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The Scarlet Letter starring Demi Moore & Gary Oldman: When Adultery Is OK, part 3

Posted on July 7, 2009 Written by ripitup

The Scarlet letter (1995)

Starring Demi Moore, Gary Oldman, Robert Duvall

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!!!

The letter is A, it stands for adultery/adulteress. It’s the 1660s and Demi Moore gets branded. Why? Oh,right- the story…

She is married to Robert Duvall’s character, who is a physician and a weird man who has sent his wife to one of the new colonies so that she could set a home before he arrives. Weird, right? In a time where women are hardly ever considered capable or to have the right to the anything without their husbands- she arrives alone. Her modern& forthright attitude is not very welcome. Even weirder, the narrator of the movie is Demi Moore (Hester)’s daughter- who will be born later- and keeps referring to Duvall’s character as Hester’s husband…

Then as Hester settles and proves herself capable of living as she likes despite others’ opinions, she meets a beautiful man by the name of Arthur (Gary Oldman).

Oh yes, with his costume of the era, long hair, beard and lovely& cute attitude, Gary Oldman is a beautiful man.They both share a passion for reading. His personality? Just as perfect. He is a priest, very modern and visionary, friendly with Indians,a pacifist and a romantic at heart. He is disappointed to find out that Hester is married. Still, their encounters continue and they realize they have not only respect & admiration for one another but a strong attraction, and deep feelings. Arthur is the one who practices self-control after he confesses his love. After all, he is a priest in love with a married woman and in 1660s, they could be “hanged for this”. So they avoid each other for a while. Then they receive news that her husband was killed in an Indians attack. When Arthur visits Hester’s home to give her the news, she is not exactly grief-stricken. She is anxious to know when it will be publicly acceptable for them to be seen together in public.

But people are bigots mostly and they live by strange rules they have set. Arthur very sadly announces that they have to wait for 7 years. Demi Moore is so disappointed with the news. But it takes them just a few seconds to engage into a passionate kiss- and then later on, into a great love-making.

Arthur and Hester, no longer to keep all those emotions in

I was so glad that they didn’t try to wait for such a ridiculous period of time. After all, there are very few things that are as natural and beautiful than two people- madly in love with each other-having sex. But of course it is not what the society thinks. And to make matters more complicated, Demi Moore gets pregnant. When people find out, they send her to jail. There aren’t exactly laws for this, but then they feel like they should punish a woman who bears a child who is not from her husband. Arthur is shocked and upset that she is treated like that so he wants to confess. But if he does confess, they will let her go but hang him.So there is no way Hester is going to risk his life. She forbids him to talk… So she gives birth in jail and Arthur can only see the child as the “Reverend”. The fact that her husband has survived makes everything even worse. He is determined to make her life hell- he accuses her and her friends of witchcraft. He also finds out Arthur is the father…

So Hester refuses to let go of her principles, to endanger Arthur… She gets branded with A, so the whole town is against her, apart from her friends whose lives are in danger…Arthur is torn between doing what’s right, what’s right for Hester…

And eventually when the town decided to hang Hester and the other women, Arthur just takes his stand, and tells them all..That he is the father of the child.That he loves her. That he is her husband in god’s eyes. He proposes they hang him instead. But when you think this might be another tragic ending, the Indians come to rescue…

It is just such a perfect, amazing love story. You root for the characters from the start. They are so humane, lovely, passionate and idealistic. Their love is real and knows no limits. I love every scene and moment from this film.

If your husband is a jerk, and you have married him against your will and meet such a great guy, it can’t be called adultery. It is just the kind of love a lot of us seek and yet seem to find only in movies…

Buy The Scarlet Letter on amazon.com

When Adultery is OK, Part 1: Revenge starring Kevin Costner & Madeleine Stowe

When Adultery is OK, Part 2: The English Patient starring Ralph F?nnes & Kristin Scott Thomas

Easy A starring Emma Stone (full of Scarlet Letter references)

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Kevin Costner: An amazing lead who should just stay away from sci-fi

Posted on July 6, 2009 Written by ripitup

Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood in A Perfect World. One of my all-time favorite movies. Funny how Kevin Costner has made movies to get into my favorite and least favorite list.

: Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The movie is very entertaining and it also features Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman. The soundtrack is also quite memorable. Remember Bryan Adams’ Everything I do, I do it for you?

