Last night I watched this movie. I spent 2+ hours watching it. I don't know what I watched. I know Tim Roth was in it and Francis Ford Coppola wrote, produced and directed it. I also know that I am not really a fan of Coppola and this movie didn't really sway me toward becoming a fan. I didn't hate it, but I certainly did not like it either.
Before I get to the how and why and describe just what the movie is about (I think), let me show the two trailers that were released.
They show two completely different movies. The first trailer makes it seem like the movie is about a man who gets struck by lightning, lives and something happens to him making him become a person everyone wants a piece of. Then Matt Damon offers him protection and new identities. It looks interesting, and seems like an international sci-fi, espionage, thriller.
The second trailer kind of makes less sense. It's also more like the actual movie. What I mean by that is: It doesn't make any sense. It covers basically the first trailers content then adds stuff about this woman who keeps going further and further back in time. I'll explain that later. Either way, it makes little to no sense.
Here's what the movie is about: Dominic Matei, a student who has a life-long dream to figure out the origins of language, is dumped by his love Laura. Laura tells him that he is, in essence, married to his work and he'd be better off without her. He later finds out that she got married and died a year later in childbirth. Now he is a 70 year old man and has spent, I assume, the last 50 years or so alone. He ends up in a Bucharest, a city where no one knows him and he is wandering the streets with a blue envelope filled with poison to kill himself. He is then struck by lightning and survives, though badly burned. At the hospital the doctors are astounded when he begins to heal and grow younger. He leaves the hospital after he is healed and writes about his experiences, gaining the attention of many people, including The Nazi's. Oh, after he was struck by lightning he seemed to have developed some kind of double personality that appears in mirrors and later in the flesh.
Later he flees to Switzerland and encounters a woman named Veronica, who looks exactly like Laura, and her friend heading up a mountain road. Later he goes to look for them afraid they have met harm and he finds the car and Veronica's friend dead and Veronica in a cave. She seems to be in shock and thinks she is a woman named Rupini. She says the last thing she remembers is meditating in a cave and then there was a cave-in. This is really where the movie starts to get really WTF. Veronica starts getting "possessed" by Rupini and heading farther and farther back in time, linguistically. She also starts to age and finally Dominic tells her that he needs to leave her in order to save her. He says that if in 6 months she hasn't returned back to her youth he'll come back. A few years go by and he sees her leaving a train, youthful and with a child. She passes him without noticing him and he returns to his home town. In the hotel where he is staying he begins to have an argument with his other self and he ends up smashing a mirror causing the other self to scream, "What have you done?" and then turning to another, foreign language.
After this altercation he goes to the cafe he used to frequent as a younger man and there he meets some old men who he knew in the past. As he talks about things he's seen and done they start to ask what he is talking about and at some point he is old again. He then grasps his mouth, stumbles out the door, spits up blood and stumbles away. In the morning a man finds him, greatly aged, frozen to death at the bottom of the stairs. In his pocket is a passport with the name of a different man, an alias from the "past/future". Did all this happen? Was it a dream? Does it matter because this movie really makes no sense when you watch it?
I think there is something in this movie, but the execution really failed. It goes from being a movie about a man who gains his youth back in an accident and comes under the attention of a bunch of people to a movie about a woman who gets possessed by something and starts babbling in ancient languages. I don't know what the point is supposed to be. Is it supposed to be a giant paradox? Because for that to happen there should be, you know, a paradox and something that clearly shows that there is a paradox. Otherwise, it's just a movie that makes no damn sense. I read somewhere that people compare it to David Lynch movies and 'Mulholland Drive' in particular. I don't see this. I love David Lynch and I am totally clueless about his movies, but I don't care.
What I loved was that this movie had Tim Roth and some killer cinematography. Some of the shots used were beautiful and the production design was great too. Really everything was fine except for the story because I don't know what I was supposed to be gaining from it.
Showing posts with label Tim Roth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Roth. Show all posts
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
'The Legend of 1900 (La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano)' Review
A few months ago my Dad was flipping through channels and came across this movie about a piano player who was born on a luxury ocean liner, lived his life aboard the ship and never left.
