This semester is a bittersweet one for me. I found out during winter break that I would be unable to go on my study abroad trip to Rome this Spring semester due to circumstances I don’t feel like going into. But what I’ve found is that I’ve never enjoyed the Champaign-Urbana area as much as I am now. So watching Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristinia Barcelona makes me a tad upset that I will not find an Italian love of mine anytime this year. But I am young, and Rome is old, and in the future we will finally meet.

At this year’s Oscars, Penelope Cruz picked up the award for best actress in a supporting role for her portrayal of Maria Elena, a mentally distressed ex-wife to the suave main character Juan Antonio Gonzalo, played by No County For Old Men’s Javier Bardem. Juan Antonio is a man who loves women and knows how to win their affection. He has a power I wish I’ve had all of my life. I have been a fan of Woody Allen films for several years now and I think I finally have picked out my reasoning for finding such enjoyment in his work. I feel that his movie dialog best represents everyday conversations and common personalities to such a degree that we feel as though we are listening in on true conversations and experiencing real situations. This film is about two friends, Vicky and Cristina played by Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson, who travel to Barcelona, Spain for the summer. The two stay at Vicky’s distant relative’s, one she had never met, luxurious estate while Vicky works towards her masters in Catalan Identity. Our narrator, who guides us through the story, let’s us know from the start what types of personalities these two have, and how it affects their lives. They are both looking for love, but one is able to settle for one kind while the other is constantly searching for the perfect fairytale romance.

While at an art gallery, Vicky and Cristina happen to see Juan Antonio for the first time, a painter who has gained attention for a violent fight he and his ex-wife had had prior to their divorce. Shortly after, Juan Antonio invites the women to the town Oviedo where he says he will show them around and in the end make love to both. Cristina, the more open and risky of the two, is eager to take him up on his offer while Vicky, the more conservative and recently engaged, is outwardly opposed to such an idea. But, the two end up going with him, and a love triangle soon is interrupted by a fourth party: Maria Elena.

I loved this film. I feel like the events are very unexpected and extremely funny. Just like any other Woody Allen movie, the conversations are smart, sharp, and extremely clever. Though the events that play out in the film may not be the most realistic, it feels like these characters could exist and a situation like this can arise. There is a fantasy element to it as these two friends are escaping reality and home and placing themselves in a foreign country to have new experiences. I could believe these characters. Vicky is the one who settles for something if it seems like the most secure thing to do. Getting engaged to a man she is not entirely sure she’s in love with is something that she feels is a good thing to do because he is well off and it will be better for her in the long run. Love to her entails being practical and safe. Cristina, on the other hand, is looking for true love that is such a hard thing to find. She doesn’t know what it is that she’s looking for, but she knows that she hasn’t experienced it yet. This journey for both the women marks a point in their life where they are faced with the burden of identifying love and how they will fit it into their lives.

Penelope Cruz is fantastic as the melancholy painter who is in love with with Juan Antonio but feels that something is missing in their relationship to make it work. Cruz displays an emotion that is rarely seen on the screen. We see a woman who is torn apart by her inability to stay in a relationship with a man she is so deeply in love with. They are meant for each other but aren’t able to make it work. This is mentally distressing on her, leaving her suicidal and depressed. Cruz plays perfectly as a complex and confused woman who wants so much to figure things out, and on occasion loses her mind when she’s unable to. Though we only see her in half the movie, Cruz steals every scene she’s in and makes you believe the mental turmoil she is experiencing.

This film is out to rent now and is a great starting point for becoming an avid fan of Woody Allen’s work.

Howdy Y’all. Academy Awards countdown is down to the last day. One film up for the nomination of Best Picture is the based on true events Frost/Nixon.

Now, when I first saw this trailer I didn’t think it looked good. My reason: that guy looks nothing like Richard Nixon. The filmmakers could have easily added a more menacing nose and a better makeup job, but they chose not to and instead focused on the humanity and personality of the only president to resign. I was pleasantly surprised by what I was able to take from the film.

