Sex and the City
When I lived in California, I didn’t have cable. So I didn’t follow and actually couldn’t watch Sex and the City. Then one day, my friend Amy introduced me to the show. I was instantly hooked. I went and bought the DVDs of all the prior seasons and watched them back-to-back. We’d often get together in her house for dinner and watch the show together.
Since the show ended four years ago, I’ve gotten my fix by catching late-night reruns on TBS. When I found out that the movie was coming out, Amy and I had to go see the movie the day it was released of course.
So 4PM on Friday found us in a packed theater in the heart of New York city with 440 women and 10 men. As the previews ended, Amy cracked open the champagne she’d smuggled into the theater - just in time for the huge cheer that went up for the movie.
The movie catches up with the fab four three to four (ten?) years after the last episode of the show. Everyone is older and firmly ensconced in the relationship we left them in four years ago. Oh - everyone is also much, much thinner. Almost gaunt. What’s up with that??
Anyway, coming back to the movie - Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is happy with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is in status-quo with husband Steve (David Eigenberg), kid and nanny, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is hanging with Harry (Evan Handler) and Lily (their adopted daughter) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is, unbelievably, still with (and faithful to) the hottie, Smith (Jason Lewis). All the favorite non-central characters like Sanford, Anthony and Enid are also back where we expect them to be.
Of course, we need to see some drama with all of them and we do - all centered around Big and Carrie’s wedding. Happy-happy goes to sad-sad to let’s-deal-with-this to I’m-happy-alone to… well, I’m not going to tell you where it goes to, but you get the picture.
The movie is like one long, long, long (2 hours 20 minutes??) episode of the show. It has all the glamor - the dresses and shoes are as fabulous as ever, the drama, the sex and the city that lovers of the show would expect. The jokes are still funny, the characters are still kooky and the margaritas are still consumed by the gallon.
Of course, there are elements which I didn’t love - Louise from St. Louis is a bit too earnest and she’s been primarily put in the movie to fulfill one dramatic duty. Some of the lines sound corny, trite and a bit forced. But overall, the theater laughed, sighed and aww-ed right on cue.
The key to enjoying the movie is to understand what to expect from it. It is not Gandhi. It is not The Lives of Others. It is a funny, quirky, girls-night-out film that you go see with your girlfriends to have a good time. It is a fond remembrance of the show that was, a nice little visit with the characters with whom we are on first-name basis.
If you loved the show, you will enjoy the movie. So all you Sex and the City fans - head out and have a great time. As Carrie would type into her now-updated Mac - Isn’t catching up with old friends the best way a girl can spend the evening? Absolutely it is!
Photo rights: Craig Blankenhorn/New Line Cinema
Aww(ful) Indy…
One word captures Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - terrible. No, I am not going to couch it. It was really that bad.
I wanted to like it. I really did. On the day it released, I bought my tickets and went for the 11PM show. All I wanted was Indy - the Indy of old. The adventure, the incredible stunts, the light romance, the crazy traps he falls into, the theme music pumping in critical scenes - ta-ta-tuh-taaa, taaa-ta-taaa, ta-ta-tuh-taaa, ta-ta-tuh-tuh-tuh1. Basically, a good, rollicking, low-brow action flick.
But in one fell swoop, Messrs Lucas and Spielberg not only destroyed my fond hopes, but cast a huge dent in the Indy franchise too.
Where to start?
The story was the primary issue. While all the Indy films have somewhat reality-defying feel to them, this one was over the top. The basic premise is… er… ridiculous. The rest of the plot just seems to be kludged together. Stick in a random native here, put in a random errant truck there. Enough action for this scene? Great, move on. To be fair, there were a couple of touches of traditional Indy - a jeep-fighting sequence, the ant attack and a waterfall sequence that harkened back to the other three installments. But there was too much that felt “forced”.
The acting was another issue. Yes, Indy and co. have always been somewhat corny. But this was over-the-top corny. It was puke-inducing corny. Most of the film is spent with Indy looking at fellow adventurer Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) with an “Aww, I am so proud of you” expression. And Shia LeBeouf cannot act. Cannot. Act. At. All. Cate Blanchett as the baddie was fine. Not good, not bad. Fine.
