My Bitches Wear My Collars

Let's be clear about one thing: I adored the first Elizabeth movie. The palace intrigue, the betrayed young princess, the sumptuous costumes, the oh-so-meaningful shadows & light. ALL of it. I get into that bodice-ripping double-crossing soap operatic stuff like nobody's business. It is a shameless & naive love, & Elizabeth the first is a near-perfect example of its shiny dollar store beauty. It also bestowed upon me a decade-long adoration for Cate Blanchett that no number of middling Oscar bait vehicles can diminish.

There are two things of which I was unsure: (1) Why did they make a sequel? and (2) How did I not even know it existed until the Oscar nominations were announced? The former remains a mystery, which goes a long way toward explaining the latter. I don't know what's wrong with me lately, but I have not seen a movie made in this century that I have actually enjoyed since early November, when I saw Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (N.B. It's totally worth checking out). Well, I did like the Lindsay Lohan stripper movie. But I also hated it, so I'm not sure it counts. Don't do this to me, brain. I love tawdry! I love slick! I love sprawling epic! Lately every movie I've watched ('cept M. Hulot's Holiday & Mon Oncle) has bored me senseless. I actually fell asleep in a movie theater during Michael Clayton last week. I was sober. The last time that happened, I was drunk, high & stuffed full of Vicodin. I cry foul.

ANYWAY. Back to Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It's pretty awful. Everybody looks bored out of their minds. Abbie Cornish, who plays Elizabeth's little handmaiden (& is called Bess though her full name is ALSO Elizabeth OMG totally meaningful!!!1!!1!!), is boringly pretty in an utterly typical fashion & appears to have all the mental faculties of Tupperware (& that curtain in the picture at left looks almost exactly like the shower curtain I had before I got my silver disco-tastic one). The usually yummy Clive Owen, who generally manages to be the only generically handsome leading man type that I crush on & I admit provided quite the impetus for me to move this to the top of my queue, delivers the most ridiculous lines as though he believes them not one iota. You must say the platitudes as though they emerge from the very bowels of your shallow soul, man! His clear disdain for his words makes him a poor character. And, really, the entire cast seems to be comprised of somnolent Cesares. Sheesh. With the sole exception of Ms. Blanchett, who (1) appears marginally interested & (2) has the dignity to believe in her dialogue cliches. Should you insist upon watching it, just compare the moment at which Owen says, "We mortals have many weaknesses; we feel too much, hurt too much or too soon we die, but we do have the chance of love" with Blanchett's delivery of "I have a hurricane in me that will strip Spain bare when you dare to try me!" It's no more possible to believe that Sir Walter Raleigh has any fucking clue about love than it is to doubt inner fury with which Elizabeth burns. Actually, the scene in which she exclaims with righteous fury, "You ask my permission before you fuck. Before you breed. My bitches wear MY collars" whilst slapping the bitch in question is the single moment of fabulosity in the film entire. (Though...if her bitches really did wear her collars, it probably would have been a way more interesting movie.)

The problem is, this Elizabeth is simply not as compelling or interesting as the first film's. She has already chosen power over love, & apparently the writers' solution to creating romantic intrigue is to make her a whiny vicious sex-starved shrew. I don't know. Shouldn't it, to paraphrase Mel Brooks, be good to be the queen? I mean...surely she could get herself some ass right quick. Which wouldn't really solve the whole love-hungry thing, but at least it'd take care of the sex, right? UGH. I really fucking hate it when movies make me play feminist. It is so very irritatingly inimical to my nature. My solution then? Focus on the production elements to maintain interest. And, oh my, I want, I need, I long for a foyer that would do justice to this:



We'll ignore the raging obviousness of that purple. I, um, actually got bored enough to take my own pictures during the film, in case I couldn't find any online. So here's another:


And, holy cow, the horse frills & THAT MARVELOUS CAPE:


I want that cape. Were I a butch lesbian, I would probably have serious Cate Blanchett fantasies from the armor, too.

I also decided that feathers are totally ready for their accoutrement-status comeback in both clothing & home fashion(love the collar too):


Seriously, I'm starting to think I may have missed my calling. I would be a fantastic decorator.