Hi guys,
I know I don’t come here for ages, sorry about that… 
I’ve created another blog about my works. I’m probably gonna write there more than here, so if you’re interested in knowing my work and continue to follow my occasional texts, feel free to visit my new virtual corner:
http://ramonasartsandapparel.blogspot.pt
Have a wonderful day! 🙂
I’ve seen lots of famous doppelgangers but why doesn’t anyone talk about Keira&Winona and Tim&Tom? Katy&Zooey were obviously separated at birth, but I just had to show the world that, sometimes, I literally don’t know if I’m seeing Keira or Winona, Tom or Tim!!! (These are the most unsettling for me, eventually I’ll add more in time.) Tell me more of who you think could be twins!
Zooey Deschanel
Katy Perry
Tim Robbins
Tom Hanks
Winona Ryder
Keira Knightley
Check out these Top 10 Movies that defy the perception of our own reality! I’ve only seen half of them, but I’m looking forward to see the rest, I love this kind of movies.
High Fidelity
Year: 2000
Director: Stephen Frears
Screenplay: D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, Jhon Cusack and Scott Rosenberg (from the novel by Nick Hornby)
First of all (I hate starting with this phrase) I want to say I didn’t know this was based on a book, so obviously, I haven’t read it. I imagine the book is written in the first person because Rob – the main character – is constantly talking to us (to he camera), telling us his feelings, what’s happening, etc.
High Fidelity is a movie about relationships and our search for the perfect relationship, the perfect person, about expectations, fantasies, heartbreaks and all the sh*t load of things we go through our lives along with other people. Rob is the center of this story, a guy in his early thirties who’s trying to figure out why in the world does he always end up being dumped by his girlfriends. He owns a records’ store and likes to make “top 5 lists” of everything, from music – which is his passion – to girls, more specifically, breakups. With his two employees, they makes a trio of music geeks.
I’ll try to be brief for a change. He decides to meet with his previous girlfriends to find out the reason why they left him. 5 girls, and he gets different conclusions along the way. In the meantime he meets another woman, a singer, which is an amazing thing for him, but neither he or she are ready for a commitment, so it’s a short thing – a one night stand basically. It’s not even that much of a deal: in the scene where they are saying goodbye in the morning, as soon as she turns around, he starts talking about his “real” problems: her most recent breakup.
Besides the awesome cast and soundtrack, the movie itself got my attention the first time i saw it, not only because of these factors, but also because I relate to those people, we all do I guess, in some way or another. In my opinion, the world turns around money and love, nothing more, nothing less. The root of all issues are one of those two things, or both. But that would make another post… We see how Rob relates to those different girls and how he evolves and gets to his conclusions, being the final one the decision to propose to his now-reunited-girlfriend, although she doesn’t even want to marry and he knows it. His decision resumes the movie I think: as he explains, he’s tired of the fantasies, of running away at the most little “problem” (in fact, this isn’t just his problem… we all have our little flaws and his no-girlfriend did it as well), of messing things up because of other girls, even if it’s just a temporary thing, a meaningless thing. So he decides to propose, to end all that and have some stability with a woman he truly loves and likes to be with.
So yeah, it’s a pretty long movie but you can see it without even yawning or checking if it’s almost over. I liked everything about this one, from the picture to the music, the story – it has many references of things I like, plus: that’s how I found Stiff Little Fingers – the cast… I don’t know how to categorize it, though: I wouldn’t call it a drama, for me drama = tears. And I didn’t cry or felt like it. It has some funny things, but it’s not a comedy. It’s not a love story either I guess, it’s more a breakups’ story… I don’t know, it mixes all of the above, and music. Good music.
Lisa and Louise Burns, “The Grady girls”
“The Shinning”, 1980
Look how creepy they were! I think they looked creepier here than in the movie!
Moonrise Kingdom
Tear: 2012
Director: Wes Anderson
Screenplay: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
I just saw one of the cutest films, the love story of two young kids who decide to run away and even get married! But I found Moonrise Kingdom more than that. Despite being a “running-away-love-story” set in 1965, this film approached the issues of being young and misunderstood in the kid’s perspective. Suzy and Sam are both “complicated” kids: Suzy is the oldest of 4 and the only girl, whose mother is having an affair with the village policeman, Captain Sharp (well, at least they meet to smoke and there’s something going on between them for sure), and is married to a depressed guy who does not satisfy her and is aware of that fact. Despite living in a big and beautiful house, they’re not that happy, mom and dad don’t even sleep in the same bed! All her brothers are quite young, so Suzy passes a lot of her time reading books and listening to music (on her little brother’s turntable). She’s also a girl that “goes berserk” sometimes, which causes her some not-so-good situations. Sam is an orphan with emotional problems at age 12, whose foster parents claim they cannot have him anymore because “it wouldn’t be fair for everyone” (???). He’s also the most unpopular boy at the campsite…
Sam is at a scouts’ campsite and the movie begins with his escape. The reason is because he met Suzy sometime earlier and the two immediately felt something for each other, so they eventually decide to run away together. Time passes and when Sam runs away, Suzy also leaves home with some of her most precious belongings: her binoculars (that she always carry with her, calling them her “superpower” because it makes her see things more closely), her kitty, some books and the turntable. Later when Suzy’s dad is told, by she might be at some friend’s house, he replies she hasn’t got any. So we have to outsiders here who fell for each other and decide to leave everything behind, even if it has consequences for those around them and putting everyone looking for them.
