Total waste of time

[isabelladangelo]

Imagine putting The Other Boleyn Girl together with The Tudors and you get Queen Margot ...but even worse. The costuming looked like some mix of three different centuries (at least! I think I spotted a jacket I wanted back in the early 90's in it at some point) and my old college curtains. It really looked like it was based off a Philippa Gregory novel.
Chemiseless babes? Check.
Blending of many historical figures into one person? Check.
Incest? Check.
A total rewrite of history to the point that you can't tell what the story was supposed to be about? Total check.

I realize it's based off a 19th c novel but I don't think the novel could have been this uh...scandalized? I might try to read it just to see but honestly, this is a total snark bait film. There is nothing redeeming at all about it.

Comments

[sarahbellem.livejournal.com]

I completely fell in love with La Reine Margot when it first became available over here, sometime around 1997 or so. Even made a dress (http://modehistorique.com/elizabethan/redsilk.html) inspired by the dresses in the movie.

Yes, it is hypersexual, and completely trashy, but I can't put it in the same category as The Tudors or The Other Boleyn Girl. Its better eye candy than either of those films, and fits in more with the "Dangerous Beauty" school of fictionalized historical story telling. And you can't go wrong with Vincent Perez and Isabeu Adjani. Gorgeous pair of human beings, both of them.

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

Oh, me too! Except for the making a dress inspired by it part. But I've seen it multiple times. It's just so trashy and wonderful, like eating pancakes for dinner and completely skipping the vegetables.

As for Victorian lit being scandalous, oh my god, was it ever! I mean, Thomas Hardy is fairly tame by modern standards, but he's got women getting raped, babies out of wedlock right and left, kids committing suicide -- it's worse than "As the World Turns."

People have been doing stupid stuff with and for sex since the Garden of Eden.

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Dangerous Beauty. Yeah, it wasn't accurate but it at least had more character development and secondary characters costuming was pretty darn accurate for the most part. I think what bothered me, really, was the lack of character development (wasn't that the guy Le mole was trying to kill? Why are they hugging each other and best of buds now? what the heck?) and the blending of too many characters into one. Yes, the people are pretty but I've seen plenty of pretty people. I want a film that actually makes you think and keeps some of the social ideals of the time in check (Margot was actually thrown out of court I think in Henry's reign due to her behavior....either that, or she wouldn't let him borrow her dress. Something that was completely over looked...) Dangerous beauty, to a point, did keep the whole idea of social status in check (yeah, there were some problems but it gave a far better "feel" for the time than this did to me).
Basically, it had as much blood as Shawn of the Dead and as more incest than the Other Boleyn Girl.
It's not that I except every movie to be dead on accurate either. Like I said, I liked Dangerous Beauty (I have a copy and just love the orange dress) and I'm probably one of the few people that actually like Elizabeth and The Golden Age (it has it's problems but the acting amazing...the story line for the HBO Elizabeth was better though..) I just really hoped for something redeeming in it and didn't find anything.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm glad other people do like the movie. I hate to have orphaned movies out there that no one likes. :-) It's just not at all what I had hoped for.

[pyllgrum.livejournal.com]

At least you found something to snark about. Think how miserable you would hsve been if the movie had been accurate!!!

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

Nope, then I would have been happy. A Queen storming the castle to take it back from her husband that she kinda sorta didn't want to but did anyways marry? That would have been cool. And portraying Henry III as the Queen he probably was rather than an incestuous heartless bastard? Far more funny and entertaining.

[sistersola.livejournal.com]

It's pretty trashy alright, but I let myself be taken away by the high-Dumas style and some really nice acting moments. I think Virni Lisi was amazing in it.

I'm not familiar with the historical figures' real stories, so the inaccuracies weren't a problem for me with the story - it felt like a good rompy novel, which is what I guess it was :)