Where to start?
A $65AUS round trip to the cinema, glad I liked it, huh?
Opening Day in Australia, 1st session, 11am and there were
8 people in this huge cinema. it was amazing, nearly like having
The Earl all to myself ;D
That face, 30 foot high to start was excellent, set the tone
for the movie and listening to his speech warned me what
was about to take place.
I was thrilled when the critics panned it, I always enjoy
movies that they give a hard time to.
Jack Davenport was in it, I never knew that, he seems to be
playing a lot of English gentleman type roles, chickened out of the
play the Earl wrote, but had no compunction to play the Earl
himself at the end. Hypocritical?
Malkovich's Charles II seemed very stand offish, I have no
idea what Charles was like in real life so I can't compare, but
most monarchy type roles that I have seen always have an
amount of passion about them and this role seemed quite
lacklustre. Maybe Charles II was just like that?
Loved the pose for the painting (Rochester was so bored)
and the remarks about the wine and the monkey were classic,
how did people manage to stay in the same position for hours
at a time back then is beyond me, thank heavens for digital cameras.
I noticed later in the film, either before or after the picture was
glimpsed that the monkey was stuffed and sitting on The Earls desk.
The mud, the mud, the glorious mud, how divine and
there was so much of it.
When the Earl swiped his servant after he was pushed
into the mud, (I won't write his name due to the censor)
he had the same muddy face throughout the entire film.
Johnny did a great job with the accent, enough not to bother me
anyway, don't know about people with a real English accent
was it OK?
The Earl seemed to have a love/hate relationship with everyone,
you either loved him no matter what his faults or you hated him,
there was no grey area about him.
I think I've waffled on long enough, I'm sure I'll be back with a heap
more.
~SS~