2014: Only lovers left alive

Cause I can't think of a better way to great 2014 then watching the new film by the king of cool-Jim Jarmusch "Only Lovers Left Alive". A never-ending love story between the eerily elegant Tilda Swinton and the dashing rocker Tom Hiddleston. Against the no-mans land that is modern day Detroit we follow the afterhours wanderings of Adam and Eve, a couple that can't live without music, books and blood. Cause as Eve says, the only way to make eternity bearable and to deal with the way humanity, "the zombies", are raping and pillaging Earth, is to fill your time with love, compassion and DANCING.

"The most important thing is love,...I know that now. There's  no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon...I'm not quite twenty, but, thanks to you, I've learned something that many women these days never learn; Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed  and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes love. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be to make love stay?"

"Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free."

"Still Life with Woodpecker" Tom Robbins

"Barking at the moon?"
"What about it?"
"That's all our love was to you?"

'That's all love ever is. Love is not a harpsichord concert in a genteel drawing room. And it sure as hell ain't Social Security, Laetrile, the Irish Sweepstakes, or roller disco. Love is private and primitive and a bit on the funky and frightening side. I think of the Luna card in the Tarot deck: some strange, huge crustacean, its armor glistening and its pinchers wiggling, clatters out of a pool while wild dogs howl at a bulging moon. Underneath the hearts and flowers, love is loony like that. Attempts to housebreak it, to refine it, to dress the crabs up like doves and make them sing soprano always result in thin blood. You end up with a parody. There're lots of pretty sounds that describe 'like', but 'love' is more on the order of barking."

"Still Life with Woodpecker" Tom Robbins

Cause only God forgives

If you liked "Drive" half as much as I did then the trailer of "Only God Forgives", the new movie by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling, surprise surprise!, will definitely wet your appetite. An ultra stylized violent tale on the Taiwanese underworld. In the trailer Ryan cooly wonders through Lynchian corridors, burlesque hotel rooms, the streets of Bangkok and opulent restaurants and uttersbut two words "Wanna Fight?" whilst Kristin Scott Thomas plays his femme fatale, queen of the underworld mother! The film is expected to debut in the Cannes film festival and to be honest I just can't wait! 

On a similar note, I also recently watched "The Place Beyond the Pines", where Ryan Gosling rejoins forces with Derek Cianfrance ("Blue Valentine") in what starts as a whirlwind adrenaline-packed motorcycle race of a movie and mutates into a slow road trip. The film transgresses through multiple  genres, a Drivesque stylized action movie, with Ryan acting as the silent, good hearted, 'definition of cool' motorcycle stunt driver who is pushed to violence due to unforeseen circumstances, a cop drama, in which Bradley Cooper proves yet again that he is more than a funny guy or a pretty face, and an intergenerational story of revenge and regret. The Place Beyond the Pines is full of surprises and is aesthetically PERFECT. A definite must see.  

"Cause there are two kinds of people in this world" and we all secretly love movie cliches

Cause it's Friday and the sun is kind of shinning and there is fun to be had so thought I'd wish you a good weekend and share this silly video I came across. Cause life would be unbearable if there were only two kinds of people in this word!

“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”

Tom Robbins, "Still Life with Woodpecker"

I was lucky enough to be in Athens last weekend for the Athens International Film Festival where I saw Jacques Audiards' lastest film, "De rouille et d'os" (Rust and Bones) a heartbreakingly beautiful movie whose spectacular performances and flawless cinematography tranform this melodrama into one of the most movingly humaine love stories! A must see, cause passion is contagious!

Has your gaze ever wandered across the crowd?

Photo from the 2007 Athens International Film Festival


Weekend advice: