At last! I've got to put this down as the best Peter Jackson film I've seen. Heavenly Creatures was gorgeously artsy and intense and did great things around the exploration of the human psyche - but it was disturbing, and it lumbered. Not as badly as Lord of the Rings of course, but enough to weary me.
By comparison The Frighteners treads lightly, has sympathetic characters, familiar symbols and themes, and it's funny as fuck. Can't really be arguing with that combination. Very much a fun movie, it has Jackson's fingerprints all over it: The funny/scary character, the off-the-wall one-liners, the use of scenery (particularly outdoors), the sympathy - I'm learning to recognise his work at its best. And I'm having trouble believing this is the same man who did King Kong and LOTR.
Next up is Brain Dead!
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Saturday, June 24, 2006
3 comments:
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But, it was funny as fuck! If you tried to send me to bed without any dinner I'd climb out the window and go to an all-night kebab shop, so that trick wouldn't have much of an effect, really.
ReplyDeleteAnd I would stop you.
ReplyDeleteIn one breath you talk about "nicer" films, and in the previous breath you threaten violent assault with intent to cause grievious bodily harm, and cruel and unusual punishment.
Hello?
Gael is one of the most mature and thoughtful people I know, of any age. She crafts her words and doesn't use strong language lightly or out of habit, but only after careful consideration.
I don't understand why you would like Heavenly Creatures, and can only assume that the meaning of it has passed you by totally. The girls are NOT homosexual, and about 80% of the point of the film is to illustrate and ridicule the terrible adverse effects that attitudes such as yours have on a society when they are allowed to shape the institutions and norms of that society. If it wasn't for the paranoia and hysteria and irrationality of society at that time it is very likely that the murder would never have occured. What untold, less dramatic, damage was done to millions of other people?
I only have vague memories of most of 1960's NZ, but what I remember was only little changed from the society depicted in Heavenly Creatures. The movie really resonated with me on that level -- and Peter jackson being only a year older than me, perhaps he really recreated the 60's not the 50's. I do remember from the late 60's on well: the moon landings, and the drugs (and people not much older than me taking them), and Watergate, and the superpowers' proxy fight in south east asia, and another in Afghanistan, and then glasnost and perestroika and the wall coming down. Some tough times, and a difficult transition, but we now have a much more open and tolerant and humane society and I'm very glad of it.
Steve, I totally fail to get the connection between sneaking out at night, seeing the light of Jesus, and regaining feminine sensibilities. I think you do, too.
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