Salinger, the documentary

When a person is dead, then there is no stopping what the living will speak. This applies to everyone, regardless of power, status, respect nor dignity. 
- My key takeaway of the documentary.

My life on Netflix is pretty unexciting. Whenever I really want to spend time on it, it stops loading. Like #foreverPIXELATED!!!! [Insert all kinds of worldly profanity here]. I then proceed yelling at everyone in my family to turn off their phone wifi to maybe perhaps get less pixelation... But of course, to no avail. When it's working though, I'm usually shuffling through the documentaries.

As always, my reviews of stuff come way later than when I actually viewed them. This one, I viewed a long time ago. "SALINGER" came out in 2013 and has a lovely unimaginative poster that resembles a book cover. SO CLEVER!!!!..... Not.  Apparently this director guy (Shane Salerno) had spent about a decade working on this documentary. SO WORTH HIS TIME!!!!...... Not. I sound sour because the documentary leaves you feeling sad and sour to the extreme. I watched it to kill some time in between the two FIFA games of the day, and because I knew I'd learn something new. I was also never a big fan of The Catcher in the Rye and Holden Caulfield, so I was mildly intrigued in what ways would this documentary glorify the book even more than it already is. In fact, "Salinger" glorifies EVERYTHING even down to the unpublished characters of JD Salinger's work. Go figure. Making the documentary pretty "phony." LOL! Get it??? hahaha..... (insert awkward turtle hand gesture here..)

Source: chicagonow.com

Most of the interviews are quite generic (more and more extraordinary compliments of JD Salinger, his looks, his writing, his style, his perfection-obsessed personality, yaddayaddablahblah), except for Jean Miller's as she gets pretty deep, personal, and sentimental when revealing her side of the story. This is when I was shocked about how a person could keep silent for more than half a century and spill the beans on EVERYTHING when Saliger's gone off to the heavens. Same sentiments ensued when I watched the other interviews of the women Salinger had encountered (pretty much countless). Then I went onwards to assure myself to never fall for word-masters who are suave, brilliant, and veiled-in-secrecy-in-super-mysterious-sexy-ways. Hard. Very hard. I think I'll fall for a personality like Salinger's just for the sake of self-destructing my emotional self. Anyways, back to the documentary review... Not only is the privacy-invading content from these women pretty disturbing, but it is more about the documentary's existence itself. Salinger had spent his whole life with a mission to seclude himself from the outside world, truly pursuing the art of living in secrecy and in insane mental state. One can't blame him as his fame did not merely bring money and happiness, but also heavy burdens; there were three--not one--murders in America where the killers quoted Holden Caulfield in the court testimonies. The most famous incident would be the murder of John Lennon. This topic is also briefly covered in "Salinger." Despite all of Salinger's troubles and wishes to remain away from the world, this entire documentary is about divulging his life, tearing his secrecy apart, and publicizing almost everything he had wanted to keep silent about. It fucking starts with this guy stalking around to take paparazzi photos of JD Salinger walking out of the mail depot. RUDE. Just so rude! Poor JD Salinger... He will definitely not rest in peace now, would he? :( :( :(

Yet there are still good parts to this mediocre documentary. There is a somewhat ridiculous amount of time spent on Salinger serving the state in WWII. I never took the effort to read JD Salinger's wiki page, so I had no idea how long he had served, how hard he tried to get enlisted, what kind of position he undertook, how he came back, et cetera. This part and his survival through WWII is enriching and complements his subsequent life events well. Needless to say, this fact-driven history lesson in the middle shines out and stays with you after the documentary, because it clearly juxtaposes against all the emotional, sappy, and overtly pretentious interviews and viewpoints on JD Salinger.

Still interested?
Watch the trailer below. 

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Only Lovers Left Alive

Another film post, as I have been graced with almost unlimited number of hours this summer for me to further enhance movie knowledge--which I deem to be a fundamental necessity. But this movie happened kind of some weeks ago when this movie was still screening over at Tinseltown.

