Thursday, September 4, 2008

Second Best Woody Allen Movie of the Year

Dailies are looking good, and while Javier’s idea to add a massive Martian invasion scene complete with a thousand costumed extras and elaborate flying saucers is not a very good one, I will shoot it to make him happy and cut it in the editing room.

Vicky Christina Barcelona, as you may have heard, is the second best Woody Allen movie of the year, and that means its excellent. The roar of the armchair critics (read: my friends) is already beginning to creep from the lowlands of Bushwick to the magnificent crags of Clinton Hill, so I'll qualify that a bit: while the characters in VCB are as narcissistic, self involved, and selfish as we all are in real life, something's missing, something, say, the -icide suffix and that most divine of adjectives, visceral.

Cassandra's Dream, all three -icides and both forms included, powerfully throws one's stomach into a never ending sink -- are these people? Are these people I like? Are these people me? Am I a criminal? -- until the only answer left is, yes, yes, I am. I am alone and a maniac. Which is precisely what's missing in VCB.

Perhaps one day we'll see Javier Bardem add ETicide to the list in Barcelona. I only hope Allen is at the wheel.