Author Archives: movies

A romance novel brought to vibrant life, The Princess of
Montpensier is a sweeping drama set against the backdrop of war-torn, sixteenth-century
France. Catherine de Medici reigns, and it’s a time of warfare between the
Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). Our heroine, Marie de Mezieres, is a
beautiful young aristocrat promised to the Prince of Montpensier, a young man
who she doesn’t love. The marriage is part of a bargain between her father and
his neighbor. Sent off to war, the Prince asks his trusted adviser, an older
nobleman named the Comte de Chabannes, to be Marie’s adviser, and Chabannes falls
in love with her.  But she is
passionately in love with the rakish, brutal Duke de Guise. The pot really gets
boiling when the future king of France, the Duke d’Anjou, falls for her, too.
Marie is lovely and intelligent, but also very young, willful and a bit vain.
Her head is turned by the power of her youth and beauty over this gaggle of
powerful men, but she is very much in a man’s world, and do any of these men
really love her or do they just see her as a prize to be won? Oblivious to the
pitfalls, she sails like a beautiful swan to her destiny.

 The castles, the
scenery, and the costumes are all simply fabulous, and the acting topnotch. I’m not
usually a fan of battle scenes, but the recreations of sixteenth-century
warfare in this movie are fascinating. Even the sword fights were something
special. Distinguished French director Bernard Tavernier (interview) brings a wonderful freshness of vision to this long ago world. The characters are young people living
life at a fever pitch, and their energy gallops and surges through the movie,
propelling it to a dramatic finale.

French subtitles

Woody Allen’s latest comedy is the
most charming film to come out in 2011, from the opening montage that shows
Paris at its romantic best, to the infectious enthusiasm its protagonist has
for the “City of Love.” Owen Wilson plays the typical Woody Allen character
(neurotic, literate, and articulate), but he plays to the strengths of his
charming personality so that he never comes across as unlikable, but wholly
endearing instead. Wilson’s character, Gil Pender, is a man in love with the
city of Paris more than his own fiancé, but that won’t bother you when you
notice how much she belittles him every at chance she gets.

Gil, like a lot of people, pines for
a better time in an era he is too young to have experienced. Specifically, he
is infatuated with Paris in the 1920s when some of the most influential
American authors inhabited the same square mile under the Parisian lights. Gil
is an author himself, but he has settled for the life of a rich screenplay
re-writer, giving scripts that mediocre touch that makes them sell so many
tickets. He is currently writing a novel that touches on the same themes of
nostalgia that the film does, and his bride-to-be is supportive of it only to
an extent. His fiancé Inez, loves the man who writes those scripts, but
couldn’t care less about the one who actually has ambitions and passion,
because let’s face it: where’s the money to be made from that?

While in Paris on a vacation to meet
with Inez’s (protective and pretentious) parents, Gil decides to take a walk
late at night to soak in the city’s landscape. When the bell tolls midnight, a
carriage arrives and Gil is whisked away to a party where the people are
lavishly dressed and the setting is primitive by today’s standards… To say more
would spoil the wonderful experience that is seeing Midnight
in Paris for the first time.

Woody Allen’s script is loaded with
enough charm and wit that there is no room for some of his more alienating
qualities. It’s a romantic comedy at heart, but it is fueled by both Gil and
Allen’s love for the city at hand. You’ll fall in love with what happens in
Paris at midnight right alongside Gil, just like you’ll fall in love with this
film.

-         
- Nick

Terrorism is a bleak and tragic chapter in our world history books, but it is included for a reason. It is within that mindset that one should view Carlos.  Carlos is a 5½ hour film (broken into three episodic chapters) that is as detailed as it is intense. It moves along at a breakneck pace as we follow Carlos across countries and continents, switching currencies and languages with ease. This kind of film transcends the “foreign-language” category because although it is technically a “French” film, it doesn’t have a national identity, due to its wide-ranging cast of characters and settings. It is an incredibly thorough portrait of one of the most notorious terrorists of all time: Carlos the Jackal. The script shines the more detailed and idiosyncratic it gets. For example, the nickname “The Jackal” is never uttered throughout the entire film because the script is filtered through Carlos’ eyes, and those who knew him best. He might have chosen the name Carlos (for he was born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez), but the public was the one to brand him “The Jackal.”

The film is broken into three distinct sections of Carlos’ career. The first section depicts his rise to fame when he started out acting on his own in order to gain the attention of the (then) leader of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine),  Wadie Haddad. The second episode depicts Carlos leading a team to kidnap eleven OPEC oil ministers (and anyone else who got in the way) to hold for ransom, his most heinous crime. The final act shows the demise of Carlos’ criminal career as he becomes increasingly detached from reality. The film’s structure is your typical “rise and fall” story, but with stylish direction and a real-life anti-hero at its center Carlos is a nerve-shattering portrait of one of history’s most hated criminals.

The running time may be staggering, but don’t let that keep you from checking out this harrowing biopic.   Five and one-half hours may seem like a long time, but it’s nothing when it covers the span of two decades. Édgar Ramírez plays the titular terrorist and his performance is something to behold. He not only embodies Carlos physically (by gaining quite a few pounds to portray Carlos’ later days), but he plays the role with such conviction and egoism that he actually seems to genuinely buy into his various speeches, which is crucial in portraying the more delusional side of Carlos. Carlos the man was a violent terrorist with ill-conceived rationale, but Carlos the film is a grand cinematic achievement. This tension-filled history lesson is more riveting than any class you’ll ever take.

- Nick

Note: This film is unrated because it was released on foreign television, but I can assure you the MPAA would have given it an R rating for language, violence, and adult situations.