Friday, March 18, 2011

Cinema Betty

Off With the Old Love has a lot of ill-conceived romantic engineering.  Hark!  Ahoy there off the poop deck:
Emma (1996)
I am not a massive Gwyneth Paltrow fan (I don't dislike her or anything but she reminds me of a poor man's Grace Kelly--only instead of leaving her homeland to marry a fabulously wealthy, if chinless, prince of a minor principality, she hitched herself to the lead singer of Coldplay and gave her kids amusing, if ultimately I-Am-A-Child-of-a-Celebrity-shouting, names.) but I feel her accent in this almost entirely redeems what Hugh Laurie calls the 'Act of war' that was Dick Van Dyke's turn as Bert  in Mary Poppins.
But let me tell you, I would walk a mile to see any movie with Jeremy Northam in it...

Esmeralda is about an heiress with a disability:
Penelope (2006)
Hello, gorgeous.
I discovered this movie a few years ago and lent it out to a friend a few months later.  She has never returned it and now it just seems silly not to have mentioned it.  Shrug.  I can get it off Netflix whenever I need it.
Forlorn heiress Penelope Wilhern (Christina Ricci) is cursed, and the only way out is to fall in love with someone of suitable stock. But how can she find her soul mate when she's sequestered inside her family's estate with only her parents (Catherine O'Hara and Richard E. Grant) to keep her company? Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon co-produced this untraditional fairy tale about a girl who bucks convention to create her own happy ending.
Oh...and did I mention it has James McAvoy in it?  (Squee!)

5 comments:

  1. I'm putting Penelope in my netflix queue..(I saw it a couple of years ago and loved it).

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  2. Honestly, Betty Keira - a post that includes James McAvoy AND Jeremy Northam?! And me without my smelling salts!

    Seriously, have you seen The Winslow Boy? Betty would have loved JN's character - all bland looks, hooded eyes, and cryptic statements (although he is a bit more theatrical than your garden-variety RDD).

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Adore, adore, adore Jeremy Northam. Even watched excreble Doctor show just because he was in it. Was so sorry he didn't manage to be in something that went one for more than a 1/2 tv season.

    Winslow Boy totally recommend, even with odd cadences of David Mamet and the even odder acting of Rebecca Pidgeon.

    P.S. only removed this before because of typo.

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  5. Penelope is one of my favorite movies. I love, love, love it!

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