A Mirror Floating in Water

I have a personal sentiment towards films made or set during the 20's, for it has to be my favorite era in history, culturally, muscially and artistically. Fitzgerald always touches me in a very personal way every time I read him, Loius Armstrong's trumpet always seems to tug at some joyful part of my soul, and Singin' in the Rain is on my list of ten greatest films ever made.
Recently, we've had two utterly moving pictures made about the 20s', both of them biographical, and both of them containing some of the best acting, directing and special effects to come out this decade.


The Curious Case of Benjeman Button - A truly poetic film about the passing of time, seen through the eyes of a man who ages backwards (we is born an old man and dies a baby). Director David Fincher perfectly and beautifully illustrates all the ages that Benjeman goes throughout his life, from the Progressive era, to the Jazz Age, to the seventies; this is a breathetaking (though sentimental) film on the grand scale of an entire life. Of course not all relationships can be illustrated as vividly in the course of three hours, but each friendship that Benjeman makes is like a subtle litte short story. Take his affair with the wife of a politician (played sublimely by Tilda Swinton), their late night chats in the kitchen are so reflective of real life, that most of this film seems to be a strange ironic story, based on fantasy and built into something pure and real. This has Brad Pitt's and Cate Blanchett's best performance to date, and has too many perfect snapshots of life to be listed entirely in a review. Their relationship throughout the film is beautiful, except for one mistaken scene, which seems to be a bit too fantastic and feel as if it came out of some cheap romance novel (I merely refer to the scene in which they make love on the beach while the sun sets). Stunning make-up and special effects, all integrated into one of the best films to come out in the past ten years. What do you know? Hollywood finally comes out with a picture with unbelievable special effects and performances *gasp* 9.9/10

The Aviator - Of Scorsese's big bidget collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio in the past ten years, this one in my opinion is his best (I loved The Departed by the way). This is a truly masterful biographical film about the great Howard Hughes (with DiCaprio in probably the greatest performance of his career), who was a filmmaker, an industrialist, a playboy, and most importantly an aviator. He was also a troubled man, who's compulsions and phobias got in the way of his genius, and eventually led to his demise. Goddamn it, besides Stanley Kubrick, nobody knows how to use music in a film better then Scorsese, especially pop music. Ever since the bursting explosion of the opening song in Mean Streets, to the wide pop soundtrack in Goodfellas, Scorsese has always mastered a sense of time in place through the soundtrack. Here he makes a big use of jazz from the Big Band era (which I must thank the film, for it's music is what turned me on to jazz). Cate Blanchett has a fun little performance as Katherin Hepern (Hughes's short-time girlfriend), which can be easily underappretiated, due to the fact that Blanchett pulls it off without looking like a muttering fool. As in Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver and a ton of his other films, Scorsese masters a sense of subjectivity within the audiences mind in relation to the character, in which we are seeing the paraniod illusions that Hughes is tormented by. Oh, and did I happen to mention that DiCaprio's performance is top-notch? and that Scorsese's directoral work is unsuprisingly true mastery. Maybe I should shut up. Go see this. 10/10


(sorry everybody for constantly writing raving 10/10 reviews, and calling almost all of them "masterpieces", I just don't go to the cinema that often to see recent pictures, and when I do, I sure as hell better make sure that it is directed by somebody I know. Just my personal bias )