(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

It bothered my family all last week, and now it's finally gotten to me--The Phantom of the Opera music is now stuck in my head. We watched the movie version upstate, and, well, yours truly got lots of reaction to her opinions, so maybe this is the movie's vengeance, letting me hum random bits of ditties.

Well, fuck you, movie Phantom. Christine Daae was fugly, Raoul made a wonderful girl--you know, if you overlooked the muttonchops, Donna Reed wig, and absolutely awful acting, and the Phantom had about as much facial scarring as I do (granted, that isn't saying much, seeing as I lost that battle with a searing-hot cast iron skillet in a freak blacksmithing accident, but true, just the same). If I want to be sung at, I'll take the CDs, thank you. You and your Hollywood harlotry can go suck on the movie Phantom fandom (gah, say that five times fast, why don't you?). Seriously, they destroyed the story in trying to make it make sense. Honestly, if the Phantom has to actually cause the accidents onscreen, you're not trying hard enough.

*****

In other movie news, I rented Strange Days from Netflix. It's got a good premise, but the story falls apart in chunks and pieces, crumbling to bits along the way. Ways it could have been improved:
A) Let Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett be naked. No, there doesn't have to be a reason, they are just both really hot.
B) Never let Juliette Lewis sing. Ever. Period.
C) If you put Vincent D'Onofrio, William Fichtner, Tom Sizemore, and Michael Wincott together in the same movie, it is sleaze-character actor overload. Please remove at least two.

I liked the idea of re-living other people's memories--yet another question of what makes reality, done really well here as people aren't merely living other realities, but other real realities, complete with adrenaline rushes associated therewith. There are some disturbing possibilities that most other films don't go into--making a recorded memory of a rape and murder, for instance--which really puts the dangers of such technology to a better forefront than the 'us vs them' contrivances of sci-fi cinema.

But come on, Ralph Fiennes as a sleaze-bag? He does dirty, he does psycho, he does sociopath, but as a con-man drug hustler? Please. Oh, and the soundtrack sucked.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh the guy playing the Phantom is actually quite attractive (I've seen him in such "hit" movies as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider--The Cradle of Life and Reign of Fire), which was the whole problem. If they wanted to make the Phantom as truly hideous as possible, they might have started by not making it a surprise reveal that his impossibly beautiful face was also a mask. It's not only completely implausible for the time period, it was just stupid.

I like the music, generally, but the story is only so-so to beging with, and adding the WANGSTY background story for the Phantom just birthed a thousand annoying fangirls into existence and betrayed the Phantom as a slightly psychotic virtuoso by making him a TWAGIC figure. Gah, he was already tragic, Joel Schumacher!!! HATE.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

... surprise reveal? Did you get some kind of alternate ending version? In the one I saw, he just has a mask, and half of his face is impossibly beautiful, the other is vaguely messed up. No surprise anything.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is exactly what my cousin and I were commenting on, in fact. So, throughout the movie, he progressively covers less of his face until, through the combination of masks he wears, we've pretty much seen all of his face around his right eye (where the scarring is) except for like the actual socket. We see the forehead above the mask being okay in one scene, and most of his cheek below is fine.

However, at the end end end of the movie, he rips off his mask and the dark hair goes with to reveal that the hair and forehead and a lot of the cheek that looked okay were really part and parcel of his mask. So, forget the time when Christine first rips off his mask and the dark hair stays on, because he was wearing OMG! two masks to make that effect. When the 'other' mask comes off, his hair is white, he has no upper eyelid (I know, what?), and he's scarred all the way to his ear.

So, yeah, the entire right part of his head is actually scarred, even though it would be nearly impossible to hide that with makeup today let alone in France in the 1800s...