About Chocolate Parfaits

Meek’s Cutoff

I never watched the film because Pip and I considered seeing it together. Now that it’s been taking off Netflix, I decided I wanted to see it. Well, let’s say I knew nothing about the film beforehand, and if I had known it may have taken even more time for me to see it.

In general, I am not a big fan of movies where nothing happens. When nothing happens, typically something happens but it is not of big importance. In certain movies, however, like “Meek’s Cutoff”, nothing actually happens. The movie is a big mystery but it remains unresolved, and it is through details in the film that we may (or may not) get hints as to what the truth is. The simple question is: Are they going to die? Well, my guess is that they won’t, but maybe I’m just very optimistic. I am the kind of person who really wishes good things to happen, even to bad people.

Aside from that, we are treated to beautiful landscapes and glimpses into people’s lives. Unlike typical slice of life, you don’t actually get to see much of their lives, it is entirely the atmosphere and the constant fear of death that drives the movie. People talk about this fear and they keep trying to do stupid things because they can’t get that fear under control. It is quite gripping, and totally different from what I expected a “Western on the Oregon Trail” would be. Of course this may be that I don’t really know much about Western films, and the cliché image I have of it (sheriffs and bandits and loose women in saloons) is probably silly, but I doubt there are many Western with this kind of brilliant simplicity that “Meek’s Cutoff” shows. I liked that the film was very focused on the barebone of the story it wanted to tell, making the one and only dramatic scene in the film have an even higher impact. This is of course only possible with Michelle Williams’ capable portrayal of a powerless wife who nevertheless retained her wits even in the most dire of times.

It’s hard to recommend a slow, almost boring movie like “Meek’s Cutoff”. But I perceived this slowness as atmospherical lingering, and for me this is evidence that “Meek’s Cutoff” is a fine piece of cinema and totally worth seeing.

I am love

Truth to be told, I spent a good amount of time thinking about this movie after seeing it. It’s the kind of strange ‘encaged woman’ à la “The House of Mirth” which draws me towards it. Maybe this is also why Ibsen’s Doll’s House is one of my favorite plays. In terms of characterization, I think that Tilda Swinton’s character is very well portrayed and her role is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film.

Apart from that, we are basically served style over substance. I was mesmerized by the opening shots of the film which I thought were really beautiful, and I was looking forward to more. After seeing a lot of Hollywood films, I was craving for something different, something more… continental I suppose? “I am love” is exactly that, but it’s the type that just makes me yawn. Slow, clichéd, overly arthouse – this movie has almost everything that people hate about artsy movies. In some cases this can be wonderful, but “I am love” just lacks… intelligence? There is the woman who doesn’t love her husband anymore, the son who is kind of into her new lover, the daughter who has a girlfriend and finally the lover who is never really explained. He just looks emotionless the entire time. Perhaps I don’t get the movie, but I certainly know that it failed to connect with me on an emotional level, even if I spent a day brooding about my impressions on it. This brooding was more of a moral nature, I suppose. Amongst all stories like that, I like the tragedy of “The Bridges of Madison County”, even if the description of hours of love-making were a little off-putting. As if a mother could just easily break up with her husband in the wake of her son’s death, no matter how that death came to be. If anything, that death should have made her shut up for good. But then, of course, I strongly support Ibsen’s Nora leaving her kids. Ahhh, like I said, I just don’t get the movie.

“I am love” is a movie that could be so much, but in the end it was so little to me. I thought it was a total waste of potential for Tilda Swinton, who singlehandedly supported the entire movie.

PS. Following a discussion on nostalgic bands, I spent a good deal of the evening listening to them. I still like a lot of them, but I suppose I now have a strong preference for specific songs, namely those that I associate positive memories with. I’m not even sure whether I like Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I certainly love “By the Way” (the song).

