There's a picture of Viggo and his crew in costume for Alatriste here. -- Look at the gallery, there are also some very pretty pictures of Andalusia.

Well, but within the framework of an honor society, as posited in Reservoir Dogs or in your basic Hong Kong gangster movie, death or even painful death isn't punishment. The point isn't that the cop dies; that's a given from the first frame of the movie. The point is that, before he dies, he confesses his betrayal. At that point in the film, Harvey Keitel is arguably mortally wounded; help on the way; the cop could just keep his mouth shut for another 10 minutes and die with his secret or survive with it; but honesty is too important in that situation.

But do you think it's really presented as moral? For the characters it is, but for the audience? I agree that the same events could be presented as if he's doing something admirable, but I don't think they were. And I'm having trouble articulating it... Playing "The Lime in the Coconut" over the credits seems like a very deliberate attempt to distance the audience from the characters and say, "Boy, that was fucked up, wasn't it?" I don't come away thinking, "At least he died with honor."

Playing "The Lime in the Coconut" over the credits

Oooh. Suddenly the Coke with Lime commercial makes a whole lot more sense.

So, last week I saw "A Time for Dancing" which sucked and actually had a fairly small amount of dancing, so it was quite disappointing. I also saw "Newsies" which was pretty dumb, but had great dancing and Christian Bale, so it fulfilled my expectations. I also saw "Closer.' That movie was certainly about people with issues. Good, though. I also saw "Tell Them Who You Are," which was a fairly disappointing documentary, even though Haskell is quite an interesting guy, and there's an extremely powerful scene towards the end. Tonight I saw "The Manchurian Candidate," and we were supposed to have Angela Lansbury come talk to us, but there was a mix up with her driver, and so it didn't work out. That was disappointing. The Manchurian Candidate was interesting, though. I'd say it was good, but I have no wish to ever see it again, nor do I think my life would have been lacking if I hadn't seen it, and there were very definitely things to criticize about it, but overall it was quite good.

Playing "The Lime in the Coconut" over the credits seems like a very deliberate attempt to distance the audience from the characters and say, "Boy, that was fucked up, wasn't it?"

I think that's Quentin's M.O. -- bring you in close and then push you away again. It didn't work, for me, in Pulp Fiction; all I ended up with was annoyance at the pointless coolness. But the spareness of Reservoir Dogs, and the speed with which pointless coolness is dispatched -- what I remember from that movie is the desperation of the doomed characters and their emotional entanglements.

It didn't work, for me, in Pulp Fiction; all I ended up with was annoyance at the pointless coolness.

It worked for me, but if he hadn't ended the movie the way he did (with Sam Jackson letting Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer go, and what he said to them when he did) it might not have had as big an impact. It was a big grace moment (as opposed to Grace moment -heh) that gave the movie a point (for me at least) that it probably wouldn't have had otherwise.

Having Travolta and Jackson walk out in a manner that was an hommage to Monroe and Russell in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES was just icing at that point, but amused me nonetheless (not that I picked it up the first time I saw it).

I also saw "Newsies" which was pretty dumb, but had great dancing and Christian Bale, so it fulfilled my expectations.

HEY! Newsies isn't dumb. Meanie Alibelle.

Newsies is charming and engaging with singing, dancing and fighting boys. Lots and lots of boys. Christian Bale = half decent singing voice and nice moves.

I own the tape version and the dvd version, just in case something horrible happens to one or the other. I own the soundtrack and I sing along to all the songs. I even hum along when there aren't any words. And now that I've talked about the movie and the songs, there's no doubt that I'll be torturing my co-workers by listening to the cd at work today and watching the dvd this weekend.

ION ~ now I'm expecting my Batman screensaver to burst into song. That's a little disturbing.

The Manchurian Candidate

It's well worth rewatching at some point down the road, even if you don't feel like doing it anytime soon -- I found on rewatching that there are some really gorgeous performances whose impact I hadn't noticed so much the first time around because there's so much twisty plottiness happening and Angela Lansbury is just so show-stoppingly huge. But once I knew how it all turns out and I could attend to the details, there was so much to quietly admire and savor.

Laurence Harvey: So broken, so aggressively unpleasant and unlikable; he's painfully aware of just how repellant he is, and he mourns it and can't stop it all at once. It should be a sappy anvillicious moment, but when he says "I was lovable once" he invests the line with a terrible, quiet gravity and longing that just wrecks me.

Janet Leigh: So quietly snarkful, so sure of her attraction to Sinatra and his to her; all their dialogue is loopy and sideways and seriously makes no sense at all, but her delivery is just weirdly irresistible. It's not quite like a seduction; it's like she already knows they're going to end up together, that it is just as much a fact as the train they're on. A fact that hasn't happened yet, but no less sure and solid for that; the quietly nutty dialogue is purely a formality, the path they walk to arrive at that fact. It's totally meaningless and serious and perversely fun all at once. When I was a kid I just utterly adored her and wanted to grow up to be her.

Sinatra: As good as he's ever been, ever.

The twittering garden club ladies. The girl of Laurence's dreams and her father, and the easy rapport the two actors have. The nice kid who looks too young to be at the garden club. Just... oh, so many fine performances that are hard to see and appreciate the first time around. But they're there.

I'm with Nicole. And I own very few movie DVD's (lots of TV ones). In fact, I own Newsies, Swing Kids, Moulin Rouge, and the LOTR series.

however, I do have to say that the song "Sante Fe" is both earwormy, and a little off-key.

I keep saying this but t hearts JZ. And seconds everything she said.

The remake is well worth catching too. I don't think it's as good a movie, but they did some interesting things with the story that play on ones expectations. Also, like the original, the performances are really, really good.