I found this movie very touching, despite the funny parts. Sam is treated like… well, not as a person for sure. Because his actual foster parents don’t want him anymore, he runs the risk of being put in electroshock treatment at some Juvenile Refuge. This is something that is still done today, but besides that, many people (not only children) are treated (in terms of medical care) without taking into account the person’s background, consent, opinion or feelings. Luckily for Sam, Captain Sharp has a golden heart and decides he wants to keep the boy, avoiding his horrible fate. Therefore, Suzy is able to continue to see her husband (they have a more or less an official marriage). Suzy thinks her mother does not understand her and she herself does not understand what’s wrong in wanting to be with the person you love. All the commotion is because Sam is known to be an orphan with emotional problems, so part of the adults want him just… away. Anyway, the two are very closed within themselves, as, I think, all teens are. And that can be very dramatic, as I think I already said in earlier posts.
Another touching scene is when the rest of the boys at the campsite, instead of ostracizing their comrade, decide to help him in his escape (his second escape I mean, Sam and Suzy are caught in the woods, and eventually return home: Suzy to her parents’ and Sam to Captain Sharp’s). So the crew decides to “rescue” Sam from Captain Sharp’s house in the middle of the night, with Suzy with them! Everyone sail on canoes to the other side of the sore, where there’s another campsite in which is one of the boy’s cousin, who would help Sam and Suzy escape from the island, never to be seen again. In the meantime, there’s a storm cooking up in the skies, so we get a little tension: are the kids going to survive this escape all by themselves in the middle of that epic storm? In the meantime, everyone is worried and trying to find, first just Sam and Suzy, the the whole team, which leads to some situations…
Another interesting thing I saw in this film was the innocence of two young people, discovering each other and themselves, who are not even ashamed, because after all, they were both alike and in the middle of nowhere, in a little stoned beach, to which they decide to call Moonrise Kingdom. As they are camping there, the two dance, hold hands, hug and kiss. They decide to try the french kiss and Suzy tells Sam he can touch her breasts. So yes, the two are exploring each other and the scene is so innocent because they are so open with each other, they are so true. Eventually they are caught, as I said, and the image of the two is (in my opinion, I know I’m often too emotional…) so touching: two little birds in their underwear, hugging each other inside the tent, which is blown by the big bad wolf, Suzy’s father, who’s angry and frustrated at the same time, with all the rest of the people watching! They just want to be together!!! But Sam and Suzy don’t seem to belong to one another: Suzy is very pretty and Sam is still very “dorky” (I know I use this expression a lot… but look at him!!). Sometimes people even get impressed that Suzy is “his girl”. Well, maybe if she was a “normal” girl who doesn’t stab people with scissors, she would be with a “normal” boy, but the two are just fine the way they are. They only met once – when they first met – so when they reunite again, it shows a bit of crudeness. Despite Sam taking her flowers and everything, the two treat each other almost professionally, planning the escape with a map and making an inventory of their belongings! I guess that they get more and more sure they want to be with each other as their adventure progresses.
One thing I noticed was that, both kids are also super serious throughout the entire movie! They talk very seriously and act very seriously, that’s why the movie sometimes reminded me of other films (like the Bride of Chucky for instants, although it has nothing to do with it!!!) It shows especially in the second escape, when the two decide to get married, seem two young adults instead of two 12 year olds! Later, in a scene when they are about to jump together into the rain, in a possible suicide, Sam tells Suzy that if they die, he’s thankful for her having married him, so they are sure they want to be together, as friends more than lovers, this shows they are thankful for having found a friend like themselves. More: they often say things very fast, meaning they don’t say it directly, but end up saying them anyway. Like in the clip above, “I love you but you don’t know what you’re talking about” – there, no pause next to the “I love you”. And the she only responds to that part: it’s the only scene where they say they love each other to each other. There are other scenes when the two talk like this, the important part is always there, but it’s said like if it has the same importance as the rest of the sentence.
So this is it, this is what I have to say about this movie. It’s an adventurous love story between two kids who don’t fit so well, it’s funny, it’s touching, it’s cute. And the shots are almost like reading a comic book, i liked that a lot. What do you think?
