Review of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) by Aaron W — 26 May 2005

Not to offend anyone on my friends list (those of you still around), but what the hell happened to RT? I've been officially back a couple weeks or so, and keeping up with GD and CD regularly. At first I thought it was just the Star Wars buzz, but now that's died down, yet the place still pretty much sucks. Where has everyone went?

It's too bad. Axis seems pretty cool, but I really like the journal feature here. I couldn't live without reading Yum-Yum's entries.

*torn*.

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So, I'm practically dying to listen to the new Sleater-Kinney CD. I've heard the 30-second snippets on iTunes and suspect this may be their best, and the reviews I've read seem to support this. Unfortunately I'm buying a house with my girlfriend and not allowed to spend any money, period. No DVDs, no CDs. And I thought quitting smoking was tough. This is brutal. If anyone has the album, please PM me and send it to me. Don't worry about the illegalities. I'll buy it as soon as I'm aloud to spend money again.

The same goes for the new Steve Malkmus album. Gotta have it!

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I'm attending the Atlanta Film Fest again in a couple weeks. As some of you may remember, I did a big write-up, really trying myself out as a legit film critic. I had a great time, but burnt myself out on film and spent the rest of the fest with a special someone. My schedule this year should be lighter, and so will my writing demands, but I'll at least try to update every other day or so, plus write a couple of reviews.

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Recent films I've seen:

[b]Tarnation: [/b]Tragic story, but not really worthy of a feature film. They could have eliminated all of the growing up stuff and focused on the Renee in New York thing. Would have made for great television entertainment. I'm quite surprised that this film received so much buzz. [b]5/10.

A Love Song for Bobby Long: [/b]Having lived in the south for over a decade, I can smell a fake southern accent from miles away. The only believeable accent and worthwhile performance was Travolta's. This might have been better if it weren't a coming-of-age story about Scarlett's character, but just a film about the downfall of Travolta's character. There was a good story there, but they focused on the wrong one. [b]3/10.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers: [/b]I'm a huge Peter Sellers fan, as most of you know. Being There and Dr. Strangelove rank up there among my favorite films, mostly because of his great performances. Geoffrey Rush poured his heart and soul into this character and really did a phenomenal job, but as good as he was, he'll never be as funny as Sellers. By having Rush play all of Sellers family and his characters, they took the story too far off the mark. I would rather have watched a short talking head documentary, then watched a real Sellers movie. [b]4/10.

Crash.

[/b]Well written, well acted, strong cast. Sure, this is about as unrealistic as you can get, but I was able to forgive a lot of it because the coincidences emphasized the hypocrisy within all the characters. My early favorite for best ensemble movie of 2005. [b]8/10[/b].