In another country

Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, Lee Chang-dong, Im Sang-soo, E J-yong and Hong Sang-soo – that pretty much concludes the big name Korean directors, right? (Oh God, I’ll be honest, these names all look and sound the same to me… I can never remember Korean or Chinese names.) I have seen at least movie by all of these, and slowly, Hong Sang-soo is moving up the ranks. I only saw “The day he arrives” before and only vaguely heard that he has a very specific style, and all of his stories are essentially the same. Now that I have a second movie to compare it to, one with La Huppert on top of that, I would say that this is definitely true.

Hong Sang-soo’s movies are about a main character (often a creative person) who meets people within a specific setting, and then the whole thing happens again but under different circumstances. Scenes repeat but under a different context and while some lines repeat the outcome or other aspects are different, and the whole thing is weaved into a strange pattern of interestingness. It’s always a love story, or at least love or jealousy are one topic amongst others. In this case, we have Isabelle Huppert who is being courted by a slightly dumb but cute and attractive man whose English is so broken they barely can have a proper conversation. She is someone else in every case – a movie director in the first, a rich housewife in the second and a divorcee in the third – and you can tell by her clothing in which setting you are right now (though technically they just follow each other in the film). I think I liked the first part the best, followed by the third, followed by the second (in which La Huppert wore an awesome red dress but otherwise the part was a little boring).

In any case, I like Hong Sang-soo’s writing. I enjoy the little repetitions of scenes, the rather airheaded characters and the way he shoots conversations. If “Night and Day” is anything remotely like “The day he arrives” and “In another country”, I am sure I would love it. I read a few reviews saying they were bored of Hong Sang-soo’s style, but I have to admit that I love it when I get more of the same, if the same means something I enjoy. Just recently, I talked to Pixelmatsch about bands we used to love, and I compared Deftones to Hong Sang-soo – very special, very unique and I don’t mind if they stay the same forever.

Ghostbusters

I love love love the song in the movie and its corresponding dance on Just Dance 2014. It’s an easy dance and about as accessible as the song itself – catchy and addicting. Ever since I played it, I have been wanting to watch the movie, and shortly after it also appeared on Netflix. I had absolutely no idea that Bill Murray would be the protagonist in the story, and with him and Dan Aykroyd the film became a must-see.

Well, truth to be told it’s a rather silly movie. The film looks incredibly dated and 80s, most painfully visible in Sigourney Weaver’s terrible hairstyle. The storyline is lovable but ultimately rather generic, and its comedy is not exceedingly funny, at least not to me. (Thank goodness for Bill Murray’s deadpan looks though – that saved a lot.) However, I can definitely see how it received so much love, and why you can so easily make a fun TV show out of it. The concept is a lot of fun and allows for them to meet all kinds of fun monsters. I think I laughed out loud when I saw the Marshmallow Man at the end – with more ideas like this the movie could have turned into a classic. Oh wait, it actually is a classic. I think the movie is a great family film, and should have appeared on the BFI list of “50 films you should see by the age of 14” instead of crap like “My Life as a Dog”.

Considering that we saw people dressed up as the Ghostbusters when we were out hunting for Halloween candy, I have a feeling that we will see this movie again, at some point. It’s definitely worth a look, especially when you are looking for some light entertainment.

Far from Heaven

Facing my incredibly big list of movies to blog, I decided to start working them off early in the day. By 8pm, my brain is way too mushy to take care of it anymore. So here we are again.

Even though Gorp has previously raved about the film (or so it felt to me) and despite my general love for Julianne Moore(‘s wonderful panty-less scene in “Short Cuts”), I only planned to see “Far from Heaven” because of its high reviews. Since it seems to touch upon some favorite topics as racism and homosexuality, I had the fear that this is another one of those “Hollywood loves its favorite topics” cases. But oh I was so wrong, mostly at least. It is definitely true that the film is awfully Hollywood-ish and rather predictable (even without a happy end). Everything that happens in the film is rather dramatic and when compared to more toned-down stories set in the same time (I am thinking of “Mad Men”), there is something that just screams “too unrealistic” to you. Our protagonist goes from meeting the guy for the first time to going with him to where people like her never go in like two days. A little fast, huh? This is a melodrama after all, and the film confines itself very strongly within it. Everything in “Far from Heaven” drives the plot, and we see rather little of the characters, whereas “Mad Men” has the time to do the exact opposite. If “Far from Heaven” was a TV show, in which the movie’s plot line is only one of many, it probably would be perfect.

