I'm going to call my firstborn child Lenticular Standee.

[whatho]

Today I went to see The Changeling. It was fairly impressive on the whole, if kind of overlong, which seems a dire criticism of a film that's partly about a lifelong search for a missing child. I do agree it was too broad in its scope, though it would've seemed notably less so had it come up with a different title - it wasn't quite as much about the human drama, and certainly not about the ersatz Walter Collins, as it was about police corruption, and when you give up expecting it to be mostly about psychological trauma it seems more comprehensive than scattergun. But still I thought it tried to cover too many issues. Northcott featured heavily enough that I was expecting at least a hint about his motivation (rather like Capote), but there was nothing along those lines. That sort of thing. Acting-wise it was grand. I thought the boy who played Sanford Clark was standout impressive: intolerable panic-inducing guilt must be a beast to portray even when you're not fourteen years old. Mostly he made me powerfully hope that Sanford Clark was made up for the film. Sadly he was real. And I loved that Christine broke the women out of the hospital. Well. Obtained a court order. I liked that she had a weirdly-accented priest on her case. I hope if I'm ever tied down awaiting electric shock treatment a weirdly-accented priest comes to my rescue.

A side-point - I've known about this film since 1996, because an extract from an early draft of the script (which had changed somewhat in its details, but did include the line about always finishing a fight and content-wise was basically the same) was featured in a book about screenwriting by J. Michael Strazinsky. He said the film had just been optioned. That must've seemed a long twelve years.

But that isn't really the point. The points are as follows:

Point the first. In the cinema foyer, I encountered the lenticular standee. THE LENTICULAR STANDEE, PEOPLE. I had no idea what those two words in combination meant at all when first I read them, but basically it's a life-sized cardboard poster of Shah Rukh Khan and a woman who isn't Kajol in their upcoming film Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, which I may have mentioned once or twice in my journal before. And lenticular seems to be mean liken as unto one of those rulers you used to have as a child on which the dinosaurs moved as you tilted it. In standee terms, this translates to Shah Rukh Khan's seguing magically between his nerdy moustachioed bespectacled persona, WHICH IS ACE, and his dudey t-shirted clean-shaven persona, which is at least still Shah Rukh Khan. And now I want a lenticular standee for Christmas. I spent quite a lot of time dancing about in front of the lenticular standee making SRK lose and regain his moustache. It felt like the best ten minutes I've ever spent and I don't really understand why it isn't yet the twelfth of December.

Point the second. I saw a trailer for Radio 4's comedy slot that featured Paul Merton and the bloke who does the silly voiceovers for melodramatic film trailers, and at the end, Paul Merton said 'Ian Hislop sounds a bit like that first thing in the morning. So somebody told me'. And mostly all I could think was 'How happy would that have made me three or more years ago?'

Point the third. I saw a trailer for Frost/Nixon and it made me stupidly excited. I don't think it's actually called Frost slash Nixon as such. I probably ought to point that out. But yes. I don't know why I found it stupidly exciting because I don't recall being stupidly excited by the theatre reviews or anything, but then I always forget how much I love political and/or journalistic films until I'm actually watching them. And it's vaguely amusing because mostly I associate Frost with introducing sketches featuring the Two Ronnies and having a tartan blanket over his knees in Dead Ringers and trying to interview the Beatles while they were making up a song about him. So I might go and see that on the whole.

Comments

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I love that you've made a flamewar in a non-existent fandom. You're a bit like Rimmer in Better Than Life. I mean that very lovingly.

I'm sure the current glovelove people will appreciate the advert. WE SHOULD LET THEM HAVE THEIR DREAMS. Hm.