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connielane at 02:44pm on 08/03/2006
connielane at 02:44pm on 08/03/2006MTV's original news guru Kurt Loder. Yes, I know you're probably tired of hearing about this movie from my LJ, but I can't say enough how excited I am about this movie and how very very very much I want to know what other people think of it.
"V" the movie is still set in the near future, in a post-apocalyptic England run by a maniacal dictator named Sutler (played at full snarl by John Hurt). The economy has collapsed, rationing of just about everything has been imposed on all but the politically connected and Sutler's evil regime keeps the impoverished populace quiescent with an unending media shower of lies and distortions. Government thugs roam the streets at night, to take in hand any citizens foolish enough to venture out after curfew.
[snip]
As the movie opens, there's only one man left in London who hasn't gotten with the Sutler program, who's still fighting back. He calls himself V (Hugo Weaving), and he darts about London under cover of darkness, planting bombs and wreaking havoc among bad guys. His identity is a mystery impenetrable to the city's ubiquitous security cameras: He wears a long black cloak, a high-peaked hat and a bizarre theatrical mask with an ominously inflexible grin. (The costume is a tribute to an earlier English rebel, Guy Fawkes, one of the ill-fated Catholic conspirators who in 1605 plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and along with them the repressive Protestant king, James I.) To Sutler and his stooges, V is public enemy number one, and a police investigator named Finch (Stephen Rea) has been assigned to track him down. Finch's job grows more complicated after V is joined, reluctantly at first, by a young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman). As the story proceeds, we learn the full hatefulness of the Sutler regime, and the reason why V keeps fighting.
The movie is enriched beyond the call of genre by the performances of Natalie Portman and Sinéad Cusack (as a doctor with a hideous secret in her past), and especially by Hugo Weaving (he was Agent Smith in the "Matrix" movies), who gives what must be the most expressive man-in-a-mask performance in screen history — we never see his face, but thanks to Weaving's subtle mastery of vocal and physical inflections, we're never in doubt about what he feels. [Note: Loder is somewhat mistaken about the "physical" part. Much of the film was shot with James Purefoy playing V. Weaving was the replacement, but because you never see V's face they didn't have to reshoot.]
What most distinguishes "V for Vendetta," though, especially from the "Matrix" movies, is its overwhelming emotional power. The movie's themes of liberty and the necessity of armed resistance to totalitarian control are thrillingly depicted, and they're perfectly complemented by Dario Marianelli's vibrant score, which is punctuated with musical quotes ranging from Beethoven and Handel to Cat Power and the Rolling Stones. It's a great movie, and it builds to a spectacular, near-operatic climax that may leave you weeping at the end, if only in simple consumer gratitude.
And it has Stephen Fry in it! That's reason enough to see it!
*cough*March 17*cough*
"V" the movie is still set in the near future, in a post-apocalyptic England run by a maniacal dictator named Sutler (played at full snarl by John Hurt). The economy has collapsed, rationing of just about everything has been imposed on all but the politically connected and Sutler's evil regime keeps the impoverished populace quiescent with an unending media shower of lies and distortions. Government thugs roam the streets at night, to take in hand any citizens foolish enough to venture out after curfew.
[snip]
As the movie opens, there's only one man left in London who hasn't gotten with the Sutler program, who's still fighting back. He calls himself V (Hugo Weaving), and he darts about London under cover of darkness, planting bombs and wreaking havoc among bad guys. His identity is a mystery impenetrable to the city's ubiquitous security cameras: He wears a long black cloak, a high-peaked hat and a bizarre theatrical mask with an ominously inflexible grin. (The costume is a tribute to an earlier English rebel, Guy Fawkes, one of the ill-fated Catholic conspirators who in 1605 plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and along with them the repressive Protestant king, James I.) To Sutler and his stooges, V is public enemy number one, and a police investigator named Finch (Stephen Rea) has been assigned to track him down. Finch's job grows more complicated after V is joined, reluctantly at first, by a young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman). As the story proceeds, we learn the full hatefulness of the Sutler regime, and the reason why V keeps fighting.
The movie is enriched beyond the call of genre by the performances of Natalie Portman and Sinéad Cusack (as a doctor with a hideous secret in her past), and especially by Hugo Weaving (he was Agent Smith in the "Matrix" movies), who gives what must be the most expressive man-in-a-mask performance in screen history — we never see his face, but thanks to Weaving's subtle mastery of vocal and physical inflections, we're never in doubt about what he feels. [Note: Loder is somewhat mistaken about the "physical" part. Much of the film was shot with James Purefoy playing V. Weaving was the replacement, but because you never see V's face they didn't have to reshoot.]
What most distinguishes "V for Vendetta," though, especially from the "Matrix" movies, is its overwhelming emotional power. The movie's themes of liberty and the necessity of armed resistance to totalitarian control are thrillingly depicted, and they're perfectly complemented by Dario Marianelli's vibrant score, which is punctuated with musical quotes ranging from Beethoven and Handel to Cat Power and the Rolling Stones. It's a great movie, and it builds to a spectacular, near-operatic climax that may leave you weeping at the end, if only in simple consumer gratitude.
And it has Stephen Fry in it! That's reason enough to see it!
*cough*March 17*cough*
excited
(mystery)
(mystery)
K
(mystery)
Today, he [Moore] resides in the sort of home that every gothic adolescent dreams of, one furnished with a library of rare books, antique gold-adorned wands and a painting of the mystical Enochian tables used by Dr. John Dee, the court astrologer of Queen Elizabeth I. He shuns comic-book conventions, never travels outside England and is a firm believer in magic as a "science of consciousness." "I am what Harry Potter grew up into," he said, "and it's not a pretty sight."
Um, yikes?