Beyond - a - me
I think ultimately my thumbs up or down on a movie hinges on my ability to stick it out. Witness Steve Zissou and the terms of endearment remake, or conversely, Batman Begins, which had me not wanting to leave at all, even after the curtain fell... So, last week I rented Beyond the Sea. I went into this movie wanting it to be entertaining. I have vague memories of Bobby Darin from my youth, and I wanted it to be some nostalgic transportation back to the illogically simpler era. It's always a mistake to have expectations when entering a theatre. They're most likely to be stomped on by a herd of stampeding ignorant mouses. (Oh, yeah, there are a few exceptions...).
In any event, this movie is just a little weird. I see it being a big success on Broadway in a year or too, but... Everybody said Kevin Spacey was too old for the part, and you know what? they were right. There's no way I could get my nostalgic transportation watching a fifty year old man pretending he was 20. It was like I was looking at my own 50 year old reflection in the mirror. Made me feel like even wanting that transport was ridiculous.
But beyond the d (as in disappointment) (and Kevin being too old for the part anyway) this movie was flawed because it appeared to only have some bare bone facts about Bobby Darin to build a story on. Every time it got into some detail point where you might've learned something about him, it breaks out into a song and dance routine... Or at least this was what happened when he courted Sandra Dee, and when he reminisced about his youth. The scene with Sandra Dee might've been okay, if it had taken place in a restaurant, and he just sang a song to her or something, but as it was he was singing the same song up and down the streets of Rome. Now, in all due respect, Spacey is not only doing a homage to Bobby Darin, but also, sort of, a homage to those dopey musicals you got back in the 50's and 60's; i.e. that's what they would do; somewhere, somehow, an orchestra and a troupe of backup dancers would appear out of nowhere and they'd break into song,... Yikes another reason to not want to go back... Anyway, Spacey would've been better off just sticking to the Darin story, and stayed away from the...
Anyway, I turned it off after 55 minutes or so... Thought I might finish watching it in the morning, but then thought better of that idea..
In any event, this movie is just a little weird. I see it being a big success on Broadway in a year or too, but... Everybody said Kevin Spacey was too old for the part, and you know what? they were right. There's no way I could get my nostalgic transportation watching a fifty year old man pretending he was 20. It was like I was looking at my own 50 year old reflection in the mirror. Made me feel like even wanting that transport was ridiculous.
But beyond the d (as in disappointment) (and Kevin being too old for the part anyway) this movie was flawed because it appeared to only have some bare bone facts about Bobby Darin to build a story on. Every time it got into some detail point where you might've learned something about him, it breaks out into a song and dance routine... Or at least this was what happened when he courted Sandra Dee, and when he reminisced about his youth. The scene with Sandra Dee might've been okay, if it had taken place in a restaurant, and he just sang a song to her or something, but as it was he was singing the same song up and down the streets of Rome. Now, in all due respect, Spacey is not only doing a homage to Bobby Darin, but also, sort of, a homage to those dopey musicals you got back in the 50's and 60's; i.e. that's what they would do; somewhere, somehow, an orchestra and a troupe of backup dancers would appear out of nowhere and they'd break into song,... Yikes another reason to not want to go back... Anyway, Spacey would've been better off just sticking to the Darin story, and stayed away from the...
Anyway, I turned it off after 55 minutes or so... Thought I might finish watching it in the morning, but then thought better of that idea..
posted by quantom qurkington at 6:29 PM
1 Comments:
I haven't seen this movie but I did some on-line reading about Bobby Darin when the movie first came out, and it's not like there wasn't an interesting story to tell about the guy--psuedo rat-packer turned beach-bum turned folk singer turned back into Vegas crooner turned dead-at-young-age. You'd think they could have done something good with that.
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