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Copy/Paste from my blog because I'm lazy!
Midnight in Paris
Directed by Woody Allen
Starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hiddleston, and Kathy Bates
Theater
This is one of the best films I've seen in a long time. There are minor spoilers in this blog post so you may want to read it after you've viewed the film. Also, this isn't a traditional review, it's basically how the film made me feel. I will say that about ten minutes into this film I began smiling and I didn't stop until long after the end credits had rolled. I wanted to watch this film again immediately after it was over. It is truly delightful.
Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. Too little and we can forget who we were as a people and where we come from. Too much, and, well, Woody Allen made a film about just that.
It's easy to imagine Woody Allen as a nostalgic individual. At 76 years old the auteur has been working in film for half a century. He has made a mark in Hollywood and the entertainment industry that will last forever. And, as a viewer, it's easy to imagine that he can look back fondly on a lot of those memories. It's certainly easy to look fondly back at my first memory of the man; Sleeper, a silly and sometimes heady film that I remember seeing years ago and loving every minute.
Now, with Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, he takes the very embodiment of the word nostalgia and turns it into a film masterpiece.
As a viewer I was thrown into this world, a painting of Paris brought to life in every frame, where the past is a rosy glow of artistic inspiration and where the people embrace their lives and enjoy every moment. It's a land where Hollywood writer Gil (Wilson) envisions himself leading a fuller existence away from the mundane work he does on film screenplays; a place where he can live his romantic life as a novelist and finally express what's been inside of him all along. And when he finds himself thrust into that very world, a world occupied by artistic greats like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein, he finds he is living out his dream.
Paris becomes the haven that frustrated artist Gil has always looked for. He is surrounded by genius colleagues and he finds his muse in Pablo Picasso's mistress, Adriana (Cotillard). It isn't long before he realizes that he had been fooling himself in the present, preparing for a wedding to a woman that he never truly loved. As he falls further and further into this world, he finds himself deeper in love with the vibrant city and the woman he never knew he longed for.
As Gil goes deeper into this world, and further into the past with Adriana, it is through her that Gil realizes his folly. That he has been living in the past at the very expense of the present. Though his adventures in a time past have taught him a great many lessons, the greatest is that his life in the present is a precious thing. It is a lesson that is relevant to all of us, that there truly is no time like right now.
Midnight in Paris
Directed by Woody Allen
Starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hiddleston, and Kathy Bates
Theater
This is one of the best films I've seen in a long time. There are minor spoilers in this blog post so you may want to read it after you've viewed the film. Also, this isn't a traditional review, it's basically how the film made me feel. I will say that about ten minutes into this film I began smiling and I didn't stop until long after the end credits had rolled. I wanted to watch this film again immediately after it was over. It is truly delightful.
Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. Too little and we can forget who we were as a people and where we come from. Too much, and, well, Woody Allen made a film about just that.
It's easy to imagine Woody Allen as a nostalgic individual. At 76 years old the auteur has been working in film for half a century. He has made a mark in Hollywood and the entertainment industry that will last forever. And, as a viewer, it's easy to imagine that he can look back fondly on a lot of those memories. It's certainly easy to look fondly back at my first memory of the man; Sleeper, a silly and sometimes heady film that I remember seeing years ago and loving every minute.
Now, with Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, he takes the very embodiment of the word nostalgia and turns it into a film masterpiece.
As a viewer I was thrown into this world, a painting of Paris brought to life in every frame, where the past is a rosy glow of artistic inspiration and where the people embrace their lives and enjoy every moment. It's a land where Hollywood writer Gil (Wilson) envisions himself leading a fuller existence away from the mundane work he does on film screenplays; a place where he can live his romantic life as a novelist and finally express what's been inside of him all along. And when he finds himself thrust into that very world, a world occupied by artistic greats like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein, he finds he is living out his dream.
Paris becomes the haven that frustrated artist Gil has always looked for. He is surrounded by genius colleagues and he finds his muse in Pablo Picasso's mistress, Adriana (Cotillard). It isn't long before he realizes that he had been fooling himself in the present, preparing for a wedding to a woman that he never truly loved. As he falls further and further into this world, he finds himself deeper in love with the vibrant city and the woman he never knew he longed for.
As Gil goes deeper into this world, and further into the past with Adriana, it is through her that Gil realizes his folly. That he has been living in the past at the very expense of the present. Though his adventures in a time past have taught him a great many lessons, the greatest is that his life in the present is a precious thing. It is a lesson that is relevant to all of us, that there truly is no time like right now.
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