I just got home from watching The Graduate at the Lincoln Film Center. They are having a few Anne Bancroft days and Mike Nichols (the director) was there afterwards for a Q&A. I love New York.

The film is obviously pure genius and it was nice to see it on the big screen for once. The Q&A was absolutely hilarious. Mike Nichols is a very funny and quite humble guy. He was full of stories about the casting and shooting of The Graduate. He basically said that they had absolutely no idea about anything at the time. It was only his second movie and he had just gotten to L.A. and was awestruck by everything and everyone. So cute! He said that Ava Gardner (who he loved) was really interested in the role and called him so that she could play the part but insisted that he would say that he called her. But she just wasn’t right for the role.

Of course there were questions about the music. As far as I know, this was the first movie to use popular music instead of a classical score (at least that’s what I remember learning at film school, I could be wrong). Nichols said that his brother had given him a Simon & Garfunkel CD as a present and that he was listening to it everyday while shooting the film. At one point he just thought “this is perfect!” Apparently they needed one last song for the scene where Ben (Dustin Hoffmann) breaks into the Robinson’s house and Nichols didn’t like the stuff that S&G came up with. He asked if they had anything else and after a little bit they came back with the famous song “Mrs. Robinson” which they had originally written as “Mrs. Roosevelt.”

There was one question from the audience about if it was intentional that Dustin Hoffmann is jewish and Anne Bancroft isn’t but Nichols said it wasn’t. The only thing that was intentional about it was that he had to be different from the normal Beverly Hills boys.

Well that was my evening and I thought, I’d share it with you guys.

I know I am slightly behind with this post…sorry!

We had a blast watching the Oscars though. As I have said before, we don’t have a TV so we went to a screening at a cinema in Chelsea. If you don’t know, Chelsea is an area in NYC where lots of gay people live. There was a drag queen commenting (or bitching) about everyone and everything that was going on, which was hilarious. The audience was in a really good mood, cheering and booing. It was fun sitting in cinema chairs because it felt a bit like we were in the last rows of the Academy Awards theatre.

The Oscars went fairly smoothly this year, I’d say. No huge surprises. I thought the hosts played it very safe which I didn’t expect. I thought that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin would be more fun but to be fair, “hosts” is a bit of a stretch of the word anyway because they were barely ever on stage.

What was up with the woman who won Best Costume Design? “I already have two of these at home, so…” BITCH! She is not gonna get another one after that speech!

And poor little Kristen Stewart was so nervous that she had to cough…awww…how embarrassing. I wonder whether she is the sort of actress that will be famous for a couple of years and then just disappear again or whether she will grow out of her Twilight image and actually become a serious actress.

Ok, so where were Angelina and Brad? And Nicole Kidman? Well, I guess you get tired of the whole thing after a few years.

No one was as nervous as Kathryn Bigelow. It was quite charming how real she was. That’s the problem with actors and actresses. They quite often put on a persona for their speeches. But Kathryn was alarmingly close to passing out.

About the dresses: They seemed less crazy this year which I liked. Although there wasn’t one that I really loved. I often like the dresses of the lesser famous people most, because they are not trying so hard. I did like Sandra Bullocks and Rachel McAdams (who is she?) dresses. I did not like Jennifer Lopez dress. Bubble wrap alert!

Was it the short film category where the woman suddenly jumped onto the stage and took over the microphone? So funny!

I was not pleased with Sandra Bullock’s win. I haven’t seen the Blind Side (and probably never will) but to me she will always be Miss Congeniality. Fun but that’s all.

I really wanted Colin Firth to win!!! Jeff Bridges is great and I’m sure he gave a wonderful performance in Crazy heart but I’ve been madly in love with Colin for so long and plus he did give an amazing performance!

That’s all I can remember right now…I might add more to this list later. What did you guys think?

Before I write about  Avatar, I wanted to officially thank RTM over at Flixchatter who was kind enough to award me a second Kreativ Blogger award. This is very exciting since I just recently got to know her blog and already love it. So if you don’t know her fabulous blog yet, go and check it out!

