The Beguiled - Movie Review

Starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke and Emma Howard.
Written & Directed by Sofia Coppola.

★★½

I never did see the Clint Eastwood original, but I can't help but believe there was more to it than what we get here.

Coppola sets up a dreamy plantation-style school in the middle of Civil War-torn Virginia. The fighting is never seen, just the occasional gunfire in the distance, beyond the trees. One day a wounded Union soldier names McBurney winds up at their doorstep. The school is run by two teachers (Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst), and they only have five students. There's a one-sentence reference to the slaves having left.

Colin Farrell is McBurney, and there's some instant amusement from the ladies' swirling hormones when a wounded gentleman is now in their care.

There's a gentle dreaminess to Coppola's movies, and also a delecate portrayal of sheltered women that tends to keep some of them from breaking out. I see a lot of similarities here to Somewhere, a movie where Elle Fanning bounced from hotel to hotel with her dad without much happening. Here the women and girls don't really leave the house, and they don't really know how to cope whne a man shows up.

The movie takes a darker turn in the third act, when McBurney's true nature is revealed. Once it was all over, it felt like another movie with little consequence or lasting impression. At least it wasn't long enough to get boring. What do I still think about? Those trees.

The Neon Demon - DVD Review

Starring Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, Keanu Reeves, Desmond Harrington, Karl Glusman and Christina Hendricks.
Written by Nicolas Winding Refn, Mary Laws & Polly Stenham.
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

★★½

Wow. Nicholas Winding Refn is one pretentious, ambitious, vainglorious artiste (if it's not obvious from when he puts his initials NWR under the title). The guy knows how to set up beautiful and disturbing imagery. The more movies he makes, the more experimental he seems to get, which is fine if you can sweep your audience up in your vision.

This movie focusses on Jesse (Elle Fanning), a teenage model who's just arrived in Los Angeles and finds instant success, creating jealousy among the other models in her social circle. She's taken under the wing of Ruby (Jena Malone), a make-up artist who may want her for herself. This movie has a lot to say about beauty, about artifice, and about obsession.

As for Refn's filmography, this isn't near as good as Drive, and it isn't near as bad as Only God Forgives. I couldn't really get lost in the story, as I was too aware of a director lurking over every frame, and it gets kinda porny, but I give him points for boldness.

Random Movie Stuff - 5/8/12

- Sharlto Copley (The A-Team), Miranda Richardson (Harry Potter's Rita Skeever), Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter's Dolores Umbridge), Lesley Manville (Another Year) and Sam Riley (Control) are joining Angelina Jolie in Walt Disney's live-action Maleficent.  Elle Fanning (Super 8) will play Aurora.


- Jessica Chastain will not be joining Iron Man 3 after all, saying she couldn't work it into her busy schedule but hoped she could be in a Marvel movie in the future.

- George Lindsay, best known as Goober from The Andy Griffith Show, has died at age 83.


- Maurice Sendak, children's author best know for Where the Wild Things Are, has died at age 83.