-So,who is your favorite actor?

-Kevin Costner

-Kevin Costner? He is too old even for me!

This funny and weird conversation took place between me and my English teacher over a decade ago. I have a great memory that saves only the fun stuff. She was in her late 20’s and I was too stunned to reply to her comment. She thought I was too young to name him as my fav. actor. C’mon,it is not like I said I wanted to marry the guy! (Even if I had, which sane woman could blame me? ) and it is not like she could/would say no, were he to be interested…

OK-so I was 12 and loved Kevin‘s movies.As I grew up, he sure as hell made some bad ones. Such as Waterworld and The Postman. He doesn’t really pull off the whole post-apocalyptic era well. Men drinking their own urine for water, having fish-like organs (Waterworld…) C’mon!

I have no idea why he invested money from his own pocket. I know he believed this is a good idea…but… the guy was a marketing major at uni for God’s sake!!

Confession: Couldn’t watch the whole of these two. I just couldn’t.

And he has played in one too many baseball movies:

Field of Dreams? Classic. Bull Durham? Classic. For love of the game? C’mon- it is more a not-so-well-done combination of clichés. He also must be the only actor who has appeared in so many sport-themed movies (in addition to baseball, he has played a golfer and a cyclist).

Kevin Costner with Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham (1988). The movie features Tim Robbins as well.

For Love of the Game. Another baseball movie. Kevin just might be the most sports loving actor ever.

But for every one movie that I didn’t like, he has done 5 that I have loved. The War and A Perfect World have touched me immensely. In fact, the latter belongs to my all time top 10 movies list. I daren’t give any spoilers on these two. But The War is one of the best anti-war movies I have ever seen and A Perfect World is a greatly different from the romantic/politic heroes he plays so often. I love his romantic roles. But it was quite a different ride to watch him as an escaped convict, turning into an unconventional father role model in this amazing Clint Eastwood movie.

The Romantic Roles…

Before I talk about the Bodyguard, Revenge, Robin Hood, Message in a Bottle and such, I want to mention Rumor Has It” first. Some fans of the classic “The Graduate” did not enjoy this supposed spin-off. I didn’t think it was great, but it was entertaining. And it really had the perfect cast.

rumor_has_it08-

The plot of this movie has it that the events taking place in the movie “The Graduate” were based on Sarah Huttinger’s (Jennifer Aniston) family: Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner) has slept with the grandma (Shirley MacLaine) and has fallen with the mother. And when Sarah suspects that Beau might indeed be her father, she learns that he is not (he has become infertile after an incident) and begins a romance with him herself. It is a weird concept. But what I find interesting about this movie is that three generations of women are attracted to Costner. My own grandmother thinks he is good-looking, my mother thinks he is gorgeous and I find him truly attractive in most of his roles. Guess what? My dad did not like this movie: )

You may not want to acknowledge his talent but I think he has more than proven it with Dances with Wolves, by directing it and playing the lead. He personally won two academy awards with it: Best Picture, Best Director.

Dances with Wolves (1990). Kevin directed and starred in this epic film.

But it all adds up to have a talented actor on your hands who also happens to very handsome.

He was great as the passionate and romantic Robin Hood. He was more than seductive in Revenge, where his attitude was a mixture of boyish,confident- and romantic.It took a couple of encounters for him to seduce us the females. He made me watch a movie with Whitney Houston in it with The Bodyguard ,which turned out to be surprisingly good. Of course it has clichés. Of course it has a masculine,self-protecting,strong guy who inevitably falls for “the girl” and all that. But it is a feel-good movie and it delivers. And Message in a Bottle? As much as I love comic book movies and good action, oras much as it is fun to watch gothic elements and some thrilling scenes, a big part of me will never be able to give up on the allure of the romantic film. And Kevin is a lovely choice to play the lead.

I guess this last part is a “girls only” zone:

He is charming, even as he gets older. He can pull off sexy and cute at the same time.

He can make you feel as if the character he is playing is real- that he can be real. Of course you know you have not met guys like that. You probably won’t. Hell, I’m almost certain they don’t exist. Even if they do, what are the odds they will look like that? Suppose they do exist, looking all dreamy- what are the odds you will be his type? Right? But for the duration of the movie, it is just good to let go, relax and let yourself live in a simpler world, even it carries some sad elements…

When adultery is okay,part 2: The English Patient

Posted on July 5, 2009 Written by ripitup

The English Patient (1996)

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Naveen Andrews, William Dafoe, Colin Firth

The English Patient starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!

