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MOVIES
Knightley and Law take on iconic roles
MINNEAPOLIS — For Keira Knightley, playing Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was the mirror image of playing Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet.
The heroine of her 2005 film "Pride and Prejudice" is beloved by generations of readers. This time, she had to walk an emotional tightrope in Tolstoy's drama of infidelity, vengeance and retribution, making her adulterous character spirited, energetic, relatable, yet not too likable. Knightley feared that if she made Anna an innocent victim, "you're going to lose the audience, and if you lose the audience they are just going to go, 'Oh, shut up and jump under a train'!"
MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE
“There are moments when Tolstoy hates her,” she said. “I first read the book in my late teens and remembered it as this sweeping romance. Then I went back to it last summer and thought, 'This is a very different thing than I remembered.' Sometimes she is the anti-heroine. He's almost holding her up and saying, 'This is the Whore of Babylon'. He's not going, 'You should go off with this romantic love.' Then sometimes you feel he completely understands her and he's absolutely in love with her."
This film image released by Summit Entertainment shows Dakota Famming, left, and Cameron Bright in a scene from "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2."
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 27, 2012
Director Joe Wright wanted all those contradictions, Knightley said.
"That's the dichotomy of Anna that has made her such a fascination for so many years," Knightlev said.
Knightley and Taylor-Johnson spent a fair amount of time stumbling into each other as they practiced their big ballroom dance scene.
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Although she's no stranger to costume drama (or comedy, if you count her "Pirates of the Caribbean" films), Knightley never had a wardrobe to match Annas. As a socialite in 19th-century St. Petersburg, Anna dresses in the height of fashion, luxury and vanity.
TWILIGHT
"It's different rehearsing something in track-suit bottoms and suddenly adding a dress that was so heavy it felt as if I had a small child attached to my waist," she said. "All of a sudden you're twirling around and someone behind you is stepping on the back of your skirt, and then he steps on the front and I can't see my feet and I'm stepping on his.
"It was annoying because he picked up the dance like that, and it took me about three weeks."
Costume designer Jacqueline Durran, who also costumed Knightley in period style for Wright's "Pride and Prejudice" and "Atonement," visited Chanel in Paris to borrow yards upon yards of pearls and bushels of diamonds. Each morning Knightley would choose what kind of jewels she wanted from a treasure chest worth about $2 million.
When half the financing dropped away, Wright's conception of the film changed radically. What was envisioned as a naturalistic production shot in Russia quickly became a stylized version shot mostly on a sound-stage. The shift is well-suited to a story of a society where false and artificial values were paramount.
Wright's theatrical staging provides an ingenious background for Knightley's tortured passions, with Jude Law superb as her fussy, cold husband, Alexi, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's romantic Vronsky the most dashing fellow since Errol Flynn swung from his last chandelier.
Sequel lacks moral value for viewers
EMILY DONOVAN
edonovan@kansan.com
Few plots are so convoluted that they grow more innately ridiculously as sequel after blundering sequel is released. If you're looking to snicker, read a synopsis of "Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2." And then cry at the fact that this tortuous "love story" is a highly successful, multi-billion dollar franchise.
Sadly, Twilight's target audience may not be as capable of filtering out the dysfunction of this family of vampires.
Young women and other long-time supporters of the series often fail to analyze this film's disturbing violence, sexual ploys and dearth of strong women or even functional interpersonal relationships. Role models or simply a moral theme that could help young women prepare for life in modern times are stunningly absent from "The Twilight Saga." Audiences deserve better.
From the opening title, blood becomes almost banal throughout the film. Rampant violence, accompanied with mediocre computer graphics, overtake scene after scene. Actors' heads are casually removed from their necks with bare hands, bodies are burned and squeamish vampiric feeding is implied offscreen.
Why would a love story be accompanied by so many executions?
