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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Arance Rosse

Blood oranges are in season! Ever since I went to Italy I've been really into blood oranges. It's kind of hard to find them here so when they're in season it's really exciting. When I ordered an OJ in Italy, at I think the train station in Rome, it was blood orange juice and I loved it. They're less acidic than regular oranges and I also kind of feel like they have a more complex flavor. My favorite brunch place used to have lemon poppy pancakes with blood orange syrup on their menu and they were amazing. I kind of did a spin on it the other day but made toasted pecan pancakes instead. Also instead of plain syrup I made like a chunkier, compote-y type thing . Either way it was really good and I wish blood oranges were more available in the states.

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England's West Coast

When I did a semester in London we got to go on a free weekend trip. I chose to go on the Cornwall one because it sounded fun, pretty, and beachy. It was and I loved it. We got to stay at a surf lodge-type place, see loads of gorgeous scenery, and visit the Eden Project. Here are some of the pics I took with a horrendously bad/old digital camera:

This is my current desktop (and has been for awhile) and was taken in St. Ives. I'd totally love to live there for a summer. It's full of hilly, windy streets, cute shops, and very friendly people.

This is another of St. Ives. It's such a beautiful place.




These two are actually scanned. I took them with my SLR and scanned them with my all-in-one printer/scanner/fax so that's where the weird horizontal lines are from. I love how tropical they look, even though they are anything but tropical. It's basically on somewhere on a stop between London and Newquay on a warm February day.





These last two are from inside the temperate biome at the Eden Project. The flowers are kind of overly photoshopped but I like the effect. I also like how it looks like a kind of alien landscape.

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