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Left as planned on February 12th, that date couldn't come soon enough. We have enjoyed the bracing cold temperatures but it was definitely time for a change. Arrived at the airport with time to spare thanks to my querida sister, gracias Annie. We embarked on time and even arrived about twenty minutes earlier than anticipated, apparently the winds were favorable. A couple of observations on airplane traveling, it's fast, it's convenient, it costs a lot in fuel which doesn't make me feel very good about my carbon footprint, it's ever expanding with all the traveling we're doing and have yet to do. We must try and make up for the waste in other ways and just deal with our guilty consciences. The food this time around was barely palatable. Usually Air Transat food isn't bad or maybe I'm just so bored with sitting there I wolf it down regardless. This time there were only two options: Fettucine Alfredo or Boeuf Bourguignon. Why do they always insist on Fettucine Alfredo it's the most toxic pasta dish there is in terms of calories. If I ever meet this Alfredo I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. In any case Alfredo was not to be had it was a huge success with this group of travelers, wouldn't have chosen it in any case. The Boeuf Bourguignon was bourguignon in name only but enough with the boring travel food.
Arrived in Puerto Vallarta where transportation wise you can either take a local,noisy, belching bus which visits every single colonia (neighbourhood) along the way or an overpriced taxi. We chose the latter, I did get him to go down 100 pesos better than nothing. The hotel Hacienda de Vallarta is a sprawling rather tortuous affair with hidden corners, steps,side entries etc. In fact we knew this hotel and had visited it once before while in P.V. The room is great it's very big with one double bed and two single beds and the shower has hot water, yeah! There's also A.C. which makes a lot of noise and doesn't seem to cool down the room all that much. We just turned it on I was sweating writing this but won't complain it's been a while since I've experienced sweating. We ate tacos from the friendly taco vendor just around the corner and they actually tasted really good with the corn tortillas. Woke up not too too early went for a buffet breakfast, 59 pesos per person which is around $4.50 and then off to the beach. The water was lovely, we swam for quite a distance before walking back. They've built a brand new pier it's quite different looking, lots of steel although it's already showing signs of corrosion with the sea and wind taking their toll. We found the house where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had their torrid affair while filming the rather execrable Night of the Iguanas directed by a John Houston already past his prime. The house is called the Kimberley House not sure why and it was completely gutted. Apparently it's been in a constant state of renovation for the last few years not that we could tell. The woman who owns it and other houses near it apparently made her millions
through a thriving phone sex operation business, this might just be one of those hard to refute rumors which have a way of floating around when it comes to Mexico.
Tomorrow we are off to beautiful Yelapa, it's a secluded beach on a bay and there's a splendid water fall near by. The boat ride is over 2 hours, it should be great fun and a gorgeous outing for Valentine's day. We're a bit conflicted as to when we should leave for Melaque, we might want to spend more time in P.V. where there's always something going on. Then again we can't forget the appointment with the dentist. We're giving up on going to Puebla. There has been some disturbing news recently concerning some of the areas where we might have gone, including an elderly couple who got murdered and their house ransacked near Guadalajara and Lake Chapala where we initially had intended to retire. Okay that's neither here nor there but Puebla on the map is very far, long bus rides maybe late night arrivals, dragging suitcases around and we've already visited some of the greatest colonial cities in the world. Somehow it didn't feel right this time, sometimes one has to listen to one's gut feeling. Getting on the net can be very frustrating, it takes forever to log on, watch the wheel spinning round and round. I might not be able to update as often as I want for now hasta luego and Happy Valentine.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Thoughts on Parkland and The Fifth Estate
My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Thoughts on Parkland and The Fifth Estate: It seems appropriate to critique the films Parkland and The Fifth Estate in tandem. Both deal with events of momentous importance for the w...
Thoughts on Parkland and The Fifth Estate
It seems appropriate to critique the films Parkland and The Fifth Estate in tandem. Both deal with events of momentous importance for the world, events which continue to shape history either through conspiracy theories in the case of the Kennedy assassination or through the ethics of the dissemination of sensitive information via unnamed sources through the website Wikileaks.
