Pretty much everything about this movie is perfect. The costumes, the hairstyles, the cinematography, the story and it is just over all a very beautiful film. The only problem is, its slightly boring.

Gabrielle, nickname Coco (Audrey Tautou), and her sister (Marie Gallain) grow up as orphans and later make money as seamstresses during the day and singing at a bar by night. When her sister leaves her to get married to a baron, Coco decides to leave, too. She stays with a friend/lover where she meats the man that helps her change her life.

As I said, Coco before Chanel is a stunningly beautiful film. The costumes are obviously a huge part of the films look but I also loved the hairstyles. Cocos whole style is just gorgeous. I am so glad that it was filmed in French, which gives it a sort of authenticity that an English version would have lacked. Audrey Tautou is great, as always. She has such a strong presence on screen and  is just so beautiful to watch.

Watching Gabrielle grow into Coco is very inspiring. It really shows that you have to stay true to yourself and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something or shouldn’t wear something. The story itself is very interesting but it is told in a very slow way that made me constantly grab my ipad to play Farm Story. That is never a good sign.

This is  not directly film related but I saw actress/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg live last night and she was amazing so I have to tell you all about it.

Although she’s been in many movies I always associate The Science of Sleep with Charlotte. I just found her so wonderfully natural and unpretentious in that movie. And she was exactly that in concert. She was wearing no (or invisible) make-up, hair down and she had on a simple white t-shirt and leather biker pants (as you can see in the photos). I always prefer “natural beauties” to the girls that only look good with tons of make-up. Charlotte seemed very humble, slightly nervous and just herself.

The music she played was mainly from her second album (IRM) which I didn’t know at all. I have her first album 5:55 and love it. The music was slightly different, more experimental, from her first album but still good. Too be honest, I don’t know anything about music other then “I like it” or “I don’t like it” so I’m not going to write a music review. I just wanted to let you know that this girl (sorry, woman) really rocks and that if you have the chance to see her perform in your city, you should check it out. We certainly had fun!

The Ghost Writer tells the story about a man (Ewan McGregor) who has been employed to finish the biography of the former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) after the original writer drowned. It is based on the novel called The Ghost written by Robert Harris which I haven’t read but I’m sure is a thrilling read.

The film starts out being quite dark, goes into being really dark and then even darker. Adam Lang, his wife (Olivia Williams) and staff now live in a very private expensive house on what I am guessing is Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of New England in the US. It is Autumn and the island is deserted, dreary and dark. Poor Ewan seems worried about this writing project from the start and is very worried about the former writers “accidental or suicidal” death. His suspicion that he was in fact murdered only gets stronger when he finds a few photographs and documents in his rooms.

I don’t want to go too deeply into the story because I don’t want to spoil it for you but it is not that original that you couldn’t guess what happens throughout the movie. Ewan, the ghost, discovers more and more facts that make him more and more afraid and suspicious about Adam Lang and his politics and finally uncovers an unbelievable truth. No surprises

here. The problem is that somehow political thrillers are always so thought through that watching it for the first time it is a bit difficult to understand who is who and what their names are and all that. But political thrillers are usually only fun to watch once so you kind of have to understand everything the first time. Tricky. Well, in this case it was mostly understandable but I didn’t really get involved with the story that much. I didn’t get scared or wasn’t on anyones side in particular (exept for Ewan, mainly because I’m always on Ewan McGregor’s side) so the end didn’t shock me that much. It was more like “alright, yeah…I should have guessed.”

It is a well made and well acted film but there was something missing. I just didn’t get that involved or that thrilled by it which is a pity. What did you think?

A little note upfront : I haven’t read any reviews of this film because I didn’t want to know whether you thought it was good or bad. That means I might repeat something that you have already said on your blogs…

I finally managed to watch Alice in 3D. It’s a fun film, visually stunning, beautiful costumes and great visual effects but its not a Tim Burton movie. I got the feeling that Tim sold his soul to the Devil (the Devil being Disney) for a very large sum of money because that is what is lacking in Alice in Wonderland: Tim Burton’s soul. The movie is perfectly well made and I’m sure a lot of people enjoy it because it is obviously made “for the masses”. I just don’t understand why Tim had the urge to make a Blockbuster. He just doesn’t strike me as the type of person to do something simply for money or to make a film to please people.

The star ensemble was impressive but none of the actors had enough time to really establish their characters. Maybe its not necessary because we know the characters from the book. Strangely enough, I wasn’t impressed with Johnny Depp’s performance. It felt a bit like he was trying too hard. I did like the girl who played Alice (Mia Wasikowska), though, even though she is young and blonde and thin. she had the right look for the role and played “innocence” very well. Anne Hathaway was adorable but seemed to have stolen her character from Enchanted.

