"The world is so dark right now." Mad Men 4.01

Last night was the season premiere of AMC's Emmy-dominating series Mad Men. Anyone who has ever met me knows that I will never not take the opportunity to talk about this show. So here is my recap/review of episode 4.01, "Public Relations," easily one of the strongest the series has seen since its pilot season.

Side-Effects include "Sleep Crime"

(Pictured: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Leonardo DiCaprio)

(As a disclaimer, the title comes from a 30 Rock episode. Liz Lemon is taking sleeping pills before getting on a plane and reads the side-effects aloud to Jack. I literally could not stop thinking about that scene throughout this movie.)

It’s never a good sign when 15 minutes into a film, one genuinely questions whether or not one has missed at least an hour and a half of plot. I’m all for stories starting off confusing and then becoming clearer as they unfold, in fact I love those kinds of movies. But this one started out confusing, remained confusing, and ended with one of the most groan-worthy “Aha!” finales in recent cinema.

That said, I did enjoy myself while watching it and I will be the last person to say it wasn’t entertaining or visually boggling, but never once did I find myself regarding it as anything other than your typical pseudo-intellectual summer blockbuster (of which Christopher Nolan is the reigning king).


Please follow the jump for the rest

Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz say 'I Do'

Normally I'm pretty good about making sure I don't post gossip or things of that nature on this blog, but this is a special occasion. Two of my favorite actors not to mention one of my favorite Hollywood couples have tied the knot. A sexy, sexy Spanish knot.

Oscar winners Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, who first met on the set of Bigas Luna's 1992 film 'Jamon, Jamon' (Cruz's first film at the age of 17, Bardem was 22) have married in a characteristically private ceremony at a friend's Bahamas home. People speculated for several months that the two were secretly engaged, but neither ever confirmed or denied. However, there was Bardem's rather unexpected declaration of love to Cruz at the Cannes film festival (see my report of it a few posts down). Perhaps this was his means of saying to the world, "Yep. It's happening, people."

The pair have dated since 2007 when they reunited onscreen in Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." In the film, they portray a tempestuous divorced couple whose desire for one another is only matched by their urge to kill each other. In this case, here's hoping life does not imitate art.

Trailer for Woody Allen's "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger"

Well...it's definitely a Woody Allen movie. Stylistically it seems very similar to Vicky Cristina Barcelona. I'm always conflicted by his writing because on the one hand I love love love the way he crafts dialogue, but on the other hand, he writes some of the most obnoxious and downright detestable characters in cinema. I think I am one of the few people who absolutely cannot stand either Alvy Singer OR Annie Hall, and I have never loathed a film character quite as much as Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Match Point. That said, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of my favorite films of the last five years and with a cast as good as the one in Stranger, I am definitely looking forward to it.

2010 Emmy Nominations

This is what I love about the Awards world. Instead of putting all the major ceremonies over one 3-month period a year, they space them out so we get movies in the late winter, theatre in the summer, and television in the fall. The Tonys have come and gone (I didn’t cover them simply because I’m rather uninformed) but today we were given the nominations for the 2010 Primetime Emmys. And let me say, they did not disappoint. They did not disappoint at all. So let’s dive right in here.

"I am as powerful as you." Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky.

Pictured: Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen

Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is dressing for the theatre in the company of her lover, Boy Capel. Igor Stravinsky sits nervously backstage at the Theatre du Champs-Elysees with his supportive wife Catherine, bracing for the infamous opening performance of ‘The Rite of Spring.’ As the story goes, it is met with a riotous and outraged audience. Everyone is on their feet shouting obscenities at the stage or each other - everyone, it seems, except Mademoiselle Chanel, who sits quietly absorbing the experience on an entirely internal level, expressing hardly the slightest emotion. Stravinsky, too, reveals nothing externally, but inwardly contemplates the failure before him.

