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The DeadPool Mail Diary
After three weeks of only running script reviews, the emails start to pile up. So today, I'm publishing some emails I got for two projects: From Hell and We Were Soldiers Once... and Young. But first up is good ole Q-Brick's review of The Bridget Jones's Diary. .
'Bridget Jones's Diary' Review
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| Renee Zellwegger |
In fact, Bridget Jones's Diary, based on the Helen Fielding novel, plays very much like a female version of High Fidelity. While the latter employed direct asides to the audience allowing the male lead to reveal the attendant woes of dating, Diary shares much of its main character's wit and charm in voice-overs, as she details her romantic stumblings from her journal. Bridget's diary tells of a year of flirting with, then falling for her boss (Hugh Grant), her attempts to give up smoking, shed her weight plus her growing fascination for a former childhood sweetheart (Colin Firth).
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| Hugh Grant |
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| Colin Firth |
Now, don't you guys go all Russell Crowe on me...this is a good movie. If you think Romantic Comedy is a bad word (okay two words) then I suggest you check out this very original take on the genre. I highly recommend Bridget Jones's Diary because it's an entertaining, well written comedy that never has to resort to masturbation, vomiting or bathroom humor...well, there is one bathroom joke involving real-life author Salmon Rushdie at a party. Go see it, you'll understand."
(Review sent in by 'Q-Brick'.)
Constructive Criticism
I thought it would be the moment to address some emails and feedback I have received in the last few weeks. It's been a tiresome few weeks with the fifteen days of script review and a brand new job. Two individuals, who wish to remain anonymous, have accused me of building a negative buzz about different films. It's interesting to see which manner each of them used to make their point. One of them used insults and threats to make a point, while the other made valid points in many emails. I'm literally appalled by the passion of both about two respective movies: From Hell and We Were Soldiers Once... and Young. In a world, where on average two films come out each week and where amazement at the local multiplex is rare, I'm stunned by the passion both individuals have for 'movies.' Have I become numb to the moviemaking process? Maybe. I can count on my fingers the number of movie projects that I'm looking forward to. The whole strike ordeal isn't helping, scripts that should be rewritten are being rushed into production. For the first time in many years, I wasn't excited about the Oscars this year. I even contemplated skipping watching the show and playing pool with my friends. Is it just me? Are any of you readers tired of the crap we are handed every week?
First, I'll address the From Hell controversy. I was accused of wanting to bash this film on purpose. We first published a script review and then a set report along with a test screening review. The last two were extremely negative and it angered a few people. I recently asked the reviewer if he liked anything from the film he saw, here's what he had to say:
"I think the costumes were great. Johnny Depp looked good. Heather Graham looked good, but I wasn't convinced by her Irish accent. In fact, as your other reviewer states, Heather Graham looked much, much better than the other prostitutes. Direction was good, actors were good. I just think the screenplay was really lacking something, I don't know what, but it needed something to get me 'into' the movie. I was kinda just sitting there waiting for everything to happen instead of getting into it and following things."
(Review by Chevy Guevara)
The second individual I encountered was extremely passionate about Agent Payne's We Were Soldiers Once... and Young script review. The person decided to write a rebuttal to his review. From what you will read below, it's obvious the person wasn't too pleased with the review. The person's passion for the project inspired me to publish the rebuttal. I hope more people like that are working in the film business today.
"Lt. Colonel Harold Moore (Mel Gibson) is dangerous madman. We first meet him falling to his death when his first parachute doesn't open."
I object to this allegation above all the other careless, mindless remarks. AP makes a damning statement and then offers only that a parachute doesn't open as validation. What, may I ask, is either 'dangerous' or 'mad' about parachuting? Besides being offensive in the extreme, this statement makes no sense.
Is AP's own opinion of Mel seeping through his 'review?' Does he think Mel is a dangerous madman because in some of his movies, for instance, Hamlet, he effectively depicted a madman? Then, perhaps he also thinks Mel is a chicken because of his role in Chicken Run.
"War is hell. Again? Well that's the premise behind Randall Wallace's We Were Soldiers Once... and Young."
Brother, did you miss it by a mile. Here's AP's 'dangerous madman' (see below) speaking: 'The class of 1965 came out of old America, a nation that disappeared forever in the smoke that billowed off the jungle battle-grounds where we fought and bled. The country that sent us off to war was not there to welcome us home. It no longer existed. We answered the call of one President who was now dead; we followed the orders of another who would be hounded from office.... Many of our countrymen came to hate the war we fought. Those who hated it the most - the professionally sensitive - were not, in the end, sensitive enough to differentiate between the war and the soldiers who had been ordered to fight it. They hated us as well, and we went to ground in the cross fire, as we had learned in the jungles.' (WWSOAY Lt. Gen. Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway)
"The opening training period and his big 'goodbye, we're going to war' speech are literally taken from Remember The Titans."
