John Hughes Dead: Director Dies Suddenly At 59

AOG, Madrid

The Breakfast Club. This movie will define a part of me for ever. If nothing else, it will be forever tied to my youth, to high school, friends and growing up. To finding your place in the world and figuring out who you are, and, most importantly, who you are not.

John Hughes managed to capture a certain essence about youth back then, perhaps unknowingly, and it is something which always hits me whenever I revisit that film.

It is a loss that he is gone, but it was a loss which began years ago when he fell out of favor with the public.

Our loss.



Don't you forget about him.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

No heroes weekend

AOG, Madrid

This week in Madrid a couple of movies are making the rounds: The Happening and The Mist. Both are apocalyptic and, in their own way, a reflection of the fears society makes for itself these post 9-11 days.

I saw the first one of them on Friday night because there were no tickets left for Sex and the City, the movie. So I compromised and went for what appeared like a thriller.

And I saw the second one on Saturday night because the movie projector broke down and no one got to see Sex and the City, the movie. It was 23:30 at night and I was in a movie mood, so I went to another film theater nearby and, at 00:40, went to see The Mist.

I won't give any plot away, but I do think that both movies share a common theme: neither has a hero- or at least not in the Hollywood sense. Events overtake the characters and the protagonists and there is little they can do to change them. Much like it would happen in real life.

In The Happening, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the events which change the character's lives are too abstract to fully understand, even at the end of the film.

You are left wondering what happened, just as you are left wondering who cast Mark Wahlberg as the lead.

Much has been said about his heterosexuality, but in this film, unexplainable apocalypse aside, I kept thinking he was having an affair with John Leguizamo. Or with some other guy. And if that had been the case, it would have been ok. But it is not the case.

Instead, we are meant to believe he is a happy heterosexual who just happens to dress like a 22 year old disco bunny eventhough he is well in his 30s. The character is very well written, but Wahlberg just naively plods along, there is no intellectual depth. It was like drama 101. He wants you to like him, and you do like him, you just can't take him seriously as an actor. I wonder if he acted like that on purpose. Everyone in the audience, certainly the people next to me on isle 5, were laughing at his performance.

The other film, The Mist, is proper Old School apocalypse. Though with a twist. The acting is better than The Happening's, even if the events rock back and forth from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again. There are times when you stop suspending your disbelief, and others when you buy all that is on offer. The ending, however, has to be seen to be believed. The movie itself is a bit like Lord of the Flies. Society is what it is until things go slightly awry, then we all turn into barbarians. This movie certainly shows you how quickly we turn, and it does so semi-believably. Until the ending, which, is quite human, but also quite odd. I won't go into the acting but Thomas Jane does the best he can given the script.

The film is based on a short novella written by Stephen King back in 1980. This version, 27 years later, is perhaps quite in tune with concurrent global disaster thinking: that there is little we can do.

That no one is coming to save us because such things don't really happen. True or untrue, both films take a no-clear-hero approach. Things happen, and people survive, or not, through sheer chance. Both films reflect current fears in Western society.

I wonder if this is a new trend in movies? The human-all-too-human approach.

90210...again?

AOG, Madrid

I just read that Tori Spelling is going to take part in a new version of Beverly Hills 90210. She is now 34 years old.

Is this really necessary? She was not attractive back in the day, and now, well, just look at her. She looks increasingly like one of the Mon Calamari, albeit one with blond hair. From a bottle mind you.

So, I can understand that back in the early 1990s, her father, über producer Aaron Spelling, must have forced some poor producer to have Tori join the cast, or else.

But now? Again? I mean, if she were a good actress, she could be forgiven for the apparent nepotism, but, she is no Streep. She is not even a Monroe.

So, without looks, and with passable talent, should Miss Spelling be on television? Honestly, are there not more deserving and more talented actresses out there?

Very disappointing these news. Disappointing indeed.

Heath Ledger is found dead

AOG, Madrid

Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon in an apartment in Manhattan inhabited by the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, according to the New York City police.

A native of Perth, Australia, he won acclaim for his role as a co-star in Ang Lee’s 2005 film “Brokeback Mountain”. The film, based on a short story by Annie Proulx about two cowboys who fall in love, won critical acclaim.

The New York Times said of him in that movie: “Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.”

Signs point to a suicide, police sources said. Mr. Ledger was 28.

I for one, am shocked.

No Golden Globes this year

AOG, Madrid

The Golden Globes have been canceled. Well, the ceremony at least. No parties, no make up, no show, no glitzy run-up to the Oscars.

The reason? The on-going writer's strike.

I have to admit that it is a pain, but, after all, I do support the right to strike by any group of workers. Used as I am to European strikes, however, where public workers ask for money to make a decent living, I find it hard to side with some writers who earn the kind of salaries a street sweeper in Europe will never see in his lifetime.

However, the right remains and it is not dependent on a certain amount of money, but rather on a job and its proper payment.

Will the same happen at the Oscar's?

I have chosen to post this image of Julia Roberts, who is nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for Charlie Wilson's War.

I find it beautiful as well as haunting.