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So. I ended up watching Plunkett and Macleane last night. *blinks*
Largely, it must be admitted, as the result of a multifandom fanvid - I wanted to know what the hell Alan Cumming was in that had him wearing that much flamboyant (and slightly sinister) makeup, and accepting a little purple something from a small, scruffy man who turned out, about ten minutes into my watching the actual movie, to have been Robert Carlyle. *shrugs* That actually happens to me rather a lot: the major causes of my weirder forays into the realms of film and TV have been either late night/early morning TV (that period between around 2am and 10am where stations put all the weird shit on), or multifandom vids, or linkhopping on youtube/TV tropes/fanfiction. In the same way most of my weirder forays into literature (for certain values of the word) have been the results of either the library/second-hand bookshops (the late-night TV equivalent) or linkhopping on TV tropes/recs sites/fanfiction.
(Probably the weirdest movies I ended up watching that way - late-night TV - were After Hours, in which the protagonist has a series of incredibly bizarre misadventures as a result of staying after hours, culminating in getting chased through the night by a mob led by an ice-cream truck (and witnessing a murder, which he chose to ignore on the grounds of fuck that shit, I've had enough tonight), and one which I can never remember the name of, involving a reincarnated couple, a murder-mystery, and a crap tonne of scissors/scissor imagery. *shrugs*)
And now I'm in a mood for the 18th century. So ... Scarlet Pimpernel, or Hornblower?
Largely, it must be admitted, as the result of a multifandom fanvid - I wanted to know what the hell Alan Cumming was in that had him wearing that much flamboyant (and slightly sinister) makeup, and accepting a little purple something from a small, scruffy man who turned out, about ten minutes into my watching the actual movie, to have been Robert Carlyle. *shrugs* That actually happens to me rather a lot: the major causes of my weirder forays into the realms of film and TV have been either late night/early morning TV (that period between around 2am and 10am where stations put all the weird shit on), or multifandom vids, or linkhopping on youtube/TV tropes/fanfiction. In the same way most of my weirder forays into literature (for certain values of the word) have been the results of either the library/second-hand bookshops (the late-night TV equivalent) or linkhopping on TV tropes/recs sites/fanfiction.
(Probably the weirdest movies I ended up watching that way - late-night TV - were After Hours, in which the protagonist has a series of incredibly bizarre misadventures as a result of staying after hours, culminating in getting chased through the night by a mob led by an ice-cream truck (and witnessing a murder, which he chose to ignore on the grounds of fuck that shit, I've had enough tonight), and one which I can never remember the name of, involving a reincarnated couple, a murder-mystery, and a crap tonne of scissors/scissor imagery. *shrugs*)
Plunkett and Macleane was ... Um. Okay. It involved rather more bodily functions and discussions of bodily functions than I was expecting. I need to say that first. (Lampshaded: "You remember the ruby?" "What, the one everyone eats?"). But aside from that, and the plot-what-plot/predictable nature of it ... It was surprisingly enjoyable? *grins sheepishly* The hanging scene was nearly worth the whole thing by itself, and Will Plunkett, Robert Carlyle's character, was pretty damn awesome (though he really needs to find a role where he doesn't a) have a violent streak, and b) have a dead wife - though Mary isn't explicitly stated to have been Will's wife). And Ken Stott was really creepy (and funny) as the villain ("I pay you, yet you do nothing. I pay you, yet you do nothing. I pay you, yet you do nothing!"). Rounding out with Liv Tyler as Macleane's pistol-shooting love interest (who didn't get to do near enough actual shooting), Jonny Lee Miller as Macleane himself (who, I have to admit, I had down as 'naive young pretty-boy falling into corruption' within five minutes, and wasn't wrong), and Alan Cumming as Rochester (is he being typecast, or is he deliberately choosing roles where he gets to be as bent and flamboyant as humanly possible?).
There isn't a twist in the whole movie that you don't see coming, the gross-out factor is pretty high in some spots (though not near as bad as, say, your average teen comedy - that said, eye-scream, corpses, things you really shouldn't eat), and historically the film is ... Um. History, what history? But. The cast are engaging (seriously, the who's who of British cinema are in here - Michael Gambon, Robert Carlyle, Ken Stott, Alan Cumming, a surprising number of British comedians in bit-roles ...), and the hanging scene, with the poet and the soundtrack, and the declamation ("Tyburn Gallows Tree"), and then the rescue ... Yeah. Worth it. The sewer scenes immediately following aren't bad either. Heh. And Will Plunkett, to repeat, is badass. So.
*grins, shakes head* So. Not particularly good, but actually rather enjoyable. Heh.
There isn't a twist in the whole movie that you don't see coming, the gross-out factor is pretty high in some spots (though not near as bad as, say, your average teen comedy - that said, eye-scream, corpses, things you really shouldn't eat), and historically the film is ... Um. History, what history? But. The cast are engaging (seriously, the who's who of British cinema are in here - Michael Gambon, Robert Carlyle, Ken Stott, Alan Cumming, a surprising number of British comedians in bit-roles ...), and the hanging scene, with the poet and the soundtrack, and the declamation ("Tyburn Gallows Tree"), and then the rescue ... Yeah. Worth it. The sewer scenes immediately following aren't bad either. Heh. And Will Plunkett, to repeat, is badass. So.
*grins, shakes head* So. Not particularly good, but actually rather enjoyable. Heh.
And now I'm in a mood for the 18th century. So ... Scarlet Pimpernel, or Hornblower?
