That's what I love about New York: everyone's from a different place.

New York, I Love You

Paris, je t'aime, is one of my favorite films. It is an excellent film comprised of short stories about love in Paris. The film explores all types of love and relationships; heterosexual, homosexual, family, broken love, love rekindled, love beginning. Even a story about love for Paris is explored. This successful film is spawning a whole franchise called the "Cities of Love." Jerusalem, Rio, and Shanghai will all be featured locations for the franchise. With a winning idea begun with Paris, je t'aime, the franchise's second film, New York, I Love You should have been just as a good. Unfortunately, it lacked a lot of the elements that made Paris, je t'aime so special.

The film suffered from a lack of representation. The film did not use New York to its full potential. New York has many distinct neighborhoods with their own love stories. In some of the stories, it was easy to tell the setting (Chinatown, Central Park, The Diamond District), while others were just random street corners or bars. Every neighborhood in New York is unique and many were not clearly represented. I didn't see Chelsea or Harlem to name a few. Part of the magic in Paris, je t'aime. is that there are captions to tell you where in Paris you are. If one is familiar with Paris, they can better visualize the location and place themselves in the story through the neighborhood.

A second lack of representation came from the kind of love shown. Almost all of the stories centered around heterosexual, Caucasian love. There were four non Caucasian characters. There was one story that didn't involve heterosexual love. New York City is the ultimate American melting pot. There is a plethura of different races and ethnicities existing in the city. New York has a homosexual population, that was not represented at all in the film. This film lacked the diversity New York prides itself on.

Finally, most of the stories didn't represent all the elements that make up love. Most of the stories were sweet and cute, which is part of love and just fine, but the film didn't really try to go beyond. Love is scary, exciting, tense, passionate and so much more. The film seemed to start and end at the attraction phase of love. The stories were very one-dimensional; unlike Paris, je t'aime, the individual stories didn't tell an overarching story about love.

For all the negativity I've written about the film so far, there were some memorable in a good way vignettes. Allen Hughes' segment with Bradley Cooper and Drea de Matteo was a bright spot. The initial feeling of excitement/uncertainty/self doubt when you are getting to know someone was captured well by these actors. The outbursts of smiles followed quickly by panic while on your way to meet this new person happens to most of us. This is one love story you're truly cheering for.

The Natalie Portman-directed segment was my favorite. The only segment not about heterosexual love, the short story was about a little girl and her father. The catch, people think the father is actually the girl's "manny," as he is Latino and she is white. The two actors were sweet together and highlighted how love can be colorblind and how ignorant people can be.

New York, I Love You lacked the love and spirit of it's predecessor. Paris, je t'aime set up the perfect foundation for New York, I Love You but the writers and directors decided to ignore that. I hope the other "Cities of Love" films will learn from New York, I Love You's extreme mistakes.

Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada"

Meryl Streep can do no wrong. She truly is a chameleon and the greatest actress of all time. No question. Her turn as ice queen/powerhouse editor Miranda Priestly earned her a rightfully deserved Oscar nomination. With her dagger-like eyes and slightly pursed lips, she can shatter spirits. Her lack of a raised voice when furious makes her employees feel like failures. Truly, Streep is a goddess.

Netflix Queue

The Brothers Bloom-I missed this in theaters.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-Keeping up with my exploration of classic horror.
Dog Day Afternoon-This is in my Netflix Instant queue. Since "Friday Night Lights" isn't controlling my online viewing life anymore, I need to start making a dent in the Instant queue. This film has been at the top of my queue since I started it.

Now you are king, and you will be a truly great king.

Where the Wild Things Are

My greatest fears did not come true. This wasn't a disappointment, far from it. This classic story was given a fair and respectful adaptation and honorable and imaginative expansion. I don't remember the book too vividly but I remember reading it as a kid. It left enough of an impact on me that if the film had been a disappointment, I would have died a little inside. This was no child's tale; it was very dark. There were some disturbing images and some heavy themes that could be difficult for a child to swallow.

Max is a victim of divorce. His mom works long hours and doesn't have as much time for him as he'd like. He has no friends and looks to his older sister for company, but she's busy with her own social life. As well, his mom has started to date, which means she has even less time for Max. Max's loneliness leads to his violent outbursts. He expresses his frustrations by destroying his sister's room when she left him to be with her friends and biting his mom when she has her new boyfriend over. He runs away from his inevitable consequences and finds the Wild Things.

As the film's tag line says, there is a little wild thing is all of us, and Max is no exception. Each of the Wild Things represents a part of Max. KW is all the love Max is capable of having, Judith is Max's bossiness, and Ira is Max's intelligence. Alexander is Max's loneliness, Douglas is Max's potential compassion, and the Bull is Max's inner quiet observer. The Wild Thing most like Max is Carol. Carol is emotional, impulsive, and volatile. He doesn't know how to deal appropriately with sadness and loss, exactly like Max. They choose destruction instead of talking; they do not consider how their actions will affect others.

