Vicky Cristina Barcelona
I’m a sucker for a good rep. Tell me so-and-so has done such-and-such and you’ve got my attention. Tell me you can’t imagine the works of a certain auteur go unnoticed, I’m adding that shit to my Netflix que. Give me a Xeroxed copy of an article from the New Yorker dated 10 years before I was born, I will check that shit so fast David Denby will spit his coffee out from the aftershocks. I’m serious, I’m eager, I want to know more.
Woody Allen raped me and he did it with malice in his heart. And I think he did it intentionally. Sure, there were loving gestures of a comfortable thematic movement, letting me know he was going to be in control of this ‘date’. But, the nigga did me raw. Motherfucker shook me then took me. And he did it with goddamn Javier Bardem. Shit, I respected Woody (even after he stated that Jason Biggs nonsense). But he forced his intentions on my gaping intellect without the proper aid of stimulation, leaving me cold and shaking in the corner of the room. A dirty towel is draped over my trembling frame.
For one thing, Spain was a bad choice. To be an artist and select a foreign location poorly as a setting is akin to ripping your balls off and gluing them to your forhead. Woody, if he had chosen someplace he knew, someplace that speaks to him, he would have chosen Brooklyn. Sure, Spain speaks of sex and adventure, but Brooklyn has the Department of Health located on Flatbush Ave. And, unlike the Estacia-Sants, you can use your goddamn metro card to get there. But fuck, what sense does it make to have a Spanish speaking man seduce two women in the County of Kings?
But seriously, don’t go. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is the water down version Rules of the Game, with the exception that Rules had class. Class that was sharply defined by stressed social situations, but class nonetheless. I wanted to throw Woody a bone and went with low expectations. But after he cut in with some cheesy stock dialogue I about lost it 20 minutes into the film. I’m sorry, a bit character does not use the word ‘firely’ to describe a divorce. Woody, did you always want to write for Days of Our Lives?
***
To Woody:
Dude, we get it, you’re old. You’re still virile. You get things because your a man of celebration. You can breath life into the dead eyes of Scarlett Johansson. But, dude, what the fuck is up with your narrative? I’m sure, before you retire into the halls of notoriety, you want to have a few more flings with ‘what-woulda’. But you’re driving us nuts with your ‘why-notta’. I don’t know anymore. Deconstruction Harry may as well have been have been Demonstrating Sharing. And Husbands and Wives may have been Schlock and Shmendrik. Manhattan might as well be Mineola. But geeze, old man, do you have to shit on everything you ever created?
I am sure you wanted a more eloquent response to my first movie, but I was so moved to encourage people NOT to go see this, I couldn’t resist. It is very similar to 300, but it sucks. Sorry, can’t think of a better word for it.
Reviewing: Pride and Prejudice
Believe it or not, this 2005 film offering is only the second cinematic adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel. (The others, most notably from the BBC, are all television mini-series.) Unpossible, no? Yet here it is.
The story, of course, is simple and timeless - boy chases girl, girl chases boy — with misunderstandings, assumptions, and meddling grand dames creating a thorougly enjoyable love obstacle course. Austen, herself a member of the gentry, stuck to writing what she knew — and she wrote it well, voicing the cares and concerns of her milieu with wit and aplomb.
Yet we all know that the source material is gold. The challenge for a good director is to restore this effervescent, sparkling quality of Pride and Prejudice on the big screen without seeming flippant, frothy, or even worse — cliche.
I’ll be blunt: purists will not like the liberties taken with the plot in this version. I’ve heard that many a die-hard Austen lover was disappointed with this film.
However, I am not a purist, and do not demand literal translations from my films-from-books. Director Joe Wright may not mimetically translate the text word-for-word, but Austen’s spirit shines through, centuries later.
Unlike the static scenery of the BBC Pride and Prejudice, Wright places us there, in the parties and balls and living rooms of this society — we see grand, sweeping panoramas of intrigue and secrets as men and women whisper, gossip, flirt, dance. Keira Knightley’s fantastic Elizabeth is presented as (literally) a force of nature, set against a beautiful English countryside. I can practically feel the wind whipping at her Empire waist dress as she cavorts in the wilderness. Later, when Elizabeth confronts Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Judi Dench, excellent per usual) at her estate, a bird in its gilded cage coos, representing Elizabeth’s fiery nature repressed by an often stuffy upper-class life.
