An amazing, amazing movie. With its full rich palate of colors, flavours, and music, this movie presents a full experience in romantic intrigue. This is not your classic romance movie, it has quite a different charm. Vicky Christina Barcelona is the Hamlet of romance. Everyone ends up unhappy. But this is definitely not a dark or depressing movie in anyway. Comedy and great cinematography brighten this movie and bestow it with entirely different meaning.
The film can be categorized as an excercize in conflicting ideas, but that only adds to the genius of the film. It seems to be comparing and contrasting 3 main ideas: romance (love), education/work, and art. It seems to be showing us that artists are well educated, very intellectual people who are looking to experience and define love. This film shows us different senarios of romance and romantics, some of which end up not being so romantic, others being far too romantic. Each of the characters/romances have their happy period and then reality and real life sets in.
Overall, this film was mean to just be a great piece of art. This is obvious as the entire movie is based on and surrounded by art influence and culture. Also, the exposure is noticably warm, and the colors are more vivd as they are obviously saturated. The setting of Barcelona and use of the spanish language also greatly help to set the stage and draw the mood of art and romance. The musical score at times adds to the drama but is always right on target, setting that awkwardly comedic but yet romantic and artful mood that never fails to grip your interest.
I loved this movie not just becuase of its use of art, but it was also very entertaining. The creator of this film seems to be saying that you can find love or romance but rarely can you find them together. If you are lucky to find both they are fleeting and an unstable mixture. Although I don't agree with that view point, I love the way it was expressed in this movie and therefore enjoyed it.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Notebook
4 1/2 stars
Director: Nick Casavetes
Probably one of the best non-comedy romance films I have ever seen, both in narrative and in cinematography. Yet still one of the very few films to manage to pull tears from my eyes (no I am not gay). I thoroughly enjoyed this film.
In short, this film is about two lovers who went through many trials but in the end their love still found them a way to be together. What I like most about the narrative of this film, is that it skips the commonly used method of love story telling and the obvious parts to get right down to the nitty-gritty, the details. Technically, this film is not about the suspense, as it makes its plot pretty obvious. It is also not really about the whole romantic story, as it skips huge chunks of the story. What it is about, is the way that couples deal with Alzheimer's and how it affects love.
The ending was about how love really does create miracles. And the last scene showed that they flew away as birds, as mentioned earlier within the film.
Director: Nick Casavetes
Probably one of the best non-comedy romance films I have ever seen, both in narrative and in cinematography. Yet still one of the very few films to manage to pull tears from my eyes (no I am not gay). I thoroughly enjoyed this film.
In short, this film is about two lovers who went through many trials but in the end their love still found them a way to be together. What I like most about the narrative of this film, is that it skips the commonly used method of love story telling and the obvious parts to get right down to the nitty-gritty, the details. Technically, this film is not about the suspense, as it makes its plot pretty obvious. It is also not really about the whole romantic story, as it skips huge chunks of the story. What it is about, is the way that couples deal with Alzheimer's and how it affects love.
The ending was about how love really does create miracles. And the last scene showed that they flew away as birds, as mentioned earlier within the film.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Never Forever
Director: Gina Kim
Rating: 4 stars
This film is yet another retelling of the time tried mistress, or in this case mister, story. What makes this film worth watching however, is the use of slightly unconventional means of telling it. One of the things I admire most about this film and it's director is the cinematography. Even if I had no audio, I would still have been able to follow the story. It also conveys meanings and messages that would have been lost otherwise.
A film professor told me that there is no such thing as a film that promotes no ideology. This film is no exception. However contrary to initial belief it is neither religious nor sexual ideals. Instead this movie raises the arguement of immigration and immigration policies of this country.
This film contains sexual content, however I believe that it was necessary in order to show the fullness of the situations.
The only problem I had with this film was the musical scrore. It was comparable to a car alarm: changing, yet monotonous and repetetive. Although annoying, it proved to be a marker and guide for events in the movie. Otherwise a worthwhile movie.
Rating: 4 stars
This film is yet another retelling of the time tried mistress, or in this case mister, story. What makes this film worth watching however, is the use of slightly unconventional means of telling it. One of the things I admire most about this film and it's director is the cinematography. Even if I had no audio, I would still have been able to follow the story. It also conveys meanings and messages that would have been lost otherwise.
