yoodi's posts with tag: romantic
 | Category: | Movies | | Genre: | Romance |
To start with, this film somehow manage to made you find your own stories amongst the jumping scenes, simple everyday dialogues and the different plots of this movie on soul searching and lost love. It's a typical romantic film about feelings, broken hearts and hopes (or hopelessness for that matter) with some insertion of betrayal, suicide and gambling.
Norah Jones as a starring role with Jude Law didn't particularly interest me until I saw who directed the movie. It's another one of Wong Kar Wai's film which I'm a big fan of after watching In The Mood For Love starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. The cinematography is the usual hip and artistic style of Wong Kar Wai's movie with blurred motions of lights, jumping scenes and focus shots of the artists or chosen objects that appeared repeatedly as a iconic part of the whole movie. Combined with a backdrop of soundtracks ranging from Norah Jones' own song to Otis Redding and a borrowed melody by Gustavo Santaolalla from The Motorcyle Diary, the director succeeded to maintain the artistic hip urban feelings throughout the different settings from the opening scenes of a New York So Ho cafe to a bar in Memphis, Tennessee and gambling place in Las Vegas.
This combination of cinematography and romantic screenplay by Lawrence Block produced a charming and simple philosophical story tied together mostly by Jude Law as the So Ho cafe owner and Norah Jones over discussions of a jar full of key chains left by broken hearted or betrayed couples while eating blueberry pie. "Sometimes, even if you have the keys those doors still can't be opened. Can they?" is one of the quotes in this movie that basically summed up the whole process of soul searching done by Norah Jones who took a bus from New York to Memphis and Las Vegas.
The supporting artists like Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman and David Strathairn provide the complete knots in the different plots with their strong acting that has made this movie worthwhile to see.
"It took me nearly a year to get here. It wasn't so hard to cross that street after all, it all depends on who's waiting for you on the other side." is an ending line that signifies the soul searching is over. Like I said, you could find your own stories in this movie. If you dare to look. I did, and it was enough to made me smile.
My Blueberry Nights is a 2007 film directed by Wong Kar Wai, starring Norah Jones and Jude Law. It also features Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn and Cat Power. It is Wong's first feature film in English.
My Blueberry Nights was the opening film for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2007. 
 | Category: | Movies | | Genre: | Romantic Comedy |
A typical "re-finding the true meaning of life" kind of movie. A feel good romantic story with a backdrop of scenery setting of a vineyard in Provence, France.
Nothing outstanding in the story plot. A Good Year is about an insensitive money oriented investment banker from London (Russell Crowe) who inherited a vineyard in Provence from a dead uncle who had raised him and where Crowe had spent his childhood.
Of course upon getting his inheritance the first thing that come to his mind is selling the place to the highest bidder. The plan on short visit 'get in and get out' trip to the vineyard to sort out legal paper works turned out to be extended due to what else, a beautiful Bistro owner played by Marion Cotillard who herself had previous misfortune experience with men.
The untrusted cut-throat London stock broker and the suspicious, guarded, stubborn bistro owner sparked a chemistry once they realized that what the heart felt is what really mattered at the end. Like one of the most memorable quotes from the movie "...everything mature, eventually".
Well they both did.
The romantic drama had an up beat cheerful feeling from a touch of comedy in the plot. It was fun to watch the like of Crowe played a character like we usually saw from Hugh Grant. I guess that added a bonus in watching him played his character.
Again, the moral of the story is a lesson we have heard a million times before. But I guess, I never got tired of it because it's so true. At the end of the day it's about appreciating the simple things in life and the spirit of love offered by those who cared about you is what really matters.
It's all come down to a reminder of what is sometimes forgotten during the pursue of our hectic hedonist life and another quote describe this very well "....sometimes it takes a change of scenery to have a change of heart".
What the beautiful Cotillard's said to Crowe during their first dinner together "There's something you should know about me, Max. I'm very, very choosy... I'm also very, very suspicious; very, very irrational, and I have a very, very short temper. I'm also extremely jealous and slow to forgive. Just so you know". That quote and the ending scene of the two of them having an outdoor lunch in the front yard overlooking the vineyard for me packaged the whole story with charm and romanticism.
Or it could only be because of the state of mind I was in at the time of watching this movie. All I know is I enjoyed it more than enough to led me to write about it now.