I must admit to approaching the film Parkland with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm due to its subject matter: the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas on that fateful November 22nd, 1963. To state that the topic of this assassination has been exhaustively studied, either through conventional channels or through more peculiar means via conspiracy theory books, websites and just plain nut jobs, would be an understatement. At some point Kennedy fatigue is bound to set in. My interest in the film was mostly sparked by the news that Tom Welling was going to have a feature role in its making. I've been a fan of the actor since Smallville so this was exciting news. Much to my chagrin he is featured very little as head of Kennedy's security detail. In fact Parkland is one of those wanna be prestige projects with a lot of famous actors attached seemingly because they want to be a part of something profound and influential. In my estimation the film would have had the same resonance with no name actors which is to say a moderate resonance in terms of critical acclaim or the events which the film seeks to illuminate.
Apparently the film was a pet project of Tom Hanks who was determined to see it realized. It's directed in an indifferent, competent fashion by Peter Landsman a director I know nothing about.
The film focuses on the critical hours following the shots heard around the world. For such a momentous event the film is a rather dull affair. The barely alive President is rushed to the emergency room of the Parkland hospital with Jackie his wife pitifully cradling part of his brain in her hands in one of the most affecting part of the whole movie. Thereafter we witness the valiant efforts of the staff to try and save JFK and then a whisking of the corpse back to the Presidential plane (yeah Tom Welling) and off to Washington. Most of the time is spent looking at the dying president with very grim faces,understandably so,yet the lack of passion in filming these pivotal scenes yields a certain ennui. I wanted to be engaged but I wasn't. The heavy use of archival footage renders the film inert as we witness the shots, without the benefit of sound, through the googly eyes of Abraham Zapruder played indifferently by Paul Giamatti.
The only part of the film which managed to capture my attention was the part concerning the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald ,their mother and Lee Havey's wife with the aftermaths of the shooting hanging over their heads and sure to do so for the rest of their lives. In conclusion the film was full of good intentions,historically accurate yet a lifeless recounting of an event which changed a nation and the world. It felt incomplete as if most of it had been left on the cutting floor waiting vainly to be reanimated.
The Fifth Estate directed by Bill Condon and starting almost there mega star Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Julian Assange, is also potentially full of good intentions but ends up feeling confused and a virtual character assassination of Assange himself which the film never fully assumes. We meet the mysterious Assange through a hacker acquaintance of his the soon to be partner in "crime" and de facto second in command Daniel Berg. Their relationship is a fractured affair. Things go smoothly at first until Assange's thirst for truth and his disregard of the danger posed to his "anonymous" sources bring things to a head in particular with the leaks attached to private Bradley Manning which rocked the U.S. military establishment to its core. The director tries very hard to make this a propulsive affair with
endless jetting by Assange between capitals in Europe and Kenya where Wikileaks revelations will lead to the assassination of two Assange acolytes. To signal its hip factor as befits a movie about a hip character ample use is also made of technology, cryptic messages, split screens, undecipherable references to hacker know how in short so much is piled on that it becomes a bit of a bore just sifting through all the garble. The problem with a film tailored as a wannabe thriller resides in the fact that it lacks a credible villain. Sure Assange is not an especially pleasant guy but we more or less already know this from interviews and portraits gleaned here and there in the conventional press. The jury is still out on whether Assange is guilty of the rape charges brought against him which he has vehemently denied. Meanwhile he's still waiting,not very patiently I suspect, in exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London although that hasn't put an end to Wikileaks revelations to wit Edward Snowden being its most prominent whistle blower to date.
Cumberbatch is great in the role and Daniel Bruhl in the role of Everyman Berg is also excellent. The film is peppered with well known actors in minor roles, a trend it seems for another prestige project with high intellectual significance (cough). Assange remains an enigmatic problematic figure to the end. With a more rigorous script placing greater emphasis on motive rather than subjecting us to great bouts of frenetic keyboarding the film might have gotten somewhere. As it stands it's an unfinished mess with some need of serious editing.
