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Reviews
The Queen (2006)
Ho Hum, Another Movie of the Week
Color me so disappointed in this film. Yes, Helen Mirren was wonderful, although I found her performance mainly a study in stoicism with only a few breaks into real humanity. The "plot" and writing were nowhere near the level I had expected for a film that has garnered as much attention as this has. It felt to me like yet another docudrama of the Royals, with cardboard predictability in all the characters except Elizabeth and just-call-me-Tony.
How much more interesting would this film have been had it shown with far greater detail the entire history of the complicated relationship between Elizabeth and Diana, instead of just the week surrounding her death. There were references to the history, but this film suffered a lack of complexity and drama without it having been portrayed.
What I did find fascinating and laudable was the seamless editing between actual news footage and this movie's scenes involving historical events. The marriage of the two was flawless and held the most interest for me throughout the film. If anyone deserves an award for the movie, the archivist and editors should be first in line.
Her Minor Thing (2005)
Her Minor Thing is.....very minor
OK, the cartooned opening and later captions are catchy and fun. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments in the film, a great feel for "hometown Sacramento," terrific performances by Christian Kane and Michael Weatherly, and on any day Estella Warren isn't hard to watch.... but I found the film sadly disappointing beyond these points.
Even a light romantic comedy needs a bit of conflict to shore up viewers' interest, but the conflict offered here is strictly ho-hum, who cares. If this were a novel, I would hope it would be three drafts short of the finished product -- the story just didn't hold my interest, nor the interest of those I was with. The last 20 minutes (well, excluding the concluding scenes which were, umm, worth the price of the ticket) completely fell apart -- because the structure just wasn't there to hold the end together. There were details missed, unclear plot points, predictable turns and murky transitions -- along with some hackneyed, silly clichés.
I wouldn't recommend this film, and I'll be surprised if it gets picked up for national distribution.