almost top-top

I didn´t mean to write a review about Scoop, but after a Google search for something I can´t remember what was anymore, I came to a Marilyn Monroe photo that took me back to this film.

First of all, I´ve seen Scoop more than twice a few years ago and I really like it. I´m sure I can watch it over and over again and it won´t taste like na old rubber joke. Like Scarlett Johansson described it, Scoop's a good old-fashioned Woody Allen comedy and that´s what I like about it. Perhaps I´m a nostalgic lost case, but if movies like Match Point and Vicky Crsitina Barcelona don´t amaze me, Anything Else, Melinda and Melinda and Scoop, all critically non acclaimed, work on me like happiness pills.

Scoop is not as great as Allen´s old comedies, but when Match Point doesn´t work compared to Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Scoop does compared to Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). Johansson is not Diane Keaton, but her role as Sondra Pransky is not only good - like Jason Biggs does in Anything Else, she brings freshness to the screen as a younger and female version of Allen´s neurotic and comic manners - as pleases those that, like me, prefer Charlotte (Lost in Translation) or Rebecca (Ghost World) than the sex appeal persona. Although the sex appeal is still there. Coming from Allen who said that Johansson is unlike anyone who has come before her, and while she is a much stronger actress in every way, there is a tiny bit of Marilyn Monroe in her zaftig humidity, I suppose that the swimming pool scene where Sondra pretends to be drowing is a sort of homage to Monroe:




*Is there a better song than Swan Lake, Op.20 Suite - 3. Danse des petits cygnes (in this movie played by Leon Spierer) to a comic murder mystery?

Some scenes/shots remind me of Fellini. Some, of Bergman. The typical (and great) Woody Allen´s "philoshopical comedy". One of his best films.
And a plus: Charlotte Rampling is stunning!

After have watched "Chungking Express" and "2046", I could understand the disappointment of Kar Wai Wong´s fans with "My Blueberry Nights". It´s nice and I enjoyed it myself, but now, having watched "Hapy Together", I can ask it too: what happened? Maybe it was the west wind, who knows? or the too-famous-actors, but it just doesn´t have the depth, tragedy and beauty of these other movies.

"Happy Together" (don´t get tricked by the title) is an authentic Wai Wong love story with its ups and downs. Buenos Aires was the perfect choice to place the relationship of the two chinese men lovers as desperate and sensual as el tango Argentino. Homosexuality is not the main point and it is, actually, never judged. Everything is very natural and beautiful, quite different from Brokeback Mountain, for example. The characters are real, interesting, and the movie has that known Wai Wong stunned "atmosphere" with hot colours and decadent places.

Light as "Rendez-vous in Paris" but with a deeper (and always honest) eye on day-by-day life.

Review soon.
For now, all I can say it is an interesting and beautiful Brazilian movie, very far from all the Brazilian stereotypes.

What are my real feelings towards it? I'm not sure. At the end of the projection, presuming that I watched it in a movie theater, I could only think that the one star rating a friend gave it was fair.

It's known that Sofia has a great eye to subtlety and aesthetics, but also that it can lead nowhere. In a first view Somewhere can be as empty as Marie Antoinette and took by a failed 'reading' of Lost in Translation, but I wasn't satisfied with that. All I could think all night and next day long was that it must had something within it.

In fact, it has and it has not. Long takes, slow takes, not much dialogues, shallow conversations, boredom, lot of distractions in hand to avoid looking at ourselves, loneliness, going nowhere. Being a famous actor or a 'common' person, life is pretty much like that. Somewhere is so minimalist that it approaches rawness.

As already done in Lost in Translation, Sofia shows the celebrity vain world: the press conference, the photoshoot, the trip to Italy, the media that can be still more superficial and stupid, the fans screaming Johnny's name, everything is again perfectly portrayed. The swimming pool scene seems to be a great allegory. The camera closes Johnny and Cleo. While it can show their complicity, as the camera goes opening to a long shot, we realize that they are not alone as imagined, that there're other people around. From a close to a plan général, we pass from notability to anonymity: Johnny can be 'someone', but he is only one among lots of others.

Somewhere is or seems to be a very good stylish celebrity take down, as said by Andrew O'Herir in his review, but do you know the Heinsenberg's Uncertainty Principle that the observer influences the experiment? The Twilight reference was, I thought, a great way to show the stupidity of that world. It seemed to me a subtle ironic criticism, perfectly put. Untill I discover that Sofia "was really impressed with the performances by Rob and Kristen and that she "loves the romantic aspect of it". I think it's not necessary to explain more, right?

If the fact that I really liked Somewhere when watched for the second time was influenced by my own (mostly wrong) interpretations, I don't know, but it sure worths for Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning. Elle, who has already caught my attention in Phoebe in Wonderland, is just adorable.

* the opening credits
* the soundtrack (Mon Oncle/Adios Mario by Franck Barcellini)
* France in those lovely old times
* Chaplin + Keaton + le bon vivant = Monsieur Hulot
* foretaste of The Jetsons cartoon
* the best reconciliation between dad and son

(maybe a proper review soon)