Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great dinner yesterday that was busy, exhausting but lots of fun and YUMMY. The last few years we've been doing both Canadian and American Thanksgiving but I think this year, we won't. Too exhausting doing one and if it's another year before we do it again, FINE with me!
Started back into all my jobs today (had a week off from one job last week). Blech. Tired already. It's actually 10.10pm and I have four more hours to go tonight. And I have to teach all day tomorrow (they moved my Monday to Wednesday because of the holiday).
Mainly this week has been a movie-watching week what with some good stuff playing and the film festival continuing.
Cairo Time
I loved this movie. It was really sweet and simple. A very understated script and the actors, too, did less rather than more and it worked so well. Plot is very straightforward: a married woman arrives in Cairo for a brief vacation there with her husband who is an aid worker in Israel (in Gaza, actually). When her husband is delayed, she finds herself bored, lonely, and somewhat uncomfortable at being in a foreign city alone. So a husband's former coworker shows her around. Well, naturally, they fall in love, but not in the usual way: nothing happens, really. No love words are confessed and the husband isn't painted as this big asshole who deserves to be left or cheated on as is usually the case. Instead, the the viewer tags along as the retired cop and the married woman visit the sites, see a wedding, take the train, wander around, etc. It's got these political rumblings, but nothing overt and it's not some awkward metaphor for western interactions with the Middle East. It's just a kind of love story and it's told with grace and beauty. Cairo the city becomes a kind of character, too: dirty, exciting, poor, extravagant, full of men, etc. A couple of scenes have stayed with me for days.
Guts
This Spanish movie, in the tradition of "Scarface" or "The Usual Suspects" wasn't too bad but I didn't like it that much.
A recently released small time thug tries to make it in the world of Spanish organized crime. And he succeeds. So he's transformed from small time criminal into a suave big time criminal.
It was entertaining but easily forgettable. Some great shots of Galicia and the coast. And I love how the director made of point of the "fat people" coming out as the winners (something which NEVER happens). In a year, I doubt I'll remember very much about this movie except that it has a surprise ending and it's a pretty unexpected movie in other ways, too.
It's really strange how "hot" gangster movies have become the last 10 years. Thanks to the Sopranos, I guess. I have never actually sat through an entire episode of that show though I have nothing against it. I guess it's just impossible to keep up with all the stuff there is to watch and we almost never turn on our TV to watch what's on (we watch TV but almost only on DVD).
This was a brilliant, dreamlike movie that has stayed with me all day. It's a silent movie from 1924 and VERY long. But I was so fascinated by it: set in 1820s Sweden, it's based on a Selma Lagerlof novel from the late 19th century. I really loved this and will definitely want to watch it again. It's also Greta Garbo's last Swedish movie before she left for Hollywood. After this, the entire Swedish film industry sort of fell apart because they lots its main director, its main producer and two of its biggest stars after MGM head saw this movie and offered them all jobs in California.
I do like silent movies because they are so often striking: they are so unusual and affect me in distinct ways. I remember them for months afterwards. They are so much more emotional than sound movies, I feel. And the acting has to be so extreme at times (far far far from "understated).
Musashi: The Last Samurai
Waste of time. I like anime, I like Samurai movies. But this one was like something you'd see at 3am if you were watching bad TV in Tokyo. It was more like a documentary but the tone was bizarre, the story unfocused, and the entire narrative set-up/device annoying as hell. The movie was packed but no one got up and walked out which surprised me since I wanted to about four times. Masa and Ken, too, both hated this movie (though they insisted on sitting through it).
Too bad this movie was such a drag because only a few more days of film festival left and I am busy. Ah, well: at least four more festivals coming up in the next month or so!
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