Today was a 2-for-1 day....where i went to a bargain showing of "the matrix reloaded" and then had gotten a free pass to see "i capture the castle"....quite the extravaganza for me!
"The Matrix Reloaded" was visually amazing!!!! the special effects were the same yet with more layers and higher degrees of difficulty and brillance.....stuff that is just worth seeing on the big screen.....story-wise I was completely lost every time any character started speaking dialog that involved any kind of profound-ness.....i just suck as philosophy
I mean i grasped some of the major points like Neo kind of being able to predict the future for himself so that he no longer needs the Oracle.....and how he was not the first "One"because to the machines.....he was not viewed as human as so much an anomoly that the machines just kinda....play with because they know they can.....but at the same time it confused me because it was the theological debate of predestination vs. free will all over again and the question is posed but answered in a non-descript vague dodging-the-point kind of way.......
which is very annoying btw =-P
but the part that really got me was when Neo is able to save Trinity in some kind of weird computer-biological way that i have yet to completely wrap my brain around....
which i didn't mind so much as the fact that the movie totally completely leaves you hanging.....there's no closure.....no sense of a page turned or chapter ending or beginning....there's just.....tbc.....very very annoying =-P
i wanna know....who the heck is that guy at the end?!?!?!? he's upside down and i don't recognize him at all which makes me seriously irritated and not really wanting to be patient *fume* and now i gotta wait 4 months to see what happens which i'm sure the studios are loving but i sure as h*ll could do without =-P worth seeing on the big screen for the special effects but not worth the full price......but then I don't believe any movie is worth full price if I can get in the bargain shows! =-)
"I Capture the Castle"
based off a book by dobie smith whose name i didn't recognize right away until i came home and looked it up and realized that it was the author of the book "101 dalmations" which the disney movie is based off of.....turns out i had been able to get my hands on a copy of the the book when i was a kid and it is to this day one of my all-time favorite books....the characters are well developed and likable with even the villians painted with a very human paintbrush....motivations and complexities are explained and there are even dabs of sympathy for the villians, while at the same time you're shaking your finger in that "no-no" gesture at them.
but i didn't know all this going into the movie....all i knew was an english family meets 2 american brothers and romantic geometric shapes ensues.....the film i must say made more of an impression on me then the matrix did....i don't know if it was because it was the last movie i saw or because i felt more involved with the characters but i found myself thinking and thinking about "i capture the castle" long after leaving the theater and even now pondering points and scenes in the movie.
The sisters cassandra and her sister rose are the the main focus of the movie. They and they're younger brother, stepmother and father live a quiet level of desperate poverty that they would do anything to alleviate. Their father was hailed as a genius with his first novel but hasn't written anything for over 12 years after flying into a rage and killing his wife with a butterknife. Shocking but not the main driving point of the movie....
i haven't exactly figured out if cassandra or rose is supposed to be the elder sister but they are part of the geometric love affair involving the 3 main male characters: steve, the unpaid helper/servant-type person who hangs around because he's in love with cassandra and the 2 american brothers, who upon the death of their father inherits the castle in which our impoverished family lives. The elder brother, simon (or is it simeon?) cotton is a quiet, reserved, sensitive, soft-spoken, stoic guy who is potrayed by Henry Thomas, the now-grown boy from "E.T." The whole time i was watching him the words "elliot phone home" kept running through my head...it was that hard for me to see him as anyone else! But I've got to give him credit.....he played simon to perfection and the look on his face when he realizes that rose does not love him is excrutiating.
his brother neil is played by marc blucas whom i know as riley finn from "buffy the vampire slayer" and at first it was kind of hard to see him as anything other than the character i knew also but as the movie progressed i saw why he had been casted....he very much exudes a heartland-america-ness, an easy-going guy with no major worries in the world as long as he has the simple pleasures in life that he loves. He doesn't pop out at a person in a double-take sort of way but notice is taken when he is on screen.
now the third male, steve was the only young male that was unknown to me and was quite the cutie in my book! He was described as "all the greek gods rolled up into one" but i felt that he lucked out with a pretty baby face that would work well modelling but would never be considered a 'rugged type'. Still very adorable and i felt his yearning with ever glace and blush and frown.
so the geometric pattern starts with steve.....who'se in love with cassandra.....who is in love with simon....who loves rose....who says she loves simon but seems to be drawn to neil and neil seems to be drawn to rose.
the secondary geometric shape develops amoung the parents where james the father and topaz the stepmother are married but an odd attraction seems to develop between james and the american boys' mother, mrs. cotton and between topaz and the american boys' uncle who happens to be an architect and is familiar with topaz's work as an artist.
at first i found myself hoping for cassandra and steve and rose and neil but then as the movie progressed i was torn over who cassandra should be with and it seems the screenwriter or author felt the same because in the end cassandra ends up with neither. She confesses to steve that she is not in love with him even though he proclaimed his love for her but at the same time she will does not take up simon's offer of going to america because she would never be completely sure whether he loved her or not.
I was amazed at the level of self-assurance she had considering she was supposed to be 17-18 yrs. old. If the guy i said i was in love with didn't really love me but enjoyed spending time with me, at that age i probably would have thought "well he'll grow to love me" heck even now i don't know that i would have taken that kind of stand for myself. Because Cassandra takes this stand and walks away from simon even though she loves him, i found myself awed and admiring her....astonished at her lack of immaturity and yet wondering if we are really supposed to believe she's 17-18 or if maybe it was a british vs. american difference that i just wasn't aware of....and if the latter....then all the more reason why i wish i might have grown up in england!!!
Sidebar: my facination with Britian started with men....sue me. Hugh Grant in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (naturally....doesn't it figure?) then Rupert Evertt followed by Colin Firth over the years. Along with piqued interest in Jeremy Northam and Clive Owen for the few things that i've been able to see them in. Throw in that accent and I swoon every time! Although Australia is doing a very good job with Hugh Jackman I must say! *fans self*
Return: So I wonder...are 17-18 yr. olds in england more mature than in america? or was it the british vs. american thing? or hey! i've just thought of a 3rd thing: might it because the movie was set in the 1930's-40's?
Whatever it is i was impressed.....i doubt i would have been able to walk away like cassandra did if i was in the same situation........even now and i'm almost 30! *rolls eyes*
and in the last moments of the movie where she wisely states that "I love, I have loved, I will love" just tore me apart. She is so sure about her future that the possible loss of her first love doesn't seem to faze her! Me? i'd be a more of a basketcase than i already am and that's saying something!
It definitely left me wanting to know more about Cassandra and what happens to her and her life....finding out it was written by the author of one of my all-time favorite books just makes me want to go and get the book this movie was based off of to see what was different and to re-experience the characters until the DVD comes out. This movie is definitely a movie I would want to keep on DVD......definitely falls under the category of 'chick flick' in the very cliched sense of the word but then i'm a girl....sue me! =-)