I must admit to approaching the film Parkland with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm due to its subject matter: the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas on that fateful November 22nd, 1963. To state that the topic of this assassination has been exhaustively studied, either through conventional channels or through more peculiar means via conspiracy theory books, websites and just plain nut jobs, would be an understatement. At some point Kennedy fatigue is bound to set in. My interest in the film was mostly sparked by the news that Tom Welling was going to have a feature role in its making. I've been a fan of the actor since Smallville so this was exciting news. Much to my chagrin he is featured very little as head of Kennedy's security detail. In fact Parkland is one of those wanna be prestige projects with a lot of famous actors attached seemingly because they want to be a part of something profound and influential. In my estimation the film would have had the same resonance with no name actors which is to say a moderate resonance in terms of critical acclaim or the events which the film seeks to illuminate.
Apparently the film was a pet project of Tom Hanks who was determined to see it realized. It's directed in an indifferent, competent fashion by Peter Landsman a director I know nothing about.
The film focuses on the critical hours following the shots heard around the world. For such a momentous event the film is a rather dull affair. The barely alive President is rushed to the emergency room of the Parkland hospital with Jackie his wife pitifully cradling part of his brain in her hands in one of the most affecting part of the whole movie. Thereafter we witness the valiant efforts of the staff to try and save JFK and then a whisking of the corpse back to the Presidential plane (yeah Tom Welling) and off to Washington. Most of the time is spent looking at the dying president with very grim faces,understandably so,yet the lack of passion in filming these pivotal scenes yields a certain ennui. I wanted to be engaged but I wasn't. The heavy use of archival footage renders the film inert as we witness the shots, without the benefit of sound, through the googly eyes of Abraham Zapruder played indifferently by Paul Giamatti.
The only part of the film which managed to capture my attention was the part concerning the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald ,their mother and Lee Havey's wife with the aftermaths of the shooting hanging over their heads and sure to do so for the rest of their lives. In conclusion the film was full of good intentions,historically accurate yet a lifeless recounting of an event which changed a nation and the world. It felt incomplete as if most of it had been left on the cutting floor waiting vainly to be reanimated.
The Fifth Estate directed by Bill Condon and starting almost there mega star Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Julian Assange, is also potentially full of good intentions but ends up feeling confused and a virtual character assassination of Assange himself which the film never fully assumes. We meet the mysterious Assange through a hacker acquaintance of his the soon to be partner in "crime" and de facto second in command Daniel Berg. Their relationship is a fractured affair. Things go smoothly at first until Assange's thirst for truth and his disregard of the danger posed to his "anonymous" sources bring things to a head in particular with the leaks attached to private Bradley Manning which rocked the U.S. military establishment to its core. The director tries very hard to make this a propulsive affair with
endless jetting by Assange between capitals in Europe and Kenya where Wikileaks revelations will lead to the assassination of two Assange acolytes. To signal its hip factor as befits a movie about a hip character ample use is also made of technology, cryptic messages, split screens, undecipherable references to hacker know how in short so much is piled on that it becomes a bit of a bore just sifting through all the garble. The problem with a film tailored as a wannabe thriller resides in the fact that it lacks a credible villain. Sure Assange is not an especially pleasant guy but we more or less already know this from interviews and portraits gleaned here and there in the conventional press. The jury is still out on whether Assange is guilty of the rape charges brought against him which he has vehemently denied. Meanwhile he's still waiting,not very patiently I suspect, in exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London although that hasn't put an end to Wikileaks revelations to wit Edward Snowden being its most prominent whistle blower to date.
Cumberbatch is great in the role and Daniel Bruhl in the role of Everyman Berg is also excellent. The film is peppered with well known actors in minor roles, a trend it seems for another prestige project with high intellectual significance (cough). Assange remains an enigmatic problematic figure to the end. With a more rigorous script placing greater emphasis on motive rather than subjecting us to great bouts of frenetic keyboarding the film might have gotten somewhere. As it stands it's an unfinished mess with some need of serious editing.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Review of Dallas Buyers Club
Dallas Buyers Club opens with a bang. We're on rodeo grounds and Ron Woodroof a would be cowboy in his spare time and electrician in his regular joe job is giving it hard to two "ladies" under the stalls. Right away we know this guy's no woos, he's a heterosexual full blooded male and it's important to note this since this is a movie about Aids and being HIV positive at the very beginnings of the deadly disease which will hit especially hard in the gay community. For a time and in some circles it was even branded the queer disease.