Cypher
Year: 2002
Director: Vicenzo Natali
Screenplay: Brian King
“Cypher” is one of my favorite movies from a very cool Director, Vicenzo Natali. You probably know him from Cube (the first), Splice or Neuromancer. He’s one of my favorite Directors, I’l soon write something about another of his movies: “Nothing”, which I found very creative! I’ve seen “Cypher” a million times and this last time I though to myself: “Man, I wish I could feel the same sensation I felt the first time I saw this! I now know everything that’s going to happen, I need more movies that can give me that feeling of astonishment!” Yet, I watch the movie every now and then, it’s one of those movies that makes me feel good, don’t ask me why, I can’t explain it, but there are some movies I see quite often because I feel I need to. I even might see the same movie like 3 or 4 days in a row… It might sound crazy, but it’s true.
Anyway, another thing I wanted to try here was talking about the movies without spoiling them, but I find it very hard. On one hand, I want to comment the scenes, the concept, the characters, wtv. On the other hand, I want to make people see the movies I talk about and think about them, so how am I suppose to comment a movie without talking about its’ scenes?
Anyway, “Cypher” is a movie that will make you look at the screen with your eyes wide open. The story is relatively simple, if you pay attention – it’s one of those movies you just can’t miss 5 seconds or you won’t get what’s next. It’s a thing within a thing, within a thing! And you’ll be like: “AAAWWWW!! No WAY!! What The Hell!!”
Let’s spoil: it’s about a man, this guy Morgan Sullivan, who’s being hired by a company, Digicorp, to be a spy. But in reality, this company is brainwashing their “spies” so that they infiltrate another company, Sunway Systems and steal data from them. Morgan Sullivan is intercepted by a woman, Rita Foster, who helps him to stop the brainwashing and arrive to Sunway Systems as Morgan Sullivan, not as Jack Thursby, the identity Digicorp was trying to instill in him. Sunway Systems’ boss asks Morgan to continue acting as Jack Thursby and give corrupted data to Digicorp. Both enterprises dispose their workers after they complete the tasks they were given. Rita Foster eventually tells Morgan he is, in reality, a man contracted by her own boss, Sebastian Rooks, to infiltrate the vault of Sunway Systems to retrieve an important piece of information. He manages to enter the Vault, steal the data, and escape with Rita, with the promise that Sebastian would not get rid of him like Digicorp or Sunway Systems. Once at Sebastian’s house, or at least one o them, since the man likes to move a lot, Morgan finds out he is not Morgan after all, neither is he Jack: he IS Sebastian Rooks!
What amazes me is how his subconscious mind was telling him all along! As Morgan Sullivan, he was kind of dorky, his glasses, his hairstyle, his actions, his attitude, his passiveness… As the movie goes on and he makes his transformation into Jack Thursby – the name Digicorp gave him to use in the false conferences he was suppose to record – his appearance also changes. When he’s given that name, he immediately asks: “What’s he like? What’s his personality?”, to what Finster, the head of Digicorp, replies something like “Whatever you want him to be” (I don’t recall the exact words). So Morgan starts acting like a new man, the complete opposite of what he is: he starts smoking, although without any difficulty, any cough, starts drinking, scotch on the rocks, something he never did! He drops his glasses and stops using that hair, unbuttons the first buttons of his shirts… well, he starts being (so much) less stiff. And he doesn’t understand why, he just feels that’s who he REALLY is. In the end, when he finally finds out he’s Sebastian Rooks (a man never seen by anyone, a very, very secret man, who would be killed if anyone knew him, only one person knows his identity: his lover, Rita Foster) he realizes it by looking at the room he’s standing on: golf clubs, his favorite brand of cigarettes, scotch… and finally, a picture of him and Rita. That’s another think I love about the movie: his love and interest for her is never forgotten, even when he’s Morgan/Jack! When he meets the disguised Rita, he flirts with her and tries to approach her. It was all a plan created by him – Sebastian – to infiltrate that Vault!! Sebastian knew he was going to meet Rita in the process, who was going to help him get that important data! He knew he was going to forget who he was and become Morgan, he knew it all!! And in the end, there’s no exception: those who saw his face get killed! And what was the important data? Rita Foster’s file from Sunway Systems: she too was a pawn for that company, and Sebastian destroys it by throwing it into the ocean, making Sunway Systems free of Rita’s files, so that she won’t be “disposed”. So I guess, in the end, this is just an awesome love story!
Another thing it made me think about is how easy it is for one to control another’s mind… It only takes some steps to be followed. And how are we certain we ourselves are not controlled? Are we the product of someone’s agenda? Are we certain of who we are?
I always recommend this film to everyone who asks me for new stuff to watch, for it isn’t a very known one and it’s totally worth it! Just now I was able to see a flaw: some of the special effects can be seen as computer generated, but I only noticed it now, after watching it all those times before! I guess I was so absorbed by the whole story I didn’t even notice those details! I won’t describe more scenes here, you just have to see it, one in particular – my favorite – is very creepy, but I already told the story, so these are just (awesome) details, although important too.