Do not condemn me morally corrupt before reading all of the post. I am a hopeless romantic in general and value loyalty above all in relationships. But yet there are movies depicting a story so well, and so impressively that you find yourself rooting for characters that you could normally despise. Or, sometimes the person who is being cheated on is such a bastard-pardon the language- and the potential lover so dreamy, you actually can not wait for your lead to start an affair. The latter is the case in Revenge and in The Scarlet Letter. However The English Patient, you can’t help but like the husband from the beginning. It belongs to the first category…So let’s get to the story,shall we?

WWII. Julitte Binoche plays a nurse who is taking care of a badly burnt patient (Ralph Fiennes). He is in tremendous pain. We get to see what happened to him through flashbacks: a story about love,passion and obsession beyond anything and everything else that engrosses us. Did it sound too much like a tagline? Sorry, how his tale made me feel…

Ralph Fiennes, The English Patient. The desert.

The patient is Count Laszlo de Almasy, a Hungarian map maker. Along with other explorers he is working at the Sahara Desert.Among the people he met are a British couple Katharine and Geoffrey-played by Scott-Thomas and Colin Firth. Almasy is instantly taken by Katharine and he actually treats her badly as he becomes more attracted. He is also as opposite to her husband as one can get. Count is distant,quite,mysterious and ranges from overly polite to excessively rude. Her husband is polite,friendly,nice,loving and modern.So much that when he needs to leave for a mission for a couple of days, he is trusting enough to leave his wife among a bunch of men on a desert.Despite Almasy’s suggestions that he shouldn’t.Witnessing this,Katharine is sure that this weird man despises her. But during the time her husband is away, she sees through Almasy. Discovering the inside of caves together and being stranded on the desert during a sandstorm change things. Also, Katharine gets to read his journal where he has put his fascination with her into words.

The connection and attraction are undeniable. When they get back, they have sex. Although it seems more about obsession and lust, the intimacy afterwards is sincere and affectionate.

The second time also doesn’t seem romantic at all. It is quick,impatient and rough. But then there are these moments where they look like high school kids in love.

And then she finishes off. She is feeling guilty already. He doesn’t take it well. He gets into a jealous fit. She also doesn’t know but her husband actually did see them together. The way Ralph Fiennes can turn Almasy’s charm on and off is very impressive. He gives you many reasons to not to sympathize with his character. He has an affair with a married woman, and seems to have a clear conscience about it.But then it all changes,at least in my eyes…

Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient

The husband tried to crash his plane into Almasy.Almasy dodges the attack,

but Geoffrey is already dead. And what’s worse is that Katharine was also on the plane and she is severely injured. As Almsay carries her towards the cave, we see his painful expression. When Katharine says that she has always loved him, he is in tears. And well so is most of the audience. This is the second and only other film I got teary. You feel his pain. You feel his love. The questions you might have had about the nature of their relationship and their feelings are gone. The husband you felt so sorry for, has now become the guy who (almost) kill his wife. And the guy who seemed more obsessed than in love, takes care of her in the cave on the desert. He decided to do impossible. He walks through the desert for three days, so that he might get to take her out of there and help her survive. But he faces all sorts of misfortune, does everything he can and gets back. Bu when he arrives, she is gone. This time he carries her out of the cave,tears of desperation flowing. The expression on his face is so painful and so powerful that it has stayed with me.And I saw the movie when it first came out…

Of course it is wrong to cheat on your husband. Of course it is dispeakable to cheat on the guy you willingly married and have been friends with and who has treated you just right. But then it is worse to try to kill your wife, yourself and try to kill her lover in the process as well. You wish that Almasy could have gotten a happy ending. His love for Katharine is so strong that you just feel that kind of love is above any rule or principle.And I would probably prefer to love and be loved like , over living a long,yet passionless life.

Of course there is more to the movie than the adultery.

