Day Five: Have romantic comedies always been this bad?

 I won't lie, I have watched enough chick flicks to write a very large novel. A depth of knowledge about a topic that surely won't win me cool points at my next party.
I've watched so many of them and I don't know why. They're all the same.
A quirky/successful/pretty woman in her late twenties that is too self conscious to land the man of her dreams. She's a "career" woman. She's a doormat. She just cares too much about making others happy. Aw, poor lass, stand your ground.
She's matched with a dynamic best bud. Usually they've been through years together, graduating an impressive university holding hands and going through a family related trauma by each others side.
The leading lady either has a high maintenance best bud who is ultimately too demanding to even be considered realistic (always another woman). That, or a calm, grounding friend that makes our girl feel like she's worth something through wit and kindness (usually a guy).
In Something Borrowed there's both. The stereotype continues ladies and gentlemen.
And yes, I watched Something Borrowed...
No doubt, it was poorly done, so lame and obviously boring. To generalize, it's lazy film making.
Lines like, "Sometimes good people do bad things." Who's writing this shit?
Jennie Snyder. Oooops, no wonder it was bad. She writes Lipstick Jungle and Hope and Faith scripts. Booo!
Come on, it's about rich thirty year olds first off. They go to the Hamptons and whine about expensive houses. They're all lawyers. They take lengthy vacations and long lunches. It's hard to feel sorry for these folks.
The premise is so unoriginal. Two best friends, one of them falls in love with the others fiance. BUT wait! There's a history between the two secret lovers, they were ex-law students that loved each other but never said anything. Barf.
There's the over the top kisses in the taxi cab, overly emotional/unrealistic monologues that make you wince and the feel good 90s music soundtrack.
Have romantic comedies always been like this? Specifically, have they all been this terrible?
I watched an old romantic comedy and it seems as though they haven't.
One with my favourite classy lady, Miss Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.

Roman Holiday is exceptionally cute, but not plastic like the romantic comedies of today. It's about a princess (Audrey Hepburn) who has been overly managed her entire life. She has every moment of her days planned and has no free will. She is pushed to the limit when she has a day before her filled with official demands on a big European tour. The final one in in the city of Rome.
A sedative is given to her after she throw a tantrum. The poor princess has absolutely no say in her life.

That is, until she sneaks out of her heavily guarded room to the busy streets of Rome. She wanders aimlessly until the sedative kicks in and she falls asleep on a park bench in the middle of the city. Joe Bradely, played by the beautiful Gregory Peck, finds her. He's not the nicest chap in the first section of the movie. He seems like a desperate newspaper writer, wanting more than anything to return to his hometown in New York to write for a "real" paper. He ends up having to take the Princess home, although at that time, he has no idea who she is.
The film continues as the Princess enjoys playing hooky with Joe in the city. She's unaware that he works for the paper. Once he finds out who she is, he uses her like everyone else. He secretly schemes to make his encounter with her a front story page for a hot ticket price of $15 grand.
Although, Joe starts off with only dollar signs in his eyes, he quickly changes. The two fall in love. Sigh.

The film is really cute and feel good. The movie is absolutely Americana 1950s, charming and lovable. Also, the ending is stereotypical. Joe is loyal and doesn't sell Princess Ann out. They share an adventurous day in the city, escaping the royal guards, dancing with hilarious Italian locals and eating delicious food.
So, before you write off romantic comedies, check out some oldies, they'll be sure to make you feel just that much better about love.
Recommended. 4/5

Class, big cities and modern art

There's something incredibly peaceful about going to an art gallery. Especially when the gallery is filled with amazing modern art. I'm not sure exactly what it is. Maybe it's that these beautiful works of art are huge, engulfing you into a world without clear definitions. You make up your own meaning to each piece. Maybe art galleries are peaceful because you see people completely in love with what they're seeing, silent in amazement. I've always really loved the imagery of a shadowy figure, back towards you, unmoving in front of a piece.
It's worth the money, definitely go! It's very excellent.
Here are some of my favourites.


Come on, obviously my man Jackson Pollock. I have been obsessed with him since I was a wee tot and seeing an entire room of his paintings honestly, put me to near tears. I was in there for a good 45 minutes.  Starring at Number 1A was like being in a trance. Every little stroke could be a person, an animal, an emotion. It's outstanding. This guy is a genius. You imagine your own body dancing with the painting. In fact, as I sat there, with my mouth open it was as if the layers slowly moved and swayed with me. Maybe I moved with it.








