The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Data
Title: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Year: 1994
Length: 104 minutes
Director: Stephan Elliott
Writer: Stephan Elliott
Starring: Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Terence Stamp
With: Alan Dargin, Bill Hunter, Julia Cortez, Sarah Chadwick, Mark Holmes
Music: Guy Gross (mostly non-original music)
Cinematography: Brian J. Breheny
Editing: Sue Blainey
Oscars: won for Best Costume Design
I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), a couple days ago
Synopsis: three drag queens cross the outback in a bus

My reaction
Concept:
Story:
Characters:
Dialog: I think this movie honestly believes it's witty. Sad.
Pacing: Not boring, but poorly edited.
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting: Stamp is pretty good. Pearce is terrible (although it doesn't help that his character is deliberately obnoxious).
Music:
Subjective Rating: 3/10 (Bad, ). It just doesn't work on any level - unless you find something inherently entertaining about men in dresses, as the writer/director seems to think you should.
Objective Rating (Average):

Star Trek: "Spectre of the Gun"

Data
Title: Star Trek: “Spectre of the Gun”
Year: 1968
Network: NBC
Episode: the sixth (of twenty-four) from season three; 50 minutes
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Vincent McEveety
Writer: Gene L. Coon
Starring: William Shatner
With: Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Ron Soble, Bonnie Beecher, James Doohan, Walter Koenig
Music: Alexander Courage (theme); Jerry Fielding
Cinematography: Gerald Perry Finnerman
Editing: Fabien D. Tordjmann
I saw it: on video and TV several times, most recently a couple days ago (have on DVD)
Synopsis: telepathic aliens create a virtual O.K. Corral

My reaction
Concept: There was a rule in the 60's that every show needed to have at least one Western episode.
Story:
Characters:
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting:
Music:
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, ). The Matrix in Space; or, The Time Travelin' Matrix. The constant whirring background hum fills me with joy.
Objective Rating (Average):

Roman Holiday

Audrey Hepburn Marathon, part 1 of 13



Data
Title: Roman Holiday
Year: 1953
Length: 118 minutes
Director: William Wyler
Writers: Ian McLellan Hunter & John Dighton, story by Dalton Trumbo
Starring: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn
With: Eddie Albert, Hartley Power, Harcourt Williams, Margaret Rawlings, Tullio Carminati, Paolo Carlini, Claudio Ermelli
Music: Georges Auric
Cinematography: Henri Alekan, Franz Planer
Editing: Robert Swink
Oscars: won for Best Story, Best Actress (Hepburn) and Best Costume Design (black-and-white); nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Albert), Best Cinematography (black-and-white), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (black-and-white) and Best Editing
I saw it: on video a couple times, most recently a couple days ago (have on DVD)
Synopsis: a journalist entertains a runaway Princess while trying to keep her unaware that he knows who she is

My reaction
Concept:
Story:
Characters:
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting:
Music:
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great, ). Funny, cute and bursting with charm.
Objective Rating (Average):

[update of a previous post]

VSM: Audrey Hepburn

Very Slow Marathon #5 – Audrey Hepburn
[note: You can find this list above in the Very Slow Marathons tab.]

1. Roman Holiday, 1953
2. Sabrina, 1954
3. Funny Face, 1957
4. Love in the Afternoon, 1957
5. The Nun's Story, 1959
6. The Children's Hour, 1961
7. Charade, 1963
8. My Fair Lady, 1964
9. How to Steal a Million, 1966
10. Two for the Road, 1967
11. Wait Until Dark, 1967
12. Robin and Marian, 1976
13. They All Laughed, 1981

Cowboys & Aliens

Data
Title: Cowboys & Aliens
Year: 2011
Length: 118 minutes
Director: Jon Favreau
Writers: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby; story by Fergus, Ostby & Steve Oedekerk
Starring: Daniel Craig
With: Clancy Brown, Paul Dano, Adam Beach, Sam Rockwell, Ana de la Reguera, Noah Ringer, Olivia Wilde, Keith Carradine, Harrison Ford
Music: Harry Gregson-Williams
Cinematography: Matthew Libatique
Editing: Dan Lebental, Jim May
I saw it: in the theater, a couple days ago
Synopsis: (see title)

My reaction
Concept:
Story: Only six writers? There are still some good bits that slipped past; they should have gone for seven.
Characters:
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting:
Music:
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, ). The writing committee tried pretty hard to fuck this up, but it still manages to be fun. It's a great cast (even though none of them are acting particularly well here, they're still a great cast). And they go for a classic western style, which is nice in itself, but also manages to make the same old alien invasion crap seem somewhat less identical to every "science fiction" movie from the last ten years. It would have been nice, though, if they'd managed to do anything at all original.
Objective Rating (Average):

The Thin Man

Data
Title: The Thin Man
Year: 1934
Length: 91 minutes
Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Writers: Albert Hackett & Frances Goodrich, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett
Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy
With: Maureen O'Sullivan, Nat Pendleton, Minna Gombell, Porter Hall, Henry Wadsworth, William Henry, Harold Huber, Cesar Romero, Natalie Moorhead, Edward Brophy, Edward Ellis, Cyril Thornton
Music: William Axt
Cinematography: James Wong Howe
Editing: Robert Kern
Oscars: nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor (Powell)
I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), a couple days ago
Synopsis: wise-cracking alcoholics solve a mystery

My reaction
Concept:
Story:
Characters:
Dialog:
Pacing:
Cinematography:
Special effects/design:
Acting: I've got to take a point off for some awfulness from minor supporting characters.
Music:
Subjective Rating: 7/10 8/10 (Good Great, 4/4). I should have loved it. Delightful. I loved the book, and Powell and Loy are just as perfect as Nick and Nora as everyone says they are. But those two - both the actors and the characters - are really all that make this exceptional, and there is a frustrating lot of movie in which they're not around (every bit of which is superfluous, since the book is written from Nick's perspective).
Objective Rating (Average): 3.3/4