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Le Moine aka The Monk (2011)
![]() A short adaptation of of Matthew Lewis' Gothic novel of the same name, the film depicts the downfall of Ambrosia, a monk who gradually falls into depravity and sin through devil's tricks. Beautifully shot with a fine Gothic tone all over director Dominik Moll delivers here a decent diabolical drama where renowned French actor Vincent Cassel convincingly fits into the title role. I have seen only one film of this director before (With a Friend like Harry) which was a good-fun Hitchcockian thriller & I loved that but this time The Monk wasn't as much interesting or great as I expected but worth a watch for sure. Moreover, as far I read about the original novel, dealing with a variety of sacrilegious themes, many characters & sub-plots, I think the novel should be better treated in a TV series format where they could brought all the characters & events nicely together which they highly cut & made it short & simple in this adaptation. >>: B
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Anonymous (2011)
![]() I think that most of my enjoyment of this film was the fact that I'm a former English major who has always been fascinated by the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays (though honestly I never actually took the time to research different theories). What I found interesting was that this tale assumes that Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford was the true Bard and that he wanted his work to be portrayed under a pseudonym so as not to expose his political motives. Also interesting was the concept of plays being blasphemous and treasonous (purposefully) as I think that one of the great purposes of art is to undermine and expose authority. Where they lost me a bit was in a rather convoluted storyline involving bastards and incest to the point of being a bit too obvious and not really believable. Also it was definitely self-conscious and over-wrought. And we change time periods quite a few times which is disorienting and not successful. Admittedly, though I did like the love story, and understand that these are all nods to Elizabethan times and Shakespearean sub-plots. Part of me just thinks that it could have been a lot better, if say it had been penned by Thom Stoppard and perhaps directed by Shekhar Kapur. There was a LOT that I liked and the acting was truly superb... There were just parts that I had a hard time suspending my disbelief. I'm glad I finally saw it, though. |
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Joshua (2007) ![]() >>: B+
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