Surprisingly, it's not McDreamy.
Here's a clue:
The Boat That Rocked (Or, to American Audiences: Pirate Radio)
I have been anxiously awaiting this one since I saw the trailer when I took my 15 year old brother to see the Hangover as an attempt to buy his love back after not picking him up at the airport.
Anyhoo, what's not to love? The peeps from Love Actually (which I made NB watch in prep for both this and Christmas), with particular hearts to Bill Nighy. Jack Davenport, aka Steve from Coupling, who is showing up everywhere these days, most notably Flash Forward...
...And that hottie mc hot hot, Tom Sturridge, who you might remember from previous posts as being the hottie son from Being Julia, Robert Pattinson's bff (apparently he was sleeping on his couch in NY?) and also from briefly dating Camilla Belle. (Side note: on LaineyGossip, she had a hilarious posts about "why is?" and one of them was Camilla Belle which I thought was dead on). Except Holy Mutha I thought he had a monobrow when he first came on. But it's ok, it was just his greasyEnglishboy mop of hair.
Thoughts on Talulah Riley? I just can't decide on her. She was in St Trinians, which I loved, but I didn't love her. She was in Pride and Prejudice (the Kiera one) as the sister that no one remembers. She was in a little movie with RPattz (there's that cinema incest...) which I didn't see but she looked annoying in. She was the love interest in this. IDK. She's ok. She's pretty. I feel like she's one to look out for, if anyone is interested. Bet you she makes it big.
Oh. Right. The film.
The plot: A bunch of dudes operate an illegal rock and roll radio station from a boat in the English Channel and have to thwart the government peeps who try to shut them down.
I liked it, it was hilarious. The dialogue was super snappy, and it was really fun and campy. I had some issues with the story... it was just kind of like... whaa? The whole bad guys trying to shut down the radio thing felt like it was just thrown in to give some kind of structure to the happenings on board. Most of the attempts by the bad guys were shut down by a line from Bill Nighy ("Well, I hired this awesome DJ, so our sponsors will give u
s money from abroad since it's illegal in the UK..."). But whatever, who really cares about a little thing like emotional investment in the plot? I'm just rooting for the boy to get laid.
Although I did cry in the end. NB hinted that he might have gotten misty-eyed also. Here's a hint: they might have borrowed some shots from Titanic and The Perfect Storm. Yeaaaa.
~
An Education
LaineyGossip told me to watch this, and apparently I take whatever gossip blogs say to their millions of readers as personal messages à moi. Oh, also I saw the trailer on iTunes and it looked trés bien.
At first I was hesitant about Carey Mulligan, because I think she looks slightly lesbionic with her new haircut for Wall Street 2, but now that I've seen the film I'm thinking she is way too awesome for Shia. Not that I don't love him. But... I love her more.
Jenny, a swotty 16 year old trying to get into Oxford, decides that school isn't that awesome when you can just marry a rich, exciting older man.
I loved this movie because Jenny was so so so real. At the beginning of the film, I was like ugh, she is so much cooler than I was because she's clever and witty, and drops little bits of french into her speech, which I remember being the thing to do at that age but my accent was always dreadful. Hers is perfect.
Then she goes out with Peter Sarsgaard's friends, and meets Helen who is all sophisticated and chic and does her hair and wears jewels and in real life was a Bond girl one time... and Helen says she got her fur from King's road, and Jenny says something like "c'est trop cher pour moi." Very subtle, I like it. But Helen looks at her like she is a complete alien and goes "What did you say?" and Jenny says "I said it's too expensive for me." and Helen says "No you didn't." and Jenny says "I said it in French." And Helen says...
... Why?
And it is like whooosh you are a little embarrassed girl, and it's not like Helen is being rude, she is just genuinely perplexed. I was right thurr with Jenny.
Also later at dinner, Jenny gets all excited about the art and has a burst of enthusiasm and gives her very adult, flippant view on art, and they indulge her and make it so so clear that she is such a child playing grown up. And her man would tease her about being so bourgeois while doing ironically bourgeois things like drinking champagne at dinner and going to auctions.
