Hardwicke’s stylistic filmmaking really tricks you into thinking you are watching something great. There are epic shots of tall trees in the forest, swooping overhead shots of mountains, stark color palettes, and very detailed art direction. But even the visual aspects have problems, namely the styling of the actors. It appears as if this takes place in medieval times with men drinking mead, women wearing corsets, wood-cutting being a career, grandmothers living in the middle of the forest, and a monster terrorizing the village a la Beowulf. Or something. If this is the case, then everything should look like it is from this vague fictionalized time period. I could not get past the styling of Suzette (Virginia Madsen):

The photo shows from left to right Amanda Seyfried as Valerie (totally an authentic Medieval name, right?), Billy Burke as her father Cesaire (who also plays the father in Twilight, proof of what I said at the beginning), and Suzette, her mother. Unfortunately I could not find a bigger/clearer photo of Suzette. First of all, she has bleached blonde highlights. She also has heavily drawn on eyebrows, a lot of eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, blush, and lipstick. I know that everyone in a film has to wear make-up, but it is supposed to be appropriate to the setting. I’m sure there were some early forms of makeup and hair products back then, but come on, she looks straight out of 2005. Also, it was snowing for almost the entirety of the film and everyone is running around in thin, light clothing.

That was really the only point I wanted to make. There isn’t much more to say about this sad attempt to remake Twilight with a slightly different cast of characters and plot. Of course it has to be a werewolf and not a wolf in this version. Of course there has to be an inappropriate love triangle where the girl can’t choose between two equally horrible men (but they’re attractive, so it’s okay!). Of course girls have to love monsters that could kill them. And Daddy issues. And of course the main girl has all these special abilities for no apparent reason and is otherwise a completely flat, bland character. Thanks, Hardwicke, for continuing the tradition of female directors (except for Kathryn Bigelow) making terrible films that perpetuate all the negative stereotypes about women, girls, and why filmmaking is a male-dominated industry. Keep it up and one day you’ll be just like Sofia Coppola, famous for her films Rich White People Problems: Parts 1-4.

Last night was the series finale of HBO’s five season show about polygamy, Big Love. This is a show that I somehow found myself watching during the third season and never decided whether or not I really liked it, became too invested, and then saw it through to its end. (Also, if you watch the show and haven’t seen the finale yet, SPOILER ALERT!! Don’t read this post. You’ve been warned.)

A lot of HBO and Showtime shows fit into the category of  ”normal” people doing something out of the ordinary. In Weeds, Mary Louise Parker plays a suburban mother of two who sells marijuana. We have Dexter the benevolent serial killer who is great with kids and works for the Miami police. Ok…the more I think about it, the more I realize I can only come up with examples from Showtime. But, regardless, Big Love has always been interesting because it was about a “normal” family living in a pristine suburb, except there are 3 wives, 3 houses, and a lot of children. I suppose we, as viewers, like these type of shows because we can relate to the main characters on the surface, but then it’s sort of fun and interesting to see how these people lead drastically bizarre lifestyles. (No offense to drug dealers, serial killers, or polygamists.)

This is Dexter. Just in case you were wondering.

So Big Love came to an end last night with (LAST CHANCE TO STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE EPISODE!) Bill dying a martyr for his cause, similar to Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ. I have to say, I had accidentally read a spoiler at the beginning of the season that said “It has been rumored that Bill will die at the end.” but I assumed he would be killed by his crazy brother-in-law Alby/prophet of Juniper Creek (backwards polygamist compound), after all the creepy drama this show put us through with Alby and his clan. So I was surprised that in the end he was shot by his derranged, jealous neighbor. Weird, kind of anti-climatic, but at least it wasn’t predictable! ?

I’m torn on whether or not I’m sad that Bill died. Bill grew up at Juniper Creek and was thrown out of his house/ran away as a teenager. Because of this, and because of all the disgusting things that go on at the compound (particularly very young girls being “sealed” to older men and forced to have their babies), Bill has always prided himself on being better than all of that. Except for the part that he is also a polygamist, and even though it was by accident, he married a young girl (he didn’t know Margene was 16 and not 18. But even if she was 18…she was still the babysitter? Anyway.) and she had three children with him. And, he has always been such a staunch believer in “the principle” and wouldn’t let anything get in his way.

Life in Juniper Creek

In fact, sometimes I forget that in the beginning (before the show started), Bill was only married to his first wife, Barb. But when Barb got sick, Nicki, from the compound, came to take care of her, and then that somehow led to Bill convincing Barb to be a polygamist and marry Nicki and then the 16 year old babysitter. It’s easy to forget Bill’s questionable behavior when he is always so serious about being better than the compound, being better than the old prophet, Roman Grant (Nicki’s father) and after Roman died, Alby (Nicki’s brother). Yes, those two men were absolutely out of their minds and condoned rape and horrible things. But Bill was pretty much the same, except he wore a nice suit and lived in a nice suburb instead.

That theme was always interesting, characters trying to escape their pasts, insisting that they are better, but not being able to deny who they truly are. This happens with Bill but also with Nicki, who was arguably the most interesting character. Nicki grew up on the compound, she was forced to marry and have a baby when she was very young, and she managed to escape and…marry Bill and his wife. Nicki  had a very abusive past and was always deeply deranged, but she also always insisted that she was better than the compound. But, she couldn’t deny who she really was, and out of nowhere would often do insane and evil things (like scream at an 8 year old and scare him so much that he fell to the ground and knocked his teeth out ????).

