I haven't seen either of these movies discussed, so here goes. Today we took our kids to see "Night at the Museum." Lots of fun costumes -- at night all the characters in the museum come to life, so there are costumes from all eras and cultures. Because they are museum mannequins come to life, they are all supposed to be costumes (not real period clothes) so I had relief from my typical costumed-movie horror. There were LOTS more people in this movie than I thought there would be from the commercials, a whole Roman army, for example. It was a lot of fun, lightweight but very enjoyable. My favorite costumes were two people dressed as terra cotta Chinese soldiers. I thought they did a great job with those. There were also some ACW "cloth dummies" running around that were a lot of fun.
Second movie -- I caught most of "One Night with the King" last night on television. It was a big-budget, released in theaters version of the story of Queen Esther that was out this fall. Talk about a cheesy movie! Really bad script, acting, etc. But the costumes!!!!! They range from what looks half decent (to me, not knowing what Biblical Persian clothes would have looked like, but at least plausible) to just awful. I heard that it was based on a sort of Evangelical Christian romance novel, and the guy who plays King Ahaseurus/Xerxes was supposed to be a sort of tortured romantic lead. But he looked preposterous, his clothes were awful, and he was so annoying I can't imagine anyone falling in love with him. The young actor who played the Egyptian king in "Night at the Museum" looked a lot more authentic AND a lot more romantic. Anyway, Esther's clothes were all over the place, and a lot of them looked like artsy prom dresses. She did look Jewish though, or at least a lot more Jewish than Xerxes looked Persian. In sum, the costumes in "Night at the Museum" were more authentic and more attractive than the ones in "One Night with the King." The movie was much better, too. I was supposed to take my daughter to see that one with some other girls and their moms, but we never found a time and I'm very glad. If I'd had to pay for it I would have wanted my money back. My daughter did go see "The Nativity Story" with people from church, so I was spared that. From the stills, it looked like more costume horror, though of the usual earnest thick weave, lots of knotted rags, and seams on the outside of the garment sort. Gail Finke _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
