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[frelling_tralk]

Just added some new friends from the recent friending meme, I'm looking forward to getting to know you all better :)

And some films I've watched recently:

I really liked Red Dragon! It did take me a little while to get used to Edward Norton's Will Graham though, at first I didn't feel like he has that much presence in the role, but after a bit he started to grow on me. I actually found the 'tooth fairy' and the investigation into him the most interesting part of the film by far, Anthony Hopkin's Hannibal Lector just didn't make much of an impression on me this time around, nor was I particularly gripped by his interaction with Will Graham in the same way that I was with Hannibal and Clarice in the first two films. I guess that the film's Hannibal is just starting to feel a bit overplayed to me by now quite honestly, those scenes mostly just felt like they were redoing the same old shtick from the first films, the films Will and Hannibal definitely didn't have the same chemistry as Will and Hannibal do on the tv version *g*

It will be interesting to see how the tv series handles the Red Dragon plot, Hannibal appears in it so rarely that surely Mads is only going to get one or two scenes per episode for that plot? I guess that separating the season into two parts makes more sense in that case though, as then they can have a much heavier screen presence of Hannibal in the first half of season 3 while they explore his past, before letting Will take centre stage during Hannibal's imprisonment in the second half? Anyway I'm even more excited now to see how the tv series is going to handle the Red Dragon plot! I have to confess that I still haven't read the book, so I wasn't particularly clued-in to that part of the story, but now I am and it should be awesome to see the tv show's take on the "Tooth Fairy"!


I didn't enjoy Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes much tbh, I found it really hard to get into at first with the long scenes of cgi apes actually. I was a bit surprised because so many people seemed to prefer this film over the first one, so I assumed that I would as well, but meh I actually connected a lot more to Caesar's story in the first film. All of the war scenes in the sequel just weren't my thing, it felt really male-centric, and I found myself getting aggravated with the bad choices that the characters kept making over and over again. I did get into the second half a lot more, but still overall the characters (other than Ceasar of course!) felt so thinly-developed and lacking. I guess that it was too much of a big blockbuster movie for my tastes


I really enjoyed Gone Girl, Rosamund Pike was soooo perfect as Amy and almost exactly how I'd imagine her from the book :D Nearly all of the casting was spot-on (I especially liked the actress playing the main detective in the missing persons case).

I liked how much the film ran with the trial by media subject from the book, with the idea that simply awkwardly smiling at the wrong time can make you guilty in the public eyes. Also how Amy intentionally set herself up as the perfect victim that the public would love, and half of the reason for the public's fascination with the case in the first place was because of the "Amazing Amy" books fictionalizing Amy's childhood and making everyone feel like they knew her, just as she attempts to do herself with the version of herself and Nick that she presents in the diaries. I also liked the whole idea of marriage being a power play with both parties putting up facades to one another at first, Amy's "cool girl rant" was perfect *g*

The only part of the book I was surprised that they left out was Nick's father, quite a big part of the book was Nick's hatred of his misogynistic father and his fear of turning into him, but the film didn't really cover that. It's not that big a deal maybe as obviously they would have had to cut some parts of the book for time, I'm just surprised I guess that Gillian Flynn wouldn't include it in the screenplay when there was a fair bit of focus on it in the book. It was an important part of Nick's motivation in wanting to be seen as the good husband and prove to himself that he's a better man than his Father, as well as being part of why he chooses to stick around in the end to raise his kid differently. (Also it just seemed odd to have his Father briefly appear at the police station muttering "bitch" and then never follow up on that, they may as well have cut that scene completely if he wasn't going to get any more scenes after that)

And I know that the ending is a pretty controversial one, but...I didn't hate it. Obviously they had the most dysfunctional marriage EVER, but I didn't see the ending as Nick only staying to protect the baby from Amy. In the book he does want to put Amy in prison for her crimes (before Amy one-ups him), but even then he's still thinking that prison would involve regular visits lol, so I think that we were meant to agree with Amy when she argued that Nick would get bored with anyone else. Plus there was all of Nick's baggage with actually wanting to play the role of the perfect husband and father for Amy, something which maybe doesn't come across in the film as much, but the book ends with Nick admitting that he can no longer imagine his life without Amy, "Now at last I'm the hero. I am the one to root for in the never-ending war story of our marriage...She's my forever antagonist." Well and the film does also touch on that with Amy pointing out that Nick liked the version of himself more when he was trying to be someone that she might like

So yeah honestly I couldn't feel all that sorry for Nick being stuck with Amy, I always thought the point was that he was choosing to stay with Amy. He could have exposed the holes in Amy's stories and stopped going along with her if he had really wanted too, and I think that's part of why viewers/readers get frustrated at the book and film seeming to just ignore Nick's better options, but I saw it as Amy giving him the excuse that he needed to stay. In the film he pretty much can't answer when Go accuses him of wanting to stay with Amy. It was definitely a very chilling note to end it on though as Nick was clearly never going to feel safe in his own home again! (And in the book also you definitely get the sense that it's all going to unravel very quickly after Nick doesn't give Amy the right answer as to why he's doting on her so much)



I wasn't such a fan of Under The Skin because it left out the most interesting parts of Michel Faber's novel! Maybe the book was a bit too on the nose with its factory farming themes, but I would much rather have seen the plot and the characters from that, as opposed to a film which mostly just consisted of Scarlet Johansson driving around in a van to make awkward small talk and pick up strangers. It got really boring and tedious after a while, I'm afraid that I couldn't even finish it


And I'm currently reading Never Let Me Go which I'm enjoying so far, I'm planning to try and see the film for that next

Comments

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It's definitely worth watching IMO!