Life. Don’t talk to me about life. It’s a fucking madhouse right now, what with Dickens Fair sucking almost all available free time from me, on top of general daily grind bullshit that I won’t bore you all with. Suffice it to say, I’ve been struggling to keep up with the movie watching and posting about movie watching since about the end of October. I don’t see it getting any better until after New Year’s either.
Sigh.
Anyway, today I present to you my top five films that I have literally piling up on my desk, waiting to be watched and reviewed. I swear I will get around to watching them eventually!
The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)
I wanted to knock this one out as soon as it hit the theaters, but then Dickens Fair happened and I was too busy, ironically, participating in the imaginary world of Charles Dickens to watch the film about the imaginary world of Charles Dickens.
The Death of Louis XIV (2016)
This one has been getting heaps of praise, so when I ran across it during my research for my Louis XIV Man Candy Monday, I knew I needed to watch it. The DVD came in record time, and it has been sitting on my desk gathering dust ever since.
Juana Inés (2016)
I have gotten most of the way through the Mexican biopic series of Sor Juana, and surprisingly started enjoying it after I was able to mentally blot out the spectacularly awful costumes. But have I had a chance to write anything about it other than a few sentences here? Nope.
Koroleva Margo (1996)
This is another potential Snark Week goldmine. It’s a Russian miniseries that came out in the mid-1990s, based on either the historical Queen Margot or Dumas’ Queen Margo, it’s hard to say. What I can say about it, is that it is basically a visual rundown of every costuming trope we’ve ever listed, from floating ruffs to head necklaces to contractually obligated leather pants. I’ve watched about 20 minutes of the first episode before I couldn’t stand watching any more.
The Fabulous Life of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Portraitist of Marie-Antoinette (2015)
I’ve been bemoaning a lack of films about interesting female historical figures who weren’t queens for ages, and Vigée Le Brun has been at the top of that list for ages. Turns out this two-part French docudrama has been around for two whole years and I only just now found out about it. It took me two years to write my master’s thesis on Vigée Le Brun’s portrait of Marie-Antoinette … How long do you think it’s going to take me to write a post about this movie?
What movies have you been meaning to watch? Commiserate with me in the comments!
I am not a costuming expert, so I am sure I would be wrong in anything I would say about the costumes – but we saw “The Man Who Invented Christmas” and really enjoyed it. I mean, Jonathan Pryce, Christoper Plummer, Simon Callow…. and of Course Dan Stevens…. it was touching, actually. Any aficionado of the book will be constantly going, “Aha!” as we see Dickens acquiring inspirations for characters and lines. It made my season.
Hot damm! Marie Antoinette actually looks like Marie Antoinette in that picture!!
WHAT is the name of that docudrama, pray tell?
I may even beg a little.
Vigée Le Brun: The Queens Painter
http://imdb.com/rg/an_share/title/title/tt5082718/
Thank you!
Looking forward of the death of Louis XIV and the biopic of Elisabeth Vigée le Brun. Both look cool casting and costume wise, too. I’m a huge anti-Dickens fan, so bleh about that and the others look farby, snark week worthy as you stated :(
Wow! I didn’t know about the Vigée me Brun film, yet. I have to watch it! Thank you for that info! I’d also love to read your thesis ;)
Wow, I didn’t know about that Vigée le Brun documentation, yet. I have to watch it! Thank you for that information! I’d also love to read your thesis :)
As a lover of all things Louis XIV and his great-grandson’s wife Marie Antoinette, I would list the docudrama on Vigee Le Brun and The Death of Louis XIV followed by Dickens Fair – oops – TheRe’s Who Invented Christian.
Well, I went from this article to watching the documentary on Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun and I can tell you that while the main actress has decent costumes, the extras are pretty awful. Back-lacing, ill-fitting, and a decade out of date are the norm for them. The hairstyles are also very questionable, but I’m as far from an expert on this as you can get.
AND one of the main chemise a la reine’s that main actress wears for about 10 years is, I believe, zipped up the back.
That said, this series has given me a burgeoning love of this woman and a whole new appreciation for artwork from this era. Apparently she basically invented the trope of paintings where men look into the distance stoically – and she did so purely because she was so tired of male subjects staring at her while she worked that she deliberately directed them to look elsewhere. I’m going to spend my winter break reading as much about her as I can.
Dicken’s Festival has also eaten my soul. Last weekend alone I baked 3280 chocolate chip cookies, made 124 gallons of hot coco, and 200 gallons of mulled cider. I did this in full late 1830’s/early 1840’s garb including a proper corset and pinner apron. I cannot wait until after Christmas when I can get the smell of cookies out of my nose.
Now there’s your Christmas spirit! ;-)
Yes, Koroleva Margo is based on Dumas novel. I’m Russian, and I also couldn’t watch it when it was on TV. I don’t know much about costumes of that period so can’t judge… but it’s just done badly (like most Russian TV series). And then, both Margot and La Mole are so bleak and unlikeable. But I used to watch Grafinya Monsoro (The Countess of Monsoreau), also a mini-series from 1997-1998, and it seemed beautiful to me then.