Jim Jarmusch is and will always have a spot in my heart as he brought Coffee and Cigarettes into this world. Just like music, if I were given the choice, I prefer movies to move along with certain slow yet sentimental pace; an exceptional example of the slow style I mean would be Sofia Coppola's. Jim Jarmusch has his own version of this charm that is sensationally infused with careful music selection. The sounds are delivered as if to tell that they were never misplaced, and in some scenes, the songs are probing the viewer to find out the purpose of its disposition. The opening is grand in Only Lovers Let Alive. Slowly encircling from a dramatic bird's eye view (a viewpoint Jarmusch is quite fond of) and spinning to the music while zooming into the characters' faces, the viewer is then automatically falling into the movie's groove from the start. Sucked into the actors' performances, the environment, the atmosphere, and the detailed decor of each room Swinton and Hiddleston is residing in, there really isn't a better opening to a succulent yet twisted romantic film to this.

Official Trailer:

• Comical as if to let the viewers know that yes, vampires are a thing of our fantasies, the characters poke fun at their own, cursed existence. 
• Lovely to let the viewers know how awful modern romance is and how beautiful and idealized it can be even for vampires.
• Ingenious to add horror to the ongoing drama for a splash of satirical tone.

Hiddleston is a depressed musician (obviously alive for centuries yet still younger than Swinton) who lives in Detroit (befitting setting, no?). Swinton, the ever-so-classy woman plays the minimalistic and well-read vampire who goes from Tangier (I Wiki-ed this and found out that Tangier is a major city in Northern Morocco) to become reunited with her husband, Hiddleston (the third? fourth? mind you, she has been alive even before like everything). Mia Wasikowska adds in a flair of youth and horrific (yet comical) acts of vampirical violence as Swinton's younger sister. "You drank Ian!" says Adam (Hiddleston), upon finding Ian (his human "zombie" friend) dead, because of course, Wasikowska drank him, not killed, hahahahhahahahhahha.

What really baffles the viewer at the end is how deeply connected you can get with the three characters despite them being centuries-old vampires! The love drama that they have is still the same and the troubling teenage younger sister who tests their true love is super reasonable. #DailyLife!!!! The storyline is superbly intact with a beautiful balance of emotional screenplay, moody soundtracks, dimly lit cinematography, and the entertaining drama to lead the story to its end.

But you know, ultimately, my excessive gushing throughout the movie boils down to two incredibly beautiful actors showcasing their talents while being two extraterrestrial beings:

Catch it yourself and feel the slow rush of drinking shots of fine blood.

Also..............
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Frances Ha

I watched this in the beginning of my vacation... So about the end of April. Frances Ha is a film that is recognized, but most likely not enough.

Directed by Noah Baumbach (known for work with The Squid and the Whale, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), and also written by him and the leading actress, Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha follows Frances, a woman in her late 20's trying to make her career work out in NYC while juggling self-loss, self-finding, friends, and acquaintances. The outwardly pressure of the society combined with raw explication of internal struggles that are not faltered by aesthetics makes Frances Ha one of the most captivating films I've watched recently.

Yes, it is a comedy, but maybe because I am also a somewhat-lost-trying-to-do-the-right-stuff-girl-in-her-twenties, this drama hits the emotional home run. I see my vices and habits of non-productivity and envy within Frances, plus I also see other positive attributes I know I encompass and the guaranteed reward that ultimately comes about for all of us that strive.

Trailer:

As you can see, the entire movie is in black and white. However, it is a little bit more modern... Consider the movie to be in a permanent Instagram-like, beautifully filtered black and white. Not only does this characteristically sets the film apart from the others, but the lack of colour aids the viewer to carefully follow the screenplay and the unconcealed expressions of the actors' faces to further delve into the emotions they are to convey. The screenplay is another story. It is just so delightful. I do not remember the soundtrack, but the quotes!

"Sometimes it's good to do what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it."
- Frances

"Don't treat me like a three-hour brunch friend!"
- Frances

"I'm poor."
"That's actually offensive to poor people."
- Frances & Benji

"It's just this apartment is very... aware of itself."
- Sophie

..........And the recurring "undateable" chats between Benji and Frances!!!

"Are you still undateable?"

