Kingdom of Heaven and House: Histories
May. 10th, 2005 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlbeerDunedin: Fun
Birthday: In 13 days. How?
Decisions: Not made
Frustration level with self: High
Day up until about three hours ago: Great
Kingdom of Heaven
Please bear in mind; I was totally in the mood to see this kind of movie.
For the most part, I really liked it. In many ways I actually preferred it to Gladiator, but I doubt everyone will see it that way. I prefer this time period and well, Russell Crowe is the better actor but I like Orlando and the supporting cast in this a hell of a lot more.
David Thewlis’s voice still bugs me a little, but I did really like his character and performance.
I am still in love with Jeremy Irons’ voice though, guh. He was great in this too.
As for Orlando, I was worried he wouldn’t be able to carry the movie by himself and in many ways he didn’t have to, but I was impressed with what he did do. Oscar worthy, hardly but he did put in a very solid performance. Also, so pretty. Oh so pretty.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the performance Marton Csokas gave as Guy. Although my first reaction was, ‘hehe, Shortland Street’ I managed to get past that quite easily.
I totally forgot Alexander Siddig was in this movie! He kicked ass, as always.
Also, the guy who played Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) was fantastic. I could really believe he was the historical figure.
Talking of history, I couldn’t actually say how historically accurate this is because the Crusades is one area where my historical knowledge is seriously lacking. However, I would be interesting in finding out, (of course). I might go and dig through the Crusades section in Norman Davies’s Europe.
One small touch I really liked was when Saladin picked the up-ended cross off the floor and put in back on the table. It was subtly done, well, okay, subtly done for a big budget movie directed by Ridley Scott.
I thought the battle sequences were very well done and they actually gave me a couple of LotR flashbacks, though I am in no way drawing a direct comparison with those, they just had a bit of a similar feel in places. Orlando’s speeches did fall a little flat though the comments about the holy places were a nice touch. Also Saladin’s answer to ‘What does Jerusalem mean?’ ‘Nothing … and everything.’
Also, the soundtrack was great but then I’m a sucker for music with an Arabic feel (see: Black Hawk Down).
However, despite these good points up until the end, I wasn’t really feeling it. I liked it fine enough, but there wasn’t anything deeper there. Near the end, that changed, not a lot, but enough for me to say that I enjoyed it. Having the Crusaders go through at the end again just made it all mostly fall into place, and for it to be Richard the Lionheart? Even better.
I also thought there were a couple of issues with the flow. It seemed a little bit cut and pasted together.
Love-story? * yawns* Didn’t feel it and didn’t care.
Also, after glancing at a couple of reviews, they do make some good points. It definitely could have been more involving and it was obviously aiming to be non-controversial. This quote is spot-on; ‘Ridley Scott's plaintive epic about the Crusades is an ostensibly fair-minded, even-handed account of one of the least fair-minded, even-handed chapters in human history.’ [From here].
There’s a lot more positives there than negatives. Maybe it’s my good mood (edit: I wrote this about 3pm today) affecting my take on it but it was good and I probably would go see it again and buy it on DVD.
House: Histories
Wilson and Foreman love! So very much Wilson and Foreman love. All their interaction was great. From snarking, to Wilson giving him the injection and then going to the house together. Robert Sean Leonard, what have I told you about that chemistry? Grr.
Wilson!Eye-roll, excellent.
House and Wilson playing off that drawing when they knew all the information from the surgical pin was hilarious.
It was interesting seeing Wilson hang around with them the entire time, instead of showing up randomly to have snarky (and slashy) conversations with House. Mmm, character interaction.
Boy Wonder Oncologist. Bwa.
And the case, right, there’s cases in this programme. It had me close to tears. * sniffs *
And with the revelation about Wilson’s brother … yeah, that’s going to come back. That was a nice scene though. Touching in the slightly fucked-up way only House/Wilson can achieve.
Birthday: In 13 days. How?
Decisions: Not made
Frustration level with self: High
Day up until about three hours ago: Great
Kingdom of Heaven
Please bear in mind; I was totally in the mood to see this kind of movie.
For the most part, I really liked it. In many ways I actually preferred it to Gladiator, but I doubt everyone will see it that way. I prefer this time period and well, Russell Crowe is the better actor but I like Orlando and the supporting cast in this a hell of a lot more.
David Thewlis’s voice still bugs me a little, but I did really like his character and performance.
I am still in love with Jeremy Irons’ voice though, guh. He was great in this too.
As for Orlando, I was worried he wouldn’t be able to carry the movie by himself and in many ways he didn’t have to, but I was impressed with what he did do. Oscar worthy, hardly but he did put in a very solid performance. Also, so pretty. Oh so pretty.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the performance Marton Csokas gave as Guy. Although my first reaction was, ‘hehe, Shortland Street’ I managed to get past that quite easily.
I totally forgot Alexander Siddig was in this movie! He kicked ass, as always.
Also, the guy who played Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) was fantastic. I could really believe he was the historical figure.
Talking of history, I couldn’t actually say how historically accurate this is because the Crusades is one area where my historical knowledge is seriously lacking. However, I would be interesting in finding out, (of course). I might go and dig through the Crusades section in Norman Davies’s Europe.
One small touch I really liked was when Saladin picked the up-ended cross off the floor and put in back on the table. It was subtly done, well, okay, subtly done for a big budget movie directed by Ridley Scott.
I thought the battle sequences were very well done and they actually gave me a couple of LotR flashbacks, though I am in no way drawing a direct comparison with those, they just had a bit of a similar feel in places. Orlando’s speeches did fall a little flat though the comments about the holy places were a nice touch. Also Saladin’s answer to ‘What does Jerusalem mean?’ ‘Nothing … and everything.’
Also, the soundtrack was great but then I’m a sucker for music with an Arabic feel (see: Black Hawk Down).
However, despite these good points up until the end, I wasn’t really feeling it. I liked it fine enough, but there wasn’t anything deeper there. Near the end, that changed, not a lot, but enough for me to say that I enjoyed it. Having the Crusaders go through at the end again just made it all mostly fall into place, and for it to be Richard the Lionheart? Even better.
I also thought there were a couple of issues with the flow. It seemed a little bit cut and pasted together.
Love-story? * yawns* Didn’t feel it and didn’t care.
Also, after glancing at a couple of reviews, they do make some good points. It definitely could have been more involving and it was obviously aiming to be non-controversial. This quote is spot-on; ‘Ridley Scott's plaintive epic about the Crusades is an ostensibly fair-minded, even-handed account of one of the least fair-minded, even-handed chapters in human history.’ [From here].
There’s a lot more positives there than negatives. Maybe it’s my good mood (edit: I wrote this about 3pm today) affecting my take on it but it was good and I probably would go see it again and buy it on DVD.
House: Histories
Wilson and Foreman love! So very much Wilson and Foreman love. All their interaction was great. From snarking, to Wilson giving him the injection and then going to the house together. Robert Sean Leonard, what have I told you about that chemistry? Grr.
Wilson!Eye-roll, excellent.
House and Wilson playing off that drawing when they knew all the information from the surgical pin was hilarious.
It was interesting seeing Wilson hang around with them the entire time, instead of showing up randomly to have snarky (and slashy) conversations with House. Mmm, character interaction.
Boy Wonder Oncologist. Bwa.
And the case, right, there’s cases in this programme. It had me close to tears. * sniffs *
And with the revelation about Wilson’s brother … yeah, that’s going to come back. That was a nice scene though. Touching in the slightly fucked-up way only House/Wilson can achieve.
