Wow, what a wonderful, cute film! Who would have thought! I admit that I'd never seen it till today, even though I once fell down the stairs and broke my watch in the Amsterdam apartment of the director. It's an intelligent, psychologically valid, smart film with actually cute and really funny moments. Jim Carrey's The Mask stole from this one! I'm notta gonna give away how, you'll have to see for yourself. It has some smart directorial stuff, by shooting the last close-up of the main character (Phoebe Cates's) in sunset lighting, which serves as a visual metaphore for closure. It has some great writing, like telling us what happens to Drop Dead Fred (Rik Mayall) after... (No, see it yourself)and by giving meaning, plotwise, to the title of the film. And some unfortunate technical uglyness like the cut in between the little girl standing up, and her walking downstairs. (I understand why, the follow-up was too complex for the girl to get it right in even a few usable takes, so the director had to "fix it in post".) and two lines (dubbed?)in the first half of the film that are at least three frames out of sync, but the director is forgiven, because the majority of the film is so damn cute. Should get a remake starring Jim Carrey (geen gelul Ate, doen!)
Reviews
3 Reviews
Legally Blonde
(2001)
One of the best movies ever made
30 November 2001
Joyful, smart, fairly on-the-nose as it should be, wonderfully acted, and in what other movie does the art direction gets a laugh? (Elle's pink, fluffy phone). Talking of which: great costume design for every one of Elle's moods. Definitely one of the best movies ever made.
Uttara
(2000)
Indian filmmakers, it's time you grow up.
26 January 2001
Well, I guess they like it in India. If this is the elite standard of Indian cinema, it doesn't surprise me that Indian movies never really make it to western theaters. Evolutionary this is lightyears behind western films. Both technically and storywise. When this premiered at the International Filmfestival Rotterdam, the 750 seats theater was fully packed by an "intellectual" audience, who didn't know what they were about to watch. When the movie was finished, half the theater was empty, and not a single positive comment was heard among the 300-something die hards who'd struggled their way through the whole thing. This is no way of captivating an audience. If you can speak of a story here at all, it is told in the worst possible way, it's too slow, incoherent and random. The acting is terrible and technically the film is below a professional level. It's very, very amateurish. Just because something is captured on celluloid, put together and provided with some (dubbed only) sound doesn't make it a movie. It's no surprise that, this way, a country can produce more 'films' than the US. Indian filmmakers, it's time you grow up.
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