This might be like kicking a hornet's nest.

Came home last night, eager to watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  But Renee was watching something else, and was so absorbed/taken with it (and, besides, Girl is 150 minutes long) that we watched her selection, Mona Lisa Smile, instead.  Hoo-boy.

(By the way, Ms Diskowski pulled off yet another stunning dinner last night:  Grilled pork chops, pan-fried kale, and cannellini beans with crispy prosciutto on top.  For whatever reason, Ms Diskowski did not take a photo.  But it was real.  No joke.  We drank 2006 -- the winery sent me an older vintage by mistake -- Hendry Chardonnay, which was absolutely sublime.  It is showing magnificently right now.)

Anyroad, back to Mona Lisa Smile.  Despite a fantastic cast:  Julia Roberts (one of the Wife and I's faves); McNutty from The Wire; Kirsten Dunst (does not make a good brunette, should always be blonde); Ginnifer Goodwin (Renee and I like her, too); Maggie Gyllenhaal (already way too old for her part in the film); Julia Stiles (criminally under-rated); Marcia Gay Harden; John Slattery; Juliet Stevenson (one of my all-time faves); Topher Grace; and even Aleksa Palladino for, like, two seconds of screen time! And despite the film's obvious good intentions and feminist message, Mona Lisa Smile is an awful motion picture.

Where do I begin? The musical score for one thing is so heavy handed and annoying.  In fact, heavy-handed should be the essential expression, describing Mona Lisa Smile.  Director, Mike Newell, goes for every big emotional moment as if playing whack-a-mole.  The "villain" of the picture, Ms Dunst's student character's transformation at the end is wholly unbelievable and unsupportable.  Julia Stiles' "I choose to be a housewife" speech seems like a PC cop-out, which probably is the result of Newell's poor direction and Ms Roberts' sleepwalking performance in this extremely crucial scene.  Sadly, despite this being a possible big Hollywood show-offy role for Ms Roberts, she is not up to it.  I suspect Ms Roberts had doubts about the material.  The absolute worst is the song chosen for the end credits, which is grossly inappropriate, Sir Elton John's, The Heart of Every Girl.  So terrible.

Yeah, I will take Lone Scherfig's An Education over Newell's Mona Lisa Smile every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Aleksa Palladino in Todd Solondz' creepy, difficult masterpiece, Storytelling.

After Mona Lisa Smile we watched My Man Godfrey and fell asleep.  It had been a long week, after all.

Ciao!

I was reluctant and loathe

To start watching The Hour on BBC America.  First, because, after reading a review in the SF Chron, it seemed The Hour was another Mad Men rip-off like Pan-Am and however many others there are.  And, second, because I would have to watch the program with commercials, which I simply cannot abide these days.  We tend to dvr everything in this house, just so we can skip the ads.  (Love you RedZone! No commercials ever!)

Abi Morgan.  Yeah, how about a photograph of the writer once in a while?

But David Thomson wrote some nice things about it in his blog for The New Republic and mentioned how you can see it commercial-free onDemand with Xfinity (Comcast.)  (Thomson spelled Xfinity wrong, by the way.  He spelled it Exfinity.  But, is not that cute? Thomson lives in the City and we have the same cable provider.)  So, I watched the first three episodes of Season One last night.

(Sigh, and audible grin.)  It is great, of course.  Here is the amazing British cast, many of them big favorites of mine:  Dominic West (McNutty in The Wire, barely in Chicago); Ben Whishaw (I'm Not There); Romola Garai; Juliet Stevenson (so many things: Drowning by Numbers, Truly Madly Deeply, Inspector Lewis, A Place of Execution, Miss Marple, Bend It Like Beckham, When Did You Last See Your Father, etc, ... ); Burn Gorman (fantastic in Bleak House); Anna Chancellor (Miss Marple, Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis!); Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones and The Devil's Double); and Julian Rhind-Tutt (Poirot, Miss Marple, and AbFab).  Plus, The Hour is part of the BBC America Dramaville Series, so each episode is hosted and introduced by Idris Elba ("Stringer" Bell in The Wire, The Office, 28 Weeks Later, Law and Order, and AbFab.)

It is similar to Mad Men in style, with plenty of red lipstick and nylons for everyone! There is not as much sex as in Mad Men, though, and The Hour is told in a much more traditional, theatrical storytelling type of way.  The show is about a newsmagazine program, complete with a love triangle that features a woman producer, a privileged dense anchor, and a slightly unhinged journalist.  So, there is the Broadcast News similarity, as well.

The performances are great.  Ben Whishaw and Romola Garai are the real stand outs here. And it looks great, shot in a louche candlelit sort of a way, plus the script is chock full of fabulous dialogue, written by Abi Morgan (Ms Morgan is also a playwright, but she has two movie scripts coming out next month, Shame -- cowritten with the director, Steve McQueen -- and The Iron Lady.  So we'll be hearing a lot more about Ms Morgan very soon.)  The whole thing is a fabulous fun entertainment and much more my cup of tea than Mad Men.  But that is probably just me.

You should definitely check it out.  The Wife and I will finish Season One tonight with a big bowl of popcorn.

Kisses,
xxxoooxxx


Ardent