Thoughts on Chaplin
-Now, Charlie Chaplin movies make me sad. The Tramp, specifically, is such an innocently tragic character, and Chaplin's scores are always so melancholy, his films make me cry even at their cheeriest. This just made the whole thing all the more depressing.-Not to say it wasn't good. Robert Downey Jr. certainly earns his nomination, as the single actor who gets enough screen time to warrant such. Kevin Kline plays best friend and pirate of many orders Douglas Fairbanks with his usual zeal, Marisa Tomei gets a bit part as Mabel Normand, star of many a Fatty Arbuckle short, director, and apparently, a bitch, rivaled only by Mary Pickford (Maria Pitillo). Milla Jovovich shows up for a bit as the Lolita first wife of Chaplin, Dan Aykroyd is the notoriously undersold Mack Sennett, who gave Chaplin his shot, I guess. Paul Rhys is Chaplin's older brother Sidney, a rather thankless, but nonetheless well-played, role, and in some bizarre twist of fate, Geraldine Chaplin plays her own grandmother.
-Moira Kelly plays the dual roles of Hetty Kelly, Chaplin's first love, a dancer who married and died of influenza at 25 (after he left for America), for which she puts on the most dreadful accent. Like, ever. Her parents are Irish immigrants, she should be able to put on a goddamn convincing accent. Anyways. And then she plays Chaplin's final and longest wife, the ever-faithful Oona O'Neill, in a not-so-subtle juxtaposition with the many women in his life. So, uh, if you see Moira Kelly walking around, she's probably your soulmate. Or something.
-There's this really funny scene, where Charlie and Sid and Sid's wife (girlfriend?) and Charlie's cameraman Roland Totheroh (David Duchovny) are alluding the cops with the still-uncut print of some film, I forget which one, that Mildred Harris (Jovovich) was after for the divorce settlement, and they start running around like in a Chaplin film, super-fast movements and slapstick diversions and whatnot.
-The end. Is so. Sad.
-Good day.
The Temptation Of St Tony
