A walk in the clouds, 1995

A walk in the clouds, 1995
Director: Alfonso Arau
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Altana Sanchez Gijon, Anthony Quinn



Stage: home theatre, Sunday TV selection

A walk in the clouds in short: After returning from the war, Paul and a young woman meet on a bus as she's headed home from college to help with the grape harvest and face her Old World domineering dad. The woman has not married but is pregnant and she thinks her father is going to kill her. Paul proposes to pose as her husband to help her face her father. When their passion for each other is finally ignited and explodes, they realize they must overcome all odds to be together.



Preps: Normalwise (and I don't get it why), Slovene TV selection on a Sunday night poses something extraordinary or at least decent. On the other hand, Saturday and Friday nights are usually reserved for crappy movies. At least haven't seen one good in a while. So my expectations to finish up a lovely weekend with a movie, are now more than decent. And Keanu is one of my favourite actors anyway.. Apart from this fact, I have heard this piece is a strong one.



Reality: Well, the plot is quite good. And strong. However, the cast seems awful at the beginning. I seriously doubt that there are such gentlemen in the world, that would go and support a woman in that way. I think.. naaaah, not a chance. To lie to a family just for the sake of her facing the parents? Well, the relationship with her parents is built on a solid ground and has the factor of probability very well embedded inside. And I go with it, in a sense I buy it. But the relationship between Keanu and Aitana? Very shallow, yet inspiring. How much crap can a man take from the father of a girl he likes (or at the beginning he just feels sorry for)?

I am impressed with powerful scenes within family conversations. Have seen quite a few in reality and some entities are quite realistic. Therefore, a big plus for showing family values in such a way. I wouldn't buy it in any fiction, however the story allows Keanu to repeat and repeat his gentlemenism over and over again. Showing maybe that he has no backbone - or maybe that he has stronger than any average person? I am not sure. The dilussions he's having when drifting away into WW2 dream are a bit too much to eat up in this piece, in my opinion, quite unimportant and could be easily left out.

The romance deriving is very chick-oriented and I am sure most of the romantic souls should get it and embrace it. A bit too much for a guy when seeing this. Maybe in the arms of a girl he likes and regarding the fact she might like him for being so supportive and watch it with her. My strong opinion is that this piece should be seen in the company of a girlfriend (at least two girls). Too much teasers inside for a girl company. Guys, stay away.

For both genders, however, the movie poses some excellent ideas what to do on your next trip, family holiday or something. The place, where most of the movie is taken, seems like paradise and all the people inside act as if they are in heaven. Are they? Don't know for sure, but popped into my mind as one of the next wanna-be-holliday resorts for me and my piece. So, the photography is brilliant, the scenery is more than amazing. Almost no music at all and the dialogue is weak.

A beautiful and picturesque showing of picking up the grapes and turning it into the wine. The girls, barefoot, walking on the grapes - almost a bit of an erotic scene. Seems very real :)


My personal rating: 6,0 (you will fall in love with the scenery and for sure will want to experience this in one of your next vacations. And a scent of decent guy, that knows how to be a gentleman, will also drag your attention).


A walk on IMDB

The Ugly Truth

The Ugly Truth, 2009
Director: Robert Luketic
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, Bree Turner


Stage: Home theatre, a nice pre-ny evening with one of my friends - she insisted on seeing this.

The Ugly Truth in short: A romantically challenged morning show producer is reluctantly embroiled in a series of outrageous tests by her chauvinistic correspondent to prove his theories on relationships and help her find love. His clever ploys, however, lead to an unexpected result.


Preps: I have seen this and enjoyed the irony in the piece one time a year or two ago. After that I have made several refferals to the piece in this blog. And last week one of my best female friends comes and wants to see this, because it's supposed to be great. Heh, I agree on seeing this lesson-full piece again.


