"So Let it Be Written... So Let it Be Done"

The life and times of a real, down to earth, nice guy. A relocated New Englander formerly living somewhere north of Boston, but now soaking up the bright sun of southwestern Florida (aka The Gulf Coast) for over nine years. Welcome to my blog world. Please leave it as clean as it was before you came. Thanks for visiting, BTW please leave a relevant comment so I know you were here. No blog spam, please. (c) MMV-MMXIX Court Jester Productions & Bamford Communications

Saturday, September 08, 2007

SNMR 3.25: "Quills"

Tonight's SNMR feature is "Quills" (2000, R, 124 minutes), starring Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine and Amelia Warner. The film was directed by Philip Kaufman.

This is a movie that I had always wanted to see, but never got around to it until I checked it out of the library two weeks ago. I've always been a fan of Kate Winslet, which is why I wanted to see this movie.

From the DVD's dust case:
Academy Award winners Geoffrey Rush and Michael Caine join Oscar nominees Kate Winslet and Joaquin Phoenix in this provocative film filled with delicious desire and wicked wit. Rush gives a tour-de-force performance as history's most infamous sexual adventurer, the Marquis De Sade. A noleman with a literary flair, the Marquis lives in a madhouse where a beautiful laundry maid (Winslet) smuggles his erotic stories to a printer, defying orders from the asylum's resident priest (Phoenix). The tittilating passages whip all of France into a sexual frenzy, until a fiercely conservative doctor (Caine) tries to put an end to the fun, inadvertently stoking the excitement to a fevered pitch.

From Martin and Porter's DVD & Video Guide 2007, p. 912:
It's 1794. French pornographer and felon Marquis de Sade is incarcerated in an insane asylum, but has several nasty tales to share. A laundry maid smuggles his literary spasms of lust, sexual fantasies, blasphemy and overripe prose into public domain while men of science and men of the cloth try to curb the feverish scribe. This lush production explores hypocrisy, censorship, and the dark side of eroticism with only partial success.


I thought this was a very good film. Geoffrey Rush's performance is over the top and he was nominated for Best Actor in 2001, but lost out to Denzel Washington. The rest of the leading cast give decent performancesbut nothing spectacular. The script is good, but could have been better. The period costumes and set pieces are excellent. Overall, this is a worthwhile and enjoyable movie to watch despite the depressing ending. I'll give it three out of five stars.

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1 Comments:

At 08 September, 2007 22:58, Blogger JLee said...

I liked this film as well. I always enjoy Kate Winslet in most things and Geoffrey Rush was perfect for this role.

 

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