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Heath Heath Heath
Mikaela:
Oh, I was going to say that Monster's ball is worth watching in entirety for the first 25 minutes or so, but I take it back. Many of the early scenes are totally painful to watch, for the wrong reasons, and pointless to boot, as Heath isn't in them. Nevertheless, I love his Sonny. Poor, poor dear. :'(
Anyway, The Patriot has been duly watched and here are my impressions: (*spoilers, obviously*)
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.
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There's been a climate change since the late 1700's. The entire war of independence (is that its name?) was fought in the most lovely, perfect weather, and mainly in autumn when one could march around in corn fields and shoot at each other.
The film sported a heck of a lot of gorgeous costumes and fantastic scenes and scenery, loads of big battle scenes, plantation vistas, big formal balls and what not. It looked like a thoroughly expensive production.
I was expecting the very worst when it came to smaltzy OTT patriotic pathos, so I was actually somewhat pleasantly surprised. For a good part of the film it wasn't as awful as I'd dreaded. Though the last fight between Jason Isaacs and Heath, and even more so the one with Mel Gibson, exceeded my fears and took forever and a day while the violins were going crazy and the slow-mo was put to excessive use. No surprise in that last scene, sure enough.
Virginia (?) in the 1700's before the Brits made such a mess of it must have been alike to England in King Artur's Day, where a pretty virgin allegedly could ride alone in safety from one end of the country to the other carrying a purse full of gold. How else to account for the pretty young aunt, in her continually bosom-baring frocks, living all alone with just a few little kids for company, though a war was raging in the vicinity and strays from both armies plus other brigands would not be unexpected IMO.
The warfare back in the day, where the armies just marched at each other while gunning each other down, seems stupid beyond belief.
Wow, the British were EVIL!! Now I know why my English friends have rolled their eyes at this film so excessively. The lot of those guys as depicted in the film obviously had been born 150 years too soon, and in the wrong nation - they all belonged with the Waffen SS, far as I could determine. If that church-burning isn't a historic fact, I think it was dreadful to include that scene to make the Brits come across all evil. Mrs. Gabriel could have been killed in lots of other ways that would have been less gruesome and more historically correct.
I think the violence was quite excessive, but that was as expected.
All that out of the way: WHO CARES!?! Heath's role was much bigger than I thought it would be (I was misinformed into beliveing he was the son who gets shot early on). And he looked fantastic throughout. I don't rightly know about the acting, - in a way the film was so formulaic it didn't give anyone much to surprise or awe us with. But it was so worth watching for all the Heathy goodness anyway!!
MaineWriter:
I was just reading some trivia about The Patriot at IMDb and came across this:
Jake Gyllenhaal auditioned several times and was considered for the role of Gabriel Martin, but eventually lost out to Heath Ledger.
Shasta542:
Seeing Heath in Matilda:
http://justjared.buzznet.com/gallery/photos.php?yr=2008&mon=05&evt=matilda-mothers&pic=matilda-ledger-mothers-day-09.jpg
Shasta542:
This is a good site that tells on whom the characters in the movie were based. It also talks about scenes in the movie and which parts are fact and which are fiction.
http://www.patriotresource.com/factfiction/events/page9.html
Meryl:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on May 18, 2008, 06:10:37 pm ---Wow, the British were EVIL!!
--- End quote ---
Heh, that's my main memory of that movie (other than the Heathy goodness). I was aghast at how they depicted the British officers. No wonder Jason Isaacs has gone on to portray numerous other villains, including Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. Way over the top. ::)
My favorite part is when young Gabriel gets wounded or something and is sitting up in bed with his shirt open. Yeah, I'm really fifteen. ;D
Great review and comments, Mika, as always. 8)
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