Huzzah!

[cleolinda]

So I just saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and it was a fairly cheesy, frequently overwrought, often ham-fisted, pretty, pretty, piratey pretty movie and I will hug it and squeeze it and buy it on DVD as soon as humanly possible.

(You know, if we're going to rag on Johnny Depp still sounding like Jack Sparrow in Sweeney Todd, it's only fair that we jump on Geoffrey Rush as well. Instead of the wonderfully cutthroat, Machiavellian Walsingham of the first movie, we now get a very, very tired pirate. "Her fate already be decided by the law! YARRRRRR." And just when I think I'm imagining things, here comes Tom Hollander all over again. Mary, of course he knows you were sending secret messages behind his back, he's Lord Beckett.)

Question: Why was the pistol not loaded? Rhys Ifans just laughed like a maniac when they asked him, so I have no idea what that was all about.

Comments

[sualocin.livejournal.com]

SPOILER

the pistol wasn't loaded because Phillip wanted to attack but make it look like Elizabeth took the first move. Because God likes it that way. So if the gun were loaded, and Elizabeth was wounded, Phillip would not have had the moral high ground in the war.

Does that make sense. Because it makes sense in my head, but typing it out sounds silly.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

OHHHHHHHH, that's right. I was so busy WTFing over the gun that I neglected to make the connection.

[enthroned.livejournal.com]

LOL ditto! So thanks, I was lost too xD;;

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Is the movie out for reals, or was this a preview screening?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

For reals! Just opened yesterday.

[londonsparrow.livejournal.com]

I LOVED the randomness of Tom Hollander! I kind of wanted him and Samatha Morton (who I barely recognize not bald and running around prognosticating with Tom Cruise) to have their own movie.
I also loved Clive, even though he got saddled with the most generic speeches ("all we have is today! etc.")
Dresses: so pretty! Cate actually looked the hottest in the armor, I think. I liked how they let us know how evil the Spanish were by the use of copious eyeliner.

[kismeteve.livejournal.com]

I think I'll kind of explode with glee if Tom Hollander and Samantha Morton do a movie together.

[demonqueen666.livejournal.com]

"Her fate already be decided by the law! YARRRRRR."

This makes me LOL for some reason.

Also, you have no idea how nuts I was going trying to figure out where I knew the jailer from. And by the second or third time I finally got it, so of course I had to whisper to the friend next to me "OMG IT'S BECKET FROM PIRATES".
And since I was seeing the movie with a full row of rennaissance geeks, that prompted about five minutes worth of frantic back and forth whispering.

[demonqueen666.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also, sorry for the double comment, but I just wanted to sort of poll the forum here: my friend insists that sometime during the part where Elizabeth was berating Bess, she screamed "All my bitches wear my collar!". Is she right? Because if so, I completely missed that line.

[arielchan.livejournal.com]

Yep! Totally the line. Possibly one of the most fucking awesome lines in the movie just because... damn.

[apey1013.livejournal.com]

I am finding more and more that any sort of historical epic or drama can immediately capture my attention simply by including a very large floor map.

That being said, though I didn't hate the film once it was over I was just kinda sitting there like "wow, trying to outdo ol' Baz with the bombast, are we?" Ah, who cares? It was nice nonetheless, Tom Hollander was a pleasant surprise, and I'm a total sucker for pirate!Clive. Plus Sweeny Todd trailer! Woot!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh. I didn't get the ST trailer; I got Charlie Wilson's War and a number of previews prefaced with the words "This Holiday Season...!"

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

"Her fate already be decided by the law! YARRRRRR."
LULZ

Mary, of course he knows you were sending secret messages behind his back, he's Lord Beckett.
Even bigger LULZ

[gaenor.livejournal.com]

OH, the pistol thing bothered me too. And it bothered me up until the point I realized the whole assassination/conferring with Mary thing was cooked up by the evil Spanish JUST so Elizabeth would order Mary's execution, therefore giving the Spaniards a justified, Holy Crusade, etc, reason to go to war against England. I think I might have gone "oooohhh i GET it!" aloud in the movie. Gotta say though, the movie didn't do much for me. Sure I loved Clive and the costumes... and Clive again, but after the greatness of the first movie, I was... a little disappointed (where was Fiennes?!!). ALSO. the Braveheart battle speech that she gave... ugh. although i did like her shiny armor.

[quasar360.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's because it is now 3am, but I giggled like a three-year old on pixie sticks over "he's Lord Becket." Hee!

Also, I want to see this movie! Do I need to know the historical background behind this / must I have seen the other Elizabeth movie her Cateness did for this one to make sense to me?

[cjk1701.livejournal.com]

I want to see it just because of Clive Owen, I'm that shallow. I got the extended edition of Arthur Is So Doing Lancelot King Arthur because it had both Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffudd.

Mind, Cate is usually gorgeous, no matter what she does, though I when I watched the original Elizabeth back in... 99? It gave me the creeps, with the people being burned alive thing and stuff.

[khaman.livejournal.com]

The long-faced dude with all his holy on that was working with the Babington plot - I'm trying (lazily) to figure out who he is, because when it comes time for the Christopher Lee biopic, that is the man.

