Frankenstein, the 90’s movie.

Apart from the family and friends reunions, I’ve been relaxing on my own. I watched a movie I‘ve wanted to see for a long time, and finished a book in five days, something I haven’t been able to do since summer.

First, the movie I watched was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, though you better don’t think about the novel while watching it. The movie tries to be what Coppola’s Dracula was: a visually appealing film with a romantic story and a classical monster as its core, but utterly fails at it.

Actually a vanity project by its director, Kenneth Branagh, it shows. He casts himself as the young Victor Frankenstein, a young medicine student who immaturely decides to ‘conquer death’. I’ve mentioned his youth so often because Branagh seems to be too old to cast himself as Victor, a character whom he turns into an all-perfect, Marty Stu, bombastic hero, and just like that we’ve lost our protagonist. I, at least, couldn’t take him seriously, and his life is always serious: his mother dies, has a romance with his sister, searches for the secret of life and creates a monster. Without a moment of calm, in all that rush, I hardly know him and the beginning of the movie is boring when it’s not inadequately hilarious.

But there is actual comic relief of course, and the actor is fine, but the jokes are old and the friendship between him and Victor is showed in such a rush it’s like he’s never really there. In fact, he disappears from the movie in the last half hour, shouting a big NO in a house that few minutes later the monster burns (should we assume the worst?). But don’t worry; there are some emotions in the movie, some genuinely creepy emotions, too. Victor has an adopted sister, portrayed by Branagh’s real girlfriend, and though Helena Bonham Carter does all in her power, is still unpleasant to watch her snogging with Victor. Probably, it they wouldn’t mention constantly that they ‘used to’ be adoptive siblings and that they would love each other anyway. Seriously, they make a very big deal of their romance, though it becomes an important conflict at the end.    

The Monster, played by Robert de Niro, is barely in the picture. Which is a pity, because it could have saved the film. De Niro is wonderful, you can clearly see the effort, he could have changed the perception of the monster if given more time and better antagonists. But at the end, he falls for the hammy performance of Branagh in the too dramatic final scene.

If I watch this movie again, it will be with friends and for the laugh. I have even prepared a drinking game:

-        Take a shot every time Victor and his “sister” make out and an extra shot if they have recently discussed their sibling status.

-         Every time Victor does his laboratory job shirtless.

-         Every time someone shouts a big NO. every fucking character does.

-       Finally, take a shot for every scene Robert de Niro appears and almost redeems the film. Believe me, there aren’t many.

Merry Christmas!

I'd like to share this with you; it's one of my favourite Christmas "carols"; Bill Nighy sings a cover of Love Is All Around á la Robert Palmer for the film Love Actually. It's probably the only good thing in that film, but it's totally worthy. Love the way Bill Nihghy acts, like he's thinking 'Can I handle all these hot ladies? I'll try, it's Christmas'. Enjoy and remember, silly Christmas songs are the best!

Censorship in the XVIII century British theatre.

It seems that censorship was common since the XVI century; way before the Licencing Act, and opposition to it was almost non-existing. However, this early auto-censorship disappeared gradually and plays became bawdier and more explicit until the imposition of the Act in 1737.

After the Restoration, theatre became a very important business controlled by a few, at first friends of the king who didn’t know anything about the management of theatre. Of the two existing companies, the Duke’s company was more innovative and had less difficulty in keeping actresses and young actors and paying the playwrights; finally it absorbed its rival, the King’s company.

Prior to the Act, self-censorship was enough for a time, but in the 1670s sex comedies became the fashion. Before that, political plays had been often performed but the audience was scarce. However, the government started to practice censorship against the pro-Whig ones, closing companies and banning scripts.

After the Glorious Revolution, the United Company produces mainly ‘operas’ with impressive stage effects that, though successful, were too expensive for the company. The United Company changed management which reignited the split and rivalry between the two companies.

The resulting chaos and the political changes made the two companies stage new bawdy comedies of manners, very popular among the public. The damaging competition, problems with patents of old plays and the lack of new public tried to be solved with additional attraction: young attractive actresses with sexy outfits and slutty characters were included in many plays, acrobats and ballerinas in the entre-acts, … in the midst of all this, some voices against the immorality of theatre began to raise again. Censorship by the Lord Chamberlain was mildly tried, but it was ineffective. Writers like Congreve and Vanbrugh were very successful and the monarchs were very much against the closing of any theatre, though not because they liked it especially. Something to do with some Puritans in the past century, I guess…

Anyway, by the turn of the next century the rivalry between the two companies was almost over and translated Italian operas were the new trend. The Lord Chamberlain was now simply mediating between the actors and the management. In 1714, theatre managers got complete control to decide what plays to stage. But this wasn’t going to last.

In the 30’s, political satire became fashionable, due in part to the success of the Beggar’s Opera in 1728. The Walpole ministry became a bitter enemy of theatre’s right of choosing what to represent, especially because the playwrights tended to kill the Walpole-like character. Walpole tried to pass a bill in 1735, denounced satires and probably secretly staged a play attacking the king, The Golden Rump. This play was never staged and is now lost, if ever existed. However a cartoon of it was showed by Robert Walpole in the House of Lords, after the bill had passed through the House of Commons. The Act closed all non-patent theatres and required all plays to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain before being staged.

