Beginners

     Beginners is a movie that hides comedy in a multi-layered drama. Starring Ewan McGregor as Oliver, the film begins with a voice over about Oliver's father Hal. The monologue mentions the death of Oliver's mother and the announcement that Hal is gay. Also Hal has cancer.

    Hal is portrayed by Christopher Plummer, a role he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The movie talks deeply about the relationship between an adult man and his father and paints a realistic picture of both men who struggle with Hal's identity. This is not what the movie is about. The movie is about Oliver and Anna.

     The movie mostly focuses on Oliver's resurgence into the world via dating Anna. They meet at a costume party Oliver is reluctant to attend until he meets Anna. Their relationship grows organically from the moment she asks him:

                                           

     Oliver is an artist and Anna is an actor and their creative sadness drives them together. It is moments like these, that romanticize creative depression that are turn offs to me. However, these moments come few and far between. This is a movie that is full of hope, showcased by its eccentric directing style. This film brought Mike Mills into the spotlight. The story relies heavily on narration and fun elements, such as Baxter the dog.

Mills uses elements like Baxter, or a repeating shot of Christopher Plummer in different outfits. To weave the nonlinear storylines of Oliver and Hal, and Hal's new lover, and the story of Oliver and Anna. This postmodernist technique create a full character that is only full realized through past experiences. 

     Beginners is a drama with a lot of comedy elements. Baxter the dog being subtitled is funny in its surprise and uniqueness. But it is the dark sense of emotion that comes with complex characters that really makes this film work. Despite the cheesy artist language.

        

August: Osage County

Based on the multiple Tony Award winning play written by Tracy Letts, this new film adaptation has been bringing in a lot of Oscar buzz even well before its debut in the Toronto Film Festival.  It is a dark film with a lot a large range of dramatic and devastating characters which have been noted to only be reserved for the best actors for they are unlike you any characters you have typically seen before. Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, and Benedict Cumberbatch are just a few of the world renown actors participating in this film.

Plot

The story begins with Beverly Weston, a former poet whose wife, Violet (Meryl Streep), has grown weak with cancer. When Beverly disappears, the couple's three daughters and their extended family come to Oklahoma. The couple's eldest daughter, Barbara (Julia Roberts), is having her own marital issues. Middle sister Ivy ( Julianne Nicholson ) has a secret that would divide the family, while the youngest, Karen ( Juliette Lewis ), has a fiancé ( Dermot Mulroney ) who dies.

The film comes out on Christmas Day. 

Cant wait to see it!

Moulin Rouge!

Moulin Rouge has been a favorite movie of mine since the sixth grade... but WHY?

It is one of those movies that people either love and highly recommend, or it is a movie that people strongly dislike.

Using aesthetic analysis, I will see why this movie has drawn me in.

First off, the lighting and colors, for example are beautiful. The lighting is eclectic ranging from natural lighting to chiaroscuro lighting, depending on how dramatic or comedic the scene is. The colors are highly saturated, and combined with the light, make the colors of the costumes and set accentuated so that they pop out and look rich and absolutely stunning.

The shots in general are beautifully composed. There is a wide range of shots from aerial shots to close ups, but a commonality of the shots are that they are all very smooth, almost like a dream. This could be because the majority of the movie is a flashback. I do not think there is actually a single shot in the movie that is handheld. Also, even if there is a close up on an actor, there is something visually stunning happening in the background as well. There is a lot of depth to the shots and each time I watch the film, there is something new that I notice every time, and I have literally seen this movie close to a hundred times...

What makes these already incredible looking shots look better yet is the editing. It is a different and distinct editing style that messes frequently with time and motion. There are a lot of fast zooms and quick cuts that capture the frantic and energetic essence of the Moulin Rouge. The characters are shown   speeding up their movements to make a task such as turning a well-furnished bedroom into a mini-theater happen within seconds, and then in another scene, there is a transition from flashback to the present by way of slowing down a windmill's spinning to show the passage of time.

