The Importance of Being Earnest

1952 movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: dozed off)

Plot: Two rakish pals, Jack and Algernon, decide to both be Earnest instead in attempts to win the hearts of their beloved. Things get wild, and that pun, ladies and gentlemen, is intended.

When folks discuss using CGI to adapt or update older films or make brand new films with computer-generated John Waynes and Humphrey Bogarts, I always get really excited. I think that sounds like a terrific idea! I mean, they inserted John Wayne into a Coors beer commercial years ago. That was a turning point in my life actually, the exact moment when I decided I was going to start drinking. And I've never looked back. Technology could do wonders with this movie. For example, there are characters I'd really enjoy seeing naked in this movie, most obviously Edith Evans, and I think we're at a technologically-enlightened time when computer graphics geniuses should be able to handle something like that. And speaking of Edith Evans, her delivery of the line "A handbag?" is probably the most perfectly-delivered line I've ever heard, and all 17 rating points (I debated giving it a 17 1/2, but we don't do fractions here at shane-movies) are because of that line. No, that's not true. I liked the performances, almost universally, even though they reminded me of the staginess of movies from the 1930s. I was surprised at how funny this movie actually was, mostly that sophisticated kind of comedy where you don't want to laugh as much as you want to golf clap or chuckle inwardly or say, "I say, that certainly was witty," and then cough delicately into a napkin but not delicately enough to keep your monocle from falling off. The writing is clever and randy. I find it impossible to believe anybody ever talked like these characters do which really makes this, in my mind, the 1950s equivalent of the second Matrix movie except with much less kicking and punching. Maybe the CGI gurus could add some kicking and punching when they update this. This movie benefits from its simplicity. The Victorian setting is a colorful one, and my television screen was stuffed with lots of pretty things to look at, but theres' nothing really flashy or frilly with the direction so that we're focused on what we should be focused upon--these pretty ridiculous characters and their ridiculous dialogue. Satirical , still fresh, shaded with irony, and as expected with something that Oscar Wilde penned, intelligently funny, like verbal slapstick for stuffy squares.

Reportedly, this is Ass Masterson's third favorite movie. I wonder if this really is a link between the dastardly villain and Cory, who recommended it to me, or if I'm just being paranoid again.