Paper Heart (2009)

We Are Wizards (2008)

Taking Woodstock (2009)

Ghost World (2001)

Life Before Her Eyes (2008)

wow,

the colors were so beautiful.

there were many scenes shot in macro, gorgeous closeups of flowers.

there were two other important symbols.

a cougar and water (rain, pool water etc.)

im confused what happened with Maureen.

i assume that Diane lived because her heart was fixed because its the strongest muscle in the body.

plus, did she have an abortion?

but despite that,

beautiful cinematography and art design.

(500) Days Of Summer (2009)

for some reason i keep forgetting to blog about movies i've seen in the theatres,

anyways.

i dunno.

i dunno how i feel about this movie even though i saw it weeks ago.

i love zooey deschanel, (as you should know by now.) and Joseph gordon-levitt (we are soulmates because we have the same favorite director, Georges Méliès)

but i just hate how it was all leading up to the break up.

it's not a happy approach to a relationship.

plus i feel like i already knew the whole plot from the trailer.

however, i loved the soundtrack and the art design.

Gigantic (2008)

i liked this movie well enough. first of all it stars Zooey Deschanel & Paul Dano from Little Miss Sunshine (2006). it also star's Ed Asner, the voice of the main character in Up (2009), and John Goodman.

the plot is a little weird. even though i have been watching diligently i feel like i'm missing something. and the pacing gives off the same feeling, lots of akward moments.

some scenes have really interesting angles.

i guess it's a movie that's supposed to make you think?

not really important but i love love love zooey deschanel's wardrobe in it.

okay, so up to this point i was blogging while watching.

i just stopped and finished it.

and i still have no idea whats going on,

but i love the ending!

Mrs. Weathersby: He's been sweet his whole life, but he never had the family the other kids did. Everyone thought that we were his grandparents. He told his teacher once that his real parents died in a car crash and his grandparents took him on. 
Happy: He did? 
Mrs. Weathersby: Well he was confused, I guess. I don't blame him. It wasn't disloyal, it was, he was just trying to make everything seem normal I suppose. But, nothing's normal. 
Happy: You guys seem pretty normal. 
Mrs. Weathersby: We're not. You have a right to be worried and afraid. 
Happy: I'm just afraid that I've fucked everything up beyond repair. 
Mrs. Weathersby: Nothing's fucked up, nothing's beyond repair. 
Happy: Thank you. 

and then they smack a pinata around and an animal collective song comes on.

now i think that is a good movie

Perfume (2006)

quite a surprising movie. it was better then i thought i would be. and i liked how (as it's been coined, )"the story of a murderer", but it wasn't really scary.

it makes you think about how Jean-Baptiste was so intune to his ability to smell that he didn't even seem to notice that murder was bad. he was hardly tempted sexually by any of the women. the whole thing made him ethereal.

by the end he seems to come back from his unearthly ways and gains a conscience. he wants to be loved, remembered.

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

i just finished watching this movie.

well, i just have to say it was powerful.

if you don't know, literally is the story of a family with 5 sisters. they all commit suicide. it was amazing how this movie probably could have turned out alot more depressing then it was. i don't know if that makes sense.

one reason i like this movie is because it takes place in the 70's. i have found that time period flicks are always better. since the people who make the film always have to go through alot of trouble to make all the sets true to the era and it's so expensive, they make sure they have something important to say. the lessons are always thought provoking.

one part i loved was how they incorporated all the stuff about the trees dying. it reminded me of this time at my school when a man came and talked about how lawns represent this whole sort of suburban conformity. i didn't go to the talk but the idea has always stuck with me. that's why whenever i cut the lawn i tend to do it in a spiral. from an airplane i think the spiral would look like a fingerprint whorl. as if i'm creating my own identity within a mere social requirement. anyways, in the movie all the tree's are slowly cut down because they are "sick." and the community treats the girls the same way. they were sick. now they are gone. and the city never plants a new tree in the dead tree's stead. they just leave the stumps there. a street where all the tree lawns have a piece of dead nature.

no one ever took the time to look into the girl's live either. except for the couple boys across the street who worshipped them.

the movie also takes a stand on the v-chip and control of what parents allow offspring to do/see.

the way they treat the suicides reminds me of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) too.

i bet something happened in the 70's involving suicide rates. or maybe just depression.

last but not least it was nice to know i have finally seen a film by Sofia Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford Coppola.

Babel (2006)

Babel

8/17/09

Today I woke up to my phone ringing. “Hey!” my friend said, she wanted to know if I could join her at a concert tonight. I knew the name of the performer but didn’t like his music. “You know, I’d like to but I just don’t think I have 57 dollars for it.”

“Okay that’s fine, it was late notice anyways.” Cecilia replied.

I looked at the time trying to think who would have a concert on a Monday night.

12:43 my phone read.

“Oh shoot! I just slept through work. I have to go CC, I have to clean up a mess.”

“See you soon!”

I felt horrible. This plain and simple guilt weighed down on me, hard like iron. The stress mounting already, I went downstairs and grabbed a movie. I wasn’t ready to think about the predicament I just got myself in. The other day at the library, my work and the place I had just blown off for sleep, I had checked out Babel (2006) from the audio/visual section. The back description didn’t really tell me the plot. I took it out knowing it was supposed to be good. Still feeling like a waste, I watched the movie.

In Morocco, America, Mexico, and Japan people were linked by the purchase of one gun. A mother commits suicide, two brothers kill a tourist, a wife is shot on her vacation meant to rekindle her relationship with her husband, a child watches a chicken be killed, a mother watches her son get married, a babysitter and her charges are chased by the border police, two children are left in the desert, a deaf girl battles with the death of her mother and resorts to mind numbing drugs and alcohol, a brother dies.

As I watch this movie I can’t get over it. I am torn apart by missing work. I feel irresponsible. I need to go to work to get money, to buy a video camera, to become a cinematographer so I can let people feel what I feel now, this deep sensation. I wish I cared less about missing, when there are people all over the world going through problems much more trivial. Now I can feel the weight of both missing work and the horrors of the world. It’s sort of hard to breathe. I know I have to go to work tomorrow and face my boss. I don’t want to make an excuse because there is no excuse to make. What I did was something I can’t reproach.

The Tower Of Babel, I learned about the story in Hebrew school. In a town way back before Judaism was even a religion, there was a town called Babel that wanted to build a tower that reached the heavens. The people of Babel wanted some kind of grasp on their own fates. God lived in heaven. If they reached heaven they would have some sort of equivalence to him. The fable tells that God was so disturbed by the city’s means that he mixed up their languages so no one could understand each other. The confusion meant no work could be done. God left the town babbling.

I wish I could blame my missing work on babbling, on miscommunication. I know it’s not true. I can see why this movie influenced me so much. Nothing can be done when people don’t talk and more importantly, understand. Tomorrow I will walk into work, apologize for my misconduct, and work as diligently as I can. And the day after that I will do the same thing. Hopefully someday I can inspire someone else to learn a lesson like I did with Babel. I want to show people my visions through film. I want to make documentaries, to make people aware. Awareness is one more step in stopping the babble.

I know this isn't as much about the movie as it is about my life but it feels relevant to this blog.

update

been vacationing,

saw alot of stupid movies like:

house bunny

baby mama

big rock candy mountain

dan in real life

my best friend is a vampire

wedding weekend

the babysitters club

you don't mess with zohan

saw some classics like:

chitty chitty bang bang 

america's sweathearts (john Cusack)

one crazy summer (John Cucask)

will resume to watching good movies in good time, don't worry.