Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Crit
Who knew that today's postwork getaway would be a companion piece with last week's? But while the lives of quiet desperation lived by most men is the subtext of Man on Wire, here the theme is in the foreground. And while it's a theme that has been mined by many, this is a particularly refreshing take on it, with Javier Bardem's hedonistic Catalan artist seducing . . . well, just about everyone, including the audience, but never quite convincing us--Apollo steadfastly resisting Dionysus, if you will. Still, Dionysus is pretty damned good, and a hell of a lot more fun than Apollo, and the film's great strength is that it doesn't decide for us, and it never preaches. Woody's moralistic critics will see it as self-absolution, but he's actually pretty tough on some of his old selves here. And another promising development: to the extent that there's a stand-in for his traditional nebbish, the role is filled by the titular women, mostly Vicky (Rebecca Hall), but in one memorable scene (return flight from Oviedo) by Christina (Scarlett Johansson).
Oh, and then there's also Barcelona. Oh, my, yes, there is. See it.
Trailers
- Ghost Town--Ricky Gervais in a send-up of The Sixth Sense? Oh, hell, yes!
- How to Lose Friends & Alienate People--OK, I like Simon Pegg, but this just looks flat awful.
2 comments:
I liked it, but it's the same old Woody where the city is nothing more than a backdrop to the characters' personal lives; there wasn't really that much Barcelona. And is it too much to ask for someone--say, the narrator, or the person with the idiotic Catalan identity thesis who hasn't bothered to learn Spanish, let alone Catalan--to pronounce Gaudí's name right? Does she not have an adviser? GOWdy GOWdy GOWdy, come ON. Woody's still lazy.
But didn't you notice (I guess I don't have this back-review posted, so I can't link to it) that in that documentary about Gaudí everyone (almost all of them Spanish, most of them Catalan), without exception, accented the first syllable? That film crushed any confidence I had that I knew how to pronounce Catalá (or is it Català?).
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