The first 10 minutes of Anastasia (1997)

The finest in Bolshevism, in a jar!

Below are the notes I took during the beginning of Anastasia, before I gave up on watching Anastasia. I know lots of people love this movie, and I do feel bad about not giving it more of a chance. Maybe I will some day. But for now:

The movie opens with a nostalgic voiceover: "There was a time not so long ago when we lived in an enchanted world of beautiful palaces." Yeah, there was a time not so long ago when we lived in an enchanted world of serfdom and, even when that was abolished, persistent economic inequality so great that it incubated a violent popular revolution WHICH IS ACTUALLY PRETTY TOUGH TO DO, GOOD JOB RUSSIA. I know that communism in the Soviet Union didn't work out, but I can already feel that I'm going to have major issues with this movie romanticizing czarist Russia. But whatever, Angela Lansbury, please continue. Tell me about how this society with no social mobility to speak of was totally idyllic.

Rasputin crashes the royal ball, and he's a creepy-looking motherfucker. Gray skin was basically a genius invention on the part of animators. That way you can have villains who would in reality be the same color as the good guys, but you can make them look darker (aka eviler). COOL.

Oh shit the premise of the movie is that dark magic caused discontent in Russian workers, leading to the revolution? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA awesome. I mean, look, I understand that this is a cartoon for children and not supposed to be realistic, but why even bother with this setting? Why not take these ideas and stick them in a fairytale world?

At this point I abandoned ship.

Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)

And we're back. Sorry I haven't posted in months and months. Can you forgive me?

On the subject of forgiveness, can you forgive Rose Troche for this movie? Can I? Can anyone? Bedrooms and Hallways is somewhere between mediocre and bad, and it shouldn't have been. There is real potential here, really squandered.

The facts: it is a romantic comedy about Leo, a gay dude (Kevin McKidd, aka Lucius Vorenus from Rome) who has an affair with a straight dude (James Purefoy, aka Marc Antony from Rome). His friends are all wacky or have wacky stuff happening to them, and they are played by--are you ready for this list of actors?--Tom Hollander (In the Loop), Hugo Weaving (Priscilla, Queen of the Matrix of the Rings), Jennifer Ehle (BBC's Pride & Prejudice), Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral), and Paul Higgins (JAMIE in The Thick Of It and In the Loop).

It is an amazing fucking cast. Plus, several of them make out with each other. If the script were remotely competent, this could have been a jewel of frothy no-stakes queer rom-commery. Instead, it is a meandering, dull disappointment. Here is the most disappointing part of all, SPOILER ALERT: Leo, the main character, a gay man, ends up with a woman. Now, sexuality is fluid, yes indeed, and I have no problem with real life gay people dating anyone of any gender identity because obviously whatever, but there are already plenty of movies--too many, in fact--about masculine cis dudes and feminine cis ladies pairing up. To see that in an LGBT rom com makes me feel so fucking cheated. Et tu, queer cinema?

- Didn't Like It