Change Your Image
obozeman
Reviews
The Crown (2016)
Foy and Colman disappoinments
Neither Foy nor Colman was a good choice to play the queen, and that for a simple reason: neither woman is as beautiful as the real Queen Elizabeth, and while Foy was homely, Colman is unlovely-she looks like a fallen cake.
I don't know how the real Queen comported herself in private, but Helen Mirren's Queen was always relaxed and natural, whereas Colman's Queen is always stiff, always talks in a clipped fashion, and always looks as if she had stage fright.
Colman's Queen looked and sounded human only in "Favourites" when she lunched with Prince Andrew. Otherwise she's the Drinker's plank of wood.
As for chemistry between QE and PP, the first two seasons were unrelenting in showing the DoE to be a carping, peevish, mean, self-absorbed, and doltish ass. Not for one moment did he do or say anything that made it clear why Elizabeth loved him. I hated him from first to last.
But in seasons three and four PP is an entirely different man-thoughtful, sarcastic, teasing. Still nothing between him and the Queen, but at least he doesn't inspire rage each time he speaks.
I fear that the actress chosen to play the Queen in the last two seasons will be worse still.
How to Murder Your Wife (1965)
Brrrrp! Then Blaaaap!
Everything was wonderful-until the court scene; why? I don't get it: I thought Lampson would not push the button, thought that he would say something to redeem marriage, but since he didn't, since Ford didn't, why did the wife come back? And aside from her mistake, was she a bad wife? Not at all.
I have always hated the marriage-is-doom trope in comedies, but normally the story leavens it because it becomes clear that, even in comedy, some men love their wives-but not in this one: Ford never seems to appreciate anything about the girl. Now, I don't like smothering women, but it isn't clear that he feels smothered. The trope serves no real purpose in this film because NOBODY is redeemed.
Two quibbles: what the f is wrong with the people who compiled the credits? No name for the girl with the diamond in her belly button? No name for la mamma?
The Unwilling (2016)
Incoherent Story, Nice Ideas, Bountiful Babes
A mysterious chest without history or concrete relation to its owner and that looks like it was melted in a fire houses a demon who, for no given reason, arranges for six people-a tolerable man with inconsistent OCD, two unlikable men, and three bodaciously derrièred women-to gather on pretext of hearing the recently deceased family patriarch's will read, and genie-like grants a single wish to one unwitting victim at a time whose body it then possesses in order, for no reason, to try to kill its next victim.
Dialogue is ridiculous, people open doors for no reason and enter rooms with no purpose. I really hated the husband and the dope fiend, and it is incredible that the husband's women want that creep, incredible that the cousin weeps for her brother.
The shadows, the road, the mirror, the darkness, the trap, and the hurricane are nice ideas.
Dina Meyer, Bree Williamson, and Austin Highsmith vie with one another to see whose plump booty is most tantalizingly in-your-face. I love them all. They make the film worth watching.
Ending classical music over credits is beguiling.
Watch with two grilled-cheese sandwiches and Perrier.