Just because!

A picture, can't get any more epic than this.

Scorsese posted this today on his Facebook page and I just wanted to pass on the thrill. Enjoy! My Halloween gift to you.

Lolita vs. Lolita

"2.75 stars out of 4"

So I got to see Kubrick's Lolita a few weeks back. I had seen Adrian Lyne's version several years ago. I just looked up to see his past career and noticed that without realizing it, I had seen many of his movies before. He is the man behind "Fatal Attraction", "Indecent Proposal" and more recently "Unfaithful" (hmmm...I can see a theme here).

When I saw Lyne's version, I remember at the beginning of movie he had a commentary where he was asking the audience to disregard the negative criticism on his "Lolita" and watch it with an open mind. I think the negative feedback he had gotten were from diehard fans of Kubrick and also because of pedophiliac imagery in his movie. I am so glad I did listen to him and had the privilege of not having seen Kubrick's at the time.

A few differences caught my attention that I thought I could share.

The first thing that catches your attention is the acting. I mean what movie would be boring with the mere presence of Peter Sellers in it?! He was a blast and I think Kubrick had him in his movies just for the sake of his own fun. Not that I want to dis his talent, because needless to say he was talented indeed. And the other notable acting in this movie was that of Shelley Winters'. Compared to Melanie Griffith, she did a better job of depicting a desperate widow. I can't believe that she wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. Probably because the Academy didn't approve of the movie's storyline back in the day. However, one advantage that the new Lolita had, in my opinion, was having Jeremy Irons as the main character. Maybe not many people would see the difference, but I don't know...I would add him and his deep melancholic voice to any movie!

The second difference is the theme. Kubrick's had a much more comic tone to it than Lyne's. Actually, I don't think Lyne's had any comic tone at all and I consider it a good thing because in Kubrick's you would get distracted from the main point and what was going on, to the point when the comedy stopped, you would get bored. I liked the gloomy theme that Lyne had added to his film and I think Nabokov would've approved as well.

And lastly, I found the main problem through a comment that my friend made after we left the theater. She turned to me and said, "was this movie made by the same guy who made 2001?! What was the point? They hadn't done a good job of covering who the school psychiatrist was (who was Sellers)." I said, "well, they wanted you to know who he was from the starts".  -"So what was the point?!"

You see, in Lyne's version, the identity of the guy who Lolita is seeing is kept a secret until the very end but in Kubrick's version, from the very start we know who he is and in fact, that's where the story begins!

I don't know why Kubrick decided to do it this way. It deprived his movie from the suspense. Actually, after Shelley Winters' character got killed off, not only the tempo of the movie fell dramatically, but you also had nothing to look forward to (which was the wit!). Whereas in Lyne's, you are hooked until the very end.

So I leave you with this: watch both. You will enjoy the storytelling and the sincerity of the newer version BUT you will definitely enjoy the acting you will find in the original version. I would recommend seeing the new version first, if you haven't already done so. Because although I spoiled it, but like I said earlier, I have the feeling that that's how Nabokov had intended it to be received and also the storytelling is much better. After you have found out about the story, then you can take a peek at what inserting Sellers in there (forcibly) would make it look like.

P.S.: The rating looks a bit weird. I first gave it 2.5 stars but then I remembered the laughs I had in the theater and I thought that deserves another 0.25 points! But to be fair to all the movies that I have rated 3, I wanted to keep it under 3. And to be fair to Kubrick, compared to the movies I have given 2 stars to, I had to keep it above 2.5 the least!

Gravity

"3 stars out of 4"

I think 2.5 stars of the 3 that I just gave this movie, go to the visual effects of this movie and the rest to acting, directing, and story line. Actually, storyline gets the least bit since it wasn't a unique or an original one.