Now, I finally managed to see Avatar. We wanted to see it in IMAX 3D which was constantly sold out, so it took a while. It was actually sold out again and even though we arrived at the cinema at 9pm and the movie was supposed to start at 9.45pm, we were already in the continuing  waiting line. After a while, they even stopped the escalator from running so that people started queueing down the stairs, two flights down the stairs to be exact. It was crazy! This movie has been out for weeks! I know that the visiter numbers have gone down in normal 3D and I don’t know who would even watch it without any 3D but I think it will stay in the IMAX cinemas for a while longer.

So, why all this madness? Well, the movie is extremely well made. No question about it. The world of Pandora is so gorgeous, I wish I could go there on my next vacation. Screw it, I want to move there! The glowing colors, all the animals, the flying mountains, all of it is so well thought out and stunning that it is a joy to be a part of this foreign world for almost three hours. Even though the natives look a bit like fish and their faces are not really human like, they are still very gorgeous and attractive. Who wouldn’t want to glow in the dark?

I had been warned (read this, it’s so funny) that the story is like Pocahontas but I guess I didn’t quite believe it. I thought they would at least change it a bit. I was wrong. It is exactly the same story, not only as Pocahontas but as so many films that I have seen before. It was absolutely predictable to the last little detail. I am hoping that now that they took this giant step into a new world of filmmaking, that they can be bothered to also come up with a unique script. Having said all that, the setting of the film is very unique. As I said, Pandora is gorgeous.

As beautiful as this film was, I didn’t fall in love with it as everyone else did. While watching it, I was thoroughly entertained but when the credits came up the feeling didn’t stick. The end song is so much like “My heart will go on” from Titanic that all I could think about was how unoriginal James Cameron really is. He knows how to make a block buster but doesn’t actually come up with his own ideas. And even though I am not criticizing the way that the movie was made, I don’t think I will ever see it again and I also don’t think that many people will buy it on DVD because it really only works in 3D. I mean, it was a very special sensation (especially in IMAX) to almost be flying on my own dragon along with Jake and Neytiri but on a small TV it just won’t work the same way.

Since this movie is very difficult for me to rate, I will split the rating up:

The Look: 5 MovieStars + The Story: 2 MovieStars = Over all:

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.

Another movie with so much promise that just didn’t hold up to its expectations. This film suffered a set back by Heath Ledgers sudden death. Ledger was supposed to play the lead but died half way through filming. Instead of leaving Parnassus unfinished, the makers decided to use several other actors to play Ledgers part (Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law). This choice has been criticized a lot which I disagree with. It doesn’t further the story to have more then one actor playing the role but it doesn’t hurt it as well. We all know why it was done so I don’t think there is anything to criticize about it. I was quite amazed at how well it worked out with the changing faces.

The film is divided into two worlds, one is the actual world, modern London and the other world is inside Doctor Parnassus’ imagination. I thought the real world was done brilliantly. I lived in London for a while and Gilliam’s London is really spot on. Parnassus’ horse drawn circus carriage had some wonderful details and Christopher Plummer was great as Doctor Parnassus. Even though I have an unnatural hatred of Lily Cole I thought she was perfect for this role. So were Heath Ledger, Tom Waits  and newcomer Andrew Garfield. Just looking at the real world, this was a great movie.

What didn’t work at all for me were the parts inside Parnassus’ imagination. What’s annoying about this is that I expected Terry Gilliam to make this the magical part of the story. But it was just awful. Instead of doing the wonderful cut out, self made sets he (and Monty Python) is famous for, the dream sequences were all done in really bad 3D animation. I don’t see why he should have used 3D animation at all but he should have at least gotten someone who is really good at it to do it. I know students who could have made it look better then it did.

