Two Days One Night (2014)

“Every time I feel like a beggar, a thief coming to take their money. They look at me, ready to hit me. I feel like I'm hitting them too.”

            Two Days, One Night is not an entirely enjoyable movie in the traditional sense. The reason for it not being really enjoyable is because it is so real. There is no music playing over scenes, the only music that does play is from a car radio. The characters are not glamorous they are real people you see in your everyday life and personally know. But all of those aspects are actually what made me enjoy it though.

            The story is about a Belgian woman named Sandra (Marion Cotillard) who receives a call one afternoon that her job is dependent on a vote from her coworkers the following Monday. They can either vote for a thousand Euro bonus or they can vote to keep Sandra in. The owner of the factory and another boss are mean and want to let Sandra go because she had been on medical leave and in her absence they found that they only need sixteen  people working in her section and decide that she is the seventeenth person.

            Sandra is given a list of her coworkers that have been promised the bonus if they vote against her. That entire weekend she goes around town looking for her coworkers and speaking to them about their vote. Sandra needs to keep her job because her husband’s job does not bring in as much money as hers and they cannot live solely on his pay.

            Marion Cotillard was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in this movie. I am still baffled that she did not win. The reason she should have won is because she was playing a woman that we all know. Sandra could be our neighbor, sister, mother, aunt, friend, etc. I would think it has to be harder for an actress or actor to play a person who real and not fictional and glamorous. Sandra is a woman who is depressed and the last thing she needs in her life is to lose her job. We see her emotions go from embarrassment to driven to passionate to unsure to desperate. There was no dramatization or overacting of these emotions because that is not what normal people normally do. Marion Cotillard is such an amazing actress. Whatever movie she is in she just makes her characters ten times better. I remember during the Academy Awards season asking my brother Anthony, who is also a movie buff and is actually studying film related things in college, who he thinks should win Best Actress and without hesitation he said Marion Cotillard. He loved this movie and her performance so much. As a sign that Anthony loved this movie and Marion Cotillard he said he hopes that the Criterion Collection releases it.

            Two Days, One Night is literally a woman begging people for them to vote for her to keep her job instead of their bonus. I will admit I did get a little bored but for the most part I liked it because it was real. It was unsettling watching this poor woman who is battling depression go and beg for her job because it was so real. When we watch movies we want glamour we want a story that will take us out of our real world and into another. Two Days, One Night keeps us in our real world we want to escape. I liked this movie and I feel I liked it because, one, I adore Marion Cotillard to absolutely no end, and, two, because I am a movie buff and if a movie is different from all the garbage that is put out today I will watch it and most likely really enjoy it. I will suggest Two Days, One Night to those sharing the same admiration for actress and types of movie as me. 

Big Fish (2003)

“A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal.”

            I love a good story. I love reading literature where the story is so good and fascinating that I cannot put the book down. I love a movie that has such a great story I cannot stop thinking it about and want to watch it over and over again. My favorite kinds of stories are the ones where normal people do extraordinary things or have lived such a full life traveling or doing fun things. I long to have an interesting, full, entertaining life like the people I read about or watch in films or even of the real people I have read about in memoirs. I want to be able to say I did fun thing with my life. I long to travel the world and make new friends and create stories people will want to hear or be inspired by. Right now I am flat broke which means I cannot even go out to a local bar with friends or meet people and I live down the Jersey Shore where nothing fun ever happens and is far away from New York City(if you even think about Seaside and the beach… let me tell you it is completely overrated).

            I unfortunately do not have an imagination that lets me create stories to live vicariously through and let me escape. Well, maybe I do not need an imagination to live vicariously through and escape. Watching movies of various genres with all the talented directors and actors and actresses creating fantasy worlds and romance and adventure is my escape. For however long the movies run for, I am living in a world not my own and vicariously through the characters. One of the most perfect movies I ever sat through that let me escape to an imaginative world with colorful characters was Big Fish.

            Ed Bloom (Albert Finney) is dying of cancer. He and his son Will (Bill Cruddup) have not spoken in three years. Will does not like that Ed makes up these incredible stories about his life because he cannot find any truth in them leaving him to know nothing of who his father really is. The story that finally put Will over the edge was how his father caught a large fish in the river that no one else could ever catch the day he was born. He was so sick of Ed telling that story that he finally up and left.

            Will still struggles with his father’s exaggerated tales of adventure. His wife Josephine (Marion Cottillard) sits down with Ed one night and listens to his stories. Ed recalls how he met his wife at a circus he came across and all the things he did just to learn about her and find out where she lived and the story about how he won her over. Josephine and Will’s mother have no problems listening to Ed’s fantastic tales.