Back to my original point, about Bill’s death. Bill was the patriarch of his big family and he always provided for them and made sure they had everything they needed. Other than that, I can’t really think of any “good” characteristics about him. He was always there to talk to his children and his wives, but he was never interested in hearing anything outside of his strict world view, and he would just throw them some bullshit about eternity. But even outside of that, Bill has always been so self righteous about his beliefs, and even though he claimed to “put his family first,” he put his family at risk over and over and over again to fulfill his own needs. First, he just HAD to run for congress (or the senate? or something?) despite his wives correctly suggesting that being in politics would put too much of a spotlight on their family. And throughout the entire campaign, things kept going wrong, and Barb kept asking him to reconsider, but he pushed through. Then, when he actually got elected, he decided that he had to come clean with his three wives and announce themselves as polygamists. (This made sense, I guess, because people were always coming close to figuring out their situation…but that probably wouldn’t have happened if Bill didn’t insist on being such a public figure). Although eventually the wives were in support of that decision, that act sent the family into a downward spiral that was the last season. The children were ridiculed at school, Margene lost her job because she was a polygamist, and life generally just became impossible…all so that Bill could stand up for his beliefs! Ugh. I don’t know. AND THEN, as if things couldn’t get more Bill-centric and worse, once they were all “out of the closet” and Bill was still a senator or congress man or something, Bill had to go around making a big stink about how they still considered themselves Mormons. Which, fine, that’s fair, they consider themselves Mormons that believe in the principle. FINE! BUT! The Mormon church was pissed that they were aligning themselves with them and giving Mormons a bad name. Yet, Bill pushed on and wouldn’t drop it, of course, which just angered everyone even more and which probably caused the excessive investigations which eventually lead to everyone finding out that Margene was 16 when they got married and Bill was going to be tried for statutory rape. That was a really long sentence but I hope I’m making some kind of point.

Ginnifer Goodwin as the adorable, accidentally 16 year old Margene Heffman

My point is, Bill was always a martyr and always insisted on getting his way even if it made life harder for his family, and ironically, his entire thing was ABOUT his family, his being allowed to practice polygamy. And I suppose we are taught to always stand up for our beliefs, but I just feel like there has to be some kind of gray area, a gray area that says: your family is illegal and by standing up for your beliefs you are endangering them! But maybe not? In the end, he got shot by a jealous neighbor in the middle of his suburban street. His one redeeming moment was that as he died he asked Barb to give him a blessing. This was a big deal because of something about the priesthood and Barb being crazy enough to think she was allowed to make her own decisions and Bill thought it was completely preposterous and never acknowledged it and they were maybe going to break up BUT then in his final moments, he accepted her. Although I guess that could also be read as him taking the best he could get.

Jeanne Tripplehorn as feminist/polygamist/woman who deserves your respect Barbara Henrickson

I’m still torn on whether Bill was a good guy or a bad guy. Regardless, the final episode was very subtle and eerily calm. I think it was a fitting end, I only wish they had wrapped up the Juniper Creek storyline a little better. I am sad to see this show come to an end, but I don’t think it could have gone on much longer. Also, I really did like how the episode ended with a cover of “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys, which was the show’s original theme song. A nice look back at where it all began, and a way to say goodbye. R.I.P. Bill, Lois, and Big Love.

Magnolia (1999, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) is a perfect movie. I know I just threw that word around in my other posts about Biutiful and The Social Network but sometimes movies are really perfect, to me. I saw it for the first time in a high school creative writing class when we were writing screenplays. My (favorite) teacher showed us this film as an example of a really good screenplay. Then I rented it, watched it again, then I bought it, and watched it a few more times but I hadn’t seen it in years until last night. And let me tell you, it is still perfect.

ALL of the characters, and there are a LOT of them, are three dimensional and miserable and wonderful and they all either change or don’t change but at the very least they grow in some way. Nearly every line of dialog is poignant, sad, and powerful. The story itself may appear to fall into one of those movies about a bunch of different people who magically all have something to do with each other at the end. But Magnolia does not fall into that trap, by inserting a voiceover narration at the most unexpected moments, giving a meta-commentary on the idea of coincidence, and just being perfect. Each situation is as heartbreaking as the next, and each character just has so much depth, something you don’t see in a lot of films. If you are a sad person or even just a thoughtful person, you will probably relate to each struggle in some way.

I’m going to list a few of my favorite quotes from the film:

Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (played by William H. Macy):

“I really do have love to give; I just don’t know where to put it.”

“And the book says, ‘We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.’”

“No it is not dangerous to confuse children with angels.”

Earl Partridge (played by Jason Robards, pictured with wife Linda, played by Julianne Moore):

“Don’t ever let anyone say to you ‘You shouldn’t regret anything.’ Don’t do that, don’t! You regret what you fucking want! And use that, use that, use that regret for anything, any way you want. You can use it, okay? This fucking life…it’s so fucking hard, so long! Life ain’t short, it’s long, it’s long, God damnit.”

And finally, from the narrator:

And there is the account of the hanging of three men, and a scuba diver, and a suicide. There are stories of coincidence and chance, of intersections and strange things told, and which is which and who only knows? And we generally say, “Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn’t believe it.” Someone’s so-and-so met someone else’s so-and-so and so on. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, “We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.”

And those are just some of the reasons why Magnolia is perfect and my favorite and the movie that made me truly realize that film can be art.