Despite Coco’s presence on this night, the two do not formally meet until 1920, a location in time the film jumps to after a somewhat awkwardly placed montage of footage from the Russian Revolution and WWI. In their personal lives, Coco has lost Boy to a fatal car accident but witnessed the continued growth of her empire, and Igor's life has been uprooted by the war and its lingering effects, one of which is a somewhat nomadic lifestyle for him and his family. After a few encounters during which a reciprocal fascination is profoundly felt, Coco invites Igor and his family to live at her villa (one of the few verifiable facts of the film).

(This is a somewhat longer review - please follow the jump for the rest.)

On the Radar: Andrew Garfield

With the recent casting announcement of Andrew Garfield as the next Peter Parker in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot, most people’s reactions seem to boil down to this: “Oh yeah that guy Andrew Garfield!...wait…who the hell is Andrew Garfield?” Obviously this reaction is completely legitimate, as he is all but a complete unknown. But I am here to excitedly report that 2010 has the potential to bring the name Andrew Garfield into every film lover’s home, and not just because he will soon be swinging his webs across screens worldwide come 2012.

Where you already know him from:

Garfield did not just appear out of thin air, but his is the unique kind of early career that has been lauded by critics but gone nowhere near the radar of the masses (other examples of this include Emily Blunt or Sam Worthington). His name first started being tossed around in 2007, when he starred in the film ‘Boy A’ for which he won a BAFTA. Later that year, he appeared in the Robert Redford film ‘Lions for Lambs,’ his first Hollywood film.

Then, in 2009, his career reached a new plane with the film series ‘Red Riding’, a sequence of crime dramas in which Garfield played a detective investigating one crime over the course of 9 years, separated into 3 films taking place in 1974, 1980, and 1983. Next came the beginnings of a break in Terry Gilliam’s 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'. As of right now, this seems to be where most people recognize his name from.

Potential Breakthrough:

2010 is going to be a big year for Garfield. Not only has his name just been announced for Spider-Man, but he is soon to be seen starring alongside Oscar darlings Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley in the film ‘Never Let Me Go.’ The film is already sitting under the early Oscar spotlight, and could hold some promise for all actors involved, Garfield included. If all goes well, this could be his breakthrough role, meaning that by the time Spider-Man actually does come out, he won’t be such an ‘unknown’ anymore. Who knows, perhaps he’ll have the coveted “Academy Award Nominee” prefix to his name.

At any rate, fans concerned about this ‘reboot’ have nothing to worry about. They wouldn’t have cast an no-name unless it was a name worth knowing.

International trailer released for "Let Me In"

I suppose seeing this trailer has made me realize how kind of pointless this movie is. It looks like it's literally, LITERALLY, nothing more than an English-language version of what will inevitably be the far superior original. I don't like how they're making this look like a straight up horror flick with the cool Muse-esque music and quick cuts. It's supposed to be a disturbing yet oddly heartwarming tale of young love. I don't know, maybe I'm being too pessimistic too early on. And looking at the trailer for the original, it's actually quite similar, although it does indeed play the romance up more than the American trailer.

On the plus side, Kody Smit-McPhee looks perfect for the part and while I still think Chloe Moretz is too girly to play that role, she's a talented young actress and I'm sure will make the most of it. In the book, her character is actually not a girl at all but a castrated male. In the original, they compensated for this by casting a young woman but having her voice dubbed over by a boy (though it's completely unnoticeable, I was shocked when I found that out). I think for the purposes of this remake, they've done away with that whole concept and are just making her a female, which I'm okay with because it probably (and hopefully) means they'll eliminate the really awkwardly abrupt full-frontal shot from the original which revealed what exactly she...had going on down there.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I hope this trailer is just to get audiences interested and that the movie is a bit more subtle than this makes it seem. The worst case scenario is that it will take probably the most unique piece of work to come out of the recent vampire craze and water it down to appease the Twi-hards. Thankfully, no matter what this ends up being, it doesn't look like it's going to be that, so I guess I'll count my blessings.

Here's the trailer of the original for comparison: