This year’s film festival was exceptionally good and I enjoyed every minute of it. Managed to see seven movies and naturally, I would have loved to see all of them… Amazing to watch movies and then to hang out with the directors, producers and actors at our very own hotel and restaurant and still be working (thanks to a very fabulous CEO job…) Over lunch at the Living Room, I managed to find hotel connections in Asia and Morocco and a much-needed contact within the LAPD. And then I received a book by Karl Weber who wrote about the US public School System, which prompted me to see Waiting for Superman.
It’s a must for anybody living in the US, anybody caring about the US succeeding in the future or anybody who has any empathic bone in their body and want to affect change. As change happens within, we have the possibility to affect this world and create a better place for all to come by focusing on our children, and the movie depicted that in a such a fair way, without turning people away due to today’s bleak reality. A bit like Food Inc., which I would urge all people to watch as it breaks down what’s going on in our food industry in a similar way and gives us a way to chime in and do something actively about it. I am so proud to say that The Living Room actively chimes in. Eat with us and you’ll support a healthy and happy lifestyle for the animals that give their lives for us. It may sound trite as the problem is larger than just that, but it’s the small choices that matter…
Anyhow, Director and Screen Writer Davis Guggenheim who produced Waiting for Superman was great in the Q & A and told how he’d originally said no to the movie since he was done trying to change the public school system after his last documentary 10 years ago, but changed his mind after having enrolled his own kids in private school due to the sad truth about the public schools in his area. I admire people like that, who are able to show all parts of themselves. Not just the pretty side but also the sad realities and the compromises we all make with our ideals.
The Family Tree was a hysterically funny film about a severely dysfunctional family (that makes all of our families seem quite serene and zen-like) that is a must if it comes out on the big screen. Dermot Mulroney was priceless in his middle age obsession with the hairs in his ears but the real gem was Brittany Robertson who’s gothic eye makeup and constant smoking made you want to reach out and hug her. It seemed like she needed it, and yet she was by far the sanest of them all!
The closing movie was Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Natalie Portman was divine in every scene. I was told she practiced ballet for a year before taking on the role and she was utterly convincing as a super-anal and obsessed ballerina with all the issues of the trade. Her innate ability to sacrifice her own flesh and sanity due to her inner turmoil will hopefully grant her an Oscar nomination. It’s worth seeing just for that. I’ve loved ballet all of my life and always romanticized about it. Aronofsky certainly killed that romantic notion, but perhaps it was time. The title is honors the black swan that killed itself at the end of the infamous story due to a lost love…
And then there was Blue Valentine where Michelle Williams personified that which we have all felt, at parts of our lives. Where love simply disappears from the one you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with, and though you can’t explain it, it eats away at you, night and day. And no sexy night in the future suite can change that! It seems Williams and Gosling hit it off far better on a personal note than their sad counter parts in the movie. That made me smile.
And Kevin Spacey as Jack Aronoff in Casino Jack was, or rather is, brilliant. Always brilliant of course but here he took my breath away with his impersonation of the man that believed he was the greatest lobbyist on the hill because he works out every day. Probably still does actually, as he kept working out in prison from which he was released in June I believe, so with that, it is time to go for a jog with my dog Lexington in a chilly but sunny Sweden.
Speak soon again,
Jenny