The film takes place several years after the disgraced president resigned from office due to allegations related to the Watergate scandal. It shows how the interviews between Nixon and Frost took place, and what each of the two was hoping to attain from the television special. Nixon wanted to redeem himself, and Frost wanted to be the one who would get an apology out of the president. Both come out of the interviews feeling like they had gained something, and nobody really loses in the situation.

Frost/Nixon paints a real portrait of someone who is looked down upon across the nation, and who has to live with the guilt of taking advantage of his powerful position. Just think. There used to be corrupt politicians in the 1970s. Weird to think about right? Nothing like today. Oh, wait, what’s up Blago? Who knows, maybe we’ll see a film documenting Blagojevich’s run on the talk show circuit, and have him finally apologize for being such an idiot. I feel bad for our former governor because it must feel terrible to have the country hate you. I would like to hear his side of the story, even though I wont believe him until he shows some remorse. Oh, and I forgot about George Bush. Georgie also had to break a few laws to get what he wanted for the good of the country, and took Nixon’s “it’s not illegal if the president does it” motto to heart. Many want to see him tried for his supposed crimes, and this film is able to show the side of a man who has made mistakes and knows that he has. Nixon is shown in a light in which we can feel for the guy, and understand the pain and regret that he must have felt up until his death.

Wow, okay I must apologize. This film is sadly not playing anywhere in the Champaign-Urbana area. I recommend that you find an alternative means of viewing the film, and definitely pick it up once it comes out for rent. I’m going to start doing a rating system to let you know how I feel about this movie. I give this film 4 out of 5 V for Victory signs as I board my airplane to take me away from the white house.

On February 22, the 81st Annual Academy Awards will be airing on ABC network. I don’t know how excited you may be, or if you even plan on watching it, but I probably wont get around to it. I’ve never been one for the award show. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Do these people really have to have all these different groups vote for them as the best performance in the movie industry for a given year? It seems that nominations are biased and winners are usually undeserving of the golden statue. With that being said, watch the Oscars if you like movie stars being glorified for getting paid loads of money for such hard work. Being an actor is very stressful….just ask Christian Bale.

But, sometimes these award shows get it right and recognize work that is worth being acknowledged. This year, Richard Jenkins is nominated for best actor in a leading role for his part in the movie The Visitor. You may recognize him as the deceased dad from Six Feet Under or more recently as the lovesick manager of the fitness center in Burn After Reading. I’ve always liked this man’s performances in all of his movies.

In the movie The Visitor, Jenkins plays Prof. Walter Vale, a widowed professor who finds little joy in anything and is bored in his job. After traveling to New York for a business conference, he goes to his apartment, an apartment that he rarely ever visits anymore after his wife’s death, and finds that a couple have made it their own residence in his absence. The couple was scammed into buying the house thinking that it didn’t belong to anyone. Though Vale wants them to leave, he finds it in himself to let them stay in the apartment long enough for them to search for somewhere else to live. The couple, Tarek and Zanaib, are both illegal immigrants in the country and are always on the lookout and be careful as to not get in trouble with the law. This chance encounter changes the lives of all involved in the apartment. Through Tarek, Jenkins finds passion in learning how to play the African drum. Tarek, on the other hand, finds that it’s a hard life to live being an illegal immigrant in the U.S.

The films focus on immigration regulation and race relations really strikes a note with the state of our country today. When we are going through one of the worst economic crises of our history, immigration is still viewed as a problem that must be dealt with when in reality there are much bigger fish to fry. It also gets to the heart of completely different people being able to learn from each other and enjoy one another’s company. This movie surprised me in many ways and definitely sold me on Jenkins’ performance. I hope he wins.

Hi all! I hope your holidays were as enjoyable and relaxing as mine were. To tell you the truth, I can’t even count the amount of movies that I’d watched in the past month. There were so many great ones and some not so much. Sorry I didn’t keep you up to date on all of them, but I’ll try my best the rest of this week to give a recap of the great movies that are both in theaters and out to rent that are certainly worth checking out.

Now, break has seemed pretty long to me. I wasn’t able to get a job and there wasn’t any work to be done. I would find myself waking up at noon and wondering what could I possibly do for the day besides lie around watching tv and movies. So I am not sorry to admit that I was a sloth and reveled in it; I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who took their fair share of afternoon naps.

Well anyways…this past Sunday were “The 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards,” and wasn’t that just splendid. When the nominees were announced earlier in December, I looked at all of them and realized I hadn’t seen the majority of the films, and that it seemed that there was no outlet near my house that even screened the movies to begin with. Doubt? What is that? I doubt that’s even a real movie because I don’t see it playing at my local movieplace. Frost/Nixon? Wasn’t Nixon a crook? Oh, and who could ignore Slumdog Millionaire? This film was in limited release for I don’t know how long. I finally found a place about 20 miles from me that actually played the film…but the buzz of that film actually did make it go into wider release.

I digress. My point is, what’s with movies being nominated weeks before the films even come out? Why are they nominated if I don’t even know what they are yet? How come the Golden Globe people are so much more special than me and can view any movie they want weeks before anyone else can? It’s just not fair. But if you didn’t catch the awards show, here’s what you missed.

Best Motion Picture - Drama: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Performance by an Actress in Motion Picture - Drama: Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)…first one of the night. I love her.

Best Performance by an Actor in Motion Picture - Drama: Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: Vicky Cristina Barcelona…….I really wanted In Bruges to win because it’s awesome. Haven’t seen this movie yet….maybe I’ll give it a chance…MAYBE!

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: Colin Farrell (In Bruges)

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: Kate Winslet (The Reader)…..Haven’t seen this one yet but I’ve had a crush on her since I saw her naked in Titanic. Seriously, how was a 10-year-old boy to know that a PG-13 movie would have nudity in it. Luckily for me, neither my parents or I knew about it before attending.

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)….The standing ovation was necessary I think. It is sad to see him go, but it’s good to see he went out with a bang.

And finally, Wall-E won for best animated feature! Yea, I was excited about that on

So, who really cares about these award shows? Well, I don’t really. I don’t really know who votes for these things or take their opinions much to heart. As I said in a previous review, I didn’t necessarily think Slumdog was the best movie of the year…it was still good though. Don’t take these winners as meaning anything other than what they are: an easy way to promote films that most people would never get the chance to see. Go see what you can before you actually have work to do this semester.

I wrote about this film, Slumdog Millionaire, earlier before I ever got a chance to go and actually see it. It looked like it could be enjoyable, and since it is now nominated for the Golden Globe Best Motion Picture - Drama, I thought that’d it’d be a good time to take a break and actually go see what all of the rage is about.

Slumdog Millionaire is the story of Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old boy who grew up in the slums of Dubai, India, and his experience on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Jamal is being questioned by the police because they feel that he, a poor boy with no education at all, must be cheating to be one question away from winning 20 million rupees (about a million dollars). We find out through many flashbacks how he actually ended up on the gameshow, and how he came upon the answers in the end. Was he cheating or did he really know the answers? I’ll never tell. I say you go and see.

Is that you’re final answer?

The film portrays a lifestyle that no one in America could fully understand unless they’ve actually been to the slums of India. We are shown people living in filfth, cramped spaces, and some of the worst poverty imaginable. It is in these slums that an attack actually occurs between the Muslims and Malik and his family’s slum. People are killed and children are orphaned and left to fend for themselves.

Though I was astonished by the story of the main character and the life that he lived, I was slightly disappointed with the film as a whole. It may be that I had too high of expectations after having been a nominee for best picture, but I don’t think that’s the whole reason. What I didn’t like about the movie was the constant use of flashbacks. I feel like it was too structured in that it went interrogation scene to a flashback to the gameshow to another flashback of how he found the answer. After awhile it became a bit repetitive despite the interesting story. But that’s just me. I do respect that it was a brilliant cultural narrative that opens our eyes to a world we’ve never seen before, and that it actually ends in a Bollywood-style dance scene. That’s right….they dance…they dance their pants off. So I say see it, but go in with no expectations other than you will see things you’ve never seen before.