Black Swan was a thoroughly entertaining film. I was never bored. I’m really not into Natalie Portman but she didn’t bother me as much as usual. I really like Darren Arronofksy and the film definitely had a lot of his trademark touches. Plus, how beautiful is Mila Kunis? Very beautiful. Excellent cinematography, editing, and directing. Only the writing falls a little flat at times, and sometimes seems like it’s confusing just for the sake of being confusing. In an interview with MTV, Arronofsky said that originally he was developing Black Swan and his 2008 The Wrestler as the same movie. He said, “I realized pretty quickly that taking two worlds like wrestling and ballet was much too much for one movie. So I guess my dream is that some art theater will play the films as a double feature some day.” I really, really loved The Wrestler so I’d be interested to watch them both back to back, and I definitely see how they have overlapping themes (failure, hurting yourself for success). Definitely one of my favorite films of the year, and I’m impressed that Natalie Portman learned so much ballet in such a short amount of time. And that’s the last nice thing I have to say about her.

(Next is The Fighter which like I said, I haven’t seen.)

I think the new (as of last year) system of nominating 10 films for best picture instead of 5 is a little silly, because at least 5 of the films don’t really belong on the list. I loved Inception, but it’s not really best picture material. Still, it’s a fun film that’s difficult to wrap your brain around. I love Leonardo DiCaprio, just like every other girl my age who grew up with Titanic, and he is awesome in this movie, as usual. Also, Joseph Gordon Levitt. Even though the story can get convoluted, I always appreciate when a movie pushes the boundaries, even if it causes it to fail. Props for trying to do something different. Also, great film techniques to take us in and out of the many layers of dreams.

More like The Kids Are Mediocre. Seriously, this does not belong on the best picture list. And Mark Ruffalo is taking up a spot as a best supporting actor nominee that should have gone to Andrew Garfield. More on that later. I guess it’s nominated because Hollywood loves to pat itself on the back for not being racist (see: Crash) and for not being homophobic. Yes, this is a mainstream movie about a lesbian couple raising children, so it SEEMS like it’s progressive but guess what? IT’S NOT! Come on. Julianne Moore’s character repeatedly cheats on her wife with Mark Ruffalo (I can’t even be bothered to look up the characters’ names) because I guess even though she’s a lesbian, what she really wanted and needed was a man. And what the kids really wanted and needed was a dad, not 2 moms. And everything works out with no consequences at the end, just like a typical heterosexual romantic comedy (see: Did You Hear About The Morgans?). Ok. Great. Moving on.

(Haven’t seen The King’s Speech.)

I LOVED this film. Originally I only wanted to see it because I love Danny Boyle, the story didn’t sound too appealing but I went to see it anyway and I was totally surprised and blown away. I’m not the biggest James Franco fan (I mean, how can you not roll your eyes at him at least a little bit, he’s teaching a class about himself!) but he was fantastic. I don’t know what the real Aron Ralston is like, but Franco puts so much personality into the character that I’d like to believe that’s exactly how Ralston is. Plus, to get through a situation like that, you have to be! Wonderful directing and editing, as usual for Danny Boyle. And I cried tears of relief when he finally made it out (spoiler alert?) while Sigur Rós played. What a beautiful scene. I really think this film is underrated.

What is there to say about Toy Story 3? It’s cute, heartwarming, sad, and colorful like most Pixar movies. I remember the first Toy Story from my childhood like most probably do, and in this newest installment, Andy is packing to go away to college. This resonated with my friends and I who saw this film just after graduating college. Which of course is not the same thing as first going to college, but that’s not the point. Growing up, moving on, leaving your toys behind you, it’s depressing. Also, how often do you see a best picture nominee with a 3 at the end of its title?

Oh man. The Coen Brothers! Jeff Bridges drinking whiskey on a horse with an eye patch! There is a lot to love about True Grit. Roger Deakins, the cinematographer who often works with the Coen brothers, did an incredible job, as usual. Some of the shots in this film are breathtaking, despite taking place in the middle of nowhere. The acting was wonderful. Hailee Steinfeld is FOURTEEN YEARS OLD and awesome. Like most Coen brothers productions, there was always some odd, uncomfortable humor that would pop up once in a while, which I enjoyed. The directing is flawless, of course. Even though I was admittedly a little bored in the beginning, the last 45 minutes made up for it. Overall, a solid movie.

Ugh, Winter’s Bone. “Have you seen my daddy?” and something about meth and the Ozarks for about two hours. This film was really hyped up and I swear I wanted to like it but I was just not feeling it. I don’t even have any good reasons. Sorry.

