- This movie had been languishing in lack of distributor hell for at least year since it came out at TIFF in 2008. There were approximately four thousand production company credits at the start, none of which I’d ever heard of before. I take this to mean that if I get enough companies together, we can co-finance a film for about $100 each. Win win!
- All that aside, I was actually pleasantly surprised with how delightful this movie was. (Low expectations can do that for you.) It’s rather fluffy but it’s an enjoyable fluffy that you can appreciate when you just want to be entertained but you’re looking for something that feigns highbrow instead of skewing towards idiocy.
- Confession: I’ve never seen Citizen Cane (but yes, I know Rosebud is the sled). Aside from War of the Worlds, I have very little knowledge about him. I know this makes me a bad film fan, so I apologize.
- Speaking of which, Christian McKay was rather fabulous as Orson Welles and if Welles was indeed as much of a hilarious asshole as he comes across in this, I want to know more about him. That’s the thing about assholes: it’s okay to be one if you can at least do it in a way that is amusing. Like Frank Lloyd Wright. When I was in Chicago a couple of years ago, my sister and I did a tour of FLW’s Oak Park home and studio. Our guide kept telling us all these hysterical stories about Wright’s penchant for the dramatic in his single-minded pursuit of What is Right in the world of architecture and aesthetics. He was so appalled by the garish (in his mind) home that his new neighbours built on the lot next to his that he boarded up the bottom windows of his dining room so that he wouldn’t have to look out the windows and see their house while he was eating. Being the considerate fellow that he was, he also boarded up the windows in the second floor nursery directly above the dining room so that his wife wouldn’t have to see the ugly house either when she was in there caring for their children. This kills me. When Wright took commissions, he would design the lady of the house a dress that went with the house so it would not clash. The amazing arrogance here astounds me and while obviously this kind of behaviour would be hell on earth to deal with personally, you kind of admire it from a distance. Orson Welles and Frank Lloyd Wright, I salute you.
- Admittedly, we saw this for Zac Efron. (No, I will not apologize for this.) He wasn’t really anything special but I think he needs to keep plugging away at stuff like this and keep hanging out with Leonardo DiCaprio and he’ll be okay. Their mutual love for basketball should be enough to bring them together.
- Although I don’t love it as much as 1950s fashion, 1940s fashion is pretty great. The dress Greta wears at the end of the film is completely gorgeous and ugh, everything went downhill after the mid-sixties. Naturally, I blame the hippies.
- I love how when Richard inappropriately rubs Greta’s manuscript on the urn, the museum security guard yells at him and then doesn’t even bother to pursue them as they run away. That’s some lazy museum conservation right there. Seriously, guy, at least try to catch up with them.
- I’m not really understanding why Claire Danes’ character had any interest in sleeping with Richard, since her biggest characterization is her ambition and meeting the right people to get ahead. Mostly it’s the “Lady, he’s seventeen” ick factor, though. Also, it was clear the second he sat down on the white couch that Richard was going to spill red wine on it.
- I think I would have liked to have seen Julius Caesar in modern dress in the 1930s when it actually would have been radical. I’ve seen too many modern dress Shakespeare productions in my time that I can’t fully appreciate the shock value of a sparse set filled with fascists.
- The guy who played Cinna the Poet could easily play Wembley in a live action version of Fraggle Rock.
- Loved how they took the ukulele and just added wood around it to turn it into a lute. Nice.
- Sometimes Zefron’s a little too smirky for his own good. He needs to curtail that a bit.
Me and Orson Welles
Orson Welles is my kind of asshole.
IMDB Plot Synopsis A teenager is cast in the Mercury Theatre production of "Julius Caesar" directed by a young Orson Welles in 1937.
I thought this was fantastic whenever McKay was in full flow and rather flat everywhere else. Whenever Linklater cut away from Orson I was just itching for the film to get back to him. If you really do want to know more about Welles, I can unreservedly recommend Simon Callow’s unbeatable biography of him, the first volume of which covers this period in fantastic detail.
Cool, thanks!