Open your eyes

[Guest]

As a Mexican woman who knew and felt like Frida Kahlo was a part of mi familia, and visited the Casa Azul some 30+ years ago and was the only person there, I was very disatisfied with the movie and Hayek (whom I like very much). I wish Julie Taymor (loved her "Titus") had done the whole thing in puppetry and graphics.

Kahlo, like Callas or Nijinsky, was a life force but the facts and drama of her life that can be filmed are not her, or her life. She was an extraodinary woman and artist who lived in physical and emotional pain the majority of her life and yet had a joy for life unlike very few persons I've read or heard about. The film did not capture this, no one can, but it's in her words and her work.

The film should have been made in Spanish and all the Mexicans played by Spanish-as-a-first-language speakers. I like Molina and the girl who played Modotti (another extraordinary mujer) but they sucked in the film.

Yes, the music was very fine. Run, don't walk, to get Lila Downs' CDs. I have all of three, she's Mexico to me, as was Kahlo, and a brilliant singer and musician.

Perdita

 

[Seattle Zack]

Originally, El Mariachi came to mind, probably because of the Banderas influence....

But I really think the best remake I've seen in the last few years is The Thomas Crown Affair, partly because I don't think McQueen was that effective in the original, and partly because of that bowler hat scene .... cinematic perfection, in my opinion.

Then there's Pierce Brosnan ... so much better as an international art thief, don't you think? Hell, I'd fuck him. If I was gay. Which I'm not. Really. What are you looking at?

--Zack

 

[Icingsugar]

Then there's Pierce Brosnan ... so much better as an international art thief, don't you think? Hell, I'd fuck him. If I was gay. Which I'm not. Really. What are you looking at?

Brosnan is one of the last true movie star gentlemen out there. Really cool.

 

[raphy]

Ah, and after the CBS/Remington Steele debacle, the man thought he was destined to be forever known as 'The actor who should have been Bond'

I care not what people think about Connery, Brosnan is Bond, more than any other Bond actor in the history of the franchise. It's going to be such a shame when he moves on.

Moore - Too soft.
Dalton - Too hard, although very close to Fleming's original.
Lazenby - Well, we don't talk about him.
Connery - Wasn't really Bond, was just Connery (which is cool in of itself, of course... But does not necessarily a good James Bond make.)

Brosnan's got it all. The look, the charm, the edge. He can throw out the cheesy Bond one-liners with a straight face, and flip from that straight to the cold-blooded killer, drinker and mysoganistic womanizer that Bond is supposed to be, and Dalton showed us a little of. My only complaint with Brosnan is that he doesn't smoke. And Bond smokes like a freight train.

The thing about the Bond movies (since they've somewhat moved away from Fleming's books) is that they're not the English taking the piss out of themselves. It's more subtle than that. We know we're serious. We can take the piss out of ourselves for being so. But even when we're having a laugh.. We're being serious.

Bond is the English being serious about taking the piss out of themselves for being too serious.

Watch Goldeneye. You'll see what I mean.

Raph, somewhat of a Bond fan.

 

[Guest]

Zack, Sugar & Raff: I agree with you about Brosnan.

Raff, you're right on about the Bonds, even Sean whom I adore (did you know there's a special gene in female DNA that makes every woman adore Connery at any age?).

'dita

p.s. I know a Catholic nun, nearly 70, wears the old-fashioned habit, who adores Brosnan. Not knowing this, she stunned me one day as she left my office saying she was off to see the new Bond movie (the one where Famke J. clamps PB between her thighs in the sauna).