            Since Will is a journalist he checks on one of his father’s stories dealing with a woman named Jenny (Helena Bonham Carter). In stories she was once a witch when he was a small boy and her one eye revealed how they were going to die and how she became a woman in the 1970s who was Jenny’s mother and he helped to make her house habitable again. He realizes with this Jenny that his father’s stories have truth in them and that he needs to see past the exaggerations.

            As Ed lay dying in the hospital Will tells him a story about how they escaped the hospital and where they go to and how they got there. Will’s story is exactly like one of Ed’s.

            I know I did not go into explaining each of Ed’s wonderfully colorful stories but they would be too long to go into detail and me trying to coherently write them down would have been a nightmare for, not just me, but for all of you reading this. Also, the way Tim Burton created these scenes is so beautiful I would not want to spoil any of it for it in any way.

            I remember not really wanting to ever sit and watch Big Fish. The only reasons I sat through it were for my friend who is obsessed with Ewan McGregor and because of Marion Cotillard and Helena Bonham Carter. I adore both actresses and before looking up the cast I shamefully had no idea they were even in it. I also shamefully did not realize Tim Burton had been the director. I liked everything about Big Fish. I love the imaginative world Ed chose to live in and wanted to tell and how all of them had some truth. He did not make himself look like a completely good guy either. I liked how Will wanted to know the truth about his father and how he was frustrated by the tall tales. I think his frustration was down to the fact that he did love his father and wanted to know more about him besides the stories.

            I absolutely loved sitting through Big Fish. It made the world feel less small and brighter. It made me feel like I could go out and accomplish anything no matter how big or small. It opened up my eyes and my mind to the endless amounts of stories that could be told to make you feel better and help you make sense of the world around you. Creating stories in the way that Ed did can also help you cope with the world around you. Big Fish is a movie I cannot wait to sit through again. I cannot wait to be brought back into a world I can perfectly vicariously live through and be happy.

 

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

“ If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal... you become something else entirely. A legend, Mr. Wayne, a legend!” 

            Ever since my brother Anthony was little he has been obsessed with Batman. I can remember him playing with his Batman action figures and he used to carry around a stuffed Batman (and Superman) from Great Adventure all the time. I am six years older than my brother so every day I would come home and see either the live action Batman movies on the TV as soon as I walked in the door from school or the amazing cartoons (if you have seen Batman: Mask of the Phantasm you cannot deny that it is one of the greatest animated movies ever the story is awesome). I can remember watching Batman and Robin until I was blue in the face. Anthony passed the Batman and super hero loving torch to our youngest brother Christian. I am eleven and a half years older than Christian so I had to go through the same thing with him watching Batman and all the super heroes. He even plays/ed with the toys like Anthony used to as well. Last week when The Dark Knight Rises came out Anthony was like a three year little boy again. Never I have seen him genuinely so excited for a movie. If you could have seen his face and his excitement you would know that he has been a Batman fan since before he could remember. He went see the movie in IMAX wearing a Batman t-shirt.

            I saw the Dark Knight Rises with my whole family on Sunday. I have never sat through Batman Begins and I saw The Dark Knight at the midnight showing with friends and I was unimpressed (forgive me this is before I knew what good movies were). But I had to give The Dark Knight Rises a chance it looked too good to be missed. I thought the movie was phenomenal. Christopher Nolan is an incredible director and writer. With his films he really brings you into the world and the mind set of his characters. I like how this film is not just a pure action movie it is also a psychological drama as well. I like how this film is not just a pure action movie it is also a psychological drama as well. Nolan also plays a psychological game with the audience: he makes you feel for the bad characters. We have been taught that people who do wrong things are not good people we are taught to root against them. But Nolan gives his “bad guys” emotional depth leaving you feeling bad for them and their horrible actions. I almost wanted to see Gotham destroyed but knew that could not happen the good guys always win in the end which I guess you could say is right. Nolan created what I consider one of the best psychological thrillers of all time, Inception (if you do not like this movie we need to talk). Not only does Nolan bring great direction and action to his films he creates some of the most original and incredible stories. I am assuming everyone had a normal childhood and watched Batman in some form when they were young so everyone knows the story of Bruce Wayne how he became Batman and the several villains he has had to fight. The stories have been told over and over again. Nolan made these cartoon characters and stories darker and heavier but added depth and interest. He made the stories more grown up but not so grown up that younger kids can enjoy them as well.