The story is based on real life Ron Woodroof played in a go for broke performance by Matthew McConaughey. The physical transformation of McConaughey is quite startling but I had seen quite a few previews of this film prior to going to see it in its entirety and therefore knew what to expect.
The time is 1985 Rock Hudson has died of Aids, panic has yet to grip the gay community but when people start dying in record numbers communities will start to organize all across the U.S. In that respect founding the Dallas Buyers Club was not unique although it's portrayed as being quite singular in the film.
Woodroof is hospitalized after passing out in his trailer and told at the hospital that his blood has tested positive for the HIV virus, in short order he has thirty days to live. One of the more sympathetic doctors is played by Jennifer Garner. She will become an unlikely ally as the story progresses.
Hard playing, hard boozing, pill popping, prostitute frequenting, sex addict Ron Woodroof is not a pleasant character. He's a raging homophobic and thus considers it a supreme injustice to his manhood to have fallen prey to the queer disease. I have to say that even after his so-called conversion and semi-acceptance of the gay/transgendered milieu he never quite grew on me.
Woodroof refuses to go easy into the night and becomes determined to procure himself with any illegal and unapproved medicine which will prolong his life. While the disease is spreading pharmaceutical companies are competing to come up with a cocktail which will do just that while, at the same time, enhancing generously their bottom line. Unfortunately clinical trials which will lead to an eventual approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) take too long and Woodroof eventually ends up in Mexico where he finds a cocktail which appears to be working. He sets up a partnership with a transgendered woman called Rayon played by Jared Leto with sensitivity and panache. Thus the Dallas Buyers Club is born. Rayon is an invented character placed there to make Woodroof's conversion more plausible to the viewer.
I have read a few articles by gay activists condemning the portrayal of Rayon by a straight man. I personally don't feel there is any merit to such criticism. Throughout history men have portrayed women, women have portrayed men etc...Art should transcend such reductive arguments. It is not necessary for the portrayal of Rayon to be effective to have a transgendered actor playing the role arguments like that just muddy the waters. The film was never meant to be an exhaustive chronology of the ravages of Aids rather it is the story of a man's journey in uncharted territory yet despite its pro-gay attitude the film never manages to overcome a certain lack of empathy for the people such as Rayon and other members of the gay community who are portrayed as extremely passive in the face of this horrible disease.
Nevertheless it is an appealing story of mitigated triumph over adversity. Woodroof is forced to confront a medical and pharmaceutical system disinclined to give all the help it can unless it can make a tidy profit. His fight against the FDA is the real deal and the beating heart of the story. While Woodroof himself remains a problematic figure, at least for me, he does attain a certain measure of redemption for his early homophobic ways. The renowned Québécois director Jean-Marc Vallée never sinks into sentimentality where sentimentality and romanticism might have been easy to mine. The story is told in a straightforward manner without any embellishments and once again as in the case of August:Osage County the acting elevates it above the ordinary.
The story is based on real life Ron Woodroof played in a go for broke performance by Matthew McConaughey. The physical transformation of McConaughey is quite startling but I had seen quite a few previews of this film prior to going to see it in its entirety and therefore knew what to expect.
The time is 1985 Rock Hudson has died of Aids, panic has yet to grip the gay community but when people start dying in record numbers communities will start to organize all across the U.S. In that respect founding the Dallas Buyers Club was not unique although it's portrayed as being quite singular in the film.
Woodroof is hospitalized after passing out in his trailer and told at the hospital that his blood has tested positive for the HIV virus, in short order he has thirty days to live. One of the more sympathetic doctors is played by Jennifer Garner. She will become an unlikely ally as the story progresses.