[aetra.livejournal.com]

Do you mean Rhys Ifans (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0406975/), or someone else?

[stringertheory.livejournal.com]

I literally giggled with glee when I saw Tom Hollander come on screen. The fact that I knew it was him by his voice before I every saw his face made it that much cooler.

And then we had Samantha Morton being all crazy, which was fantastic.

Playing 'Spot the Cameo' was more fun than actually following the plot of the film (what little there was).

But, yes, PRETTY PRETTY *huggles*.

[eleigh.livejournal.com]

FYI the Project Download link isn't working anymore.

[eleigh.livejournal.com]

And you can ignore that because now it's working. Weird. I clicked it once and got link unavailable.

[malhablada.livejournal.com]

Saw it last night. SO pretty. My favorite part was when Elizabeth scoffed at her fortune-teller, "I survived an assassin's bullet!".

Except she totally didn't because the gun was empty. But whatever.

Also, Clive Owen can Sir Walter my Raleigh any day of the week.

spoiler question

[lauconfidential.livejournal.com]

if no one's answered this one yet...

the pistol wasnt loaded because king phil didn't really want elizabeth to be killed. he wanted elizabeth & co to use the assassination attempt as grounds to kill mary queen of scots, which spain then saw as an excuse to declare war on england. philip didnt really want mary in power, he wanted himself in power, which could happen after he conquered england in the spanish armada. whoops.

[thesarcasma.livejournal.com]

Was there subtitles in the movie? So my mom are watching it and it looks like the projector might be off. But we can't really tell.

I thought it was odd that there were no subtitles during all the Spanish. So then at the very end there was the one line in subtitles about the armada and we could only see the first line. It suddenly dawns on me that, hey there must have been subtitles during the other parts.

We also should have been tipped off because we saw the boom microphone about 3-4 times at the top of the screen.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think they had it framed wrong at your theater--all the Spanish was subtitled.

[dietcokebreak.livejournal.com]

I seriously LOVED the part with the volta, like it made my heart hurt loved it. And I loved that they then transitioned to the scenes and love theme from the first film.

Why was Rhys Ifans (yum) dying all that cloth red?? I thought it was for an army of martyrs, but looks like Ms. Morton (with her WTH Scottish accent...Mary was raised in the French court, but clearly people will not know she is the Scottish queen unless she sounds like Sean Connery) was the only one in red.

The score... not nearly as good as the first film, but likeable. There was a Renaissance song early on that I know, but couldn't place. Anyone else recognize it??

Looks like Orlando Bloom has some healthy competition in the next Errol Flynn contest!

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

My impression of the dying cloth was that that's where they dye red cloth and they were using it as their uber-sekret hideout. I don't think they were related, other than that. I could be wrong. My mum also noted the accent with Mary. She loves Mary, Queen of Scots. If there is a book about her, my mum has probably read it. She leaned over right away to say 'she shouldn't have a Scottish accent!'

[aircrash.livejournal.com]

er, hello! random fan of your work over at m15m saying hello ... also that as i was watching this film today with my mom, i couldn't help imagining lj icons in your style.

the internets have ruined me, it's true.

[sorcha-feanor.livejournal.com]

The theater we were in for the movie had somehow tilted the camera so that during the cheesy, frequently overwrought, often ham-fisted, pretty scenes we had microphones hanging in the shot, and no subtitles during the scenes in the Spanish court. It was...interesting, and very distracting.

Having read everyone else's comments....

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

I'm worried. Because a), Kate Beckinsale is the absolutely perfect actress physically and in style to play Elizabeth; cast her, put her in the clothes, you're 90% there.

BUT....

The previous film made me cry twice. Once for the sheer beauty of the cast and costumes, then again for the massive inaccuracies in the history. Because Tudor history, especially Elizabethan, is my Thing. And the idea of changing it _to make it more dramatic_ is particularly crazed, because the facts are maximally dramatic already.

The previous movie ... okay, I'm a nit-picker. But it was like seeing a World War II movie where MacArthur killed himself in remorse over Pearl Harbor, the invention of penicillin cured FDR's polio, and Gen. Marshall defected to the Nazis. Just. So. WRONG.

Are there any other history nit-pickers who can give me an idea if watching this movie will harm me deeply? Because I wanna like it, but I'm afraid.

Re: Having read everyone else's comments....

[kestrel127.livejournal.com]

Don't you mean Cate Blanchett? Kate Beckinsale (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000295/) was an awesome actress until she decided she was going to do quality, quality pictures like Van Helsing, Underworld and Vacancy.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I saw The Golden Age yesterday and loved it! Swashbuckling Clive Owen FTW! I sort of loved Raleigh. 'I'm sorry you're mourning, Bess, but don't worry, I'm here to sex you up.' 'I'm sorry the Armada is coming, Elizabeth, but don't worry, I'm here to sex you up.' 'I'm sorry people are fighting on you, body of water, but don't worry, I am here to sex this ship up.'

My mum noticed that Raleigh's cape switched shoulders half way through the movie. I didn't notice it, but if it did, in fact, switch, I wonder if there was significance to it?