I am in love with The Social Network. WOW. Each aspect of the film fits so perfectly with the rest of it. Of course, Aaron Sorkin’s dialog is unbelievable and hilarious. But this script needed good acting to carry it out, and Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield nail it without any problems. (Also, lol Justin Timberlake. You know what’s cool? A BILLION dollars.) Good writing combined with good acting needed good directing and David Fincher knew exactly what he was doing. It’s funny because in interviews Fincher keeps saying how this movie wasn’t that great and he doesn’t understand why it’s getting so much attention. Relax, Fincher, you know it’s a good movie. Also, I saw David Fincher speak at the New York Film Festival and he said that he shot each scene hundreds of times until it was absolutely perfect. I can’t even imagine how long that must have taken and how much patience everyone must have had. But it really shows. It is absolutely perfect, just like he wanted it to be. You almost forget that it’s a movie about rich bored white kids at Harvard who invented Facebook and then fight over billions of dollars. I don’t know, the making of this film was seriously just magic. Incredible. Also why was Andrew Garfield not nominated for best supporting actor?! Come on. He was so good! “Sorry my Prada’s at the cleaners along with my hoodie and my fuck-you-flip flops you pretentious douchebag.” and “You better lawyer up, asshole.” Good thing we gave that spot to Mark Mediocre Ruffalo who sat around the movie the whole time looking scruffy on a motorcycle. I can’t give this movie enough love. I hope it wins everything it’s nominated for. And I’m tired of everybody saying “The Social Network should win, but The King’s Speech will win.” Well then why can’t The Social Network just win if we’re all in agreement here? Because The King’s Speech is straight up Oscar bait so it will get what it set out for. Even though The Social Network is so timely and on point and indicative of our current state of being. And the final scene is just crazy awesome and wonderful and I don’t have enough words for it. Jesse Eisenberg sits at his computer after all the lawsuits and everything finally quiets down. He opens Facebook, HIS OWN INVENTION, and sends a friend request to some girl he screwed over and apparently still cares about. “Baby You’re A Rich Man” by The Beatles starts playing and Eisenberg sits there continually refreshing Facebook, waiting to see if the girl will accept his request. That action is so inane and so specific to all of us who are addicted to the Internet and give so much importance to social networking sites. And yet, even the man who created it (ok, in this fictionalized version) can’t rise above the power of Facebook. Even though he’s a rich man.

So, I think it’s clear which one is my favorite. Which films will you be rooting for on Sunday?

First I want to talk about how overjoyed I am about this film before I get into it. I had been thinking lately that I am so tired of being excited for a new movie/book/album/season from a director/author/music artist/tv show that I love, and then it comes out and it is just mediocre and I sit here defending it because even though I know it’s not as good as whatever came before, I still love it. I am a loyal fan.

So, when I went to see Biutiful, I was nervous. Alejandro González Iñárritu (henceforth Iñárritu) has been one of my favorite directors for a while. I’m a huge fan of Spanish-language cinema, especially Mexican films. His 2000 Amores Perros is one of my all time favorite films. I also love 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006) — all three films together are his “death trilogy.” I was prepared to love this film no matter what, but was worried it was going to be mediocre and I would be the only one defending it. But, he proved me so wrong! This is also his first film where he didn’t collaborate with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (sidenote-he directed his first feature The Burning Plain which everyone hated but which I defended, sensing a pattern here?) and he wrote the story and the script himself. And he did a heartbreakingly amazing job. But enough with the adjectives.

I almost don’t know where to begin. What is this film about? It’s about death, sadness, family, sickness, language, love, the afterlife, immigration, and sweatshops. That doesn’t even begin to describe it. Also, it stars Javier Bardem who is nominated for Best Actor and who totally deserves the award, but I won’t hold my breath.

Uxbal (heartbreakingly played by Bardem) finds out he has a terminal illness and only a few months to live. He does not receive treatment for it and lives out the rest of his life, while everything around him falls apart. Although the film progressively gets more and more tragic and depressing, it never feels insincere, overwrought, or too sentimental. It is perfect. You empathize with this character, you feel for his two beautiful children who have no idea they are going to lose their father, you even feel for his mentally ill abusive ex-wife Marambra (wonderfully played by Maricel Álvarez).

Death in this film is portrayed as part of life. Death has always been a part of Uxbal’s life, when we learn that he can communicate with the dead. (Again, something that could have been overwrought and ruin the film but was understated and sad). His biggest job with communicating with the dead is helping them find peace so that they can move on. This job is extremely relevant when Uxbal’s fellow psychic friend tells him to “get your affairs in order. Don’t leave anything unfinished.” I suppose psychics know better than anyone that if you leave something unfinished, you can’t move on to the afterlife. Uxbal helps dead strangers move on, and now he needs to find his own peace before he dies. But everything keeps going wrong.

Another chilling use of death in the film is the death of Uxbal’s father. His father, shortly after impregnating Uxbal’s mother with Uxbal, fled Franco’s Spain to Mexico when he was 20 and died of pneumonia two weeks later. (How’s that for depressing irony?) Apparently, the place where Uxbal’s father is buried is set to become a mall that will be built on top of all the dead people. Uxbal and his brother decide to have their father removed and cremated. When his father is removed, Uxbal “meets” him for the first time. A rotting corpse (not as terrible as I thought it might look) that died at age 20. My friend Sarah pointed out how crazy it must be for Uxbal, who is at least in his 40s, to see his father, frozen in time as a young 20 year old. This juxtaposition of young and old, death and life is so poignant and sad. When Uxbal tells his children about his father, his son Mateo says “That sucks growing up without a dad,” and the whole audience cringed because this child is going to have to do the same thing.

There is not much hope in this film but when there is, it glimmers brightly. In one scene, Uxbal, his ex-wife Marambra and their two children Ana and Mateo sit at the table as a family eating ice cream. Marambra says it’s more fun to stick your fingers in the ice cream and eat it and the children start doing the same thing. Uxbal, always the tougher and more responsible parent, tells his children to stop doing that and not to be disgusting. Eventually, he comes around and eats the ice cream with his fingers and everybody laughs. It’s such a joyous scene at the surface but it still manages to be depressing because you know that a) the relationship between Uxbal and Marambra is never going to work out and b) Uxbal is going to die and his family has no idea.

Uxbal and Marambra

This screwed up family dynamic is very typical of Iñárritu. In Amores Perros, three separate storylines show different kinds of families, all of them broken. Another theme that Iñárritu seems to love is language and language barriers. At its core, that’s what Babel is about. Filmed in different parts of the world, using English, Spanish, Japanese, French, Arabic, and even Japanese sign language, we see the way language can separate people and bring them together, and how some situations can even transcend language and cultural barriers.

