Movie Review - Part Deux + Trois...
May. 21st, 2006 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athersgeoAfter courting the dislike of probably every man and his dog for daring not to like the Narnia movie (*grin*), I decided to change up a gear...
I knew, going into the movie, what the basic gist of the story was. I'd tried to watch it when it premiered on Sky, several moons ago, but for one reason or another, I never got beyond seeing the trailers for it and seeing a program about it on MTV. So with that said, the only plot twist that surprised me was the one at the very beginning, in which the very young Anna Mae gets tossed out of the church choir in time to see her mother and sister leave for St Louis.
After that, the story that followed was predictable (in that I knew what was going to happen), but at the sametime, horrifying, engrossing and (above all) fantastically put together.
Angela Bassett plays Tina and my goodness, does she do it well. If I'm any judge (and I do know Tina Turner's voice when I hear it!), Angela didn't do any of the singing, but the timing, dancing and movement were absolutely bang on in each and every performance. Laurence Fishburne was beautifully mercurial and utterly terrifying as Ike Turner and the rest of the supporting cast ranged from good to great.
My complaints, such as I have any, stem from the problem that any film covering some 40 years is going to have: How to show that time's passing. They did use the very neat trick of Ike's fashions (and haircuts) showing the move from the early 60s to the late 60s to the 70s to the beginning of the 80s (at one point, that corresponds roughly with the British Invasion, I'd almost swear he's shown with a moptop!) but, for all that (and the creative use of subtitles), it did occasionally get confusing. No sooner had Ike noticed Tina had put on weight than Tina's popping out her son - and I'm assuming that didn't actually happen that quickly, in reality!
The other problem is it was a little difficult to work out exactly who one or two of side characters were, whether they were band members/singers or just hangers on, particularly in the bigger party scenes.
Overall, though, the nitpicks are pretty minor and none of them hinder the enjoyment of the story, which, I have to say, further enhances my feeling that Tina Turner is one remarkable lady with a fabulous voice.
Lastly, though I'm not going to write a review of this, I've watched some Dr Who. Not the new stuff with whassisface and thingywassitwhousedtobeasinger but a story from the first run of Dr Who, from "my" doctor, when the effects were cheesy, but the writing and the story telling were what really mattered.
I knew, going into the movie, what the basic gist of the story was. I'd tried to watch it when it premiered on Sky, several moons ago, but for one reason or another, I never got beyond seeing the trailers for it and seeing a program about it on MTV. So with that said, the only plot twist that surprised me was the one at the very beginning, in which the very young Anna Mae gets tossed out of the church choir in time to see her mother and sister leave for St Louis.
After that, the story that followed was predictable (in that I knew what was going to happen), but at the sametime, horrifying, engrossing and (above all) fantastically put together.
Angela Bassett plays Tina and my goodness, does she do it well. If I'm any judge (and I do know Tina Turner's voice when I hear it!), Angela didn't do any of the singing, but the timing, dancing and movement were absolutely bang on in each and every performance. Laurence Fishburne was beautifully mercurial and utterly terrifying as Ike Turner and the rest of the supporting cast ranged from good to great.
My complaints, such as I have any, stem from the problem that any film covering some 40 years is going to have: How to show that time's passing. They did use the very neat trick of Ike's fashions (and haircuts) showing the move from the early 60s to the late 60s to the 70s to the beginning of the 80s (at one point, that corresponds roughly with the British Invasion, I'd almost swear he's shown with a moptop!) but, for all that (and the creative use of subtitles), it did occasionally get confusing. No sooner had Ike noticed Tina had put on weight than Tina's popping out her son - and I'm assuming that didn't actually happen that quickly, in reality!
The other problem is it was a little difficult to work out exactly who one or two of side characters were, whether they were band members/singers or just hangers on, particularly in the bigger party scenes.
Overall, though, the nitpicks are pretty minor and none of them hinder the enjoyment of the story, which, I have to say, further enhances my feeling that Tina Turner is one remarkable lady with a fabulous voice.
Lastly, though I'm not going to write a review of this, I've watched some Dr Who. Not the new stuff with whassisface and thingywassitwhousedtobeasinger but a story from the first run of Dr Who, from "my" doctor, when the effects were cheesy, but the writing and the story telling were what really mattered.