And thus, British theatre was changed forever. It also had the consequence of leaving actors at the mercy of the two main companies and led some playwrights to become novelists in order to avoid censorship. Both companies became predictable and new plays were hardly encouraged. Melodramas and pantomimes became the main representations and English theatre was extremely mediocre for a long time.

It seems that His Majesty had a huge ass in real life too.

Un pequeño poema.

Es un pequeño poema satírico que escribí basándome un poco en Pope y por haber tenido que ver Twilight dos veces. No es nada, pero el par de personas a las que se lo leí se rieron. Es más gracioso interpretado.

Pálida doncella sin pensamientos,
Guapa sin conocerlo, delgada
Que no anoréxica, delicada.
Al verle comienzan sus sentimientos.

Por las montañas de Forks va gritando:
"Oh, Edward! Oh, Edward!"
Y a lo lejos él le va contestando:
"¡Oh, Bella! ¡Oh, Bella!"

"¿Te casarás ya conmigo?"
"Sólo si me haces vampiro
Y conservo mi apellido."

En verdad creo que es más que de entender
Que Señora Cûllen no quiera ser.

Crinolines and hoops.

In Pope’s The Rape of the Lock there is a very powerful description of high class women in the XVIII century. They’re very beautiful, yes, but inactive, vain and stupid. Belinda actually breaks molds when she has a fit because her fiancé has dared to cut one of her locks. In fact, it can be said that was proto-feminist and all.

No, really. She’s the protagonist, she’s active at the end of the poem, and she’s perceived by other people and even the poet as a ridiculous young lady with no class (and PMS, as Pope so subtly suggests).

I’m not saying there were no intelligent women at the time. Even those who weren’t poetical genius weren’t dumb either. But their physical attractiveness was their only way to show some energy and stand out, so they (I mean high-class women) spent a preposterously great amount of time dressing up. Obviously, the clothes they wore were imprisoning them too.

The hoop at the time didn’t reach the floor, so women would be able to walk in very elegant short steps, and made them occupy the place of three people. Imagine the spectacle, one woman walking very carefully not to throw anything on the ground, unable to run, occupying a whole sofa, … it was like a walking cage. In fact, it reminds me of the Chinese noble women’s feet. Google that and look at the images; it looks worse than it sounds.

Pope is very ambivalent toward women, but he at least conceded some thought to that; women’s behaviour is not portrayed as entirely stupid; Clarissa is given a good monologue about common sense and humour (she also aides the Baron, so well… an ambiguous character) and Belinda has some psychological profundity, though the poet finally didn’t see the importance of the matter; he, at least, tried to understand why, instead of accepting the common theories of the time (do women have a soul? They really doubted it).  

Twilight IV, part 1.

I really enjoyed the first part of the movie, really. Kristen Steward in bikini, Charlie and Bella’s wacky friends appeared and they’re my favourite characters, Alice is definitely a fashion psycho (actually, it creeps me out),… all very funny and bullship, but hilarious. Apart from a ridiculously dramatic dream I was having fun. So were my friends, although they didn’t laugh at Jacob’s “Oh, no! My ex-girlfriend is marrying my worst enemy! What should I do?! I know!” and tears out his shirt very intensively. I loved the trailer just for that.

So, I was enjoying the movie, in a so-bad-it’s-good way, like with the 3^rd one (I found the first two boring; I’m not even very sure what happens in the 2^nd one), but suddenly, bam! Abortion! Yes, they actually tried to talk about abortion, being clearly against it. It’s not the moment! If only she had used protection! Or maybe his sparkly sperm is so potent it would have burst the condom?! I hated the rest of the movie, except for the very ending, but I’ll tell you later.

I love how kissing her looks so painful to Edward.

Really, my friends were horrified by the pregnancy and the birth. I’m used to some gore, but it was all new to my friends, one of them only sees romantic movies and comedies, and the other said she wouldn’t have sex in at least ten years. How does it dare to have a message?! I’m not against of it having a little moral, like “be yourself (no matter if you’re an obnoxious teenager, don’t grow up!)” or “choose true love (no matter if he’s an abusive asshole, he loves you!), that’s fair and simple; but a fucking dissertation about abortion! It’s not right, it’s just not right. Oh, and the boy Bella is constantly rejecting and giving false hope at the same time, well, it’s Ok, he gets the baby! Yes, he gets the baby that was trying to kill Bella. Despite there was already Leah (who everybody treats like Meg in Family Guy), well he discovers the joys of paedophilia. I hated that movie, not even Charlie or sexy Kristen Steward can redeem it.

Oh, and the ending is Bella waking up… and the credits start and the director of the film turns out to be some Bill Condon. I laughed at that, but was really angry. 

Happy Halloween!

Here where I live, celebrating Halloween is pretty new, and I’m too old for the Trick-or-Treat thing. Anyway, I love Halloween; it’s so much fun, back in Edinburgh I went to a  party dressed as a witch after seeing a parade of green and blue fairies and elves. It’s my favourite party after Christmas.

Unlike me, my sister hates it. She says it’s not our tradition and therefore we should not acknowledge and stick to our own tradition for this day, which I'm not very sure what it is about. I know it involves going to the cemetery and cleaning up the family tombs. Yes, that sounds like fun.

So, just after this argument with her, I went out and bought her a Halloween lollipop. That was as a prank, but you have to admit, it was a rather nice one. She couldn’t say anything other than thanks, and I think she’s keeping the lollipop.

What do you think about Halloween? I know it’s not really a part of our culture, but is that so important?