And of course, there’s the romantic hero. Of casting Mr. Darcy, Joe Wright said he wanted to “go against the boy band type,” a pointed insult at Colin Firth’s more delicate Darcy. James Macfadyen is a darker Darcy — smoldering and somber, without coming off as petulant. He’s got fewer lines than Keira, but he doesn’t need words — you can see it all in a flash of his eyes. He’s all man, macho without being ridiculous, loving without being overly feminine. Well played, James.
And then there’s the family. Wright understands that, besides all the love stuff, Austen’s novel was a love letter to the quiet, enduring solidarity of the Bennetts. Mrs. Bennett’s character, while comical, is not portrayed as a completely idiotic old hen — she merely wants for the best interest of his daughters. The cynical Mr. Bennett is shown alternately comforting and chiding his daughters, a loving pop hiding behind an acid tongue. And his brood of five girls represent the outcomes of societal expectation — motherly Jane, silly Lydia, naive Kitty, staid Mary. Yet transcending caricature, all of the girls clearly love each other, and their squabbles only underline this house of warmth.
There’s a lot in this film to recommend even if you haven’t read the book. This movie is fucking beautiful — an eye-candy orgasm. And Wright took great pains to render a faithful yet impressionistic snapshot of 18th century English society.
Consider this a Real World: Regency Edition. Uh, without the idiocy, of course.
film review: Helvetica
(the first on my new netflix account queue — I welcome suggestions!)
As a would-be graphic designer for a small literary arts house, I use Helvetica as a default: as ubiquitous as Coke, this modernist Swiss font is the face of multi-national conglomerations, street signs, countless corporate identities, and competes with Arial on your word processors. On the eve of the typeface’s 50th anniversary, this indie documentary examines not why, but how: how Helvetica was a breath of fresh air from the clunky, obtrusive design schemas of the 1950s; how Swiss design became associated with neutrality and objective Modernism. Neutral, non-threatening, and non-assuming, this font is largely assumed to be the “golden standard of graphic design.”
Like it or not, Helvetica is everywhere, heralded for its seeming one-size-fits-all quality. Yet this design feature inspires nay-sayers. Since the font is the face of so many corporations, some graphic-design circles say its represents conformity and capitalism. “It’s the font of the Vietnam war,” says one of the graphic designers interviewed for the film, “and the Iraq war, too.” Post-modern typographers after the Helvetica revolution prefer to create more subjective typefaces. One Helvetica hater espoused the virtues of more personal, specific typeface design, maintaining that “legibility is not tantamount to how communicative a font is.”
Which side is right? The documentarians don’t present an argument, and in this Michael Moore-esque landscape of opinion pollution, that’s refreshing. It’s true that typeface debate sounds about as exciting as watching C-Span, but if you’re interested in how design can shape the world — or even become the face of an ideology — you might want to give this little indie flick a watch, if only for the realization of how ever-present this font is in our daily lives. The shots of Helvetica signage around the world are beautiful. Most of us rarely realize how immersed we are in graphic design.
film review: Helvetica
(the first on my new netflix account queue — I welcome suggestions!)
As a would-be graphic designer for a small literary arts house, I use Helvetica as a default: as ubiquitous as Coke, this modernist Swiss font is the face of multi-national conglomerations, street signs, countless corporate identities, and competes with Arial on your word processors. On the eve of the typeface’s 50th anniversary, this indie documentary examines not why, but how: how Helvetica was a breath of fresh air from the clunky, obtrusive design schemas of the 1950s; how Swiss design became associated with neutrality and objective Modernism. Neutral, non-threatening, and non-assuming, this font is largely assumed to be the “golden standard of graphic design.”
Like it or not, Helvetica is everywhere, heralded for its seeming one-size-fits-all quality. Yet this design feature inspires nay-sayers. Since the font is the face of so many corporations, some graphic-design circles say its represents conformity and capitalism. “It’s the font of the Vietnam war,” says one of the graphic designers interviewed for the film, “and the Iraq war, too.” Post-modern typographers after the Helvetica revolution prefer to create more subjective typefaces. One Helvetica hater espoused the virtues of more personal, specific typeface design, maintaining that “legibility is not tantamount to how communicative a font is.”
Which side is right? The documentarians don’t present an argument, and in this Michael Moore-esque landscape of opinion pollution, that’s refreshing. It’s true that typeface debate sounds about as exciting as watching C-Span, but if you’re interested in how design can shape the world — or even become the face of an ideology — you might want to give this little indie flick a watch, if only for the realization of how ever-present this font is in our daily lives. The shots of Helvetica signage around the world are beautiful. Most of us rarely realize how immersed we are in graphic design.