Let me point one thing out: I absolutely LOVE luxury ocean liners. I love them so much that if I could marry one, I would. I would marry it and have it's little ocean liner babies; it would be awkward, for sure, but I'd do it. I'm not talking about new ocean liners. I'm talking about the old ones: RMS Queen Mary, Lusitania, Queen Elizabeth, Normandie, Titanic; the ships that evoke a different time. A time of leaving your old life and starting a new one, in a new world. A time of luxury, for some, when you paid a fare, boarded a beautiful ship full of brass, wood and glorious luxury around every corner and travelled across the ocean.
Getting back to the movie...at the time, I was busy doing something and the movie was almost over, so I didn't want to start watching it at that time. I added it to my Netflix and about 3 weeks ago I had it delivered to me. I just never found the right moment to watch it until last night. Let me preface my gushing about this movie with this: It isn't perfect, but it is really entertaining and moving and the production design and cinematography is fantastic. The movie came out in 1998, but when I watched it I didn't really notice other than some green screen being a little off.
So what is the movie about? I already mentioned it's about a man who was born on the ship and lived his whole life aboard. That's the general story. The movie opens with a man, Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince, a simply under-rated actor in my opinion) entering a music shop just as the owner is closing up shop. He's down on his luck and wants to sell his trumpet. The owner offers him way less than he knows it's worth, but he takes it anyway. As he leaves he requests to play the trumpet one last time. While he's playing the shopkeeper recognizes the song and asks what it's called. He has a recording of the same song that he found broken into pieces inside a piano he recently bought from a liner that was being dismantled. He plays the recording and asks who the song is by. Max tells him it shouldn't exist and tells the story of 1900.
Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900 (the fabulous Tim Roth), or just 1900, was found on the ship by his "father" Danny while he was searching the ballroom for leftover rich people things. He takes 1900 down to the boiler room and raises him until he is killed by a chain that hits him in the head. After Danny's death when 1900 is 8, 1900 wanders onto the first class deck and sees a party through the a stained glass window. Later at night he wanders in and starts to play the piano. He is a wiz at the piano and shortly has the entire 1st class gathering to hear the music being played. He grows up and eventually becomes the ships piano player in the orchestra which is where he meets Max.
The movie periodically flashes back to the present to cover how Max is trying to get aboard the ship to find 1900 and get him to leave before the ship is destroyed. Something he has never done, though he meant to one time to go start a new life with a woman he writes the mysterious song for. He just couldn't leave because there was no end to anything out there. On the ship there is always an end, a piano has 88 keys and there is always a limit from bow to stern.
His fame goes off ship though and a man named Jelly Roll Morton, who claims to have invented Jazz comes aboard to challenge 1900 to a duel. 1900 plays with him for awhile before completely blowing him out of the water. The scene is a little long, but is not only entertaining in content but the cinematography and some of the shots used, particularly one right near the end where the camera sweeps from one side of the piano up and over to the other side, are wonderful.
The movie was very delightful for the most part and the production design, as I mentioned above was to die for. Both the ship as it was and as it is now (which is sometime in the 1940's) is beautiful. And at times when the movie goes from shots of the rusted out dome in the ballroom to the beauty of what it once was, I was blown away. As I mentioned I love luxury ocean liners, but I also love abandoned things too, so those parts of the movie appealed to me as well. As I said, it isn't a perfect movie. I really wondered how 1900 was so clean and fit after supposedly never leaving the ship that has been left alone to rust so heavily. I mean, where did he was his clothes/self and find food? But overall the movie was wonderful and I highly recommend it. I'm going to try throwing some clips in below, one will probably be the last scene, so don't watch it if you don't want to see the end.
Piano Duel
*The shot I mentioned above occurs at 6:59 in part 1*
The End
*That anchor that flew at the camera would have been removed before detonation...*
*Just look at that set, and the cinematography and the camera angles! Gorgeous!*
Playing Love
*This song is beautiful!*
Trailer
YouTube User darksumiregusa has the entire movie on their channel.
I honestly do not understand how this movie didn't get more attention and awards...
