Tag Archives: Film adaptations

The Oscars: A Watchlist

, , , , ,

If you’re an Oscars aficionado, make sure to join us on the evening of Thursday, March 24 for our Oscars Trivia Night!

It’s that time of year again! Time for stars to strut down the red carpet and for the rest of us to watch from our couches with a glass of wine and sweatpants. Yes, the Academy Awards are upon us, and unlike last year’s sad, weird COVID ceremony, this year promises to return the glitz and glam we’re all looking for.  

The limbo period between the nominees being announced and the ceremony proper is always fraught for the film fan. We love to celebrate our favourites getting a nom, but we also love to rant and rave about who, in a just world, should really be getting them. Ostensibly an award ceremony recognizing the best in the craft, the Oscars are notorious for things like name bias (bestowing awards on big name actors), age bias (Adrien Brody is the only man to win Best Actor under the age of 30, though plenty of young women have won Best Actress—after all, Hollywood likes its men old and its women young), and playing catch-up on overdue awards (see: Leo DiCaprio finally winning for The Revenant instead of, like, anything else). Then there’s the Western, English language bias of it all—as Bong Joon-ho put it, the Oscars are a “very local” award show.  

And of course, the Oscars wouldn’t be the Oscars without a full list of snubs for people to rage about on Twitter. Every year there are some headscratchers, people or movies that seem like locks for nominations, only to be shut out. There was palpable shock when Lady Gaga was ignored for her House of Gucci performance (although, with that accent? I don’t know). Don’t Look Up’s Best Picture nom sparked highly annoying discourse from both fans and detractors.  

Since we all love to share our opinions on who is most deserving of these esteemed, slightly silly awards, below you’ll find my picks for the best films in the race this year—whether or not they were nominated for Best Picture (and a necessary caveat: I have seen many of the nominees, but not all!). And I, of course, have my own list of snubs that I would have liked to see get some recognition. Some of these are already available at VPL; for those that aren’t, keep an eye on our catalogue!  

Continue reading →

A Fresh Twist on Old Tales

, , , ,

In July, uber-cool film studio A24 released The Green Knight in theatres, but with the new school year starting and sweater weather approaching, I feel there’s no better time to delve into an old Arthurian legend than autumn (except maybe Christmas, when the story takes place). If you haven’t seen the film, it is an adaptation of an anonymously-penned chivalric romance from Medieval England about Sir Gawain (one the famed Knights of the Round Table). And if you have seen the film, you’re probably like, “what in the world did I just watch?”

Arthurian legends in media are in no short supply. We all at least vaguely know the names King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Excalibur, right? You might have seen Disney’s The Sword in the Stone as a child (featuring, iconically, a Converse-wearing Merlin), or maybe the old parody staple, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government”). More recently, there was BBC’s Merlin, in which the titular wizard is a young man when he befriends the weirdly jock-like Arthur (cue shipping). Historically, the old tales have been interpreted in countless paintings as well (you might recognize this one especially, of Elaine of Astolat, harboring an unrequited love for Lancelot). No matter the version, they’re always recognizable as being Arthurian. The departure from that recognition, from the usual tropes, names, and places, is what makes The Green Knight such a bizarre, and modern, take. 

Continue reading →

Baz Luhrmann: A Very Strange, Enchanted Boy

, ,
Do you love discussing movies? Then join us monthly at our Film Talks program! We’ll watch films, chat with viewers, and host some special guests! 
moulin rouge poster

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of Moulin Rouge and the 25th anniversary of Romeo + Juliet, two absolute bangers brought to us by the visionary that is Baz Luhrmann. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more polarizing director. You can love him, or you can hate him, but you’ll never sway the other team to your side. Luhrmann’s style can generally be described as maximalist—but that wouldn’t truly do it credit. It’s maximalism at the top end of the gauge. It’s maximalism on every party drug known to man. It’s fireworks and swirling colour and dizzying camera cuts, for no other purpose than to throw you off your balance and to pitch you head-long into a world of high camp, high energy, high drama—just high, to be perfectly honest. Luhrmann looks at maximalism and says, “sure, more is more. But most is best.” 

As a viewer, you either eat up the spectacle or you throw it away; you’ll notice that both positive and negative reviews use the same language to describe his work, and it’s up to you how to feel about it. Are you seduced by the “tour de force of artifice, [the] dazzling pastiche of musical and visual elements” (a positive review) or put off by the “Gorgeously decadent, massively contrived, and gloriously superficial” ones (a negative review)? One thing is for sure: you will have a strong emotional reaction either way. You don’t just watch a Baz Luhrmann film. You need to strap in and prepare for whiplash, because he is about to assault all five of your senses and maybe a sixth.  

But to reduce Luhrmann’s work to artifice and superficiality would be to miss the point. Yes, his films are a love letter to excess, and bring new heights to the term “chewing the scenery”. Yes, aesthetics are front and centre. But Luhrmann uses all these tools—and, truly, every tool in his belt—to get to the truth of the matter: he can laser-focus on an emotion or a theme, and then yank on it until it’s at the surface in its most raw form. The heightened artifice brings it out. Take Moulin Rouge, for example. The film high-kicked its way into theatres in June 2001, following a decade marked by too-cool-for-you-irony (and just before the gravity of 9/11). It’s a fin de siècle burlesque jukebox musical about a penniless writer (played by Ewan McGregor) and a high-end courtesan (Nicole Kidman) who fall in love at the titular cancan venue. It’s a film whose theatrical climax features a man growling a tango version of “Roxanne” by The Police. The two main characters fall in love over the course of one mishmashed pop song—maybe two, if we’re being generous. Kylie Minogue has a cameo as “The Green Fairy”, a hallucination brought on by absinthe. The villain is simply named The Duke (but you have to say it dramatically: The Djuuke) and he performs an extended, silly version of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.  

Continue reading →