Max experiences a role reversal when he arrives at the island of the Wild Things. He becomes their king, their patriarch, their parent. This role reversal enforces the film's most prevalent theme, family. Max believes that being the king will be an easy job. He can say and do whatever he wants and his "children" will follow him. But being the head of the family isn't easy. When he can't keep his promises, feelings get hurt. When he spends more time with a Wild Thing, jealousies grow. When he can't keep his family together, his "children" get angry at him and blame him for everything, much like a child could do in a divorce situation. Max has his epiphany after he's hidden with KW from Carol and he sees how messed up everything is. He tells KW he wishes they had a mother. Max realizes being a parent is terribly difficult and family is hard work. He needs to not think so selfishly. His mom sacrifices so much for him, more than he realized up until this moment. Now he knows he is ready to go home.

The film looked exactly the way it needed to look. The combination of puppets, costumes and CGI worked. It looked both realistic and magical. The actors chosen to do the voices of the Wild Things were perfect. Catherine O'Hara brought her slight insanity into Judith while Forest Whitaker's voice was its usual soothing tone as Ira. One could see the actor's smiles through the CGI Wild Things' smiles. Max Records as Max delivered a great performance. He captured Max's ferocity and inner conflict. The role was a complex and could be daunting, but Records successfully portrayed an ultimately wounded little boy.

The film captured the essence of the story and expanded on it beautifully. Spike Jonze took on an astronomical task, with high expectations and lots of pressure. He certainly delivered.

Jeremy Sisto in Waitress

Few things consistently make me squeamish. Watching people with eating disorders, needle use, and Jeremy Sisto in Waitress. He is one of the most unlikeable male characters in a movie I've ever seen, more than some murders or all around bad guys. He is killing his wife, Jenna, slowly inside. He is absolutely odious. Hearing him beg his wife for sex makes me want to vomit and when he tells her she better not love their baby more than him, that he's still her main priority, makes me want to die. On top of all this, he harasses her in public and hits her. He is less than a human being and it takes good acting to make audiences hate a character so much.

Netflix Queue

Gladiator-I saw it once when I was way too young and I had a tummy ache, so I wasn't giving it all my attention.
Whatever Works-I heard mixed things about this Woody Allen film and I despise Evan Rachel Wood but maybe this film might give me the push I need to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The Soloist-I love RDJ

Crikey.

Australia

So far I've written about films I enjoyed and now it's time to write the opposite. I am not the kind of person to sugarcoat my opinion about a movie. If I hated it, you're going to hear how much I hated it and why. I despised Australia.

Australia failed at deciding which genre it wanted to fall into. The beginning is almost slapstick comedy with Hugh and the drovers fighting or Nicole Kidman getting flustered. It moves into road movie, then romance, then World War II drama. Australia just can't sit still long enough to pick which one it wants to commit to. You get a taste of each genre but don't get to savor their most enjoyable flavors.

Nicole Kidman failed. I can't even begin to describe why, she was just bad. She seemed to rely on film stereotypes of "rich girl having to rough it." Over and over again she would look tiffed and make some kind of high pitched noise. Were they words or just noise, I don't know. Even when she was okay with roughing it, she was irritating.

The story failed. There is too much going on; maybe three different movies. Movie number one, the love story between Kidman and Jackman. Different backgrounds and aspirations that will cause conflict. Movie number two, the exploration of aboriginal traditions. The bulk of research appeared to be done on Wikipedia, I learned nothing new about their culture. Movie number three, the threat of World War II and subsequent Japanese bombing. Luhrmann just couldn't settle on what story he wanted to tell, so he decided to do all three at once. Admirable effort but ultimately a wreck.

The ending(s) failed. Sometimes I get annoyed when a film doesn't end in an appropriate place. Australia could have ended with Kidman and Nullah reuniting with Jackman, but Luhrmann had to include the tease of Nullah dying, then Nullah leaving to go on a walkabout. Again, Luhrmann had trouble picking what he wanted, so he just did everything.

I wanted to like this movie. I tried. It had film aspects that I enjoy: sweeping landscapes, Baz Luhrmann and delicious Hugh Jackman. But nothing in this film meshed together. This was an ambitious, passion project for Luhrmann. There was so much he wanted to say and do, but just couldn't find the right words. This was his first film in seven years and his earlier films are lovely, so I expected my breath to be taken away. Unfortunately I felt like Australia was a mugger and punched me in the gut while stealing my eleven dollars.

Maggie Gyllenhaal in Away We Go

This film was good; not great but good. I actually had difficulty with it until midway through, the always fantastic Maggie Gyllenhaal showed up. She played a family friend of the John Krasinski character. She was a shameless free spirit who doesn't believe in strollers. "Why would she want to push her children away?" Gyllenhaal owned the role and breathed life into the film that was fairly dull up until her entrance. She flipped the film on its back and I ended up enjoying the rest of it.

Netflix Queue

Adventureland-I hate Kristen Stewart and I don't like Jesse Eisenberg. But Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are the best additions to SNL in years, so I'll give it a shot.
The Godfather III-Might as well finish out the trilogy right?
Amores Perros-With my research in Mexican cinema, this title has showed up a lot.