            The cast of this movie is awesome. The best was Anne Hathaway as Cat Woman. I cannot properly describe how awesome she was. To me Hathaway will always be Mia from Princess Diaries but after seeing how amazing she was as this sexy, sneaky Batman villain, I no longer only see her as this frizzy haired teenager. Hathaway is not gorgeous or pretty in the traditional sense but good lord was she sexy and incredibly god looking in all her outfits in the movie! She plays Selina Kyle as a woman you root for she is the bad guy- or girl in this situation- that you want to get away you want to see her kick ass another day. I would certainly love to see her play Cat Woman in a spin-off but I highly doubt that will happen. I have a lot more respect for Hathaway as an actress after seeing her in this because I saw the depth of her acting. I would absolutely see her in a movie if she played a villain again, I would be the first on line to see that! The main reason I wanted to see this movie was because of Marion Cotillard. I love this woman as an actress. Ever since I saw her in La Vie En Rose a few years ago I have been such a fan of hers. She did not do any ass kicking nor was she really in the movie as much as everyone else but she was amazing in her scenes. I think the woman could act out the phone book and I would just watch her I like her so much. Joseph- Gordon Levitt was great he played such a good character. Tom Hardy as Bane blew the movie away. You cannot see his mouth so he had to do a lot of expressing through his eyes and body movements. Hardy is brilliant along with Anne Hathaway’s Cat Woman they both steal the show. I am little afraid to give my opinion on Christian Bale in the main role. Anthony and Christian love him in role but I am not too crazy about him. I will just leave my opinion at that I am not about to start chaos.

            Over the course of two years I have written over four hundred posts. I should know how to properly write a paper or a review but I still feel my reviews are not that great (I do thank the few followers I have). Since Anthony is a Batman fanatic and is currently an English major and writes some of the most awesome papers and reviews ever I am going to hand over a complete (and coherent) view of The Dark Knight over to him:

            “I believed in Harvey Dent.”

Commissioner Jim Gordon (the always-perfect Gary Oldman) hauntingly commences the final chapter of arguably the greatest and most important film trilogy of our time with these solemn words.  Eight years have passed since the Caped Crusader’s last appearance, as chronicled in Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece The Dark Knight, yet the events of that film have left fierce emotional repercussions in Nolan’s Batman universe. 

Bruce Wayne (played to perfection by Christian Bale) and Commissioner Gordon have moved on with their lives after creating the myth (for the betterment of Gotham) that the Batman killed Harvey Dent.  After making a martyr of Dent, these two men have seemingly ended corruption in Gotham City.  Unfortunately for Gotham (fortunately for us), after eight years of peacetime, it is time for the Dark Knight to rise once more.

Gotham is finally free from the corruption that plagued its streets for years, but, of course, the evil mercenary Bane (terrifyingly portrayed by a barely recognizable Tom Hardy) sets his sights on Gotham.  Why is it that every wacked out lunatic wants to go after Gotham?  Bane has his reasons, and where other franchises fail in villain motive, Nolan once again proves his villains’ worth.  I don’t want to say too much on this matter so as to avoid any spoilers, but Bane certainly makes his formidable presence known throughout the film.  The Dark Knight Rises gives Batman a worthy opponent, both in brains and especially in brawn.  This villain has a few tricks up his sleeve, tricks that neither Bruce nor the audience might ever expect.

Many new characters are introduced, such as the rival business magnate Daggett (Ben Mendelsohn), a fellow business investor and potential ally to Bruce, Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), sympathetic and determined do-gooder cop John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and the most interesting addition to the Dark Knight universe, Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman.  Anne Hathaway shatters all expectations as Catwoman, she plays the part as perfectly as any fan could hope; she is sexy, smart, and a refreshingly real character who garners mostly respect and admiration for her actions, good or bad.

Though there is a slew of new characters, the regulars are back and perhaps better than ever, with incredible and moving performances by Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Batman’s “Q” Lucius Fox, and the aforementioned Oldman and Bale.  Bale, in particular, gives one of his best performances ever as the broken Bruce Wayne who cannot move on after the death of his one true love.  His life holds no purpose, he does not fear death; apathy is his only way of life.  He holds the psychology of Howard Hughes in his later (crazy) years.

Bane gives purpose to Bruce once more, and therein sparks the bitter rivalry between Batman and Bane.  Christopher Nolan has stated that the theme of this film is pain (the themes of the former entries being “fear” for Batman Begins and “chaos” for The Dark Knight), and the director certainly pushes this idea to the very limits that a superhero could possibly endure.  It is a very dark film (darker, perhaps, than its predecessors).

