The Blues

Yay Brandon great to hear from you! We've missed you too.

Jeffrey - I like the new color scheme, looks great. Also, I am coming back to Endicott on Friday and will be home for at least a week and a half if not longer, so if you guys decide to see Midnight in Paris while I'm home I'll definitely join.

You'll all be glad to know I finally watched The Blue Angel and also Blue Valentine.

I liked The Blue Angel -- especially Jannings, I thought he gave a great performance. I agree with you guys about it playing like a silent film, most of the time you didn't really need the dialogue at all. That struck me right away. Jeffrey, I guess sometimes I read too much into things but I definitely did see some social commentary in the film. I was definitely thinking about the very themes you were talking about while I was watching it. But mostly I was taken up with the dynamic between Rath and Lola. I thought it was interesting - I can see how Lola could easily be blamed for the downfall of the situation and the deterioration of the professor like you guys mentioned (she's a hussy, she probably never loved him, etc.). I could even see people taking it almost as an Eve type of story that shows the dangers of womankind or something like that -- it actually reminded me of this song from the musical My Fair Lady called "I'm An Ordinary Man" where the main character, a professor, sings about how everything is fine for a man until he lets a woman in his life and then she ruins everything in his entire life because women are so stupid and frivolous. ("You want to talk of Keats and Milton, she only wants to talk of love. You go to see a play or ballet and spend it searching for her glove.") But I didn't take it that way. I'm sure I'm wrong about this, but I like to think of it more that the core problem was that Rath idealized Lola, instead of dealing with her as she really was - maybe because everything was so mundane in his own reality, which I thought was really well symbolized by the marching clock figurines every morning and the repetition of the classroom situation. But the reality of her life and them being together was going to be a certain way (and it obviously wasn't going to be her cooking him breakfast and staying at home all day like it was that one morning). Ultimately her job was what it was, obviously she was going to have to continue to travel around and flirt with men and all that stuff. But it was like Rath put her on a pedestal, creating a version of her in his mind that transcended her real lifestyle. But that wasn't reality. And when you've created a version of a person that's not really them, the more you're faced with reality, the bigger fool you feel/become, and your own reality falls apart. That was at least how I wanted to see it, instead of Lola just being a minx. (Hopefully what I just said makes sense.) Anyway, I really liked the film, it got me thinking, obviously, which is always good.

Blue Valentine was fantastic. It was so well done, and I agree with what you guys have said about their performances. I have always been a Michelle Williams fan but not really a Ryan Gosling fan, but I thought they were both fantastic, it was the best acting I've seen out of either one of them as of yet. It was so realistic, in almost a weird way. I actually watched the special features on the disc because I couldn't believe how well done and weirdly realistic it was, I was curious whether they dated in real life or something. Did anyone else watch? It was interesting, apparently the movie was a long time in the making. He built the characters around Michelle and Ryan themselves, things they actually said, etc. There was a "script" but they had been working with it for so long (6 years for Michelle [!], 4 years for Ryan, 12 years for the writer/director), he was worried it would seem too stale, so he made them only loosely use it and instead had them actually get to know each other on screen. They had been working with it individually, so he just basically turned the camera on them when they met (which was the scene where he comes to her parents' house, that was the first thing they shot) and let their natural chemistry guide what they were doing. The scene where they're walking on the street having fun, he had them actually do whatever they wanted to do just to get to know each other. He also told them to keep a special talent in the back of their mind and then had them actually surprise each other with them in that scene where she dances and he sings - they were learning it about each other in real life as we were on screen. They filmed all the "past" stuff first, and then he made them live in a house together for a month with the kid (I'm assuming they didn't live there ALL the time, but he actually rented and fully stocked and furnished a house for them) to create real memories to help them with the "present" section of the movie where they had to transition from just getting to know each other to actually having a shared history. So anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that part of how it was so realistic was that it WAS actually real, kind of. Anyway, all that aside, this one was a win for me, I really liked it. Ben I see why you had it at the top of your 2010 list. Thanks for forcing me to watch it everyone.

I feel like I've been writing a novel here. I watched another great movie this weekend from the Christopher Nolan collection but I'll save it for my next post. Happy Monday!