model: Irinela Irr
6/20/2012
5/01/2012
4/11/2012
The One With The Cold Bitch
Things. Situations. People. Will settle.
My life will start making sense again.
I feel a childish love creeping in.
I’m not in love. I’m infatuated.
If only I could describe.
I’ve grown older. Distant.
The version of me I used to know is gone.
3/29/2012
Go Quiet
I wake up every day knowing I won’t find happiness.
I keep and open mind and my mouth shut.
I feel as if I’m about to go to prison.
I wish time could stop.
I wish I actually had time to get used to everything.
I wish I could live my life in cafés, sipping on the bitter liquid, postponing a drag and talking to people. If life inside a university taught me anything, it certainly taught me sharing my opinions and thoughts on different aspects of art. I told a friend I should become a life counselor – I hand out good advice, I’m a mess when it comes to my own existence.
The feelings, the experiences, the images, people, they will all become, with time - once they become part of the past - censored material, pretty memories. Life becomes a projection, within its temporal boundaries.
I hate to go back in time and admit I was once wrong. This is why, with every event in my life, I try to imagine it was probably for the best, imagine the good action it could bring. If everything changes at some point, at least I know I once had depth.
I used to be in love – now I’m cynical.
Exit the wise, enter the wild. Or viceversa.
photo credit: Cristina Matei
3/15/2012
Rebelling Wives
Tristesse globale.
Lust for life or death.
Signs. Apocalypse.
Too much. Too little. Too late.
3/06/2012
When Someone Dies, You Up And Join The Circus
There’s this hypothetical bucket list I’ve set for myself, where most of the things are almost impossible to happen, such as seeing the Rio Carnival or riding on top of a train in India. Among those, it’s obvious you’ll mostly find my love for traveling and the ultimate journey is joining the circus. The dead inside, dirty but spectacular, also magical circus world.
• Water for Elephants
Jacob Jankowski is a Polish American veterinarian, barely out of college, whose parents die in a car accident. In a moment of despair and incapacity of seeing a light or a purpose, he hops on a train headed West. This train is not an ordinary train, but a moving circus, where he gets hired as the veterinarian. He has trouble adapting, the working men try to red light him (through him off the moving train) when he first hops on it, later on he gets to share a room with a performer which really upsets the performer at first, making Jacob’s life miserable. He falls in love with Marlena (one of the artists), but she’s married to August a paranoid schizophrenic. The story is set during the Great Depression, but is told through a 90 or 93 year old Jacob, who spends the last days of his life in a retirement home, reminiscing.
Even though in the end the circus falls apart, or rather goes bankrupt and the animals break free, the story has a happy ending in what concerns the love story.
• Carnivàle
This is an HBO television shows that I consider to be my second favorite TV show after Six Feet Under. The story is also set during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl and tells the story of Ben Hawkins, a young man who follows the circus that crosses his town after his mother passes away. He starts having prophetic dreams and an ability to cure illnesses and evil. His path crosses a man of God, preacher Justin Crowe who also has visions telling him to go against the young man. It’s a beautiful metaphor involving good and evil, God and the Antichrist.
The show was cancelled after the second season and this also culminates with the weird ending of the series, where neither good, nor bad wins.
• La Strada
This is a movie about a street performer who travels through Italy – Zampano (played by Anthony Queen) and a young woman whose sister used to be his assistant up to her death. Zampano comes to her family to ask for Gelsomina to replace her dead sister in the show. She’s a naïve young woman and gets attracted by this life, but he treats her as a brute and she easily looses her so called joie de vivre. After a series of unfortunate situations and conflicts, she even proposes marriage, but he refuses. He abandons her while she is sleeping, only to find the memory of Gelsomina a few years later with a song she used to sing. He finds out she died and cries in despair.
All of these three circus stories begin and end with death – physical or metaphorical. They speak of a world that looks appealing for the majority, because we barely know anything about it and can hardly touch it.
The circus is the ultimate frontier.
2/26/2012
"Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?" "What've you got?" - The Wild One (1953)
From what I’ve gathered, this year’s selection of movies is not that impressive. I’ve had a tradition, since about 2007, to watch as many movies as possible from the Oscar nominees, and I believe this year has been one of the most productive years, in what concerns the topic. I can gladly say I have been able to watch every nominee from the Best Picture category, Best Director and obviously, Best Cinematography.
When I first taught of this article I was going to name it ‘ You Had Me At Hello’, because I wanted to cite a very annoying line to show my love for cinema. Cinema indeed, had me at hello, but I can’t say the same thing about the movies selected this year. It’s funny how, if you try to imagine how many of these movies will stand the test of time, the way I look at it, most of them fail. It feels wrong that some of them already have, since they’ve been released this summer and everyone in show business (at least) seems to have forgotten they exist, even if they are actually great movies, such as ‘The Tree Of Life’ or ‘The Help’.