But it cannot be a TV show, because you have to pay homage to 50s movies with a movie. When I saw the beginning of the film, I completely forgot what Gorp said about it and was pleasantly surprised by the obvious Douglas Sirk references. It’s so refreshing and shockingly beautiful! Everything in the film just screams incredibly well made at you, so I can definitely see where those delighted critics are coming from. Julianne Moore is absolutely wonderful (that stage presence!), and I was very happy to see Patricia Clarkson too.

What personally surprised me the most about the film was how dated everything looked. I thought it was remarkable that Julianne Moore’s character always donned the huge-petticoat-style à la Betty Draper, and it makes her so out-dated. The 60s and 80s styles look pleasantly retro to us today, whereas 50s, 70s and 90s look frumpy and old. I remember that just a few years ago I loved those dresses (and Julianne Moore looks fabulous in them, mind you) but recently I definitely prefer a more simple 60s style and shorter dresses.

Don’t misunderstand by the relatively short review and total lack of bullet points – I did like the film a lot, probably because I love the Douglas Sirk style. But the film itself does not lend to much musing about it… it’s the kind of film you have to see for yourself. It’s a little bit of a fairy tale (even without a happy end), much like Douglas Sirk’s movies, and it makes you feel confident that Hollywood can actually produce beautiful gems within its relatively strict set of rules.

Woman Times Seven

The poster you see there is one of the reasons I ended up watching the film. I knew about the movie a long time ago, but despite my love for little compilation films, I never felt very compelled to watch it. See, I have always had contradicting feelings about Shirley MacLaine. I saw her in “Irma la Douce”, “The Trouble with Harry”, “The Apartment”, “Being There”, “Bernie” and finally “Downton Abbey” – no doubt she is an awesome actress and very versatile. But I never really understood what is so great about her, and I thought that a lot of her roles are rather vapid – if you think about it, Billy Wilder really loves somewhat dumb female characters and MacLaine’s Irma is no different behind her feisty facade. (Sorry, Loris.) I digress. One day, I saw “Beginners” in which this lovely poster is perhaps more prominent than any character in the film and ever since, “Woman Times Seven” has been on my mind.

Thank goodness for “Beginners”. If you never really got Shirley MacLaine (like me), this film may convince you otherwise as well. After seeing the last story (“Jean”), if you have not fallen for the utterly adorable Shirley MacLaine, you must not be into women. She is probably the cutest Hollywood actress ever (especially considering that most of them try to go for the glamorous image). Throughout these seven different stories, only one of them shows her as cute, but the others are no less funny. She can indeed do tragic, maniac, silly, air-headed, anything really. And oh I love the way she sobs! It makes me want to burst out into laughter every single time.

I also don’t understand those haters complaining on how Vittorio de Sica ended up only making commercial comedies. That may be true, but why is that a bad thing? “Marriage Italian Style” is perfectly funny and while de Sica may have become less political or even meaningful, he still makes wonderfully funny films. That’s all that’s needed if you ask me. Sometimes I just love these Italian comedies.

Bottom line, I loved the movie. Today’s hail of bullets contains a few comments on each segment:

• Paulette: Honestly, this is my favorite of all of them. Peter Sellers is a genius (but we already knew that from “Dr. Strangelove”) and the two of them have an amazing chemistry. Best sobs of all times.

• Maria Teresa: OK actually Shirley MacLaine is a little cute in this one as well. While this may be the most stupid of all the segments, it was still fun.

