As the preeminent Keats scholar in my small cadre of illiterate friends, let me say that I was mostly outraged at the shabby treatment accorded the poet by director Jane Campion (LAist review here). I had such high hopes for this film when I entered the screening, but everything was dashed in short order. Gone was any indication of Keats' magnificent intellectual gift. Rather, he was rendered as little more than a simpering poet chasing after Fanny Brawne. Campion would have been better served focusing on Keats' last days in Rome with Joseph Severn. That would have made for some marvelous cinema. I probably liked I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell more than most, but then again I do fucking rule! Tucker Max is obviously a cretin, but the film is mostly a genial, albeit raw rendering of a bachelor party gone terribly south (LAist review here; LAist interview with director Bob Gosse here). It's definitely worth a peek on DVD (assuming there is tons more nudity). more ›

One tries to be objective when reviewing a film, but the reality is that you bring every moment of your life into a movie theater and some of those moments affect how you judge what you see. For me, Bright Star is tortuous to review because I've been reading anything by and about John Keats since college. From his childhood in London to the death of his parents and brother to his troubled relationship with his guardian to his time as a surgeon to his rapid growth as a poet to his early death in Rome -- every element of his life is always present in my mind. How then to judge a film which reduces that life to an unrequited, frantic love affair? more ›