This year I had in mind to watch the entire cadre of Oscar nominated foreign language films. Admittedly, I have only seen one so far. I have had them on my Netflix queue for months but keep pushing the down in the order. Watching a foreign language film takes a little more of my brain power than I have lately, especially after a long day of hanging out with middle school students. I thought I was going to get the original Upstairs, Downstairs, but for some crazy reason, there is a long wait for that. Really America? People are going nuts for Upstairs, Downstairs these days – and not even the new one. Anyway, I finally ended up with I am Love, the Italian nominated film with Tilda Swinton, speaking Italian. It’s a doozy! It begins with a formal family dinner with the mega-rich Reccci family where cracks in the beautiful family demeanor become apparent. The cracks become chasms as the film progresses. The way the movie is filmed is interesting. Long, languorous shots of empty rooms or bees buzzing over flowers, for example. It also a lot about passion and love as the title suggests, but it all seems very chaste, until whoza, a very revealing sex scene, which seemed out of place, I thought. It’s a pretty fascinating film, overall, and it’s good to watch a movie that pushes the boundaries of what you think film should do. So, I’ll get working on the rest of the list (see below) I believe Biutiful is next.
2011 Oscar Nominees for best Foreign Language Film
I am Love, Italy
Dogtooth, Greece
Biutiful, Mexico
In A Better World, Denmark
Incendies, Canada,
Outside the Law, Algeria
Friday, June 10, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Cyrus
For at least the first ½ hour of Cyrus, I had a frozen grimace on my face. Embarrassing and disgusting things kept happening. Would the big goofy depressed John (John C. Riley) win over the beautiful Molly (Marissa Tomei)? Yes, inexplicably. Would he then be able to win over Molly’s strange man-child son, Cyrus (Johan Hill)? Well, not sure. A lot of things don’t seem to make sense in this movie. Least of all why Jaime (Catherine Keener) continues to support and listen to John’s paranoid ranting even while she is planning for her wedding. I know it sounds like I didn’t like this movie, and sure there were parts I found unlikeable, but it definitely held my interest and had moments of sweetness. Yeah, and that grimace, it reappeared on and off throughout the movie.
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