Hard playing, hard boozing, pill popping, prostitute frequenting, sex addict Ron Woodroof is not a pleasant character. He's a raging homophobic and thus considers it a supreme injustice to his manhood to have fallen prey to the queer disease. I have to say that even after his so-called conversion and semi-acceptance of the gay/transgendered milieu he never quite grew on me.
Woodroof refuses to go easy into the night and becomes determined to procure himself with any illegal and unapproved medicine which will prolong his life. While the disease is spreading pharmaceutical companies are competing to come up with a cocktail which will do just that while, at the same time, enhancing generously their bottom line. Unfortunately clinical trials which will lead to an eventual approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) take too long and Woodroof eventually ends up in Mexico where he finds a cocktail which appears to be working. He sets up a partnership with a transgendered woman called Rayon played by Jared Leto with sensitivity and panache. Thus the Dallas Buyers Club is born. Rayon is an invented character placed there to make Woodroof's conversion more plausible to the viewer.
I have read a few articles by gay activists condemning the portrayal of Rayon by a straight man. I personally don't feel there is any merit to such criticism. Throughout history men have portrayed women, women have portrayed men etc...Art should transcend such reductive arguments. It is not necessary for the portrayal of Rayon to be effective to have a transgendered actor playing the role arguments like that just muddy the waters. The film was never meant to be an exhaustive chronology of the ravages of Aids rather it is the story of a man's journey in uncharted territory yet despite its pro-gay attitude the film never manages to overcome a certain lack of empathy for the people such as Rayon and other members of the gay community who are portrayed as extremely passive in the face of this horrible disease.
Nevertheless it is an appealing story of mitigated triumph over adversity. Woodroof is forced to confront a medical and pharmaceutical system disinclined to give all the help it can unless it can make a tidy profit. His fight against the FDA is the real deal and the beating heart of the story. While Woodroof himself remains a problematic figure, at least for me, he does attain a certain measure of redemption for his early homophobic ways. The renowned Québécois director Jean-Marc Vallée never sinks into sentimentality where sentimentality and romanticism might have been easy to mine. The story is told in a straightforward manner without any embellishments and once again as in the case of August:Osage County the acting elevates it above the ordinary.
Friday, January 17, 2014
My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Review of August:Osage County
My Travels And A Little Bit of This And That: Review of August:Osage County: With the death of their father (suicide) two Weston girls, Barbara (Julia Roberts) and Karen (Juliette Lewis) are forced to reunite with the...
Review of August:Osage County
With the death of their father (suicide) two Weston girls, Barbara (Julia Roberts) and Karen (Juliette Lewis) are forced to reunite with their mother Violet (Meryl Streep) and the youngest sister Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) as well as other members of the extended family. Written by the playwright Tracy Letts who also adapted it for the screen the subject matter itself, dysfunctional family forced to confront certain ugly truths, is rather banal, it's the competent execution by director John Wells and the stellar acting by a dream cast which lifts it above, but only just slightly, the shamelessly lurid and melodramatic.
It's always difficult bringing a play to the screen and Wells is not entirely successful in erasing a certain "stacticity" typical of such endeavors. Yet there is fluidity here too and a conscious attempt to get away from the stagy aspects by allowing the camera a little more room to roam and filming some scenes outdoors to make full use of the glorious Oklahoma sunlight. The matriarch Violet is a thoroughly unpleasant character full of bitter truths which she dishes unconditionally. She is a truth advocate even if it stings although she is less than truthful about her own failings which are many. Diagnosed with mouth cancer, yes one of the salient plot ironies, with a pale regrowth of hair, wielding a never ending cigarette like a weapon, she is played with venomous relish by Meryl Streep. This is probably one of Streep's strongest performance since The Iron Lady which I refused to see because of my personal aversion to Margaret Thatcher. I did however see the previews of that film and Streep had Thatcher down pat. This is a meatier role in some respect since there is no point of reference to another. She is not impersonating but creating wholesale and the ultimate creation is absolutely terrifying achieving at times "Medeaesque" proportions. Although Violet doesn't kill her youngs she maims them horribly and takes undisguised pleasure in doing so. It's a miracle her husband survived this long. The portrait is not entirely without nuance, one scene in particular involving cowboy boots and the young Violet, brings to light a childhood which was less than pastoral. In Violet's own words her mother was an evil woman which might explain why she became just as rotten.