The themes in this film may be evident in works of literature throughout history, yet there may have never been a more relevant time to display them than right now.  The fundamental problems caused by social stratification and the disparities it can create (think Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities) are at the heart of the film’s conflicts.  Middle class citizens (Selina Kyle included) struggle to make ends meet while the cream of the crop (Wayne included) live the good life.  It is seen again and again, especially in today’s economy, but it does not make the idea any less significant.

Bane terrorizing the Gotham Stock Exchange permits one to think of the recent “Occupy Wall Street” incidents.  Another terrorist plot by Bane involves the savage destruction of a football game (the Gotham Rogues look strikingly similar to the Steelers, coincidence?).  Sports are dear to Americans, especially football; such a visual is shocking to behold, but it comments on the importance of sports on such a material society.  For some viewers, this just might be the most grotesque scheme in Bane’s plans (a sad fact).

Nolan and his brother, Jonathan, create a masterful script that has incredible humanistic values and comments on the time as we know it.  Nolan is undoubtedly one of the best working directors, a fact that he single-handedly proved by giving depth, raw emotion, and significance to three outstanding films in the superhero genre.  Where ever could you find such human ideas in a comic book movie?  In the Dark Knight trilogy, that’s where.

The Dark Knight Rises may possess the darkest tone of the three films, yet it works satisfactorily and is fittingly the end to the incredible beginning (Batman Begins) and the perfect middle (The Dark Knight).  This is now a complete story, the conclusion leaves everyone wanting more (only the best films do so); Christopher Nolan’s Batman will be missed.

Midnight in Paris (2011)



“You're in love with a fantasy.”

            As an Art History/Museum Education major I have studied all the major art movements and their time periods. My favorite periods/styles are the Italian Renaissance, art during the French Revolution, Pre- Raphaelites, Impressionism, Post- Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Surrealism, and Art Deco. Last year at the International Center of Photography in New York City I was fortunate to see an exhibit called Twilight Visions: Surrealism and Paris. The exhibit featured photography by Surrealist photographers Man Ray, Ilse Bing, Brassaï, Germaine Krull, André Kertesz, Eugène Ategt, Dora Maar, André Breton, and many others. The photographs were all of Paris and the Parisian people at night in various hot spots. Most of the photographs are of common Parisian sites like the Eiffel Tower and The Pont Neuf but they were all taken from different angles and most of them at night with haunting and stimulating lighting. The photographs were incredible and so beautiful they let my imagination of Paris during that time soar. But it was not until I was in England last summer when I picked up a biography on Lee Miller that I truly started to imagine what life must have been like in Paris during the 1920s with all the artistic and literary figures gathering in the city at cafés and going to decadent parties. Paris was the artistic and cultural center of the world and never in one point in history was so many of these incredible people gathered all together at once. Just imagining seeing Gertrude Stein with Picasso and Matisse and Hemingway in a café or seeing Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald at a party gives me shivers of excitement.            

            I had been hearing so much about Woody Allen’s latest movie Midnight in Paris. All I knew about the movie was Marion Cotillard was in it and that it took place in Paris which these two aspects were enough for me to want to see it. I got a little uptight seeing Owen Wilson as the main character because the guy drives me nuts but he was actually really good as Gil Pender. Once the movie got going I was so pleasantly surprised at the plot because it is my Art History loving heart’s dream.

            Gil and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) are in Paris with her parents. Gil loves Paris he would really like to move there so he can write his book. Inez and her parents do not like the city and they do not like the French. Inez’s parents do not really think anything of Gil and she is totally wrong for him she is so demanding and keeps putting him down. To make the trip worse for Gil a former teacher of Inez named Paul and his wife are in Paris at the same time and Inez makes plans with them instead of just spending time taking in the sites with him (Gil).

            That night after a wine tasting party Paul and his wife invite Inez and Gil to go dancing. Gil does not want to go at all that is not his thing so he decides to walk back to the hotel. He gets lost when he stops at a corner on a side street. The clock strikes twelve when all the sudden an old fashioned car pulls up and the people inside shout for Gil to come with them to a party. They are all dresses in 1920s era clothing and so are the people at the party. At the party he notices the man who is singing at the piano from old sheet music. The first guest he talks to tells him her name is Zelda and her husband comes over and he introduces himself as Scott Fitzgerald. Gil thinks they are just pretending to be the famous literary couple but they are serious. He then realizes that the man on the piano is Cole Porter.