A film professor told me that there is no such thing as a film that promotes no ideology. This film is no exception. However contrary to initial belief it is neither religious nor sexual ideals. Instead this movie raises the arguement of immigration and immigration policies of this country.
This film contains sexual content, however I believe that it was necessary in order to show the fullness of the situations.
The only problem I had with this film was the musical scrore. It was comparable to a car alarm: changing, yet monotonous and repetetive. Although annoying, it proved to be a marker and guide for events in the movie. Otherwise a worthwhile movie.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Cashback
3 1/2 Stars
Worth watching
An independent film written and directed by Sean Ellis, Cashback is his first feature film based on his 18 minute short. The basic plot entails a common romance story, boy breaks up with girl, has hard time getting over it, until he finds the girl of his dreams, there is a misunderstanding but he finds a creative way to get her back. Add great cinematography, cover that basic plot with comedic scenes of buffons, don't forget to splice in tons of nude maxim models and you got yourself "Cashback."
From that last sentence one can assume that this movie is shallow, even more so than porn movies. In my humble opinion, this movie was an abstract film, meant only to show beauty, art, and asthetics, simply a work of art. It uses the story as an excuse to keep us seated for about an hour 40 minutes. This movie seeks to find love, however that realization is only presented at the end of the film. I must admit that for the entirety of the film I assumed it to be about beeauty, how an artist finds and defines beauty, and his lovelife to be either the catalyst to finding his inspiration, stopping time. Now had it been as such, where we are looking through Ben's, the artist's, eyes, then this would have been a much better movie.
The creator of this film also had a problem with unessasary scenes and lack of complexity. Scenes like the soccer scene had almost no connection to the sctual movie. It was obviously there comedic relief. It really should have been shortened. The lack of complexity is pretty obvious. The whole thing revolves around him and all that happened to him, nothing else. I must admit that I found the Beavis and Butthead duo only slightly amusing. Finally, the narration. Film is mainly a show business; more show, less tell. This simple principle would have doubled the interest and kept the focus of most viewers.
Despite its great faults I still declare this a great film worth watching for two reasons. First, this was mainly a one man show, and his first feature at that. Second, the cinematography and editing was awesome. It kept me watching wanting to know what the next eyepopper was going to be.
Worth watching
An independent film written and directed by Sean Ellis, Cashback is his first feature film based on his 18 minute short. The basic plot entails a common romance story, boy breaks up with girl, has hard time getting over it, until he finds the girl of his dreams, there is a misunderstanding but he finds a creative way to get her back. Add great cinematography, cover that basic plot with comedic scenes of buffons, don't forget to splice in tons of nude maxim models and you got yourself "Cashback."
From that last sentence one can assume that this movie is shallow, even more so than porn movies. In my humble opinion, this movie was an abstract film, meant only to show beauty, art, and asthetics, simply a work of art. It uses the story as an excuse to keep us seated for about an hour 40 minutes. This movie seeks to find love, however that realization is only presented at the end of the film. I must admit that for the entirety of the film I assumed it to be about beeauty, how an artist finds and defines beauty, and his lovelife to be either the catalyst to finding his inspiration, stopping time. Now had it been as such, where we are looking through Ben's, the artist's, eyes, then this would have been a much better movie.
The creator of this film also had a problem with unessasary scenes and lack of complexity. Scenes like the soccer scene had almost no connection to the sctual movie. It was obviously there comedic relief. It really should have been shortened. The lack of complexity is pretty obvious. The whole thing revolves around him and all that happened to him, nothing else. I must admit that I found the Beavis and Butthead duo only slightly amusing. Finally, the narration. Film is mainly a show business; more show, less tell. This simple principle would have doubled the interest and kept the focus of most viewers.
Despite its great faults I still declare this a great film worth watching for two reasons. First, this was mainly a one man show, and his first feature at that. Second, the cinematography and editing was awesome. It kept me watching wanting to know what the next eyepopper was going to be.
Maybe Late
I just now realized that to improve my writing skills and to talk about the various films I see, I need to start a film review blog. It's probably a little late as last semester, I had both a film class and an writing for electronic media class, in which we had to write blogs. This would have been the perfect blog for last semester but as life usually is, things never happen at the proper time. However, I do have a Netflix account, which I encourage any reader to get. I will try to review less seen films, especially independent and foreign films.
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