Biutiful is set in Barcelona (the wonderful cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto whom Iñárritu often works with, shows the gritty urban impoverished area of Barcelona outside of the Gaudi buildings and tourist attractions) and most of the characters speak Spanish. But, in Uxbal’s business he works with Chinese and Senegalese immigrants, and so we have those two languages as well. The (English) subtitles were done in a clever way: white text when they are speaking Spanish, blue text for Mandarin Chinese, and yellow text for Wolof (language spoken in Senegalese). What’s even more interesting is trying to figure out which characters can understand which languages. The Chinese characters can understand each other, but Uxbal speaks to them in Spanish. The same goes for the Senegalese characters. In one final glimmer of hope in the film, Uxbal’s Senegalese business partner’s wife Ige comes to live with Uxbal (well, Uxbal lets her live there because she has no money and got evicted) and takes care of him as he dies. Ige speaks some Spanish, but she speaks slowly and with a foreigner’s accent, I assume she can understand some Spanish as well but she and Uxbal manage to communicate despite all of this.

Biutiful is a story about how people can come together and be torn apart by death. How people can transcend language barriers to work and live together. At its darkest moments, it still has beauty. The scenes with Uxbal and his children together are heartbreaking because we know these children will be left alone with their unfit mother and they have no idea they are about to lose their father. But these scenes are beautiful because Uxbal is an excellent father (albeit strict), he is caring and funny and he loves his children, and you can’t help but smile at their relationship.

As I’m sure you could have guessed, there is no happy ending, although we do get to see Uxbal meet his father in some kind of snowy forest “purgatory” before he moves on. This is the same scene that plays at the beginning of the film, and Uxbal’s father tells/asks him two separate things: 1) Did you know that owls cough up a hairball before they die? and 2) What does the sea sound like? Throughout the film, Uxbal’s son Mateo shares the fact about the owls with Uxbal. And as Uxbal lays dying next to his daughter Ana, she asks him what the sea sounds like. Then, the film fades into the same snowy scene, and again we see Uxbal’s father relay those two pieces of information. I think there must be many ways to interpret this as it is clearly some kind of metaphor that has a deeper meaning. For me, it was as if Uxbal’s father was doing Uxbal’s job: consoling the dead, trying to help them find peace so that they can move on. By using two specific things that Uxbal’s children have said, his father reminds him that he raised two wonderful children who loved him, and that those children will never forget him, and that it is ok to move on. The film ends with Uxbal asking “what’s that over there?” And we are left to assume it’s some kind of “light” or Heaven, which means that Uxbal is at peace and can move on.

With the Oscars coming up, I hope Biutiful can at least win best foreign film, although I have a feeling it won’t win anything, but it’s ok, because at least this time I know that this film was NOT mediocre and I am not the only one to defend it.

Alejandro González Iñárritu, thank you for this biutiful gift

First, I should agree that it is not a great film. My biggest problem is that it should have been in Spanish, not English spoken with a Spanish accent. It takes place in Spain in the 1920s. Come on. Also, some of the dialog is unintentionally funny when it is supposed to be poignant. And there were several points throughout the film where I thought to myself, “Wow, is poetry and art really such a complete load of pretentious bullshit, or is this movie just bad?”

Moving on. I’ll start with Federico García Lorca, played by Javier Beltrán. He is the most sensitive (whiny) character out of the three of them. He’s always so upset, pining away for Dalí who just can’t love him back. Jealous of Buñuel going back and forth between him and Dalí. He is also a poet, and poets are supposed to be in touch with their feelings, and the film makes him as stereotypical of a poet as possible. I didn’t really like how every couple of scenes, his voiceover would read one of his poems. (Often he started reading them in Spanish, and then the Spanish would fade out and he would read them in English. Why not just have subtitles? The poems sound so beautiful in Spanish.) It tried to hard to make his poems seem significant to the film, to the situation, and the poems just don’t work like that. It did the real García Lorca a disservice, whose poetry is expressive and wonderful. But the film just makes him look like an emo kid.

I think most people don’t like this movie because of “Twilight heartthrob” Robert Pattinson. Why does every reviewer have to put “Twilight heartthrob” before his name, as if anyone needs to be reminded of the unfortunate existence of Twilight? Anyway, in Little Ashes, Dalí is a complete basket case. In the beginning, he is painfully awkward and shy and seems to hear voices and actually be mentally ill. He is a surrealist painter which is associated with being “crazy,” and the film really pushes that stereotype. After he becomes famous, his “craziness” is more of an act, with the moustache and everything. In general, he is aloof, he leads on poor García Lorca, and in the end he is just obsessed with money. I don’t really know where the film was going with Dalí’s character, but I guess the real Dalí was such a mystery, and the film doesn’t try to solve it.

Matthew McNulty plays Luis Buñuel, and according to Little Ashes, Buñuel was a total jerk. Homophobic, self-centered, and a filmmaker. He was always wanting to go out and party while sensitive García Lorca wanted to stay home with crazy Dalí and drink tea. Buñuel kept saying how he was so over Spain and wanted to go to Paris. He didn’t seem to value “art” the same way the other two did, he was most interested in getting everyone’s names out there and being awesome. I can see the connection between his characterization and the stereotype of a filmmaker, kind of. I also had no idea that García Lorca took Buñel and Dalí’s Un chien andalou as a personal insult. It translates to “An Andalusian Dog.” In the film, García Lorca says, “I mean, do they even know anyone else from Andalusia?” So sad and tragic, poor little Fede.

