Nothing to see here…except A. Skarsgard looking really really ridiculously [sexy] in Soho earlier in the week. 

(image via Just Jared)

I’ve been meaning to debut this feature on my blog for a while now.  Even if I don’t write formal reviews, I can post a little bit about what I’ve been watching, so without further ado…

I’d never seen Jane Campion’s masterpiece, The Piano.  The photography and compositions in this film are breathtaking.  This film is stunning and has a dreamlike tone that runs the gamut from otherworldly to nightmarish.  However, it is ultimately a beautiful, brilliantly acted film with it’s own sense of grace.  And Anna Paquin?  I see now why she is the youngest Oscar winner ever.  She doesn’t just give one hell of a performance for a child, she gives a better performance than many adult actors can.  Get this woman off the vampire show and into complex roles, not that frolicking naked and covered in blood with your lover is a bad way to spend time…

The King’s Speech is generating A LOT of Oscar buzz for Colin Firth, and for good reason.  Firth’s King George VI is incredibly complex, nuanced and conflicted, likable and relatable, yet with the air of a royal far removed from the day to day of the comman man.  Geoffrey Rush also delivers a delightful and layered performance, though not as complex as Firth’s.  Tom Hooper, who also directed The Damn United, which I adored and watched following the World Cup in order to help my withdrawal, is really cornering the market on dramatic British, period piece, character studies, which is great as he does a damn fine job of it.  I’d be remiss not to mention the always delightful Helena Bonham Carter; this is really an actor’s film.  The performances are spectacular and captivating.

I finally saw the film that has been generating massive buzz since it won best narrative feature at SXSW last year.  Lena Dunham perfectly captures that 20-something post-college ennui that is so easy to feel, but not as easy to articulate.  It’s a very, very smart film with comedic and strong performances from the whole cast, which includes Lena’s family.  The cinematography is also very good, giving the film, shot on a 7D (a Canon SLR), quite a bit of atmosphere.  I actually saw Tiny Furniture on a date, and I couldn’t stop laughing and empathizing to the point where (*spoiler alert*), my date asked me if I’d ever fucked a guy in a pipe.  No, no I have not.  But when I had a chance to briefly discuss this film with the amazing J. Courtney Sullivan, she articulated what we both found so fascinating about Aura: the disconnect between this smart, articulate young woman, what she wants and what she does/what she will settle for.  And the thing is, we’ve all been there.  So yes, metaphorically speaking, I’ve fucked a guy in a pipe.  Most of us have.

I don’t know why I waited so long to see the this 1985 film from Stephen Frears,  a brilliant director, though I have yet to see his latest (I love LOVED Dirty, Pretty Things for many of the same reasons I loved My Beautiful Laundrette).  You don’t have to say much more than a young Daniel Day Lewis shirtless and being splashed with water, but that might risk diminishing how really beautiful this film is.  It doesn’t have a social conscience, so much as the script from Hanif Kareshi has a finely tuned eye to race, class, and gender in 1980s London.  This fascinating movie about the intersection between Pakistani immigrants and Cockney punks, and the intersection amongst family members, is heartwarming, funny, and also serious. I was completely charmed by Gordon Warnecke’s performance, though it’s truly lovely to watch a young DDL at the beginning of his career and see exactly why it’s taken the fantastic trajectory that it has.  Great acting, an excellent script, and Frears’ captivating visual style make for remarkable, enjoyable cinema.

I watched maybe 30-45 minutes of Leap Year because it was on HBO.  And honestly, I thought my love for Matthew Goode knew no bounds, but it does, oh it does.  How did this movie get made?  Did the director, crew, and actors just want to hang out in Ireland?  Take a vacation next time, and spare us the trite script, one-dimensional characters, and painful score that tells you how to feel if the plot’s not obvious enough.  The premise, that a woman can propose in Ireland on Leap Year, should have been enough to keep me at bay.  And look at Goode’s face in the movie poster!  He totally knows it’s shit.

And that’s it for this week, folks!  I think.  I might squeez in one more film before bed, but the Parks and Recreation marathon I started while I was sick is also calling my name.  I can guarantee you that next week’s Movies I Watch will include something with Paul Schneider.  Maybe a re-watch of Lars and The Real Girl and get some Gosling in there too?