And then there's the music... This is a point where a few people might lose interest in Moulin Rouge. The music consists almost entirely of covers sung by the lead actor and actress. I believe there is actually only one song in the entire movie that was made exclusively for the film called 'Come What May.' The movie is a series of covered love songs, but I think if there only was original music, I would most likely have liked the film a bit less.

Finally, there's the story. It is an incredible story about 'Freedom, Beauty, Truth, and Love.' It is about a young English writer who falls in love with the star of the Moulin Rouge, Satine. However, they have to hide their love because she has to make the Duke, the financier, believe she is in love with him in order for her dreams to be realized so that she can become a 'real' actress. Nonetheless, the movie's most famous quote is "the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return" and by the end this is fully realized.

It is a movie that I recommend watching at least once.

Trainspotting

My friends and I have agreed that the best word to describe Trainspotting would be Intense. It is a stimulating film filled with young degenerate heroin addicts, vivid hallucinations, and a creepy dead baby, which has haunted me ever since I first watched the film last weekend.

What first drew me to the film were the actors. Ewan McGregor, the top billed actor in Trainspotting, is also the lead in one of my favorite movies, Moulin Rouge, so I was very curious to see his performance in this piece. Also amongst the cast, I saw Jonny Lee Miller, the actor who is playing Sherlock Holmes in the new CBS series, 'Elementary,' which is airing this fall. Knowing this, it became absolutely necessary to see the film.

Going into this film, I thought Trainspotting was going to depict the carefree lives of a group of Scottish youths who liked to live fast, go to clubs, and dabble with drugs, while all negative side effects would be shown in more of a comedic manner.

Boy, was I wrong.

This movie took me for a ride. One scene in particular that left an impression on me was the heavy hallucinatory scene where the main character, Renton, opts to take his last hit of heroin. Being a bad hit, this hurls him into a delirious state where he is shown thrashing and screaming in his bed while seeing terrifying images such as his friend's neglected deceased baby crawling on the ceiling and later turning its head a complete 180 degrees. It is an absolutely horrifying moment that still gives me chills when I think about it.

This scene in particular horrified me not only for its content, but also for its relation to a moment that I witnessed on a set. I do not wish to give too many details to give the actor some privacy, but one of the scenes that a production I worked on shot was a party scene in which one of the actors had to pretend to take several hits from a bong. Fake weed that was legally bought was placed inside the bong, however, these 'Scooby snacks,' or synthetic weed, had more of an effect than regular weed. The actor started to have hallucinations similar to what I saw in Trainspotting and it was an intense scene to witness. However, everything turned out all right and the actor was not harmed or even fazed by the situation, which was reassuring. He showed up energetic and ready to work the next day wishing to continue filming like nothing ever happened.

Although some of the scenes in Trainspotting can be quite disturbing, it is a thought provoking and powerful movie that I highly recommend.

Big Fish

Big Fish is a film that I have recently watched directed by Tim Burton about a father, Edward Bloom (Ewan McGregor, younger years; Albert Finney, older years) who is dying of cancer. His son Will (Billy Crudup), a journalist, who is trying to learn more about his dad by piecing together the stories he has heard over the years. The son ends up recreating his father's elusive life through the legends and tales inspired by a few facts that he has gathered. The film, which is tells the story through flashbacks, starts when Will visits his father for the last time. Will has not seen his father for a long time because he thought his dad was a liar who did not care much about his family. As he learns more about Edward’s story, Will finally begins to understand who his dad really was.

I enjoyed this movie and the way that Edward seemed to make up his life as he went along. I could see why Will did not like his father, but it was interesting to watch the way Tim Burton built the film around the father and son. This is the type of movie a viewer would either really like or find too disjointed. It is a matter of personal preference, but I would recommend seeing it and making up your own mind about this part fantasy, part realistic film

References:

The Circus (1928), The Wizard of Oz (1939), From Here to Eternity (1953), Wild Strawberries (1957), 8½ (1963), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Deliverance (1972), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), The Shining (1980), The Evil Dead (1981), Ladyhawke (1985), Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Go (1999), Fight Club (1999), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), "Smallville" (2001), Identity (2003)