 7.15 am, rush hour traffic... I sat there drumming my fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of Pink Flyod's "Another Brick In The Wall". I had this helpless blank look staring a the impossible traffic ahead. It was a bumper to bumper jam and there was no way in the seventh heaven that I will make it to my office by 7.30 am as promised to a friend the day before. We planned to meet up at the office to go to this one day workshop seminar in Thamrin area by taxi to avoid entering the restricted 3 in 1 area. Calculating the impossible distance I still had to travel to Kemang area, fast dialing a number on my mobile phone I called the friend who was already waiting for me and told him that it was better for us to meet up at the workshop. Throwing the mobile phone to the passenger seat next to me I cursed myself at the thought of now having to think of a new strategy to enter the 3 in 1 area by myself. We don't need no educationWe dont need no thought controlNo dark sarcasm in the classroom
The lyrics shared my comtemplation in the effort to draw a new route to take because of the sudden change in destination. The line up of cars started to move inch by inch and I stepped on the gas pedal in the attempt to keep up with the polonaise of slow dancing cars. The agenda ahead which was spending a whole day in a workshop was not really a welcoming idea either and that added a dose of edgyness already built up inside me from the seemingly never ending traffic jam. My dreariness seemed to be further provoked by the lyrics about thought control and getting a quicky ' education' from the one day workshop. I then wondered why 99% of the workshop I ever attended always lead by foreigners. As this useless wondering continued I scanned the outside through my side window. It was one of those nice shaded street in an up market neighborhood which direct to a main road ahead which for some unknown reason that day was causing a bottleneck deep into the surrounding rivers of small streets. On my right there was a nice house being renovated and I saw who seemed to be the lady of the house giving instructions to a team of workers. I continued to watch this silent movie from the closed car window and saw these workers nodded their head in uniform to the lady's instructions. I then wondered if I will see the same kind of nodding heads to the foreigner's presentation in the workshop later. I then tempted to do a bet with myself on the probability of that happened against a production of sarcasms in the classroom. Apart from the clutter of workers another worker stood by himself at the edge of a manmade ditch outside the gate of the house. He was a middle age man with dark burned skin probably caused by countless outdoor digging jobs as I noted that he had a shovel next to him. He leaned by the wall of the gate and was reaching to an opening in the wall to take a pack of clove cigarette. I looked at my own pack of Marlboro but then dismissed the thought of smoking due to the hesitation of opening my window and feeling the heat outside. I did felt envious of this man and his 'smoking break' moment. I continued to look as he took out a cigaratte from a still full pack and watched him light the cigarette. He inhaled and let out an exhilaration of joyful smoke. I could almost felt the rush of nicotine just by watching him and expected to see a further display of comfort. On the contrary and to my suprise, he then reached out for the shovel and jumped back into the ditch. As my car began to move another few inches I could see an alternating views of the swing of his shovel and a burning cigarette on his lips. The thought of this kind of working culture, mixing work and break time as one could probably be the answer to my previous reflection on the need for foreign schooling on just about everything in this country.... thought control ! I entered the main road and immediately took a turn to another street to made a break from the slow dancing cars. As if knowing the beat of the road is no longer playing slow tune, my car begged me to do a fast dance. I did a calculation of time and distance and as it spit out the result I let my foot stepped on the gas pedal to do the mission. Knowing the immediate needs of getting to my destination was no longer a crisis I mentally shifted into a step by step mode and ducked out from thinking of a much bigger mission which was being stuck in the workshop for a whole day. My mind took another mental attempt trying to eased my edgyness through melody. My fingers started to scan the playlists for this quick fix and stopped with "Takut" * by local indie band called Stereomantic. The two member band's electrosound and the vocalist's romantic voice filled the interior of my car and smiling for the first time that morning I pushed the volume button up. As my car fast forwarded entering the busy business district, this easy to listen song with some Carpenter's influence blended with a pop sound gave me a mood switch and pulled me to a journey backward to another cigarette episode . . . . plus an ashtray and two glasses of soda. 4.30 pm rainy afternoon sometime in May... (to be continued) * "takut", a word for "fear" in Bahasa Indonesia
mendayu-dayu vs meledak-ledak...
romantisme vs kemarahan...
Yogjakarta sound vs Seattle sound...
Gudeg vs Cocaine...
Kidung Mesra vs World Wide Suicide...
KLA vs Pearl Jam...