I probably could have overlooked that fact slightly if the story had been told well. But even though I liked the story it was written or told in a very sloppy way. As if it needed to be finished quickly and nobody had re-read it before it went into production. The ending was completely foreseeable although it seemed like it was supposed to be a surprise ending. Also some important details (Tony’s flute, for example) were never really explained. The film seemed to jump around a lot as well (I don’t mean between the worlds, just in itself).

In my opinion even Terry Gilliam fans should wait for the DVD to come out. At least on the small screen you can’t tell how bad the rendering really is.

Sherlock Holmes

The much anticipated Sherlock Holmes has been criticized a lot on other blogs. I wanted to see it for myself though because the trailer looked very promising. But I have to agree, it is not a brilliant film.

Robert Downey Jr. (Sherlock Holmes) is very well casted. He always seems quick witted and he is a bit of a bad boy. Perfect. Jude Law (Dr. Watson) would not have been who I would have casted but he is really good in the role. The slightly homosexual chemistry between the two works very well. The way it is filmed is quite nice. It has a dark and mysterious feel to it. What I didn’t like was that the fighting scenes with Holmes were always shown twice. Once in slow motion where Holmes is planning what he will do and knows exactly what impact it will have on the other person and then its shown again when he executes his plan. This would have been fine if he had failed once or something unexpected would have happened once. This way it was just a waste of time.

What really killed the film was the plot. It was boring, long and everything was foreseeable. Holmes also never had a moment where he actually figures something out in front of the camera. He always already knows everything. In my view, this film had everything going for it, it just wasn’t well told. This seems to be the problem with a lot of the recent films. Or maybe we, as a society, have seen too many films already and nothing can really surprise us anymore. I surely hope not though!

It’s Complicated

You might think that this is a strange mixture for a double feature but I can explain it: We planned to watch The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnussus as a second film but it was screened on another floor and we couldn’t sneak into it. It’s Complicated was the only other film starting at that time. Obviously I am not the target audience for this film at all and from the first time I saw the preview for it I thought it would be a horrible film. So why did we go into the screening anyway? I am a movie geek, what can I say.

To my complete surprise it turned out to be a really sweet and funny film. Jane (Meryl Streep) and Jake (Aec Baldwin) have been divorced for ten years and Jake is remarried to a much younger woman. Jane has come to terms with her life as a single woman and has no real interest in meeting men anymore. At their son’s graduation Jane and Jake somehow end up sleeping together which then turns into a full blown affair. At the same time Jane’s architect Adam (Steve Martin) start courting her.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are really fun in this movie. Baldwin surprised me a lot. He does comedy really well and is perfectly casted. Even though he is playing an unsympathetic guy, he is still likable. Steve Martin is a very strange choice for this role. He is very serious and straight. Not his normal goofy self. I had no idea he could be serious. Although he looks like he has been lifted which is a bit strange. The trio works well together. John Krasinski as Meryl Streeps son in law is also hilarious. Although he has been in a lot of movies that I have seen, I didn’t really notice him until I saw Away We Go. He is great though and  I am hoping to see him in more films as a leading character soon.

The plot itself is rather uninteresting. I have seen this exact story in plenty of other films. But It’s Complicated gets some points for being entirely about people in their 50’s and 60’s. I am sure that there are films about that age group but I really can’t remember one right now.  Even though its not a perfectly made film, it is fun to watch and I know plenty of people (who are more the target audience then I am) who would enjoy watching it.

I knew I just had to watch this movie from the first time I saw the trailer. And Nine surely didn’t disappoint my expectations. I expected it to be beautifully shot, which it definitely is. I expected it to be well acted, which it absolutely is. And I expected it to be sexy, which it is 100%.

The story I didn’t expect. Or at least I didn’t know anything about it. Famous Italian director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is about to shoot another movie but doesn’t have a script or even an idea what the movie should be about. All he has is the title: Italia. What he also has are lots and lots of muses to help him create his stories. The movie is divided in two parts: One is the story of him and his problems with women and his producers and in the other part we see his fantasies of the women around him singing songs and dancing to express their emotion. Whenever he is with a woman his thoughts drift off into this dream world.