• Linda: They certainly could have shown us more of her nakedness but even so, I really enjoyed this slightly predictable segment. The main character’s monologues are awesome. Also, I would never cheat on Marlon Brando.

• Edith: My least favorite segment actually. That husband shall die of blindness.

• Eve: It may be easy for Hollywood divas to play bitch fights, but this one is particularly amusing. This segment probably has one of the best lines in the whole film.

• Marie: I wasn’t very fond of this one, despite the fact that it’s quite well-scripted. The humor is wonderfully absurd and the actors convey it well, but the topic itself just made me yawn. I do love the architecture of the hotel and how the very last shot showcases it.

• Jean: Michael Caine certainly is cute! This segment is absolutely perfect. Parisian streets in snow, a glamorous Anita Ekberg, stylish 60’s winter clothing and, as I cannot stress enough, an absolutely adorable Shirley MacLaine. It also has a lovely story. This segment seems to be a fan favorite and I can see why.

Pietà

Yes, I know, I have 10 movies in my backlog. I am recently taking the opportunity of some downtime to watch a lot of films, but it’s impossible to keep up blogging them at the same rate. I just finished watching “Pietà” with Pixelmatsch who requested an immediate posting. So here we are.

The truth is that I am a little afraid of Kim Ki-duk’s films. I only saw “Bin-jip” and “Time”, both of which aren’t as disturbing as some of the other films he’s famous for. As far as I know, “Spring, Summer etc.” is also not as disturbing, but that’s probably it. I have never seen “Samaria” for that reason and I wonder if I ever will. Somehow I was very curious about “Pietà”, mainly because it is considered the result of Kim Ki-duk’s creativity crisis. As someone who faces writer’s block all the time, I was intrigued.

Indeed, “Pietà” is about as disturbing as you can get. I had to look away so many times that I am not even sure I watched the film. Some aspects don’t even make much sense (like the guy with the baby and the guitar) and the end is a little nonlinear (or so it seemed?) and honestly I don’t quite understand why he regained his humanity towards these people he hurt. A lot of brutal, sick people are able to commit the worst crimes towards strangers while loving their own families. But in this film that aspect is completely ignored, but I guess one must be asian to bring this up. Pietà, a film clearly made for the foreign audience, totally adheres to the rules of Korean cinema – shiny cinematography, lots of gore and a revenge plot.

In terms of storytelling, direction and all, the film is just as brilliant as one would expect. I have never really been into the goriness or even the revenge part (truth to be told, I rather dislike it) but these Korean movies always come in such a great package – good actors, gripping stories and a great cinematography – that I want to watch every one of them. “Pietà” is no different there; there are so many details that just work, the way the characters interact with each other may not always be believable if you think about it, but the way the film shows it makes it feel believable.

This truly is an unwatchable movie, almost as bad as “Nordwand”, but if you can stomach that, this is really good.

Bottle Rocket

I love seeing first films by directors I like. “Permanent Vacation”, “Knife in the Water”, “People on Sunday”, “A bout de souffle”, “Blood Simple”, “Brick”, “Metropolitan”, “Pitfall” – all of them hold a special place in my heart. But I don’t know what it is about first films by moviemakers, people have the strange tendency to forget about them (Truffaut excluded, as critic-turned-filmmaker he is an exception). When I read articles on Wes Anderson, it seems like people never notice “Bottle Rocket” and few have seen it, but I was intrigued by the fact that it was his first. There is some sort of raw beauty about these first movies, where you often only get a glimpse of the genius, packed into a comparably low-budget Kammerspiel piece which I often prefer over the big-shot titles (think “Looper” over “Brick”).

However, I have to admit that “Bottle Rocket” is not really what I expected. The love I usually have for first films is not really happening here. All the elements of a lovely first film are here, but it is not really clicking with me. It reminded me of “Slacker” which I really disliked and then never even finished watching. Maybe it’s the world the characters are living in – the life of people who don’t really have anything to do and don’t really know where to go. I have never been able to relate to that and probably won’t in this lifetime. Without a connection to these characters, I had a hard time understanding why some people love this film so much.

