Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. —Henry Fielding

20 January 2005

Two Days in the Valley

Seeing the 10:00p show of Les Choristes at the Royal in Westwood seemed like a do-able idea last night. This morning it seems like the suggestion of Satan. I am so fucking tired I want to murder someone, and instead of commiting homicide, I have to get my ass to the Burbank airport.

I havent seen La Cage aux Rossignoles, the film on which it is based, but Les Choristes works in exactly the way in which it intends. It is a charming movie about a reform school and the supervisor who teaches them to sing. There's nothing to take very seriously in the film, but it has some magical moments and one scene that is superb and moving.

Oh yeah, and Hotel Rwanda is a well-meaning, if manipulative and Spielbergian piece of cinema. Don Cheadle is absolutely great, but the film is edited poorly and the director has no style. I get frustrated, too, when a movie about genocide has hardly any killing and death in it. A million Rwandans died a decade ago in the genocide/civil war there, the film should have been a bit more horrific in my view. There's no reason to soften the horror for us. The world needs to know. Still, it's a story that needs to be told, and Hotel Rwanda is at least getting the word out.

No comments:

Post a Comment