Reviews

The story in this movie is a popular one. A play, an opera, and at least two movies. La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco. Its highly-publicized premiere occurred in New York City in 1910 Imagine a western soap opera being sung in Italian! The movie is based on the same play, adapted by the playwright, as was the 1915 version filmed by Cecil B. DeMille. The singing in the movie is great, Nelson Eddy and Jeannette McDonald are a great pair as usual. Worth a watch.

While most of the movie was an amusing self-referential satire of British costume dramas, some of the jokes grew tedious as they were overplayed (the birth scene springs to mind). A few times I wanted to scream out, "Get on with it". The more you know about the British film industry and the players, the more you will appreciate the movie.

That said, the self-involved leads, the art film snobbery of the assistant and her pompous pronouncements, the fleecing of the backers, the gratuitous battle scene, and the Gillian Anderson cameo are all hilarious. Worth a viewing if you consider yourself in the target audience, and especially if you loved "Adaptation".

I put off seeing the movie until last week, and was very surprised how much I enjoyed it. I saw a DVD screener with a friend who's a movie critic, and afterwards I watched most of it again. I'm surprised it didn't win best picture, but then again I haven't seen Crash.

The screenplay, cinematography, directing, acting, everything was there. One scene made me a bit uncomfortable, but I thought everything was done very tastefully.

What set this apart from other movies with gay characters is that it really didn't have anything to do with being gay per se. Make one of the men a woman and you would hardly need to change a thing about the movie. It's about star-crossed lovers, for want of a better term.

And I must say that seeing the two attractive men together was unexpectedly sexy for a heterosexual female....

As a 40-something female, I didn't expect to enjoy this movie, despite recommendations from (younger) friends. Another friend played the soundtrack, and based on how much I loved the music, I finally rented the DVD. The sense of alienation and emotional numbness that slowly dissipated during the movie is something that almost anyone can relate to. I almost didn't recognize Peter Sarsgaard (I last saw him in Kinsey), he completely inhabited his slacker character. At first Natalie Portman seemed too cutesy, but she grew on me and by the end I was cheering for her and Zach Braff's character. Not exactly uplifting, but deeply affecting.

It almost sank into cliche, but Scott Baio(!) managed to keep it a little real. Yes, you know how it's going to turn out, but the journey was pleasurable. Shot on a shoestring, with occasional unintelligable dialogue, it's still worth your time.