"Oh yes, very undateable."

To top it all off, Adam Driver is in this movie. And we all know that this guy has an irresistible charm even though he is SO unattractive. I can't get enough of him! His face! His voice! His next upcoming movie to hit the theatres is Tracks with Mia Wasikowska. That flick looks pretty amazing, too. Anyways, I didn't quote any of his lines, but they are great! In spite of his character being the most stereotypical and flat in the entire story, he nonchalantly delivers witty lines that generate laughs when they are needed to get away from Frances's anxiety and stress. 

Frances Ha is most conveniently available on Netflix, so if you've got 90 minutes to spare... Prioritize this. 

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The Grand Budapest Hotel

So I'm not going to talk about the movie.
What I felt, what I loved, what I hated, the storytelling, the greatness of Wes Anderson..
None of that.
Not going to review it.
Not going to critique it.
Except for reminding you that if you like entertainment, and still have not yet watched The Grand Budapest Hotel...
Well what's wrong with you?
I'm offended!

Hah.

Today, I'm just going to talk to you about this story of me and my movie friend, Jono.

Jono and Rachel had planned to go watch The Grand Budapest Hotel on its opening night.
The arrangement of the night was made a few weeks prior, and of course, went without any hiccups -- as their relationship was fundamentally built on watching films.
As Rachel sat in a ghetto hair salon chair texting Jono and arranging times, she thought about how this movie was blessing her 23rd birthday; she will be lucky for the whole entire year.
Perhaps, there will even be a chance to meet Wes Anderson this coming year (note that Rachel likes to fantasize and is a detrimental habit of escapism that goes absolutely nowhere in her daily life).
Both Jono and Rachel were slightly appalled at the fact that this movie was opening at the largest cinema in Downtown.
Say what?
With the hype of the movie, maybe so.
So Rachel arrived at the theater with butterflies in her stomach to find that the show was sold out for the night.
Say what?
Might I add that she was 20 minutes early. She looked down at her drop crotch pants she was in and the hole she had just made down there by fussing about getting out of the car.
Now what? 
Jono and Rachel met up at another smaller (more befitting) theater. There, they grabbed their tickets and proceeded to line up. Line up. 
They reminisced of the time when they went to go watch Moonrise Kingdom and the theater's emptiness and where it opened. Definitely not citywide (one theater, Tinseltown).
What had happened, they do not really know. Why there were blogs showcasing Wes Anderson's font types over the years. Why there were blogs capturing colours that were used in Wes Anderson's films over the years. Why there were fan-made videos capturing the center-focus of Wes Anderson's films.
They had no answers.
Rachel was happy -- though a little startled -- that people were all out and about, and that she had a ticket stub in her hand. She was still nervous about entering this world of The Grand Budapest Hotel.

But we all understand what had happened.
The Grand Budapest Hotel signifies a certain burst of growth Wes Anderson had had. The complexity of his character development, the number of characters, the layers of storytelling... It is not about his distinctive style of filming nor the colours no more. Those are just natural elements that he lives in and comes to him. And all of these components of the film touched the hearts of so many more people around the world--outside the world of the Andersonians.

I added the two clips above to showcase the technicalities involved with enchanting filmmaking that we have today.

Wes Anderson bio (so you can watch all of his films)

Wes Anderson palettes (so you can gawk at his fandom)

Wes Anderson Prada commercial (so you can laugh at Jason Schwartzman--how can you not?)

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Vicky Cristina Barcelona

There's something about Woody Allen and women of all ages.

Regarding Cristina:
She had reluctantly accepted suffering as a inevitable component to deep passion
and was resigned to putting her feelings at risk
If you asked her what she has been gambling her emotions on to win,
she would not have been able to say
she knew what she didn't want however,
and that is what Vicky valued above all else.

Antonio says:
why not?
life is short
life is dull
life is full of pain
there is a chance for something special

Penelope teaches me Spanish: 
"pocritai" -- hypocrite in Spanish

Official trailer:

Penelope working her magic here:

Watch this movie as if it's a prelude to Midnight in Paris. It works out. Hand in hand. Pocket Planes time.