the Veruca Salt of filmmaking

My darling mother, Mama Baroque, sent me this article over the weekend, to cheer me along my sickbed. It did! It is a review, by Dana Stevens at Slate.com, of the Marie Antoinette film, which opens with the sentence "Sofia Coppola is the Veruca Salt of American filmmaking." Talk about hooking the reader! (One is a total sucker for any sort of reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in higher discourse.)

I actually disagree with much of what she writes (is it a she?) - sometimes simply in matters of tone, as in her assessment of Lost in Translation, where what she says in a damning-with-faint-praise way I think sounds right, but praiseworthy - and I think she fails utterly to substantiate her critical stance - but it's a long time since I have been so roundly entertained.

Naturally Ms B hasn't seen the film yet, as she has not yet arisen from her bed of pain to take on, once again, the mantle of the world - but this review is keeping the flame alive.

Little Miss B did go yesterday with some friends - it's half-term, remember - and her assessment was a shrug. She liked it; her friends were bored.

Kind of like Marie Antoinette, I hear you say.