well that's embarassing

confession: i just watched never been kissed.

ag! i know. it's drowning in bad acting, terrible wardrobe, predictability, plot holes, etc. but i somehow convinced myself that it would be better coupled with my french homework. it wasn't.

but a small discovery was: it was james franco's first film! i noticed him lurking in the background in a black leather jacket looking all cute and james dean-y. and so i immediately imdb-ed. and yes! james franco's first film, everybody. take it or leave it.

lady jane

oh heyyy 1986.

i just spent the last half of my night watching the historical biopic lady jane. trevor nunn (a theatrical director with little film credit besides this) interprets the true historical account of lady jane grey, queen of england for nine days sometime in the 1500s, as a love story. but a tragic one--as in england, in the 1500s, political intrigue often leads to beheadings, and so it does here. but in this case it apparently also leads to cary elwes (as her husband, guilford) making faces like this:

hotttt.

most of the 2 hours and 20 minutes of lady jane are helena bonham carter (who stars as jane) lookin' like an awkward bird. at this stage in her career, she hasn't fully grown into her acting skills or her face. sometimes she's just a pair of eyebrows. but in this role, i think it works. the character [jane, that is] is an awkward, bookish, sheltered young girl who finds herself both married and in line for the throne of england in a very short amount of time.

for me, the best part was the first half, which i found to be cinematographically brilliant. the movie opens with an extended winter hunting scene that is achingly beautiful, reminiscent of the bayeux tapestry or breugel's hunters in the snow. it sets the perfect tone for the rest of the film.

somewhere in the middle there is a time that captures the spirit of the best part of jane and guilford's fictionalized life: the time when they were together, and in love, and alone. in one scene, jane wears a nightgown and man's boots in the dining room, where the lovers pass up their obligations and smash glass goblets for wishes. it's beautifully executed; the young actors somehow portray both the intensity and the silliness of their situation.

however, some parts seemed awkward or stilted, particularly the dialogue thorughout. but, like helena bonham carter's early acting skills, it worked. a sexually tense scene finds helena bonham carter explaining protestantism to cary elwes while he stares unabashedly at her breasts. but when they kissed i still found it sweet and true.

after they inevitably fell in love, my interest in the plot lagged and mingled with the usual sense of dread that comes with watching a movie based on irreversible historical fact. it was still, surprisingly, interesting, though, shifting the focus towards the short, idyllic reign of jane and guilford. they run about the palace giggling, they give the royal wardrobe to the poor, and they re-issue the shilling with its former worth in silver. they live out the political ideals they once smashed goblets for. it's revolutionary, a little, like secretly they were sort of hippies long before their time.

in they end they, of course, die, as we all knew going in they would. and the question i ask myself everytime i watch a movie like this is answered by a line uttered by jane, "well still." so the lovers die and the throne is taken by bloody mary, who will undo what good has been done, but jane and guilford were together and they changed things and they smashed goblets and ran around a palace and made promises and loved. well still.

3.5/5 stars. it's worth the experience. and if you aren't convinced to watch it now, consider this:

cary elwes is unapologetically adorable. also it's on netflix instant play.

The Many Faces of Dustin

There's this thing called the Kuleshov effect which some of you film buffs that understand part of why this blog is called "The Trope" might know about. The idea of it, as exemplified by the picture on the right, is that the audience can accurately interpret the emotions of a character based on the editing used. Even if the actor has a completely expressionless face, one will believe he is displaying a certain emotion if it is juxtaposed with something using editing. So, on the right you can see this guy. You know he looks exactly the same in those three pictures, but when that face is juxtaposed with the little girl in the coffin, it will seem like his expression is sad. When he may or may not be looking at the soup, his expression seems hungry. His expression will even change to lustful when juxtaposed with the sultry woman on the couch.

The reason I'm giving this 101 course on the Kuleshov effect is to provide some background info before I state my opinion. When I first learned about the Kuleshov effect it was through my Intro to Film teacher, who took it so far as to say, "There is no such thing as actors." Maybe he doesn't really believe that but felt it would be more effective to shock us by saying something so resolute. If that's the case, well, then it worked. On me, anyway. Since then I've paid a lot more attention to acting in movies and realized that while we really do add a lot of the emotions ourselves because we can sympathize or understand what the emotions should be, there are and have been a few real, skilled actors, too. I've always thought a good actor is somebody that makes you forget he or she is an actor, but now I know he needs to shine on his own, too, rather than just with the editing, script, and whatever else.

Okay, now that I've written that little intro so that you don't think I throw the phrase around easily, I can continue.
Dustin Hoffman is a damn. good. actor. Here are just three reasons why:

The movie:                             The movie:                                The movie:
Tootsie                                   Rain Man                                   Kramer vs. Kramer
The role:                                The role:                                    The role:
An actor so desperate              An autistic savant that is            A workaholic father who
for work that he dresses          forced to travel with his             must adapt to being a single
as a woman to get a                 temperamental and highly         parent and have his first
role in a soap opera.                self-centered brother.                 meaningful relationship.
The challenge:                       The challenge:                           The challenge:
Playing a woman                    Controlling all speech,               Mirroring his own feelings.
convincingly as well               attitude, and mannerisms           At the time, he was going
as a man who begins              to create a very personal             through a divorce of his own
to understand the issues          picture of this autistic                 and was feeling many of
behind gender equality.          character.                                 the things his character was.
              
That man has some serious range. There's a lot of things that can be said about these movies and about Hoffman's acting in them, but nothing speaks better than the movies themselves, so go watch them if you haven't seen them already! Or rewatch them with his other roles in mind. Then come back here and let me know which one is your favorite in the comments.