The Loneliest Planet

The Loneliest Planet is the tale of an engaged couple hiking through Georgia's Caucasus Mountains with a hired guide. In synopsis:

 "...Walking for hours, they trade anecdotes, play games to pass the time of moving through space. And then, a momentary misstep, a gesture that takes only two or three seconds, a gesture that’s over almost as soon as it begins...Once it is done, it threatens to undo everything the couple believed about each other and about themselves."

The film opens on 25 October in select theaters and will be On Demand come 30 October.

GAINSBOURG

Beginners

You should go see Beginners. It's playing at BAM, and it's completely wonderful.

Featurette: Black Swan Special Effects

Natalie Portman's body double, ballerina Sarah Lane, claimed she performed the majority of the dancing in the film Black Swan. It's a fascinating twist given the plot, no? Further, Lane noted that in many of the scenes, her face was grafted onto her body by film editors. Check out the Wall Street Journal interview with Lane.

Williams & Gosling

I'm embarrased that I haven't seen Blue Valentine yet (partial blame to my crippling fear of bed bugs in NYC theatres). Aside, isn't this feature in W magazine taunting? Photography by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin.

God of Love

From Luke Matheny, God of Love is an 18 minute film which received the Oscar for Best Live-Action Short last night. It's pretty sweet (nine page poem ala Portuguese!) and filmed in New York. Swoon.

Inception

This looks pretty good. Kudos to the cast.

Please Give

I had the pleasure of checking out Please Give at the gorgeous BAM this past weekend. Tremendously amusing. Quintessentially New York.

Following

I highly recommend this film. If you Netflix, you can watch it on instant play.

a girl cut in two

Another yummy film with Ludivine Sagnier!

A Girl Cut in Two divides itself with velvety sexuality and violent opposition...

4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile

Set in 1987 Bucharest, Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days captures an underbelly culture in the final leg of Nicolae Ceausecu's leadership in Communist Romania.

Director/Writer Mungiu developed the script after fifteen years of being haunted by a story of a woman's illegal abortion experience. He mentioned in an interview (Special Features) that he did research to see if the experiences of these women were unusual. Quite disturbingly, he found many parallel situations had developed in previous years.

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The film drew me in with consideration of the filming techniques- a bit raw, bumpy- straight forward. The characters are developed in the first frame. Two gold fish in a cheap tank- which needs more water. A cigarette is curling smoke- a hand extends in from out of the frame to pick it up. The viewer follows a tech student, Otilia, to barter for cigarettes, soap and tic-tacs.

I found myself particulary drawn to the mundane, trivial events encapsulating the hushed tension and fear in Otilia and Dragut (the friend having the abortion performed).
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As an American viewer, I developed a fascination with the beautiful linguistic confusion of the Romanian language. I picked out distinctly Russian and French diction with a tone and flow of Italian. Romania represents the merger of three cultures: Central Europe, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Through the language alone, it is quite clear that you cannot categorize Romania into any of these, rather that is is influenced and built through all.
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--->Perhaps one of the most curious aspects of Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days, is that movie theaters are not commonplace in Romania. In a country of roughly twenty-two million, there are around fifty total. The crew involved in the film put together a thirty-day tour, that took them all over the country, to share the film to as many people as possible. Viewers were interviewed revealing that some hadn't seen a film in a theater for up twenty years. The reactions were varied: from tears, to relief. Many stated that the events were very much a part of the Communist era.