To Rome with Love ***

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Alec Baldwin, Alessandro Tiberi, Alison Pill, Ellen Page

Fabio Armiliato, Flavio Parenti, Greta Gerwig, Jesse Eisenberg

Judy Davis, Penélope Cruz, Roberto Benigni, Woody Allen

When watching the newest Woody Allen movie, it's almost impossible not to bring up familiar issues; the most prominent of all being, of course, how Woody always brings up the same issues. However with each passing film, it becomes more obvious that even if his themes become repetitive, they are never dull and a so-so Woody Allen film is still leagues ahead of anything else being done.

Take To Rome with Love for example; after the delight that was Midnight in Paris, it seems almost "mediocre" in comparison to the pure joy exuded by the previous one and the deftness with which it wove different eras and stories. Yet the truth is that in each European city, Woody has made a movie that reflects the city's personality through his own neuroses. 

Time and time again, he has exclaimed that his movies aren't autobiographical, and it would be easier to believe him, if he hadn't created a persona we have come to assume is the real Woody Allen.

In Rome, he plays Jerry, a retired musical director, married to a psychoanalyst (played with extreme gusto by the oh-so-ever-fabulous Judy Davis). Jerry is recently retired and according to his wife, equates this with being dead, therefore he sets his hopes in his daughter's (Pill) future father-in-law (Armiliato) a mortician who also happens to have an extraordinary voice.

Obsessed with turning this man into a star, in the process regaining back "life", Jerry dares to stage a version of Pagliacci that defies all good taste and after the critics speak unfavorably, his daughter goes "he's been called worse".

This fighting spirit, which acknowledges how Jerry didn't manage to please critics, might as well be meant to represent Allen's career. For all we know, what if the time-travel concept of Midnight in Paris had been deemed ridiculous? Or what if the ghostly themes in Scoop had been universally praised?

What we come to understand is that he isn't as obsessed with the result as he is with the creative process and that might very well be the unifying theme of the movie; how people are in a constant search of creation.

Besides Jerry's story, we have three other plots that make up the film: there's newlyweds Antonio (Tiberi) and Milly (Mastronardi) who get caught up in a misadventure borrowed from Fellini's The White Sheik and involves movie stars and prostitutes (played by Luca Albanese and Cruz respectively). We also meet John (Baldwin) a famous architect who becomes the voice of the conscience to the young Jack (Eisenberg) as he struggles between staying with his girlfried (Gerwig) or going after her free-spirited friend Monica (Page). Finally there's Leopoldo (Benigni in an unusually restrained performance) an everyman who one day wakes up to realize he's become famous.

All of these stories are told effectively and all seem to represent something that Woody might've wanted to explore further (perhaps on a feature length?) and the film's biggest flaw might be precisely that it wants to cover too much.

The forced finale of the John/Jack story for example (which echoes of the brilliant Vicky Cristina Barcelona) make it seem as if it's the resolution what matters the most and not the fact that we are never told if John is the older version of Jack, or if he's just a "friendly" manifestation of his subconscious or perhaps some playful spirit. Nuances like the Bergman-ian fact that Jack and John are practically the same name, get lost in the tangle of overwritten dialogues and awkwardness from Eisenberg and Page who never fully bloom as truly sexual creatures. 

Then there's the delicious ode to home as seen in the newlywed story, which might not be linked to any other plot (none of the stories ever cross paths) but shares a theme with Leopoldo and his sudden overdose of fame. Allen is a wry observant and lets us know he's aware of how all the Kardashians of the world are occupying spots that once were allotted to people who earned their notoriety on positive terms. 

The movie as a whole, despite its golden cinematography and constant reminders of the city's beauty, can't help but be tinged with bittersweetness, something Allen must've gotten from Fellini's La Dolce Vita, which also made us wonder about the price we pay for fame and reinventing our humdrum lives. 

