Last night while at Cub, Kim and I visited the Hollywood Video kiosk to rent a movie. I used to love this wonder box. For months I ignored its existence but when they moved it from its hidden corner in the second to last vertical aisle in the store, I stuck my credit card in there and got a movie. My first few visits to the machine were golden. I would press the screen four times and have a movie that wasn’t ever available in Blockbuster across the street.
Now, seemingly overnight, the box advertises movies like “The Last King of Scotland” or “The Queen” and doesn’t deliver. I usually spend less than 30 seconds at the machine and more time in line behind the inept users in front of me. Last night, however, I spent quite a bit of time circling through the available options looking for something to enjoy that evening.
After quite some time, Kim announced, “who cares? It’s a dollar!” and we settled on Marie Antoinette staring Kirsten Dunst. I never really much cared for French history but just like everyone else I was excited with the knowledge that a possibly lame movie ends with a thrilling beheading.
This movie, while offering beautiful shots of Versailles (inside and out) and some incredible costumes and wigs, lacks pretty much anything else of substance.
The movie progresses as such:
1. She’s brought from Austria at 15 to wed Louis XVI.
2. She’s forced into French culture and “groomed” to become Queen.
3. Louis XVI isn’t a responsive husband in the bedroom and it is a very long time before they produce offspring. This causes stress from all sides on Marie.
4. The French people hate her for many reasons.
5. She becomes queen and spends money on lavishness above and beyond what Versailles already has while her husband funds the American Revolution.
6. The French people attack Versailles and they are forced to leave.
7. There’s no fucking beheading.
Ok, so, you watch the movie and for most of it they wake up, she gets dressed, she watches her husband eat breakfast, and then she does something outside, and then she goes to bed and tries and fails to have sex with him. I would say that exact sequence was repeated 5 or 6x (maybe more) in the movie.
The movie was disappointing but as Kim said, “it’s only a dollar.” If you’re willing to spend $1 on the flick and there’s nothing else left on the shelf or in the box, go for it. Otherwise, you’re better off watching reruns of other bad movies, with commercial interruption, on TBS.
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