Speaking of love, I do agree with one thing. There is an unusual warmth in this film, which is much like Wes Anderson’s other films. He certainly loves his characters. Even when they are deeply troubled, or rude, or just plain strange, everybody is incredibly warm and loving. From this perspective, it is quite shocking that the king of movie hipsterdom is someone who makes such loving movies, for all we know hipsters are pretty much the exact opposite of love. The warmest thing is the blossoming love between Anthony and Inez – they meet in a shabby motel, can barely communicate with each other but have the most innocent romance ever. Or take the robbing of Bob’s house. Bob never seems to care for his wealth and after it’s all gone, he is still friends with Dignan and even came to the realization that it brought him closer to his brother. As much as Wes Anderson is about style and appearances of wealthy people, he presents characters who ultimately care little for what they have materialistically, and that is so damn cute.

If you expected the stylish Wes Anderson of his recent, stylistically polished movies like I did, you are in for a big disappointment. But if you like what you read in the summary of this film, then you will enjoy the execution.

Before Midnight

In 2022, we’ll look forward to the release of “Before Noon”, in which Jesse and Céline are divorced, the girls are auditioning for the St. Petersburg Conservatory which both of them attend. The audition starts in the afternoon, so Jesse and Céline decide to spend the morning together, go brunching and walk through the city. Obviously they still have feelings for each other and discuss love and friendship after it’s over yadda yadda. Actually I am strongly imagining this part of the “Before” series to be much like the last episode of “Scenes from a Marriage”, but it just doesn’t seem to work. While Johan and Marianne are made for each other and were faithful to each other in their own strange way, I just can’t see Jesse and Céline do it. Those two have never technically been faithful and their relationship almost exclusively survives on this special sparkle that re-appears every 9 years. Perhaps this is just me, but their relationship is definitely one of those that had an intense start and then simply deteriorated. For Johan and Marianne we never saw the start, and I’d say that their feelings for each other have always stayed the same throughout the entire film. It’s just that it took a divorce for them to realize that being divorced is essentially the marriage that was right for them. (Was that confusing?)

“Before Midnight” reminded me much more of “Viaggio in Italia” in which the main characters fight throughout the entire film and then got back together almost with a deus ex machina. For “Viaggio in Italia”, this miraculous rekindling of their relationship was rather destructive to the movie, and I was disappointed. Perhaps I am reading too much into “Before Midnight”, but I think the end has to be understood with the other films in mind – we know a little more about Jesse and Céline now, and their relationship has always been make-believe. In fact my favorite scene with them is the one where Jesse and Céline “call” their respective friends at home telling them about their little Viennese love experience. This kind of role-play which the two of them can do almost naturally might be the key to why they reconciled in the end. They may not have resolved any of their problems and it looks like they might never, judging by how much both of them believe in gender clichés, but something in their relationship works. They are able to take a step back from their real-life troubles and laugh at them, even if it’s only for a moment. Instead of lying to themselves, however, this is a moment of truth, where Céline is able to forget her frustration for just one second and accept the fact that Jesse ultimately loves her. (Strange, as it may sound, since he wants to force her to live in Chicago with him.)

I have a million things to say about the movie – Julie Delpy seems to really hate her boyfriends’s ex-girlfriends, I think Jesse and Céline should never talk to other people (it just makes their prejudices come out too much), the hotel room is almost as crappy as the one in Blue Valentine etc. etc. – but I shall refrain, or keep that for later. In essence, this is a movie that plays right into my fangirlism for the “Before” series, and follows my life along almost perfectly from playful young girl to disillusioned lover to mother and wife. You cannot believe how often Pip said “This is just like us!”, and honestly, it made me uncomfortable. It was exactly what I expected from the film (which is an amazing feat) but I am not sure whether I like that. Watch it.

