A Knight’s Tale

I watched a bit of A Knight's Tale when it was on TV the other night. Well, I probably saw more than an hour of it -- the second half, I suppose. I'd always thought it looked a bit shite, and within a few minutes I'd suspected I was right. That terrible dance sequence to some dodgy David Bowie song, for example. I don't even remember which song it was now.

I turned to Wife, who was sneering at me for keeping the film on for more than about 17 seconds, and I asked whether Heath Ledger was a real knight or just pretending. "I don't know," she responded, or words to that effect. Basically, she didn't know. "But you've read all this Chaucer stuff," I said. "You've read A Knight's Tale."

"Yes," she responded, "but this isn't that story."

Who the fuck knew? I didn't anyway (but y'all know I don't know my classics). I felt a touch cheated, but I persevered, with both the film and Wife.

"Is Paul Bettany playing Chaucer?" she asked me at one point. It certainly seemed that way. Now I don't know much (um, anything) about Chaucer, but for some reason I had a hunch he wasn't tall, blond, and dashing. Wife confirmed what I already suspected by telling me he was short, stocky (fat even), and she may even have said bearded.

Essentially she was describing how Mark Addy looked in the film. How weird that they've got this actor who looks just like Chaucer, and instead they use someone completely different.

By the way, early in our courtship (isn't that a lovely old word?), Wife and I sat just a couple of tables away from Mark Addy, who was then fresh from his Full Monty fame, in a Pizza Express restaurant. He was eating on his own. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that; just that it seemed kinda sad that a man of certain celeb standing was eating alone in a pizza joint, y'know.

Anyway, I digress.

All I really wanted to say was that I thought A Knight's Tale was actually pretty good. Something of a guilty pleasure, you might say. At the right price I'd even consider buying the DVD so I can watch the first half too.

I'm not going to give this film a rating because maybe the first half is fucking rank, but I will say that I was very pleasantly surprised.

By the way, I think that Wife thinks I'm in love with Paul Bettany. But I hereby go on the record to say that I'm not, even though I do think he's a pretty good actor. And what better excuse to put a lovely pic of Jennifer Connelly here, for she is, in fact, in love with the aforementioned chap.