Kira-kira romantisme seperti apa sih yang ada sekarang ini? "hujan gerimis bergandeng tangan" atau "Hey I know what to do, I'm gonna fuck fuck fuck fuck you" ?
Katon Bagaskara vs Kurt Cobain? sosok mana yang lebih romantis ?
 | Category: | Movies | | Genre: | Foreign |
Chinese noodle place in a narrow alley walkway. Rainy days. It's Hong Kong in the 60's filled with retro feeling represented by big Siemens wall clock, Japanese rice cooker, vaselined slick hair and a body hugging sensual Cheongsam/Qipao dress. To borrow a phrase from one of the film reviews this movie is a "Literary Vision" which to my interpretation is like a composition of beautiful sentences and old photographs combined together forming that distinctive Won Kar-Wai's hip and artistic style of movie making. His composition of the retro icons mixed with Nat King Cole's Spanish songs and even "Bengawan Solo" song as the backdrop has succesfully transfered us back to the dream and nostalgic time.
The story is about a married man Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) and a married woman Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) who moved to an apartments next to each other on the same day. This mellow -drama between the two developed when they both discovered that their respective spouses (which were hinted mostly off-screen as these characters were never really shown in the film) were involved in a torrid affair with each other. Leung and Cheung then fell in love to each other and formed a relationship of restrained love bounded by ethics and moral principles. Their uncertain affair has an air of sadness and consolation over the betrayal they felt from their spouses mixed with a lot of ambiguities about the extend of their plutonic relationship whether it was about the sharing of feelings, love, and sexual desires. Did they eventually slept together?. These are the abstractions of the plot which Wong Kar-Wai has build with a romantic athmosphere and characterization illustrated through a mind -massage narrative, settings, wardrobe and color.
It is a movie of "dream time" and melodrama of mood. The acting of Tony Leung and the sensual Maggie Cheung in her Cheongsam provide a portrayal of restraint love from the fight between emotional desires and moral principles and society's norms. These mood of loves between them were shown like a painted canvas of wet alley street, steak dinner, a seedy hotel room, duck noodles vendor in Singapore, and an anti-climax ending in Angkor Wat ruin in Cambodia.
Filmography:
In The Mood of Love (Hua Yang Nian Hua). Written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai. Starring Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. Block 2 Pictures, Inc (2000). Cannes 2000 Award.
 Pardon my French but le printemps est ici, the springtime is here marked by the arrival of the Christian religious holiday Easter. Yes, it's that time for chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks and colored eggs!.
Actually I didn't really remember about the holiday at the time till I was listening to my iTunes playlist of the title soundtrack from Down with Love starring Rene Zellweger and Ewan McGregor and sang by Judy Garland.
Yes, it is a romantic comedy and probably a "chick flick" as some might call it. Nevertheless, it was a fun movie to watch and there were some great musical numbers on that movie like Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra and also one performed by Astrud Gilberto. Anyway, this Down with Love song reminded me of another romantic musical I saw a long time ago by Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. These two big screen giants of the old days worked together in a movie called Easter Parade. With Garland and Astaire it was of course a movie with a lot of singing and dancing. If someone ask me what kind of skill I wish for I would say I wish I could dance like Fred. Hell, I wish I could walk like Fred. Being a romantic musical it was all about she is falling in love with him while his best friend is falling in love with her. In the mean time this other girl is falling in love with him.
I only remember vaguely about the movie so I did a little Googleing and found that link about the movie. I can now remember about some of the great lines from that movie as it was highlighted in the site. The one I like best is what Judy Garland said to Fred Astaire "You could have had the very best..." and he replied "I don't want the very best, I want you.". Yes, it's a bit corny but it was a great scene. Another thing that stuck with me from that movie is one of the song called "Stepping Out With My Baby"....love that song. I have one sang by Tony Bennett and every time I hear him sing that song I always feel so resurrected. So in the spirit of the Lord resurrection let's hear some of that beat by the greatest song-and-dance man, Fred Astaire.....
Stepping out with my baby..
Can't go wrong cause I'm in right..
It's for sure and not for maybe..
And I'm all dressed up tonight..
Stepping out with my baby..
Can't be bad to feel so good..
Never felt quite so sunny
That I keep on knocking wood..
There be smooth sailing..
Cause I'm trimming myself..
With my top hat and my white tie..
And my tails..
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