Let me point one thing out: I absolutely LOVE luxury ocean liners. I love them so much that if I could marry one, I would. I would marry it and have it's little ocean liner babies; it would be awkward, for sure, but I'd do it. I'm not talking about new ocean liners. I'm talking about the old ones: RMS Queen Mary, Lusitania, Queen Elizabeth, Normandie, Titanic; the ships that evoke a different time. A time of leaving your old life and starting a new one, in a new world. A time of luxury, for some, when you paid a fare, boarded a beautiful ship full of brass, wood and glorious luxury around every corner and travelled across the ocean.
Getting back to the movie...at the time, I was busy doing something and the movie was almost over, so I didn't want to start watching it at that time. I added it to my Netflix and about 3 weeks ago I had it delivered to me. I just never found the right moment to watch it until last night. Let me preface my gushing about this movie with this: It isn't perfect, but it is really entertaining and moving and the production design and cinematography is fantastic. The movie came out in 1998, but when I watched it I didn't really notice other than some green screen being a little off.
So what is the movie about? I already mentioned it's about a man who was born on the ship and lived his whole life aboard. That's the general story. The movie opens with a man, Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince, a simply under-rated actor in my opinion) entering a music shop just as the owner is closing up shop. He's down on his luck and wants to sell his trumpet. The owner offers him way less than he knows it's worth, but he takes it anyway. As he leaves he requests to play the trumpet one last time. While he's playing the shopkeeper recognizes the song and asks what it's called. He has a recording of the same song that he found broken into pieces inside a piano he recently bought from a liner that was being dismantled. He plays the recording and asks who the song is by. Max tells him it shouldn't exist and tells the story of 1900.
Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900 (the fabulous Tim Roth), or just 1900, was found on the ship by his "father" Danny while he was searching the ballroom for leftover rich people things. He takes 1900 down to the boiler room and raises him until he is killed by a chain that hits him in the head. After Danny's death when 1900 is 8, 1900 wanders onto the first class deck and sees a party through the a stained glass window. Later at night he wanders in and starts to play the piano. He is a wiz at the piano and shortly has the entire 1st class gathering to hear the music being played. He grows up and eventually becomes the ships piano player in the orchestra which is where he meets Max.
The movie periodically flashes back to the present to cover how Max is trying to get aboard the ship to find 1900 and get him to leave before the ship is destroyed. Something he has never done, though he meant to one time to go start a new life with a woman he writes the mysterious song for. He just couldn't leave because there was no end to anything out there. On the ship there is always an end, a piano has 88 keys and there is always a limit from bow to stern.
His fame goes off ship though and a man named Jelly Roll Morton, who claims to have invented Jazz comes aboard to challenge 1900 to a duel. 1900 plays with him for awhile before completely blowing him out of the water. The scene is a little long, but is not only entertaining in content but the cinematography and some of the shots used, particularly one right near the end where the camera sweeps from one side of the piano up and over to the other side, are wonderful.
The movie was very delightful for the most part and the production design, as I mentioned above was to die for. Both the ship as it was and as it is now (which is sometime in the 1940's) is beautiful. And at times when the movie goes from shots of the rusted out dome in the ballroom to the beauty of what it once was, I was blown away. As I mentioned I love luxury ocean liners, but I also love abandoned things too, so those parts of the movie appealed to me as well. As I said, it isn't a perfect movie. I really wondered how 1900 was so clean and fit after supposedly never leaving the ship that has been left alone to rust so heavily. I mean, where did he was his clothes/self and find food? But overall the movie was wonderful and I highly recommend it. I'm going to try throwing some clips in below, one will probably be the last scene, so don't watch it if you don't want to see the end.
Piano Duel
*The shot I mentioned above occurs at 6:59 in part 1*
The End
*That anchor that flew at the camera would have been removed before detonation...*
*Just look at that set, and the cinematography and the camera angles! Gorgeous!*
Playing Love
*This song is beautiful!*
Trailer
YouTube User darksumiregusa has the entire movie on their channel.
I honestly do not understand how this movie didn't get more attention and awards...
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