Anyway, those were my two favorite moments. And also this white and red dress that she wears.
Also love: Olivia Williams as her teacher, and Emma Thompson as the head mistress. This was set in the 60s, by the way, which was interesting because the only thing women could do with a degree was go into public service or teach, and it was pretty normal to be insanely racist...
One thing I did not love: again, the plot was a little weak, or rather the overall lesson was. It was basically one big PSA to stay in school and not have sex. Um, that might clue you in on how it ends.
Hmm. It seems Emma Thompson shows up in both of these. Also bangs, which made me very analytical of my own. More to come on that topic. I also found myself sounding more English for a good half hour after... then I lost it again.
CONGRATULATIONS ALEXANDRA KS HUI!
(Here is a picture of Alex on a gold lion when we were on our trip to Narnia. Actually, we were in France, but Singapore is the lion city so it's kind of relevant, right?)
Miss Sexy Lexie won the singtel grid girls shizz, so she is officially the first of our generation to make it big. Not physically, I won that contest many years ago. Anyway, read it here.
Lex - both my Dad and Aunty Olive are dead impressed that the moolah is going to your mother.
Also, while looking for an awesome awks picture, I was reminded how great our trip to France was, when we got to stay in awesome hotels and eat great food and shop and not spend any of our own money. Here are some highlights:
Alex and I fight crime.
Don't let the modelly-model face fool you, is actually just lusting after hot chocolate.
And the ultimate fav...
Utterly confused, I moved onto a 'historical' romance, Cyrano de Bergerac. It was great, like a crappy-romance novel on screen, except, uh, French... so all the more romantic? I wasn't sure about it at first, the cover looked kind of cheezy, but the back said that Vincent Perez was in it, so I gleefully popped it in. Vincent Perez is hot. Actually, now he's kind of balding, but back in his early 90s heyday, he was hot. You might know him from Fan Fan La Tulipe, if you saw that a buncha years ago when it came out. I had forgotten him, but I was watching Indochine the other week for my Vietnamese film thing, and he was there and reminded me that I'm in love with him.
Anyway, Cyrano, the poet-slash-foolhardy-army-commander, is in love with his cousin. (These French people... tut tut tut.) He's also Gerard Depadieu, so that gives massive e-props to the film right off. Due to his horrendously large (prosthetic) nose, he doesn't think anyone could possibly love him, so he hides his feelings. One day, Cousin Roxane needs to talk with him urgently, and declares herself in love!... sadly, not with him. She's in love with Christian (aka my cutie-patootie), who will be joining Cy's regiment or whatevs, and could he please keep Chris out of trouble? Also, please tell Chris to write some love letters, even though they've never spoken. Cyrano complies, except, alas! Christian is a dolt and not good at romance. Cyrano thinks, well this is great, and decides to 'help' Christian by writing the letters for him... something about he'll be the mind and Christian will be the face. La la la, the gist of it is, will she ever find out? And WHO will she love?
Honestly, it was pretty corny, story-wise, but also had extremely witty dialogue. Seeing as he was a poet there were lots of word battles and plenty of puns, and y'all know I love my puns. I think it would have been better with a proper understanding of French, because reading the subtitles really took away from the rhyming and overall cleverness... but there was one scene that translated well, where Chris is sort of challenging Cy by interrupting everything he says with a 'nose' phrase, even though Cy generally bans his men from even sneezing. The kissing bits were kind of awkward and hilarious, but I think it was meant to be that way. It was well done because you know that you're meant to be rooting for her to be deep and choose Cy, seeing as she's obviously in love with his brains, but at the same time you can't help rooting for Christian, a) because he is tres sexy and b) because the poor boy is really just a pawn, it was Cyrano's idea to lie to the woman, and she liked him for his looks in the first place. Overall, it's a fun film to watch, but don't expect to feel all wise and arty at the end of it. Just expect to be amused.
Blogger wont let me upload pics, which is really shit. However, in looking for photos, I did discover that Vincent Perez was also in Queen of the Damned - HAHAHA!! Sorry. That was pretty much the worst film ever.