Before I went to the exhibit, I knew I loved Jackson Pollock. I didn't know I loved his wife. Lee Krasner, mon dieu. Gaea 1966 was beautiful beyond words.

Rothko.
Going into the Rothko room was amazing. The lights were dim, protecting the fragile paintings from fading out. My security guard friend, who I discussed everything from American politics to his daughter's University experience, told me that Rothko's paintings were delicate. Pieces were known to fade, the beautiful whites in bold strips often turned to a cream or yellow, destroying the original vision. It was strange to think of a painting so delicate. The thin strokes in which blocks of purple mixed with brown contrasted drastically with the previous room of Pollocks thick, dripping technique. I can't really say much about art, I just like to look at it, but the whole room was like how fragile emotions are. Raw emotions definitely came out of these. A quotation by Rothko is that he was interested in expressing "the big emotions-tragedy, ecstasy, doom". They all definitely came out.

Finally, from the Modern Expressionist exhibit Gorky. Loved three of his pieces, that were displayed as we first entered the exhibition. Garden in Sochi is pretty excellent.

Outside of the Abstract Expressionist exhibit I really liked the Modern Inuit room. Jessie Oonark is now one of my favourites. 

In love with these! Unfortunately I don't know the names of them :( Too bad.
Beautiful beautiful colours. Want them all over my house.

Anyways, get to the AGO! Bring your student card and go in the late afternoon because somedays its
FREE!
Whoo

Le Bon Vivant

I think this blog is about saying all the good things that I find in life. It started out just as films, but why not extend that to everything else.
Le Bon Vivant, the good life.
What's good? Lots of stuff. Today has been exceptionally good.
Musique?
The Young Giants. Check em out. They're from California, they played with Minus the Bear and they're acoustic songs will melt your soul. They have good summer tunes to listen late at night when you're coming back home from a disappointing social gathering. They're irritably catchy. They're guitar makes you want to live in a cabin for the rest of your life. It's alternative rock and jazzy with vocals that make you think you're driving to the beach in June with the windows down.

They remind me of Telekinesis (but way better/not as whinny), Beach Fossils, Local Natives or Freelance Whales. So if you dig those guys, hit up The Young Giants.


 An excellent song/video by them.
Apartment by Young the Giant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPUcP3k3CMY

                                                                                                      

Also. Food. Food is also delicious. Brio, Italian coke basically with caramel aftertaste. Sushi? Thank you sweet Japanese ladies. I wish I knew your names, but it was absolutely delicious.





Finally, clothes! Everyone digs clothes. Today I found some excellent vintage stuff.

 Bags 4 bucks each at Bibles for Missions. The 80s tops are from Bibles for Missions for 8 bucks and the pants are Espirit from my Mumma's closet that I quickly stole. Excellent stuff. Who knew I'd like 80s stuff, hopefully I'm not reviewing 80s films in the future...John Hughes? Ewwww

Day Four: Hiroshima Mon Amour

Let's get this going again. I've been slacking. Blame it on Canada Day.

Hiroshima Mon Amour, an Alain Resnais film from 1959. Prepare yourself. This movie is daunting and emotionally overwhelming. It has depth, style and raw emotion, so it's highly recommended by me. A simple plot description is that, there's an impossible love story between an American actress and a Japanese man who are haunted by old memories and past emotions. The movie is all about reality, memories and forgetting. Forgetting being the strongest theme, as the film revolves around the fleeting power of a moment, a lover or a place.

The film starts out with, "No, you saw nothing at Hiroshima." As although both of them know what happened after the bomb and can retell it, neither were there. Neither experienced the tragedy themselves. The American woman, played by the beautiful Emmanuelle Riva, as not there. She was in Paris. An her Japanese lover, played by Eiki Okada wasn't either. This introduces us to the theme was being aware, experiencing something and slowly beginning to forget it. A theme that returns time and time again throughout the film.