The scenery is amazing. Written and directed by Anthony Minghella has done an amazing job. The movie has won 9 Oscars and I disagree with none. I think Ralph should have gotten best actor. His performance is amazing both as the healthy and horribly burnt Almasy. This is the first time I saw Naveen Andrews-his pre-Lost era- who plays the love interest of Hanna-the nurse Binoche is playing. Dafoe’s conflicted and interesting character adds mystery. This is the movie that made me a compulsive Ralph fan. Colin Firth plays the plain yet loving husband wonderfully- so wonderfully that I had no idea I would later consider him as a hearthrob, starting with his role in Bridget Jones. Is this a movie to be enjoyed by everyone? No. It might seem too long or like a sentimental piece of crap. It might seem just OK or like a master piece. You just have to check it out if you haven’t seen it already and decide for yourselves.

Buy The English Patient

Naveen Andrews as Kip,pre-Sayid/Lost era

William Dafoe in The English Patient — William Dafoe

17 Again starring Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Michelle Trachtenberg and Leslie Mann

Posted on July 5, 2009 Written by ripitup

17 Again starring Matthew Perry and Zac Efron

Starring: Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Leslie Mann, Michelle Trachtenberg, Sterling Knight, Thomas Lennon

So most of us saw similar movies before. Of course we have. It is 2009!!! Some people like it and some think writers should go after new ideas. But the thing is, for the people who do like these kind of stories- “Big”, “13 going on 30”, hell even “back to the future” in some aspects,and so on- this movie definitely delivers.It is funny with great situational and physical comedy;complete with one-liners.

About the plot: Mike O’ Donnell ( Matthew Perry) is in his late 30s and an utter failure at all aspects of his life. His wife is divorcing him, his kids despise him, has a crappy job that he manages to get fired from…And this is all his doing. He used to be ( played by Zac Efron) a promising basketball star in his highschool. He is goegeous,popular,successful and is dating the girl of his dreams. But he receives some shocking news at the beginning of the most important game of his life and after that his life goes downhill…At least he thinks so and his -Scarlett (Leslie Mann)- having been fed up with his complaining all through the years, can’t take it anymore. So he meets a stranger, makes a wish and bizarrely enough, he finds himself at the age of 17 again. Except this time, he is not 17 in 1989. He finds himself going to the same school with his daughter and son. He realizes he barely knew what went on his kids’ lives and to make matter worse,his daughter (Trachtenberg) is constantly making out with the school’s bully who is making his son’s life hell…His best friend Ned-played by Lennon- is hilarious as the rich,sci-fi junkie who now has to pretend as Mike’s dad.

You don’t have to like Zac Efron to like this movie. I personally have a kind of love&hate relationship with him. Before Hairspray, I hadn’t seen him in any of his high school musical movies. I had seen his pictures/movie trailers however; and I thought he was just another teen actor/pop star who was there to attract young girls and make them dream. He was baby-faced and well too blond. Then, I watched Hairspray and frankly didn’t realize Zac was in it.I had to double-check the credits. He was great as the promising, jet-black haired, handsome star of a musical TV show. He used a great,thick singing voice to sing 50s/60s rock’n’roll songs and sounded so unlike himself. As an avid rock’n’roll fan, I loved his role and how he carried out.He didn’t look bad next to great talents like John Travolta, Christopher Walken and James Marsden. So just when I decided he had more then the high school musical going on for him, he seized to surprise me. Until 17 Again, that is. Yes, he plays a high schooler. At 22 and baby-faced, he looks perfectly 17. He is less blond, thank goodness and he is pretty good as a comedic actor. He actually didn’t disappoint me as the younger version of Matthew Perry. Some people are hung up on the idea of Zac can not be the younger version of Perry, lookswise. But then again, I claim that he should be flattered since Perry is an amazing comedian. Having played my favourite “Friend” Chandler, he is one of my fav. comedians of all times. Is Efron just as talented and funny? Not yet. Are both actors good casting choices? Absolutely. And if Zac can get more diverse roles, he might just pleasantly charm and surprise us.

For more posts on the cast:

Matthew Perry- Numb , Hollywood Stars in Friends, Including Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and More

Zac Efron- Hairspray

Leslie Mann- Funny People

Buy 17 Again on Amazon

Zac Efron as Mike in his second-time-around 17 era — Zac as Mike in his second-time-around 17 era

Zac Efron and Michelle Trachtenberg 17 Again — Zac Efron with co-star Michelle Trachtenberg