Monday, September 17, 2007
Am I an Old Fogey? On (really) not liking Death at a Funeral
The first thing you have to know about me, with regard to this mini-review, is that my mother is English and I was raised on Upstairs, Downstairs, James Herriot books, everything British. So I have an avowed weakness... included in my very small video/DVD collection are Sense & Sensibility, An Ideal Husband, Room With a View, etc.
So, needing an escape in the midst of a very grueling week, not to mention a husband and son watching the umpteenth Nationals game on TV, I took myself off to see Death at a Funeral on Friday night.
And, I really didn't like it. So am I getting old? I just don't find old people poop jokes funny. Corpses falling out of coffins during eulogies - funny? Not so. Accidental ingestion of halucinogens? Only mildly amusing - results in a naked guy on the roof. So?
I like Rupert Graves (Freddy, in aforementioned Room With a View) but he doesn't do much here. And no one does - the writing is limp, the acting only OK. Sunday's Washington Post Book World had a review of the diaries of Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) and I grinned just reading the review. There's lots of baggy ridiculousness in any given Python episode, granted, but the flashes of brilliance (sometimes sustained flashes...) made up for the animated farts and the like. Those guys could write. And I guess that's what I missed at the damn Funeral: funny language, not just a dead man with a hidden gay sex life with a dwarf. Ha ha.
So, needing an escape in the midst of a very grueling week, not to mention a husband and son watching the umpteenth Nationals game on TV, I took myself off to see Death at a Funeral on Friday night.
And, I really didn't like it. So am I getting old? I just don't find old people poop jokes funny. Corpses falling out of coffins during eulogies - funny? Not so. Accidental ingestion of halucinogens? Only mildly amusing - results in a naked guy on the roof. So?
I like Rupert Graves (Freddy, in aforementioned Room With a View) but he doesn't do much here. And no one does - the writing is limp, the acting only OK. Sunday's Washington Post Book World had a review of the diaries of Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) and I grinned just reading the review. There's lots of baggy ridiculousness in any given Python episode, granted, but the flashes of brilliance (sometimes sustained flashes...) made up for the animated farts and the like. Those guys could write. And I guess that's what I missed at the damn Funeral: funny language, not just a dead man with a hidden gay sex life with a dwarf. Ha ha.
