Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Parks and Rec in London



Why I am not in London?????


I guess this is the shooting of the first ONE-HOUR episode for Season 6. AH!

I heard Heidi Klum will make an appearence in this new season, so will Kristen Bell.
Also: Where is 'Diane'?
Oh, September will be so nice.

The London Eye...

Sports Edition - FINA World Champs


It's been a year since this girl became huge and made lots of people cry with joy. It was the Olympics back then.
And she has done it again. Absolutely stunning. The 16 year old Lithuanian broke the World Record of her favorite race, or rather it must be her favorite race, the 100 breastsroke. And then she cried like a baby, naturally.
What a joy to watch. Looking forward to the final.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Emmy Related


Well, I can’t do this anymore. I know it has been a while, a few days, but I think I still am in time to talk about the Emmys. The silent treatment is over. I have to say from the start that I’m not in any case close of being an expert on Emmys. Quite the contrary. My history with television, or just series, is a recent one. But stories are stories. And I’m always up for something entertaining.

Ok, now I guess I will just randomly shout my thoughts as they come.


Looking at the supporting actress in drama series, looking for that name…ah! There it is!! Emilia Clarke was nominated for an Emmy! She did it, she made it.
Later: obvious nomination. I would describe this nomination, besides predictable, really childish. Of course, this nomination is literally to the writer’s credits, and those famous 12 minutes of absolute awesome human empowering, perhaps of awesome feminism. I accept this nomination for this. But to no one’s surprise, Michelle Fairley should have got a nomination too. The same goes for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau for a supporting nom.



Let’s talk supporting then…how about JENNIFER CARPENTER????
Isn’t she famous enough for you Emmys??? No?? JENNIFER CARPENTER, HAVE YOU HEARD?
This is the mother fucking fraud of the decade.


Bottom line is, I get this, these awards are as ridiculous and as bullshit and political as any other. I am thinking about all the shows that aren’t even considered…

So now let’s talk about Orphan Black or comedies like Raising Hope.
Tatiana Maslany should have ruled the shit out of this Best Actress Drama category. The dreamy idea of watching her Best Actress Nomination’s Montage is gone.
Did I already mentioned Jennifer Carpenter?? Oh I did.
Michael C. Hall was left out, expected – it always feels bad because the show is great and Michael’s body language but especially his face and the emotions he exhales are always perfect.



Talking about perfect – Parks and Recreation.
I will just nominate them in my own head. Nick Offerman, Adam Scott, Chris Pratt, Rob Lowe. With Nick Offerman inevitably winning the award. Not only he’s been incredible through the years, but he keeps bringing quality to the character as he naturally gets old and as he faces new challenges in his life, not only his ex wives. He brings incredible depth to this man, he brings a level of understanding that makes Ron Swanson a unique soul. His face has always been a big part of the show but this fifth season has been exceptional. From that moment he meets a woman named Diane, the vulnerability in his eyes, the beginning of something new and uncomfortable. Then he keeps being who he is, always. It’s precious. Nick Offerman is a precious treasure.

And now I will use Paul Auster’s words from The Book of Ilusions:
Think of Hector as one Ron Swanson.
“Before the body, there is the face, and before the face there is the thin black line between Hector’s nose and upper lip. A twitching filament of anxieties, a metaphysical jump rope, a dancing thread of discombobulation, the mustache is a seismograph of Hector’s inner states, and not only does it make you laugh, it tells you what Hector is thinking, actuality allows you into the machinery of his thoughts. Other elements are involved – the eyes, the mouth, the finely calibrated lurches and stumbles – but the mustache is the instrument of communication, and even though it speaks a language without words, its wriggles and flutters are as clear and comprehensible as a message tapped out in Morse code.”
And on he goes describing the ins and outs of something as transcendent as a thing moving on its own, like a small animal with an independent consciousness and will.

You know what’s a treasure? PARKS AND RECREATION.
I know why Parks isn’t nominated for an Emmy. It isn’t mainstream enough. That’s got to be one of the biggest reasons. People don’t talk about it enough in the mainstream. Right? Because why on earth wouldn’t Parks be nominated for…anything?


I thought Raising Hope had a great start this season. Obviously Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt are the best. They’re brilliant. Burt is another mother fucking fraud. I also nominate Aubrey Plaza, always. Lucy Lawless for a guess turned out regular appearance. 


About the new wave of storytelling through something other than cable – it’s cool. It’s always cool to be part of the history. I do support it, 100%. And I really can’t complain, can I? With shows like House of Cards, which I consumed in one day. Like Orange is the New Black, which I would totally had consumed in one day if I had the opportunity, but slowly going at it and loving it. They bring quality, they bring depth, it’s good work for everyone, it’s entertaining as hell for us. Everybody wins.

Southcliffe

British mini-series directed by Sean Durkin and written by Tony Grisoni. After The Fall I've been pretty intrigued by these crime dramas. But with Durkin, one expects nothing but perfectionism and an absolute tension.

Watch Southcliffe after this teaser of "Run".

Fire...