Strange stereotypes aside, when the film ended I did some research on each of the three artists, having only briefly studied them in the past. I read a lot about Gala, Dalí’s Russian wife who famously slept around with all the surrealists in Paris, because she and Dalí had an “arrangement.” She also was a muse to many artists, including Dalí. Dalí starting signing his paintings with both of their names because, “It is mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures.”

Also, if you haven’t yet seen Buñuel and Dalí’s Un chien andalou, YouTube has the whole thing in two parts:

It’s crazy, creepy, and important. And finally, my favorite poem by Federico García Lorca, “La guitarra”

Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Se rompen las copas
de la madrugada.
Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Es inútil
callarla.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora monótona
como llora el agua,
como llora el viento
sobre la nevada.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora por cosas
lejanas.
Arena del Sur caliente
que pide camelias blancas.
Llora flecha sin blanco,
la tarde sin mañana,
y el primer pájaro muerto
sobre la rama.
¡Oh guitarra!
Corazón malherido
por cinco espadas.

I wrote one of my final papers about the differences between second-wave and third-wave feminism (and how they are shown in Cagney & Lacey and Weeds). I see this dichotomy in Broken English, so I’m going to give the fastest, least boring explanation possible of the two types. Second-wave feminism is from the 1960s and 1970s, fighting for women’s rights, equality in the workplace, everything you think of when you think of “feminism.” Third-wave feminism began in the 1990s and offers a more loose interpretation. Thanks to all the work the second-wave feminists did, women today can enjoy their freedoms and choose how they want to live. For example, the second wave made it possible to go out and start a career and not have to be a stay-at-home-mom; the third wave says you can be a stay-at-home-mom if you choose to be, it’s all up to you.

Rosie the Riveter, I've always loved this

A lot of the writings on feminism set up this discourse between the second and third wave as “mother and daughter.” The mother being, of course, the older woman from the second wave, and the daughter being the younger woman today. There is a scene in Broken English that shows parts of this conversation. The film is about Nora (Parker Posey) living in New York City in her late 20s-early 30s looking for love. She has bad luck with men, and everyone around her is married. She also seems to have depression and anxiety and is generally miserable and lonely. Anyway, there is a scene where she is in a restaurant with her mother Vivien (Gena Rowlands) and the two women discuss the state of Nora’s love life. Nora’s mother and other older women continue to ask her when she is getting married throughout the film. Vivien says to Nora:

“I can’t quit thinking about how hard it must be for young women nowadays. I mean, on the one hand, the world is wide open to you, all the choices you want, I think there’re too many choices really. It just must be very confusing, trying to find a path through all of that. Especially with men.”

Vivien is perhaps too old to have been a “second-wave feminist” and I know I’m making a huge comparison, but Vivien represents an older way of thinking about women. Women used to have a “path,” they were to get married, have babies, and take care of their family. Today we have “too many choices” and Nora represents the “third-wave” woman, maybe even later. She has all of the choices in the world open to her, but yet she seems to want to just choose to get married. According to the new feminism, it’s fine if she chooses that. But then that choice doesn’t really work for her, because she just can’t seem to find a good man. And then as a result of not being able to find a good man, she is miserable and doesn’t want to pursue any other “choice” open to young women today.

On the surface this seems to be an anti-feminist film, which is discouraging since we don’t have many female voices in the film industry. Zoe Cassavetes had a chance to say something good about young women today. Instead, she buried her message into a tangly, problematic script. But I think I understand what she was going for. Despite the many choices young women have, many women still are only interested in securing a man. But having a man will not make you suddenly happy (if you are already depressed). Nora’s best friend Audrey (Drea de Matteo) is married to Mark (Tim Guinee) who is very rich and successful. But Audrey is almost as miserable as Nora is.

I think the overarching message of Broken English is that more often than not, life just sucks. The game of finding a man to marry is just something to distract women from their unhappiness. Because even if you do find a wonderful rich and successful man who can provide for you, like Audrey, you will eventually become lonely again and wish you weren’t married. “Having a man won’t make you happy” is a good enough message, but (Zoe) Cassavetes doesn’t offer any alternative. You are either alone and miserable, or married and miserable.

Wonderful.

Broken English can really be summed up by the annoying cliche: "Men: can't live with them, can't live without them."

After six seasons of unanswered questions and emotional abuse, LOST finally came to an end last night. (Note: I wrote this yesterday, but my internet went out and just came back now, so I guess LOST came to an end two nights ago.) I know that everyone is arguing over whether or not the finale was good. For the most part, I thought it was a great ending. Yes, there are still a lot of questions and mysteries that have been left open, but what did we expect? A finale in which Carlton Cruse and Damon Lindelof sit there and wrap up every single question that has ever been raised? Instead, they ended the series by attempting to give it some kind of greater meaning, and by trying to make us all feel better.

This show has put us through so much. I realized during the recap just how many epic separations and reunions Sun and Jin went through. I realized that we watched Jin die TWICE and both times I cried. Then there was also Charlie (Not Penny’s Boat!), Sayid, Boone, Shannon, Mr. Eko, Libby, Locke (kind of), Juliet, Daniel Faraday, Jack (right?), and some other characters that I didn’t really care about like Ana Lucia, Charlotte, Nikki & Paulo, etc. All of these people died terrible and confusing deaths and one of the big questions of the whole show was: WHY?

