you know how you expect things to be a certain way, and then they aren't?
i sat down yesterday in the midafternoon to watch two movies... dangerous beauty and the libertine (huey says i'm obsessed with period pieces and he may be right). i enjoyed dangerous beauty well enough though rufus sewell still seems to have creepy eyes and i can't figure out why (like those painting where they eyes follow you) so i started in on the libertine, expecting it to be enjoyable... and yet it wasn't. i'm not sure what it was. i didn't hate it. i was fascinated by it... in particular by johnny depp's cynical character... but it was one of those grotesque facinations, like watching the conjoined twins specials on discovery channel...
i should have known from the prologue performed with depp looking straight into the camera interview-style that this was going to be a bumpy ride... here's his opening speech...
Allow me to be frank at the commencement. You will not like me. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on. Ladies, an announcement: I am up for it, all the time. That is not a boast or an opinion, it is bone hard medical fact. I put it round you know. And you will watch me putting it round and sigh for it. Don't. It is a deal of trouble for you and you are better off watching and drawing your conclusions from a distance than you would be if I got my tarse up your petticoats. Gentlemen. Do not despair, I am up for that as well. And the same warning applies. Still your cheesy erections till I have had my say. But later when you shag - and later you will shag, I shall expect it of you and I will know if you have let me down - I wish you to shag with my homuncular image rattling in your gonads. Feel how it was for me, how it is for me and ponder. 'Was that shudder the same shudder he sensed? Did he know something more profound? Or is there some wall of wretchedness that we all batter with our heads at that shining, livelong moment. That is it. That is my prologue, nothing in rhyme, no protestations of modesty, you were not expecting that I hope. I am John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester and I do not want you to like me.
then the movie follows... dreary backdrops, pious mother, sassy whores, foggy weather, neglected wife, innuendo laid speeches, lots of candles, more dreary weather, and a drunk depp (without the pirate costume)... and then comes the final lines of the movie...
Do you like me now? Do you like me now?
seems a silly question to ask... it's the movie we don't like... the character is roguish and cynical and pitiful and sad enough for anyone to enjoy (knowing how much we love to watch other people's miseries unfold)... oh well, you can't win them all...
this does nothing to stifle my love of period pieces though... i still like the costumes and the manners... i think they are lover-ly...
