what i'm watching: capote, constant gardener, thumbsucker

I've seen three good movies lately, two that you've probably already seen and one that you might have missed.

"Capote" is as good as I had heard, as was Philip Seymour Hoffman's astounding performance. There's not much that I can say about this movie that hasn't been written already.

One thing that struck me is how rare it is to see a movie with a main character who is so unlikeable, and who becomes less and less sympathetic as the story progresses. At the same time, the character for whom we have the most sympathy is a murderer. It's rare writing and directing that can pull that off. It's really a brilliant movie, one for the ages. We've been watching Hoffman since he snuck into seemingly every independent film in the past decade. His transformation into Truman Capote rates him as one of the greats.

"The Constant Gardener" is also very good, a political thriller with the added attractions of Ralph Fiennes' and Rachel Weisz's beautiful smiles, and the starkly beautiful landscape of Kenya. Amazingly, this movie was not filmed in Canada, but actually filmed on location in Kenya and London. One of the deleted scenes on the DVD was filmed in Canada, but it was actually supposed to be Canada. How odd.

"Capote," of course, was shot in Manitoba, standing in for Kansas. "Brokeback Mountain," next on our Zip.ca queue, was filmed in Alberta, substituting for Wyoming.

"Thumbsucker," based on Walter Kirn's novel of the same name, is a misfit coming-of-age story, and a good one. Tilda Swinton and Vincent D'Onofrio play the parents, newcomer Lou Pucci is terrific in the title role. A nice movie - sweet, sad, and poignant, nothing groundbreaking, but worth your time. Takes place in Oregon, and filmed there, too.

Comments

  1. James Redekop18 April 2006 at 12:10

    Canada's rarely used to stand in for Africa. It rarely works, for some reason. We don't stand in for Arizona much, either...

    A friend of mine was praising Capote, and I mentioned my favourite (real) Truman Capote film appearance: his role as Lionel Twain in "Murder By Death", which he'd never heard of. As soon as he's back from visiting New Jersey, we're gonna have a little film night at our place -- "Murder By Death" back-to-back with "Capote". :)

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  2. laura k18 April 2006 at 12:19

    Might as well throw in Breakfast At Tiffany's. It's always nice to look at Audrey Hepburn.

    Canada's rarely used to stand in for Africa.

    Can't imagine why. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. teflonjedi18 April 2006 at 23:21

    One of the deleted scenes on the DVD was filmed in Canada, but it was actually supposed to be Canada. How odd.

    Saw the movie in the theatre last fall, so I'm not sure what the scene's about...can you say, or is it too much of a spoiler?

    ReplyDelete
  4. laura k20 April 2006 at 04:35

    Saw the movie in the theatre last fall, so I'm not sure what the scene's about...can you say, or is it too much of a spoiler?

    It might be, but I'll tell you anyway. :)

    The main character tracks down a pharma company employee to a lab in bleak, snowy Manitoba. She won't speak with him and doesn't want to be seen with him or answer any questions - but he presses it.

    She finally tells him she was a whistleblower about the fake trials, and her career was ruined, she was sent to Canada to test hand cream. Right after they part she is run down by a hit-and-run driver.

    ReplyDelete

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