BARCELONA APARTMENT LIFE TOUR 2013 #4: THE ART

Well, it’s Barcelona. Of course there are statues. 

 



FUN FACT: The one with the reclining nude lady? At first glance I thought she was holding an ice cream cone.

I know.

Up next: The POTUS!

No one’s here for art,

This is dF

THE 80s: PART OF A BALANCED BREAKFAST

Indeed.

[Via Crypt Of Wrestling]

O captain my captain,

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HOTELS, LIMOUSINES, AN ATLAS AND TOPLESS LADIES IN SHOES

I’m behind on my cinemas. Let’s catch up now, shall we?

Holy Motors

Surreal fantasy from French director Leos Carax about a man named Oscar who rides around Paris in a stretch limo to various “appointments in which he uses elaborate make-up and disguises to play different roles in different parallel lives, from a stockbroker, a gangster and an omnivorous madman to a street beggar, a dying father and a motion-capture model.

As film ideas go, it’s pretty out there, and people who want films with a sensible narrative where everything is explained in the end probably won’t get much out of it. For me, though, I found myself fascinated by it, having no idea where it was going to go as events unfolded. I’m still not sure just what the purpose of Oscar’s job was, but I have a few ideas, and there’s nothing wrong with a film letting you draw yr own conclusions.

Anyway, it’s an inventive, creative and gutsy film, and some of the scenes will be sticking in my head for a long time.

Cloud Atlas

By now you know the pitch – six storylines interconnected across six eras from the mid-19th century to the 22nd century, to include a man who helps a runaway slave, a renegade musician, an reporter investigating a cover-up at a nuclear power plant, a shady book publisher tricked into imprisoning himself to a nursing home, a Korean clone rescued from servitude to lead a revolution, and a post-apocalyptic tribe leader helping a strange woman send an interstellar SOS. It’s an ambitious undertaking, to the point that critics tend to either love it or hate it, and I fully expected to clock in on the “hate” side.

But I have to say, it’s quite well done, though it does force you to pay close attention, and may require at least two viewings for the overall story to gel. Indeed, the weakest part of the movie is living up to the New Age-y pitch that all of these stories are related, actions can have consequences hundreds of years in the future, we are all connected through time, etc. The connections range from flimsy to subtle, so it falls a little short on that score. On the other hand, credit to The Wachowskis and Tom Twyker for at least managing to make each storyline easy to follow.

One other flaw is the futurespeak dialogue in the Neo Seoul and post-apocalyptic stories, which might work in the novel on which this is based, but onscreen it makes it really hard to understand what the characters are saying at times. Still, overall it looks great, and at times it’s pretty riveting. It's also interesting to see the main actors play different parts in each story (albeit with sometimes dodgy make-up jobs).

Hotel Transylvania

Animated hijinks about a hotel created exclusively for monsters by Dracula as a getaway resort – and to shelter his daughter from murderous humans. On the eve of her 118th birthday party, a cute human backpacker stumbles upon the hotel. Comedy ensues.

Or not. I had mixed feeling about this one going in. Pro: directed by Genndy Tartakovsky. Con: Adam Sandler plays Dracula. I can’t say Sandler was all that bad voicing Drac, but overall the story rehashes tired old chestnut of Overprotective Square Idiot Dad vs Fun Loving Teenage Daughter by way of lots of fairly obvious monster jokes. There’s some good lines in it, but overall it’s more for the kids than the grown-ups.

3D FEU

French burlesque in 3D! Essentially it’s a film version of FEU, a stage show by guest creator Christian Louboutin for famous Parisian cabaret Crazy Horse, with some faux-documentary commentary from the dancers and Louboutin. Apparently he’s a shoe designer by day. So shoes feature prominently in the set pieces.

Anyway, the routines are well done, though I suspect it’s probably a better experience live than on film. I also suspect the main point of the film is to convince people to visit Crazy Horse next time they go to Paris, though it’s not a blatant tourism pitch by any means. If modern, artistically themed burlesque interests you, it might be worth checking out. But having seen it, unless you really want to experience it on a big screen in 3D, I can tell you this NSFW promo reel here pretty much condenses the experience down to a tidy seven minutes. 

Dance it out,

This is dF