Pet peeves

Finding this article in the Times Online about the top ten most historically inaccurate movies reminded me that this sort of thing is one of my major bug bears.  I’m getting better as I get older, and there are some movies that I like enough to give a free pass, but this seriously annoyed me back in the day when I was studying history.  In fact my dislike of some movies was so vehement that my friends would avoid putting on historical movies when I was around.  I think I missed an invite to watch Alexander at the cinema for the same reason but I don’t think that was much of a loss (I still haven’t bothered to watch it). 

I had such a fit while watching A Knight’s Tale (a movie Rufus Sewell, Alan Tudyk, Paul Bettany and Heath Ledger couldn’t save) that my friends almost turned it off to stop me complaining.  It illustrated so many things that are wrong with vaguely historical movies and tried to pass it off as funny and amusing.  The camera pan of London where all the houses were Tudor style started it and then to be super helpful someone pointed out the character that was meant to be Chaucer (Aaaaah!).  Yeah, not helping me like it.

But it is not the worst offender which is an honour reserved for King Arthur, the awful, awful movie with Clive Owen and Keira Knightley.  So, so wrong…and for more than just historical reasons.  The history it was based on was at least 20 years out of date (yes people, history changes with perceptions and new discoveries) and they completely changed the result of the battles (assuming there actually were any).  I spent most of this movie imagining alternate story lines for the characters by reading too much into the  badly scripted lines but even that didn’t help (and my version was way better anyway). Click here for a page of goofs.

I also hated Gladiator.  The Emperor should have won.  Maximus was a hypocrite. And if I have to watch Derek Jacobi wear Roman getup again (he better not think about stuttering either) I will do something bad.

FYI Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was a terrible movie but it gets a free pass because Alan Rickman is in it and is the most awesome Sheriff ever (and I also may have liked Christian Slater way back in the early nineties ssshhhh don’t tell anyone…)

The Sheriff

Best John Hughes eulogy

If you liked John Hughes movies even just a little bit, this is the best write up I have read following his untimely passing.

Sad news for basketcases

Today came the news that teen (and adult) movie maker extraordinaire of the eighties and nineties John Hughes had died.  He was still very young, only 59, and apparently suffered a heart attack.  I’m writing about this because I am a huge fan of John Hughes movies, especially the teen stuff from the eighties.  One of my all time favourite movies is The Breakfast Club and it is the movie from which I lifted my online name, basketcase. I loved, loved, loved that movie and was also into Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink (James Spader and Andrew McCarthy anyone?) and Sixteen Candles. These movies personified teen angst and being misunderstood and while other movies may have covered similar ground, John Hughes did it best.  Hughes was also responsible for a slew of other popular (if occasionally annoying movies) such as the National Lampoons Series, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

So, RIP John Hughes and I’ll leave you with the iconic letter/essay from The Breakfast Club that inspired my online name all those years ago.

Dear Mr Vernon,

We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms with the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basketcase, a princess and a criminal.  Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,

The Breakfast Club

Murdoch

the man in question - Murdoch

Ok, so the article is old but it happens to focus on one of my favourite movies of all time – Dark City.  Following Murdoch, a man who wakes up in dark city not knowing who he is or where he is, the otherworldiness of the plot unfolds.  The city is gripped by a series of brutal murders, but could Murdoch really be a killer? 

The city and its people are noirish, stylish in their perpetual evening.  It’s beautiful and engaging. It also came out with a killer storyline about a year before the Matrix tried something similar but with martial arts.  It’s a simplistic description of an excellent movie but there are plot twists that it just wouldn’t do to give away, but I do highly recommend it.