Monday, April 26, 2010

Tess of the D'urbervilles - Part 2 - BBC miniseries 2008

This morning I decided whether or not to have a second cup of tea. if i were the queen of England i would have two. maybe even three.


I have been meaning to watch Part 2 again for ages...


(Tess of the D'urbervilles - Part 1)


*after the wedding* 
ANGELCLARE: just thought i'd take rooms in your old ancestoral palace for a couple of days. remember, the place where you were employed as a servant and then raped? 
TESS: thanks honeybun, what a nice surprise. oh! diamonds! hells, i look hot 


why did i decide to watch the second half of Tess this morning? I know what happens - and what a horrible way to start the day!


ANGELCLARE: you are fit. 
TESS: let's sex it up. 
SERVANT: just bringing ye news that someone's died. 
TESS: can't you knock first? 
SERVANT: ruins the moment


(Tess of the D'urbervillles - Part 2)


ANGELCLARE: i have to tell you something: i absolutely hate deception and impurity but let me tell you about this 48hr long affair of "abject dissipation". 
TESS: but that is wonderful news! now I can tell you about being raped. 
ANGELCLARE: you whore! 


 "i am a peasant by position, not by nature" (tess=1)


(Tess of the D'urbervilles - Part 3)


ANGELCLARE: I'll send her off in the post cart. that'd be the noble thing to do. 
TESS: I'll go home to me folks, they'll look after me. 
TESS'MUM: oh! my married daughter! really married this time. 
TESS: um... 
TESS'DAD: *is drunk* 
TESS: guess it's the workhouse for me then 


(Tess of the D'urbervilles - Part 4)


ANGEL'SPARENTS: so you married a dairy girl. we couldn't make the wedding - you understand of course. is she super pretty and virtuous. 
ANGELCLARE: um. 
ANGEL'SPARENTS: now i will read you a passage from the bible about being virtuous. 
ANGELCLARE: *is tormented* why is this story so damned self-referential? 


TESS'DAD: *drinks* 
ROOF: *leaks* 
TESS'MUM: *carries the pig across the yard* 
TESS: cor.


ANGELCLARE: *invites another girl to go with him to Brazil*
GIRL: *goes and gets her things really quickly (bc he's really fit)*
ANGELCLARE: *changes mind* 
GIRL: you mean we're not going?
ANGELCLARE: I am a mess of indecision!


TESS goes to see ANGEL'S PARENTS and on the way she finds ALEC D'URBERVILLE has become an evangelist. 


ALEC: I have given up worldly things. 
TESS: I don't believe you. 
ALEC: you are so hot when you're angry.


TESS: *goes back to the workhouse*
ALEC: *arrives on a white stallion*
TESS: you make me very very angry
ALEC: and you make me very very horny. let's get married.
TESS: after you raped me, abandoned me, made me bear your child and subsequently caused my husband to leave me? 
ALEC: well I do have bigger balls than this horse.


TESS: *finally writes to ANGELCLARE* if you don't come I'll totally marry this other guy
ALEC: *lurks on the horizon on his big white horse*
ANGELCLARE: *festers infectedly in a brazilian hospital*


ALEC: the way to Tess' heart is to bribe the bailiff to give me some alone time with her
TESS: I should have become an alcoholic, it'd make this so much easier.
ALEC: *smokes* I'm no longer into religion - you're too fit and I like the hedonistic lifestyle too much. 
ALEC: Anyway, this workhouse is bringing you down (kind of like I did) and even though I get so ANGRY around you, I also find you kind of hot and am therefore comfortable oscillating between overwhelmed adoration and vicious demands for your obedience. After all, you made me give up the priesthood - which means you are to blame for EVERYTHING.


ALEC: I can give your family so much if you just show me some kindness. 
TESS: I know what you mean by that, sir!


ANGELCLARE returns to the village (he is a sickly and brooding young man) 
ANGELCLARE: *tracks down TESS* 
TESS: *looks quite the ladydoll* too late, pretty boy. my "husband" is upstairs, in bed, waiting for me. I am his creature. we have sex all the time. 
ANGELCLARE: cor *leaves* 
TESS: *calls after him* not that I enjoy it! 
ALEC: I am clearly a dissolute creature, lounging in bed like this with me glass of wine. 
TESS: *stabs him violently* 
BLOOD: *drips through the ceiling into landlady's breakfast*
MUSIC: *intensifies*


*on railway platform*
TESS: I've murdered him, Angel, can you love me now that he's dead? 
ANGEL: *thinks* sure! we can go to America!