The Girls: Nicole Kidman is the star of all of Guido’s movies. She has a smaller part and although she is perfect for the role and I  usually like her I didn’t believe that she was upset in this movie. She was just giving a performance. I wasn’t impressed. As Guido’s wife Marion Cotillard gave an outstanding performance. Her I believed. She was truly hurting. I don’t think I have ever seen such a moving performance in a musical before. Penélope Cruz is funny as Guido’s mistress although I was surprised of just how sexy her dance was. That must have taken some courage to do in front of a movie crew. Sophia Loren seems the obvious choice for the part of the mother. She is wonderful but extremely lifted. Judi Dench is always great. She is the costume designer for Guido’s films and also takes on another mother figure for him. A sort of side character is Stacy Ferguson although she has the best singing act (Be Italian). This song is really well choreographed, she has a great voice and its just a fantastic song. I didn’t like Kate Hudson in this movie. She somehow doesn’t have the look of that time and her costumes and the song in her singing sequence seemed out of place and too modern. I do love that the movie has such an international cast. That seems to be unusual in movies and I always wonder why. Maybe thanks to globalization we will see more of this in the future.

But the real star of the film is Daniel Day Lewis. I think it is great that he was up for doing a musical. He seems to be mostly in very serious movies. He does bring a certain sincerity to the movie. He just is that character. I believed that he is Italian (excellent accent!), he certainly must have watched a lot of Italian films from that time. He is also charmingly in love with all of these women and it doesn’t come across as pervy how much he wants and needs them. And although he is really arrogant and self centered, he is likable.

The first half of Nine was a bit slow and all about Guido wanting women and being a ladies man but then the film really comes together and becomes a very moving story about an ultimately broken man who doesn’t know how he got to be the person who he is and who has lost focus on what is important in life. So looking back on it maybe the first, very sexy, part is needed to get to that point. I really enjoyed this movie. It has a great soundtrack and a very different story to what I have seen in musicals so far.

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has to constantly travel for his job but as much as most people would dislike spending most of their lives on airplane, he loves it. For him being at an airport, in a hotel or on an airplane is like being home. He has no desire to get married or have children. He doesn’t want a place to live, he just wants to travel.

It is all going perfectly well for him until a 23 year old girl, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), introduces a new idea at his work. Up until now a group of people were sent out to fire people in companies that were too scared to fire their own employees. Natalie comes up with the idea that it would be a lot more efficient to fire via internet chat. Ryan is outraged. For him this change means the end of his life as he knows and loves it. To introduce the young Natalie to the process of firing people, she is sent on a trip together with Ryan.

Something else happens at the same time… Ryan meets a woman that he can actually connect with. She is perfect for him, she loves traveling, shares his passion for collecting flight miles and she is a lot of fun. Slowly Ryan is starting to think that there might be another way of life. He can actually see himself being with this woman.

Apart from it being slightly depressing, the movie is great. Clooney is perfect for the role. He is the best example for type-casting. It seems like he is playing the same role in every movie. Maybe he is just playing himself. I had never seen Anna Kendrick in anything else (or not noticed her) but she did a pretty  good job. It just really irritated me that she looks so much like Sarah Michelle Gellar. I don’t really have much to say about Up in the Air other then watch it. It is as humorous as it is tragic, has great perfomances in it and is not your average movie story (although it is predictable).

Jason Reitman, who also directed  Thank You for Smoking and Juno, clearly loves music. Up in the Air is only as good as it is because of the music. He is definitely a very talented director and I expect to see great things from him.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Once again Wes Anderson’s lets us see a part of his fantastic imagination. What better material to use then a book by Roald Dahl, who, himself had a very fascinating creativity.

Mr. Fox gives up his job stealing chickens when he finds out that Mrs. Fox is pregnant but he can’t get the thrill of it out of his system. When their son is a teenager, they move into a tree with a view onto three farms. Mr. Fox can’t help himself, he has to raid all of them. When the farmers find out that a fox has stolen from them, they team up to find the fox to kill him. Thus begins the battle.