It feels like I’m being too negative because I did have a good time watching Alice in Wonderland. Underland has come to life with a real beauty and I also didn’t think the story was bad at all. But it was too polished to be a great movie. I was expecting it to be darker and with more of an edge to it. It also felt rushed, but I might just be used to super-long movies by now. It’s a strange contradiction that I thought the movie was rushed but individual scenes seemed quite long because the editing was fairly slow. The ending didn’t work for me at all. It was too Disney-perfect. The costumes were absolutely stunning. It felt a bit random that Alice was wearing a new dress every few minutes but they were all gorgeous. The costume and set designers should get Oscars for this.

Overall I just expected more from Tim Burton and his cast because as beautiful as the movie is and as much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t fall in love with it. It did have a Burton-esque look but not feel to it. The end gave the impression that a sequel could be happening.

Last night I watched a German/Austrian/Italian made for TV movie about the Austrian Empress (Kaiserin) Elizabeth. It is a remake of one of my favorite films Sissi (1955). I never understand why they have to remake already perfectly made movies. But alright, I was curious, so I watched it.

The entire time I was thinking that there was something off about the acting. The actors weren’t really connecting well which I put down as pure bad acting and made me wonder why they didn’t hire better actors. But I found out afterwards that the main actress (Cristiana Capotondi) is Italian and more or less everyone else, including the main actor (David Rott), is German. The German actors don’t speak Italian and the Italian actors don’t speak any German. So what they did was to have the Italian actors speak Italian and the German actors German. Even if they had a scene together. They would memorize the last word of the other persons dialogue as their queue. Apparently this is called babylonian film making (at least it is in German).

Which brings me to my question: WHY???? Why would you do that? I’m sure there are plenty of German speaking actresses that could have played the Empress. So why go through the hassle of all that confusion on set? Well, in this case the producers were mainly Italian and insisted on using an Italian actress (or so it sounded in the interviews on their website). But why couldn’t they find an Italian actress that speaks German? I just don’t get it. I don’t see any advantages of doing it this way.

And it shows, it really does. The actors are more or less reciting lines that they memorized but they are not playing off each other. Most of you know that I am at acting school at the moment and the main thing they teach us is to really listen to each other and let the other person have an effect on ourselves. But you can’t do that if you don’t understand the other person and are just waiting for one word in a foreign language that tells you that it’s your time to speak now. It is also strange to watch since one person is obviously dubbed but the others aren’t.

I wonder if this is a European thing or whether its going to come over to America as well. I surely hope not. I’m completely up for international collaborations and using actors that come from all sorts of different countries but then film it all in English (or whatever common language they all speak). This is completely nuts! Sorry, but I couldn’t sleep well cause it was bugging me so much last night.

The BFI has restored the first ever Alice in Wonderland that came out in 1903, just 8 years after the birth of the cinema.

It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?!

Sorry that I haven’t written anything in a while…I was working on a post for “The LAMB devours the Oscars” (Best Art Direction) which I can only post once its published on the LAMB website. The other reason is that I haven’t really been watching films because I am completely addicted to the BBC series Coupling at the moment.

The premises of this sitcom is simple and very similar to the American series Friends: Six Friends (three men and three women) keep swapping partners around and meeting up and discussing their relationships. Doesn’t sound too exciting but the fun characters and the British humor quickly made me fall in love with Coupling.

The characters are very unique and mostly completely clueless about life and relationships. Especially the men. A lot of the jokes are based on clichés but the way they are presented is hilarious. They are short episodes (about 30mins) so I can easily watch two or three a day. What a pity, that there are only four seasons. I wish there was an unlimited supply of this series.

If you like sitcoms and/or British humor, you should definitely check this one out. It’s on “watch instantly” on Netflix, easy access.

It happens very rarely that I absolutely fall in love with a movie but tonight was one of these scarce occasions. I have literally just come home from the cinema so I am still completely “in” the film and haven’t really processed it. But I thought just this once I want to write a review that is completely subjective.

Normally I only feel that connected to films if they somehow remind me of my life or myself which really isn’t the case with A Single Man. In fact it couldn’t be further away from me. I am obviously not a gay middle-aged man who has lost the love of his life and is about to commit suicide and has some sort of sexual interest in my student. But there was something deeper then the visible story that I connected with. It had a lot to do with Colin Firth’s excellent performance as George. I thought it was an extraordinary moment when he picked up the phone and gets the news of his lovers death. The camera stayed so close (too close, really) on Firth that there was no way to fake the emotion. I am very aware of the fact that for some people it is very easy to cry on command but that is not what Firth was doing. He wasn’t just crying, he was truly but quietly suffering. One of my teachers (George Loros (The Sopranos)) always says that we shouldn’t show all of the emotion that we are feeling and that holding back tears can be more powerful then completely braking down (which he calls emotional masturbation). And for this movie that is absolutely true. This moment (others as well but this in particular) made the character so real to me and I think that is what I could connect with.

