Woody Allen gives us a funny but thought-provoking film on Paris, art and appreciating our time
Hello fellow movie buffs! This is my first instalment of "Jump Cut!" Sometimes, I won't be able to write full-length and in-depth reviews, so I will post shorter more "to-the-point" blogs to give you more reading material more often! Yes! So here's my "Jump Cut!" on Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Enjoy!
I have never hated a character in any film as much as I hated Inez, played by Rachel McAdams, but never have I loved the idea of time-travel as much as I did in Midnight in Paris.
The film is a funny, but tastefully enlightening story about a Hollywood script-writer (Owen Wilson as Gil) struggling to finish his novel while visiting Paris with his fiancee's family. The couple share completely different beliefs and passions which ultimately leads to Gil's confusion surrounding not only their engagement but himself as a person.
Wilson gives a solid performance and really gets you excited about meeting the incredibly influential artists of the roaring twenties. The story is the perfect balance of exemplifying a beautiful city, the secrets of becoming an artist and the belief that people could lead better lives in other places.
Woody Allen's, Midnight in Paris takes you on a life quest; an artistic journey through time and brings you back to the present with a little more appreciation for life and maybe, even art and of Paris.
Amazing acting, musical score and directing comes together to portray love and its fragility
Sundance Film Festival's big winner, Like Crazy encompasses everything a typical love story should encompass; happiness, sadness, love, conflict and heart ache. All of love's little cliches can be found in this film, but it manages to get away with it because it's not glittered or decorated with predictable and "cheesy" script or dialogue. Instead, the film gets away with it through modest storytelling and keeping a real-life approach to its denouement. Writer-director, Drake Doremus created an honest and realistic romantic-drama, illustrating just how fragile love can be.
Like Crazy stars Anton Yelchin as Jacob and Felicity Jones as Anna - two young people, from different parts of the world, who fall in love while studying in their final year of university in Los Angeles. The opening minutes of the film show the awkward, yet adorable beginnings of the couple's relationship. Note-sharing, awkward coffee dates and long nights of drink-tasting and connection flourish into a promising love affair. Unfortunately, the happiness is short-lived, and eventually, Anna must face the reality of going back home to England.
For anyone who has fallen in love, being apart from that one special person can be the most difficult thing in the world. So, instead of leaving Jacob for two months to renew her visa, Anna decided to throw caution to the wind and stayed with her beloved Jacob, opting to leave at the end of the summer. Blinded by love and happiness, the couple made some poor decisions, which eventually led to the major problem surrounding the young couple.
After going back to England, Anna discovers that since she failed to meet the requirements of her visa, she could not visit Jacob or enter the US, commencing the onslaught of frustrating and heartbreaking chain of events surrounding the couples relationship.
With Jacob running a successful furniture business and Anna slowly writing her way to the top of a local magazine, the two begin to realize the struggles of balancing their responsibilities and keeping their fragile love together.
Doremus had Yelchin and Jones improvise a lot of their dialogue to create more natural performances. It was obvious because of the simple prose and everyday language that the two used. Their performances were amazing and they really defined their characters and made them their own. They were really unpolished and raw representations, true to form and it's authenticity was very enjoyable. It just moulded perfectly with the realistic style of storytelling Doremus presented throughout the film. Jones was rewarded by Sundance with a special jury prize for best actress, and after viewing her performance, it was clearly an award well earned.
This review would be amiss if the musical score by Dustin O'Halloran wasn't mentioned. The score complimented the story perfectly and really added to those already emotional and candid scenes. In many romantic-drama films, music can be overdone and overused, but each composition comes in at the most opportune moment and never more. The film itself has a very nice, natural-sound silence to it, which makes for a natural, life-like view, but the score adds to it's appreciation when O'Halloran's pieces do come up.
Like Crazy may not stack up to the likes of romance blockbusters like The Notebook, but it certainly defines just how fragile and vulnerable love can be. This story of first loves dives into everything a first love should be; nerve-racking, heart pounding, and uncertain. The uncertainty of this couple's fate is what really drives this film from beginning to end. With so much love between the two, it's almost impossible to think that it won't work out. But throw in 5,000 miles of distance and the undeniable variables that may present themselves, Like Crazy shows just how difficult it is to make love work, but at the same time, shows what any person is willing to do when blinded by love.
Montreal director, Lee Thorburn talks about his first full-length film, titled Juliet is the Sun
Within the first five minutes of meeting up with Lee Thorburn, It was really easy to tell that this guy had a huge passion for filmmaking.
"Dude, let me see your camera," the filmmaker said in an excited voice. "I actually recently sold mine that was pretty similar to this."
Before I could even decide what area of the studio to shoot the interview, Lee was holding my camera, examining it and saying things like "let me just check how good this camera's depth-of-field is." From that second on, not only did I know I would have a beautifully framed shot for my video package, but that this guy was a pro, that he knew what he was doing and that he had a huge love for the art-form.
Lee directed and wrote the script for his first ever full-length film called Juliet is the Sun; a love story between two, lost-in-the-world-and-trying-to-find-themselves, characters named Tristan and Michelle who unfortunately find themselves thrown into a world of drugs, prostitution and violence! Sounds like an awesome storyline, right? Well I wouldn't know, because other than being provided with little snippets of the film, I have yet to see it! A big bummer for a film fanatic wanting to review his film.
The Mississauga Independent Film Festival reviewed it however, and thought it was amazing. The crime/drama came out with an impressive second place finish in the feature-length category, furthering this critics thirst to watch it. Even though Juliet is the Sun didn't win, Mr. Lee Thorburn took home other, non-official victories from the Festival.
"We beat out Kevin Spacey's Casino Jack, so that was cool," Lee said laughing proudly. "Also, the festival director said that if he could've picked [a winner], 'cause he's not the judge, that he would have picked us, so I'll take that to heart."
The fact that Lee beat out a Hollywood picture is truly an amazing feat! It's almost more amazing when you take into account that the film was shot with under $5,000.
The film (supposedly, 'cause I haven't seen it) takes you on a wild ride through prostitution, drugs, gangster scenarios and a Romeo and Juliet like romance. With fight scenes and SWAT scenes and even the occasional scene with a gun (note the sarcasm), Lee Thorburn's Juliet is the Sun is sure to attract the crime and gangster movie fan. Perhaps he's a Martin Scorsese (my favourite director) in the making.
With that being said, what are your opinions on gangster and crime movies? And what do you guys think of the trailer (provided below)?
Be sure to be on the lookout for the DVD release of Juliet is the Sun sometime in early 2012.
** For a more in-depth look of Lee Thorburn, how he began and fun stories on set, check out the link below of my video interview with the filmmaker himself! **
