Zootopia (2016) or How Sad Happy Endings Really are

And, yes, this is the last film I've watched. It was couple of days ago in a poor neighbourhood in Thessaloniki, Greece. There's a lovely open air cinema over there, named after one of our 'national actresses', Tzeni Karezi (strangely enough, we have two of those, the first one being Aliki Vougiouklaki, you might have never heard them if you're not somehow related to Greece, but it's ok). Back to the screening: it had free entrance and it has sold out, meaning every single chair was taken and too many kids and families were sitting on the floor or on any random chair-shaped corner. I did the same and it was fun!

Force Majeure (2014) or How Fragile we Are

Turist, Force Majeure or Snow Therapy? Seems like each country translates film titles to something a tad more exotic than it's used to: English speaking countries promoted the film under the title Force Majeure, so that's how we know it and that's how the film got international acclaim in too many festivals. In the Golden Globes, too. In France, the blatantly ironic (and my favourite) given title was Snow Therapy. While in their native Sweden, artists remain practical: Turist was good enough.

I want to become a Lobster, he said

Hotel Manager: Have you thought of what animal you’d like to be if you end up alone?

David: Yes, a lobster.

Hotel Manager: A lobster is an excellent choice.

[More quotes here]

Once upon a time, there was a Man-Who-Wanted-to-Become-a-Lobster. Later on, he had to skip it and run away instead. That  happened when the Woman-With-No-Feelings killed his brother who had the form of a dog, because he could not find a partner in forty-five days. She killed him with endless kicks on the head, the belly, all over really. Her right shoe, white sock and leg was full of blood to the height of the knee when she announced him her cruel deed.

The Man-Who-Wanted-to-Become-a-Lobster decided to run away to the woods after the assassination of his brother, who was a dog, from the Woman-With-No-Feelings. He has lost his chance to become a lobster, an animal he so much liked, because of its blue, aristocratic blood. If found alive after lying about his own absence of feelings, he would be turned into the animal nobody wants to turn into (which animal is that, I cannot divulge). That's why the Man-Who-Wanted-to-Become-a-Lobster  run away from the perverse dating retreat.

Nevertheless, perversity followed him to the woods. Where the Man-Who-Wanted-to-Become-a-Lobster found more loners who did not want to turn into any animal at all. They only asked for the freedom to dance to electro music with trees as dancing partners, masturbate in solitude and hunt for their food, then eat it after killing it with their bare hands. The I-Wanna-Stay-Free people, were not so free after all, they were just mating-free. It's hard to explain, because they were not exactly mating-free either, they were actually not allowed to mate. And that's exactly when it happened.

All the lonely people

After eating a box of chocolate truffles dipped in glitter in an effort to cure my not-feeling-well mood, and after remembering that last night I practically devoured 3 doughnuts with cream filling inside the super-market, cause there was no way I could wait to pay for them first, Eleanor Rigby came on my mind. Not specifically her, but all the lonely people who walk in the city and pretend to be too busy even to smile to the person they just crossed, while in reality they would love to drink a coffee or a beer with someone. But, not just anyone, and that's where the problem (if you can call it a problem) lies. 

Lonely people are in fact a bit too selective. They are fond of their memories, and they are sentimental. They find it hard to attach, and even harder to detach. They cherish imaginary friends and relationships, and keep a place in their heart for those who are no longer around. They are maybe introverts or just highly sensitive or just deeply hurt. Or nothing from all the above -I won't pretend I have the key to human psyche. 

I know that in this particular case, Eleanor Rigby is deeply hurt indeed. Profoundly sad and lonely she is, only because she felt the ultimate bliss, only because she knew how it is to be in love with the one. Until things went sour. Jessica Chastain is the redhead in the poster and the disappearing girl in the title. Her other half on screen for this set of films is James McAvoy. They are both brilliant -some of those actors whose performance is rarely questioned, just because they seem so natural in everyone's shoes. Why did I say "set of films"? If you're wondering, you probably haven't heard that newcomer Ned Benson had the poignant idea to shoot two films with the same title, and the exact same story, only different. One is from the point of view of the guy, the other is from the point of the view of the lady, that's why we have The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him (2013) and  The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her (2013). 

