Time for a review of some of the films I've watched lately. First up, Letter to Brezhnev. It's a 1985 film about two young working class women on a night out who meet two Russian sailors. One of them falls in love, and is determined to see her sailor again after he sails away. But it's the middle of the Cold War, so she faces lots of obstacles to going to Russia to find him. The movie ends with her getting on a plane to Russia. I quite enjoyed this. I liked the beginning with the two sassy young woman having fun and running wild in Liverpool. I quite liked how the ending was uncertain, and not a smoochy happily ever after. The middle was so horrifically cheesy though! With the two young lovers banging on about stars and destiny. Ugh. And the stars looked awful too! Bad special effects! But if you don't watch the middle section it's an alright film. A bit different.
Next, the 1933 black and white live action version of Alice of Wonderland. I have to say this was almost as bizarre a trip as reading the original book. Very very odd. There was a surprising amount of content in it. As well as using the whole Alice's Adventures in Wonderland "story", they also do Through the Looking Glass, and some other Lewis Carroll elements that had nothing to do with either book, like The Walrus and the Carpenter. I wonder if this is where Disney got the idea to include it in their version as well. There are quite a few famous people in this, like Cary Grant, W. C. Fields and Gary Cooper, though sadly none of their perfomances are really note worthy. I was reasonably impressed by the actress of Alice though. The special effects, such as Alice growing and shrinking are also pretty good for the time, and I think that on the whole the film captured the madness of Alice in Wonderland pretty well.
And finally, To Rome With Love. It's another one of those films by Woody Allen set in a European city. It also has Woody Allen himself in it. It has several sets of characters and several stories, some in English and some in Italian. There's a young American tourist who falls in love with an Italian, whose parents are meeting for the first time. The bride's father (Woody Allen) discovers that the groom's father is an excellent opera singer and is determined to make him a star, however the groom's father and his family are very reluctant. There's a young newly wed couple arriving in Rome for the first time. The wife goes to get a haircut, gets lost, and has an adventure. Meanwhile the husband gets sent a prostitute by mistake and has to spend the day pretending to his family that she's his wife. The prostitute is played by Penelope Cruz, whose Italian is excellent. Her performance impressed me. Then Roberto Benigni plays a nobody who one day wakes up to find he's famous for no reason at all. Everywhere he goes he has journalists following him and women throwing themselves at him. At the end of the film everyone forgets about him overnight and his life goes back to normal. There's no explanation at all given for any of this. It's a nonsensical little story, but I really liked it. Whimsical and silly. And I love Roberto Benigni! He's so funny. The last story concerns an American couple studying in Rome. A friend of the girlfriend's comes to stay and the boyfriend ends up having an affair with her. In the end the friend leaves him and goes back to America for a film role. She's played by Ellen Page and the boyfriend is played by Jesse Eisenberg. Alec Baldwin also plays a role in this story, as a famous architect, the boyfriend's hero. He spends the story looking over the boyfriend's shoulder and giving him advice. But I have to say that it's not very clear about whether they ever did meet in real life or not, or whether the boyfriend just imagines him being there from the start. Bit odd. I really enjoyed the film though. It's very funny, and seeing as I love Rome, it's really nice to see it on screen like that. I thoroughly enjoyed Woody Allen's performance too. The film is quirky and charming. Recommended.
