While Watching "Aliens"...

...I wondered if anyone else was reminded of Avatar by this scene?

While Watching "Rocco and His Brothers"...

...I saw it again! 1960 and intimate bed scenes followed by stabbings!

What was up with this year?

While Watching "The Housemaid"...

...once again I noticed weird parallels in the movies of 1960. For example, what was it with this year and stabbings? (i.e. Psycho)

Gotta love this woman's reaction after being stabbed.

While Watching "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs"...

...I had to wonder if everyone in movies from 1960 was getting laid?

Think Psycho, The Apartment, BUtterfield 8, Breathless, L'aventura...

While Watching "Little Caesar"...

I realized it should've been called:

"Beauty

and the Beast".

While Watching "The Harvey Girls"...

...I realized I'm always surprised when I realize Angela Lansbury was young at some point in life.
I always think of her as being old.

While Watching "Black Orpheus"...

...I was stunned at how Marcel Camus managed to make such an outstanding film with such basic concepts. I also am thinking that Brazilian music might be the music that has inspired the best films ever made (Talk to Her anyone?).


I loved how Camus was able to work his way around the Greek myth of Orpheus and did it in a way that was not only ingenious but practically natural.
See how he gets the actors dressed up in Greek-like costumes and simply uses the excuse of carnival to make them fit in.
The rest of his allegories work perfectly because there's a strange balance between what we can think of as the real world and the mythological world. It's as if on carnival, a portal to another dimension had opened and made it logical for various symbolic creatures and human beings to walk the streets together.


The film has an ongoing theme of windows that's simply remarkable. It might have something to do with the various layers the film contains and how we're seeing it through cultural, musical, racial etc. windows.


The idea of death in this film is terrifying and mystifying. Camus taps on a very primal state and makes us fascinated by death in the way Bergman and Allen have.


If this isn't the most amazing metaphor for Orpheus' descent towards hell then I don't know what is.
If you haven't seen this film, wait until you see who Cerberus is. Truly brilliant.

While Watching "Vampires Suck"...

...I was actually surprised when I found myself giggling a few times. It was sorta refreshing to think that a movie could squeeze one or two jokes out of something that's already as unintentionally funny as the Twilight series.
Still skip this movie at all costs! Not that you didn't know that before...

While Watching "Life as We Know It"...

...I couldn't help but feel terrible for Katherine Heigl. You know you're watching a bad, bad movie when you spend the entire film wishing it was Heigl who died at the beginning so we could get more of the luscious (and oh so warm in her few scenes here) Christina Hendricks.

Anyone else saw this movie? Did you enjoy it? When will Heigl stop playing the same damn characters? If you were really bad at something, say acting, would you keep trying?

While Watching "Wall Street"...

I noticed that Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) shares a birthday with my brother.
Not sure if I see the Taurus in Gekko or the Gekko in my brother though...

Anyway, happy future birthday to my brother and how about you guys, share your birthday with someone famous? (Real or fictitious counts)

While Watching the "Country Strong" Trailer...

...a few things caught my eye. Here they are in chronological order.


Yay the first trademark Gwyn "ugh followed by eye roll" I'd seen in ages!


This whole moment featuring Garrett Hedlund (yowza by the way) and Tim McGraw was very Brokeback Mountain and for the first time I found anything that reminds me of that movie to be slightly sexy.


OMG it's Blair!


OMG it's Serena!
OK it's not but isn't Gwynnie doing her best Blake Lively impression here? Or wait, is Blake doing Gwyn all the time?

Also this...


Totally reminds me of this...



I was slightly worried that even if this movie is an obvious awards bait (already being touted as the female Crazy Heart) we didn't get the "Academy Award winner" title before Paltrow's name...
Usually movies aiming for Oscar, squeeze every AMPAS reference they can get out of their whole cast and crew. This movie therefore should have more of a "if you liked the two time Oscar winning Crazy Heart and Jeff Bridges Oscar winning performance you are going to love Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow doing something similar and singing soon-to-be Oscar nominated songs!" vibe, instead of just plain mentioning who stars in it.
For that matter I'm already dreaming of Gwyn performing at the Oscars, it never will happen obviously but wouldn't it be amazing if she did a number with her husband?


The hair is glorious by the way!


Watching Gwyn and Tim gave me a very dark thought...
Unconsciously I wished that Tim became a good luck charm for actresses to win an Oscar. Which means that for a second or two I was OK with Sandra Bullock's win!
What's wrong with me?


Finally "that's how it's done."

I'm incredibly excited about this movie even if country music doesn't really do a thing for me (I love the Dixie Chicks but country connoisseurs say they don't count...).
What are your thoughts? Is Gwyn back? Doesn't Leighton look magnificent? Where the hell did this Garrett man come from? Are you singing the title song already?

While Watching "Greenberg"...

...it was sad to realize how little use Hollywood makes of Ben Stiller's actual talent. As funny as he is in the Fockers' movies and such, he's much better at evoking a melancholic asshole-ness that pisses you off and makes you go "aww", like he does in this movie.
It helps that Noah Baumbach is a great writer (although some bits were too "look at how indie I am") but the show does belong to Stiller.
He's less Margot and more what Frank Berkman (from The Squid and the Whale) would've grown up to be like.

While Watching "Dodsworth"...

...I wondered if there ever was an actress more effortlessly intimidating than Maria Ouspenskaya.

While Watching "New York, I Love You"...