This movie was a visual marvel. Of course most of it is owed to the progress in technology but not everyone could have put it into good use, right? And who better to do it other than Alfonso Cuaron? I wouldn't list him as one of my favorite directors (because it is such a high privilege that not everyone deserves it!) but now that I think about it, maybe I should. Every other movie that he directs, makes it way up to being one of the best. From "Y Tu Mama Tambien" to the magnificent "Children of Men" to one of the best adaptations of the best book from the Harry Potter series (in my humble opinion and of course in Spielberg's), the Prisoner of Azkaban. But I think this time he has stepped out of his usual work into a new spectrum and has masterfully created one of the best thrillers in recent years.

The story starts with an amazing view above the earth in space where 3 astronauts are working to repair their spaceship. But soon it is reported that while the Russians (well, of course!) were trying to dismantle one of their old satellites, things have gotten out of hand and it has created a debris storm that is coming their way. But before they get a chance of moving they are hit and their space shuttle is beyond repair now and they have to seek help from other space stations, while they are down in oxygen and their connection to base is lost.

This movie is literally concise and to the point. No wonder that it has a rather short running time and let this be a lesson to all the directors out there...it is fine. As a spectator, I would rather go to the theater and be entertained for 90 minutes than get stuck in the dark theater half amused, half frustrated and keep looking at my watch (yes, I am talking to you Baz Luhrman. Moulin Rouge! was fine though). 

Another thing that I liked about this movie was the fact that instead of dragging the intro part forever, the action part started sooner than you would have expected. And it kept on surprising you. It wouldn't let you get comfy in your seat but more likely to keep you on the edge of it.

As for acting, Goerge Clooney was the charming self that he is as always. Bringing the wit to the table when you needed it the most while you were gasping. I wasn't very fond of Sandra Bullock though. She has had her ups and downs in her career but this one was...well, definitely not up but not as down either. And while I found myself as breathless as her character at times, I would attribute that to the director rather than the actor's art.

And what is it with the Russian reference? Shouldn't we be over the whole feud by now, or is it too soon?! When I first thought of this in the theater, I tried to justify it with the fact that well...maybe it is only them who could match the technology of the US (and unlike US, they screw things up by blowing their satellites and oops! It's on its way to hit the US space stations by [air-quote] "accident"). But then the Chinese station made its way into the story. Couldn't it be them who made the mistake since they are new to the whole space arena and well...their products are "Made in China"? But no, I think we owe them too many trillion dollars as for now and can't bring any jokes on them just yet. Chinese to the rescue!

If we disregard the cartoon side of the story (fire-extinguisher...Wall-e...hello?), this movie captures a good vision of rebirth and the survival instinct.

While I was on a trip in San Francisco this past summer, we met a French lady who owned a store in Sausalito. She was telling us how she had moved here because of a guy 20 years back and how her daughters were still in Paris and she tries to keep in touch with them. Apparently, things hadn't worked out that well for her but what she said in the end was that "...the survival instinct is strong in humans" and I couldn't agree more. Even if it is not for ourselves at times (which actually is most of the time), it is for the sake of our loved ones. Or maybe that also is a part of the whole survival instinct thing...trying to find motivations to survive. Like for myself, the other day an a**-hole driving a car, missed me by an inch because he was driving on the wrong side of the road (or maybe passed by me so closely on purpose since it was dark and I was walking close to the road where no car was passing by and was more lit than the pavement). Why I was grateful at that moment for not being hit by that car was the fact that it would have devastated my parents who live far away. But then again...things aren't that bad in my life to be wishing for being hit by a car.

I'll leave you with this note, sure it had many thriller/SciFi cliches (the happy one getting killed off first), sure at times Sandra Bullock would get on your nerves, but this movie is a must see. For at least once. Just so you can experience an eye-caressing imagery.

[Maybe the gloomy people don't get killed off so they can get a second chance in life and appreciate its beauty.]

2001: a space odyssey

"4.5 starts out of 4!"

