Au Revoir to Cannes 2014 | Blue Is the Warmest Color

Yesterday was the last day of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the day that I saw last year's Palme d'Or winner La Vie d'Adèle, Chapitres 1 et 2 or Blue Is the Warmest Color for the first time.

Do you remember the time when a beautiful, fresh French face made a short but effective appearance in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris? Back then, it was still questionable whether there was more behind that intriguing smile. Not anymore - last year, Léa Seydoux (the actress behind selfsame smile) was awarded the Palme d'Or along with her director Abdellatif Kechiche and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos. The two ladies are the only women to have won the award beside Jane Campion. Blue Is the Warmest Color is indeed a very feminine film that explores women in various ways. Firstly, there is the most apparent theme - homosexuality. The films main character, Adèle, finds out that being with men doesn't give her the same sort of satisfaction as being with a woman does. More so, there is one particular woman that Adèle falls head over heels in love with: the artistic and charming, blue-headed Emma. The two spend several years together as Adèle finishes high school and starts studying to be a teacher. Meanwhile, Emma is becoming an acclaimed artist and doesn't have as much time for her girlfriend anymore. After Adèle cheats on Emma with a male colleague, the two break up, leaving Adèle cold and lonely. 

Favorite Movie Titles Blogathon

The brilliant Brittani Burnham from Rambling Film sets out on her first quest in blogathon land with the Favorite Movie Titles Blogathon. If you would like to join, click on the link above to read the instructions. The theme is as easy as the title suggests. As I have chosen some foreign language titles, I will explain those in English. Off we go!

8 1/2

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Biutiful

Blind Spot Fixed: Rear Window

With the recent release of Grace of Monaco (2014), there has been more talk than usually of the immortal ghost of the fabulous Grace Kelly. I knew about Grace before I ventured into the art of film for my leisure time, since my favorite topic used to be fashion once. She's your go-to choice for random photo collages that are supposed to express 'glamour', 'timelessness' or simply 'the 50s'. Much like Marilyn Monroe, she's a confusing persona and most people would find it hard to determine what kind of celebrity she was. Apparently, she started a promising career in acting before venturing into princesshood by marrying the Prince of Monaco. When you type her name into the IMDB, it says 'Actress, Rear Window (1954)' in a smaller font below an attempt to capture her breathtaking beauty - it was shortly before she met the prince that my blindspot for this month, which is the film she is best known for, was filmed.

Despite James Stewart's charm, Grace Kelly is the dominating star in this light-hearted murder mystery: She plays Lisa, a New York socialite who is in an on-off, love-hate relationship with adventurous photographer Jeff (Stewart). Due to an accident, Jeff is bound to a wheelchair for a few weeks in the hottest time of summer, a time he fills by regarding the goings-on in the backyard of his apartment complex. Most of the evenings, Lisa goes to visit Jeff and tries to talk him into considering a more serious relationship with her. When Jeff thinks he has overseen dangerous happenings from his rear window, Lisa tries to help him figure out the mystery.

Musical Chairs (2011) | The Thin Line Between TV-Trash and Guilty Pleasure

With tv-shows gathering more viewers than many films and producing higher quality than ever, the bad reputation of the tv-film is nowhere near upgrading itself. For centuries, tv-films have been regarded as the black sheep in the world of film - and there is a reason for this. One half of the tv-films I watch are German, the other half are Disney Channel movies - and few of them are rememberable for cinematic quality. Tv-films have low budgets and lower pressure than the next blockbuster, they are filled with clichés, stereotypes and most of the time don't have to be seen from beginning to finish. They are escapism in snack form - a little bit of adventure to finish up your ordinary work day.

Musical Chairs fits in to much of the criteria I just summed up, yet it has something else to offer as well. Telling the story of a group of people in wheelchairs who decide to start ballroom dancing, it's a typical feel-good, joy-of-life story that is supposed to be inspirational and uplifting. There's a couple of love stories involved, many typical rom-com elements and characters bounding to stereotypes. But Musical Chairs manages to make its character just realistic enough, the dialogue just cheeky enough and the story just fresh enough to be different from the rest of its tv-film siblings. The performances range between okay and really good, especially leading lady Leah Pipes makes the struggle and the fear of her character seem relatable instead of whiny. Some of the side stories are very cute while others are a bit unnecessary, so the runtime could've been cut with 15 minutes or so. But it's not like the film ever gets boring. You know where it's going but still, you are invested in the journey of these characters and the execution of the plot. Furthermore, the visuals look less cheap than expected and some shots have a cinematic quality to them, while the sound design is delicious. It's okay that most of the soundtrack is composed of the same ballroom track then and that there is your usual dose of melodramatic slow-motion.

This isn't the renaissance of the tv-film or the rise of feel-good films but an enjoyable flick that won't hurt anyone and really does add some adventure to your ordinary day.

MUSICAL CHAIRS

2011 • USA • English

director Susan Seidelman

author Marty Madden

★ Leah Pipes, E.J. Bonilla, Laverne Cox

FINAL FRAME | STRAWBERRY

Beyoncé, eat your heart out!

Harold and Maude: The Best Wes Anderson Film that Wes Anderson Didn’t Make | Guest Post

by Brandon Engel

Wes Anderson is the darling of contemporary populist filmmaking. Most people love him, and everyone is familiar with him. The scripts for his films are well written. His music choices are distinctive and usually fit the tone of his films nicely. His characters are well-constructed and relatable. One of the things that makes his work so endearing to fans is that he manages to integrate elements of nostalgic sentimentality without his films feeling overwrought — a little too cutesy at times, maybe, but he usually manages to temper this.

Whatever your personal feelings are about the man and his work, Anderson is one of the most distinguished contemporary filmmakers. Obviously though, as with any sort of artmaking, nothing is born from nothing — which is another way of saying that everything is informed by something. Anderson owes much of his trademark aesthetic sensibility to the directors who influenced him, and perhaps none more so than Hal Ashby. Hearken back a few decades to Ashby’s cult comedy Harold and Maude (1971), and you can see that the film essentially sets the template for virtually every film that Anderson has ever made — if not thematically, than at least in terms of style.