The Golden Globe nominees were announced this morning with many scratching their heads. Those who aren’t film buffs were asking themselves what these strange non-mainstream movies were that were being nominated for best film of the year or best actor of the year. Where’s The Dark Knight is a common question by someone that may have seen the list. Heath Ledger did receive a posthumous tip of the hat for his portrayal of the Joker, but can it really be that the film wasn’t given a nomination because it’s a “superhero movie” despite its quality. Oh well…at least Heath’s talent was recognized.

What I find to be interesting when reading the list though is the amount of films that were nominated and aren’t even released yet. What do these Golden Globes people know that we don’t? How come they get all of the privileges? The Curious Case of Benjamin Button leads the race with the most amount of nominations and it doesn’t even come out for another two weeks. Also vying for the “Best Motion Picture - Drama” is the yet-to-be-released Frost/Nixon.

One film I found very puzzling to see listed was In Bruges, nominated for “Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical” and with nominations for Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture.” Now I really don’t know what’s going on. I remember being bombarded by trailers for this film and vowing to myself I would never see it no matter what happened. What turned me off so much was both that the trailer annoyed me and that I saw it everywhere I looked.

But when I saw that it was nominated several times, I actually went out of my way to view this movie to see what it was all about, and was pleasantly surprised. The trailer makes it seem like the whole movie is just about the goofy antics of hitmen hiding out after a job. Well, there definitely is a lot of witty and funny dialogue, but there’s so much more depth and emotion packed into it that make it a contender for the best movie of the year. It is about the story of two hitmen who are sent to Bruges, Belgium, after a mishap occurs during an assassination. It’s this mishap that brings both mental and physical distress on Colin Farrell’s character. I’m actually thinking about maybe watching this one more time because I feel there was a lot of good insight to how to live your life and be happy with yourself, even if you kill people for a living. Go out and rent this and possibly catch some of the other top nominees opening this weekend.

…and you thought your family had problems. Watch a film that makes your holidays look better than anything. Now playing at the Boardman’s Art Theatre.

Milk is based on the true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly homosexual person to gain a position as an elected official in public office in the United States. Though his term didn’t last long, we learn he was assassinated at the beginning of the film, he made a lasting impression on both the rights of gays and minorities in general. After his death in 1979, it’s hard to believe the extreme amount of bigotry and anti-gay sentiment that existed just 30 years ago.

After having secured the spot on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, a proposition was beginning to be enforced across the country called Proposition 6. What it did was take away teaching jobs from openly gay people and those who supported them. The law was put into effect in several parts of the country and was one of first times that Milk took an activist position, eventually have San Francisco vote no to Prop. 6. This film is relevant because it reflects common themes that we see in our society today. Proposition 8, the banning of two people of the same gender of getting married, has been put into effect in California, the home of Harvey milk and his activism. And still, outrage and dissent is prevalent on both sides of the issue, similar as it was back in 1978.

The film is also a mirror on how a minority can go against all odds and take office, as in the election of President-elect Barack Obama as the first African American for the job. Milk, played by Sean Penn in one of his many well-done roles, lights up the screen with his enthusiasm in bringing change for his people. Director Gus Van Zant has put together a biopic that pulls at your emotions and has you marvel at how well it’s put together. Go out and try to find this movie any way you can. It’s worth the watch.

If you’re spending the week of Thanksgiving in the Urbana-Champaign area, then you should be thankful for the Boardman’s Art Theatre for they are screening the beyond delightful film Happy-Go-Lucky until December 4th. The movie has received raving reviews from all the critics, and was one of the main attractions at the Toronto Film Festival.

Hailing from the United Kingdom, Happy-Go-Lucky is directed and stars people that Americans wouldn’t really know much about. Mike Leigh? Sally Hawkins? Ring any bells? If they do, then you are much wiser than me when it comes to foreign films. It tells the story of Poppy, a 30-year-old school teacher who is full of life and enthusiasm for new experiences. We follow the day-to-day routine of the character as she’s confronted with things that may break her optimism, but she seems to be able to take everything in stride. There’s much to be happy about during the holiday season, but if you don’t have much to be happy for, you can learn a little something from Poppy. Happy Thanksgiving!

I hate taking exams. I love seeing movies that appear to be really good in their trailers.