Look at your TV. There's a pretty big chance your TV is showing some flashy trailer for some hot shot film with some badass actor and some beastly CGI. While I will admit that big, flashy, blow em up movies do tickle my fancy on occasion, I have slowly started to realize that I enjoy the artsy films more and more. It started with a little independent movie theatre back home, and a little French film called, "Priceless." After watching that film, I felt cool. I felt fancy. I felt, well, French. Not to mention I had followed the movie with a trip to one of my favorite restaurants, Banana Cafe, which is a delightful little French restaurant on Duval Street that I recommend to all who visit our small island.
The second phase that led me to artsy films was my soundtrack phase. Ask anyone who know's me, and they'll tell you that about 80% of the time, my iPod is blasting, not P Diddy or Ke$ha or Jonas Brothers, but John Williams, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, or Alexandre Desplat. It was the final composer that sent me to my next artsy-ish film. I discovered the soundtrack to a less-than-well-known film called "The Painted Veil." The piano solos, performed by Lang Lang, were classically beautiful. I looked up the film, which stars Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, and fell in love. I've watched it countless times and fall more and more in love with it each time. It is a film, it is a romance, but the cinematography and the music take it from being your classic independent film and make it into something more.
Phase three commenced with my Film class last semester. At the end of each class my professor showed a movie, and we could either stay and watch, or we could leave and watch the clips and get notes the following week. I had no homework on this particular day, so I stayed for a little movie called "American Beauty." The movie is notorious for the love story between a man and his daughter's best friend. But that is not what I loved about that movie. No, my true emotions stemmed from the enchanting, haunting beauty of Thomas Newman. Newman is a popular composer, though not as well known as Williams or Zimmer, but his scores are beautiful nonetheless. Simple piano melodies with the merest strings accompanying it. I have listened to "The Plastic Bag Theme" more times than I dare to count in the last 24 hours, and will continue to do so. It was around this song that I based my new Pandora playlist. I selected Thomas Newman as my new Pandora theme, and along came another enchanting melody, this time by a Mr. Phillip Glass for a movie called "The Hours."
Thanks to YouTube, I was able to find the entire movie, and began watching it immediately. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it. Nicole Kidman won a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Virginia Woolf, and both Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore received Oscar nods for Best Supporting Actress. Three women, three eras, one day. We watch Virginia Woolf begin her story, "Mrs. Dalloway", Laura Brown begin "Mrs. Dalloway", and Clarissa, Mrs. Dalloway herself, begin to prep for her party. It is a truly beautiful film, with stunning cinematography, haunting music, and stories that will pull on your heartstrings. It is not a feel good film, in fact at times it is downright depressing. But the acting is superb, and the story phenomenal. I highly recommend it to all.
Now to see if Iris will read this, and post something on her bit of film expertise, which is the classic, black and white, Humphery Bogart, Audrey Hepburn era films. :)
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