Besides Streep's unforgettable performance the real revelation here is Julia Roberts as the eldest daughter Barbara. She is ferociously unforgiving, strong, bitter, newly separated from still tag along husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) mistrustful and fearful of Violet yet prepared to impose her will on her increasingly pill addled mother. One line in particular stands out after a violent confrontation which has them both on the floor, Barbara yells out: "You just don't get it: I'M IN CHARGE NOW." This is one of the few times where we see Violet cower and whimper.
This film is definitely the Streep/Roberts show. Juliette Lewis as Karen delivers the weakest performance while Julianne Nicholson is haunting as Ivy. The rest of the cast is uniformly good although the male actors are mostly wasted in secondary roles particularly Benedict Cumberbatch and Dermot Mulroney. I suppose it's always interesting for actors to sign on to a prestige project like this one with such powerhouse actresses attached, no blame to be assigned here. In fact it's been a great year for actresses in general I hope this ushers in not just a trend but a conscious effort to write great roles for actresses of all ages.
I give August: Osage County a modest endorsement, it didn't have the WOW factor that a film like 13 Years a Slave had but it's definitely worth more than a passing look.
It's always difficult bringing a play to the screen and Wells is not entirely successful in erasing a certain "stacticity" typical of such endeavors. Yet there is fluidity here too and a conscious attempt to get away from the stagy aspects by allowing the camera a little more room to roam and filming some scenes outdoors to make full use of the glorious Oklahoma sunlight. The matriarch Violet is a thoroughly unpleasant character full of bitter truths which she dishes unconditionally. She is a truth advocate even if it stings although she is less than truthful about her own failings which are many. Diagnosed with mouth cancer, yes one of the salient plot ironies, with a pale regrowth of hair, wielding a never ending cigarette like a weapon, she is played with venomous relish by Meryl Streep. This is probably one of Streep's strongest performance since The Iron Lady which I refused to see because of my personal aversion to Margaret Thatcher. I did however see the previews of that film and Streep had Thatcher down pat. This is a meatier role in some respect since there is no point of reference to another. She is not impersonating but creating wholesale and the ultimate creation is absolutely terrifying achieving at times "Medeaesque" proportions. Although Violet doesn't kill her youngs she maims them horribly and takes undisguised pleasure in doing so. It's a miracle her husband survived this long. The portrait is not entirely without nuance, one scene in particular involving cowboy boots and the young Violet, brings to light a childhood which was less than pastoral. In Violet's own words her mother was an evil woman which might explain why she became just as rotten.
Besides Streep's unforgettable performance the real revelation here is Julia Roberts as the eldest daughter Barbara. She is ferociously unforgiving, strong, bitter, newly separated from still tag along husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) mistrustful and fearful of Violet yet prepared to impose her will on her increasingly pill addled mother. One line in particular stands out after a violent confrontation which has them both on the floor, Barbara yells out: "You just don't get it: I'M IN CHARGE NOW." This is one of the few times where we see Violet cower and whimper.
This film is definitely the Streep/Roberts show. Juliette Lewis as Karen delivers the weakest performance while Julianne Nicholson is haunting as Ivy. The rest of the cast is uniformly good although the male actors are mostly wasted in secondary roles particularly Benedict Cumberbatch and Dermot Mulroney. I suppose it's always interesting for actors to sign on to a prestige project like this one with such powerhouse actresses attached, no blame to be assigned here. In fact it's been a great year for actresses in general I hope this ushers in not just a trend but a conscious effort to write great roles for actresses of all ages.
I give August: Osage County a modest endorsement, it didn't have the WOW factor that a film like 13 Years a Slave had but it's definitely worth more than a passing look.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
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