Word: barcelona
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Badminton was introduced as an Olympic sport at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Asians have dominated the sport's medal tally, which is perhaps fitting since the modern version of the game was popularized by British military officers stationed in colonial India. Indonesia and South Korea initially claimed the majority of medals, but by the 2000 Olympics, China had won four golds. At the Beijing Games, China has won three out of the five available gold medals, a sub-par performance for a team that expects nothing short of utter domination...
...comes Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and it's just fine. Not great; just fine - a breezy roundelay about pretty people finding lust with improper strangers. It is also the kind of movie that isn't made much anymore, which makes the movie seem rare, perhaps precious. So a pre-mortem revaluation of Allen has begun. In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote of "his recent creative resurrection," which would mean she values (and now I have to mention them) Scoop and Cassandra's Dream more highly than reason allows. I like the new movie, within reason; the question that nags...
...title characters are two American women and a one very romantic city. Vicky (English stage actress Rebecca Hall, who was the beguiling pawn of two magicians in The Prestige) wrote her master's in Catalan Identity. Before marrying businessman Doug (Chris Messina), she has come to Barcelona to spend July and August with a welcoming relative, Judy (Patricia Clarkson), and Judy's husband Mark (Kevin Dunn). Vicky has brought along her friend Cristina (current Woody muse Scarlett Johansson), who is restless emotionally and artistically. She has the impulse to be creative - she starred in and directed a 12 min. film...
...thing, he dreamed the character up; for another, Bardem doesn't have to work hard to radiate the sensitive machismo of a man who doesn't use women so much as he allows them to briefly fulfill their dreams in him. Visually, too, the movie is in love with Barcelona, its gnarled Gaudi buildings, and with the countryside of Ovieto, a hundred shades of glorious earth tones. (The cinematographer is Javier Aguirresarobe, who has shot films directed by Pedro Almodovar, Victor Erice and Alejandro Amenabar.) It is in Ovieto that Vicky meets Juan Antonio's ancient father, who writes beautiful...
...realizing we always have more to learn from others, and about ourselves. The movie has neither the sardonic heft of Max Ophuls' La Ronde nor the emotional precision of Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, two films that also dance the change-partners gavotte. But Vicky Cristina Barcelona is so engaging so much of the time that it feels like a modest rejuvenation: evidence that a summer in Spain can do wonders for a writer-director who may not have outlived his prime...