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Midnight in Paris (2011)
Pure nostalgia porn!
Midnight in Paris is one of the most refreshing films I have seen recently and I cannot exactly specify what elements make it just right, but it just feels right. The nostalgic symphonies and the enchanting landscape of la Parie have all coalesced in the perfect mix that make Midnight in Paris an enchanting cinematic experience.
Here we see Owen Wilson portraying an aspiring novelist Gil Pender having a miserable time in one of the most magical cities in the world: La Parie. He's a "Hollywood hire" (as he ever so humbly describes himself) who's struggling to finish his novel and to make matters worse, his fiancée seems more enamored of her faux intellectual friend Paul(who may I add was brilliantly portrayed by Michael Sheen) than she does of Gil. But Gil inhabits in a dream of his own and nothing, not the prospect of losing Inez to Paul or the spite of his in-laws, bothers him as much as the realization that he belongs in the past, 'the golden age', as he calls it, of Paris. Pretty much a fish out of water, one night after having one too many drinks a despondent Gil wanders the streets of Paris. And just as the bell chimes midnight Gil's bland existence takes an unforeseeable turn as he discovers that he has flown through time to the era of his dreams, his golden age. And he finds himself socializing with all the artistic legends he ever looked up to, like Ernest Hemmingway, Pablo Picasso, T.S. Elliot, Cole Porter, Salvatore Dali and so on. As an ecstatic child loses himself in his favorite toy-store, we also see a somewhat dazed Gil in a state of pure spellbound glee as he finds himself acquainting these historic figures.
There's a charming simplicity at the heart of Midnight in Paris. Woody Allen has not tried to recreate the world as it were at that time but rather throughout he remains true to romantic rendition of Gil's imagination . And I think that we can that the larger than life characters with all their amusing eccentricities can be accounted for to that particular line of thought. As for Wilson, I applaud him for exuding such immeasurable joy and personality into a role of the disheartened and defeatist romantic that is Gil.
As much fun as it was to see Gil mingle with his heroes, I would say that the soul of the movie are the thoughtful explorations at the core of romanticism. I believe we all at some level like to be in a state of blissful denial. As Gil so astutely observes in the final moments, life is unsatisfying. And it is here that that untainted bliss drives us forward and inspires us to take only the best that life has to offer.
A wonderful treat for the eyes and the mind, Midnight in Paris embodies a subtle yet mesmerizing beauty.
The Artist (2011)
A glorious masterpiece...
Advancing age and retreating inhibitions have made me liable to cry at the movies and honestly, sometimes a tad more than I would like. But The Artist is one of those 'once in a blue moon' movies that leave you with tears of joy streaming down your cheek. An exquisitely judged, gloriously funny and achingly tender film by the French director Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist is a flawless pearl. The debonair comedy and pastiche are worn with airy lightness; the romance is gentle and yet unexpectedly passionate.
There have been 'accusations' that The Artist is an homage, splendid still, to the silent era. But I feel that it is so much more; no, to paraphrase, I believe it is much, much less and calling it an homage is an over-complication and an insult to its simplistic charm. The Artist ,despite all the appearances, is at its heart an utterly beguiling love story and a miracle of entertainment. And this (glorified, if I may say so) paradigm shift that ushered in the talkies serves as a mere subplot, whose only major relevance strikes up from the ramifications on the initially playful romance that is shared by George Valentin and Peppy Miller. However, The Artist, in its own insouciant way, also touches on the debate whether the magic of the celluloid was purer in silence.
The leads, both Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo are pitch perfect(if such a term may be associated with silent cinema) in their roles as the embodiments of the two 'clashing' ages in the history of cinema.Valentin, and by extension Dujardin, is every inch the silent-movie icon: his hair slick, his eyebrows meticulous, his moustache finely traced and his jawline a perfect trapezium. Bérénice Bejo also deserves some accolades because she succeeded in looking so "old" from our POV yet so fresh and modern in the film, with the appealing feel-good and optimistic attitude she constantly brings on screen. With her doll-face and youngish smile, she's like a cute little girl enjoying what she does. In a way, Peppy Miller embodies the film's most inspirational element: a positive message about passion and enjoyment. And this indirectly highlights George's source of troubles: being deprived of what he enjoyed the most and suffering from his progressive fading into oblivion.
The cinematography of this movie is an art on its own. It is a treat to the eyes. The Artist is itself a silent movie and like its age- old predecessors, it expresses more than a million words could say. Rather than being a celebration of color and sound, it is, in small ways, a eulogy for monochrome and silence.
It will, in our age of mindless action, 3D blockbusters and multi- million-dollar budgets, remind film-makers and audiences of the many wonderful qualities cinema has largely lost: elegance, beauty and heartfelt emotion.
Drained of colour and sounds, The Artist might just be moving pictures, but they seldom make pictures as moving as this one.
The only flaw is that the entire movie felt a bit abrupt, perhaps a characteristic of the silent era itself, I felt that somehow the movie rushed through to the end.
Truly a masterpiece.
Joey (2004)
Ehhh...Nothing memorable.
Just finished watching both seasons of the TV show Joey... Don't know whether the innate stupidity (for the lack of a better word) of the character Joey was present throughout the series on purpose or the screenplay was genuinely thoughtless. Jokes? Yeah there were some and some of the episodes were pretty funny too, but I could live without the stupid references to FRIENDS every now and then. That's a lot of negative things to say about the lovable Joey's show. I know. But the problem is that I was expecting too much I guess. Expecting some of that FRIENDS magic to take place. Well, although that didn't happen, in all fairness to the show, it should be said that 'Joey' is quite watchable, quite funny and quite okay. But if you are a FRIENDS fanatic like I am, expect nothing even remotely close to it.
The Pacific (2010)
A Worthy Successor...
When I first heard about Pacific,in fact when anyone first heard about it, the first thing that came into peoples' minds was Band of Brothers. Once again HBO had brought together Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg on a supposedly 'epic' war story. So the comparisons that crop up between the two are, of course, inevitable. If you would like to compare the two then without any doubt Band of Brothers will come out a winner. Although the visual effects are stunning and the scenes are shot quite realistically, there is always that feeling that you never were able to connect with the characters much, something that was never the problem with its predecessor, Band of Brothers. The soldiers who are portrayed in the Pacific are not much more than ordinary soldiers to us. They fight in a battle and die. We don't find ourselves welling up when something bad happens to them. The uncanny way in which Band of Brothers made you sympathize with the characters is almost completely absent here. That being said,even though it falls a little short on the aforementioned front, in no way should you miss Pacific as it is a gripping tale of the Pacific Theater of war. The effects of war on the soldiers irrespective of which side they are on are portrayed quite efficiently. If not for anything else, the overwhelming battle scenes are something that should definitely keep you hooked to the screen. So all in all, I would say The Pacific is a must-see and is well-worth the time.