A Picture Share!

gene kelly always makes me feel like i'm the happiest girl in the world...

uh, oh...

think i have crush on ralph fiennes... keep having dreams about him... thought i was too old for celebrity crush... oh, well...

constant gardender...

the tag line of “constant gardener”, according to my trusted IMDB.com (internet movie data base) says "love. at any cost"... when i saw that before seeing the movie, i thought "that's kind of cheesy, isn't it...?" also the preview of the movie led me to think it was more or less of a love story between ralph fiennes and rachel weisz...
so i went to see the movie with somewhat high expectation since it was with great actors, great director (fernando meirelles of city of god) and great novel (written by john le carrè) it was based on... and expected a great romantic love story...
i loved it... and it WAS a great love story… but not only about romantic love between two people... it was about love between people… caring about others… and managed to keep it all going under any circumstance and threat…
i have to admit that i do not know so much about africa… all i know is mostly through a few news articles or tv clips or even movies… and most of them are very gloomy… like children suffering from AIDS left to die and sometimes even blamed to be responsible of infecting others… or housewives (or any female in that matter) being constant subjects of domestic violence… young children forced to go to fight in civil war and losing their limbs…
most of time, i’d read it and get enraged for a few minutes then went on with my daily life… because it’s happening from far away… i wasn’t really involved… like those who pulled out from rwanda… leaving so many of them dead… because there wasn’t enough for the other countries to benefit from by helping them out…
so…
this movie was about those who cared about people in africa (kenya to be exact) and tried to do their best to help who’s in need… their love, compassion for people they were not directly involved yet they went out of their way… and even risked their lives… yes, it’s fictional but you can only imagine what’s happening in the movie is based on reality… even at the very end of the credit, they dedicated to the movie to the people died for giving a damn…
also the way the movie shows africa is heartbreaking… it shows people who are in desperate situation yet strong to survive… and positive… really hope one day we all realize that we cannot go on ignoring them… especially the children…
…
in terms of movie making… it’s just beautiful… ralph fiennes is absolutely one of the best actors of our time… then rachel weisz is a dynamite here… you can see how their characters changes throughout the movie… ralph fiennes plays justin, a diplomat who is very tender, loving, honest and loves gardening… and he meets tessa (rachel weisz) who is strong willed and humanitarian… then they fall in love… their love scene was one of the most beautiful love scene I’ve seen in years… (wait, i just saw another great one in “grand hotel”…) and the way fernando meirelles filmed it with so much light was just gorgeous… then they move to africa together and tessa gets heavily involved with social workers there… yet she decided not to involve justin that makes justin feel uncomfortable and losing his trust in her… yet he still loves her by all the ways he knows… like how he cares about his plants… with all the tenderness and care… then tessa gets murdered mysteriously while she was on a trip with one of her closest friend who happens to be male… with so many secrets left, justin wants to find out what tessa was doing… which leads him to get to know her better and truly touched by her… and understand her and what her world was made of…
…
it sounds cheesy but i think this movie showed true love… love. at any cost…

grand hotel...

i always knew that there are sooooooo goddamn movies i needed to watch... especially with my recent discovery of old hollywood, i just don't think i'll ever be able to watch everything i want to watch before i leave this planet...
one of the movies that i've been meaning to watch was "grand hotel" featuring so many amazing actors from pre-code era... like greta garbo, john barrymore, lionel barrymore, wallace beery and joan crawford... directed by edmund goulding... i had rented it a few times earlier but never got to watch it... then last sunday i finally got to it and it was just amazing... first of all this is such a great mixture of drama, comedy, charaters, human story and style... told by all these amazing actors... i had only watched greta garbo in "ninotchka" and was blown away by her ingenuity and intensity... and in this movie she's so charismatic as an insecure prima donna ballerina who's going through a slump then finds love that transforms her into a real woman... when i was watching the scene garbo and john barrymore talk through a night, i felt the pure joy in her... then john barrymore as the baron who's cornered by his debt, is just sensational... this is his very first movie role after being one of the most successful stage actor but he made the perfect transition... he plays it so subtle in showing his emotions yet makes you fully aware of what must be going on in his mind... then joan crawford... jesus... the first movie of hers i saw was only from a couple of weeks ago titles "sudden fear" with jack palance and gloria grahame which as pretty damn good too... but in this movie she shines as a young yet street wise woman falls in love with the baron who's already in love with the ballerina... no wonder they had to shoot extra footages of garbo to secure that joan crawford wasn't going to steal the movie...
the the rest of the characters are just marvelous as well.... wallace beery as a stubborn, one track minded industrialist who wanted to remain "honest" but couldn't hold on to it to save his face and money... and lionel barrymore as a guy who's trying to hold on to the very last minute of his life, trying to figure out what it all means... and cherishes friendship and hard work...
it's truly amazing that these characters were all so multi dimensional... and how the movie depited the life of then... how all the classes are represented and how they clashed... how new value(money, success) brought by the industrial revolution and old value(honesty, moral) changed things... like that promotor saying "no more this ballet that doens't draw people. i'm going to book something like that american jazz! (not exact trascription)."
maybe that "new" value is still the one that blinds people from seeing the real value in human life...