I’m glad to know this movie, it was much easier for me to write about this one, I love it! How about you?
Hanna
Year: 2011
Director: Joe Wright
Screenplay: Seth Lochhead and David Farr
Hanna is a young girl who lives in the northern forests with her father, Erick, a guy who teaches and trains her since she was 2 years old. Hanna is capable of hunting, fighting and killing better than any person alive. But she has never had any contact with the civilized world or modern technology. Her knowledge comes from books and she seems a bit cold blooded, but who wouldn’t be, having no contact with other people? Well, it’s more than that… However, Hanna likes fantasy too, she often reads the Grimm’s Fairy Tales and wonders how does music feel like.
The whole movie can be described as an action fairly tale with violence and blood. The main character is a girl and the villain (the witch, as she calls her) is a CIA agent who wants her dead. We enter Hanna’s life in a moment where she decides she’s ready to leave the forest and go kill the witch: Marissa Wiegler. Her father prepared Hanna for this moment her whole life and advises her, asking her if she’s sure, for once she leaves that place, Marissa won’t stop until she, or Marissa herself, is dead. The plan is for Hanna to kill Marissa and then meet her father in Berlin. In order to go unnoticed, Hanna has memorized a fake life to tell to whoever she encounters: a school, a town, friends, an address, even a dog.
So the moment has come and her father presents her with a device that will announce their location once its button is pressed. Hanna presses it and the two make their preparations for Erik’s escape and Hanna’s capture. Eventually the soldiers arrive, at night, and enter the hut. Hanna kills two of them and let the others come take her, acting as if it wasn’t her who killed them (implying her father did it, as they planned). Hanna is taken to an underground facility and put in a room full of cameras. A doctor is asking her some questions but she asks to see Marissa Wiegler. Marissa and other CIA members are observing Hanna through those cameras and Marissa decides to send in a double, for she knows what Hanna is capable of, although she gets even more surprised when Hanna kills her double and all the other members who were sent to tranquilize her with a shot! FY that is a great scene!!
We see something’s about to happen when Hanna clings to Marissa’s double. From that moment on we see How Hanna is able to escape through tunnels and passages, with the stolen gun form one of the guards, hiding from all the soldiers and killing whoever crosses her path directly, or telling them – without a single word – to let her go. The music was, in my opinion, very well chosen for completes the scenes without being corny. It’s not the “normal action movie music” I guess, it’s really awesome combined with all of the film concept: the 15 year old cold-blooded girl with an abnormal DNA who likes the Grimm’s fairytales, despite being trained her whole life to kill, she also desires to know music and magic. Another thing that’s pretty cool are the fight scenes, especially the underground facility and the subway ones. (Btw, on this last one, Erik realizes Marissa’s not dead yet.) I didn’t see any exaggeration (at least for an ex-CIA agent and a girl who trained her entire life to kill), but then again, I don’t know much about fighting…
She manages to get to the surface, realizing she’s in the middle of nowhere. She the finds a family to whom she follows, first without them knowing, but then accompanying them freely, as they actually like her. She becomes friends with with the couple’s daughter,Sophie. In the meantime, Marissa’s on the run too, trying to find Hanna. She asks the help of a friend, Isaacs, another ex-CIA member and an eccentric man with a passion for freaks, to find the girl, but not to kill her. She also goes visit Hanna’s grandmother (who Hanna never met, for she had lives her whole life in the woods), ending up killing her. In this scene, Hanna’s granny tells Marissa that if she was a mother, she would understand what it’s like to lose a daughter (Marissa was the one responsible for Johanna’s – Hanna’s mom – death, but couldn’t kill Erik or the girl, for they ran into the forest, never to be seen again), to what she replies she’d made some choices. The entire movie I got the sensation there was something between Marissa and Erik, and even when we realize what’s going on, I kept thinking there was something more between the two. Anyway, Marissa finds some tapes Johanna sent to her mother, where she tells all about her pregnancy, and listens to them, until Erik finds her and tries to kill her. In the meantime Hanna flees, after another fight, this time with Isaacs and his boys, and manages to find the address where she agreed to meet her father: a fairytale-like house that belongs a friend of Erik’s, Knepfler, a magician. Marissa managed to track Hanna after questioning Sophie’s family, whom she captured, so, once in Knepfler’s house, the two new friends hear someone outside who’s not Erik, and Knepfler tells Hanna to run as he stays behind, ending up being killed. However, before she manages to escape the house without being noticed, she listens to Marissa talking on the phone so 1. she gets surprised for Marissa being alive, and 2. she finds out Erik is not her biological father.
