Donny_Stay

Just got back. I'm afraid to say... I thought it was mostly enjoyable, but overall, not truly a great film. The film suffers greatly from losing Ishiguro's prose, and is largely reduced to a summary of events from the novel. As such, a lot of the moments lose their impact -- in fact, some of them threaten to become melodrama. Mark Romanek seems to be a competent director, and there are some affecting scenes, but he's not capable of overcoming the theoretical (shh, you know) aspects of the story. Those theoretical aspects will feel like the point of the exercise, and the emotional bits will seem incidental, especially for those who have never read the novel.

It must be said, however, that Carey Mulligan is brilliant in the film. She's possibly deserving of another Oscar nomination, and if this turns out to be a weak year, she's practically guaranteed one. All the actors acquit themselves well (especially the child actors), but Mulligan in particular is outstanding.

I dunno, I'm heavily biased, as I'm very fond of the novel, but overall I don't know if I can wholeheartedly recommend this film to those who haven't read the novel -- it might seem like flimsy science fiction. To those who have read it, you may well enjoy the film, but it is unquestionably an inferior experience.

It's a new show; it's still got some kinks to work out, and I don't completely disagree with any of the previous reviews. The characters aren't well developed (yet), and, yes, some of them are essentially caricatures, especially the promiscuous male neighbor.

However, I think the previous reviewers who dismiss Cox's character as a vapid, sexually charged woman have somewhat missed the point. The show is not really about love or sex; it's about women retaining their feminine identity despite society's insistence that middle-aged women are past their prime, and about dealing with the societal prejudices that come with being a middle-aged woman (some of which can be seen on this very board; more on that later).

Jules is recently divorced, and is suddenly plunged into the single woman's dating world as a 40-something. The show is attempting to capture (with admittedly middling success), the panic and confusion that accompanies the single, middle-aged woman, as she competes with women half her age for the same men. Love? Sex? Never mind all that; Jules would settle for having some fun -- and doesn't she deserve it, after being a mother and housewife for so many years? The show extracts its humor from the awkward journey middle-aged women must often traverse, from motherhood to single-hood, and through whatever else is along the way.

This is where the neighbor's one-note caricature becomes necessary, or at least makes sense. He exists to contrast the different societal attitudes towards middle-aged men and women. Men easily rejoin the dating scene, but women are met with harsh sneers and judgmental assessments. Even in the reviews here on IMDb, some of the people complained that Jules was a sex-crazed maniac, an idiot nymphomaniac, and whatever else, despite that she waited until the tenth date to have sex with her boyfriend. A woman who waits until the tenth date is sex-crazed? No, she just wants to have fun and feel desirable, just like the rest of us.

That brings us to the show's problems, and it has a few. Cox is far too attractive to be convincing as a desperate cougar, for instance. And yes, it would be better if the other characters were more interesting, and if neighbor were more than just a one-note cad. But the show is, in my opinion, still quite funny, and the characters are becoming more sympathetic, even Jules's do-nothing ex-husband. I think the show has a lot of potential, and I will continue to watch it.

As I recall, Courtney Cox's other show, Friends, was almost unwatchable in the first two seasons. But there were good elements there, and eventually they figured it out. I suspect they'll do so with Cougar Town as well.

I'm not an especially religious person, so I'm not much concerned about blasphemy, but the main flaws of this film have nothing to do with blasphemous content anyway. No, the problem is that most of the film comprises a biography of Jesus, and fails badly at it.

The accents are a serious problem; they're completely unbelievable in this context. Dafoe and Keitel never abandon their thick, urban American dialects; they sound like they're in an Abel Ferrara gangster film. I realize that this was intentional, since giving Jesus the traditional, vaguely beatific aura would defeat the point of the film. Nevertheless, this completely pulls the viewer out of setting -- I don't feel like I'm watching events of two millennia ago; I feel like I'm watching Brooklynite Christians put on an Easter play. The dialogue doesn't help: when Jesus asks, "Are you ready for me?", he sounds like a frightened patient in a doctor's office.

The end result is that the Jesus character is completely unbelievable as a person who attracts a loyal flock of disciples and followers. Is this guy the Son of God, or the head of a stevedore's union? I don't mind Dafoe as an actor, but he does not possess the sheer force of charisma necessary to convince us that he is the Messiah. As a result, the entire film is lost.

By the time the film reaches the controversial content, I've long since ceased to care, but since we're on the topic, it must be pointed out that the film has little, if anything, to say about Jesus Christ. In typical Christian teaching, by definition Jesus is a dual entity of God and Man that exists beyond the comprehension of mankind. Since God is by definition omnipotent, the Son of God, who is also God, is also omnipotent, and not fallible like a human, and therefore wouldn't have caved to temptation. The character presented in this film is therefore somewhat removed from the figure worshiped by Christians.

So. We have a film that is an inferior adaptation of a well-known story, and which does little to enhance our faith. What are we left with? Well, not much. I might say that the film is worth watching simply to see an example of Scorsese's middle period, except that the film is nearly three hours long. If you have that much time to kill, and you really want to see it, go ahead, but otherwise, you aren't missing much.