THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2008 | THE DIAMONDBACK
7
Diversions
arts. music. living. movies. weekend. trailer watch MILK OPENS NOV. 26 Director Gus Van Sant has put aside his quiet, meditative feature work for what looks to be a triumphant return to mainstream cinema. Sean Penn stars as Harvey Milk, the real-life gay rights activist and San Francisco’s first openly gay city supervisor, who was assassinated in 1978. The dusty, 1970s-authentic photography is spot-on in the trailer — just a glimpse of the good things to come.
BOLT OPENS NOV. 21 Disney’s non-Pixar animated affairs have been lacking as of late. But with Pixar-guru John Lasseter helping oversee work on Bolt, the dismal streak could come to an end. The trailer panders to a younger audience, but there’s a glimmer of the old Disney magic buried in the digital animation.
FAST AND FURIOUS OPENS JUNE 5 There’s really not much to be said of this one — pimpedout cars, airbrushed babes and the reunion of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Perhaps Universal thought dropping “the” from the title might help when audiences can’t differentiate between Fast and Furious and the first installment of the series. Or maybe the studio realized Dumb and Dumberer was already taken.
ALSO OPENING TOMORROW: ≠ The Women Starring: Meg Ryan, Eva Mendes, Annette Bening and Debra Messing
Eva Mendes in The Women
≠ Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys Starring: Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Tyler Perry and Cole Hauser
REVIEW | I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
Dining with the King of hearts Czech submission to last year’s Oscars carries a lust for life and cinema server in a pub, working his way up to the top of his craft in the city’s landmark, Hotel Paris. We really know To say that Czech auteur Jirí Men- very little about the quirky protagozel’s I Served the King of England gives nist, aside from his childlike glee dean accurate picture of Prague before, rived from watching millionaires pick during and after World War II would up loose change he intentionally drops be somewhat misleading — without at their feet. Along his way to the upper echelons proper context. In the spirit of Charlie Chaplin and the many New Wave cine- of the waiting profession, the verticalmas, King of England casts realism ly challenged romantic falls in and out aside for a hyper-saturated reflection of bed with several beauties. He of what Menzel finds emotionally true. adorns each with flowers, money and The film, based on a Bohumil Hrabal fruit respectively, holding a mirror to novel, despises logic in a startling his nude masterpieces so they may lie world of eye-popping image and sound side by side with their reflections. Just as Díte gets his kicks in bed (or, (so startling, the Academy passed it over, as it did so many other incredible on a revolving table in one scene), films, for last year’s Best Foreign Lan- Menzel appears to get his own rush guage Film Oscar). Menzel’s lucid, from conducting Díte’s vivid musical dreamy style glosses over pre-war past. Rather than bathe everything in Jirí Menzel’s latest film may seem like a simple moral tale, but uses exciting visuals Prague, clashing against the drab a nostalgic light, Menzel and his ace and insightful dialogue to become much more. COURTESY OF MOVIEWEB grays of the German occupation and cinematographer, Jaromír Sofr, inject a shot of love into their bizarre, playful army woman, Líza (Julia Jentsch, So- money and Nazi Germany’s rise and the eventual Communist regime. phie Scholl: The Final Days), Díte be- fall as a backdrop — the individual Downplaying the dialogue (gratu- imagery. While serving his absurdly wealthy trays his Czech heritage for the only pieces may be greater than the puzitous narration aside), the director/writer composes a symphony (and slightly kinky) patrons at the se- woman he could literally see eye-to- zle. Still, it would be unfair (and incorrect) to reduce King of England to of food, money and sex. The pleasures cluded Hotel Tichota, Díte recalls the eye with. King of England prefers to keep a jazzed-up moral tale. of life inevitably succumb to the rise of comings and goings of shapely brothel Díte’s desire to become a millionNazi Germany as dreams beget night- women and cavorting millionaires set Díte’s moral struggle largely implicit mares, but the flare behind the camera to period music and a pitch-perfect — his recognition of the atrocities com- aire is not greedy so much as it is score. Their carefree, erotic ballet pro- mitted during World War II amounts to naïve. His motivations are not entirenever ceases. After a 15-year stint in a Czech vides an eerie juxtaposition later in the very little, save a heavy heart in his ly clear, and the reappearance of his prison, Jan Díte (Oldrich Kaiser, Shark film, when the hotel serves as the home post-prison years. He expresses some guiding figure, the clever businessvague regrets, but mostly, he just longs man Walden (Marián Labuda, Facing in the Head) gets released to a desolate to a Nazi, Aryan breeding ground. the Enemy), doesn’t help clear much Moving not as dancers and lovers for the past. area near the German border, where As he should — the earlier flash- up, either. he finds lodging in a pub long since but as machine work, the stunning But ambiguity serves King of Engabandoned by German villagers. naked blondes lose all their seductive backs intentionally outshine the latter Thrust back into his memories, Díte qualities. The SS men follow, not out of wartime sequences in decadence and land well. That the film never really visual excitement. The aforemen- ties together into any one intellectual narrates the years leading up to the passion but out of a sense of duty. In the same hall, Barnev’s Díte (now tioned revolving table scene — dur- theme only underscores the fleeting completion of his life goal: to become a tailored to more of a blonde Hitler than ing which rich men feed a scantily nature of Díte’s (i.e. Menzel’s) memomillionaire and open his own hotel. In his youth, Díte (Ivan Barnev, a Chaplin) has the first lifeless sexual dressed, Hotel Paris beauty — puts ry. It seems pointless to question a Night and Day) worked in Prague as a encounter of his life. Married to a Nazi on a wordless trance well-worth pin- film so delightful and unassuming — King of England simply needs to be ing over. An Ethiopian feast, a brothel seen and heard. called Paradise, a cabin room full of MOVIE:I Served the King of England | VERDICT: mirrors, musical trees, raining zherrm@umd.edu BY ZACHARY HERRMANN Senior staff writer