In Bed with Six DVDs

Last week the Sydney spring flu hit and I ended up staying at home for a couple of days.  A day watching bad telly wasn’t very appealing so I took myself off to the local DVD store and somehow got conned by the pleasant person behind the counter into a “look its so cheap” 6 DVD deal.  Apart from the fact that selecting 6 movies is a drag, let me just say that watching 6 movies over 3 days is not easy and I can only imagine the endurance of the fabled viewers of yore who went to the theatre and saw two shows in a row. Indeed I have known women who have gone into the theatre at 12 pm only to emerge at 9 pm! It’s not a feat I plan to repeat but here for what it is worth, in no particular order, are my thumbnail sketches of the movies.

An Education:  A precocious schoolgirl nearly forsakes a proper scholastic education for an education of another kind i.e. a 60s schoolgirl falls for the charms of a much older conman in this bittersweet tale.  It is a charming film, nicely acted by most of the cast and quite watchable. But not the kind of movie you want to watch all over again once the end credits roll.

(500) Days of Summer: Possibly the most hyped hipster romance of late but it lives up to all those glowing reviews.  Boy falls madly in love with girl who likes him well enough but – surprisingly – is not too keen on the ring on the finger. Surprising given the dire world of recent rom-coms keeps suggesting otherwise. The beginning credits have a pleasant f..k you to the girl who presumably inspired this story, that kind of sets the tone.  Sort of a go watch film if you are young but if you are past 40, a nice enough snapshot of modern love in the Western world.

A Single Man: I should have liked this. It is based on a story written by Christopher Isherwood.  It appeared to be on the nature of love and grief. Even those who didn’t like it praised its look and the recreation of a 60s American campus.  Instead it was incredibly dull. Even the much vaunted look was meticulous but lifeless.  It drowned in its tastefulness, in its desire to be a serious film.  Colin Firth’s performance was much praised but really playing repressed Englishmen must be second nature to him. As must playing boozy, conflicted American women for Julianne Moore.  Exactly the kind of movie you are forced to pick up on the 6 DVD deal and then regret the 2$ you spent on it.

Revolutionary Road: I didn’t expect to like it and I didn’t. It had its moments but it’s about time movies about the hollowness of the American dream and the neuroticism induced by a confinement to the suburbs are retired. At the least a moratorium for the next 10 years might help.

Caramel:  Four women in a salon learn some life lessons and find love. In Beirut.  The forgettable, harmless chick flick variety were it not for its Beirut setting.

Becoming Jane: The last movie I picked up in a desperate attempt to make it to 6. Not as bad as I had feared.  Provided you forget this is about the life of Jane Austen or even about a novelist of any sort. Really they might as well have given history’s most famous spinster a man at the end and it would have made no difference. Plus confusingly, the guy who seemed the template for the bad boys of Austen’s fiction like Wickham and Frank Churchill, inexplicably became the great love of her life. And the guy who was repressed and silently hot, a proto Darcy to speak, remained the thwarted suitor.  Like I said, this is not Austen but a fanciful construction of the author for our times.  Just go along for the ride - but watch out for the many bumps.