v-bunny

The Golden Compass movie, a golden opportunity lost.

The Golden Compass is one of my favorite books. It is rich, complex, imaginative, and simply amazing. The movie, on the other hand, is a complete failure. It fails as a book adaptation; it fails as a stand-alone movie. The movie is a series of sequential scenes taken from the book and sloppily strung together into an incoherent mess. The story introduces an entirely alternative reality to ours but differences, pivotal to plot development, are glossed over and barely explained. And the back histories of all the major players in the story, from the Panserbjørne, to the witches, to the Gyptians, and even the Magisterium, are altogether ignored. Nothing is fully explained, leaving one to wonder how anyone who has not read the book could follow this jumbled disaster.

Chris Weitz, the director and screenwriter, is largely at fault here, stripping the complexities out and leaving the story a bare skeleton, but the editors should hold some of the blame as well for cutting this atrocity. It jumps from scene to scene with no segues, and plot points are changed or dropped altogether. There is no character development, just a group of one-dimensional cardboard stand-ins. The music is unimaginative, as forgettable a jaunt of "action fantasy movie” as can be, and the CGI leaves much to be desired.

The only saving grace is the actors in the film. Dakota Blue Richards is a wonderful Lyra, embodying the spunk and courage of the book heroine, and Nicole Kidman is enthralling as Marisa Coulter. The costumes are also gorgeous. Marisa Coulter's dresses accentuate Nicole Kidman's stunning lines to new proportions.

But these small gems do not make up for the gigantic disappointment that the rest of the movie is. Philip Pullman must be crying into his manuscript right now, his masterpiece having been butchered so brutally. I can only hope that they replace the director for the next two movies, if there are going to be any more, and it's someone who understands and respects the source material, instead of trouncing upon it with such painful disdain.

I can barely stand it, I am giving this movie one lousy bunny:

 

Out of sorts.

Well, so, I was on jury duty this past week. (Yeah, I didn't think I could actually get picked! Damn my uncompromising sense of justice.) Nothing very interesting, just a civil suit that ended like I thought it would. But it managed to throw me off. My normal schedule was interrupted and I kept wavering between feeling happy and feeling guilty for not being at work (what a dork, huh?). The case also crept uncomfortably into my mind (that couldn't be helped). It made me glad I wasn't on a criminal case though, which would probably have freaked me the hell out. I'm not going to discuss the case mostly because it's really not that interesting and also, because the way we ruled made me feel kinda like a jerk, but I feel I voted the right way and stand by it. Justice is not always pretty.

These past couple of days did make me appreciate a jury trial a lot more. What was funny was I realized that all my knowledge of court was from TV, mainly, Law & Order. I mean, the show is on 72 hours a day. I don't think they'll be making a Law & Order: Civil Suit version anytime soon (gawd, that would be boring). It was very interesting to watch the lawyers try to make a case for their sides. There were even a couple of clever (or not so clever because we saw right through them) lawyer tricks that they employed which made me chuckle a little (not out loud, mind you, I kept my poker face on). (Well, that's not completely true because at one point I rolled my eyes and then I had to look around to make sure no one saw me.) Witnesses, objections, trying to ignore things that have been said out loud but were stricken from the record (but not from our brains! come on), exhibits, and courtroom procedures, it was all kind of fun. The case was tedious but the court stuff was interesting. Though, I hope I never have to be a witness on a trial. Man, they get beat up on the stand. Or better yet, I hope I never have to go to court. I think I'd only like to participate as a juror (unless it turns out like a John Grisham novel, those jurors never get it easy).