Dec 07
I plan to see The Golden Compass soon (probably next week, because this week I’ll be seeing Film Festival movies), even though the reviews have been disappointing.
My favourite bit of any review I’ve read so far is from Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, who makes this sly dig at Nicole Kidman and her excessive Botox use and resulting “masklike countenance”:
…for once, the smooth planes of her face, untroubled by visible lines, serve the character.
Another New York Times article about the stops and starts in getting the movie made says that Ms. Kidman looks “like a Botoxed Marilyn Monroe”.
Surely it’s not a good thing for an actress for reviewers to be paying more attention to the amount of sausage toxin you have in your face than they are to your actual ability?
Ah, but Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian loved it, giving it 4 out of 5 stars and calling it “a convoluted, enjoyable, very mad, deeply conservative and, at one moment, horribly violent extravaganza”. And he says of Kidman that she “steals the show as the bewitching yet hateful villainess Mrs Coulter: an appalling figure of pure blond evil”.
Oh and congrats on the new look to the blog. I like.
Jonathan Ali · December 08, 2007
Most of the reviews I read were generally favourable, but with reservations, probably because expectations were so high.
To be honest, what’s really worrying me is that I saw a trailer for TGC on a DVD a couple of weeks back and when Iorek spoke it looked terribly, terribly fake. If the CGI is like that all through the movie, I’m going to be upset.
Also, thank you!
titilayo · December 11, 2007