Heavy Handed But Enjoyable

I finally got around to watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona last night*. I was kind of disappointed with it even though I did enjoy watching it.

I mostly didn't like the heavy handed exposition in both the narration and the dialogue and the false dichotomy that was set up between 'artistic people' and 'sensible people'. I don't mind narration in general, and at times I even like it (Pushing Daisies was one such instance), but just about everything the narrator said was repeated by the characters at least twice in dialogue. We did not need to hear that Juan Antonio just went through a tumultuous divorce three times, once is more than enough.

Also, I felt like the differences in character between Vicky and Cristina and Juan Antonio and Vicky's husband were, in addition to being overly explained, oversimplified. I much preferred how Woody Allen showed in Melinda and Melinda the differences of character of one person in two different situations. In that film it seemed like it would be much easier to make a black and white contrast between the comedy Melinda and the tragedy Melinda but it was much subtler than the passionate artist/pragmatic student setup in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It also kind of annoyed me that the guy who played Vicky's husband (aka Claire's hot republican boyfriend from Six Feet Under) is continually being typecast as a wet blanket, square (see also Julie and Julia).

Additionally, it was distracting that Catalan culture played a major part in the film but it seemed like everyone was speaking Castilian.

Overall though, despite its flaws, the performances are what really saved the film; specifically Javier and Penelope's**.

Also, I still really want to go to Spain.

*I did not watch this last night but I had watched it the night before I wrote this. According to the time stamp I watched it on July 14th which is still long after the movie actually came out anyway. Better late then never.

**When I watched the film I hadn't seen Rebecca Hall in anything before. Although I don't think her performance in this film stood up to Javier and Penelope's respective performances I did see her in Wide Sargasso Sea and she was absolutely incredible in that.

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Project Runway; Why We're Done*

Disclaimer: Ok, this is a super old post but it's the end of the year and I haven't posted much here (at all) since I got tumblr (but I hope to change that soon now that I'm FINALLY getting a new laptop and won't have to use a communal computer) so I decided to post two drafts in a kind of bare-bones, what I have written already, form. This one is basically just bullet points I was going to post in the heat of the moment that now border on irrelevancy. Anyway, here we go.

So basically I, like every other right-minded person who watched Project Runway (including Jack Black who I recently heard voice this opinion making me feel slightly less irrelevant), think Mondo was robbed. He deserved to win, he is awesome and I was really pissed when he didn't. I decided that I wasn't going to watch Project Runway anymore; not just because of this outrage but also because it really hasn't been as good since its move to Lifetime. The challenges are uninspired and I just feel like I've seen it all before.

Here are some reasons why I thought the finale was a travesty of epic proportions:

-the ugliness of Gretchen's clothes
-the fact that her aesthetic was so trendy and therefore ephemeral
-the unfounded criticism of Mondo, I don't think his looks were unoriginal which seemed to be a major point of the judges
-bad for business? Christian Siriano and Chris March have been the only ProjRun names on the red carpet giving the show credibility. They were more avant garde like Mondo who is more likely to have his clothes show up on red carpets (Heidi wore his dress sans-sleeves to the Black Swan premiere)
-even from a 'producer wanting a happy ending' standpoint Mondo is much more likable

*I probably will still watch it next year. Especially now that tons of time has passed.

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Tumblr And Books

I started a tumblr. It seems pretty fun so far but I haven't done too much with it yet. I need a better theme too but the infinite scrolling thing kind of overloads this computer. Here is the link (which should be obvious): http://ambivalentalumna.tumblr.com/

Also I decided that I'm going to start writing about my progress going through Jezebel's list of 75 Books Every Woman Should Read. When I joined the library, finally, I figured it was a good way to have a ready-made list of books to go to if I was feeling particularly stumped about what I wanted to read next. I'd only read like 6 of the books on the list before I came across it and now I'm about one third of the way through. I already wrote specifically about The House Of The Spirits but I'll probably write a little more about it in a separate post later. So my first Jez Book List post should be coming pretty soon (as soon as I decided what I want the inaugural book to be).

I'm currently reading 100 Years Of Solitude which isn't on the list but I already read Love In The Time Of Cholera which is.

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Redemption and Esteban Trueba

This is my first post about a book and I'm actually a bit nervous to write it. It's silly but it kind of feels strange to write about a book, especially a book that I don't have in front of me, in this informal, electronic kind of space. I'm going to keep it pretty loose and free form.

I've been reading a lot recently and the book that I got the most emotionally invested in was Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. If pressed, and if I had the book in front of me, there are tons of different things that I could write about it but the one idea that provoked the most thought for me, was whether or not Esteban Trueba found redemption.

I don't think that there's always a clear distinction between being redeemable and irredeemable and different people probably have different and valid opinions on whether or not a character can find redemption.

What makes one irredeemable; that no amount of good can make up for the bad? Is there a tipping point when it comes to redemption, is there some point when your good deeds outweigh your bad ones, that when reached brings you redemption? Or, is at the moment that you realize that you have done a lot that you need to make up for and you start doing good that you have been redeemed? Do you need to continue to do good for as long as you can once you make that realization?

