Midnight in the Garden
Maine dove back into the deep freeze last night after Tuesday night's foot-deep snowstorm. I'm back in hibernation. To celebrate the event, I spent part of the morning watching an old movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I've seen this movie twice before, but never really paid a lot of attention to it till today. I was quite intrigued about it this time.
Released in 1997, this movie's main actors include John Cusack who plays a lead character as a little-known New York writer, Kevin Spacey who plays a wealthy Savanna art collector, and a young Jude Law who plays Spacey's violent drug abusing lover. Steeped in a mix of southern high society, homosexuality, Voodoo, even southern Christian values, the movie spins a tale of intrigue, murder, and a trial that even goes so far as to allude to Perry Mason.
Several things about this movie are interesting to me. One is that Yahoo Movies doesn't even mention the three actors I listed among its list of stars, even though Cusack and Spacey were clearly the leading actors. Chalk that up to the movie's vintage, I suppose.
The second thing is that the movie was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood who won an Academy Award this year for his movie Million Dollar Baby. Eastward's daughter Alison stars in this movie as Cusack's girl.
Spacey plays typical Spacey who's character has a bit of a southern drawl, but displays that arrogance of recent wealth which has become so familiar to me with G.W. in the White House. With the recent White House scandal involving Jim Guckert, alias conservative "journalist" Jeff Gannon, the underlying homosexuality of Spacey's wealthy character and his lover finally stood out to me.
Finally, there is a scene where Jude Law hauntingly displays the body antics which later characterized his virtual gigolo character in the 2001 movie AI. I almost felt like I was having a deja vu when I watched that scene.
Hundreds of billions of gallons of water have gone over the dam since the last time I watched this movie, but somewhere between then and now I have seen some things, learned some things, and changed some of my perspectives on things. This movie will go down in my book as one like Moonstruck or Bridges of Madison County, one worth seeing again from time to time, just to remind me of how much I have changed.
Released in 1997, this movie's main actors include John Cusack who plays a lead character as a little-known New York writer, Kevin Spacey who plays a wealthy Savanna art collector, and a young Jude Law who plays Spacey's violent drug abusing lover. Steeped in a mix of southern high society, homosexuality, Voodoo, even southern Christian values, the movie spins a tale of intrigue, murder, and a trial that even goes so far as to allude to Perry Mason.
Several things about this movie are interesting to me. One is that Yahoo Movies doesn't even mention the three actors I listed among its list of stars, even though Cusack and Spacey were clearly the leading actors. Chalk that up to the movie's vintage, I suppose.
The second thing is that the movie was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood who won an Academy Award this year for his movie Million Dollar Baby. Eastward's daughter Alison stars in this movie as Cusack's girl.
Spacey plays typical Spacey who's character has a bit of a southern drawl, but displays that arrogance of recent wealth which has become so familiar to me with G.W. in the White House. With the recent White House scandal involving Jim Guckert, alias conservative "journalist" Jeff Gannon, the underlying homosexuality of Spacey's wealthy character and his lover finally stood out to me.
Finally, there is a scene where Jude Law hauntingly displays the body antics which later characterized his virtual gigolo character in the 2001 movie AI. I almost felt like I was having a deja vu when I watched that scene.
Hundreds of billions of gallons of water have gone over the dam since the last time I watched this movie, but somewhere between then and now I have seen some things, learned some things, and changed some of my perspectives on things. This movie will go down in my book as one like Moonstruck or Bridges of Madison County, one worth seeing again from time to time, just to remind me of how much I have changed.
posted by Bill | 1:05 PM
2 Comments:
First the daily show and now midnight in the garden of good and evil? It looks like I'm finally starting to wear off on you. Weee! Anyway, you've got to read the book. It's fantastic. I'm on my third (or fourth?) runthrough right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to my daughter Sarah!
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