While Fellini's masterpiece had almost nothing pleasant to say about our society and even declared at one point, everyone would give their backs to purity in the name of hedonism, Allen's take is meeker and shall we say humbler? He is aware of the destruction and chaos, but he makes us look at Rome, with its gorgeous ruins and timeless architecture, and asks us if this isn't worth trying a little harder for.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

With horror posters going lazier and lazier every day, it was quite refreshing to see this one-sheet for The Cabin in the Woods, which is comprised of...wait for it, critics' blurbs! It probably makes sense that if you make a horror movie and it, gasp, gets good critical notices, you're going to want to feature them somewhere. Then again if you have the likes of Chris Hemsworth in your movie you'd also want to show him, right? The boldness of this poster alone is enough to guarantee I'll be watching this ASAP.

When you're a Woody Allen movie you have to be prepared to receive criticism for every single thing you do. If you're good, you still will never be as good as Annie Hall, if you're bad, you're an offense to humanity and your maker should suddenly be arrested and jailed for marrying his step-daughter. If your maker cared about all the crap people will say about you, you'd never be released. However your maker loved making you so much that you should be proud of him and face the world with dignity. Who cares if your poster looks like it was put together by Nancy Meyers' sloppy marketing team? At least you can brag about boasting one of the most charmingly peculiar casts ever put together.

Excited about either of these releases? Wondering how on earth can Woody still make a movie a year?

A Felicidade.

Head over to The Costa Rica News by clicking here and read my review for Rio.

Then come back here and let's samba!

(My) Best of 2010: Actor.

5. Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter

Wahlberg's performance in The Fighter is a knockout simply because it's not. While the actors and characters around him indulge in method acting and quirky, over the top, characterizations, he simply is.

Playing real life boxer Micky Ward, he seems to leave behind all traces of self importance and plays him like a man conflicted with the world around him. Doubting whether to stay true to family, duty or self, he subtly invades everyone's world as they try to invade his'.

Watch him in scenes with Christian Bale, during which he exudes fraternal love through tiny smiles and prideful eyes. Then watch him in scenes with Melissa Leo, who plays his mom, and observe how he disguises exasperation with obligation.

His scenes with Amy Adams are the real treat though; she plays his girlfriend and it's with her that we see him truly shine. An innocent hand grab becomes sublime support, a silence becomes an argument and a shrug opens up a world of painful possibilities, the likes of which he never exhibits in the ring. His performance proves that you don't have to wear your heart on your sleeve to show your humanity.

4. Manolo Cardona in Undertow

It must not be easy playing a symbol, and Manolo Cardona does it with such ease, that his performance becomes devastating and haunting.

As a gay artist in love with a sexually confused fisherman, he symbolizes art, homosexuality and unspeakable love, yet he never turns his character into a mere vessel.

He still plays him with the traits of a full rounded person and his eyes still look from the screen with pain and piercing desperation.

When the movie literally turns him into a symbol, he preserves this core and becomes an embodiment of memory and how its overreaching power can comfort or destroy us.

3. Edgar Ramírez in Carlos

Few actors are able to turn crime into charisma, yet Ramírez does it as famed terrorist Carlos "The Jackal". Watching him during almost six hours, he doesn't give a single false step and his performance eveolves with every passing minute of Olivier Assayas' astonishing accomplishment.

Watching him grow from a narcissist idealist into a damaged plastic surgery patient is nothing if not engaging. What's more, he changes his body with such deft unawareness (watch him go from sex symbol to chubby down on his luck criminal) that you never think twice about thinking that this man indeed aged the three decades we see him portray in the film.

2. Stephen Dorff in Somewhere

When you think "movie star", Stephen Dorff is probably not the first name that comes to mind. Yet, in Sofia Coppola's intimate Somewhere, he embodies the enigma of Depp, the effortless sexiness of Clooney and the troubled nature of James Dean, while providing him with a heartfelt sensitivity and grace.

It's easy to guess that the movies Johnny Marco does are the exact opposite of something Coppola would do (just take a look at the fiery posters featured in the film) but what Dorff proves to us is that you can't simply judge a book by its cover (or a film for its poster?).

Since Coppola gives us access to the most intimate moments in this man's life we see Johnny trying to find beauty and meaning in everything he does.