Some of the sets are shown as a window display at Bergdorf Goodman’s on 5th Avenue. There you can really see how much detail went into the characters and the sets. It is absolutely beautifully done. Story-wise I thought the first half was a bit slow but the pace really picked up when the farmers team up to find Mr. Fox. For me this is when the story really begins. In a rating the first part would get a 3/5 and the second part a 4.5/5. So it is definitely worth watching.

George Clooney is really the perfect man to do the voice for Mr. Fox. Although I love Meryl Streep, I think the role doesn’t really fit her voice. There was just something of about it.

2012

We snuck into this screening after watching Fantastic Mr. Fox partly because it was the only film starting at that time and partly out of curiosity of how bad it could actually be. I thought it really wasn’t that bad. Or maybe it was so bad that it was good again (kind of like Mc Donalds). It was definitely very funny. Possibly not intentionally but I was laughing a lot. Example for all of you who have seen it: At the beginning when the family flies out of the big crashing city and suddenly a train (or subway) comes flying out of nowhere and almost hits them. How funny was that?

The special effects are done really well. I am always amazed at what Computers can actually create! Alright, so the story is utterly predictable and the acting seems way over the top but its still fun to watch. Pure entertainment. But what is John Cusack doing in this movie? Seriously? I love him as all of the quirky characters he normally plays in Independent films. He must have been broke or something to accept this role. I hope this was a one time excursion into the world of mainstream Hollywood for him!

And what is up with Roland Emmerich? Why does he keep making the same film over and over again? Is he crazily paranoid about the End of the world (in whatever way it might end) or is it purely a way for him to make money? Or does he just love making these huge budget destruction movies? I am sure he liked playing with Lego and Playmobil when he was a child. Creating a hole world perfectly and then letting his cat run through or letting a tornado blow through with a big fan or something.

!WARNING! THIS IS NOT A FUN HOLIDAY COMEDY !WARNING!

We got free tickets to see Everybody’s Fine the other day. I tend not to do a lot of research about the film when it comes to free tickets. I knew the cast and had seen a trailer and simply assumed that it was one of those fun Christmas comedies they make every year. Well, it is not. In fact, it is utterly depressing!

It starts out light with Frank Goode (Robert DeNiro) going shopping to make a feast for his visiting children. He buys giant steaks, the best wine and even a new BBQ grill. When he gets home, one after another, his children call and say that they can’t make it. So he decides to go and visit all of them in the different cities that they now live in. His doctor tells him that he is not fit to travel and should stay at home and warns him that flying is out of the question. Frank goes on his trip anyway but decides it safer to go by train and Greyhound bus.

His first child David is not at his New York City apartment. Frank waits a day or so until he moves on to go visit his sun Robert (Sam Rockwell), the music conductor, in Chicago. By now the Franks children (they are all in their thirties) have passed on the message that Frank is coming to see the all and that they have to keep it a secret that their brother David is in a prison or hospital (nobody knows for sure) in Mexico. None of the kids want to lie to Frank about it, so they tell him that they don’t have time right now and that he can’t stay. So basically he is risking his health for nothing.

The movie gets more and more depressing with the news that all the children are keeping secrets or actually lying to Frank about their lives, and it just goes downhill from there. Don’t get me wrong, this is a really well made film but it is simply not what I expected or what the trailer promises. The Star Cast (Robert DeNiro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell) have done a fine job creating a real family. Especiall DeNiro is very good at capturing this character.

Go and watch the movie (I am not surprised that it has a rating of 8.3 on IMDb) but be warned that it is not your typical Christmas-everybody-is-happy-and-in-love kind of movie but an emotional film about a family growing apart in grief and then slowly mending again (with some comedic aspects in it). I haven’t seen the original Stanno tutti bene (1990) but it sounds like the story is the same, it has just been just Americanized for the new version. Has anyone seen the Italian version? Is it worth watching?