A Weekend of Firth

I did not do it on purpose, but I happened to rent two recent movies starring Colin Firth this weekend. I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, but I kept allowing life to interfere with my blogging. ;)

As many of you probably know, I’ve had a crush on Colin Firth since Pride and – nay, since he played older Colin in the Hallmark version of The Secret Garden.

And of course, I just happened to rent his two movies from 2009 – Dorian Gray and A Single Man – on the same weekend. Not intentionally, of course, but I had checked out A Single Man from the library, and lo and behold, Netflix delivered Dorian Gray into my hot little hands (not the man, the movie).

Steve said that he wanted no part of ASM because it “looked depressing,” so I watched it by myself. I had no idea what it was about, just that it was an Oscar-nominated performance. After a few minutes, I was completely hooked into the story. Loss and grief, portrayed against the backdrop of an incredible taboo of a time of fear and paranoia. Basically, Colin Firth loses his long-term partner to a car crash, and it is his story of how he sees the world differently with the absence of his partner weighing on his every action. It is set during the Cuban missile crisis, and the political temperature plays heavily into the story. Colin Firth was brilliant, as was Julianne Moore as his best friend.

The next evening, we watched Dorian Gray, which is one of my favorite books, being as most know, a huge devotee of Oscar Wilde. The movie deviated from the book in several ways: to begin, I felt that Ben Barnes, cute as he may be, was seriously miscast as Dorian. For one thing, Dorian is blonde in the book. His acting was good enough, and don’t shoot me for this, but I kind of felt that physically, Robert Pattinson would have been a more suitable actor, based on looks alone.

There’s also a pretty hokey love story included, and in that respect, I felt that Ben Barnes was wonderful. He was very good at the romantic, sweet side of Dorian, not so much the vile, arrogant side. But back to Firth!

It was strange to go from seeing Colin Firth playing the bereaved professor in ASM to Henry, purveyor of carnal delights to Dorian Gray. It was interesting, the turn his character made when Dorian fell in love with Henry’s grown daughter.

All in all, A Single Man A++

Dorian Gray B-

La Vie En Rose

I finally had time to watch this movie, and wow. Wow, wow, wow. What do I really want to say? The music, oh the music. The songs are achingly beautiful, and are made even more stark and breathtaking by the dim, dramatic lighting of the smoky cabarets and underground bars where Piaf made her earliest appearances.

The story is presented in a nonlinear fashion; in fact, without knowing a bit about her life prior to watching, I'm sure I would have had trouble following the story. However, I believe it was the intent of the director to bring us through her journey, with her beginnings as a beggar on the streets of Pigalle to her rise to fame, and her eventual sorrowful demise, with memories of happier and more dismal times haunting her into death.

Marion Cotillard was brilliant, and completely deserving of her Oscar for this part. Gerard Depardieu was wonderful, fatherly, and utterly loveable, despite being a gruff gangster in the film. I will say this: at times, this movie was incredibly difficult to watch because of the heartbreaking content.

Oscar Magic

One of my favorite events each year is to get some good snacks, some wine or other yummy beverage, and sit down to watch the Oscars. I love the anticipation, the vapid speeches, and, of course, the beautiful clothes.

One of these days I'll have a proper Oscar party, but I always seem to busy to plan it adequately. This year, I made some snacks, and sat down and watched the many black and red dresses saschay past, with the paparazzi clamoring and the stars doing their best to not look disinterested and annoyed.

Air-popped popcorn, roasted red pepper hummus and cucumber, and butter cupcakes with creamy chocolate frosting were my snacks for the evening. I took the rest of the cupcakes to work this morning (I really don't want to eat 36 cupcakes myself!), and will probably finish off the cucumber and hummus this week.

I was very pleased that the Coen brothers won so many awards, although I haven't seen anything nominated (the first time ever!). I'll try to catch Juno in the theater, and I can watch La Vie En Rose tonight on Netflix. I'll probably rent Atonement soon. Everything else....eh. I'm not one for violent movies, and most of the movies nominated this year were heavily war-focused, it seems.