I have watched both films back to back, which is the right thing to do, after all, to notice similarities and differences.  Giving credit to popular belief that men and women have a totally different point of view  and react in a different way to the same situations (or else Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus), Benson decided not only to include new, unknown parts of each characters' story in each film, but also to have the actors give a slightly different performance in the same scene from one film to the other, whether it is for the tone of voice, facial expression or even the words they decided to use. How does it feel when each party feels that it's the other one to blame?

A Most Wanted Man (2014) or Beautiful Spies

He was drinking his whisky anxiously. He needed to calm down. Other spies, mightier and with more efficient networking qualities (what other people call ass-licking qualities) were way ahead him. With a fiasco in his pocket -defeated by the Americans, can you imagine?- he had to do it right this time around. 

Sin City 2: Where Blood is Coloured White

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) is a sequel some were impatiently waiting for, for almost a decade. Did it worth the anticipation/hype? More or less. Did it catch us by surprise?  It certainly didn't, as it's hard for a sequel to bring new elements in the game, but we loved it anyways. Sin City brings back nearly forgotten heroes and monsters from an era long gone.

Performances & Characterisation

Ex Dark Angel Jessica Alba is more stunning than ever. And oh-so-innocent. Contrapuntal Eva Green is the archetype of femme fatale, trying to beat her predecessors in classic film noirs. No matter how impressive the looks, she doesn't win the competition with the likes of Lana Turner and Barbara Stanwyck. She ends up an amusing caricature though, a devouring sex goddess with such a harsh/ exaggerated outline that makes thinking men unable to fall/kill for her (at least in real life). Same goes for the whole gang: their traits, whether physical or character ones are seen through the magnifying glass -something which accommodates us. It accommodates our politically-correct selves -we find it hard to identify with them, thanks God. But, one cannot expect subtlety in the adaptation of a graphic novel, right?

Shock Tactics 

Beware: this is R rated material. Banned in Iran, while in fast-forward Canada 14 year olds are allowed in screenings, the film is not a valid choice when in chill out mood. Highly sensitive souls will have to cover their eyes for the biggest part of the movie (sic) and they will still be agitated nevertheless. Of course, it's not the "sexual content, nudity or short drug" use we disapprove of.  It is the "strong brutal stylised violence throughout". Those sequences must have been a pain to shoot and I appreciate cast and crew and extraordinary stuntmen for their contribution, but, guys, that was so intense an experience that I was unable to sleep until four thirty in the morning.  

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2013) and its Glorious Tenants

Wes Anderson is an addiction; it's something you either get or you don't; and, if you've kept the child you once were untouched and safe in a small corner of your mind, then you probably adore his sensitivity, love for colour, detail, humour and bias for action. Because his characters are big children: they do not think a lot (overly contemplating before doing is a sign of old age,  after all), they act. Action is character, they say, don't they?

The film is inspired by the ambience, style and small-town allure of Stefan Zweig stories, which creates a burning necessity for the following rhetoric question: doesn't great literature make good material for cinema more often than not? Even if a well-known issue on film adaptations exists? Wes Anderson explains his choice in a lengthy   interview on the classic Austrian author, and as we brought the subject about, you may allow me to point out that project Gutenberg has no short stories of him whatsoever (so I will have to actually buy a real book to read some).

I don't know exactly why it took me so long to finish this post. I've watched this movie a bit more than a month ago, and it still is the last movie I've watched (sic). Not counting same-country, lacklustre stuff that are watched mainly for the sake of it. Not only it is the last movie I've watched, but it's the last movie I've watched and want to recommend it to whoever asks for a recommendation and the last movie whose cinematic style I feel defines/describes me. Today I found myself once more having a chat on how I find that Wes Anderson fans are the right crowd for me. So, yes, in the end this post is not so much about this particular Wes Anderson film, but a thankful note to the director himself, for giving me the opportunity to unconsciously dig in the psyche of people I meet, finding gold where I was not expecting it.