I think it was a little strange that the big reveal of the SERIES finale was the flash-sideways, a question that was only raised at the beginning of the last season. But it does have a greater significance. Those fifteen minutes my roommates and I spent sitting on our couch bawling after Sun and Jin died were not for nothing. We got to see them reunited! And then they remember everything! And they’ll be together for all of eternity! And so will Charlie and Claire! Desmond and Penneh! Hurley and Libby! Everybody! This makes us feel better, that the horrible fates these people suffered on the island eventually ended in happiness.

It’s almost like we, as viewers, were in our own flash-sideways purgatory for the last six seasons, waiting and wondering what any of this even means. And for waiting, we were rewarded with seeing that everyone ended up together, at peace, finally. Which is the same thing that happened to the characters on the show. My only issue with this is that the whole island thing was kind of an elaborate way for everyone to die. But if they hadn’t gone to the island, they wouldn’t have all met each other, and it was fate or coincidence or something, right? Who knows. I still don’t really understand what happened, but I do know that I have loved this show and I’m sad that it’s over. The acting (for the most part) was great, and a good chunk of the writing was very good. I couldn’t stand Jack for most of the series, but somewhere in the middle of season six I changed my mind. He actually had a full character arc, he changed a couple of times and he ended up being a pretty good character. It’s lucky that they fixed (get it? fix) him in time, because otherwise I probably would have been angry that in the end, it was all about Jack.

Anyway, I’m going to end with a tribute to my top five favorite characters.

Hurley was awesome and never got enough credit. They kind of made him the comic relief because he was overweight and said “dude” all the time. But he had so many weird things going on like The Numbers, the curse where everyone around him dies, he sometimes could see and talk to dead people, they put him in a mental institution because of all this, his creepy imaginary friend Dave, and his relationship with Libby and the episode in this season when they meet up in the flash sideways! And in season three when he fixes the VW Bus and drives it down a hill to break the curse! And when he sets up a golf course for everyone because they might as well have fun! Hurley was a great character and it was kind of weird that he ended up in charge of the island but it kind of makes sense, he waited patiently the entire series just hoping someone would tell him what was going on.

The show started to treat couples as one character so for the sake of this list, I’ll do the same thing. Charlie and Claire were my first favorite characters. Claire was so mysterious in her flashback where she went to a psychic who warned her about her baby. And then all the weird stuff that happened with her baby and the Others and that really scary episode “Maternity Leave” where she finally remembers what happened to her. And then she was in the cabin? And then crazy Claire with her weird dreadlock hair and her bone baby. And her Australian accent! Charlie was really great too. His whole heroin addiction/attempt to quit with Mr. Eko and John Locke. And YOU ALL EVERYBODY! And the time when he and Hurley get Desmond really drunk/his friendship with both of them. And he could be kind of dumb sometimes but he always meant well, like when he gave Claire imaginary peanut butter and how he generally always tried to take care of Claire and Aaron. And his British accent!

Remember when we first realized that Richard Alpert never aged? So mysterious. He always seemed kind of omniscient and I liked how in the end he was just as confused as everyone else. Ricardo always showed up to guide people and sometimes even remember them during all the time jumps. Something about him was comforting. And then in his episode in season six he spoke Spanish the whole time, which was great. I feel like there isn’t a lot to say about him, he was quietly cool, and definitely one of my favorites.

Where to even start with Ben? The first time we met him we already didn’t know whether or not to believe him. Is he Henry Gale? Or is he the leader of a mysterious band of island people who are actually just wearing island clothes? We never knew whether or not to trust him, and there were at least 15 different times when I decided for sure that I either believed him or didn’t, and I was usually wrong. He was probably one of the most interesting characters on the show. His whole backstory, the fact that he killed his father and everyone else that was with them, Alex/Rousseau, when he got judged by Smokey, the way he looked and talked at all times, and how creepy it was when he was a teacher and complaining about coffee in the flash sideways. It was sad that he didn’t get to go into the church at the end, but I guess he was kind of a terrible person (right?).

And now, for my number one favorite character on LOST, possibly favorite character in all of TV, anyone who knows me knows what’s coming…

…

…

…

BROTHA! PENNEH! YA GUNNA DIE CHAHLIE! Desmond was beautiful and interesting and mysterious. He knew when people were going to die. He could flash between the sideways universe and the island. He was immune to electromagnetism. He was the constant! He was a monk. He was the package. HE WAS IN THE HATCH! He had all of those weird encounters with Eloise. He kind of became the new Jacob, he brought everyone together so they could “move on.” Every time he reunited with Penny was joyous. He named his son Charlie! What’s not to love? Desmond was my favorite character, by far, and the biggest problem I had with the finale is that it still didn’t really explain his role. But that would have taken away from his mystery, so I guess it’s okay.

Honorable Mentions: Sun & Jin Kwon, John Locke, Daniel Faraday, and sometimes Jack.

Another Honorable Mention: Gabe at Videogum whose LOST recap posts were almost as fun as the show itself. Check out his blog, he is hilarious.

So that’s it, it’s all over, college is over, LOST is over, what happens next? At least we’ll always know that,

Jim Sheridan’s 2002 film In America is beautifully written and shot. It is touching and it will probably make you cry. It bears no resemblance to my favorite terrible movie, Sheridan’s 2005 biopic of 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. In America follows a family who has just come to America from Ireland. But, the film is more about dealing with loss than issues of immigration, and I think Sheridan told his personal story in a very clever way. He almost completely avoids cliché and the film is not overly sentimental. It is an honest, heartbreaking tale of how difficult life can be. I will focus on the way the film depicts loss and how it affects children, and how Sheridan uses E.T. (Steven Spielberg, 1982) as a kind of framing thematic device.

