topaz
Abingdonian
Posts: 223
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Post by topaz on Feb 4, 2008 10:48:33 GMT -5
Thank you Redwine! I love that picture! I think that blonde girl is Tom's agent, Tila? Anyway, I adore Bill also. Everytime I watch "The Lawless Heart", I notice another aspect of Bills' performance that I didn't catch the first time. For instance, when Tim arrives and the funeral and asks Bill about who died, then Nick (Tom) starts walking towards them. Dan (Bill) says Stewarts boyfriend and flicks his hair everso slightly! I didn't catch it at first, but he amazing to watch; a brilliant actor!
PS: I love your username. Wish I'd thought of it because it is one of my favorite things besides Tom that is. ;-) Topaz
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Post by beckettologist on Feb 4, 2008 12:21:55 GMT -5
I think that blonde girl is Tom's agent, Tila? Sorry to jump ahead of redwine here but the blonde woman is Ciara (sometimes misspelled Kira or Kiera) Parkes and she is Tom's publicist. His agent (last time I checked) is Kate Buckley.
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Post by Redwine on Feb 6, 2008 17:58:18 GMT -5
Ohhhhhhhhhhh.... Let's play Lawless Heart. I get to be Judy.
I adore Judy, don't you?
That is a remarkable movie. Aside from the curious matter of the DVD box -- which in the United States inexplicably features a full length photo of a woman in her underwear (so many American movies DO) -- is the method of its storytelling.
Telling the story from several consecutive points of view... I thought that was a VERY effective means of building a story about people: just the way we learn about people...first a bit of this story, then a bit of that, then a different take, then a different point of view and finally some missing piece drops into place and makes everything look entirely different than what you started with.
It was so ambitious that I think its main flaw ended up being that it tried to take on so much. It really left me wondering, and not unreasonably, about some of these people. What was next? I fully expected one more round with the story.
<<<<<<<<<<<SLIGHT SPOILER>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amazingly, it wasn't a soap opera, and really rang true.... except, maybe for that one sort of forced point about Dan (Nighy) and quickie-gratification. In order to make a point about narrow-mindedness, his character went through some rather unlikely plot contortions to get him into a compromising situation with a woman Not His Wife, and some nearly-instant karma that a major plot point had to depend upon.... but little else in the film tries that hard. Nearly everything "works", otherwise.
The casting was wonderful. I wish there were more "Judy"s in movies, generally: ordinary, struggling, non-gorgeous women you'd actually want to know...
Dan, her husband (Nighy) was so callous and indifferent he was nearly unbelievable as the low-key farmer he was supposed to be. Much as I adore His Nighyness, between "Dan"'s homophobia, his indifference to his wife's grief, and his chicken-hearted half-pursuit of that cutie florist -- I thought this was one of his least likable roles. (That's saying something for a guy who's been a zombie, a vampire and a furious squid-head.)
Tom's "Nick" is an extraordinarily sympathetic character, though some have snarked that he's a doormat. People who grieve aren't necessarily everything we want them to be... even in a breakthrough mainstream film... Nick was shutting down in every sense. Even his unlikely connection with the young woman who attached herself to him was "off", but somehow made sense for someone who was just completely lost for a while.
I don't know what kind of an impression this film made in Europe when it came out, but I thought it was very well done.
Still trying to figure out the DVD Box, though...
P.S. Thank you, Honorable Topaz....! The name came after a virtual celebration of Mr. J. Depp's birthday one year, when several of us drank a toast in his honor -- from several locations -- using his libation of choice...
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Post by beckettologist on Feb 6, 2008 19:34:21 GMT -5
Still trying to figure out the DVD Box, though... I too was baffled by our Region 1 DVD box so I made my own. Actually I made two...one for a certain Nighy fan (giggle) and one for me. If you are interested in giving YOUR Lawless Heart DVD box a custom facelift I can show you... HERE
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Post by ukelelehip on Feb 6, 2008 20:36:51 GMT -5
Great review of TLH, Redwine. I must admit thought that I really did not 'believe' Bill as a farmer.
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Post by Redwine on Feb 10, 2008 10:19:19 GMT -5
...about the saluting thing. Bill does it often; it's just about the most common way he is photographed, especially when at photo-op "events". Partly, I imagine, because of the fact of the way his hands are made (another topic), but also because he tends to get a little silly when cameras are pointed at him . Since it's kind of a signature thing with Bill, I'm guessing Tom just picked up the gesture, too when they were horsing around with that camera... So glad you posted these!!!!
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Post by Redwine on Feb 10, 2008 10:25:24 GMT -5
Great review of TLH, Redwine. I must admit thought that I really did not 'believe' Bill as a farmer. Oops, double post. I know what you mean -- though it's hard to say *why* we don't. Farmer is a job, people have it. Unhappy people have it. Is it that he is just so inherently ...elegant? Not ...farmerish enough? I guess that's probably a measure of my own assumptions about, er, farming... The character seemed so distracted by his own state of mind that it would have been hard to believe him as defined as *any* kind of work, I think. He was far less a farmer -- as an identity -- than he was a dissatisfied, emotionally-underequipped guy having a crisis. He almost could have been anything.
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Post by ukelelehip on Feb 10, 2008 10:46:13 GMT -5
Great review of TLH, Redwine. I must admit thought that I really did not 'believe' Bill as a farmer. Oops, double post. I know what you mean -- though it's hard to say *why* we don't. Farmer is a job, people have it. Unhappy people have it. Is it that he is just so inherently ...elegant? Not ...farmerish enough? I guess that's probably a measure of my own assumptions about, er, farming... I completely agree. Not 'earthy' enough?
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Post by Redwine on Feb 10, 2008 10:51:25 GMT -5
Oops, double post. I know what you mean -- though it's hard to say *why* we don't. Farmer is a job, people have it. Unhappy people have it. Is it that he is just so inherently ...elegant? Not ...farmerish enough? I guess that's probably a measure of my own assumptions about, er, farming... I completely agree. Not 'earthy' enough? Mmm. Trying to imagine Nighy all 'earthy'. Nah. Can't.
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Post by faeriequeen on Feb 10, 2008 11:21:02 GMT -5
Irene, I see your To Ithaka and raise you an Ode to a Beautiful Nude read by Rufus Sewell... And if you like that, you should really try Nick Silver Can't Sleep. This is only a short clip, the whole thing is about 30 mins and unbe-f*cking-lievable. Don't listen to it whilst driving... Can I add Alan Rickman reading Sonnet 130 to the mix? And I love those saluting photos...it's cool just to see them messing about like that!
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