Major medical

I guess I'm in a pretty good mood this week, as I didn't have such a bad time at two of the big-and-not-particularly-intellectually-challenging motion pictures opening this week, and thus did not feel compelled to give them two hard a time in my reviews of them for MSN Movies, but regardless of mood I'll stand by my verdicts on Wrath of the Titans and Mirror, Mirror, which latter costars, as seen above, a young lady named Lily Collins who's apparently the daughter of the guy who played extra drums on Eno's "Mother Whale Eyeless" on Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).

Comments

[Joe Gross]

Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes need to be in at least one movie together every year, like Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. I don't care what kind of movie it is. It just needs to happen.

[Not David Bordwell]

Okay, Glenn, this comes up at my abode every time there's some online discussion about the baring of torsos or parts thereof in movies... is there anything less gratuitous or less, uh, titillating about the variously bare chest of, say, a John Philip Law than the "gratuitously bare female midriff" of a Caroline Munro? This is of particular interest to mine own lovely wife, among whose chief pleasures in watching Timothy Olyphant in "Justified" is his frequent, often gratuitous, shirtlessness.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it since "gratuitously bare midriff" did not strike me as requiring a gender modifier in the context of the genre.

Also, @Joe Gross: Did you mean Peter Cushing rather than Vincent Price? 'Cause Cushing and Lee really were in at least a movie a year together from about 1957 to 1973; Vincent Price got in on that act relatively late.

[Fernando]

I, too, was surprised when I learned that the star of this new Snow White flick is the daughter of the man who told us once and for all that it is indeed no fun being an illegal alien (or ali-yun as the rhyme may be.)

And there's my convoluted sentence of the day, good night and thank you for your time.

[Jaime N. Christley]

There must be some old tradition from the British theater where actors of extremely high caliber (Olivier, Caine, the clan Redgrave, etc) occasionally deign to appear in the lowest class of pictures, as if to purify (by fire) their acting chops with the soil of the world's worst dialogue. Fiennes is given dialogue that could have been written by the janitor at Warner Bros., but he gives every syllable a little extra something. Neeson doesn't seem too interested in doing the same, but his one chord is Enormous Gravitas and he strums it well. Otherwise WRATH depressed me enormously, but Tuesday was the kind of day where each subsequent film I saw was better by degrees - Robert Aldrich's EMPEROR OF THE NORTH and the French action-thriller SLEEPLESS NIGHT. Strongly recommend both.

[jbryant]

Yeah, it's that British actor work ethic thing. Theater, movies, TV -- whatever keeps 'em working. I assume they do the "lowest class" stuff to keep them afloat while they're doing "theatah."

[BobSolo]

Rosamund Pike is the only thing that makes me curious about TITANS. Ye gads she's fetching. I thought she acted circles around Carey Mulligan in AN EDUCATION.

And "Mother Whale Eyeless" is probably my third all-time favorite solo Eno composition (after "Dead Finks Don't Talk" and "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More").

[James Keepnews]

I would'a gone with "No One Receiving," or "Over Fire Island" (and Mr. Eno has ever played with any another bassist than Percy Jones because...why??), but sure. Oh, the crap my "punk" pals hurl my way when I try to defend the by-rights inarguable percussive gifts of Brand X's drummer, the only drummer wots played with Fripp AND Eno notwithstanding guest shots like "Baby's", "Sussudio" be damned.

BTW, I thought it was Rooney Mara from the posters...

[Fabian W.]

And I thought it was Millie Perkins.

[David Ehrenstein]

I enjoyed "Mirror Mirror" too, but most of the reviews have been deadly. Maybe it's too clever by half as it's a children's film aimed at the parents who take them to the movies.

[jbryant]

Didn't Bjork wear that dress to the Oscars?

[NRH]

Regarding the Bjork dress, Tarsem's costume designer, Eiko Ishioka, also designed for Bjork. Not sure if she designed that dress. Unfortunately she just passed away, she also designed for MISHIMA and BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA.

[Aden Jordan]

"Wrath of the Titans" is silly and entertaining. Fans of the first film will probably enjoy it for being more of the same or they'll wish that the new director had made more changes to make it more distinct than the first film. Neeson and Fiennes seemed to work very hard to elevate the mediocre material. Bill Nighy is particularly fun to watch, and brings all-too-brief comic relief to the story.

[Bettencourt]

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Bjork's Oscar/swan dress was designed by Marjan Pejoski.

[LondonLee]

British theatre luvvies (which Neeson isn't actually) do the "low class" stuff because it's probably a lot of fun and it pays very well, far better than the NT or RSC. I remember a '60 Minutes' profile of Judi Dench when Ed Bradley was aghast that a DAME of the BRITISH THEATAH would be in a Bond movie when she just thought it was a hoot and had no grandiose pretentions about her art, dahling.

[joe]

does this movie pay any doctors, though?

[Keith Uhlich]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKKK AT HER!!!!!!!!!

Well, someone had to say it.

[Frank McDevitt]

Didn't Phil also play on some tracks of "Another Green World"? That dude is a little cooler than most people give him credit for.