I was shocked to realize that Brett Ratner had directed my favorite segment in the omnibus film. Yes, Ratner of "Rush Hour" glory outdoes Akin, Marston, Attal, Nair (although I have to confess I don't really like her work), one of the Hughes and Natalie Portman.
His segment is the most refreshing bit in a movie filled with too many artsy pretensions and little cohesion.
Anton Yelchin and Olivia Thirlby are pitch perfect as an imperfect couple on prom night and their sweet, funny story is the only bit in the film that reminds us, as one character says, that New York City is "the capital of everything possible".
Other things of interest in the movie were...

Several plotlines are very interested in smoking as a social ritual.
I know that strangers do come up to you as if the nicotine drew them closer like a magnet but it was odd to see cigarettes made such an important point within a city that's slowly trying to eradicate them for good.

Eli Wallach is a living acting god. Too bad his segment wasn't all that (A surprise considering Cloris Leachman is his costar and Joshua Marston directs)

The cinematography in Shekhar Kapur's segment is gorgeous even if Anthony Minghella's screenplay doesn't have too much to say and is the less New York-ish of the tales.

Drea de Matteo is a phenomenal actress. Someone should give her a role that isn't a mobster or a Jersey girl. She pretty much devours Bradley Cooper in their bit together.

Christina Ricci should be in more movies...

I really don't see Bradley Cooper's appeal. Can somebody explain it to me?
Justin Bartha on the other side, very underrated.

While Watching "Send Me No Flowers"...

I realized I love few things as much as the art direction in Hudson/Day movies.
That map of a cemetery in that frame is so pretty I wouldn't mind hanging it on my own wall.

While Watching "Casablanca"...

...particularly that beautiful scene with "La Marseillese" play-off I wondered what it would've been like to watch the movie when it was released.
Sure now it's a classic that occurred almost accidentally as we know, but back then it was risky propaganda that could've gotten the people who made it in trouble if the Nazis invaded our continent.
What would've it been like to either get all hopeful over Bogey and Bergman or cynical at how fantastical the outcome might've been.
"Casablanca" does take place in the middle of WWII and it's such a miracle that its central theme doesn't age.
But then I wondered what would you have thought of the movie if you were walking by the theater lobby and saw that poster?
Bergman certainly looks glorious throughout the film (it's arguably the movie were she looked the loveliest) but isn't its idea of Rita Hayworth-esque glamour something completely off base from what "Casablanca" actually is?
Perhaps it's a matter of ingenious marketing strategies and they intended to lure the men by teasing them with sexy Ingrid (first time I've paired those two words...).
Whatever the reason it's yet another proof of the many ways in which we can approach "Casablanca" as if we were going for the very first time.

While Watching the European Film Awards...

For those who think the Golden Globes are awkward, the European Film Awards' ceremony would result in the strangest beast of them all.
I had never seen them until yesterday afternoon and while the European Academy hasn't gained the worldwide recognition the Cannes, Venice and Berlin Film Festivals have, they have been doing some remarkable work for the past two decades.
Their picks in any year make AMPAS look like they're rewarding high school productions, alas still nothing in the world compares to the glitz and glamor of Oscar so let's move on...
These are things that caught my eye about the ceremony:


Danny Boyle, who's still collecting awards for "Slumdog Millionaire" looked so confused the whole evening!
I mean it's understandable when the ceremony has no real official language-there were speeches in at least four different languages, with no subtitles-and Boyle seemed like he didn't even know when they were talking to him.
When "Slumdog" won People's Choice, he was applauding excitedly until someone pointed out to him that he should be onstage accepting the award...

David Kross, who was nominated for Best Actor in "The Reader" embodied that sort of effortless, I-hate-you-for-it sexiness that people in our continent work so hard to achieve.

Kate Winslet won Best Actress for "The Reader" and since she wasn't there, director Stephen Daldry accepted on her behalf.
I hate when nominees don't attend ceremonies. The Actress category featured Winslet, Penélope Cruz and Charlotte Gainsbourg, none of whom attended. Even the host made a joke out of it pointing out how they were such terrific actresses they could even play invisible women.

The weirdest part of the whole thing was how instead of an orchestra they featured a band called Bauhouse who used film clips, music and words to create completely new musical pieces.
The campiest of them all featured Marlene Dietrich, with whom they created a trip-hoppy, oddly sexy piece of post modernist music.
This use of classics: sacrilege or genius?

Isabelle Huppert got a World Cinema Award and upon starting her speech and wondering what language to speak in she declared "cinema is the language of Europe".
She's perfection!

David Kross, and his iPhone, looked so good...

Look at the nominees for Best Director! Michael Haneke won for "The White Ribbon", but just wow!

The Europeans are not afraid to show explicit stuff on TV. They even go for full frontal in the clips featuring the nominees.
Can you imagine that ever happening at Oscar?
The FCC would implode!

Anthony Dod Mantle who won Best Cinematographer for "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Antichrist", wasn't in the ceremony and sent a weird taped speech.
However after the clip ended, they still went ahead and called Danny Boyle to accept the award for him. Danny of course had no idea what was going on...

Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" swept the awards. Gotta love the look on the presenters' faces as they obviously don't understand his speech.

When AMPAS fears anything Sean Penn has to say (tape delay was invented just for him) the EFA's went ahead and featured a commercial starring him!
It didn't happen during a break, they actually announced they would air a commercial in the middle of the ceremony and gave path to Penn's World Food Program ad which criticizes the bail outs and the Iraq invasion openly.
Then they proceeded to cheer it.

Why aren't all screenwriters as handsome as this one?

See what I mean about Kross?

Michael Haneke accepting the award for Best Film.
I really can't wait to see "The White Ribbon".