To simply state what the movie is about is difficult. To me, it was about experiencing something and it slipping away. It's memory haunting you, but the details of it fading with time. The audience learns about a German lover in Nevers who died in the war. A Japanese wife that fades into the background, never to be elaborated or discussed. It's about how past memories that haunt the future, impact how the two characters chose to live their lives. How a missed opportunity, a lost lover or the memories of a distant village shape the realities of the present. It's how the past influences the characters inability to chose their own fate. It ends by another love story being a lost opportunity. One that will eventually fade into a distant memory. One called "Hiroshima."
The film's style compliments the beauty of Resnais story development. The film comes to life with lengthy monologues, simple soundtrack and rapidly changing camera angles. It's almost as though Resnais puts the audience in a dance. The music gracefully interwoven, the dialogue poetic and the camera angles flow rhythmically. This film is really a piece of art.

There is so much to talk about with this film. The style is undoubtably modern. The music by Giovanni Fusco, is absolutely amazing. It works seamlessly with the film, changing to best suit the underlying themes, moods and pace of the scene. The soundtrack may be the best I've ever heard. There are moments when the fast paced, light, eccentric composition fits perfectly with the modern architecture of the city. Then there's the slow, rhythmic, dark compositions for two lovers, from different worlds trying to find a common thread.
The film takes on a musical quality, one where the audiences dances through the plotline. One in which, not only the style, but the entire content is like a cyclical flow, flowing from the beginning and returning back in the end. I think the film stands out as rhythmic and completely inspiring is that it combines poetry and film. Lines like, "While my body is still ablaze with the memory of you, I'd like to see Neveres again. The Loire. The lovely popular trees of Nevers. I give you up to oblivion, A dime store romance. I consign you to oblivion."
A dime store romance? Ah, beautiful. Resnais' script is like absolutely fantastic. This movie really shows how visionary cinema is. Film is the ultimate unifier. It brings together writing, visual art, acting and music. Each of these artistic aspects is articulated in the most profound manner. Even the plot line is poetic. A "silly young girl" who is lost in the memories of a German lover who she met on the banks of the Loire. A Japanese man who earns to be awake. A city nursing the wounds of a horrific bomb.
This film is hauntingly beautiful. A story where two lovers are lost and haunted by their past, unable to see the beauty of potential happiness, lost in a foreign city, unaware of the potential of the present.
4/5. Highly recommended

Day Three: Harvey

One more Canadian pick. This ones pretty great.
It's not a film...but rather a great little graphic novel.
Picked this little book up at the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario. I saw it and the illustrations themselves, are a solid reason to pay $20. I'm cheap but, Nadeau's illustrations are amazing. I'm a sucker for books. Especially those, that you just want to gaze at for hours. This book is definitely one of those treasures with style. 

The story is translated into English, so either the translation was a bit strange or the writing is a bit awkward. I read somewhere, reading it in French is essential. Damn hating French classes for eight years. The plot-line is a simple one. It's about Harvey, his brother Cantin and his Mother who are all dealing with the sudden death of their Father. When Harvey sees his Father in the coffin, he imagines himself also disappearing. The theme of the book is that, fading away. Although, I hate to be rude. A lot of the time, the writing is poor and it just doesn't make sense....
However, the reason I post about this book is because of the fabulous illustrations. I'm still amazed every time I open the book. Nadeau is a genius. Stylish, minimalist and earthy. She mixes charcoal and water colours to give a depth I've never seen in "graphic novels". She's innovative, making the reading process just that much more interesting with little tricks. For example, the mother's scene, the most touching out of the entire book. 
Nadeau skillfully depicts a scene in which the Mother, is being held in the arms of the Priest with a crowd around her and her husband leaving in the ambulance behind her. The next page removes the background, the following page removes the crowd of people, the next the Priest until finally, the wife is alone on the white page. Stuff like this is genius.   If you're not into the literature aspect of it, which isn't exactly amazing, then really look at the artwork. I think Nadeau is a artistic genius. Her style is way too cool to go unnoticed. Highly Recommended, even if the whole writing aspect is below par.

