December 2009 Archives
How to Steal a Million (1966)
I’ve been watching so many girly movies lately, but I want to talk about this film that has Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole.
Nicole Bonnet (Audrey Hepburn) is a young aristocrat whose father is eccentric and even though he doesn’t need the money, forges famous works of art to sell them to other aristocrats. He begins to get a little too bold and decides to lend one of his faked statues to a famous Parisian museum. Everything goes well, except that people begin to get suspicious and hire a private detective, Simon Dermott (Peter O’Toole) in order to check on the validity of the Bonnett’s collection.
Mr. Dermott disguises himself as a burglar and Audrey Hepburn catches him in her house in the middle of the night. She doesn’t like him at first, but when she realises that her dad’s statue is going to be examined, she decides she needs his help to steal it before everyone finds out her dad is a fraud. Obviously, I can’t tell you much more than that!
What’s my take on this? I didn’t really believe that Hepburn and O’Toole were in love, because she seems really boyish and he seems really girlish. But I could imagine them being really good friends. It was also really good to see Peter O’Toole as a young man cause I’ve never seen him in an older movie besides Lawrence of Arabia and I didn’t really like that one. Sorry to everyone who does. Overall though, I would recommend this movie. It’s very classy and funny and sweet, kind of like Audrey Hepburn.
-Plum
picture from web.mac.com/tommyleeedwards
Precious (2009)
This film is a really good one. It’s got lots of celebrity cameos in it, including Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz. The main characters in the film are called Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Mo’Nique (her mother). It was produced jointly by Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey.
This film is definitely a tragedy/drama. I’ll just tell you the tragic things that happened in this film. This girl named Precious had been impregnated twice by her father. The first child has down syndrome and the second hasn’t been born yet when the film begins. Precious’ mother is physically, emotionally and sexually abusive towards her. Precious can’t read. Precious realises her father has given her HIV…. The film has one bad thing happening after another!
I guess the point of it is that this young woman’s spirit has withstood all the bad things that have happened to her and she is still sensitive and nice and interested and hopeful about life and the people around her. And she absolutely loves her son when he is born.
I am interested to see what other people have to say about the film. I don’t usually read reviews after I’ve seen a movie, but now I’m interested to know what people think of it, because there really isn’t a similar film like it out there. I would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially because of the performances in it by Mo’Nique and Gabby Sidibe! They are chilling and you can almost relate to them even though they are talking about extreme things that most of us have no idea about.
–Plum
[image: thadoghouse.com]
