★ 5 / 10
“Do you know what Dr. Johnson said? Guests
tmdb28039023
“Do you know what Dr. Johnson said? Guests, like the fish, start to stink on the third day.” “In fact, I think you'll find that I start to stink on the first…
“Do you know what Dr. Johnson said? Guests, like the fish, start to stink on the third day.”
“In fact, I think you'll find that I start to stink on the first day.”
This exchange exemplifies the good and the bad about Barcelona; it’s full of acerbic Johnsonian sarcasm beautifully channeled by Chris Eigeman, but the third act feels more like the third day, with all that this implies.
The film, about two young American cousins and their misadventures with the female fauna of the titular city, has another problem. The cousins, Fred and Ted, are skillfully and competently played by Eigeman and Taylor Nichols, respectively — Nichols's forced verbal tics only manage to make him seem like an ersatz Woody Allen (unusual for for writer/director Whit Stillman, who tends to evoke favorable comparisons to the legendary filmmaker), although he makes up for this with a scene described by Fred as “some weird religious ceremony based on Glenn Miller” — but the Barcelonans they get involved with are played by Australian, English, or American actresses; this is particularly jarring when it comes to the character played by Mira Sorvino, who is neither Spanish nor has the acting ability to pass for one.
Applying the Italian neorealist approach, literally any randomly selected passerby on a Barcelona sidewalk would have done a better job; on the other hand, it’s possible that my complaint is irrelevant, especially considering that the females in the story are practically interchangeable.
Even though he spends most of his time courting Marta (Sorvino), Fred ends up falling in love with Montserrat (Tushka Bergen); according to him, “I've seen her in all sorts of different situations and contexts” — situations and contexts that must have occurred in scenes written but not shot, or shot but ultimately cut (the script simply shrugs it off, mentioning towards the end that “We spend hours together on the phone, and she is so fascinating and charming”). Meanwhile, Ted ends up marrying Greta (Hellena Schmied), a late addition to the plot with whom Ted doesn't share much more quality time than Fred does with Montserrat.
But perhaps this is precisely the point; as Ted says, “you see a beautiful girl and immediately you’re subject to all these emotions … you haven't even talked to the girl, and you already want to get married and spend the rest of your life with her”.
He suffers from "a real 'romantic illusion' problem," and yearns, "instead of a fantasy built on the pretty slope of an eyebrow or the curve of an upper lip, to see the real person. Maybe even look into her eyes and see her soul."
In that sense, the film is a true reflection of, as Roger Ebert put it in his review, "a vast yearning which can only be filled by a girl" that most of us experience before we reach the age of reason; sadly, Fred doesn’t seem to outgrow this juvenile yearning during the course of the film, and there is no indication that his relationship with Greta is less based on ciliary sloping and/or lip curvature than on the "real person."
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★ 7 / 10
A film by intelligent adults for intelligent adults
name99-92-545389
IMDb's intro to this movie starts "Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales", and there, right away, we have the problem. If you're an arrested…
IMDb's intro to this movie starts "Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales", and there, right away, we have the problem. If you're an arrested child, who thinks that the idea of working in sales equals death, and that considering the consequences of your actions equals "stuffy", then I expect you will hate this film. But for the rest of us, it's a breath of fresh air. Other people have said what's appealing about it --- the unexpected zigs and zags of the story, the amusing (though not laugh-out-loud funny) dialog, the portrayal of a dynamic between two guys that's touching without ever being cloying. But for me what I enjoyed was the (depressingly rare) chance to see people acting as adults. It is nice to see someone who takes their job seriously and tries hard to do well at it, rather than concentrating all his energy on goofing off and avoiding the boss. (This goes for both Fred and Ted.) It's nice to see people thinking seriously about what is and is not working in their romantic lives and how to fix it. It's nice to see people not relying on ridiculous clichés about fate and destiny as the solutions to all their problems. Meanwhile, on the other side, it's nice to see all this seriousness but in a movie populated by basically decent people, people you don't hate, in a movie that isn't ramming some sort of absurdly non-subtle message down your throat ala most indie cinema. I'm pretty impatient with movies. I'd say 70% of the movies I watch, after 10 minutes I switch it off because the movie has in no way captured my interest. I haven't laughed, I haven't been surprised, all I've seen is the same old **** I've seen a million times before. Maybe it's the husband and wife fighting with each other. Maybe it's the "those were the days" kids playing. Maybe it's the nerdish guy being belittled by other people at work. You know what I mean --- five minutes into the movie and you know the stereotypes every character fits, and exactly how it will all play out. What so appealed to me about this movie is how (without "twists" or gimmicks) it doesn't follow that path. The primary characters kept growing and revealing new aspects to their characters throughout the movie in a way that's all too rare. Give it a chance!
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★ 7 / 10
The Bible Dancer and the American Deer
jeanmaru
This is one of those movies that get better with age. I first saw it ten years ago, when Mira Sorvino was an unknown actress, and I was surprised to learn…
This is one of those movies that get better with age. I first saw it ten years ago, when Mira Sorvino was an unknown actress, and I was surprised to learn later that she wasn't really Spanish. (I lived in Spain for five years, so I'm not easily fooled.) If you've been to Barcelona, you'll like the glowing glimpses of the city, sun-drenched during the day, lit by neon and fireworks at night. There is much charming, often subtle, humor in the film. Who could resist Taylor Nichols dancing alone in his dining room while reading the Bible? Or Chris Eigeman using a felt tip pen to change anti-American graffiti from "American pigs" to "American deer"? Sure, the film is talky, but it doesn't take itself too too seriously.
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83%
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7.0/10
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For goodness' sake, please DON'T upload the 4k(2160p)5.1 versions of all three John wick movies