...and pain, lots of pain. That's what you get.
They brought them back, only to take them away.
I refused to cry. It was too cruel.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

SET THE DATE

 La Vie D'Adèle Chapitre 1&2

This is my date: September the 27th of 2013. This is all I am looking for. Obviously, I have some other dates I'm very excited about like next week, Blue Jasmine and other cool dates. But that date, the 27th of September, I really really hope I can get there. I really do. But it will be tough! I don't know if I'll make it, I don't know if I will get a freaking ticket, I certainly don't know if I want to see the film with a huge crowd (OH WHAT THE HELL??). This date means a few things. So there are a lot of ifs. Anyway, that's my date. The other date would be October the 9th, so it isn't so bad, I mean, I've been waiting since May, so what's another couple of weeks? 
This is like my dilema of whether I buy Blue c'est une couleur chaude or not, like a huge dilema. I don't want to creat all these different expectations, I don't want to have much else over my head, I don't want to be comparing things, I mean, I've been with the book in my hands, I've seen lots of pages, I don't know, until September I will probably buy it...or not...This is how meticulous I can be...but it is mostly with films...and anything else that interests me...mostly stuff related with films.
What's your date? When will you be watching La Vie D'Adèle Chapitre 1&2?

Adèle

Semaine de la Critique, 2013.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Tom à la Ferme and the Venice Film Festival Line-Up

Tom à la Ferme
The new film by Xavier Dolan will be at this year's Venice Film Festival - In Competition.


Here are the films:

Out Of Competition: 
"Space Pirate Captain Harlock" (dir. Shinji Aramaki) - Japan"Gravity" (dir. Alfonso Cuaron) - USA"Summer 82 When Zappa Came To Sicily" (dir. Salvo Cuccia) - Italy/USA"Pine Ridge" (dir. Anna Eborn) - Denmark"The Armstrong Lie" (dir. Alex Gibney) - USA"Redemption" (dir. Miguel Gomes) - Portugal (short) "Ukraine Is Not A Brothel" (dir. Kitty Green) - Australia"Moebius" (dir. Kim Ki-Duk) - South Korea"Locke" (dir. Steven Knight) - UK"Unforgiven" (dir. Lee Sang-Il) - Japan"Wolf Creek 2" (dir. Greg McLean) - Australia"Amazonia" (dir. Thierry Ragobert) - France/Brazil"Home From Home; Chronicle Of A Vision" (dir. Edgar Reitz) - Germany"The Canyons" (dir. Paul Schrader) - USA"Che Strano Chiamarsi Federico: Scola Racconta Fellini" (dir. Ettore Scola) - Italy"Walesa: Man Of Hope" (dir. Andrzej Wajd, Ewa Brodzka) - Poland"Til Madness Do Us Part" (dir. Wang Bing) - Hong Kong, France, Japan"At Berkeley" (dir. Frederick Wiseman) - USA

Orrizonti
"Little Brother" (dir. Serik Aprymov) - Kazakhstan"Il Terzo Tempo" (dir. Enrico Maria Artale) - Italy"Je M'Appelle Hmmm..." (dir. Agnes B) - France"Eastern Boys" (dir. Robin Campillo) - France"Palo Alto" (dir. Gia Coppola) - USA"Ruin" (dir. Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Michael Cody) - Australia"Fish & Cat" (dir. Shahram Mokri) - Iran"We Are The Best!" (dir. Lukas Moodysson) - Sweden/Denmark"Wolfschildren" (dir. Rick Ostermann) - Germany"La Vida Despues" (dir. David Pablos) - Mexico"Algunas Chicas" (dir. Santiago Palavecino) - Argentina"Medeas" (dir. Andrea Pallaoro) - USA/Italy"Still Life" (dir. Uberto Pasolini) - UK"Piccola Patria" (dir. Alessandro Rossetto) - Italy"La Prima Neve" (dir. Andrea Segre) - Italy"Why Don't You Play In Hell?" (dir. Sono Sion) - Japan"The Sacrament" (dir. Ti West) - USA