Is it what, and how much good you do, or is it the fact that your intentions have changed that makes you redeemable?

Various thoughts and spoilers for those who haven't read the book after the jump.

Towards the end of the book Esteban did help his daughter Blanca and granddaughter Alba, more or less saving their lives. However, it was only after he caused them to suffer directly and indirectly. He was one of the people responsible, if not the person most responsible, for putting their lives in danger in the first place. He helped bring about the coup which led to the capture, rape, and torture of Alba. The same would have happened to Blanca had she been caught.

He also fathered the father of the man who tortured and raped Alba once she was captured, Esteban Garcia. By not being involved in the lives of the child he fathered and through the way he treated the people at Tres Marias, the village where he had his country house, he helped to create an environment where this unrecognized grandson, Garcia, became the monster he devolved into.

In addition to the pain he caused his children and grandchildren Esteban Trueba raped pretty much every woman in Tres Marias. The only thing that kept his character in murky territory, as opposed to black and white evil, was how much he loved his granddaughter, and perhaps his biggest step towards possible redemption was using what was left of his connections to save her.

Those connections, however, were virtually nonexistent when it came to issues of real power in the government and he resorts to going to a loyal friend and brothel owner in order to save Alba. Would he have even helped Blanca or Alba if he had not been old, feeble, and no longer influential politically? Does that matter?

He was always going to reach a point where he'd no longer be powerful physically as well as politically, living as long as he did. Does the inevitability of the circumstances that softened him take away from the goodness of the choices he made?

If redemption occurs at the moment that you decide to start atoning for the things you've done wrong then it is possible that Esteban Trueba found redemption. However if you need to fully counterbalance everything that you've done wrong in order to be redeemed than Trueba fell far short.

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Early Morning Outrage Pt. 2

Ok, I know she would dismiss me as one of those do-nothing bloggers, but Whoopi Goldberg seriously needs to stop using, "But she didn't go to the police," as a criticism of Mel Gibson's significant other. SHE DID GO TO THE POLICE. She got a restraining order before the tapes were released. (Also, I don't know that any woman should be criticized for not going to the police in an abuse case, but it's factually wrong to say she didn't).

Whoopi also needs to stop giving the benefit of the doubt to Mel as to the veracity of the tapes if she isn't also going to give it to Oksana as to whether she leaked them. Whoopi assumes that Oksana is the one who leaked the tapes without any proof. Maybe she did leak the tapes but it's wrong to hold people to different burdens of proof. It's not surprising that Oksana (the side-piece, as Whoopi calls her) is held to higher burden of proof than Mel.

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NY Times Clutches Pearls Over Body Hair

I've read about the fact that Mo'Nique's doesn't shave her legs on a lot of blogs. The first time I read about it was a while ago. It was definitely pre-Precious because when her leg hair was being talked about in an awards show context I was already aware of the fact. The New York Times, perennially behind the times, just decided to tackle the issue of body hair on the red carpet yesterday. It's a silly piece with a gossip blog tone.

The part that bothered me most:

...Mo’Nique...lifted her floor-length dress to reveal her unshaved calves, abundant in their hairiness. This did not go over well. The New York Daily News crowned her “the least superficial actress ever.” On Web sites like TMZ.com, people posted comments like “I have to HURL now ... Disgusting is an understatement.” It would seem that a collective ewww rang out nationwide, one designed to make every ’tween girl snap to attention and realize that leg hair is not allowed.

I don't understand how being called 'the least superficial actress ever' consisitutes not going over well. Does the NYT value superficiality so much that pointing out ones lack of superficiality is an insult? Also why are comments from TMZ being used as a source? What's next, quoting bigots on YouTube in an article about race relations?

If this is an attempt from the NYT to be snarky and relevant it's worrying.

Via Roger Ebert's twitter.

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M.I.A. On Gaga

I've been meaning to do a Lady Gaga post for awhile. I've felt like I'm the only person on earth that isn't totally into her schtick and I could never articulate exactly what I wanted to say about her. Recently, however, M.I.A. let me off the hook by stating my opinion of Gaga better than I could. From NME:

"People say we're similar, that we both mix all these things in the pot and spit them out differently...but she spits it out exactly the same. None of her music's reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna but the music sounds like 20 year-old Ibiza disco. She's not progressive, but she's a good mimic."

In conclusion, and at the risk of this blog becoming "Pulp on YouTube", I'd rather be a Mis-Shape than a little monster:

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Switch

I wish this:



Had this as a soundtrack:



If it did, I think I would spontaneously combust.

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Doppelgängland

Fernando Verdasco and Jason Stackhouse.

Ok, this is another jokey one and I might be totally off-base as to whether they actually look alike. But, because the Australian Open is coming up, and I'm re-watching Verdasco's semi-final, I figured I'd put it up. I'm comparing the real person (Verdasco) to the character (Stackhouse) because when I saw Fernando with his Wimbledon hair all I could think was that he looked like a dark haired Jason Stackhouse.

Another pic just for fun:

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