The Holiday

First of all, here at JM we are not against any movie genre, because no genre is brilliance proof, even romantic comedy aka «chick flick», Sina did shed a tear over «city of angels» and «sleepless in Seattle», and «When Harry meets Sally» are amongst my favorite, but what about «The Holiday» a movie which a Hollywood executive would explain by saying «Four weddings and a funeral meets there Is something about Mary».

«there is something about mary» leads us to Cameron Diaz, the former model turned actress which was revealed by this movie, in «The Holiday» she plays Amanda Woods an L.A woman too successful for her own good, who did not cry since she was fifteen, lives in a mansion, and has looks to die for, but on the flipside She has a disastrous romantic life, where she suffers a bad breakup during holidays season, So she decides to go for two week holiday to the furthest and quietest possible place, a three clicks online search leads her to a home exchange website where she finds out about a nice cottage in Surrey proposed for a home swapping, the cottage is owned by Iris

Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) is the anti thesis of an L.A girl, she is too British for her own good, the kind of girl to own all the records by Dido, but her romantic life is as disastrous as Amandas's, suffering the only thing worst to a breakup during the season, so they both agree, and the Californian ends up in freezing Surrey, and the British in sunny LA. Both girls make interesting encounters Name meets Graham (Jude Law) a British bachelor with manners and wit and a secret, and Name meets Miles (Jack Black) a movie score composer who can't put the right tune on the soundtrack of his life, and also meets Arthur (Eli Wallach) a guy who was there during Hollywood golden age and lived to tell her the story, both of course kind off re discover love and themselves and the meaning of life and whatever .

Okay girls, I know you love movies like these, but this one is far too pink even to the Celine Dion crowd, everybody knows that these movies are well crafted marketing ploys designed to attract the «sex and the city» demographics and their huge buying power, but please, I never thought i'd say this, but this movie makes «Desperate Housewives» look like «Casablanca», the interesting idea of the juxtaposition of LA life with British life is lost in endless kissing scenes and senseless dialogues, and the romances unconvincing, Eli Wallach for god's sake, the guy who played «The Ugly» in «The good, the bad and the ugly» seems to be wondering what He is doing in this mess, but can't blame him though he did if for the check, so did Jack Black off course who plays a part worthy of a Telenovela actor.

And while Cameron Diaz drags the movie down with her unconvincing character, Kate Winslet counterbalance it to a certain extent, her character is more interesting, but not even to the level of a Kate Hudson, or Sandra Bullock, and frankly it's not even a compliment.

So look, If you are a boy, it's a good plan to watch with your wife or girlfriend if you have the needed patience, and if you are a girl, it's a good breakup relief, or for an afternoon with your girlfriends, but if you happen to also love movies, toss this off the window, and go watch «closer» which is what this movie aspires (and fails) to be, in all cases, remember that these are only romantic comedies, so please don't take life lessons from them, because if you map your life over a romantic comedy, granted that you will end up lonely in the holiday season, with nobody to swap your apartment with.

Year: 2006
Director: Nancy Meyer
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Eli Wallach, Jake Black

Any Given Sunday (1999)

American Football is another planet as far as I am concerned, first of all, because to me "football" is what they call "soccer", and this whole crazy enthusiasm beyond the superbowl is something beyond my understanding, but with this movie, i definitly could understand it better, as just an extension of the notion of gladiators and ancient battlefields.

Coach Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino) is a legendary coach of the fictional Miami Sharks, four years ago he won the Panthon Cup with the help of an All Star cast of players, "Cap" Rooney (Dennis Quaid), J-man Washington (LL Cool J), and "Shark" Lavey (Lawrence Taylor) the captain of the Sharks Defense Taylor being a real legandary football player with the New York Giants, who changed defense forever.

Life is not that easy for coach D'Amato lately, because his team is not doing so well, they lost their last four games, "Cap" health is a concern, and he has many management conflicts with the team owner Christina Pagnacci (Cameron Diaz), who took over after her dad, and D'Amato close friend died, and has trouble to prove herself in a man dominated world of men owners.

During a particulary difficult games D'Amato loses both his quarterbacks, forcing him to give a chance to the third Wille Beamen (Jamie Foxx) a talented player who never got an actual chance to prove himself do to a series of misfortunate events , Beamen doesnt only allow the team to win the games but turns into a true sport's world superstar, causing D'Amato's anger for his tenedancy to change the playing tactics on the fly as he pleases, and getting away with it.

Beamen's growing stardom gets to his head, while he starts to openly criticize his team and their way of living, and showing disrespect for the whole Coaching team, and earning him Cap's rivalry who works his butt off to get back to his initial place as the team's star quarterback

D'Amato deals with this new problem, plus his own alcoholism problems, plus his estranged family, and plus his addiction to hookers, while managing a conflictual relatonship with the media, and it's powerful talkshow hosts, this review could very well be about Al Pacino's performance as D'Amato because he gives a masterful one, but he played a somewhat similar role in "Heat" and we spoke about that, so while d'Amato is dealing with all these issues, the team continues to win thanks to "steamin" Beamen successful plays, and as the team heads to their biggest game, what will D'Amato do to manage the chaos around him, and to revive his legend, or is it just that he is past his primie, caught up in a world he no longer understands.

This movie is about the crazy and fascinating world of football and the people who revolve around it, it's partly written and directed by Oliver Stone, who made such small movies as "Platoon" or "JFK", and being a football fan himself, he manages to transcend it into an epical world, where the players are gladiators and the owners and coaches a royal court, with undless power battles, and where the lives of the players themselves are not much diffrent from their real lives, and it also shows the ruthless world of owners and politicians around it, and how one could get eaten alive if he doesn't pay much attention.

The confrontations of coach D'Amato and Christina are epical, she tries her best to hold up to him although it's hard with a man with such a status and an authority, who nevers allows anybody to tell him what to do, the evolution of the character of Beamen is also worth watching and even the sweet decline of the once Legend Cap Rooney played beautifully by Dennis Quaid is a subplot strenghtening the whole movie.

So this movie basically covers the world of football from all it's sides, and without being long or boring, this movie has the same rythm as a superbowl, with the game itself, the side entertainment, the ads, the party athmosphere, but don't let it unfocus you, because as we learn through Coach D'Amato's wisdom, this game is about more then winning, making money, or being the star, it's about the passion and the trust between ten men who will throw themselves into the harm's way, because they believe you'd do the same for them, and that's a beatiful lesson, from a beautiful movie.