FC Barcelona Sport

Twenty years from now the vampire pandemic is a way of life, vampires are the main species on the planet and the remaining humans are hunted down to be used as cattle – food for the masses. The problem is that the food supply is dwindling as the human race is not able to repopulate. Vampire Edward Dalton is charged with finding a blood substitute, work he does only because he wants to save the human race. Everything changes when Edward is confronted with a band of human resistance fighters, including a man that claims he was a vampire but found a cure.

It’s taken me awhile to write about Daybreakers because I can’t figure out my thoughts on the film. I enjoyed the film, it’s a fun tale, a unique world and filled with characters and actors I liked but for some reason that just wasn’t enough. This is a film that to me the concept held much more than the film.

I can’t help comparing Daybreakers to Blade; not really because they are both vampire films, but because they are both vampire films that I went into no knowing what to expect. Blade blew me away, it delivered every bit on the concept of its world and the monsters and heroes in it – something that Daybreakers just doesn’t quite do, it’s like the film never takes that final step to commit. I don’t know what that final step is, but it’s one of those crucial elements in filmmaking that you don’t notice if it’s there, but you always notice if it’s gone.

Daybreakers is a fun film, with some great action and fun concepts, but it is a movie that seeing once is enough.

Diretors & Writers: Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig
Edward Dalton: Ethan Hawke
Charles Bromley: Sam Neill
Audrey Bennett: Claudia Karvan
Lionel Cormac: Willem Dafoe
Frankie Dalton: Michael Dorman

Reality Bites starts as four friends graduate from college and enter into X generation angst; however, Lelaina, Vickie, Troy and Sammy think that they are immune to the yuppies that surround them and can conquer life after college. In true X-gen form they all falter and find their own dramas to be caught up in, dramas that remind them they aren’t as different as they think they are.

As a fan of Ben Stiller’s directorial efforts I was really surprised that I didn’t really like Reality Bites. The film felt a bit disconnected to me, with characters that lack motivation – they simply perform tasks because it’s in the script that they do so. A prime example of this is Sammy, the token early 1990’s gay man in the film, until Sammy actually came out to his mother in the film I wasn’t entirely sure he actually was gay, and he apparently came out because the character of Lelaina needed a moment from Sammy for her documentary. Sammy seems to exist in the film to be the “other” in the film, if Zahn hadn’t been in there they probably would have cast a young black actor just to have some sort of diversity amongst the friends.

I think that Lelaina’s character is actually a very large reason that I couldn’t get into Reality Bites. Going into the film I knew that the main character was a struggling female filmmaker; I think I expected to feel some sort of empathy with Lelaina because she and I are pursuing such similar goals – but I felt nothing for Lelaina. Lelaina is pretentious, argumentative, unmotivated and otherwise directionless; she isn’t close to her parents, gets everyone but Sammy mad at her, and looks down her nose at everyone except herself.

I think that Reality Bites shows definite signs of being a first feature, and obviously Stiller went through the roof; this past year he even did one of the best directorial jobs with Tropic Thunder. More than anything, Reality Bites is mired down by the time period it tried so hard to be relevant to and comment on, and though your opinion may differ I don’t think the gen X angst manages to transfer too well to today.

Director: Ben Stiller
Written By: Helen Childress
Lelaina: Winona Ryder
Troy: Ethan Hawke
Vickie: Janeane Garofalo
Sammy: Steve Zahn
Michael: Ben Stiller

Michael Grates: Have I stepped over some line in the sands of coolness with you? Because excuse me if somebody doesn't know the secret handshake with you.
Troy Dyer: There's no secret handshake. There's an IQ prerequisite, but there's no secret handshake.

New York, I Love You is the second in the Cities of Love series; this is a ongoing film of anthology films that focus on stories of love, love of the romantic kind and love of the city in which they are set. For those not familiar with the definition of an anthology film it is a group of short films, usually based around the same topic. All of these short films have differing directors and writers and are stitched into one movie.

The first in the Cities of Love series was Paris, Je T’aime. While the differences in the “style” of Paris vs. New York are subtle the basic differences are that Paris was much more fanciful, and the Paris installment did not “stitch” together; while I love Paris, Je T’aime very much it did suffer from each vignette feeling separate and cut off from the others. New York, I Love You does not suffer from this; in order to feel more cohesive New York does not simply jump into the next short, instead it segways or transitions to each new story by meandering around the city. Characters even pop in and out of the background of each others stories to further the feeling of a cohesive environment that all these stories are set in.

My favorite story in the entire film probably had to be the segment with Ethan Hawke. He plays a writer who tries to smooth talk a woman outside of a bar.

I know that what I saw of New York, I Love You was a preview screening this appeared to be a fully finished version of the film – titles, credits and all – and yet I remember hearing that New York, I Love You would contain the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. Scarlett is even listed in the directors credit on IMDB and yet her short film segment is not in the movie. I did enjoy the directorial debut of Natalie Portman though.

This is not a film series that everyone will enjoy. However, if you want to experience a non-typical movie, or just something very fun, beautiful and meaningful this is something you should see. New York, I Love You is not a typical romantic comedy.

Directors: Faith Akin, Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Sunji Iwai, Wen Jiang, Scarlett Johnasson, Shekhar Kapur, Joshua Martson, Mira Nair, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner, Andrei Zvyagintsev & Randall Balsmeyer
Maggie: Jacinda Barrett
Molly: Rachel Bilson
David: Orlando Bloom
Mr. Riccoli: James Caan
Johnny: Hayden Christensen
Isabelle: Julie Christie
Gus: Bradley Cooper
Alex: Chris Cooper
Lydia: Drea de Matteo
Garry: Andy Garcia
Writer: Ethan Hawke
Jacob: Shia LaBeouf
Mitzie: Cloris Leachman
Ex-Girlfriend: Blake Lively
Rifka: Natalie Portman
Hooker: Maggie Q
Camille: Christina Ricci
Abe: Eli Wallach
Anna: Robin Wright Penn
Prom Boy: Anton Yelchin