An exuberant story of affairs full of affection between people desperate for love and reassurance leads to the stealing of an invaluable painting, the gloomy research of the causes of death of a rich lady -a quest for truth which ends ups quite badly-,  just before fugitives of all sorts try to escape their destiny or save the lives of others and become rich at the same time, not quite in this order. A story-in-a-story which references/parodies real life events in a hilarious way; that doesn't make them less sad on their own merit, though. But life is not a 100% pleasant thing, just like yummy cakes do not come without malevolent consequences, just like The Grand Budapest Hotel is not what it seems to be in the end.

Audiovisual Pleasures when Traveling

Earlier this week I was travelling to and back from Prague, not on a plane, nor by car, neither by train. And exactly because of that, I was the blessing that is called free time immobilised. Why is that, you will ask. Let me explain: the aforementioned ways of travelling no matter how different they are, have one similar result: keeping us busy. Not sure if it applies to others, but for me taking the plane means a lot of organisation and serious item selection and separation (liquids here, heavy stuff there, fragile goods where?), which brings along stress, just like the never-ending controls, check-ins and so on so forth. Little time to rest and be peaceful/ready to concentrate on something other than the trip per se. Travelling by car implies company, and your company wants to converse, wants you to be a good dj and stuff, occasionally he even wants you to drive a little bit so that he gets some rest (what the fuck). No free time for extracurricular activities there. Train comes handy, cause it surely gives more time for contemplation; the voyage is normally long, but the landscape distracting, just like the various stops on the way. You cannot help listening to the bizarre names of the stops in between, noticing new passengers coming in or going out, staring at interesting strangers if not the strangely-shaped trees that for the fraction of a second collate with the horizon and little time is left for you to read or write, let alone watch a movie. Because, this is what I'm talking about: the impossible deed of watching a movie on the move.

But, yes, earlier this week I made it. I opted for a bus from Luxembourg to Prague, and, what a joy, I was left exhausted in my not-so-comfortable seat, ready to endure a ten-hour-trip armed with unusually quiet co-travellers and a small screen stuck on the back of the seat in front me. A vast (sic) choice of films and TV series awaited me. I finally had the time to fill my gaps when it comes to recent and not-so-recent cinematic releases. On the way to the exceptionally gothic Czech capital I watched Argo (2012), the oh-so-acclaimed film I once scoffed on the basis of its fame -sometimes too much praise gets on my nerves, you know- only to realise that it is a good film indeed. I love to find out that I was wrong; I enjoyed a messy and long-haired Ben Affleck, full of poise and secret agent allure, as much as I found the atmosphere in '79 Teheran intimidating and threatening, even a bit exaggerated so (been in Teheran ten years ago, the early years' roughness had worn off, but, oh well, it is an "unfree" place to a certain extent).

The Wind Rises (2013) as an ode to mortality

It was in France quite some time ago that I was acquainted with anime, manga culture and boys who loved playing video games. Interesting boys, in general, sometimes even exciting. At a later point,  when I realised that they were more boys than men, I felt disappointed. C'est la vie, I guess.

Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and that anime version of Metropolis  (2001) made my heart beat fast back then. Same goes for Akira (1988) -how did it slip my mind that as a child I was given a View-Master and an Astro Boy reel; that was the humble beginnings of my love for that which does not exist. It was Candy Candy who taught me romance, after all.

French boys are all around these days, but they grew up. They even learnt how to hide their liking for anime and video games. And Hayao Miyazaki created this other imaginary boy, Jiro who is dreaming of airplanes and seems to be very much like Peter Pans who don't want to grow up. The character Jiro Horikoshi is loosely based on the life of an engineer of the same name who designed Japanese fighter planes during the World War II. 

