“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”
Coco Chanel (2008)
Went to Family Video the other day and rented two movies; this being one of them. Apparently, discovered when googling for images, there are two Coco Chanel movies. Coco Avant Chanel (2009) and Coco Chanel. Haha, I watched the latter which was the Lifetime movie. And the former hasn't been released yet but at least it's an official movie.
Coco Chanel
Coco avant Chanel
Now watch me chatter: I don't know a thing about Chanel except for the fact that my mother likes the perfume, but I love "based off of a true story" movies even though some are glaringly inaccurate (cough, Patch Adams, cough). And come on, how's a girl to resist a movie about a woman in the Time's Top 100 Most Influential People in the World?
It opens with Shirley MacLaine playing old Chanel in her American voice, and she's presenting her first collection after having disappeared for 15 years or so. It's bad. People criticize her and her PR Marc says something about a clothing line for grannies. But Coco Chanel does not care because she says she has suffered rejection before. Cue flashback! All the scene transitions were pretty terrible. The scene would fade to black, and you'd wait two seconds and then fade into another scene. I wish there was more creativity to it. Anyway, flashback of young Coco - then Gabrielle - going to an orphanage and forgotten by her father. There's tons and tons of flashbacks going on here, switching to MacLaine refusing to accept the public's rejection to Barbora Bolulova (who is gorgeous) working for an uptight seamstress/dressmaker person. Etienne the handsome soldier (who isn't that handsome) comes in with a friend, and she's in love. Her friend is conveniently asked by Etienne's friend to attend a party; Gabby goes along, ends up singing in front of everyone, and quickly wins Etienne's heart over. A day later they're kissing in the rain, and Etienne wants to take her to his secluded castle and have her be his mistress. She goes but is bored and soon she's creating beautiful hats. I can't remember whether hat creation came before or after Boy Chapel shows up in aviator goggles and scared her horse into bucking her off. I just remember going, "WHY IS ETIENNE SO LAME? OH LOOK. Boy is ruggedly handsome! And English! And loves to work!"
Long story short, Etienne doesn't want to marry Coco, Coco leaves and sets up a shop in Paris, Boy visits, the two become good friends and then fall in love. Boy Chapel then goes to war, Coco makes stylish and cheap dresses that women don't need servants to help them put on and she becomes successful. Boy returns to write a book, Reflections on Winning a War, and gets a book deal in London. Coco is planning to go with Boy to London and possible get married there but her best friend asks her to attend her wedding which is on the same day of the London trip. She goes to the wedding but loses the heart of Boy Chapel for he is a womanizer and has a daddy-complex which he thinks can be solved by marrying his father's god-daughter who happens to be a widow. Coco being wonderfully independent and amazing tells Boy to marry the girl because he should do what he wants to do and she will always survive. I love Bolulova.
Turns out Boy hates his marriage and wants to have an affair with Coco. He calls and asks her if they could spend Christmas together, and his death was too obvious. Coco's finished lighting up the candles when she gets a phone call; the camera focuses on one candle that flickers out and Coco screams.
In the end old Coco churns out a new collection which is glamorous to the audience but didn't really appeal to be but, hey, it was the 50s.
The Etienne actor and Barbora laid the French accent on thick, and I couldn't understand them at points. Then MacLaine didn't have a French accent at all. The romance between Etienne and Coco was rushed, and you could tell from the beginning Etienne's a bastard, go off with Boy, Coco. There were awkward acting parts like when Etienne and Coco were tangoing and smoldering and then Boy's tangoing with Coco and he's all, I so want to do her but Coco's smoldering at everyone because this is just getting annoying; can't we have a threesome? Er. But not really. Another awkward part was Coco marching up to the study to tell Etienne how Boy threw her off the horse, and Bolulova couldn't pull off the angry.
Overall it is a good movie: there's gorgeous beach scenes and grand street scenes and the costumes are wonderful. And Barbora Bolulova is alskdflaj beautiful. Because even though it says starring MacLaine, most of the scenes were of Bolulova.
Now! Have some pictures?
There were a lot of smoking scenes.
This is her younger sister, the one who loves her convent dearly.
This is Etienne and Etienne's spurned lover who turns out to actually become a good friend of Coco's. At least, it looked like it. They had femme slash moments! :]
Honestly, how nasty is that mustache? And yeah, Bolulova's sweater isn't very figure flattering here.
Trufax: there was a Mulan scene where she held a pair of scissors like a sword and cut off her hair.
Yeeees. So cute.
I wish I had an outfit like that. I said that a lot during the movie...
Anyway, off to watch Defiance (OMG BIELSKI PARTISANS. I swear I will read the book one day!).
