More reviews

I don't know what it's like to be a minority and to grow up seeing people like me portrayed as buffoons, savages, noble stoic stewards of the earth, or drunks. Most all the people I saw in films and TV shows were the same color as me, so the things they talk about in this film didn't happen to me but I see where they're coming from.

Hollywood has willfully and woefully pigeonholed Native Americans into a few kinds of roles and it's only been since 1990 that things began to change. I grew up thinking all Indians lived in the southwestern USA and that they were either drunk or ready to start a war to take their land back. Then as I grew I saw that in the entertainment industry as a whole they got the same kind of treatment we had given them since the day we, European settlers, got here. This fine documentary tracks the evolution of how Indians are portrayed in Hollywood productions starting with silent film and going up through today. It's a fine film and it tells a much needed side to a heretofore lopsided story. I was glad to see that some of my favorite films featuring Native Americans (Little Big Man, Black Robe, Smoke Signals) were talked about in this documentary.

I highly recommend this one.


Thank gawd for Netflix. Without Netflix instant streaming I never ever would have seen this superb miniseries. It's not one I would have bought on DVD but holy shit am I glad I saw it on Netflix.

This miniseries is a satire on Victorian greed and societal mores. It's centered around a couple of families, the wealthy Melmottes and the struggling Carburys. The Melmottes are led by financial genius Augustus who seeks to win his place in British society by helping others get rich and the Carburys are led by matriarch Lady Carbury who seeks to get her children into marriages with rich partners so she can live the high society life. The problem with Augustus is he's a fraud and the problem with Lady Carbury is she can't see that her son is a feckless cad who's a drunk and a gambling addict. Other characters come in and out of the story and in the end Melmotte is unmasked for the fraud he is and Lady Carbury's kids get what they have coming to them.

This lavish production is rich in fine performances. David Suchet as Augustus Melmotte is chillingly good. Shirley Henderson is balls out great as his spurned in love daughter who ends up winning financially as her father is ruined. Matthew Macfadyen is funny and repulsive as the young cad Felix Carbury. Cheryl Campbell exudes sexiness as the matriarch of the down at their heels Carbury family, her cleavage is among the most magnificent I have ever seen, I'm pretty sure her boobs have their own gravitational pull. Cillian Murphy and Rob Brydon are great as the only honest men in London. Anne-Marie Duff shines as the girl who desperately wants to marry and who almost weds a Jewish banker but in the end is undone by her mercenary greed and religious bigotry. Paloma Baeza is sexy and winsome as the young daughter of the super sexy Lady Carbury. And Helen Schlesinger is funny and sad as the second wife of Augustus Melmotte, most of her performance is done without words so it's all pure reaction and her reactions are priceless.

This mini series is as true today as it was when it was first written. Greed is greed and it ultimately ruins those who worship it. Suchet's Melmotte could just as easily be Mitt Romney, in fact much of his dialogue sounds as if it was written by today's wealth apologists. The people in this mini series get wealthy off moving money around and just like in real life, when they do, they end up screwing working men and woman. For that reason alone I love this mini series, but I also love it because most of the honest characters who see what's going on behind the smokescreen the wealthy 'job creators' throw up are female. It's women who see the damage rich men do and by joining up with a couple of honest men, they bring down the greedy and those that need it, get punished, some get hit with the ultimate punishment.

The only thing I didn't like about this production was Miranda Otto's accent. It grates on my nerves to hear bad southern accents, especially when they come out of the mouths of actors who I usually like. But other than that, I was blown away by this timely topical and very funny satirical send up of Victorian era greed.

Super highly recommended.

A Monkey Movie Report

Meek's Cutoff is beautifully shot, well acted piece of unrelentingly bleak cinema.

This film tells the story of a group of settlers on the Oregon trail who lost their way and who just about have lost their will to keep going. Wagons break down, water runs short, members of their party start to falter, native Americans dog their wake, and yet they keep going even though some of them want to give up and turn back east.

The performances in this film are all quite good. Michelle Williams as the young wife of one of the leaders of the party is quite effecting. Her quiet resolve and resignation is tempered with a cautious optimism that's borne of necessity rather than belief, things can't get worse so they have to get better and soon is what her character must be thinking. Bruce Greenwood, hiding behind a wild and wooly beard and hairdo, is the vainglorious know it all scout who may be leading the party to their doom, it's his best role in years. Shirley Henderson, my Scottish adopted actor, see the side bar on this blog, is in this film and she's eerily good too. She was also another moody western a few years back if you remember, that film as called The Claim. And finally Rod Rondeaux as the Indian who is literally roped into going with the settlers party is also very good.

I recommend this film but be warned it's bleak and it has one of those endings that may unsettle some.