Oh, and I didn’t even get my heart-pumping action set to the theme song. There was one scene early in the movie where it all came together, but that was it.
Sequels (or in this case, installments) are money spinners. They are banking on an established brand name. And that’s fine. But don’t cut corners on the story or the acting to get my $11. At least pretend to try to earn it.
I walked out disappointed. I thought “Maybe I enjoyed the other Indiana Jones movies because I was much younger when I watched them.” But then I realized, no, that’s not it at all. This one is just plain bad.
- If you think of the tune in your head, my lettering makes sense. Really
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Piracy PSA
This is the best Piracy PSA evah. Maybe you have to have watched Superbad to find it funny though…
Goldfrapp’s Happiness Video
This video seems like it is one single take. But it isn’t.
How many cuts can you find?
And if you like the song, here are the lyrics -
Join our group and you will find
Harmony and peace of mind
Make it better
We’re here to welcome you
We’re all on a journey to
finding the real inner you
Make it better
We’re here to welcome you
Time
Stops too when
You’ve lost love
Happiness
How do you get to be
Happiness
How you get to find love
Real love
Floating in the magic world
Donate all your money
We’ll make it better(Make it better)
We’re here to welcome you
We can see your trouble soon
Give us all your money
We’ll make it better (Make it better)
we’re here to welcome you
Time
Stops too when
You’ve lost love love
Happiness
How’d you get to be
Happiness
How’d you get to find love
Real love
We’ll be swimming in the sea
Of wisdom and serenity
Make it better
Happiness
How’d you get to be
Happiness
How’d you get to find love
Real love
Pangea Day
In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim was awarded the TED Prize. Each TED Prize winner is allowed to ask for one wish and TED will leverage the power of the attendees to make the wish come true (pretty cool, huh?)
Jehane’s wish - “I wish to bring the world together for one day a year through the power of film.” Ta da - Pangea Day was born.
This Saturday, May 10, 24 short films selected from thousands of submissions will be broadcast globally. The films range in length from 2 to 15 minutes (most of them around 5). In addition to the films, a dozen powerful three-minute talks from scientists, film-makers, story-tellers and global visionaries will be featured. These talks will cover the latest ideas in anthropology, psychology and technology.
In addition to the main locations of Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro, Pangea Day will be available on TV in a ton of countries. In the US, the full four-hour program is being carried live on Current TV. Star TV will carry it in China/India/Asia, MGM Networks in Latin America, Sky in the UK, several partners in the Mid-East, and many more around the world. The timings are Saturday, May 10th 11am-3pm US West Coast, 2-6pm US East Coast, 7-11pm in UK, 8pm-midnight in Europe and much of Africa, 9pm-1am in the Mideast, 11.30pm-3.30am India, etc.
And of course, it will also be available online!
You won’t just be watching the show though. You’ll be watching it with tens of thousands of people around the world and the audience reactions will be broadcast. As the TED email about Pangea Day said “Watching a film about reconciliation is one thing. Watching it while simultaneously witnessing the reactions of people who are supposed to hate each other will be something else altogether.”
Can film change the way people think? Can it change perceptions about countries and alien cultures? Watch Kenya sing the Indian national anthem.
To me, the answer is yes.
I happened to be at TED when Jehane gave her acceptance speech. I’ve been waiting to see this wish come true and I will be spending four hours this Saturday being part of Pangea Day.
Will you?
Expelled for a gay film
A Catholic Church-run mass communications college in Kottayam has stirred a hornet’s nest by expelling five students for making a film on homosexuality. The students are all fourth semester BA (multimedia) students of the St Joseph’s College of Communications at Changanassery. The incident brings alive the raging worldwide debate on homosexuality to the church circles in Kerala.These are film students. Homosexuality is a reality. Filmmakers hold up a lens to society. That's it. Get over it already!!
