The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (2013)

“If you want to kill me, you'd better hurry, because I'm 100 years old.”

            I long to travel the world and have experiences I could only dream about. I am a curious person who loves history and learning about different cultures. I would love to reminisce in my old age about the places I have been and the people I have met and the fun things I did on my travels. I want a full life, well lived life kind of like the main character in The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.

            Allan Karlsson is one hundred years old. He lives in a nursing home. His life has been filled living one adventure to the next rather by accident most of the time. Allan does not want to be in the nursing home for his birthday so he climbs out the window of his room and heads to a bus station. Since Allan is not totally in right mind he gets confused along the way. At the station is a young man who looks like he is up to absolutely no good. The guy wants to go to the bathroom but his suitcase is too big to take into the small bathroom with him. He has Allan hold it for him. Unfortunately for the guy Allan walks out of the station onto a bus without even realizing he has the suitcase.

            Allan walks up to the house of an older man named Julius. Julius feeds Allan and they drink for a little while. As they are eating and drinking Allan regales Julius with some stories from his life such as the fact that he liked to blow things up from the time he was very young and that his father was arrested in Russia for endorsing contraception. The guy from the train station shows up looking for the suitcase. Julius winds up knocking the guy out and he and Allan look in the suitcase. The suitcase is full of thousands of dollars. Julius had placed the guy in his freezer but forgot to turn the cold air off and the guy winds up freezing to death.

            After this incident Allan, Julius, and others they pick up along the way are brought into a big adventure of running away from drug dealers and almost being killed by them. Throughout the present story, stories and adventures from Allan’s past are woven and you can see why he did not want to celebrate his one hundredth birthday in a stuffy old nursing home.

            The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared was a good movie. The length was a little too long for me and there were parts that definitely dragged but for the most part it was enjoyable. The story reminded me of Big Fish and Amelie in certain ways. All three movies tell the stories of people who led interesting, adventure filled lives in so many ways, real or imagined. I would love to be like Allan who had this insanely long adventurous life and was ready for more at one hundred. Besides the length and the fact that it flip flops between Swedish and English which to me interrupts the flow and storytelling a bit, The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is a movie a recommend seeing if you can find it. 

If you're interested I made a video for this movie over on my YouTube channel which was a viewer request. If you guys have any suggestions of what I should watch for my channel (it can be any kind of movie new or old) please let me know either through my email or twitter which are listed on the sidebar. 

Insurgent (2015)

“Dark times call for extreme measures.”

            Insurgent takes place where Divergent left off. Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) were once in the faction Dauntless but were driven out when the faction was taken control of by the evil Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet) from Erudite. Tris, Four, and the asshole Peter (Miles Teller) take shelter in Amity which are a peaceful faction. The faction does not want to fight Jeanine they still believe that they can talk things out without having to fight. The trio is not there long before the Dauntless Traitors come to try to take them away.

            Eventually Tris turns herself in because with the mind control serum that turned the Dauntless she can also control people into killing themselves which she does. Jeanine lets it be known that unless Tris herself in people will be killed. So Tris turns herself in at Erudite headquarters and finds her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort). Caleb is Erudite and he seems to have no problem with killing his sister.

            Of course Tris gets away with the help of Peter and Four and Caleb.

            Insurgent was alright. The book was ten times better. Once again the movie changed a lot from the book because the book does move slowly and the characters are all whiney terrible human beings. The cast is great they were all perfectly chosen. Unless you like YA stories or the cast, Insurgent is not really worth the time viewing. 

Allegiant (2016)

“You want change without sacrifice, you want peace without struggle. The world doesn't work that way.”

            Allegiant is the third installment of the Divergent series. Yes, I do realize I have not yet watched and reviewed the second movie Insurgent but I just finished reading the books I know what happens… or at least I thought I did because the movie is so much different from the book.

            Allegiant sees Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley), Tobias Eaton (Theo James), Caleb Prior (Ansel Elgort), Christina (Zoe Kravits), and Peter (Miles Teller) climbing the wall that separates the factions from the rest of the world. Their factioned world has fallen apart with Tobias’s mother, Evelyne (Naomi Watts) having seized control and showing no mercy to those who supported Jeanine Matthews’s ruthless killing of Abnegation and Candor memebers. They are climbing the wall after seeing a message from an aunt of Tris’s saying there is life beyond the wall. The group goes to see what that life could be. They come upon world that is still in the midst of radioactive fallout and looks like the surface of Mars.

            They are found by this bureau that does genetic testing. Tris finds out that she is not Divergent she is what is known as genetically pure which is why she was immune to all the formulas Jeanine was trying to give her. Tobias was thought to be Divergent as well but turns out he is not genetically pure. The bureau’s leader David explains that Tris’s entire world was created as some genetic experiment decades before but it backfired because the qualities they gave some people were too much and they had other personality traits. For example, Erudite people were smart but assholes.   

            Tobias teams up with this girl Nita who is from the bureau. She takes him on an outing to watch is called the Fringe where the genetically damaged live. Turns out David has the parents killed and the children of the murdered parents are given a serum to forget their former lives and they are brought to the bureau for a new life. Tobias decides to leave to head back to Chicago on his own. Tris, Caleb, and Christina are not far behind and they are able to stop Evelyne and Peter who is a traitor, from delivering the serum that makes people forget.

