generalities and Penelope Cruz

Two days and two movies. I know there are those of you out there who love Scarlett and there are those of you who love The Coen Brothers Assoc. I too love...mostly love what the Coens do. There are a couple decent movies out that deserve a little merit, dialogue merit, character merit, but I am going to have to say that they are overall unappeasable, and leave a sort of longing for...for maybe what has regrettably come and gone or what the film has shown and in a sense attempts to hustle the audience somewhere it doesnt want to go.

Vicky Christina Barcelona and Burn After Reading do not stop to smell the roses, those moments that come to very few and in very rare instances that every piece of the puzzle just fits. They whirl and swirl you back to a place that you know. A place you arent particularly fond of, but I really enjoyed both of these movies. 

Now let me explain myself. Burn After Reading was hilarious. The story was all over the place and there was so much going on that it was swirl, twist, spin almost the whole film. The Coen brothers are talented, but they seemed to leave out a key ingredient that is so common in most of their films: smarts. Now maybe I am too dumb to see them, but this film feels hollow. It was made beautifully, the dialogue and characters are as strong as any Coen film, it proves that they are genre dynamic writers/directors, and really gets us nowheres. Vanity, deception, betrayal, or maybe the Coens mocking themselves, it really isnt that memorable. I walked out of the movie laughing, but now I can only remember a handful of parts/lines/scenes. Another story where everything according to the plan, as bumbled and disfunctional as it is, goes awry, and I think I saw this in their first...wait, every one. The disfunction is part of every story, but after watching this one I think they are using a formula, like in those crappy high school algebra classes to figure out the answer to x. Malkovich and Pitt killed it. My favorite was definitely John though. 

Vicky Christina Barcelona was a classic Allen piece. Everyone is narcissistic and explorative of their own beliefs, and the dialogue is amazing and witty and everything I wish I could write. The show stealer was Cruz. After she makes her entrance, I didnt care about anything else. I loved her character. So inspired. I hate how Allen contrasts the American way of life to "everywhere else." Doug (the husband) is really an amazing guy. Very romantic, studious, hard working, smart, rich, and dedicated...I would say he is less normal and robotic as the movie portrays, but because he is cast in direct opposition to "the Spaniard" he seems uniform. Its BS. I really hated that fact, but it was funny enough, and the narration was an obvious gross exaggeration of how each of us would like to be this perfect person that we arent. 

So both films were good for a laugh and a thought that comes no more than 24 hours after leaving the theater, and sticks with you no more than a couple days.