Tilda and Helen and Plummer

These would all be great names for dogs, or fish, don't you think?

I watched fantastic movies today. First I finished Julia with Tilda Swinton. This had been on some early Oscar pick lists, but nothing came of it. The movie is astonishing. Tilda is an alcoholic and a slutty drunk, with one of the meanest mouths and tempers I've come across in a while. She is super fun to watch in this movie - but it's not a fun movie. It is a great thriller / adventure, but dark. I really found myself admiring her - not because she was in any way nice, or had a single moral in her drunk body, but because she had the most advanced survival instinct I've seen outside the cockroach. It was great - I highly recommend it.

If you watch it and like the kidnapping story, pick up Gloria, with Gena Rowlands. (Do not get the update with Sharon Stone.) You might also like Panic Room. Also - check out High and Low from Kurosawa, discussed in an earlier post. It's odd that I happened across a couple kidnapping movies in the same week.

If you like the alcohol story line, try Requiem for a Dream. This is one of the nastiest portrays of drug users ever, and the acting is tops.

If you like Tilda, try Constantine. This is about angels and demons and Hell, etc. with Keanu. It's not for everyone, but Tilda is cool, and her range is amazing. Then watch Michael Clayton - she got the Oscar for supporting actress for this. She is like some small reptile that lives under a rock. Then move on to Burn After Reading, where she is the most incredible ball-breaker of all time.

OK - so I am very impressed with Tilda every time I see her. How does she find such an amazing variety of roles and pull each one off like she does? I guess it's that old talent thing that I don't have. I compare her to Al Pacino and he comes up lacking.

So then I took my sad single self off to see the Last Station with Helen M and Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy. BTW - McAvoy is getting better and better. He plays an easily flustered virgin and is charming.

But Helen Mirren and Christopher P are amazing. Take a look at what they can do - think of her as the Queen and in Prime Suspect, and reflect on Plummer in the Inside Man (or National Treasure).

This movie is fascinating. It's about ideals, and how ideals can become a movement, and how movements need someone to nurture them and guide them - usually a bureaucrat or a zealot. It's also about love, and how it lives and dies and how people who love each other can be incredibly cruel to each other. Sounds like fun, right? It's not perfect, but the acting alone is worth it. When you add the scenery and costumes, and Paul G as a slimeball - it's well worth the ticket price.

It was a great V day.