Went to Family Video the other day and rented two movies; this being one of them. Apparently, discovered when googling for images, there are two Coco Chanel movies. Coco Avant Chanel (2009) and Coco Chanel. Haha, I watched the latter which was the Lifetime movie. And the former hasn't been released yet but at least it's an official movie.
Coco Chanel
Coco avant Chanel
Now watch me chatter: I don't know a thing about Chanel except for the fact that my mother likes the perfume, but I love "based off of a true story" movies even though some are glaringly inaccurate (cough, Patch Adams, cough). And come on, how's a girl to resist a movie about a woman in the Time's Top 100 Most Influential People in the World?
It opens with Shirley MacLaine playing old Chanel in her American voice, and she's presenting her first collection after having disappeared for 15 years or so. It's bad. People criticize her and her PR Marc says something about a clothing line for grannies. But Coco Chanel does not care because she says she has suffered rejection before. Cue flashback! All the scene transitions were pretty terrible. The scene would fade to black, and you'd wait two seconds and then fade into another scene. I wish there was more creativity to it. Anyway, flashback of young Coco - then Gabrielle - going to an orphanage and forgotten by her father. There's tons and tons of flashbacks going on here, switching to MacLaine refusing to accept the public's rejection to Barbora Bolulova (who is gorgeous) working for an uptight seamstress/dressmaker person. Etienne the handsome soldier (who isn't that handsome) comes in with a friend, and she's in love. Her friend is conveniently asked by Etienne's friend to attend a party; Gabby goes along, ends up singing in front of everyone, and quickly wins Etienne's heart over. A day later they're kissing in the rain, and Etienne wants to take her to his secluded castle and have her be his mistress. She goes but is bored and soon she's creating beautiful hats. I can't remember whether hat creation came before or after Boy Chapel shows up in aviator goggles and scared her horse into bucking her off. I just remember going, "WHY IS ETIENNE SO LAME? OH LOOK. Boy is ruggedly handsome! And English! And loves to work!"
Long story short, Etienne doesn't want to marry Coco, Coco leaves and sets up a shop in Paris, Boy visits, the two become good friends and then fall in love. Boy Chapel then goes to war, Coco makes stylish and cheap dresses that women don't need servants to help them put on and she becomes successful. Boy returns to write a book, Reflections on Winning a War, and gets a book deal in London. Coco is planning to go with Boy to London and possible get married there but her best friend asks her to attend her wedding which is on the same day of the London trip. She goes to the wedding but loses the heart of Boy Chapel for he is a womanizer and has a daddy-complex which he thinks can be solved by marrying his father's god-daughter who happens to be a widow. Coco being wonderfully independent and amazing tells Boy to marry the girl because he should do what he wants to do and she will always survive. I love Bolulova.
Turns out Boy hates his marriage and wants to have an affair with Coco. He calls and asks her if they could spend Christmas together, and his death was too obvious. Coco's finished lighting up the candles when she gets a phone call; the camera focuses on one candle that flickers out and Coco screams.
In the end old Coco churns out a new collection which is glamorous to the audience but didn't really appeal to be but, hey, it was the 50s.
The Etienne actor and Barbora laid the French accent on thick, and I couldn't understand them at points. Then MacLaine didn't have a French accent at all. The romance between Etienne and Coco was rushed, and you could tell from the beginning Etienne's a bastard, go off with Boy, Coco. There were awkward acting parts like when Etienne and Coco were tangoing and smoldering and then Boy's tangoing with Coco and he's all, I so want to do her but Coco's smoldering at everyone because this is just getting annoying; can't we have a threesome? Er. But not really. Another awkward part was Coco marching up to the study to tell Etienne how Boy threw her off the horse, and Bolulova couldn't pull off the angry.
Overall it is a good movie: there's gorgeous beach scenes and grand street scenes and the costumes are wonderful. And Barbora Bolulova is alskdflaj beautiful. Because even though it says starring MacLaine, most of the scenes were of Bolulova.
Now! Have some pictures?
There were a lot of smoking scenes.
This is her younger sister, the one who loves her convent dearly.
This is Etienne and Etienne's spurned lover who turns out to actually become a good friend of Coco's. At least, it looked like it. They had femme slash moments! :]
Honestly, how nasty is that mustache? And yeah, Bolulova's sweater isn't very figure flattering here.
Trufax: there was a Mulan scene where she held a pair of scissors like a sword and cut off her hair.
Yeeees. So cute.
I wish I had an outfit like that. I said that a lot during the movie...
Anyway, off to watch Defiance (OMG BIELSKI PARTISANS. I swear I will read the book one day!).