Part The End


TESS: we have no where left to go, the best thing (symbolically) for us to do is sleep under stone henge and I shall make you promise to marry my sister. 
POLICE: *approaches*
PLOT: *happens*
POLICE: this is a Thomas Hardy novel, right? bc what with you being symbolic and all, we will have to arrest your wife bc, remember she murdered that guy?
ANGEL: she's on that stone altar over there
POLICE: subtle. like A S Byatt.
TESS: i have clearly had too many good times in my life. 
ANGEL: why does this book always end so fast?
TESS'SISTER: *appears out of nowhere and holds his hand* 
TESS: *in jail*
ANGEL: i was a rubbish husband, wasn't I.
CREDITS: *roll*

Sunday, April 11, 2010

TWILIGHT 'New Mooooon!' - facebook review

Here were my very first impressions of New Moon, as recorded intermittedly on Facebook:


oh dear. i should be marking and planning. but I'm watching New Moon. and it's every bit as awful as I expected it to be.


why doesn't bella realise that the most inconvenient relationship you can have is with an undead creature - and she goes ahead and has two of them?


jacob: i will never hurt you or leave you
bella: thankfully my new undead bf is more stable than my last one. 
jacob: oh, but we have to break up now *leaves* 

bella: wtf, again?

so of all the boys she could fall for, she chooses the only two eligible undead boys in town #bringontheangst

bella and jacob: *practically snog at bella's house* 
edward: *rings bella's house* 
jacob: *picks up the phone* 
edward: *angstily crushes the phone (like wolverine)* 
bella: *acts rashly* 
plot: *thickens*

edward: *becomes angry vampire* 
bella: *blames everyone but herself* 
jacob: *takes of shirt* 
alice(who?): *drives* 
camera: *pans*

wait, are they in italy? wtf?

bella: *runs through fountain* 
red caped crowd: *ignores* 
edward: *undresses* 
red caped crowd: *ignores* 
audience: *swoons* 
plot: *stagnates* 
audience: *still swooning* 
protagonists: *spout superlatives and generalisations* 
tweenies: *are further manipulated into believing in the fundamental narratival symmetry of reality*

*enter the clichéd vampires of italy* (so much evening dress)

clichéd vampire king: you'd give up our life for someone like us? a souless vampire?

camera: *pans to edward and his incredibly fit torso*

bella: it wasn't a hard decision to make...
audience: *concurs*



bella: *languishes* 
edward: *stalks*
bella: this is just like old times. 
jacob: what now? 
bella: jacob who?
film: *ends*








I enjoyed this film, in a weird sort of way.

I mean the film stands for everything I hate about American teen films - it promotes manipulative, unhealthy representations "normal" relationships, it stereotypes adolescents in a really patronising way and is cheesy to the max. And it has the self assurance to be about vampires, and not be funny.

But everyone's so attractive and tries so hard, and there's so much angst that it's kind of endearing. I haven't seen such a sincere, unashamed film since the 'Da Vinci Code'.

The only time I really raged about this film was the final scene when Bella and Edward are talking about taking their relationship to The Next Step.



edward: let's wait five years
bella: that's too long
edward: well, maybe three
bella: what are you waiting for
edward: i have one condition 
bella: what are you asking?
audience: don't do it, edward. don't sound like a dick,
edward: marry me.

Why, Stephanie Meyer? Why?

And that is my opinion.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Twilight - first and only impressions. Blimey.

My realtime status updates as I voluntarily enter into the world of the 'Twilight' phenomenon (despite being a bit slow off the mark)

SCENE ONE
this morning, I'm watching twilight. cor, it's dreadful.

I'm sure it's been said before, but in every scene, Bella looks as though she's about to have a stroke
SCENE TWO
edward: I was designed to kill!
bella: i don't care. bc i think you're well fit, pretty boy.
edward: i really want your blood and by blood i mean sex
bella: well go for it, goodlookin'—
edward: —I HAVEN'T FINISHED MY MONOLOGUE YET!
bella: (why did i fall for the reflective type?)
edward: *monologues*
SCENE THREE
edward: I have a gf now - I'm going to wear shades - bc that is what the fonz would do
bella: i am so socially uncomfortable with this display

something significant about to happen. I can tell by edward cullen's intense facial expressions and dramatically halted speech.
SCENE FOUR
edward: i have been watching you sleep for a few months now. but that is not creepy, bc I love you—
bella: let's snog
edward: —however, bc I have an uncontrollable urge to kill you when we are together we must not snog but only sit here and talk about proust or something else that only I am interested in
bella: *falls asleep*
jessie: sounds like some of my exbfs
cor, edward has just said "then you and i will go somewhere, far away, together" - it's interesting the way he has so simply used the threat to her life to put bella in a position where she has no hope but to stay with him. one could almost imagine a cleverer vampire might have contrived this whole scenario from the start...
SCENE FIVE
hmm... considering she's dying that's a bit unnecessarily intense, edward (though bella's hardly complaining) *cue montage of waterfalls, leaping gazelles and other carefully selected symbols*
SCENE SIX
oh for god's sake now he's crying.

SCENE SEVEN (END)
edward: our bliss is so attractively emotionally
bella: nothing can go wrong now, bc we are dancing at the prom and that means it's the end of the film
vampire hiding the wings: *dangerously portentous at the necessity of a sequel* or is it... *hides there in a big feather coat, watching their love like a vulture or some other ominous animalistic symbol*..."

End.

I found this film predictable and unnecessarily manipulative. It was very difficult to sit through and possibly mightn't have managed it if I hadn't been working as well...

Of course, everyone was very attractive and the action sequences made the best possible use of SFX to save the actors having to do anything taxing. So all in all, a win - in a bugger of a way.