Dorff is able to overcome "poor little rich boy" clichés and delivers a sweet performance that defies our judgment. His best scene might be an awkwardly staged spectacle in which he's rewarded for his life achievements during an Italian awards show.

Watching him there paralyzed by the unknown (and giving us glimpses of subtle American xenophobia) yet thrilled by the presence of his daughter, we understand that once the movie's over we probably will never understand this man.

1. Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network

No other actor, in no other 2010 movie, delivered his lines with the conviction with which Eisenberg infused his Mark Zuckerberg. A portrait of loneliness amidst an endless world of social interaction, he captured the desolate feeling of alienation and wanting to belong, with such precision that it made total sense he was playing a computer geek.

Every move in his performance seems calculated with such meticulousness that soon we realize that Mark is always playing a part.

Even his bouts of passion are so technically precise, within their chaos, that we are always left wondering just how much goes on inside this man's mind and how much he's willing to lose control (if any).

Yet despite the assholeness he exudes, at the end of the day we can't help but be moved by his solitude. We envy him, loathe him, judge him and even if at the end we don't love him, we'd totally be willing to accept his friend request.

Wishful Oscar Thinking.

Since The King's Sweep is practically inevitable, I won't bother with predictions this year and just stick to who I would be ecstatic to see win...

Best Picture

I prefer Black Swan as a film but The Social Network just screams Best Picture of the year and would make things like Crash and Driving Miss Daisy seem like tiny missteps when compared to such a masterpiece.

Best Director

David Fincher. Because this might be his masterpiece and those never are recognized by AMPAS. He'll probably lose to Tom Hooper and then win for something like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2.

Best Actor

Jesse Eisenberg for making assholeness and loneliness two heartbreaking sides of the same coin.

Best Actress

Natalie Portman simply because of that final breakdown scene in her dressing room. She did things with her face I thought only Nicole Kidman and Greta Garbo could do.

Best Supporting Actor

John Hawkes, simply because no one else in that category could do what he did with such dexterity and cruel simplicity.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams because she supports. She doesn't try to steal the spotlight and yet she does in the end. That tacky MTV girl is the one character that leaves the theater with you after The Fighter ends...to think Charlene would've hated such a movie just makes her more perfect.

Animated Feature Film

Toy Story 3 just happens to be the best movie of the year in almost every category...

Art Direction

As much as I love porn The King's Speech's got nothing on the marvelous sets Inception has. Yes, there I said it...

Cinematography

Roger Deakins should win for something where he shows why he's a master, True Grit could've been done in his sleep. My vote goes to Black Swan's beautifully strange camera work. those closeups! The way the camera menaces Nina...

Costume Design

I Am Love was the year's fashion orgasm.

Editing

The Social Network's editing work is so subtle that it took me three viewings to realize the film is indeed a courtroom flick with flashbacks. Its layers are so rich and embedded with such mastery that I still can not get enough of it.

Foreign Language Film

Dogtooth. Although I've only seen two and hate being so partial...

Makeup

No preference here.

Original Score

I still am humming the opening theme for The Social Network...besides electronica needs to be embraced by AMPAS!

Original Song

All of them make me yawn but Coming Home is kinda sweet...

Sound Editing

Toy Story 3 because EVERYTHING is sound effects! People seem to forget this about animated features.

Sound Mixing

That club scene in The Social Network should seal the deal without thinking it twice.

Visual Effects

Inception.

Adapted Screenplay

The Social Network has perhaps the best screenplay of the decade and I don't say things like that just to say them.

Original Screenplay

My favorite is The Fighter but I don't really love any of the nominees.

How about you? What are you hoping will take the naked golden guy home?

The Social Network ****

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield

Armie Hammer, Rooney Mara, Max Minghella

Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Rashida Jones

It should be ironic to think that a movie that deals with the creation of Facebook never seems to be aiming for our "like"s. Yet that's just what David Fincher does in his transcendental The Social Network; a harsh film that deals with the way in which we search for humanity in a world that's constantly trying to rob us of it.