The hail of bullets:

• Fiction is great, but considering how many relationship stories there are out there, only few come to mind where I think “they say the same things as I do”: Scenes from a marriage, Schnitzler’s plays, the Before series. I think that’s it.

• Honestly, I wonder whether men think about their male genital before everything else. If I had the choice between a beloved person dying and never being able to have sex – obviously I’d rather sacrifice sex.

• The movie does look like everybody involved had a lot of fun. When I described the next Before film from my wishful thinking mind, I was surprised how easy it was to come up with it. I think it is because it’s so easy to think about a story I know a lot about – one which is essentially the same as life. With that said, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy must have had some sort of romance before.

• I think the Before series would be so much better if it had less gender-specific jokes and clichés. Maybe these are unavoidable in a relationship film, but I would prefer them to be more subtle then – just like in real life.

• My favorite scene in the film was role-playing at the end. It’s also the very reason why I like “In the Mood for Love” so much. Playing make-believe is about my favorite thing in the world and I look forward to doing that with O.

Intolerable Cruelty

I was browsing Netflix for a romantic comedy because I was going to see a film by myself and randomly felt like one. Then I stumbled upon “Intolerable Cruelty”, a romantic comedy by the Coen brothers! I had no idea they made such a film, and Catherine Zeta-Jones’s sexy red dress paired with George Clooney’s sexy white hair were only the icing on the cake.

Unsurprisingly, the film was exactly to my tastes. Other people seem to prefer the more serious Coens like “A Serious Man” or “No Country for Old Men” or the more absurdly funny Coens like “Fargo” or “Burn After Reading”, but I think “Intolerable Cruelty” is one of their masterpieces. Sure, it doesn’t have the subtly of “A Serious Man” or the amazing script of “Miller’s Crossing”, but “Intolerable Cruelty” is as wonderful as the screwball comedies by the great masters, (almost) in line with “His Girl Friday” and “The Shop Around the Corner”. The main ingredients of all of my favorite screwball comedies are there: two characters who are made for each other ever since the first second they lay eyes onto each other, and fight a snappy, quick-paced gender war before they are finally able to get serious about each other. In this case, the couple is also unreasonably attractive and is oozing sex appeal, even when taking into consideration how George Clooney’s character is a little bit of a wimp who is obsessed with the whiteness of his teeth.

One of the most brilliant moves of the film is how it reiterates some of its running jokes (“You are exposed!”). It may be cheap and silly but just a simple repetition of a favorite line makes the final scene have a huge impact, giving a fun conclusion to an otherwise almost sappy ending.

It has always baffled my mind why screwball comedies used to be so popular but modern romantic comedies appear so lame in comparison. Is it because fast-talking comedies are out in general? Are people out of ideas when it comes to making puns? Are puns outdated? Does it have something to do with rising feminism which dislikes gender wars in general? (If so, aren’t modern romantic comedies much more sexist in the first place?) What I find beautiful about screwball comedies is precisely that man and women appear as equals when it comes to wits, and “Intolerable Cruelty” is a very good example of that. Of course, they are equally prone to making decisions with their heart at the end of the day. It’s totally up my alley.

In the end, I may not have written much about the film, but great comedies must be watched, not analyzed to death. It’s like “Raising Arizona”, another film which I have only grazed on the surface – but how I love them!

Now for the hail of bullets:

• Recently, I have been re-watching films such as “Tropa de Elite” and of course all the films we purchased on blu-rays. I finally updated the index site in preparation of a hiatus on this blog, but then I look at my Netflix queue and see so many films I want to see. Argh!

• I actually think that Catherine Zeta-Jones has a somewhat strange face, but she is the only actress of this generation who can pull off the femme fatale. The mere concept of femme fatale seems outdated today… is this another female emancipation thing?

• Considering how much the film completely fell under my radar, I am wondering if other Coen brothers comedies are just as great. With that said, I suspect that the Coens directed this movie out of necessity or something – it really doesn’t sound like their usual stuff.