Vicky Cristina Barcelona got to me.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a film made of gorgeous looking people, shot at charming Spanish country. Scarlett Johansson playing Cristina was convincing as the experimenting artist that helps to sooths the volatile relationship between Juan Antonio Gonzalo (Javier Bardem) and Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz). Speaking of Penelope, she truly shined. She jumps you and grab your attention whenever she was on screen. She played that artistic, passionate but emotionally volatile character flawlessly. I specially liked the way she reacted when Scarlett told them that she is leaving them. I didnt want to see it but now i am going to have to watch her raved movie – Volver.

so did i like this movie, no!! fuck this movie. one charming Penélope is not going to make up for the stereotypical   character and narrative surrounding the two main characters that are Vicky (Rebecca Hall who play her poorly) and Cristina. The opening scene when the narrator introduce Vicky as the uptight girl and Cristina as the soul searching girl  really made me want to walk out of the theater (metaphorically speaking of course, i saw the film on a laptop sitting on a bullet train). I restrained my self and continue watching because the movie’s high Rotten Tomato rating (82%) gave me hope. the movie never got better.

What annoys me to no end is that although this movie is slightly better than usual soup drama, it still doesn’t stray from the mainstream pop culture’s track record of glorifying the “bohemian” lifestyle while trashing the “conventional” lifestyle. The glamorous Juan-Maria-Scarlett trio and their cliche romanticism, pseudo sophistication and pretentious aestheticism is of course the commonly defined “Bohemian” life style”. The dull Vicky and Doug has to represent the boring “conventional” lifestyle. The bohemian guy is of course play by the stud Javier Bardem who has treesomes with Scarlett and Penélope and looks like this:

While the conventional guy has a fiancée who cheated on him with the bohemian guy and looks like a suit with ascending hair line that looks like this:

can it be more obvious?

Now after watching this movie and thousands of pop culture material like it, all the coming-of-age girls is going to go romance a bohemian guy only to later find out it really just is an act to get laid. and all the coming-of-age boys are going to act like a pseudo painter-poet-musician-artist to laid as many time as possible before their cover is blown.

come’on!!

to the boys, fact: You can be a major nerd like Malcolm Gladwell or Larry Page and get laid.
to the girls, dont let other define romance for you, thats bull shit. you should define romanticism for your self.
and to the entertainment industry, stop trying to define what is romantic or what is a good lifestyle to us and make films with more originality and less cliche. please.

Kaufman and his universe

Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” was an instant classic for me. Not unlike the lead character Caden Cotard, after series of successful films – Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Kaufman earn a chance to direct a movie to define his legacy. Kaufman dint disappoint. Kaufman took on a plot so grand and ambitious it felt overwhelming and exhausting even to a ardent fan like me. To audience who is unfamiliar with his previous work will probably felt confuse by his characteristically blend of interchanging real and imaginary reality. My company to the cinema who is watching Kaufman for the first time was confused by it and frankly so was i. I however was able to accept the obscurities as just Kaufman being Kaufman, she could not.

while in one layer the film displayed an artist’s life at the peak of his career – longly, sick, domestically dysfunctional and obssese with his death and legacy. Properly a reflection of Kaufman’s own life (Kaugman did that also in Adaptation). The story is also about the existential conflict between the projected reality in our mind and the reality (hat tip Roger Ebert). we live by interacting most immediately with an projection of the real world in our own mind. Our project of the world is generally flawed and fill with what we want to see. So when the real world clashes with the projected world unexpected consequences is expected (like Sammy is suppose to love Tammy not Hazel, and Tammy is not suppose to jump and die).

Although i love this movie, i will only recommended if you have seen either one of his Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and liked it.