Hanna finds her grandmother’s house and her blood on the floor, and suddenly Erik appears, so she confronts him about him not being her real father and about her “abnormal DNA” (for she had found and stolen her file back in the underground facility, and saw her information there). Erik finally tells her (and us for that matter) the whole thing: Hanna was born in a facility and was part of a project that genetically enhanced human embryos so they would become stronger human beings, with less sense of compassion or affection, basically, a new breed of people created to be soldiers. The project was canceled by Marissa Wiegler and everything (meaning everyone) was eliminated… except Hanna, who Erik was able to save. At this moment, Marissa and Isaacs arrive and Erik tells Hanna to run while he distracted them, ending up being killed, not before killing Isaacs.
Hanna manages to go back to the “fairytale house”, just to find a dead Knepfler… Marissa appears and now we have the princess confronting the witch! Hanna runs, but Marissa follows her. We see Marissa coming out of a giant’s wolf mouth (I don’t think it’s necessary to go further on the meaning of the wolf here, Marissa is the “bad guy”, period) with her gun in her hand, facing Hanna. Hanna tells her she wants to stop and doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore, walking away from Marissa, who says she just wants to talk. As Hanna is leaving her, Marissa shoots her, at the same time as Hanna turns around (upon realizing Marissa’s intention) and throws an arrow at her. They both fall, but both stand up again. In the end, Hanna ends up killing Marissa, who lies on the floor with the arrow through her body, with the gun. This scene is identical to the opening sequence, where we see Hanna hunting a deer with an arrow but ends up shooting it with a gun because, as she also said to Marissa, she missed the heart. After all, Hanna was trained to “hunt” Marissa, while being hunted by her at the same time, so it was kill or be killed.
My question is: why Erik wants Hanna to kill Marissa? I guess it’s just because he fell for Johanna and her baby and the only way to stop Marissa was by killing her, either by his hands or Hanna’s. Anyway, Hanna is a girl who doesn’t want to kill despite being engineered to do so. She feels there’s something wrong and confirms it with the files she steels. Deep inside, she’s still an ordinary girl just with few modifications.
Year: 1990
Director: Richard Benjamin
Screenplay: June Roberts (from the novel of Patty Dan)
“Mermaids” is a film about a family of three: mom and two girls, who is constantly moving from town to town. Mrs Rachel Flax is a woman who faces her problems (most of them love related) by literally running away from them. This has an impact on her daughters, of course, especially Charlotte, 15 years old, the main character. We see the whole movie through her point of view, since she’s the narrator and often is telling us her thoughts at the moment of each scene. Charlotte is a more complicated girl than she seems: she’s a religious fanatic, the complete opposite of her mother. At one point we are told she had mental problems )and that was a reason for one of the family’s many transitions, because Rachel didn’t want to deal with it). Her mother is a beautiful eccentric (well, not that eccentric I would say, she just likes to look good that’s all… isn’t it?) woman who likes to have fun and has little patience for cooking, so they’re always eating candy or sandwiches (shaped like stars). Although Charlotte seems to hate her mother (she refers to her as Mrs Flax, not “mom” or “mother” or wtv), but Rachel doesn’t have any malice in her. Yes, she may seem selfish, always on the run with her kids, but as she herself says, kids don’t come with an instruction’s manual and she does the best she can. I like her character a lot. Her youngest daughter, Kate, is an excellent swimmer who’s always in her world, always training to be better and she’s never sad or annoyed like her sister. Charlotte is often mocked by her mother because of her exaggerate (just my opinion) praying. For a fifteen year old she should be starting to think about boys, fashion and stuff like that, like her school mates, but instead, she dreams of becoming a nun. And when they move to their new home, in Eastport, Massachusetts, she petrifies when seeing a pair of nuns at the shoe store! Also, she they meet Joe, a young handsome guy who works in the town’s convent, and her thoughts start to betray her beliefs. Charlotte falls for Joe and starts a “mental fight” not to think dirty things about or with him! I guess I can say that Charlotte is also in her own world all the time, she doesn’t even talk to her mother, unless to scold her on her looks or things like that.
In the meantime, Rachel also meets a guy: the shoe store owner, Lou, who turns out to be very sweet and also likes to have fun. He and Rachel get along very well, although one can see, almost in the end, how Rachel is afraid of commitment and, I think, uses Lou’s kindness for her daughter as an excuse to her fear, for she says that if Lou wants to get to her do it directly, not through her daughters. I think it’s clear the guy was just being himself, he was not trying to get to her through her daughters at all, he didn’t need to! This happens in a scene where they are all having dinner together, which is a thing the three girls don’t do, it’s just not a costume in the family, and Lou find it a bit of, but never criticizes them. So they are having dinner, all happy, even Charlotte, and Rachel starts staring at all that, the food, the talking (Charlotte never talks, but now she does!) and starts to feel either bored or frightened or both. She asks “what is this?”, and Lou responds by saying “it’s what families do”. So Rachel has that talk with him and is already thinking of moving again… But they all end up staying in Eastport.