Well, it's been a while hasn't it? It's my own fault. Made myself and my schedule pretty busy this semester. And although I am enjoying it immensely (since I have been unemployed/unanything in the past), I really do miss this place. I feel like I am straying away from my goal of becoming a journalist. The proof for that is the fact that I applied for the PhD program in our own department, though I never had it in my future plans. But I had a couple of reasons for that. One might have been the fact that I am a coward...in taking risks. The other being that I don't feel like I am ready to be a "grown-up" and take responsibility. The third is the fact that the chance of getting an assistantship or an scholarship for the journalism program is really slim and neither do I have the money myself or want to put the load on my parents. The last and the most important one is that since my parents spent a lot of money to send me here and put themselves through trouble and many emotional strains (since they were sending their little kid to a far away land) so that I can have a better future, I felt like I owed them and that would make them happy. And I believe I was right. Because although they kept telling me do whatever makes you happy but when I told them that I had decided to continue my studies, I could see their faces light up!

Anyway...I wanted to give a little update on myself and where I am standing right now in life. But the fact is that I was too busy to even watch a movie for the past month or so. The lovely Amherst cinema had a Kubrick festival for September and their Lynch festival has started since last week. So I got to see Kubrick's Space Odyssey and Lolita a couple of weeks back and I took notes for the first one but as you can see hadn't gotten a chance to write it here. I hope my memory serves me well in transcribing my emotions and thoughts from those movies.

Let me start with this, me and my friend went to see this movie and our jaws were literally dropped! And the main reason for that (other than the fact that it was an amazing, thought-provoking movie), was when you brought into consideration the time of the making of the film. How could anyone come up with such an idea 45 years ago?! When you compare this movie to the movies that were made in Iran back then, or even in Hollywood...I think I can rest my case now! Of course, it's a shame that it is more than 10 years past the year 2001 and we still don't have the technology to send people to Jupiter (or maybe we do but don't have the reason yet! I'm not sure).

I loved how Kubrick played with the sound to play with your mind. The shots he got from the very beginning...oh man! The scenery itself seemed to be an important character in the movie.

Let me tell you right off the bat what my take on this movie was, because my view was completely different from my friend's and it might save you some time on not reading the rest of this post. What she thought was that it was something like "War of the Worlds" where aliens had planted something on earth way before there was life on earth and all of a sudden it had unraveled. And that was what gave them the power to overcome their enemies and to drive them out. While my take was that it was a sign of how we are connected to after life and what there is and where we go when we die. And what happened with the competition was I thought just the evolution. Since I hadn't looked it up to see what others have had to say about this, so I put it up to debate. And since I don't have any comment-ors yet, I think it will continue to be an inner-debate with myself!

Speaking of War of the Worlds,  I realized where the idea of how machines and computer can take over us has come from, which is pretty amazing. How it has influenced many movies and books to come...the after life, the computer/human conflicts,...from Star Wars to Contact...he had (and still has) opened a new chapter into the life in cinema.

My friend thought that the ape part at the beginning was irrelevant and could've been cut out of the movie. But I thought that it was actually quite important for the flow of it. It was a mental cue for us to see how even among the same species the survival instinct could lead to horrendous things, let alone when a computer wants to take over human kind! And how disturbingly true it was.

This movie would shake you to the very core. Stimulate every living cell that there is left in your brain! (Of course, in my case, the beer that I had while watching it at the theater might have helped! I mean in stimulating, not killing the cells!) The end was predictable (probably due to many adaptations from this movie that I have seen since this one was released) but you will gasp and be engaged in the story from the very beginning. It also involves some issues that are pertinent to that era, like the cold war. But it doesn't defy the fact that you will find it interesting.

Here's a summary: the movie starts by showing images of the earth, back when there was almost no life and there were apes living in colonies and trying to survive and who had competition with other groups of apes. Then a group comes across a giant black thing that's stuck out of the ground. It radiates a noise.
Then the movie cuts into the future. It's the year 2001. There are stations in the moon and people can travel as if they were traveling on earth. But there is a top secret mission. They have found a new thing on the moon. The same giant black thing. But this time they have the technology to detect where the radiation comes from. It is from somewhere near Jupiter. So they start a plan to send a few scientists over there to check what is going on. And they have this computer, an intelligent machine, built into the spaceship who is in charge of the technical support of the scientists. But he is not in on the secret. He tries to find out and take over since he thinks humans are stupid and might mess it up. But things go wrong...