Jiro in The Wind Rises (2013) -title borrowed from a poem by Paul Verlaine which goes: "Le vent se lève! il faut tenter de vivre!" (The wind is rising. We have to try to live!) - is dreaming of flying planes as a child and finds peace and solitude on his home's rooftop, until he finds out that he's nearsighted. Amending his dream, he wants to design those "beautiful dreams waiting to be swallowed by the sky”, and as a student he daydreams when eating mackerel of the curves of his future planes, similar to those of fishbones. He succeeds in working for a company making war planes, and in fact his success gives a controversial feeling overall; in essence he is helping people kill and getting killed, but I guess fulfilling one's dream is the pointer here and not the unpleasant details. Too much analysis spoils the whole thing, as it's hard to believe that the boyish, sweet character that Jiro is in the film could actually design the  Mitsubishi Zero airplane used by Japan for kamikaze operations.

Golden Globes 2014: Full List of Nominations and Winners

First of all, hail Robin Wright (nice photo by Jordan Strauss/AP). The House of Cards deserved more awards, in my opinion, but anyways. I'm also very happy for Alfonso Cuaron getting Best Director Award for Gravity and for some others. Of course, I'm content for all the winners and nominations alike -I do have a question, though: how did The Past made it in the list for Best Foreign film in the first place? They certainly were far better films out there, but buzz and renowned talent involved is always something that one can hardly beat, I know.

Here is the full list for those (like me) who were not in a hurry to read it before, courtesy of the Telegraph.co.uk (the films link back to the Telegraph reviews, in case you are interested to read them). I've placed the motion picture categories first, and the rest follows:

Venus in Fur (2013)

Some say it's a song, other's say it's a painting. It's all that, as well as a book, a theatre play and lately an entertaining film by Roman Polanski. But, Venus in Fur(s) is more than this; Venus in Fur(s) is a game we like to play every too often.

Images & audiences I miss: children movies

I take it that children are not bound to be unhappy; they've plenty of time to learn that life is full of hardship and effort. So, they are given the opportunity to connect with many a pleasant tales, bed-time stories, films and theatre plays. Hostility and failure is sometimes a major element in entertainment material for innocent souls, but one thing is quintessential: one will always win in the end. Happy ending rules in children's films and we wouldn't like it any other way.

The Great Gatsby (2013) or On film adaptations

An unhappy child creates illusions of grandeur to escape his misery. A man who achieves realisation of his illusions of grandeur, content at last. Is he? Shouldn't he be? But, isn't  it part of the human nature to be unsatisfied? Is there not a tiny evasive detail that will unforgivably stain forever the tableaux vivant of our perfect lives?

Oz the Great and Powerful, tell me about it

Oz was not a bad film whatsoever, but it was one of those you forget once you step out of the  multiplex. Joyful atmosphere, great graphics and good acting are the positive points I spotted out.

Passion (2012)

I watched Passion (2012) some time ago, and, alas, I was not so eager to write about it. Not that I found it dull or deprived of charm, no; the two leading ladies and their rage to devour each other, the mise en scene and certain twists and unpredictability kept me going while in the cinema. When the film finished, though, the only thing that stayed was a little curiosity on how Brian de Palma got interested in directing Passion: I didn't see it so much as his type of film.

Django Unchained (2012)

Everybody probably knows by now who Django is and  how his name is pronounced -the D silent. Three whole days after watching a copy with French and Dutch subtitles (annoying), on a very big screen in the only local multiplex and with an audience whose reactions made me think that I was definitely the only one who found the whole thing so infinitely hilarious, I can confess in front of my international readers that Tarantino's new film is indeed his best one till now. Inglourious Basterds slipped and fell down. In the second place.