Prathyush, one of the expelled students, told Deccan Herald that four of them had acted in the five-minute short film titled Secret Minds. The film depicting homosexuality was directed by an MA (film and TV) student Jeo Baby. He claimed that it was mainly intended for an inter-collegiate film festival here. The college management, however, felt that the film had transgressed the limits of decency and moral values that the college stood for and would have misled youths. The college authorities further said that the students misused the campus and college hostel premises for making the film and had also acted entirely nude in it. The management made clear its stand in the showcause notice issued to the students. The students were first served a showcause notice on March 23 and 27 and later expelled on April 2 on finding that their replies were unsatisfactory. However, Prathyush who was the only student willing to speak denied these allegations and said that they had exercised only their freedom of expression. The film was also well within the confines of the course to which they were admitted. Also, they had acted only partially nude as required by the script.Fully nude, partially nude - interesting. I wonder if people have sex partially nude in real life. I mean if all the students acted in the film voluntarily, does it really matter?
The students registered a complaint against the college with the Mahatma Gandhi University’s grievance cell and also forwarded the notice which contained the charges against them.I am glad the students are fighting this. More power to them! Despite fervent searching, I have not found any updates to the story. Let me know if you know what's happening with this situation. Full article in the Deccan Herald.
Fatasmagoric Florian
Several weeks ago, I saw The Lives of Others. Bloody brilliant. I was riveted to every single scene. And since then, I’ve thought about it every day…
A movie about the horrific and desperate times in the GDR before the Wall fell, it follows the lives of the theater community who are under constant scrutiny by the Stasi. The story revolves around Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a director, his girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), an actress, and the Stasi officer, Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), who, as he spies on them, is faced with the harsh reality of what the Stasi is doing to his fellow countrymen.
Given the powerful subject matter, the cinematography maintains a certain distance from the characters - facts without emotion. I mean, damn - there is so much emotion in the content that if there was more in the cinematography it would be too much. There is one shot that I recall distinctly though, which slams you with emotion - Weisler, alone in the attic, and as he listens, the camera just focuses on him. The desolation is dramatic. At that moment, you feel for him - for his sad life, his desperate loneliness, how hard is job is on him emotionally. Ulrich Mühe was exception. Actually, across the board, the acting was phenomenal.
The production design was fabulous and added to the sense of desolation. Everything was bleak - the streets were empty, the trees hardly had leaves and the colors… oh the colors were perfect. Dull greens, no blue and absolutely no red - no vibrancy. All cold solitude. Lots of empty open spaces - even the park was empty with a blustery wind I could feel. Brilliant.
I walked out of the movie feeling a desperate, gut wrenching sadness. So many people, living in a system where there is no one to trust. Torture would be preferable to having your closest loved one spy on you. Think about it - an entire country of people - a life where you could not rely on anyone in the whole world. The most isolating, desperate of situations. Gives me the shivers even now.
Okay, the movie is fabulous - you get that. What blew me away even more was that it was the director’s first-ever feature. First. Ever. Feature. First-ever feature that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Why just restrict it to foreign film - it was probably the best film there! Better than The Departed (yes, I know Martin won for his lifetime of achievements, as I shared here).
Okay, forget the Oscars. I mean, to come up with such a brilliant film as the first-ever feature? Holy crapola!
Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Florian.
I salute you.
I salute you because you followed your dream. Because you switched careers to film and fell in love with it. Because you went to school to hone your raw talent. Because you were moved by an image of a man sitting alone in a bleak room, listening to beautiful music. Because you made a movie with a message. Because you were born the same year that I was.
Because you give me hope. Hope that 34 is young. Hope that career shift can work. Hope that powerful ideas and powerful images can become powerful films. Hope that I too can make a great film (although maybe not the first one!)
I know others have made great first films. But you, Florian, are my generation. I identify with you for so many reason. And I thank you for inspiring me.
Please go on and do many more great things. I will be rooting for you.
What does the audience know?
Two sentences.
1. If the audience knows more than the character, they get emotionally involved with the character.
2. If the audience knows less than the character, they get intellectual about things and try to figure things out.
So simple and stated like this, so obvious. But also so insightful. With just those two sentences, you can figure what you want your audience to know and how much to reveal and when. Another reason I love any class with Mick Casale.
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