The plot centers on Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg), the Harvard undergrad who patented what came to be the largest social club on Earth. We see him struggle with his awkward social skills, his relentless need for approval and success, and eventually with the lawsuits he got from people claiming he'd robbed the idea from them.
As played by Eisenberg, Mark is a complicated, trying to be complex, guy who seems to be looking for acceptance while being driven by overpowering ambition. When we first meet him, he's practically insulting his girlfriend Erica (Mara) but he reacts in a way that we understand he means to do no harm. His defense mechanism of using bitterness, sarcasm and asshole-ness have become his modus operandi.

When he's approached by the Winklevoss twins (played brilliantly by Hammer) who want him to take part in their new project, Mark's faux condescending reaches a turning point: we see this man has chosen his identity and like the website he would create, has decided to create a facade of who he is.

Because regardless of how much people show on Facebook, the truth is that it still remains a canvas where we paint our lives the way we want others to see them. Regardless of the nature of the contents, everything that's on Facebook is there because we know people will see it and more than that, we want people to see it.

Therefore Eisenberg's immersion into Zuckerberg is not as much an impersonation as it's an embodiment of a spirit. Not to say that he makes Mark just a symbol, because he infuses him with painful human traits, but he seems to be aiming more towards understanding what would drive someone to do the things Zuckerberg allegedly did; instead of focusing on representing the way in which he comes off in public.

This dialectic between what we are and what we show might be the center of the film. One that's already a strange beast for what it is on a technical level.

On one side we have Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, which recalls the fast paced exchanges of classics like His Girl Friday and anything Woody Allen has done. Despite the extreme quotability of the dialogs, the painfully funny jokes that Sorkin inserts in the most unexpected moments and the overall "movie" feeling of the way in which he constructs these characters, at the end of the film they are essentially human and real.

This, in combination with the supreme cast, make for an odd, but never awkward, pairing of clever wording and natural representation. Each character and each scene in the film have been structured in such a classic way that we understand what some people mean when they said that "they don't make them like they used to". The Social Network has the kind of screenplay that defies categorization: it can make you laugh, gasp and jump in excitement, yet with all of its wit and shattering sarcasm it's also the kind of movie that will break your heart.

When the film ends we might not understand more about the characters and the creation of Facebook (we certainly don't like or identify with most of what we've seen) but this is a movie where you leave the theater and have the impression that the characters' lives continued after the credits started rolling.

This isn't owed to the obvious fact that all of these people are still alive but the story is told with such urgency that it just can not be bound by celluloid.

This energy is owed to David Fincher, the maverick genius who has specialized in pushing the boundaries of what people are comfortable watching onscreen. His ability to extract cheap sentiment from even the most seemingly manipulative screenplay might be compared by some to extracting someone's soul.

Yet the truth is that Fincher is no demonic exorcist, in fact he's an avid student of what makes the soul what it is. He fools us by doing this, not in the way Hollywood has used us to (i.e. using melodrama and extreme manipulation) but by doing it in an almost procedural way. Fincher dissects everything until getting to the heart of it.

It's even more surprising that he grabs onto the very structure of Facebook to create his film. It might take several screenings to realize that The Social Network isn't very different from the site it discusses so much. Like Facebook we perceive mostly walls in which the characters express themselves.

We see Zuckerberg's obnoxious nerdiness, the Winklevoss' studly All-American poses and Eduardo Saverin's (Garfield) inherent goodness. Yet taking a deeper look at what lies beneath their facades, what they keep "private" so to speak, they become completely different beings.

Like Facebook, the film is selfcontained on an ever changing canvas that varies on mood, feeling and even state of sobriety.

Because of this, the site's creation during the film becomes less "geek talk" and more encoded language for these people's true identities. There is not much difference between the societal circles in Network and say the constricted, almost baroque stylistic choices of Edith Wharton in The Age of Innocence.

Perhaps what Fincher is pointing to all along, is that despite the migration from traditional values to virtual ones, we're still essentially the same people, looking for the same things.

Our pursuit of happiness hasn't changed, what's changed is the way in which we conceal it. Whether we create corporations to get over the one that got away, or sink in eternal self pity and tragedy, The Social Network makes a case for what keeps on being our collective innermost fear: the curse of lifelong solitude.

