Because I am busy today with stuff (sekrit stuff) (OK, not really, I have to take my cousin to get a prom dress, and had to switch my work schedule around, so we NEED to find that damn dress today), instead of the usual pile of bullshit (we're not BoingBoing here, after all), I am going to post an old movie review of The Man In The Iron Mask that I wrote when it was on cable ad nauseum. It's sort of a preview for the Awesomely Bad Movies Segment I've been working on. So enjoy this, and... not enough? Okee dokee. Here's a picture of Hunter S. Thompson when he was young and living on the beach like some sort of bronzed sea god.
When Hunter's birthday swings around, this blog is going Gonzo. It will be intense. I may post later. Or maybe not. Who knows what lies in the hearts of people?
The Man in the Iron Mask
SPOILER ALERT. Although if you have cable, you've probably seen large chunks of this movie before passing out late at night. SPOILER ALERT.
Poor King Louis (Leonardo DiCaprio). He wants only to have a good time, screwing pretty girls, wearing prettier clothes, and slowly starving his country to death. But his advisors keep nagging him about affairs of state, no matter how many of them he kills. There are all these plots to kill him, when he just wants to worry about the shine quality of his hair, and killing off the sons of Musketeers so he can do their girlfriends.
Then his twin brother shows up, who everyone likes better, and manages to have equally shiny hair despite having lived in an iron mask for most of his life, which makes his hair SUPER shiny hair. Then his mistress hangs herself, and his mommy makes him cry because she likes the 'good' twin better, and he kills his dad without knowing he's his dad. And, of course, ends up in the mask for being a spoiled, war-mongering brat.
Poor Philippe (also Leonardo DiCaprio). He was randomly picked by their father to be sent away to the country, never to get all the pretty clothes and women his brother enjoyed. Then he was thrown into the Bastille with a hunk of metal on his head (think Iron Man without the suit, or the money, or the smarts... or anything except a metal helmet, actually) for years, without any human contact, eating gross slop.
Then a bunch of crazy old men show up at the Bastille and set him free, but they demand he be a part of this demented plot to replace his brother. Philippe, while obviously the nicer brother because he doesn't kill or seduce anyone during the course of the film, isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He doesn't seem to completely understand what's going on at any point during the movie. He's really happy to meet his mother, and the pretty clothes are nice, but everyone yells a lot, and they keep throwing him in and out of that damned mask, and by the end he just wants to be left alone. So then he learns his father wasn't the former King, but the current King's guard, and then just as he wraps his head around being a love-child, his father dies in his arms. He doesn't even get to kill his whiny brother.
Happy ending, of course - he is placed as king. A socially retarded man-child with no leadership skills, no knowledge of affairs of state, and now a large dose of family trauma, leading a country ravaged by war and starvation. Happy days.
Poor Aramis (Jeremy Irons). He's a priest, but he's also the leader of the Jesuits. The King wants him to kill the leader of the Jesuits, a story line that is used as a joke once and never mentioned again. He's got some guilt because he's the one who carried Philippe away all those years ago, but that's never really resolved either. We assume it's all made better by his insane plot to switch kings, but you can never really tell. His beard makes him mysterious. And we have to wonder if perhaps poor Aramis has lost a bit of grey matter, considering his whole plan is, 'let's switch the brat-king with his twin, who's been locked in a tower most of his life and probably has a habit of screaming at walls, and then everything will be good in France again.'
Aramis spends a great deal of the movie babysitting the other elderly Musketeers, and plotting, to little effect. Everything falls apart spectacularly, and except for having the dubious honor of blurting out the best and worst lines in the movie, he's kind of thrown aside by the end of the film. That being said, he can take quite a bit of comfort in the fact that he's the hottest of the Musketeers. And while he may lack the bouncy hair of the boy-Kings, he's hotter than those brats too.
Poor Athos (John Malkovich). He hasn't aged well, and his hair is desperately clinging to his head. But he has a son who looks creepily like him (Peter Sarsgaard, who really does like uncannily Malkovich-esque), who he adores. The son's going to marry this lovely young woman with huge eyebrows and have many Malkovich-looking babies with huge eyebrows. Only King Louis sees her, realizes she's the only girl in France he hasn't screwed yet, and decides that the obvious solution is to send mini-Malkovich off to war. Where he dies.
Athos spends the movie mourning his son, and building a predictable surrogate-father relationship with Philippe, which wasn't stopped by the revelation of Philippe's actual father, or the fact that Philippe's brother killed Athos' son. He only gets into the whole 'save the country' thing because he's pissed about his kid being mushed by a cannon. That being said, his one little breakdown is very effective.
