V for Vendetta
It's the best movie ever made. If you live in the Washington DC Metropolitan area, and you're looking to see it, but you have no one to go with because all of your friends have been burned by Natalie Portman too many times before (see also: Brothers, Wachowski): call me. Or, if you don't have my phone number, email me. I will see it with you. I'll see it with you twice, sneaking from one theater to another. I will go every day this week. And next week.
My first time out was with the delightful Uncle Cliffy at the Chinatown Regal Theatre and even the weird, out of place clapping at not particularly key moments insisted upon by that one woman a couple rows down from us didn't pull me out of the movie at all. I had sent Uncle Cliffy an email earlier that day saying, "I should get this out in the open now: I'm a movie chatterer." But the movie had me so completely rapt-ed up that it never even really occurred to me to say anything at all to my movie date. Well, except towards the end, when Natalie Portman shows up in an ill-advised skirt/blouse combo. Just because you're living in a distopian future doesn't mean you have to clothe yourself in bad ideas from the past.
Anyway.
I won't say anything at all about the plot; I will say that the movie is the most beautiful love letter to readers ever. There are blatant shout-outs to The Count of Monte Cristo. There are also hints of The Phantom of the Opera, The Secret Agent, 1984 -- as well as a generous smattering of Shakespeare and Goethe's Faust.
I truly can't remember the last time I was this worked up about a movie. So, let's go. You and I. Now.
My first time out was with the delightful Uncle Cliffy at the Chinatown Regal Theatre and even the weird, out of place clapping at not particularly key moments insisted upon by that one woman a couple rows down from us didn't pull me out of the movie at all. I had sent Uncle Cliffy an email earlier that day saying, "I should get this out in the open now: I'm a movie chatterer." But the movie had me so completely rapt-ed up that it never even really occurred to me to say anything at all to my movie date. Well, except towards the end, when Natalie Portman shows up in an ill-advised skirt/blouse combo. Just because you're living in a distopian future doesn't mean you have to clothe yourself in bad ideas from the past.
Anyway.
I won't say anything at all about the plot; I will say that the movie is the most beautiful love letter to readers ever. There are blatant shout-outs to The Count of Monte Cristo. There are also hints of The Phantom of the Opera, The Secret Agent, 1984 -- as well as a generous smattering of Shakespeare and Goethe's Faust.
I truly can't remember the last time I was this worked up about a movie. So, let's go. You and I. Now.
posted by Mike at 9:57 AM
2 Comments:
Yeah, but did you read the book it's based on? 'Cause I was screaming a different tune after seeing it. Gorgeous movie, yes. True to the source material? Not so much.
I'm not so much with the comic books. I made Zach watch it with me last night, and on the way home we talked about how we're not comic book readers, but we're pretty keen on movie versions of comic books. For instance, the destruction of Parliament would not have been as stirring to me on the page as it was on the screen. On the other hand, the letter sequence would have been just as moving, no doubt, whether it was on the page or on the screen.
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