Even if I chose for my post not the official version of the poster, but a fan version, on which the creative team worked to produce the final one -it belongs to the creative genius (sic) of an Italian named Federico Mancosu-, I have to aknowledge another one flying around the World Wide Web that I found inspiring. It's this one. 

On Shipwrecks or Life of Pi

This day last year the Costa Concordia was sailing happily near the Italian shore. Not too near, until its Captain decided he had the right to be careless. A bit after nine thirty in the afternoon the emergency signal rung. The evacuation plan worked out well for more than three thousand passengers and crew. It didn't for thirty-two of them, who lost their lives in their effort to escape. Two of the bodies were never found.

Last year on this day and for some days after, Gianpaolo,  my then roommate, was utterly embarrassed from the disaster; he was blaming the Captain, not only for being irresponsible, but also for giving a bad name to Italians, as he said. The Captain in question is restricted in his residence and did not yet face trial for manslaughter, for which he is accused. As for the ship, it still lies on its side, near the island of Giglio, waiting to be towed away - a costly operation.

Ruby Sparks...and God created Woman

Talking on air on Ara City Radio last week on Friday Flicks, it was probably the first time I got so excited about a film. It was my very own tip of the week; I dared to name it in my flamboyant fashion "the perfect film". Ben believed I have seen the film already, due to my overwhelming dedication. I had only seen the trailer once.

Ruby Sparks (2012) is by no means "the perfect film";  I  do tend to have great expectations, a bothersome characteristic I try to diminish from a very young age. Ruby Sparks is, still, a refreshing film with  sweet moments, actors we love and some others we are falling in love with. Like Zoe Kazan, who succeeded in doing what she left unfinished in HappyThankYouMorePlease (2010). There she was plain annoying. Being Ruby Sparks, she is real, she is happy, she is sad and charming, she is the maze of life. It could be that she loved the character too much, as she is her creator. Even though she plays the creation. I will get back to that in a bit.

Magic Mike or Channing Tatum is a good film producer

Magic Mike (2012) is a weird concept to start with. An actor wants to re-create the times of his youth, when he was stripping in front of excited female audience in a place called ehmm Tampa? And Steven Soderbergh  finds this a very good idea to play with indeed. To tell you the truth, the idea comes out a bit generic, but I ought to give credit to the showtime. These gentlemen know how to dance, but does this make them good actors?

Let me see: it pretty much does, in the case of Pettyfer and McConaughey; in other words, this film comes close to a disaster for Channing Tatum, in my humble opinion. From the artistic point of view, that is. He co-produced and starred in it, but the ones that shine are his co-stars, instead. Needless to say, he is the one to get the money, so it can be seen as an exuberantly successful economic venture; which will actually have a follow-up -the sequel is already announced, by the time that the film was grossing millions on its first weekend of screening in the States.

High brow expectations aside: One for the Money (2012)

Entertainment should be guilt-free, you know; and this should be a self-evident truth. I'm not saying that I would go for a diet that strictly consists of soap-operas, Hollywood blockbusters or romantic comedies, but one could watch some of the above from time to time without the feeling of self-disdain. Without necessarily sneering at them, ready to put them to their top ten in the unworthy category.

This bit sounds like preaching, and preaching it is. Frankly. I plan to make my other half read it out loud at least 10 times before going to bed; maybe he'll understand. He is the type of guy who cinema-wise, he has a serious illness: it's called "I'm snobbish and I know it". Hopefully it's not terminal; he could easily be cured if he decides to loosen up a bit. Why can he allow himself the foolishness of watching football drunk in a pub and not the foolishness of watching Ted, Titanic 3D or Pirates of the Caribbean? Why cinema should be always a serious matter, when going for lunch can vary from a business lunch, a supreme gourmet experience or the "I'm gonna grab something on my way home category?" Darling, really, why don't you give a go to pop-corn movies? They are awesomely produced and make you feel that life is easy, blinking and worthwile, plus they give you the advantage to exercise your ability to giggle. Laugh, in the best case scenario.