Once An Underdog...

Yesterday I went to Amazon.com, I always do...and saw The Social Network was number one in Movie sales. Hours later when the Star Wars trilogy was announced on Blu-ray it kicked down poor Marc Zuckerberg to the second place even if nothing specific was announced, the movies won't be released until the end of the year (Network comes out on Tuesday) and people don't even know if the Blu-rays will have the awful manipulated editions or the awesome classic versions (I won't even mention the prequels).
I wondered what the insecure Zuckerberg would feel knowing this happened but then realized he might be the one behind all those Star Wars pre-orders...

PS: my review for The Social Network will be coming soon but if it makes a difference, I'm one of the ones who pre-ordered it.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


The Girl Who Played With Fire

I saw and loved the entire trilogy but I'm very pleased the American poster stays away from the Photoshopped cheesiness of the European version.
It's quite a surprise considering they would've usually gone for something more over the top and awful, instead they choose to concentrate on Noomi Rapace's wonderful face and the mysterious dragon figure made out of fire to well, link the first movie to this one.
Quite a nice, if not altogether groundbreaking choice.


The Social Network

Jesse Eisenberg's face looks right at us from geeky limbo to announce the first image of David Fincher's Facebook movie.
If I wasn't interested in it at first, this amazing poster (surely made by whoever made Michael Clayton's) surely makes me want to give it a look. Like the best (?) Facebook profiles, it makes you interested in poking at what's behind the face.
Plus that tagline totally deserves a "like".


Somewhere

Sofia Coppola might be adhering too much to the old "stick to what you do best" adage but there's a certain inviting quality to this poster despite the fact that we probably will have nothing in common with Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning's characters.
But wait, that's what we would've thought of the people in Lost in Translation and it proved to be one of the most earthy, empathic movies of the decade.
I love how the poster looks like something out of a faux Wes Anderson movie and the slight nod to Citizen Kane is masterful.

Zombieland **

Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

After zombies have taken all over the world, human survivor Columbus (Eisenberg) is trying to reach his hometown to see if he has a family to get back to.
Not out of any special connection, but because it's the normal thing to do, as he explains in a self deprecating narration.
On the way there he encounters Tallahassee (Harrelson) a Twinkie (as in Hostess pastries) loving redneck with a special talent for killing zombies and tough sisters Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) with whom he forms an unlikely family.
They stick together, only after learning to trust each other of course, and Columbus gives up his original plan in order to help the sisters get to Pacific Playland, an amusement park in California that reminds them of better times.
Forget the fact that these people think a rollercoaster ride is a priority, what matters here is that the filmmakers chose this over more "important" things.
It's clear from the start that this isn't a movie a la "28 Days" and its intention isn't to use zombies as a parable for anything else. What "Zombieland" tries is to push the genre forward and trying to emulate the wonderful "Shaun of the Dead", the filmmakers end up delivering something that works more like a buddy/road movie with a pinch of zombie parody.
Never scary enough to get the most out of the genre, the movie usually relies on the zombies as means to justify its need to utter pop culture references (Harrelson's micro rendering of "Deliverance" is delightful!) and exploit the likability of the actors.
Breslin can do no bad and even when she's holding a machine gun she manages to look adorable and age appropriate, while Eisenberg brings his "I am not Michael Cera but I act and look like him" qualities to a place where you can actually identify with his too self conscious deprecating.
The movie has its moments, in fact it has one of the most memorable cameos in any zombie movie ever, which despite its hilarious finale sadly feels like it lasts too little.
But most of the time it movies around aimlessly, like a zombie...
"Zombieland" is an exaltation of everything that is geek, from cult movie references to shameful confessions about virginity it's all a fantasy for people like Eisenberg's character.
Because of this it has franchise possibilities; if this one's about the geek getting the girl, there can be a million more about how he overcomes obstacles he can be bullied for.
But for all its heart it can't help itself from making the audience expect for it to end with geek waking up from a crazy dream with a familiar wet spot on his underpants.