Day Two: Paddle to the Sea

I'm on a Canadian fix right now.
I suppose that's kind of strange, saying as my taste in film is usually incredibly European. Directors like  Erice, Kieslowski, Godard or Malle are my favourites that I watch most often. I can't talk much about film from my own country, mainly because I haven't watch very much of it.
However, my Mum and Uncle told me they loved this particular short. A cherished, childhood favourite of many. So I thought, on the way home from a paddling trip, I'd check it out.
                                          
Paddle to the Sea is a children's book turned movie directed by Bill Mason in the late 60s. The story begins in Lake Nipigon in which a young native boy meticulously carves a paddler out of wood. The boy dreams of journeying to the sea, but since he is unable to go himself, he creates a paddler that will venture onwards towards the Atlantic.  In the short 27 minutes in length, we see the paddler travel through the most scenic of Canadian wilderness, facing barriers that threatened an end to this journey.
The paddler, who oddly is personified throughout the film, goes through many barriers throughout his journey. Even in the biggest of barriers, however do not cease the paddlers end goal of reaching the Atlantic. When he goes over Niagara Falls, the commentator confirms that, most would think he would be destroyed by the violent waters. A sure goner. However, paddler bobs his head up and stays afloat, continuing onwards.
Paddler reaches the Atlantic, stripped of his paint and smooth from his long journey on the water. It ends as simply as it begins.
Could it be this simple though? It's almost as though, this simple film has a bigger message.
I'm tempted to sit here and write about how this film is actually about life and dreams. The good, inspiring stuff. Maybe the paddler's journey is one that many of us follow. One of hardship and toil, to eventually reach the goal. The goal of attaining our dreams.
Maybe it's not that complicated. Maybe it's simply a story about a carved piece of wood that eventually journeys through Canada towards the vast open Atlantic.
I'm not sure. This could be why it's appealing. For the grade 4 students in the 1960s and to me today trying to overanalyze it. This film is a worthy watch. Innocent. Beautiful. Maybe even a little bit inspiring.  3/5. Recommended

Day One: Tkaronto

Love film? Love rambling about it? Think that your life is an ongoing roll of film?

Me too. In fact, film is the one thing I think I could talk all day about. 

I'll start with Tkaronto, the first of many films this Summer. Hopefully, if it works out, I'll watch one film a day and record the good ones on here for whoever's out there to enjoy.  

Yesterday I was in Toronto with a dear friend from the mountains of North Carolina. As we wandered through the city, getting more and more lost as the day went on, I kept thinking of what a great city Toronto is to film in. Colourful, busy, stylish and eccentric. It's hard not to love Toronto. 

When I got back to Guelph, I rented a Canadian made film by Shane Belcourt. It premiered in ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Festival in Toronto in '07 with a budget of merely 20, 000. The director at the time,  was in his early thirties.

Although the film starts off rocky, it is a worthy watch. In the beginning, the soundtrack is altogether too dramatic, the acting at times forced and obvious transitions make it an uneasy film to critique. However, this develops into something great. Something absolutely worth watching.

Just get through the first little bit...

This film is a story about identity. It's real, poignant and blatantly Canadian.
The two characters, Jolene Peltier and Ray Morrin are brought together because of business in the city of Toronto. Although they do not look alike, they both share Native blood (Jolene is First Nations and Ray Morrin in Metis) and are trying to comes to terms with what it means to be Native.
The film picks up from the rocky beginning with a scene inside of a business meeting. This scene drips with dark humour. During an interview in which Ray, a cartoonist, is discussing a show called "Indian Jones" the arrogant Producer allows a poignant critique on how Canadians dismissively view Native people, culture and history. Lines like, "You're people are hot on the market", "Stop whining", and "How can I get a status card?" provide reflection and insight to how Canadian society deals with a culture that continues to be belittled and silenced.
This film is that voice that has the propensity to bring change. A loud voice calling for change.
Although the message of Tkaronto is loud, there are also subtle beauties. The connection between Ray and Jolene is pure, real and deep. One of the most real emotion connections I've ever seen on screen and the closest they ever physically get is slow dancing in Jolene's kitchen. That's good acting to pull of love without physical sexuality. 10 points there. Belcourt really makes the audience believe that love is truly an emotion connection more than anything. "We need to be around people who embrace us for who we really are."

Belcourt presents a story that everyone needs to hear more of. Celebration of Aboriginal culture. A chance to reflect internally on who we really are.  A subtle story of a real emotion connection, providing a refreshing change from the usual, over the top sexy love story oh too commonly seen on screen.
2.5/5. Kind of recommended