TV on DVD round up

We've been enjoying The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency like crazy. (It's available from our local library, see my previous post for a shout out to the good folks over there at the JCPL.) This HBO/BBC co production is a thing of beauty. The performances are smashing and the scenery is super as well. It's filmed on location in Botswana and it's filled with African actors, although an African American plays the title role.

I read the first two books in the series but I bailed on the third one because they were a bit too twee and precious for my taste. However the stories are perfectly fitted to being told on screen. And this adaption tells them very well. I love how they've adapted them and as soon as I saw that Richard Curtis wrote the first episode, he wrote most of the Vicar of Dibley series, co wrote three out of four series of Blackadder, and also wrote Love Actually, I knew I was going to be in good hands. All of the seven episodes of this series are well written, well acted, and well shot.

Jill Scott is terrific as the 'traditionally' built title character. I also love the bundle of uptightness that is Anika Noni Rose as her assistant and secretary. I'm not even done watching all the episodes in this series and I'm already itching for the next ones to come out so I can see them as well.
I can't imagine a more perfect contemporary Brit-com than Gavin and Stacey. This show is a slice of life about two people who meet through work and who fall in love soon after. Their story is complicated by their friends and family and the trials of modern life and somehow it's all a winsome winning laugh out loud wonderful series.

I'm in love with this show and it's going into our pantheon of British comedies that we watch over and over again. The two female leads in this show, Joanna Page and Ruth Jones, stand out and they really make it worth watching. Also great are Rob Brydon and Allison Steadman, as Stacey's uncle and Gavin's mom.
My good friend XUP mentioned that Hamish Macbeth was another good series from the BBC that is set in a small rural location. So I picked up the first series on DVD for a Christmas present for Sparky, she loves the BBC slice of life comedies set in small rural towns, and I'm happy to report that we both really like this show now. The accents take a bit of getting used to, they're very thick and almost unintelligible at times, but by and large this one is a winner. It's ostensibly a mystery series but the mysteries aren't like the ones we're used to from American TV, they're slice of life stories that feature a minor petty crime that gets solved while the story is being told. It's more about the town and the coterie of Scottish oddballs who live in it than it is about crime and crime solving, in fact Hamish Macbeth is probably the most lax policeman character I've ever seen on a BBC series. And that's what makes it so engaging.

Oh yeah, it also features my Scottish adopted actor Shirley Henderson as well, so it's got that going for it as well.

It's Adopt an Actor Day!

Happy Adopt an Actor day everybody! For those of you who do not know, Adopt an Actor was started by Splotchy on his blog and it soon spread like wildfire to other blogs. It's a way to celebrate the work of some great actors and, in my case, it's another reason to post pictures of pretty women.

I'm going to use today's holiday to adopt another actor. And since I have one each from Britain, Ireland, and Scotland, it's time to jump across the pond and adopt an actor from our neighbor to the north, Canada. I had a tough time deciding between Leslie Nielsen, Molly Parker, and Sarah Polley. But in the end I chose...
actor, writer, and filmmaker Sarah Polley! I chose Ms. Polley because I've been a long time fan of her work. She's been in some of my favorite films, The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen (which I'm due to watch again soon because it's been over a year since I last saw it), Go, eXistenZ, Dawn of the Dead, and The Claim. She was also in the recent HBO mini series about John Adams, the scene where she gets her cancerous breast removed is gut and heart wrenching. She's not only a damn fine actor, she's also a very well regarded screenwriter and recently she's added directorto her long list of show biz accomplishments. And she recently got to meet my blog buddy K-Line.
Please welcome Miss Sarah Polley to my stable of adopted actors and be sure to catch one of her films or TV shows real soon!

Let me eat cake

Sometimes I listen to the corporate media movie reviewers too much and I miss out on good movies because they give them bad reviews. I'm not really sure why I do that, after all I have long stopped listening to their blathering about politics and world affairs because I know better than to believe their pro corporate hype, so I really should do the same thing when it comes to films.

After reading a post by Matty Boy, or as I call him, 'my west coast doppelganger,' about the films of Sofia Coppola, I decided to catch the one film of hers that I have not seen yet. So last night we watched this film: And while it's not great, it's still pretty damn good. The corporate media reviewers did not like this film for two reasons and those reasons are that the film portrays Marie Antoinette in a sympathetic light and the soundtrack was too "modern," Ms. Coppola uses a lot of rock music instead of the usual Mozart, Bach, and the like.

They make the point, which is oh so true, in the "making of" feature, which runs waaaaaaaaaaay too long by the way, that Marie was a victim of bad publicity and that she never said those infamous words, "Let them eat cake" when she heard that the French people had no bread. She was the victim of Jacobean "swiftboating." History has not been kind to her due to the lies and distortions of the hopped up French revolutionary mobs. Was she an out of touch rich snob? Yes. Was she part of the entrenched ruling class that lived off the backs of the poor? Yes. Was she a pampered obscenely rich white woman who never had to work a day in her life? Yes. But was she a calculating vindictive twat who mocked the starving people? No. She was born into privilege and she took full advantage of it, much like Cindy Bush-McCain does today. To have a film like this portray her closer to what she really was is to upset a couple hundred years of entrenched historical fallacy, fallacies that are held dear by many of the corporate media movie reviewers.