There's a roaring undercurrent of sexualization that seems to drive the movie as much as the plot does. Scenes of soft-core porn, shot in uncomfortably zoomed in close-ups, are spliced by a plot of impending doom. And, of course, a certain werewolf undresses to inspire a revitalization of the franchise's pin-up posters and action figures line.
How are my middle-school aged cousins supposed to react?
The most jarring relationship is between the two characters that "Twilight's" young, female audience identify closest with—a teenage mother and her 11-year-old daughter. Viewers will find no humbling depictions of the heartwarming bond here. Caring for Renesmee appears to be a team effort as Bella leaves her newborn daughter to be passed around the house full of supernatural baby-sitters.
more than just her caretaker.
Yes, in its newest installment,
"Twilight" breaks from its previous fields of necrophilia and beastiality to explore pedofilic undertones.
But one of the supernatural adults is determined to become
Is a 12-year-old girl watching this movie going to pick up on how indescribably creepy it is? Should young women be exposed to Bella and Edward's alarmingly gruesome world?
Despite failing to reach the prerequisites of a decent movie, much less a good story, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2"
No.
managed to earn $340.9 million in its worldwide opening — the eighth largest premiere ever. A teenage mother and her husband, who can't stop getting her into life-threatening situations, are being marketed as the paragon couple of our generation.
When watching a movie in theaters, you can't vapidly accept everything that comes on the screen. Moviegoers, namely tween and teenage girls, will never get back the innocence of not knowing exactly how Bella and Edward consummate their supernatural marriage rather than spend time
with their daughter.
As college students, we have a responsibility to point out when pop culture is having something so unhealthy shoved down its throat. Make sure the susceptible women in your life who may go see Twilight know that violence and pedophilia are not acceptable.
Hold Hollywood accountable. If we're not careful, people might actually believe Bella and Edward are a picture perfect example of true love.
— Edited by Laken Rapier
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
Mick Jagger, left and Keith Richards, of The Rolling Stones perform at the 02 arena in east London on Nov. 25. The band are playing four gigs to celebrate their 50th anniversary, including two shows at London's 02 and two more in New York.
MUSIC
The Rolling Stones turn 50
The Stones passed the half-century mark in style at the sometimes emotional gig that saw former bassist Bill Wyman and guitar master Mick Taylor join their old mates in front of a packed crowd at London's 02 Arena.
LONDON — The Rolling Stones made a triumphant return to the London stage on Sunday night in the first of five concerts to mark the 50th anniversary of their debut as an American-oriented blues band.
It was the first of five megashows to mark the passage of 50 years since the band first appeared in a small London pub determined to pay homage to the masters of American blues.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
They showed no signs of wear and tear — except on their aging, heavily lined faces — as frontman Mick Jagger swaggered and strutted through a stellar two-and-a-half hour show. He looked remarkably trim and fit and was in top vocal form.
But the band's fiery music was no joke, fueled by an incandescent guest appearance by Taylor, who played lead guitar on a stunning extended version of the ominous "Midnight Rambler," and Mary J. Blige, who shook the house in a duet with Jagger on "Gimme Shelter."
The 50th anniversary show, which will be followed by one more in London, then three in the greater New York area, lacked some of the band's customary bravado — the "world's greatest rock 'n' roll band"
Lead guitarist Keith Richards, whose survival has surprised many who thought he would succumb to drugs and drink, was blunt: "We made it," he said. "I'm happy to see you. I'm happy to see anybody."
"It's amazing that we're still doing this, and it's amazing that you're still buying our records and coming to our shows," he said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Jagger, in skin-tight black pants, a black shirt and a sparkly tie, took time out from singing to thank the crowd for its loyalty.
intro was shelved — and there were some rare nostalgic touches.
Even the famously taciturn Wyman briefly cracked a smile when trading quips with Richards and Ronnie Wood.
The concert started with a brief video tribute from luminaries like Elton John, Iggy Pop and Johnny Depp, who praised the Stones for their audacity and staying power. The Stones' show contained an extended video homage to the American trailblazers who shaped their music: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and others.
Core Temperatures Are Rising.