Venice Classics
"Hotel Monterey" & "Le 14 D'Aout" (dir. Chantal Akerman) - Belgium"Little Fugitive" (1953) (dir. Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin) - USA"Bread & Chocolate" (1974) (dir. Franco Brusati) - Italy"Comrades: Almost A Love Story" (1996) (dir. Peter Ho-Sun Chan) - Hong Kong"A Bullet For The General" (1966) (dir. Damiani Damiani) - Italy"My Darling Clementine" (1946) (dir. John Ford) - USA"Sorcerer" (1977) (dir. William Friedkin) - USA"My Friend Ivan Lapshin" (1984) (dir. Aleksey German Sr.) - USSRDo You Remember Dolly Bell?" (1981) (dir. Emir Kusturica) - Bosnia & Herzegovina "White Rock" (1977) (dir. Tony Maylam) - UK"The Shape Of NIght" (1964) (Dir. Noboru Nakamura) - Japan"Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" (1983) (dir. Nagisa Oshima) - Japan/UK"Equinox Flower" (1958) (dir. Yasujiro Ozu) - Japan"The Treasure" (1973) (dir. Lester James Peries) - Sri Lanka"Property Is No Longer A Theft" (1973) (dir. Elio Petri) - Italy"The Most Dangerous Game" (1932) (dir. Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack) - USA"The Coward"/"The Holy Man" (1965) (dir. Satyajit Ray) - India"La Bete Humaine" (1938) (dir. Jean Renoir) - France"Providence" (1977) (dir. Alain Resnais) - France/Switzerland/UK"Hands Over The City" (1963) (dir. Francesco Rosi) - Italy/France"Paisan" (1946) (dir. Roberto Rossellini) - Italy"Tosca's Kiss" (1984) (dir. Daniel Schmid) - Switzerland/Italy"Vague Stars Of Ursa" (1965) (dir. Luchino Visconti) - Italy"Let's Get Lost' (1988) (dir. Bruce Weber) - USA"Mysterious Object At Noon" (2000) (dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul) - Thailand/Netherlands

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

tiff line up

Labor Day

Breath. Just breath.
Forget it. They're all there.
Films like Devil's Knot, Gravity, Labor Day, Dallas Buyers Club, Philomena, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Under the Skin. Films from Paul Haggis, David Gordon Green, Nicole Holofcene. Films with Kristen Wigg, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mia Wasikowska, Jude Law, Emilia Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Keira Knightley, Sarah Gadon, André Benjamin, Taylor Kitsch.
Treat yourself to a visit to their site here.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her.

Dallas Buyers Club.

Can a Song save your Life.

The Invisible Woman.

Hateship, Loveship.

The Railway Man.

The Third Person.

Felony, writen and staring Joe Edgerton.

There are certainly plenty of films for you to spend all day inside a movie theater...oh what a dream come true on these lands...one of these days.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Let's make it a thing...




Who do you like better?
What a stupid question. Forget it.


I had to! 
Oh man, look at that...
I was watching World War Z  and I kept thinking about Brad Pitt's beautiful blond hair, always straight up, always so clean and nice looking. And that I want to have his hair, just like that...

Oh I had this word to describe these hairdos, but it's in my native language I don't think I can translate it. Anyway, love the messy blond hair. Nastassja's hair is straighter (and so is Brad's), but god, does anyone need an excuse to look at their faces?
This has been a random, pointless post to look at pretty human beings.

Tatiana Maslany


Wouldn’t it be absolutely cool, if Tatiana Maslany would win an Emmy? But the real question is her nomination. It’s what lots of people are talking about and the expectations are high. I will be really happy if she gets a nomination. I will not be surprised if she doesn’t! Amy Poehler never won an Emmy for her work in Parks, Nick Offerman was never nominated, the same with Jennifer Carpenter with Dexter. Ah, Jennifer Carpenter and Debra Morgan.


Tatiana Maslany is the girl of the moment, yes, but it is never enough to advocate for this girl. I mean, Orphan Black has been in my mind for a couple of weeks now, ever since I saw it that I keep thinking about it and I keep thinking about Tatiana, because she’s the show. I mean, literally, if you know Orphan Black you get it but if you don’t I can explain quickly that she’s in the screen ninety percent of the time. She plays at least five characters so think of how much this girl has worked.


Orphan Black gives Tatiana Maslany some of the versatility that an actress probably searches and achieves every five years if she’s lucky. If you think of roles for women as mainly the girlfriend, wife, lover, sister, then there are some others who aren’t any of the above or are more than that, but of course there are great ‘wife’ roles, like The Good Wife, with a great narrative and a great role. Julianna Mergulies is great. Sometimes the wife, the lover are good roles, but you know, we want more, more of everything. So Orphan Black gives a bit of a wider range to Tatiana but also to us. She plays a wife, someone who just wants to take care of her family, educate her children and be who she is. She’s also someone who learns a deal or two about reliability and how to demand respect from others, ultimately to value herself. She plays a scientist who works relentlessly trying to figure it out her science but who at the end of the day doesn’t want to be just a nerd monkey but she wants to be connected with someone, she wants to be taken by that too. There’s also an ex-girlfriend so to speak, but she comes as a mystery at first, maybe she was just an outcast with no directions but then she comes and develops this great sobriety and independency, we just want to trust her. She’s also a fragmented human being, someone who suffered a structured and centered universe and suddenly she’s confronted with a different reality so she was way beyond being an outcast. So imagine all these different perspectives, now think of each one and their complexities. Tatiana Maslany is perfect here. It’s impressive to look at her because she works to the details. Of course everything around her helps, beginning with the writing, then the characterization work, which it is to the detail too. You see the scientist, her cool attitude, her hippie cool vibes and her specific looks, the way she talks, her hands’ movements. Each character has its mannerisms that helps bring verisimilitude that is so important to the consistency of the narrative, of the show. Bottom line, it’s a treat; it’s an absolute amazement to look at her. She fulfills you. Thank god for Tatiana Maslany and the creators of Orphan Black.