ages, creeds and sexes all played the same role.  We hated that flick too, but maybe we need to give in a second chance as well.  Sarah Palindrome will never get a second chance with us, ever.  May have sumting to do with her ruining our real last names!!!!  Plus she blows, COCK!!

(qwik note about the paragraph below: we’ll mention the new actor playing each role, as well as the actor who played it originally)

So what is life like during wartime for the Jordan and Maplewood clans?  Joy (Shirley Henderson, a more moaning myrtle version of Jane Adams) is still a wreck and wrecking everyone’s life who she comes into contact with.  Even the ghost of Andy (a literally and figuratively haunting Paul Reubens, standing in admirably for Jon Lovitz‘ sad sack) won’t let her forget about his suicide.  She’s having problems with the problematic Allen (Michael K. Williams, a tad less creepy than Philip Seymour Hoffman), so she heads to California to visit with her blah-blahed actress sis Helen (Ally Sheedy, gettin shallow juss like Lara Flynn Boyle) and to Florida to visit with her ‘cheerier’ sister Trish (Allison Janney, in perhaps her juicest role to date, although we do miss the homely cutie-pie-ness of Cynthia Stevenson), who’s trying to start life anew after hubby Bill (our mos flavorite actor goings Ciarán Hinds, who strips away all the humor Dylan Baker dished out) got sent away for being a pedophile.  Well, his time’s been served and he’s out in the world looking for a bit o forgive and forget-ness (+ a one night stand, with a deliriously delicious Charlotte Rampling), as is the case with all parties involved (eggcept no one else is trying to bag Charlotte Rampling’s character).  Trish has found a nice Jewish man (Michael Lerner, who’s about as Jewish as it gets + the papa of the thighlariously red-scared son played by Rich Pecci) that she hopes will instill some manlihood into her soon to be a man (in the Bar Mitzvah sense) son Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder, the new Justin Elvin).  Timmy’s the heart & Solodnz of the picture (with the Billy character alls growns up and off to college, Chris Marquette, subbing for Rufus Read).  His pain is real, and his endless questions are realerer.  You juss wanna hug the kid, but that’s probably not the best idea for a confused child of a pederast father.  Will they ever find happiness?  Is it even possible?  Regardless, here’s hoping we get to see what happens to these folks in peacetime!

The Song Doesn’t Remain The Same: there’s the Talking Heads’ ‘Life During Wartime’ and then there’s the song of the same name for this movie, but with different lyrics (actually written by Solondz) and perofrmed by Devendra Banhart & Beck.  either way, we’re happy-ness!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers, but ONLY if you’ve survived Happiness 1st

Life gets one today in NY today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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