Poor Porthos (Gerard Depardieu). He's the only guy in the whole movie who's actually French, and he can't help but wonder where the FUCK all these Americans and English people came from, or why the King's accent sounds vaguely Beverly Hills. Luckily, he's too busy drinking and chasing obscenely young women to care much. More importantly, Porthos provides all the comic relief in the whole film, usually by emitting gas at inappropriate moments.
In terms of bad luck, Porthos has everyone else beat. He tries to hang himself, and a barn falls on him. A bird craps on his big floppy hat. He bares his geriatric ass with a pride most younger actors could never muster. There are numerous discussions about his penis not working. He may be the most charming dirty old man in history. Oddly enough, in some ways he's the most realistic of all: a man who's unhappy about aging, longing for his glory days, and always willing to help his friends, no matter how insane their plots might be.
Poor Pierre (Hugh Laurie). He shows up for one scene dressed in his leftover outfits from 'Blackadder,' hesitantly suggests that, maybe, the King shouldn't feed his people rotten food, and gets executed one scene later, and the audience is all, what the fuck was that?
Poor audience. We really deserved better. Everyone did. And the good moments - of which there are several - just make the rest of it seem even worse.
Best Lines
Athos: What gives you the right to judge me, to play God with the lives of others? Is it because you're so much holier than everyone else?
Aramis: Well yes, there is that. But also because I'm more intelligent than anybody else.
[Porthos puts the rope around his neck and prepares to jump]
Porthos: Farewell cruel world... farewell to useless Porthos. [He jumps]
[Aramis and Athos are watching the building from the outside]
Athos: What was that?
Aramis: It's all right; I sawed the beam.
[The building promptly collapses. Athos stares at Aramis in disbelief]
Aramis: Well, I'm a genius, not an engineer!
Athos: What is Porthos doing?
Aramis: Walking into the barn naked, or so it would seem.
Athos: But what is he doing?
Aramis: About to hang himself, I suppose; he's been threatening to do it for months.
Porthos: Kidney stones. It hurts when I piss. It hurts when I shit. I'm just a fat old fart with nothing to live for anymore. I'm going to hang myself, as soon as I'm sober. (Note: This may be the simultaneously the worst line in the movie. But it's my favorite, except for whenever Aramis speaks.)
Worst Lines
D'Artagnan: Anne, to love you is treason against France. But not to love you is treason against my heart.
Athos: The next time we meet, one of us will die
Athos: Your eyes ask too much.
PhiIippe: I wear the mask; it does not wear me.
Athos: You have the heart of a king.
Aramis: It's judgement day. (It hurts so bad. So bad! Please, Jeremy Irons, don't do things like this to me.)
When Hunter's birthday swings around, this blog is going Gonzo. It will be intense. I may post later. Or maybe not. Who knows what lies in the hearts of people?
The Man in the Iron Mask
SPOILER ALERT. Although if you have cable, you've probably seen large chunks of this movie before passing out late at night. SPOILER ALERT.
Poor King Louis (Leonardo DiCaprio). He wants only to have a good time, screwing pretty girls, wearing prettier clothes, and slowly starving his country to death. But his advisors keep nagging him about affairs of state, no matter how many of them he kills. There are all these plots to kill him, when he just wants to worry about the shine quality of his hair, and killing off the sons of Musketeers so he can do their girlfriends.
Then his twin brother shows up, who everyone likes better, and manages to have equally shiny hair despite having lived in an iron mask for most of his life, which makes his hair SUPER shiny hair. Then his mistress hangs herself, and his mommy makes him cry because she likes the 'good' twin better, and he kills his dad without knowing he's his dad. And, of course, ends up in the mask for being a spoiled, war-mongering brat.
Poor Philippe (also Leonardo DiCaprio). He was randomly picked by their father to be sent away to the country, never to get all the pretty clothes and women his brother enjoyed. Then he was thrown into the Bastille with a hunk of metal on his head (think Iron Man without the suit, or the money, or the smarts... or anything except a metal helmet, actually) for years, without any human contact, eating gross slop.
Then a bunch of crazy old men show up at the Bastille and set him free, but they demand he be a part of this demented plot to replace his brother. Philippe, while obviously the nicer brother because he doesn't kill or seduce anyone during the course of the film, isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He doesn't seem to completely understand what's going on at any point during the movie. He's really happy to meet his mother, and the pretty clothes are nice, but everyone yells a lot, and they keep throwing him in and out of that damned mask, and by the end he just wants to be left alone. So then he learns his father wasn't the former King, but the current King's guard, and then just as he wraps his head around being a love-child, his father dies in his arms. He doesn't even get to kill his whiny brother.