Charlotte also has hopes of meeting her father, whom she never saw. She thinks the man will save her from that family she hates. I think her father and God are almost at the same level here: she thinks of an imaginary person to save her (please don’t get offended if you’re religious, I’m not). Her mother keeps telling her father isn’t worth it, but obviously Charlotte doesn’t listen to Rachel. Although her mother rolls her eyes to Charlotte’s praying, she never complains to her about them.
Charlotte gets very awkward in Joe’s presence. She basically invites herself to go out with him and then, while at it, she’s always thinking of having sex with him, although he’s not that interested. There’s one scene where she trips and falls in her arms and licks her jacket (without him noticing it)! That’s how desperate this girl is! And how confused! I don’t think she’s bad either, but sometimes she can be mean, and for all the things she thinks and does, one can see how she has to let everything flow and get rid of the fork she has stuck up her butt! Eventually she does.
As the film goes on, Charlotte eventually kisses Joe at the convent’s bell tower, while simultaneously staring at the saints statues and pictures’ disapproved faces, ending up by literally running away from that place (lol). Having no knowledge of how babies are made, she starts thinking she’s pregnant, just like the virgin Mary. This is another proof of how self-centered she his. I don’t want to use the word disturbed because, well, she’s just fifteen and it’s the 60’s, I wouldn’t blame her for thinking she was pregnant, although it’s funny. I think all fifteen year old girls are self centered, it’s supposed to be like that at that age I guess, it’s the time where we start searching for ourselves. The girl is only confused, the hormones are kicking in and her mother isn’t exactly instilling much discipline or stability on her. Plus, she doesn’t have a fatherly figure. So she’s holding onto Joe like a crab! To redeem herself she starts fasting, and even runs away from home, in her mother’s car (which makes Rachel mad) and infiltrates herself in a “perfect happy family”, with a father, a mother, and two kids. She gives a fake name and even has lunch with them. Eventually Lou appears and takes her home. This whole episode made me think she could even be borderline, not that I know much of the disease, but she seems to be having an outbreak and seems to be confusing reality with fantasy, because of the comparison with Virgin Mary and her attitude while at those strangers’ house. She’s all happy, very talkative and very light headed. Anyway, she ends up going to a doctor who tells her she’s a virgin and it’s impossible for her to be pregnant, which was a relief.
Later on Rachel is invited to the new year’s eve costume party (to where she goes as a mermaid) with the rest of “adults” of Charlotte’s school, along with Lou. When coming home, she asks Joe, who goes there too for some reason, to help her with her car. When arriving, she kisses Joe on the mouth. Charlotte catches them and immediately runs outside screaming at her mother and Joe, saying Rachel kisses everyone and it doesn’t mean she likes him. This is a time where Rachel is having some problems with Lou, as I already said, so she must have been a bit more fragile, moreover, they had had a fight about Rachel not wanting to live together with him. Anyway, Charlotte thinks her mother is stealing her loved one. Later, as a revenge, she puts on her clothes and makeup and goes with Kate to show her the convent, after the two drink some wine, so they’re a bit dizzy at this moment. While at the convent’s surroundings, Charlotte goes to the bell tower, leaving Kate alone near a stream, where she goes to pick rocks. At the bell tower, she finds Joe and loses her virginity there, while her sister falls into the water and drowns almost to death. Luckily the nuns were nearby and save her.
At the hospital, Rachel sends Charlotte home and tells her to wait for news. She’s really pissed with her and when she goes home to get some clothes, the two have a big fight. One can see Rachel might be all about having fun but never would’ve neglected her child, while Charlotte, in her selfishness, forgot about her little sister just to have sex. Anyway, no one can throw the first stone here and the two end up making up. Charlotte has many problems in her head, but as I said, she’s only fifteen and it’s normal to do foolish things. Well, in this case was too much, I know… But Charlotte’s Rachel daughter too and deserves more of her comprehension and attention. In the end, all ends well though. Joe leaves town but continues contacting Charlotte trough postcards, Rachel stays, deciding to give life a chance, Charlotte gets a new passion – Greek mythology – and a new look, leaving behind her “puritan” clothes and wearing beautiful ones, like her mother’s (and learned to face her mother’s attitudes, back in the great fight scene she had with Rachel), Kate recovers well and Lou lives happily with the three of the girls. It’s a happy ending for a once troubled family.
I personally like this movie a lot, it has a great cast (Cher is nothing but a mermaid actually!) and the story is more complex than it appears to be, approaching psychological issues, which I find very interesting to study. Plus, it’s a 90’s movie, which makes me like it more I guess, I like that kind of image. What about you?