The use of modern rock and roll in the soundtrack, while distracting to some, was entirely appropriate because this film sought to throw off the shackles of distorted history and show a modern take on the life of Marie Antoinette. The choice of modern music reflected Coppola's modern look at Antoinette's life. The script was daring and modern, so the music had to be also.
All in all I enjoyed the film and the performances by all the leads in the cast. Kirsten Dunst was very well cast and did a super job in her role. She was the picture of milky cuteness and she looked great in and out of her period costumes. I loved Judy Davis, my adopted actor Shirley Henderson, Molly Shannon, Rip Torn, and Asia Argentino as well.

The movie was well shot, it has a ton of great odd shots with odd camera angles all through out it. It's well edited, and well scored as well. I'll say this for Ms. Coppola, she may not be the greatest actor in the world, but she does make a damn fine film. I recommend this movie, as well as all her other ones, especially Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides.

Happy Birthday Shirley Henderson

Please join my running mate and I in wishing my adopted actor Ms. Shirley Henderson a happy 42nd birthday.

Like most things Scottish, Ms. Henderson keeps getting better with age.

We here at Monkey Muck wish you a very happy birthday and many many many more Shirley.

Speaking of Halloween....

...my adopted actor Shirley Henderson would like to remind you that she plays the ghost Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films.

So how about one of you gals dressing up as her character for Halloween this year? Would it kill you to show Shirley some love?

Shirley Henderson fansite

I stumbled across this cool fansite for my adopted actor Shirley Henderson.
Come now, look at that picture. Is she not cute as a button? Ok, now stop staring and go watch the Dr. Who episode she was in or even better watch her in the indie film Intermission.

She's a lady and she's a spitfire

Here's a great mashup I found on Youtube of scenes from Shakespeare Retold:The Taming of the Shrew, which starred my new adoptee Shirley Henderson, and the Tom Jone classic She's a Lady. Shirley looks so cute when she's mad. Enjoy!

New adoptees

Boy things were a bit crazy here at el Casa de Monkey this morning. I had been up all night working with the Adopt An Actor Adoption Agency, also known as AAAAA, and I was finally able to strike a deal with them at about 4:30 this morning. I was happy as heck to get my new adpotees and they in turn were wary of me and my blog. But after a few cocktails at sunrise we worked things out and they came home with me.

Cloris was up as usual, she's an early riser that one! When I told her what was going on she proposed a toast.



One of my new adoptees can't hold her booze and she got a little tipsy and had to go lay down. On the way to her bedroom however she stopped to disrobe in the bathroom, she likes to sleep in the buff. She carelessly left her undergarments laying in the floor which were found later by my original adoptee Archie Panjabi. We all laughed about it over breakfast and we all had a few more cocktails and some wine, except for the sleeping adoptee.

Things calmed down around 10:30 and we all got acquainted with one another and it looks like everyone is hap-hap-happy to be here. So now I'd like to introduce you to my new adoptees Shirley Henderson and Ashley Jensen!
Shirley is a veteran of stage, screen, and television in the UK and abroad. She has been in not only the following movies but many others was well, Marie Antoinette, the Harry Potter films, Bridget Jones, Trainspotting, and Topsy Turvy.

My personal favorite films of Ms. Henderson include Intermission and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands.
Some of Shirley's TV work includes an episode of the new Dr. Who and Shakespeare Retold: The Taming of the Shrew. Give a warm welcome to pint sized Scottish actress Shirley Henderson!


Joining Shirley here at Monkey Muck is her fellow countrywoman Ashley Jensen!

I first became aware of Ms. Jensen through her comedic turn on the funny as hell series Extras. She has great comic timing, a great accent, and is pretty easy on the eyes.
Wow, that's a great pair you got there Ashley.

And so is that!

Ms. Jensen is not just a slice of dreamy Scottish cheesecake, oh no, she's also a darn fine actress who has done many films, some of which include Topsy Turvy and Tristam Shandy (Shirley Henderson was in this one with her!), and has done even more TV work. Ashley can be seen in Ugly Betty, the aforementioned Extras, and many other TV productions in the UK.

Welcome to the family Shirley and Ashley!

(My girlfriend actually suggested I adopt Ashley Jensen. We were watching the first season of Extras again recently and she said how much she liked Ms. Jensen's work in the show. She said to me, "You ought to add her to your list." I said, "What list?" "Your adopt an actor thingy list." I replied, "I might do that. Although I was thinking of adopting Shirley Henderson next." And so being the peacemaker I am, I decided to adopt them both.)