I didn't see SIN CITY
Apr. 11th, 2005 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollI had two reasons:
If I really want to see it, I can wait until it is out on DVD. If I shop around, it will probably be no more expensive than the cost of the ticket and the bus ride to and from a decent theatre.
I don't really need to seek out ultraviolent fiction. I can get paid to read it if I choose.
Instead I saw part of a RED DWARF DVD (the interview describing the attempts at a US version of RED DWARF, which failed because contemporary American production companies are about as capable of adapting British comedy as a chimpanzee is of building a Harrier jet) and a couple of British comedies.
Mild spoilers
The first was THE LADY KILLERS, which I had never seen. I did see the Coen Brother's remake, which I now admire for their skill in keeping many of the events in the original while sucking all the humor out. There is never any doubt how the movie must end but watching events play out to their inevitable conclusion is amusing.
The second was PASSPORT TO PIMLICO. Set in post-War Britain (then still under rationing) a small neighborhood is surprised to discover that they are not legally part of Britain but rather of Burgundy. Because this allows them to evade the rationing system then still on, they are initially pleased but soon less pleasant implications make themselves known, such as the fact that the UK is no longer responsible for law enforcement. The new Burgundians soon find their patch surrounded by barbed wire and under a state of siege from a bureaucracy incapable of caring about the human consequences of proper policy.
What suprised me about this were the plot twists I expected but did not see.
There's a French nobleman who shows up at just the right time to help the Burgundians out, a Frenchman who is suave and goodlooking and not, rather oddly, a conman despite the long odds that a scion of that particular line would be available at just the right time. A helpful and sincere Frenchman must be as rare in movies as an Arab who does not turn out to be a terrorist.
It does not turn out that the legal document that made Pimlico part of Burgundy was later rescinded, either.
The solution to the neighborhood's problem is arrived in a process of negotiation between Pimlico's duly selected representatives and those of HM's government. Who ever heard of two governments solving a dispute by _talking_?
If I really want to see it, I can wait until it is out on DVD. If I shop around, it will probably be no more expensive than the cost of the ticket and the bus ride to and from a decent theatre.
I don't really need to seek out ultraviolent fiction. I can get paid to read it if I choose.
Instead I saw part of a RED DWARF DVD (the interview describing the attempts at a US version of RED DWARF, which failed because contemporary American production companies are about as capable of adapting British comedy as a chimpanzee is of building a Harrier jet) and a couple of British comedies.
Mild spoilers
The first was THE LADY KILLERS, which I had never seen. I did see the Coen Brother's remake, which I now admire for their skill in keeping many of the events in the original while sucking all the humor out. There is never any doubt how the movie must end but watching events play out to their inevitable conclusion is amusing.
The second was PASSPORT TO PIMLICO. Set in post-War Britain (then still under rationing) a small neighborhood is surprised to discover that they are not legally part of Britain but rather of Burgundy. Because this allows them to evade the rationing system then still on, they are initially pleased but soon less pleasant implications make themselves known, such as the fact that the UK is no longer responsible for law enforcement. The new Burgundians soon find their patch surrounded by barbed wire and under a state of siege from a bureaucracy incapable of caring about the human consequences of proper policy.
What suprised me about this were the plot twists I expected but did not see.
There's a French nobleman who shows up at just the right time to help the Burgundians out, a Frenchman who is suave and goodlooking and not, rather oddly, a conman despite the long odds that a scion of that particular line would be available at just the right time. A helpful and sincere Frenchman must be as rare in movies as an Arab who does not turn out to be a terrorist.
It does not turn out that the legal document that made Pimlico part of Burgundy was later rescinded, either.
The solution to the neighborhood's problem is arrived in a process of negotiation between Pimlico's duly selected representatives and those of HM's government. Who ever heard of two governments solving a dispute by _talking_?
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 03:52 pm (UTC)http://www.answers.com/topic/princess-margriet-of-the-netherlands
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 03:56 pm (UTC)During the Second World War, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands took refuge in Canada. One of her children was born during the period of exile. Apparently to be a Dutch citizen (I may misunderstand this point) the child needed to be born on territory belonging to the Netherlands, so rather than taking the Princess back to occupied Europe, Canada temporarily gave a room in a hospital to the Dutch.
After the war ended, Juliana gave a gift of tulips to Ottawa in gratitude. This is the reason Ottawa has its annual tulip festival.
http://www.answers.com/topic/juliana-of-the-netherlands
I think googling Princess Juliana and tulip or and Ottawa will turn up lots of links.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 04:54 pm (UTC)I believe the issue is not so much that they had to be Dutch as that they had to not be Canadian; they'd acquire the correct citizenship through their parents (and even if they didn't, the Dutch Parliament would have fallen over themselves to pass a law granting it). But, when all's said and done, having a head-of-state with dual nationality is potentially very messy - what happens if there's a diplomatic rift between the countries? A lot can happen in twenty or thirty years... worse, what if it was a boy? He'd be liable for Canadian military service if it was still around in 1970... and I'm sure you can imagine Comedy Potential as a result.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 05:08 pm (UTC)The reef upon which the show seemed to founder was (according to whichever of Grant or Naylor they were interviewing) the processes of casting, which in the US produced a lily white cast of good-looking guys (except that they were going to use the same actor for Kryton) and script-writing, which involved a lot of writers getting input.
Interestingly, one of the scriptwriting clans that was brought in was from THE SIMPSONS. I would be very curious if any of them later worked on FUTURAMA, which isn't much like RD but which could be said to have similarities if you squint at it: low status characters, many ethnic, who work in space. Lead character is a refugee from a past era, who got to the future through a screw-up.
Hmmm. If Fry is Lister, who is Rimmer? Leelah? And does that make Bender the Cat?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-12 12:51 am (UTC)The Professor is definitely Holly. I don't think they have a Cat. Maybe the intern girl?
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Date: 2005-04-12 12:53 am (UTC)I enjoyed Sin City, but I like everything.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 11:53 pm (UTC)It's also very much a 'boy movie', or at least that's how I heard it described on someone's cell conversation. Seems a little reductive to me.
Carlos