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"Star Trek Into Darkness" Available for Pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD
From director J.J. Abrams comes the next installment in the Star Trek saga, Star Trek Into Darkness. Watch it in theaters now and pre-order on Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, DVD, and the Exclusive Starfleet Phaser Gift Set. Shop Star Trek Into Darkness and more in the Star Trek Store. Learn more |
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I should perhaps first point out, what others have also mentioned, that you will learn NOTHING about the life of the Marquis de Sade from watching this movie. Ezra Pound once wrote of a book that it was so filled with errors that an errata slip should have been published as a companion volume. It would take either a full length book or a documentary film to start untangling the historical errors. The movie is, therefore, not a biopic, but a complete fiction whose central character is very loosely based on the Marquis de Sade. The main historical point worth mentioning is that de Sade lived a long life and died in bed of natural causes, with full use of his oratorical faculties.
The virtues of the film are many. One must begin with the look of the film. The film garnered an Oscar nomination for art direction, and it was a nomination that was richly deserved. There are a lot of "period" films, but few that will feel as realistic as this one.
Then one must proceed to the acting. Geoffrey Rush was simply Geoffrey Rush. I have often wondered if Rush has any limitations as an actor. Every role I have seen him in he has played an apparent ease and familiarity that few of his contemporaries can achieve. I wonder, in fact, if he might not deserve crowning as perhaps the best movie actor active today. And all the rest of the cast was quite superb, from Kate Winslet to Joaquin Phoenix to the least of the asylums inmates.
My primary quibble with the film was that it was unnecessarily unpleasant. I understand the irony involved in the completely sadistic treatment of the man whose name gave us the word, but it doesn't automatically translate into a likable plot. Michael Caine's character was so simple and vicious and self-serving that he was almost a cartoon. And his refusal to intervene in Kate Winslet's rather brutal murder was too nasty to be believable.
This movie is most definitely not for the squeamish. There is much maiming, blood, and explicit sexuality. I will add that the movie doesn't try to make de Sade out as a great artist. Virtually anyone who has attempted to read him will sound the same criticism of his work that most others have: he is boring, his sex scenes (of which there are thousands) are decidedly unsexy and unerotic, that he describes act after act of the worst kinds of mutilation and violence, and that his characters are cardboardish and unbelievable. Susan Sontag pointed out that Justine in the novel bearing her name is inexplicably just as shocked the 300th time that she was raped as the first time. The movie certainly doesn't want to argue with this depiction of Sade as a poor though popular writer. Geoffrey Rush's de Sade has a compulsion to write, but this does not mean that he writes well.
I think how much one likes this movie depends on how well they can deal with the unpleasant elements. I did not deal with them well, and as I result I did not enjoy the movie very much, despite being extremely impressed by many things within it.
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