This remark really pisses me off. 'Literally taken from' says, not implies but says, that Randall Wallace lifted some dialogue from another movie and inserted it word for word in his own script. Say you hate the speech, say you found it boring, say ANYTHING honest but just don't lie. Some people find this speech rousing, emotionally satisfying, and downright gerryowen.
"Lt. Colonel Moore is a cross between the real-life Mel Gibson (he has five children too)"
I think AP had too many trips to the KooKooBerryFarm. Lt. Col. Moore has five children. Mel Gibson has seven. Perhaps the 'too' refers to Lt. Gen. Moore in real life, and Lt. Col. Moore in the script (?) or, maybe he means that Mel became Moore as soon as 'action' was called, thus reducing the size of Robyn and Mel's family. I don't know, I'm just trying to follow the logic ... It may seem like a small point to some. What I see, though, is a person who didn't pay very much attention to the script he read and shoots off half-baked wise ass remarks that can have no intention other than to put out a negative impression of the movie and the people connected with it. Actually, there are no valid comparisons of Lt. Gen. Moore with any other person; he is his own person. It will definitely be a stretch for Mel to present Moore to us; one that I'm certain he can do. However, in my book, this role is the acting challenge of Gibson's career. It is an absolute thrill to see him carry it off well.
"Reporter Joseph L. Galloway (Barry Pepper), the other author of the book, is only a glorified cameo. He doesn't come in the film till really late in the story."
Hooty-hoot hoot. Galloway doesn't come in the film until late in the story because he came into the battle 'late'. I'm sorry but this is too much. The point is not when Galloway entered the battle, the point is that he stayed. Galloway is a reporter, not a soldier. He didn't have to stay and to do so was an act of extreme heroism. His role in this movie is 'small' because his role in that particular battle, at LZ XRay, was 'small'. His role at ensuing battles, in getting the truth out, in that war and others, certainly is anything but small. The 'glorified cameo' remark is snide and pointless.
It's okay if Agent Payne doesn't like the script. It's okay if he says he found the speech at Fort Benning boring. It's okay if APayne hates speeches meant to stir the spirit (in that case, I'm certain he also dislikes Martin Luther Kings 'We Shall Overcome', or John Kennedy's 'Ask Not', or Abraham Lincoln's 'Gettysburg Address' , or William Wallace's address to the troops at Sterling). There are words that reach into the very soul of man and stir his deepest passions. Agent Payne doesn't have to appreciate or enjoy such speeches or movies, or even the people the movie is about. But, by god, get it right!
Lt. Gen. Moore and Joseph Galloway wrote a moving, stirring book that is totally awesome in the scope of grandeur. Being on the New York Times Best Seller list that rewarded their ten-year effort, which, in a certain respect, is the least of their achievements. They (the authors) unknowingly challenged Hollywood when they made the remark: 'Hollywood got it wrong every damned time, whetting twisted political knives on the bones of our dead brothers'. The filmmakers are doing everything they can do to 'get it right'. Might I suggest that, if you are to speak of this movie, you do the same. You don't have to like it, JUST GET IT RIGHT.
Someone else put it much better than I. I quote him:
'Easy to snap off smart remarks. Hard to lie in the grass waiting for the bullet. The only thing that means squat is that, for a few days in November of 1965, Americans and North Vietnamese tried their best to kill each other and to keep from being killed on the banks of a shithole of a river called the Drang. Randy Wallace and Mel Gibson, and men like Hal Moore and Joe Galloway, and many others WHO WERE THERE are now trying to give the world a taste of what really happened. Rather than snapping off clever expert sound bites ... we should at least give them a chance to show what they've got. Good men died there.' Bob Kilpatrick (Pleiku, 68-69) "
(Rebuttal sent in anonymously.)
Stay tuned...
That's all folks...
Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)
Questions, comments, praise etc. Email me at deadpool@tnmc.org
Jean-François Allaire is TNMC's first columnist. At only 24 years old he has become a respected entertainment journalist, with his columns appearing in Corona's Coming Attractions and Scr(i)pt magazine. He also writes a monthly column in Screenwriters Monthly entitled 'The Last Word.' Hailing from Montreal this young writer is determined to dig up all the details on the movies before they hit your local theater. If you're part of a movie production then you really need to be talking to him.
