waiting a million years, just for us.

Excuse me while I fall asleep and dream about Australian babes disappearing into eternal bliss...

I've learned to accept and love the ambiguity some movies force us to interpret on our own. This actually use to bother me quite a lot, back when I was a Hollywood-driven movie-goer who desperately required concrete characters, concrete emotions, a beginning, a middle, and a reasonable end.. to every movie. Picnic At Hanging Rock seems to capture the opposite of all of these things, with the addition of being beautiful in cinematography on its own. This movie seems to draw two separate, very distinct crowds: those who are either in love with the soft creepiness and abstract detailing of events, or those who are livid with the boring tale they watch and see no more than pretty pictures and an unsatisfactory story line. It's almost a bit funny how drastic these two ends of the spectrum coexist from each other. PAHR is a movie I'd probably love a lot more if I'd seen it BEFORE Virgin Suicides, and I hate saying that because it's just so great. But I can't seem to pull myself away from how much these two films relate to one another. Obviously, PAHR is a lot more poetic and Virgin Suicides can be a lot more symbolic. Either way, I've been drawing inspiration lately from  PAHR, not only from the visuals and eerie vibes its haunted me with, but with this soft understanding and ambiguous way of interpreting supernatural occurrences I've categorized in my life.

"What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream."

movies n stuff

There is a little bit more than a week left until I go "study" film and video at the California Institute of the Arts and as I've said before, I've been really trying to turn into a cool film kid by watching as many interesting-looking films as possible, aside from the ones that have been coming out of theaters that are just for mere entertainment (no offense Seth McFarlane, Ted was pretty good.). Wow, that was a whole sentence. Anyways, here are a few mini reviews of the movies I have watched so far!!!!!! Yayayayayaya.

Dogtooth.

- First of all, let me just say, I'm kind of a big sucker for films that try to warp the ideas and structures presented in the archetypal "normal" life, so I liked Dogtooth instantly. It is a bit slow, and it is not an entertaining film to see over and over again... maybe just once or twice. Because it's haunting. I remember when I first watched The Virgin Suicides and I thought, "wow that was literally a really boring movie and Kristen Dunst gets way too much credit for being hot etc etc etc," but afterwards, I started to like it more and more because of the AFTER feeling it gave me. It was haunting, it gave me the chills, it left me with this air of mystery that I was actually content with. That is almost exactly how Dogtooth made me feel. The characters were each so equally bizarre because of their forced innocence and wandering curiosity. And the way it was filmed-- plain-looking, bland, toned down-- just helped contribute to the haunting mystery this film gave off.

Eyes Wide Shut.

- Maybe it was because I hadn't seen a Stanley Kubrick film before and I wasn't used to his style, or maybe it's just because this film is far too """adult""" for me, because I ended up not liking it as much as I had hoped. I actually don't know what to say about this film yet because I think I need to watch it once more to even understand how I feel about it. Is there something I'm not getting, or?

We Need To Talk About Kevin.

- Aesthetically, this film reminded me a lot of Dogtooth because of it's saturated visuals and haunting camera angles, I guess. Tilda Swinton was amazing. John C. Reily, I couldn't take seriously. Ezra Miller was a hotty. I was really looking forward to this film. I'd been wanting to see it since it came out in theaters and every time  I went to my local DVD store it was always OUT. Gah. Anyways, I really liked this film up to the end. Yes, it was one of those films with a sort of flawed ending that ultimately ruined the whole experience of events leading up to the ending. I guess I expected more, something that went deeper into the surface and really tore apart the two characters, Kevin and Eva. It was one of the movies that meticulously delved into a chilling background, detail after detail, struggling emotion after struggling emotion, and eventually led up to something sort of mundane and rushed. Eh. Nonetheless, I still really loved the acting and music. 

moonrise kingdom: a sort-of review

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

Lately I've been trying to watch as many cool movies as possible before I leave my shabby town and join fellow movie lovers at Cal Arts. Basically, I don't want to be the only dweeb there who barely saw any good movies during the past few months and has nothing to say about my love for movies in general. So I've been desperately trying to cram some cinematic diversity into my taste lately! Moonrise Kingdom helped me, a lot. 

Let me start off by admitting that I have NOT seen a Wes Anderson movie before this one. I've heard of them, like Royal Tenebaums, Rushmore, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I guess I never really showed that much interest in them. (I will certainly do so now, though.). And right now I am trying pretty damn hard to think of the right words to describe how magical of a film MK was, BUT. I. JUST. CAN'T. It delves into everything it means to be a child in love, seeking endless adventures. 

The independent, offbeat camera angles alone won me over already in the beginning. I love when the director chooses camera angles/shots that force me to notice how """creative""" they are being by paying attention to things like storytelling in scenery, and colors, and peoples' body gestures, and etc! At first when I saw the trailer, the yellow tint that seemed to be evident throughout the whole film kind of seemed like the film was trying to be too "hipster" and too 60's... but it works, perfectly. It may not be the actual purpose for it, but I felt that it contributed a lot to the whole quirky fantasy aspect of the film. I actually hate using the word quirky to try and describe movies because almost everything right now is trying to be, or is, "quirky." I just can't think of a better word right now, I'm sorry. God there is just generally SO MUCH to say about how visually appealing this entire film is. So much. I'm glad Wes Anderson made the choices he made with how this movie was shot because those who view this film have probably not seen many films shot like this before. I appreciate it greatly, I really do.

I love comedies, but more specifically, dark comedies. I love seeing antiheroes become humanized through REAL HUMAN EMOTIONS like love and courage and anger. I love melodramatic plot lines that turn out to be a really well-woven, endearing story. This was Moonrise Kingdom, in a nutshell. Two people: one supposedly "emotionally disturbed" and the other a troubled, angsty tween (I think). Both find an unexpected friendship in each other, in a ridiculously cute way at that, and plan to elope together and settle on the shores of a bay which they later on  name, Moonrise Kingdom. I cannot fully express how important it is to me that the characters in a film are well-developed. It just seems so hard these days for filmmakers to come up with qualities in their characters that distinguish them from the rest of the archetypal characters that are so often overused or worn down in many movies today. So when Sam and Suzy were introduced then united, it was a very fresh experience, for me at least. I know the isolated loner character (Sam) and the I-hate-my-life-let-me-just-read-my-weird-books-all-day character (Suzy) have been done very many times before, but Wes Anderson had created them in a way in which they were fueled to be idealistic romantics through their weird, almost too funny to be real love for each other. 

And let me just say that there is so something so incredibly cute and funny about the whole idea of a BOY SCOUT SEARCH PARTY and a boy scout fugitive! And the beginning with the whole visual description of the family's household with the tape recorder in the background describing in detail an orchestra! I don't know if anyone noticed the significance of that whole orchestra description part, but for me it kind of set the tone of the entire movie by introducing such a grand, dramatic, over-the-top vibe. Which is exactly what Sam and Suzy's adventure was. And how about the narrating old man? He introduced a tragic event that I expected to be the death of a grand adventure, but was saved by ~ real human emotions ~. Anyways, this review is getting really long, and I am clearly just rambling now so GO AND SEE THIS FILM, and if you want, with me! We'll have a good time, I'll buy popcorn and I promise I won't eat it during the quiet parts!