The film begins with the family in the car, illegally crossing the border into America. The family is comprised of Johnny, the father (Paddy Considine), Sarah, the mother (Samantha Morton, who stars in one of my favorite films – Anton Corbjin’s 2007 Control), and their two daughters Christy (Sarah Bolger) and Ariel (Emma Bolger). We learn right away that there used to be a third child, Frankie, and he has passed away. Christy, the older daughter (age 10), tells the viewer in a voiceover that she asks Frankie for wishes sometimes. Other than her occasional, stoic voiceover, Christy rarely speaks, she spends her time filming everything around her with her camcorder. In Christy we see the true burden of loss on a young child. Her younger sister Ariel deals with it in a somewhat more playful way, but there are moments where the loss she has suffered forces her to act older than she is.

In one scene, the family goes to the movies to see E.T. They all enjoy it, and later they go to a carnival where Johnny almost loses all of his money trying to win an E.T. doll for Ariel, who loves the movie. E.T. comes up a few other times, in very sad scenes where we see the family deal directly with loss. The connection is probably obvious – E.T. is an alien, a synonym for immigrant. And at the end of E.T., the little girl has to say goodbye to him. The family in the film are technically “aliens,” and they all have to say goodbye to people they love, a couple of times. But E.T. represents more than just the surface connection. It is something that the family can focus on which has similar themes to their own lives, but it is a magical, make-believe story that is easier to deal with than their own issues.

All of Ariel's hope rests within her father's attempt to win the E.T. doll. "I know you can do it Dad. I just know it."

Being an immigrant or an “alien” is hard enough, dealing with the loss of a family member alienates you from society even more. In this sense, the characters in the film are almost double aliens. They are not American, they don’t have any money, and the loss of their son/brother is tearing them apart. I found the depiction of the children in the film to be so realistic and moving. The children are forced to grow up, despite how confused they may be. Their childhood is taken away from them and replaced with an uncertainty. This is most clearly seen in Christy, she is quiet and serious for the majority of the film. She doesn’t break down until the very end, and she also doesn’t funnel all of her sadness into taking care of her living sibling, Ariel. Ariel can’t be older than five or six, and in a restaurant she tells her family, “I miss things.” They ask her what she misses and she says she has no one to play with, no one to tell secrets to. “Christy plays with her camcorder. She tells her camcorder her secrets, and she won’t let me hear.” Christy’s inability to deal with loss lead her to silence, to become fully absorbed in filming the world around her instead of participating in it. This inability directly hurts Ariel, making Ariel feel even more lost and alone, and her ability to voice these feelings is heartbreaking.

Christy’s silent way of dealing with loss has caused her family to rely upon her. “He was my brother too,” she tells her father at the end, and she expresses that she has carried the family on her back for the last few years. Her parents, despite their age, are no better at dealing with loss than the children are. Johnny tells the border patrol that he has three children, and Sarah has to correct him by saying they only have two. When playing a game later, Johnny includes Frankie, even though he is not there. Johnny has completely refused to acknowledge that Frankie is gone. And Sarah deals with it in her own delusional way: by trying to have a new baby, despite the danger pregnancy may have on her health. Ariel is obsessed with E.T., and this leaves Christy to be the only one to deal with everything.

One of the few times Christy embraces Ariel

The way that the children speak about death is also very realistic and chilling. When the young girls meet Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), a man in their building dying of AIDS (although it’s never called AIDS, so it might also be some kind of Hollywood disease that requires a lot of medication, causes sores, and can kill you), they almost immediately tell him about how Frankie died. I won’t include that here since it could be considered a spoiler, but they describe it in precise medical terms, and it causes Mateo to cry.

Towards the end of the film, with Mateo’s condition worsening and Sarah’s pregnancy becoming riskier, Ariel simply asks: “Why is everybody dying?” Nobody has an answer to this, no adults, no older children, not even the people themselves who die. You can say it’s God’s will, or you can say it’s just the cycle of life. There is no answer that could console Ariel or anyone who has had to deal with loss. Near the end, Johnny tells Christy and Ariel to look up at the moon and they will see Mateo riding by on a bicycle (another reference to E.T.) as a way to help Ariel who was upset because Mateo never said goodbye to her. “I don’t see him!” Ariel says. Johnny and Christy continue telling her to look more closely, that he’s really there, don’t you see him? Eventually she exclaims, “Oh yeah! I see him! Bye Mateo! Look after Frankie!” This type of childish enthusiasm for what is essentially the game of death is devastating. The power of imagination is wonderful and everything, but we have a young girl thinking she sees her dead neighbor riding off into the moon, and she asks him to take care of Frankie. Her parents have told her that Frankie “went to Heaven.” Which is also where Mateo is going. And Ariel is jumping for joy and so happy that they will have each other. Because what else can you tell a little kid about death, other than that people who die get to ride bikes over the moon and hang out with each other in Heaven?

And isn’t this what we continue to tell ourselves as adults? That people who die have gone to a better, happier place where they will be reunited with their loved ones? (Religious beliefs aside). Death doesn’t make sense to children or adults. We have to trick ourselves into believing that everyone is better off this way. Death is a horrible, unfair part of life that I don’t believe anyone really knows how to deal with. Adults can turn to alcohol and anti-depressants, but children have to make it into an imaginary game. Jim Sheridan has captured this idea perfectly in his wonderful film, and I encourage everyone to see it.