            The Fitzgeralds invite Gil to go out on the town with him and he has a great time. Towards the end of the night they come to small café where sitting at a table is Ernest Hemingway. Gil cannot believe that he is talking to one his literary heroes and questions the writer and tells him about his own book. Hemingway tells Gil that he will not read his book but will take him to see Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) the next night so she could read it. Gil leaves the café after Scott and Zelda leave but he realizes he never asked Hemingway where to meet the following day and when he runs back to café it is a modern day Laundromat.

            Gil cannot believe that he spent the night with great literary figures and that he is going to be giving his book to Gertrude Stein to read. The next night the same car arrives at midnight to bring him to Gertrude Stein’s. He first sees the great modern art patron in an argument with Pablo Picasso over one of his works. Stein agrees to read the book after she reads the first paragraph out loud. Hearing the reading was Picasso’s latest mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Adriana is a beautiful woman who came to Paris to study fashion for costume making with Chanel. She met and fell in love with Modigliani and lived with him for a few months then he left her, she met Braque, and that is how she met Picasso. Gil tells her he loves being in the 20s with all the interesting people but Adriana does not like her modern times she wishes she could go back to France’s Le Belle Époque where the country and the people were at their most beautiful and she could go to Maxim’s.

            As Gil goes back in time each night he falls in love with Adriana. He realizes that Inez does not love him or care for him and that she has probably had an affair with Paul. One night both he and Adriana get transported back to the Belle Époque to Maxim’s (which was decorating amazingly in Art Nouveau) where they meet Toulouse- Lautrec, Degas, and Gauguin. Adriana does not want to go back to the 20s she is in her Golden Age and does not want to go back.

            Gil realizes it is better to live in the time he lives in and look back to the past on what was because no matter what time period we live we always think that past ones are so much better than ours. He leaves Inez and falls in love with a girl he had met at an antique dealers in the city.

             Once I saw that Gil got to go back in time and be among the Lost Generation I was totally hooked and just adored the movie. I had such a good time seeing all these famous art figures depicted with their quirks and mannerisms and even some of their art that I have studied. During the movie I was thinking if I could go back and hang out with the Surrealists I would love to talk to Man Ray and Lee Miller and in one scene Gil gets pulled to a table by Salvador Dali (Adrian Brody) and Man Ray walks over! That was so cool, the actor playing Man Ray looked just like the artist it was scary. Adrian Brody was the spitting image of Dali he was perfect. I got especially excited when I saw Picasso’s painting (well a copy anyway) of Gertrude Stein in the scenes of Stein’s apartment because I have seen it in person before.

            Midnight in Paris was a fantasy that constantly plays through my mind. Whenever I study an art movement I always wish I could go back in time and talk to these inspiring people. If I could talk to a few artists/photographers I would love to talk to John Singer Sargent, Gustav Klimt, Man Ray, Lee Miller, Edward Steichen, Richard Avedon, Jacques- Louis David, Picasso, Matisse, Turner and so many more.  

            If there was one place and time period I would die to visit like Gil got to do it would be 1930s Hollywood. I am always asking my great- grandma what it was like to see all the classic films in the 30s in theaters and I would love to see them originally in the theaters for myself. I would also like to talk some of my favorite actors and actresses from that time too just as Gil got to talk to artists and writers. Also like Gil I would prefer living in the time I do now and look back on the past. In the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s everyone dressed so nice and classy and that is one thing I would like to see back again people taking pride in what they wore and looking classy and sophisticated.

            Midnight in Paris is a wonderful and original movie. Even if you do not know Art History or literature that well the movie is so great to sit through. Woody Allen just lets your imagination take off because you can imagine like I did what it would be like if you could go back to a time period that you admire. The 1920s and the early 1900s costumes were amazing. One costume Marion Cotillard was wearing looks like a Jean Patou dress that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has in their collection.

            Definitely see Midnight in Paris either in the theaters or when it is released on DVD. It is so original which is so rare in films. I guarantee that if you do not know the artists mentioned you will be interested enough to look up their lives and works.

            Let me just end with saying that Art History is not boring… well it can be (Non- Western and early colonial American art is the devil!!) but knowing the history of the time period a work was made in and why it was made and knowing things about the life of the artist makes art so much more interesting. I used to walk around museums when I was younger and look at paintings and think how boring but now I find so many interesting things in art. I can now give anyone a fantastic, very enthusiastic tour (to toot my horn) around the Metropolitan Museum of Art and make looking at the thousands of splendid art works more enjoyable.