A big part of A Single Man is its beauty. It is just unbelievably gorgeous. Like one photograph next to another. Or maybe it is a bit like looking at Vogue Magazine (which I thoroughly enjoy doing, they have stunning photos). But it wasn’t just beautifully framed, the really interesting aspect of it was the saturation of the color. The more pain George feels, the less saturation the picture has and the happier he is, the fuller the color gets. It is done in a very subtle way, not “in your face,” some people might not even notice it and that makes it perfect. Obviously the fashion in this movie is perfect. Firth is wearing gorgeous suits all through the film, Moore gets to wear a truly fabulous dress and even though Hoult is wearing a slightly outrageous outfit, it still looks great. It was always obvious in his Fashion that Tom Ford (who directed this movie) has a real eye for beauty but it is still very surprising that his first film is that stunning. I hope he will continue making films.

The title really does explain the movie. It can not only be read as a single man (instead of being in a couple) but the film is actually about one single man. Everyone else is a side character. I am not even sure what Julianne Moore is doing on the film poster. She doesn’t have a bigger role then anybody else. She is just more famous than Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult. (Hoult is really making it by the way. I just remember him as the boy in About a Boy but we just finished watching the British TV-series Skins and he has a major role in it. I am sure we will see more of him soon!)

I could easily go back to the cinema now and watch the movie again. Or maybe just dress up to the nines with lots of make-up, light up a cigarette and have some gin or whiskey (even though I don’t smoke and don’t really drink gin or whiskey and come to think of it, I don’t even normally wear make-up or fancy clothes) and just listen to a record and enjoy the rest of the evening. Because even though the film is ultimately very sad I went away with a happy feeling. The feeling of having fallen in love with a movie. It happens…once in a while.

Sorry guys…the new term has started so I’m gonna be a lot busier again…I will try to write more than last term though! The first couple of weeks are the worst, I am reading about 5 Plays at once and also have to memorize some scenes, monologues and a song. If you have any suggestions for great scenes (or monologues), let me know! Now, back to movies:

Inglourious Basterds Right up front I have to say that I wasn’t as impressed with this film as most of you were. I generally am not interested in war films so I was expecting to not fall in love with it. I can say this much though: Christoph Waltz was as amazing as everyone is saying (coincidentally, he went to Strasberg, too ). He was the ultimate bad guy, enjoying every cruel thing he did so much that it was immensely fun to watch him. Actually, pretty much everyone was good in the film. Quentin really got the German acting-elite to be in his film. I also like the change in history because I was rooting for the Basterds (and the French girl) to succeed but didn’t expect them to. I can’t quite put my finger on what I didn’t like. Just a general feeling I guess. When it ended I didn’t think “Wow, this is a great film!”.

Waitress There was a preview toWaitresson theOnceDVD which looked funny so I put it on our Netflix queue. But I was really disappointed by it. It had so much potential! The main character Jenna (Keri Russel) was fun and likable, there was a lot of pie in the movie (which is always great) and the story was cute and had very good ideas. The problem was that it never quite followed the intention it had. I always thought “this could get funny” and then the scene ended. The editing was also strangely slow. It is a pity but I just can’t give this movie more than two MovieStars.

Four Weddings and a Funeral I absolutely love this movie. Of course I have seen it before but I hadn’t seen it in a really long time. Watching it again just made me remember how great it is. This film is just about everything there is. It is tragic, loving, witty and most of all hilarious. Hugh Grant is so great in this film. Normally I am not a fan of typecasting but he just plays the floppy haired, confused but sweet guy so well.

Iron Man I thought this film was gonna be absolute rubbish but I actually quite enjoyed watching it. I love how much of a bastard Robert Downey Jr. is. The plot is certainly new when it comes to Super Hero films. Although Iron Man did remind me a bit of Batman with the difference that Bruce Wayne is only acting being a macho guy who is in love with himself whereas Tony Stark (Iron Man) just is like that (obviously he does have a good side to him as well). I am looking forward to the sequel that is coming out soon.

As the director says on the special features of the DVD, the story of Once could be written on the back of a postcard. Guy (Glen Hansard) is a street musician in Dublin, working at his fathers hoover repair shop to earn his rent, when Girl (Markéta Irglová) comes up to him one day and changes his life completely. She is a Czech immigrant trying to make some money any way she can (selling flowers and Big issues). They discover a similar passion for music which leads to a close friendship and a recording of Guy’s first demo CD. There is always the possibility of something more then friendship.

The film is not about the script as much as it is about the music and the way the music affects the viewer. The director (John Carney) made the choice to use musicians as actors because for him it was more important that the songs were well performed. He even used tricks to make the performances better, such as filming from far away so that the two main actors weren’t aware of the camera. It works well though. It was also made in a documentary style on a very low budget. The style somehow manages to make these two people become real to the audience. Like it is a documentary about their friendship rather then a fiction film.

I personally really like the songs. They were mostly written by Glen Hansard which really helps his performance. He is very much in the moment when he sings and I always like to watch people perform their own songs. The film is very unusual and extremely subtly and slowly told. I thought Once was a very beautiful film. It felt a bit like watching a very long music video with a bit of a story in between the songs. And it was very refreshing to see real looking people on screen and not polished Hollywood stars.