Comments on This Weekend at the Movies

"[Beineix] has made a film that is about many things, but I think the real subject of DIVA is the director's joy in making it. The movie is filled with so many small character touches, so many perfectly observed intimacies, so many visual inventions-from the sly to the grand-that the thriller plot is just a bonus. In a way, it doesn't really matter what this movie is about; Pauline Kael has compared Beineix to Orson Welles and, as Welles so often did, he has made a movie that is a feast to look at, regardless of its subject."

Do you want to eat a feast from 1981? Seriously, dude, get me Ebert on DIVA in the last five years (that piece is from 82) and then we'll talk.

True: I made a Diva rip-off movie on Super 8. It was called Murder in Moon City Plaza.

And yet... Five Easy Pieces was written by a woman (Carole Eastman). She used a male pseudonym. Can a movie written by a woman still be judged as sexist to women? Or is there another word for it?

What is up with Pac Place? Saw Charlie Wilson's War there on Monday and kept my coat on for the entire film. Seems more like Arctic Place.

I haven't seen Diva in a coon's age, but I'll be damned if I don't still rollerblade in my own house because of that scene with the girl on her skates...

it's an ice pick, not an awl, and Curé is one of the best bad guys ever ("J'aime pas les parking")

plus it's an unforgettable soundscape. close your eyes for the stupid parts and just listen.

I watched this movie hundreds of times while painstakingly transcribing every line of it (don't ask why) and never got tired of it

Q: Quien a volé la robe de la diva?
A: La Wally!

Shit. "Qui," not "quien." Spoiled my best joke ever.

Fernandez was quite the accomplished opera singer in those days. I saw her sing Tosca for the Oakland Opera in the late 80s and she was outstanding. Lately, nothing, sadly. So "holy shit," she is more than just an odd name.

The buzz when I worked in music in NYC was that Miss Wiggins Fernandez had, in the beginning, a lovely, light small voice that she essentially blew out more or less completely in the wake of Diva, which, in combination with a bad habit of taking herself even more seriously than Your Average Soprano, meant a quick end to her career. She did make one nice disk of spirituals, though, in addition to her appearance on the movie soundtrack.

"Qui a volé la robe de la diva?" - best fake movie headline ever, and a great thing to declaim in high dudgeon when slightly tipsy...

I understand you all enjoy being eccentric. And really, thats okay. But when it comes down to representing a paper that thumbs-up porn reviews AND God of War 2, you'd think one of you jackasses would have a good time with another Alien or Predator flick that wasn't Resurrection or didn't star Danny Glover. You obviously saw the wrong movie, Wright... AVP:R took place in Colorado, not Canada. And it wasn't directed by Paul W. Anderson. Thank your lucky stars for that.