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Today it's a headache. Still weak. Still cold out. Can eat, but am uninspired by all. Definitely not riding. I can't think of a more precise version of hell. I really thought I was going to tough it out today (watching "making of" stuff about movies makes me that way -- they were cold! wet and miserable for months! I can go to my bloody riding lesson! -- but you see, I have a choice, and sometimes the right thing to do is exercise that choice).

Sydney is now close enough I can see the weather forecast for the day I leave. I AM SO SCARED.

Tonight: Director's Cut of King Arthur, whichis more or less to blame for all this horse nonsense anyway. You know, eventhough I'm not very good yet, I really would ride every day if I could.

Also: New HP book! new HP book! July 16! Eeeee.

(no subject)

Just in case you weren't sure the situation in Iraq could get more fucked up, you should probably look at the front page of the New York Times about now.

KA director's cut

Very strange. I get why this was not what got released, and not just because of the shift down in rating.

This is very very dark. The opening battle equence is grotesque and gratuitous but goes a long way to giving us the very clear picture that these men aren't miserable because they aren't free (although obviously that helps), but because they've killed and killed and killed and now they're all damaged for it.

The Arthur Lancelot friendship is even more fucked up in this and clearly in a bad, complex codependent mess when the film starts (Clearly, this is some sort of emotional turn-on for me -- let's think about my whole obsession with the increasingly pathological friendship between Jed and Leo on West Wing). It doesn't seem as disastrous from the very beginning in the theatrical cut.

Guinevere is infitinitely crazier in this. And craven, and just scary. But I sort of dig her little "Rome is dead" moment. But then I would. Also, still with the uberhot in the leather and bodypaint.

And woah, Lancelot is really, really bitter. And covered in a lot more blood. Everything that came off as funny in the original cut comes off as wry and intense self-hatred in this. It borders on being hard to watch, mainly because he looks like he's going to start crying for about half the film. And the only time he looks happy at all is at the end when he's gone to Arthur's side pretty much knowing he's about to get himself killed in battle. That is all sorts of screwed up.

Clive Owen's performance makes a lot more sense in this cut. That said, I've really sort of gone nuts for Owen's acting lately, mostly since Closer -- certainly he's at his most interesting when he puts the intimation of physical menace into roles that don't require it (this film requires it, which is why it's harder to really see the inner-conflict here in a way) -- he's not predictable on screen, and it makes his perfomances feel really fresh.

There are still lots of incredibly daft lines, strange lighting problems and incomprehensible weather (the weather has gotten even weirder since the theatrical release). Actual character development for the other knights (meaning can we get over this completely wrong notion that Tristan = Trent Reznor now?) is a huge plus. Also the baby!knights are so cuuuuuuute.

I'm also nearly certain they're using different takes of some of the things in the theatrical release here -- so the content isn't different in places, but the tone is.

Lots more random screaming in rage in the heat of battle stuff, which I think will strike some people as comical if they aren't totally bought into the whole genre of the thing.

Also, very funny knowing just enough about horses now to watch this and get who is experienced/comfortable on a horse and who is a bit perturbed and trying really hard not to be obvious about it. Also in the extras we learn that the hrose they gave Gruffudd was insanely high spirited, to the point that watching some of its antics made me queasy.

Overall, the pacing is much better. This thing _moves_ in the way the theatrical didn't. Still a really flawed film, and perhaps in some ways less entertaining than the theatrical release (which was often hysterical both intentionally and not), but interesting as hell (all the charisma ever is on screen in this) and completely appealing to me because of the degree to which it only vaguely adheres to the notion that something has to happen and something has to change. It's about the inexorable coming of an end (which is why I love LotR too, eventhough something happens and something changes there -- it's that constant movement towards an unchangeable fate and how people act in the face of that that really turns me on).

Finally does anyone else think it crazy weird that the knights who Arthur has the clearest friendships with and ability to converse with on subjects other than battles and women are the ones who bite it? I mean Lancelot and Tristan both dying (doing really stupid things that are arguably motivated more by friendship than strategy -- neither of them should have gotten into the confrontations that kill them the way they did) in that last battle? (the Tristan Arthur friendship is actually in this cut, seemingly from out of nowhere compared to what was released in the theaters, but it works). That's harsh. And while this movie could have been better, it makes me think it couldn't really have been much darker, which is a pretty weird assessment for me.