Year: 1961
Director: John Huston
Screenplay: Arthur Miller
Here I am today, to talk about another BW movie.. I was curious about Marilyn Monroe’s movies, moreover since I read her auto-biography (which is, in reality, her conversations with her psychiatrist). I found the film to be very similar to her own life, except in her life she was always with her mask and the drugs. Arthur Miller was her husband, so he knew her and knew her core. Marilyn, in my opinion, was somehow a lost soul and ahead of her time. In this movie, set in the early sixties, Roslyn Tabor has just divorced her husband and is a bit lost. Her landlady, Isabelle Steers, is about to be her witness against her husband and we can see how Isabelle likes Roslyn. The two first meet Guido and then his cowboy friend Gay, and the four get along in a bar, where they start to know each other. Guido offers his country house to Roslyn (and Isabelle) for her to get some rest. Both Guido and Gay are already interested in Roslyn, finding her intriguing and very beautiful, and both try their luck of course. But Roslyn doesn’t want nothing with them and at the same time is very kind with them (well, she’s very kind with everyone around her actually). The four new friends go to Guido’s house, still with a room under construction, and there he tells Roslyn his story: his wife died there while she was pregnant. He didn’t think it was that and didn’t have a spare tire to drive her to the hospital (apparently he needed a spare tire). He says his wife was one of a kind and there’s no one like her, never complaining about nothing, always supporting him in everything. “Maybe that’s why she died” – that’s what Roslyn says (lol), adding it’s healthy to complain once in a while. He gives her a funny look and she manages to leave the room. Obviously, this shows how men suppressed women back then, and how those who dared to think differently “were looked in funny ways”. Roslyn is a very lovely person, always caring for the people and the animals around her, always feeling other people’s feelings besides her own, and always very graceful too. For all of this, she always attracts men and can be misunderstood in her intentions.
Back in the living room, she dances with Gay, but is interrupted so that Guido, who was a bit crossly when he saw them, may dance with her, revealing his amazing skills. Later they decide to go to a rodeo and go after mustangs the next day, but they’re missing one men for this last job. Luckily, on their way to the rodeo, they find a friend of Gay, Perce, who was also on his way to the rodeo, but lost his ride. This scene is funny because Perce goes talk on the phone with his mother and it doesn’t seem to be that important to the rest of the movie, yet they decide to film the whole conversation, with Perse closing the cabin’s door when he’s talking about something that may be shameful for others to hear, and opening it when it’s ok to talk “freely”. The only connection I made was later, when he talks about his family to Roslyn, but I didn’t think we had to see the entire conversation on the phone…
On the image above there’s a scene that happens just before the rodeo starts. They meet an old guy with his grandson who has one paddle ball. The grandfather finds the game too difficult and bets with Roslyn she can’t hit 10 in a row. She does like 50 times or so, so they manage to get some cash there. The point is, when Roslyn is bouncing the paddle, all men are around her, cheering and looking at her, and eventually one touches her butt (the nerve!!)!! That almost leads to a fight, but they end up leaving the bar. This scene, as well as others I’ve seen, gets on my nerves: a girl doing something cool and a bunch of guys staring at her body, she might even not realize what’s going on, and that’s even more irritating! Anyway, Perce steps forward to end that.
This is the first Marilyn Monroe film I see, but from other movie clips with her I found on youtube, this scene was the same: Marilyn Monroe is the center of attentions because of her beautiful looks. Were people writing scripts with those scenes in mind, to exploit her body? Was this a coincidence? Upon reading her book I felt sorry, ’cause she seemed a good person deep inside, despite her numerous affairs, but no one (with rare exceptions) cared about what she truly was, about her being, only taking advantage of her body or expecting her to be a tamed housewife. She said if girls didn’t sleep with director or producer or wtv, if they didn’t sleep with “the right person”, they wouldn’t get their part. Marilyn slept with hundreds (?) of men, both to get roles/jobs/money (yes, money, she didn’t even have enough to eat for a while) and/or to give them some pleasure, for she would do them that favor if it made them happy. The problem is: we’re talking about sex here, so she’s seen by many as a whore. Nevertheless, I think she was a beautiful person inside and out, and she was an educated person too, which is subject that appears earlier in this film too. Gay’s talking to her and the matter comes up, he gets pleasently surprised when she says she didn’t finish her high school and she asks him if she doesn’t like educated women, and he basically responds that they (women) don’t need to be educated.
