come anticipate The Constant Gardener with me

is this a sequel to Teh Mummy?

With this and the Bourne series it's the Golden Age of conspiracy thriller novel adaptations, I think.

I must admit, I am now officially sick to death of ShakyCam.

Still, the extreme importance of all the BIG THINGS the screenplay deals with -- globalization, corporate malfeasance, Africans-as-lab-rats -- sort of superceded everything the screenplay winded up with in the last half-hour or so. I know that's sort of par for the course: political intrigue thrillers have to first expand the scope to gastronomic proportions before tightening the iris again to bring about the conclusion.

Other than that and the 'here comes the message' speech from the lawyer at the end, I loved it. It's been a while since I've read the book, but it semed to be pretty faithful.

the story was very bad and uneven.

They shoulda made this movie a musical.

Plenty of things actually wrong with it - talky at times, totally uneven pace, "message" spelt out too literally and too often, even flashy direction, but it's still the best thing I've seen all year. The pan that Eric mentioned (and the scene that preceded it) was breathtaking.

Fiennes was quite brilliant, though, I thought. Weisz's early-on scene in the lecture hall made my skin crawl. (Maybe it was supposed to.)

I also want to know what camera they were using for all the waist-height shots where Rachel Weisz is first seen walking through the shanty towns. You still got all those rich colors and grain but it HAD to be something light and easy to carry. Was it Super 16?

Yeah I think it was. You aren't supposed to like her that much at the beginning, your feelings for her are supposed to change as you get to know her more and more as the film progresses. It's a clever trick (although it does unfortunately end up meaning the Rachel Weisz you like the most = dead Rachel Weisz--which depending on how you feel about Rachel Weisz may have been what you suspected all along heh.)

Is it weird that I find that weird?

Also, am I right in thinking that this scene was shot in the Tate? Why would a diplomat-to-be-or-whatever-he-was be giving a lecture in the Tate? Are we supposed to know it's the Tate? Am I thinking about this too much?

I also really hated that graphic for "WHD" or whatever the Canadian company was that kept popping up. It was too much Robocop sinister corporation in a movie.

But still...these are small concerns.

Yeah, the shakeycam was OTT, I thought. Is it really necessary to WOOOAHHH SHAKEYYCAMMM while Ralph Fiennes is peeling a tangerine? Or stepping on a train? (i.e. " Look, he's on the Eurotunnel! WOOAAAAHHH..." etc.)

Okay, point taken. I think I just didn't like the characters (while still admiring the acting.)

Also: SPOILER SPOILER how do the killers know where to find Ralphie at the end?

(xpost)

When Ralph has his final conversation with aging-spy-with-cancer, he tells him that Crick will know where to find him, "he's been there before". It's a bit presumptuous, but it also outs Crick as the guy that carried out the hit. Even though we know that.

Two films worthy of studying side by side: William Wyler's The Letter (1940) and Fernando Meirelles' adaptation of John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener. Far from a great film, The Constant Gardener is nevertheless a gripping one, suggesting the ways in which bureaucracy and a crumbling sense of entitlement become indistinguishable from totalitarianism at its most invisible and omnipotent. Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) finds himself fighting a pharmaceutical company which treats AIDS-stricken Kenyans as laboratory rats -- a fight he was reluctant to pursue until his activist pain-in-the-ass wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) is murdered by local thugs hired by said company.

Meirelles suggests that Quayle's relentlessness is in part due to his wife's considerable sexual magnetism (Weisz gives the film's best performance: fierce, sly, ironic) and not at all related to a repressed sense of justice. An unintended effect, I wager. The film's major flaw is that we never see Fiennes at work. He's supposed to be a diplomat but we get no sense of why he chose this profession (other than he's feeble and passive; not a complimentary view of the diplomatic corp, this) or what drives him other than he loved his wife. This doesn't detract from Fiennes' work. A pallid, wispy actor when called upon to project sincerity, he is entirely convincing as a man who accepts the fact that his life has changed inexorably, which makes Quayle kissing cousins with other Fiennes characters (his deformed count in The English Patient for starters).

In The Letter, Bette Davis' rubber plantation's wife offs her lover after he spurns her. She's so respectable that she can prepare breakfast for her lawyer, husband, and arresting officer minutes before being arrested (in Singapore the English ruling class stuck together). Like The Constant Gardener, Wyler's film shows the savagery into which hegemony sinks when it avoids accepting responsibility for its actions, as well as the effect on the natives hegemony's civil servants are purportedly educating. All these subtleties are apparent in Davis' performance. Pauline Kael was correct when she noted that Davis "gives what is very likely the best study of female sexual hypocrisy in film history."

Definitely. I suppose we're not meant to think he does particularly noteworthy or distinguished work (just pulling weeds?), but I was saying this last night.

I did like C.O.G. very, very much though. (And I do like Le Carre. But I think Tailor of Panama's a much better -- if more conventional -- movie.)

Anyone read Absolute Friends? I thought that was breathtakingly good, especially the ending.

I thought the film was phenomenal

and since when can ralph fiennes act like that?

John le Carre novel in pointless film about fuck all shockah.

-- Le Marquis de Salade (noodle_vagu...), November 13th, 2005.

WTF? Like Africa and AIDS and trade/colonialism are fuck all.

OSX? Windows? WHICH GODDAMN YOU?!?!

The 35-year-old actress, who won an Oscar on Sunday for her role in "The Constant Gardener," is a fashion-industry favorite.

"I love beautiful things and beautiful fashion," Weisz told The Associated Press in a recent telephone interview. "I like clothes that are beautifully cut that aren't too fussy."

She often attends Rodriguez's show during New York Fashion Week, but it was Burberry, which shares Weisz's British heritage, that approached her about modeling.

"I'm British. I grew up with Burberry being the ultimate brand in chic, elegance and history. My granny, the chicest lady I ever knew, had a Burberry raincoat. Now it's a cool and edgy fashion house, too," Weisz told the AP. "I was thrilled to be asked (to model). There was no hesitation."

The fragrance is light and floral with a rich undertone. Weisz said she's particularly fond of perfumes with a sandalwood base.

Weisz said her sense of smell has been heightened by her pregnancy, but, so far, there's nothing that's a complete turnoff.

However, she is craving cheese.