Reality: The Ugly Truth tells us that men are on this world not to be understood, but to be teased and flirted with. Don't look for love, look for sex and lust, it's cheaper and easier to find - would be one of the lessons learned in the movie. Gerard Butler casts as the stud, knowing all there is to know about women. Similar role as Mel Gibson played in What women want, only it's the other way around. In the sense, that Gerard is the bad boy all women hate and need still to cope with.
Unfortunately, he falls in love with Katherine (Abby), the producer of the show he's playing in. The irony and black humour, where this piece started (and should end with) turns into some Hollywood cheesy last third of the piece.

Apart from the typical ending, the movie offers a few truly amazing places to laugh and to learn from simple (yet truthful) lessons. It's really hard to judge the ways women respond to this man and yet you try to follow the guidelines. The base would be that you need to pretend to be a sexual goddess and you will be able to get anything in the world. Sadly enough, men like sexual goddesses and unfortunately not women as they are for real. Every now and then the bubble bursts and woman shows herself as she really is and for that she's punished with a break up or sad evenings back at home. But, playing the game for a lifetime ensures you male escort. The question here would be - is it absolutely necessary to have someone, if you have him under these conditions? The truth reveals as she doesn't want to pretend.

Fortunately, the movie is Hollywood-ish, therefore the punishment comes also with a prize, as Butler steps in as the mushy man he once judged online. Nothing more than an average romance in this piece. However, you will love some of the lessons, I was cracking of laughter in some funny scenes.



My personal rating: 6,5 (you will laugh so hard at some scenes that your stomach will ache. Apart from that, a pretty average piece with a typical US ending)


The Ugly Truth on IMDB

Little city, 1997

Little city, 1997
Director: Roberto Benabib
Cast: Jon Bon Jovi, Penelope Ann Miller, Annabella Sciora, Josh Charles




Little city in short: Adam is a painter who works as cab driver and blames his difficulties with women on his former girlfriend Kate who left him for lesbian Anne. As a result he doesn't pay much attention to his current girlfriend Nina, who leaves him for his best friend Kevin. New girl in town, Rebecca, who works in the same bar as Kevin, turns their lives into even bigger chaos.


Stage: Home TV selection

Preps: I see the cast and I am impressed - I haven't seen many good movies with good cast (if there are plenty of normal or upgraded actors). This should be one of them / the not good ones, at least to my humble opinion. I have a hunch. However, our local national TV tends to pick movies for Wednesdays very thoroughly -this means you usually end up with a good one afterall. Still - Jon Bon Jovi (he should stick to the guitar which he does best!)


Reality: Somehow it reminds me of Burn without reading or some other movies that deal with relationships, how to handle them, how to handle loss or a somehow corrupted theme (maybe ungrateful for the directors) - gay theme. Here the relationships revolve around lesbian women and their way of finding recognition, personal luck or happinness or something worth living in life.

The movie makes me think about the values we all cherish, about typical family and what it's worth, maybe another perspective. I hate the town they are in, it's not the little town, it's New York - the town I have always wanted to see once for real. However, in the movie it has the connotation of being little, of having single people in and that something is wrong with you if you cannot eat up the pace the town lives with.

Something about being OK, if you are undecisive, or maybe if you don't know exactly what to do with your life, asking yourself about the steps you took, well, it gives me shivers, but with anxiety and I am totally open to this perspective. I love the way the main cast builds up the relationships and I absolutely adore short scenes the main actors have among each other. How important is raising a child together? Is it ok, if you have feelings for women, if you are a woman yourself? How about cheating someone with his best friend? Some important life questions here, I love to think about similar topics. And this is precisely why the movie is cute and worth seeing.

By the way, I was right about the cast - too glamorous to make it work. I love all of above mentioned - Bon Jovi should stick to the guitar and definitely - Penelope Ann Miller is adoring in those kind of romantic screens :)

About the destinations we go to in one of the scenes:

Adam: People who are tragically ambitious and smart go to New York and people who are just tragically smart come here.
Rebecca: Oh. Well what about people who are just tragically ambitious?
Adam: They go to LA.

My personal rate: 6,5 (being a cute movie and make me think about the relationships, how it's supposed to work out and being open to gay themes)

Little City on IMDB