Moving on, they are five now and Perce is going to mount a horse and a bull to see if he can get some bucks. As one might except, Perce gets hurt, but it seems to affect Roslyn more than the others, as she’s always very sensitive (sometimes it skims the comedy because of the drama she makes, but she’s so sweet, she’s not kidding!). Later they go drink some more and Guido and Gay, who were just the two until now, realize they have one more for the competition: a younger and more handsome one. However, we have never seen Gay “asking permission” to Guido to make a move with Roslyn, as he knew Guido was interested in her before the first meeting in the bar. He’s older, he’s a cowboy, he does what he wants. That’s why there’s always a little tension between the two (it almost seems like Gay is Guido’s boss sometimes), but with Perce it’s different. Perce seems innocent, so to speak. He seems to be as young and free as Roslyn and asks Gay if he’s with Roslyn, to see if he’s free to go after her. I found Perce to be the sweetest from this trio of men, but somehow the older knows best… And I really don’t understand why, but I’ll get there. At this point Isabelle is already gone, off to her home to spend some days with her ex-husband and his wife, an old friend of her. Apparently it’s all good between the three. But when she goes away, she never comes back, and I don’t understand why. What was her role after all? Was she a motherly figure to Roslyn? I suppose so. But I found her leaving a bit abrupt… Although none of the men wanted anything with her, for she was older, she was always very cheerful, never getting mad when they forgot her name, and always very sweet to Roslyn. One can say she was also a bohemian kind of person, as she liked to drink and to have fun despite her age.
Eventually they get back to the house, Guido and Gay drunk, and they go after the mustang horses the next morning. Roslyn finds out they’re going to kill the animals, although not directly, but it still is their fault, for it’s them who sell the horses to the dealers who do that job. She gets very upset, but they all go anyway, expecting her to calm down and accept that men’s job. Gay’s a free spirit too in a way, for he chooses to make this living to not be chained to a wage, as he says. It seems all cowboys loathe that kind of life, so they choose the fate of those horses so they can live more freely. Gay explains Roslyn just that and reminds her he didn’t judge her when she told them what she used to do for a living: dancing in clubs.
But Roslyn doesn’t accept the killing, even if it’s not directly done by them, and eventually come out of the car and runs screaming they were killers. At this point, Guido reveals himself completely. We have seen before how he seems to have forgotten his wife, who he talks so good about, and now we see how he remembers why women are a pain in the ass. Later, when he asks Roslyn, in a final effort to conquer her, if she wants him to finish all that “savagery”, she understands who he really is, so he’s now crossed out of the list, for Roslyn seems to be the entire movie trying to decide which man she wants. At first she doesn’t seem to want anybody, she’s lost and just wants to find herself, but as the film progresses, she faces some new opportunities and tries to figure out what’s best for her.
Eventually, Perce is the one who goes free the horses, but they see Gay trying to catch one. Roslyn asks Perce to help him, for he’s struggling with the animal, but Perce says “he doesn’t need help”. I didn’t get which one they were talking about here, Gay or the horse. Anyway, when Gay finishes taming the animal, Guido shows up with the conversation they were having before, when he was talking he and Gay didn’t need anyone and could work for real to live as free men, capturing horses forever. But Gay tells him to shut up, and we see he’s confused. Roslyn’s feelings weren’t in vain and put him to think. So when Guido shows up with that conversation again, Gay splits the rope that was tying the horse and let the animal go free, to everyone’s surprise. This, of course, had an impact on Roslyn, and she ends up choosing him. Gay did things for Roslyn he didn’t even do for his (ex) wife and she must have felt special for that, but by itself, it wasn’t enough. But at the end, on their way home, she makes her mind and the too seem to agree on staying together, despite Gay even pushed Roslyn earlier, when she was trying to make him stop taming one of the horses. In fact, in this scene, the three men are trying to tame the horse, each one puling a rope at the same time, which may be an allusion to them “trying to tame” Roslyn.
So there you have it. She had a sweet guy in front of her, but chose the other one who often mistreated her. It’s true, Gay realized the horse business was not how it used to be, it was worse, and he was contributing to it, so decided to take another path for his life. He did everything to please Roslyn, even when she told him, in the beginning, she didn’t feel that way about him (he even kissed her while she was sleeping, and although she smiled when waking up, I thought that was wrong, give her some space, respect her will! Well, maybe he did it because he knew she wouldn’t be that mad… I don’t think he had malice in him). I don’t know, maybe it’s because of that time, when it was “normal” to treat woman like that and perhaps men didn’t even realize how disrespectful they were being (like that “educated women” thing for example, I don’t think he meant to be rude. But it still happens today and many times men think they’re not doing nothing wrong, and this sometimes goes for woman too I guess). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a feminist nor am I trying to reduce men here or trying to create a discussion about this matter. Maybe I’m just kind of sensitive about this; I think all men and women are at the same level and I guess the attitude just depends on the person really, despite being man or woman. Anyway, my question remains. Besides, I don’t think she even had time to find some peace, they were all always hitting on her, and a person needs time to heal and to restore oneself in this situations.
As for the title, does it refer for the men only, for they are all trying to fit Roslyn’s heart? For the whole group, as they all seem kind of lost? Or even for all the women like Roslyn, who don’t seem to fit in the category of a wife whose desires/feelings/opinons are ignored or lowered by their husbands?
What’s your opinion on this one?
Movie Generation 