            Let me just say that the movie changed so much from the book. At first it kind of pissed me off because there is changing a few things here and there from the books and then there is completely changing things. And yes I do know it is unfair to compare book and movie but I am going to do so. In the book, the outer world is just like a neighborhood outside of a major city. There are still houses and streets. It does not look like the surface of Mars. A lot of characters and plot points were taken out of the movie that were in the book. Some of the left out plotlines and characters I completely understand but there was so much that was added that was not in the books. I am not too crazy about how futuristic the movie world is when the book world still has a foot in the old world. Looking back on the books compared to the movies, I do fully understand the need to change some of the plotlines and to not add some of the characters. In Allegiant the book the characters are so damn whiney! And the story is so extremely slow it is almost painful. The ending for all the main characters is actually seriously anticlimactic just like this movie was. Although there is supposed to be a second Allegiant movie so god knows how much more dragged out the story and how changed it will be compared to the books.

            Once again the cast was good. Miles Teller, his character of Peter is such a fucking asshole but I love him! Teller makes the character tolerable because he is such a smooth talker and never looks like he takes the character seriously at all with his acting. Theo James is a hot piece of ass who just so happens to act. Shailene Woodley makes an excellent lead she fits Tris so well.

 

            Allegiant was alright. As I rambled on about I do understand some of the changes to the movie from the book but so much of it was changed that it almost felt like a completely different stories with the same character names and the main idea of the books. Not sure if I would have liked Allegiant more if I had not read the books and knew what happens because I am not super into YA stories and Allegiant is one hundred percent marketed towards teens. 

Silent Sundays: What Happened to Rosa? (1921)

“Tell me you will always be Rosa Alvaro.”

            We all have fantasies of the different people we would like to be and the types of people we would like to know. I have always been into TV shows, movies, and music so my fantasies always consist of me being in the movie industry and singing into my hair brush lip sync belting out Kelly Clarkson songs. At twenty-eight my new fantasies consist of finding a full time job, getting a car, being able to down my student loans and credit card, and being a somewhat popular YouTuber who gets invited to conventions and to be a guest on Grace Helbig’s podcast Not Too Deep. I still have my fantasies about being in the movie industry somehow but now it is through the digital space and not so much through the traditional means.

            My fantasies of music and movies when I was younger were never stronger than when I worked retail. For a few years I was miserable in retail jobs. I would escape into my mind and think of all my favorite movies and TV shows and characters and songs. I would dream of being any place but at my lousy job where the managers and other employees and customers walked all over me. I would just dream of being anyone else but me. I wanted to be Jennifer Garner as the kick ass, drop dead gorgeous, confident spy Sydney Bristow from her show Alias. I wanted to be Veronica Mars with the sharp tongue and quick wit. In short, I wanted to be the tough female characters I admired in the movies and on TV who were high above working in retail.

            My rambling about what did (and still kind of does) go on in my head does have a point to this week’s silent film- What Happened to Rosa?- I will be reviewing.

            Mayme Ladd (Mable Normand) works in the stock room of a busy department store. In the back she has her feet kicked up reading a magazine. Mayme right out of her daydream when the manager comes in looking for her to work on the floor. At the counter, Mayme looks miserable like she does not want to be there at all. It is obvious that she is physically there but mentally she is far off in a fantasy world. Interrupting her fantasies is a handsome young doctor who wants to order some stockings for his sister named Dr. Maynard Drew. Their encounter is awkward and it leaves a lasting impression on Mayme. Next, a woman named Madame Yvette O’Donnell comes up to counter Mayme is working. The woman claims to be a clairvoyant descended from Egyptians and wants Mayme to come and see her.

            Mayme goes to see Madame Yvette. The clairvoyant claims that she has summoned the spirit of a Spanish woman named Rosa Alvarez to enter Mayme’s body to make the stockroom worker more beautiful and desirable. It is not long before Mayme begins to believe Madame Yvette’s yarn of the spirit of Rosa Alvarez in her body. Mayme’s mother used to be a dancer and she still has her Spanish dancer’s costume from one of her shows. She puts it on and she immediately becomes her new persona Rosa Alvarez. The first thing she fantasies while being Rosa is capturing the love, admiration, and attention of Dr. Maynard Drew.

            For days and weeks Mayme is obsessed with going around her apartment as Rosa. Her roommate Gwen is driven mad by Mayme’s Spanish episodes. To get Mayme out of the apartment and doing something somewhat normal, Gwen takes Mayme to a party on a yacht. The party is a costume party so of course Mayme goes dressed up as Rosa. Also at the party is Maynard and he locks eyes with Rosa. He is soon unable to get enough of this exotic woman. Gwen is frustrated with her friend and lets Mayme’s boss, who is also at the party, know that Rosa is really Mayme and she is behaving deplorably. In order to avoid any real trouble and being found out by Maynard, Mayme jumps ship and swims to shore. Maynard jumps after her but he cannot find her.

            Maynard cannot think of anything or anyone but Rosa. He has detectives scour the city for her but they only turn up her clothes which they give to him. Mayme cleverly puts on an act to get back her costume and to be with Maynard that is quite silly and quite smart.

            What Happened to Rosa? is a really funny silent film. I believe I have seen Mabel Normand in a film before this but I cannot for the life of me remember. I loved Normand in this film I can see why she was a popular comedic actress. I, of course, related to Mayme daydreaming away in the stockroom and out on the department floor. There were quite a number of times I remember seeing a really handsome guy come in and being enamored by them (I actually wound up dating two customers at my one retail job [at different times], whoops!). I liked the confidence Mayme gained when she was told she had the spirit of a beautiful Spanish dancer in her. There is nothing like a little confidence boost to brighten your spirits and how you perceive yourself. I definitely recommend seeing What Happened to Rosa? it was fun from start to finish. What Happened to Rosa? is available to view in full on YouTube.