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.

Dark Water

Dark Water is the American remake of a Japanese horror movie. Ordinarily I tend to watch the original foreign-language version of a film rather than the Hollywood version. However, I have been underwhelmed, generally speaking, with Japanese horror, and Wife has sworn off it completely (along with swearing off of David Lynch). So if I want to have some movie-watching downtime with the missus, I need to avoid J-horror, as it's apparently now known.

Another reason for watching this version over the Japanese version is that it has Jennifer Connelly in it. (Can I get a "hubba-hubba"?) And, finally, it clearly had some potential over and above the average US mainstream fare by virtue of being directed by Walter Salles, the man behind the quite wonderful Cental Station.

Synopsis: Recently separated mother needs to move to affordable housing with daughter. Finds a flat with charming landlord (the inimitable John C Reilly) and creepy doorman/super (the ubiquitous Pete Postlethwaite). Daughter begins having imaginary friend. Mother starts seeing strange shit. Flat floods with water from room above. Supernatural stuff. Yada yada. I could say more, but I'm not keen to give spoilers.

The verdict: Actually pretty good. Somewhat predictable if you've seen as many films as I have over the years. But better than recent US so-called horror classics such as The Sixth Sense. Couple of moments that make you jump in your seat a little. The acting is generally very good. And the direction is good too. Good ending. A word of warning, though: This film co-stars the worst actor in the entire world, the absolutely beyond-appalling, not even so-bad-he's-good Dougray Scott. Fucking hell, he's shit.

The score: I'm still refining my scoring system, but I'm trying to stay true to the scores I've previously given. As such, Dark Water gets 66 out of 100.