My Labour Day Monday was whiled away by watching Mulholland Drive and Mickey Blue Eyes, reading a bit more of Salmon of Doubt and kicking the football around in the backyard. I was practicing the trick that Harry Kewell always seems to do when juggling the ball: when you’ve caught the ball on your foot, flick it up, circle your leg around the ball, then catch it again or start juggling it. I can do the latter, and can almost pull off the former. I’m not sure I’ve seen Kewell pull of the former either. But I can toss the ball from one foot to the other (i.e. starting with ball caught on one foot, toss it in the air and catch it with the other foot, or the same one), so with a bit more practice I should get it. All in all, it’s been a very relaxed weekend, and I’m most grateful for it.
So, Mulholland Drive. Weird. I don’t think I can say much more about it until I watch it again, but I’ll probably just get more confused if I do that. Spoiler alert. Most of the movie is a dream, and the bit that isn’t has a few flashbacks which are sort of difficult to follow. Truthfully, I don’t think the film was ever intended to be fully understood. I don’t think there is a rational explanation for many parts of the film. So what is the film about? The dream begins with a woman about to be murdered. But there’s a car accident and her murder is averted. She runs off and finds her way to a vacant house in Hollywood. Another woman, Betty, comes to Hollywood to try and start her acting career. She is a kind, larger than life, innocent and almost naive girl. The acting seems below par, until you realise that the characters are supposed to be exaggerated. The acting is actually first rate, and the quality of acting becomes clear in the real life part of the movie, but I digress. Betty moves into the home that her aunt has vacated. Here she finds the other girl taking a shower. We find out that this girl has amnesia as a result of the car accident. She calls herself Rita, a name taken from a poster. The two girls then try to piece together Rita’s life. At this rate I’m going to be here for a very long time. Suffice it to say, general weirdness creeps into the film, and in the end, the weirdness doesn’t creep, it just plain smacks you in the face. There’s a mysterious philosophical cowboy, a blue box, a hired assassin, a real ugly looking guy and many more strange characters. You’ll just have to watch it I’m afraid. I’ll probably find time to watch it again before returning it. Oh yeah, there’s also a really hot lesbian scene, but I don’t think anyone needs that as an excuse to watch the film. It’s a real mind trip.
I’m a guy (just in case it needed clarifying). But I’m a guy that appreciates Hugh Grant’s acting and the characters he plays. Although Mickey Blue Eyes is by no means his best film, it is still well worth watching in my opinion. He plays an auctioneer who’s fallen in love with the daughter of a mobster. Michael (Grant’s character) is sucked into the world of organised crime, even after promising his wife to be, Gina, that he wouldn’t allow himself to be manipulated by the gangsters. No sooner is he engaged than the mobsters start laundering money through his auction house by auctioning some very strange religious paintings (Jesus with machine gun, for instance), and buying them back. The movie ends with a hilarious wedding reception, and of course, Hugh gets the girl (I should have mentioned that Gina is played by Jeanne Tripplehorn). Roger Ebert says that Hugh Grant was the wrong actor for the part, citing his poor attempt at an Italian-New York accent. I think this made his character much more believable. For goodness sake, he played an English art auctioneer. Michael’s inability to learn the mobster’s accent highlighted the difference between his world and the mob world. Unlike Ebert, I found the scenes when he tried to talk like a gangster highly amusing. If the part required him to, I’m sure Hugh Grant could have pulled off a much better accent, but then it wouldn’t have been humorous. This point seems to have been lost on Ebert, and it’s one of the few times when I didn’t agree with his review. For instance, his review of Mulholland Drive reflects my thoughts almost to the letter. Mickey Blue Eyes is worth seeing if you like mob comedies such as Analyze This and even The Whole Nine Yards I guess.