From my experience, the movie that should win the title for the best picture, is, by all the Academy’s previous criteria, ‘The Help’ – good reviews, wonderful actors, box office hit, moral and social issues. I would whisper ‘Here’s looking at you, kid’ (Casablanca, 1942) to this movie. It was a pleasant surprise, honestly.
But there are two others on the table: on the one hand, we have ‘Hugo’, which is great, really, but more of a kid’s movie, or more of a two-way ‘Cinema Paradiso’, if you want. I don’t recognize Martin Scorsese, the reckless smuggler, the ‘You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Well, who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here. Who the f--k do you think you're talkin' to?’ Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, 1976), where are you? I’ve already watched the 3D + catchy story + wonderful cinematography recipes work before (Avatar, 2009) and I really don’t want to see it work again, even if it’s for my beloved Scorsese.
‘I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.’ (All About Eve, 1950) – if this is what makes you happy, then I guess you should have it, place that award next to the one you received for ‘The Departed’, but please know I thought ‘Taxi Driver’ or ‘Goodfellas’ or ‘Raging Bull’ or even ‘Gangs of New York’ would’ve deserved it more that ‘Hugo’.
‘All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup’ (Sunset Boulevard, 1950). ‘The Artist’ is the first silent movie to be shot, with great success, after the talkies appeared. It’s also a form of reminiscence - a redemption for what the movies nowadays have become. I loved the cinematography, it follows the subject, it gives it meaning, substance and makes it a great silent movie. It should probably win, why the hell not? The public will love the controversy, the special, the never-seen-in-a-long-time or never-seen-before of this movie. This is no more that a filmmaker’s movie that ‘The Tree Of Life’ is. Sorry.
"Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." (A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951). The magnitude of this play doesn’t even compare to this little, again intimate movie, ‘Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close’. I’ve read the book and loved it and I cannot see past that. The movie doesn’t even compare, but it managed to render the same feeling, the characters follow the same patterns as the ones in the book, and even if it doesn’t underline every detail I once adored in the book, it still managed to depict it in a colorful and subtle way. I love the fact that the Hollywood version of the book isn’t dramatic or pathetic, it’s just simple and soft spoken, just like the book itself. The 1st person perspective is kept and underlined by sounds and images. I feel like it deserves a place in the Best Cinematography section, the use of lenses and camera movement is really important and brings extra flavor to the story.
‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.’ (Casablanca, 1942) This is exactly what I feel about the moment in time Woody Allen decided to go back to, it’s the era of the bohemian, almost decadent Paris, where abstract and surreal meet, post dadaism and pre existentialism – but with influences from both. I’ve pondered on the topic of pseudo-intellectualism in connection to this movie, but it’s just an awakening. The character is still a younger version of Woody Allen, with the same angst, he’s still neurotic and wonders about the emptiness of living in the exterior world and wished to keep the interior world alive. Magic realism- hell yes, come right in!
'Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'. (That's goddamn right.)" (The Shawshank Redemption, 1994) – the motto of the movie, of the team, of the players, the main character? The revival of a baseball team. I must admit, I didn’t care about the subject, so I am really going to be subjective on this one. The only thing I actually enjoyed was watching the two male performances – both Brad Pitt and fat kid from ‘Superbad’ Jonah Hill were great. I believe it would be fair if the Oscar for the Best Supporting Actor went to this one.
'Enough of symbolism and these escapist themes of purity and innocence.' – (8½, 1963) What the heck, Steven Spielberg? But on a more awkward note, please don’t win Best Cinematography, just for that weird shot of a sunset at the end of the movie, in which even the skin tones or the grey on their clothes is orange.
‘Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.’ (The Wizard of Oz, 1939). Oh no no no, believe me, we’re not. This is the type of movie a lot of people categorize as pretentious, artsy, European maybe. I must say I loved every shot, every piece of musical composition, every detail, every whisper, every look. I loved the omniscient angle, as if an angel was following the characters, the good old-fashioned family life, the evil in their lives, the lingering of lost people, the strict education, the bad deeds, the ignorance, the perverseness, the malice, the redemption, the bliss. It’s an honest picture of life – from birth until death and afterwards. If it isn’t going to win any other prize, I would love it if it would at least win Best Cinematography, because it really deserves it. Although, a little recognition wouldn’t hurt Terrence Malick, for Best Director.
Jack: [voice over] Brother. Keep us. Guide us. To the end of time. (The Tree Of Life, 2011)
Best Picture | Best Director |
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Best Actor | Best Actress |
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Best Supporting Actor | Best Supporting Actress |
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Best Writing – Original Screenplay | Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay |
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Best Animated Feature | Best Foreign Language Film |
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Best Documentary | Best Film Editing |
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• Undefeated – TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas |
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Best Art Direction | Best Cinematography |
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(*Yellow = Seen)
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