Romeo and Juliet: A Love Song

Like the time we went to the Wellington Premiere of How to Meet Girls from a Distance, last Friday  I felt like I was one of the few people in the cinema who had actually paid for their ticket. How to Meet Girls was at a packed out Paramount Theatre, whereas Romeo and Juliet was playing to a very empty Embassy. It seems very sad that in a city that prides itself on being a cultural capital hardly anyone turned out to watch a (local) new take on a Shakespeare play. Especially when Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing this coming Friday night is already sold out. I am worried that Romeo and Juliet: A Love Song may sink without trace, which would be a pity.

This film is a musical (Rock Opera) version  of Romeo and Juliet, set in the Waipu Cove camping ground  and immediate environs. The flavour is bogan/downmarket Outrageous Fortune - Juliet's Mother makes Cheryl West look positively classy. There are caravans, V8s, racing along the beach and lots of drinking.
The two leads are beautiful teenagers, as they should be. There are 2 separate casts - the people you see in the film are not the ones whose voices you hear in the soundtrack. I thought, listening to it, that there were only a very few singers - Lord Montague and Lord Capulet sounded like they were being sung by the same person - but I see from the credits that this was not the case. It's a pity that the voices didn't sound as unique as the actors looked.

This film was beautiful to look at and enjoyable to listen to. There's effort involved , of course - making sure you've heard what's being sung, processing Shakespeare's language, appreciating the rhymes, and the tune and having some attention left to look at the picture. And then there's maintaining the detachment to appreciate the humour - this is a comic take on the tragic love story.

I'd like to watch the movie again, but before I did that I'd like to listen to the soundtrack a couple of times I believe the soundtrack was where it all started - this musical version of one of the world's most famous plays was written well before the composers thought of getting a film made. From listening to the Q & A with the director after the film it seems that the composers have big dreams, and that the film is just the first step in their musical taking the world by storm.  And that's where I start to get worried. Who are the people who are going to be flocking to this movie? Is it too much like hard work to watch it? Can the world relate to a kiwi camping ground? Perhaps I'm over-thinking it - after all Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a hugely successful musical based on TS Eliot poems about cats. Romeo and Juliet: a love story is way cooler.

Anne's rating 3/5

The Sapphires

Ah ha! The Australians CAN make a cheerful movie involving aboriginal people. Unlike Samson and Delilah and Rabbit Proof Fence and The Tracker, The Sapphires oozes positivity and charm. Sadly, unlike the three films just mentioned, it's really not very good.

The story is fine - back in 1969, three aboriginal sisters and their cousin who all have amazing voices, go off to Vietnam to sing for the entertainment of the American troops. One of them falls in love with their Irish manager and they come home and live happily ever after. As you might expect, the music in this film is great and it's great to look at.

The problem is that the acting is a bit wooden and the script isn't great. There was no point where I forgot I was watching a film. The family home outside Cummeragunga looked like someone had parked a very small wooden house next to some gum trees and dressed up some actors and arranged them on the verandah and in the yard - there was no sense of them actually living there. The romance between Dave and Gail seems contrived and without spark. And any sense of the sisters overcoming prejudice or breaking new ground for the aboriginal people is almost entirely missing. It was quite fun to watch, but  I feel this movie didn't fulfill its potential

Anne's rating 2/5

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Writing a review of a famous 1950s  movie with an even more famous star makes me a bit nervous - what is there to say that hasn't been said before? And is watching such a movie the cinematic equivalent of eating lamingtons - not something I should be promoting because it's brightly coloured,  not intellectually nourishing and it perpetuates stereotypes?

In case you haven't seen this movie (and I hadn't) or read any reviews,  I shall feel the fear and review it anyway.

Marilyn Monroe ( Lorelei) and Jane Russell ( Dorothy) play show girls who go on a boat trip to Paris to go shopping. Marilyn is engaged to a rich heir whose father is suspicious that she is only in the relationship it for the money. He sends a private detective on the voyage to look for evidence of impropriety.The US Olympic team is also on board, as is an elderly diamond mine owner. The girls make the most of the social opportunities, the detective gets some incriminating material and there are assorted mix-ups and high jinks but eventually Lorelei gets her rich man and Dorothy gets the detective.

Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe

 This is a film based on a musical so the music and dance numbers are a big feature The dancing is not as good as a Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger's move but there's plenty of shoulder wiggling good fun..It's not all Jane and Marilyn in sexy frocks -  the (male) US Olympic team doing acrobatics in flesh-coloured shorts is just as memorable. The costumes are fantastic and the stars are beautiful. The film is visually stunning - technicolor in every sense and enough bright pink and bright red to dazzle you completely. The dialogue is funny and it's clear from the outset that this is not a film to be taken seriously. I'm taking a stand and saying that watching "Gentlemen prefer Blondes" could actually be good for you - genuinely escapist entertainment with non-anorexic women looking completely fabulous  and stupidity evenly distributed between the sexes.

My rating: 4/5