Thursday, October 22, 2009

Loggerheads Review

Things We Lose Along The Way

Loggerheads

Score: 9,5

Lately I haven’t had any time for anything and I have barely watched movies. That’s why I haven’t posted here for a long time. School is driving me crazy and consuming all my time and my sleep hours. I hope I have some time to go to the movies this weekend and have more things to talk about here. I had some free time recently and I watched this one that I always wanted to I see and now I had the chance. This kind of independent films always reminds me like uncompromised cinema is better. They are far away from the obvious clichés from money-seekers.

The cast has some known faces too like Kip Pardue that did The Rules of Attraction, Thirteen, and did a small role in another independent movie I love called Imaginary Heroes. There’s Bonnie Hunt, famous for her TV work and also for films like Beethoven, Jumanji, Jerry Maguire and The Green Mile. Chris Sarandon, Susan Sarandon’s first husband, from A Dog Day Afternoon, and Tess Harper, who has been severely punished twice in her life: She was part of Ishtar, that terrible Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty movie, and she was married to Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men.

Well, the movie shows three different stories that happen in different times, just like The Hours, but they’re not so distant from each other in time. Bonnie is a car rental agency attendant who lives with her mother, quit her job and tries to find her son, that she was forced to give to adoption when she was 17. Kip is a homeless drifter obsessed with loggerhead turtles (that’s where its title comes from) who meets George, a motel owner who offers him a place to stay. Tess is a preacher’s wife torn between doing what her husband, or God, wants her to do and following her heart.

This is a 2005 film from director/writer Tim Kirkman, that I never heard about before but IMDB told me that this is his last picture and is based in a true story. The movie premiered in the Sundance Festival winning the public choice award and several other prizes in other festival throughout the world. It was shot in 2004 in Wilmington, NC, the same place Dawson’s Creek used to be shot. Almost everyone who knows me know that I love Dawson’s Creek. At least I did 10 years ago.

It’s such a shame that movies like this don’t get their deserved recognition in the major award ceremonies, with very few exceptions, and have no room in movie theaters. In the meantime we have transformers, mutants, witches and hobbits, GI joes, interplanetary trips, guns, blood and unintelligent comedies occupying these spaces all year long. The ones who enjoy all I listed above will definitely not enjoy this picture once they have completely different timings. And there are no explosions. Just dialogues, expressions, looks and feelings.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Stephen Gately


Most of the things I remember when I was growing up are from the 90's. I was born in 1985, and in the 90's I went from a child to an annoying teenager. In pop music this a period also known for the syrupy singing groups known as boybands and girlbands, such as Wilson Phillipps, New Kids On The Block, in the late 80's and early 90's, and then Backstreet Boys, 98 degrees, LFO and ‘N Sync. But my favorites from this kind of groups come from the other side of the ocean. They're from Britain or Ireland. They were Take That, Spice Girls, and specially Westlife and Boyzone. I always thought they were less about (that ridiculous stereotyped) image than the others, and more about melody and music. They had better songs.

Most of these groups vanished and then came back together recently. So did Boyzone. They were 5 Irish singers, but only two of them used to actually sing the songs: Ronan Keating, who also has a very successful solo career overseas, and Stephen Gately. The other 3 were more like backing vocals. After getting back together and toured during the Summer, Stephen went on vacation and passed away. The cause is yet a mystery.

I didn’t know much about them because the media back then, at least in my country, wasn’t as intrusive as today and I got acquainted to internet only in 2000, when they split. His death is something extremely sad. These circumstances always make me think how ephemeral life is. This year so many mainstream celebrities left us, like Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett (who died in my birthday) and Patrick Swayze. Stephen was very young, only 33. But still he had a successful life and there will always be people who will remember him. I will. I have 3 of their albums at home. Every now and then I used to listen to their music and I'll probably keep on doing it.

Rest in peace.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Review - Dying Young

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Dying Young

Score: 8,0

When I was a kid it used to show on TV an ad about this movie’s VHS release. My mom was dying to watch it and always asked us to rent it too when my dad rent us movies. By that time we, me and my brother, just watched thins like Snoopy, the Smurfs, the Snorks, Garfield, Looney Tunes, Speedy Gonzalez, and the ones that traumatized me, I cried rivers and I would never watch again: The Little Match Girl and one of Monica’s Gang adventures (A Estrelinha Mágica). Anyway, we couldn’t find the movie in the beginning. It was the first romance Julia Roberts did after Pretty Woman, so it was always rented. We found it after a while and I watched with her. But I couldn’t understand it. I was too young for that…

The story is the same old thing. They fall in love, but one of them is terribly sick. He is, actually. Leukemia. Julia was in that The Little Mermaid Ariel-Jessica Rabbit period, with that huge super-totally-completely fake red hair. She plays Hillary, a 23 year-old who looks like 35, and she catches her boyfriend cheating. She dumps the asshole and returns to her mother’s place, played by Ellen Burstyn, who was also mother from the possessed girl from The Exorcist.

But her mother drives her crazy and she must get the hell out of there. So she answers an ad in the paper to be Campbell Scott’s nurse. I never got how Campbell never became one of the big heartthrobs in Hollywood. He is better actor than most of the actors his age and prettier too. First, she is kicked out by his father, but then Campbell calls her back. The rest we all know what happens just by looking at the poster.

It was interesting to watch it because the story is between Oakland, San Francisco and some other town. Some takes were done close from where I live, once Campbell’s mansion is really close. It’s funny too see how things changed like the street lamps. I guess all the electric wires now are underground. The mayonnaise hair treatment was totally new to me. I’ve seen people using some plants, eggs, chocolate and other things, but mayonnaise was the first time.

This a classic non-classic movie. It has all the ingredients for success but it didn’t happen. James Newton Howard’s romantic score plays the whole movie, just like every other romance like The Way We Were, My Heart Will Go On, I Have Nothing, Endless Love and so on. James’s orchestral version is really pretty and deserved an Academy Award in my opinion, but it rose to success in Kenny G’s saxophone version. Kenny wasn’t so disgusting that time but then he became official soundtrack for weddings, radio love shows, girly events and all sort of parties. The soundtrack is really famous until now, but the movie not so much…

Julia is still the same big star always doing the same roles. This one is a drama reprise from her Pretty Woman’s character. The poor girl who gets the rich guy, can’t eat fancy food in classy restaurant and loves a wild party. Director Joel Schumacher had even tasted success before with St. Elmo’s Fire (that I adore) and The Lost Boys, and he continued directing successful movies after that. But he did Batman and Robin, the one with the nipples, and the terrible version of The Phantom of The Opera in 2004.

Maybe it doesn’t have place in the Sun because its ending is not that tearful as the other romances, except for romantic comedies that always have happy endings. Perhaps the title doesn’t help either. The original title “Dying Young” is terrible. Creepy. The Brazilian version is “All For Love”. Totally corny. So cliché. But even so I can’t think of any appropriate elegant and attractive title to give to the picture. But that’s fine. Corny title, Julia Roberts disguised as The Little Mermaid, Kenny G in the soundtrack, it’s all working out together.