Happy ending, of course - he is placed as king. A socially retarded man-child with no leadership skills, no knowledge of affairs of state, and now a large dose of family trauma, leading a country ravaged by war and starvation. Happy days.
Poor Aramis (Jeremy Irons). He's a priest, but he's also the leader of the Jesuits. The King wants him to kill the leader of the Jesuits, a story line that is used as a joke once and never mentioned again. He's got some guilt because he's the one who carried Philippe away all those years ago, but that's never really resolved either. We assume it's all made better by his insane plot to switch kings, but you can never really tell. His beard makes him mysterious. And we have to wonder if perhaps poor Aramis has lost a bit of grey matter, considering his whole plan is, 'let's switch the brat-king with his twin, who's been locked in a tower most of his life and probably has a habit of screaming at walls, and then everything will be good in France again.'
Aramis spends a great deal of the movie babysitting the other elderly Musketeers, and plotting, to little effect. Everything falls apart spectacularly, and except for having the dubious honor of blurting out the best and worst lines in the movie, he's kind of thrown aside by the end of the film. That being said, he can take quite a bit of comfort in the fact that he's the hottest of the Musketeers. And while he may lack the bouncy hair of the boy-Kings, he's hotter than those brats too.
Poor Athos (John Malkovich). He hasn't aged well, and his hair is desperately clinging to his head. But he has a son who looks creepily like him (Peter Sarsgaard, who really does like uncannily Malkovich-esque), who he adores. The son's going to marry this lovely young woman with huge eyebrows and have many Malkovich-looking babies with huge eyebrows. Only King Louis sees her, realizes she's the only girl in France he hasn't screwed yet, and decides that the obvious solution is to send mini-Malkovich off to war. Where he dies.
Athos spends the movie mourning his son, and building a predictable surrogate-father relationship with Philippe, which wasn't stopped by the revelation of Philippe's actual father, or the fact that Philippe's brother killed Athos' son. He only gets into the whole 'save the country' thing because he's pissed about his kid being mushed by a cannon. That being said, his one little breakdown is very effective.
Poor Porthos (Gerard Depardieu). He's the only guy in the whole movie who's actually French, and he can't help but wonder where the FUCK all these Americans and English people came from, or why the King's accent sounds vaguely Beverly Hills. Luckily, he's too busy drinking and chasing obscenely young women to care much. More importantly, Porthos provides all the comic relief in the whole film, usually by emitting gas at inappropriate moments.
In terms of bad luck, Porthos has everyone else beat. He tries to hang himself, and a barn falls on him. A bird craps on his big floppy hat. He bares his geriatric ass with a pride most younger actors could never muster. There are numerous discussions about his penis not working. He may be the most charming dirty old man in history. Oddly enough, in some ways he's the most realistic of all: a man who's unhappy about aging, longing for his glory days, and always willing to help his friends, no matter how insane their plots might be.
Poor Pierre (Hugh Laurie). He shows up for one scene dressed in his leftover outfits from 'Blackadder,' hesitantly suggests that, maybe, the King shouldn't feed his people rotten food, and gets executed one scene later, and the audience is all, what the fuck was that?
Poor audience. We really deserved better. Everyone did. And the good moments - of which there are several - just make the rest of it seem even worse.
Best Lines
Athos: What gives you the right to judge me, to play God with the lives of others? Is it because you're so much holier than everyone else?
Aramis: Well yes, there is that. But also because I'm more intelligent than anybody else.
[Porthos puts the rope around his neck and prepares to jump]
Porthos: Farewell cruel world... farewell to useless Porthos. [He jumps]
[Aramis and Athos are watching the building from the outside]
Athos: What was that?
Aramis: It's all right; I sawed the beam.
[The building promptly collapses. Athos stares at Aramis in disbelief]
Aramis: Well, I'm a genius, not an engineer!
Athos: What is Porthos doing?
Aramis: Walking into the barn naked, or so it would seem.
Athos: But what is he doing?
Aramis: About to hang himself, I suppose; he's been threatening to do it for months.
Porthos: Kidney stones. It hurts when I piss. It hurts when I shit. I'm just a fat old fart with nothing to live for anymore. I'm going to hang myself, as soon as I'm sober. (Note: This may be the simultaneously the worst line in the movie. But it's my favorite, except for whenever Aramis speaks.)
Worst Lines
D'Artagnan: Anne, to love you is treason against France. But not to love you is treason against my heart.
Athos: The next time we meet, one of us will die
Athos: Your eyes ask too much.
PhiIippe: I wear the mask; it does not wear me.
Athos: You have the heart of a king.
Aramis: It's judgement day. (It hurts so bad. So bad! Please, Jeremy Irons, don't do things like this to me.)
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