Leaving Las Vegas

Since Bugsy Siegel imagined it (see our review of "Bugsy") Sin City has been known to contain all the forms of excess within it's limits, from the psychadelia of a Hunter Thompson to the crooning of Sinatra and the Rat Pack, to Pharaonic projects by Winn and his likes, yet on the outskirts of Vegas exists another limit, the place where dreams and illusions die, and the doomy question comes knocking "what remains when everything is gone ?" .

Ben Sanderson(Nicholas Cage) is a Hollywood agent who has hit rock bottom due to alcoholism, under the California Sun he manages to trash a beautiful existence the whole world creams about and throw it all at the foot of his mistress, the bottle, and since late alcoholism is full of unfunny ideas, Ben has the best of them all "Going to Vegas to drink himself to death".

After burning the remainder of his LA life, and since his firing from his last job got him a nice severance package, he puts his plan to work and goes to Vegas, checks in a motel, and on the Strip he accidentally meets Sara () a beautiful hooker, between the two, an odd relationship forms, based on "mutual understanding", he doesnet criticize her occupation, she doesnt criticize his "mission", but Sara is just his perfect match, she seen it all, she is more disillusioned then him, if that's possible, this relationship is deep and doomed, with and end that will surprise you, this is really a Hunter Thompson vision of vegas, the place where the American Dream dies.

The movie has a melancolic tone, it's similar to a free fall to the abyss of human misery, but with a shining light at the bottom, at the end Ben and Sara are metaphors of the successful and beautiful who are too odd to live, and too cool to die, and are stuck in this big mirage in the desert, a hole they can't, and don't want to get out of.

The chimestry between the two lead actors is a rare thing on movie screens, because they hit bottom , they are at the edge of honesty, the rest of the cast is for plot purpouses, this movie is about Ben and Sara and and that's it.

Mike Figgis makes a great tale of Vegas and despair, the city lights are filmed in a beautiful cinematography, and the fragility of Elisabeth Shue is not something you will forget soon, and anyways, if Vegas is the tomb of the American dream, then leaving Las Vegas.... a surrender to nothingness, and seening such a high concept within the limits of moviemaking is great by itself.

Red White and Blues

Every true movie lover loves music as well, and it's a delight when the two merge sometimes, like in these interesting documentaries produced by Martin Scorsese about the blues, there are seven of them but in my opinion one of the best was "red white and blues" directed by Mike Figgis.

The movie simply documents the british influence on the evolution of the blues music in General, and how the british music scene shifted from jazz influences to embrace the blues, and the very passionate people at the center of the mouvment, it's true that GenXers, and GenYers don't know much about that, we tend to take things for granted, but it's safe to say that without these people, your favourite rock band, or metal band would probably not exist.

Through testimonials of inflencial musicals, like Eric Clapton, BB King, Chris Fowler, Jeff Beck, the story is told, how these very passionate post war musicians discovered the blues through import vinyls, and how they absorbed it for ten years, to then export it back to America in the era of "the british invasion", where the beatles and the rolling stones took america by surprised and amazed it and the rest of the world for decades.

The Rolling Stones are not interviewed but they are part of this mouvment and so are the beatles, it's interesting to notice that it was a political decision in America to shelter white kids from this music, it was the reason it had to find a temporary refuge across the ocean, and then invade white america in the mid sixties, thus "opening doors that otherwise would have stayed closed", it is also interesting to notice how these brilliant people made this music their own, but without changint it's core, a fascinating journey indeed.

This story is illustrated by filmed performanes of many british musicians and singers doing blues renditions, and heavyweight ones, Van Morrison, Tom Jones, Jeff Beck, the best performance in my opinion is Lulu's rendition of "drown in my own tears" but they are all great, and recored in the legendary Abbey Road studios for god's sake !

A great primer on blues for those who are interested, and just a great documentary by all means, if you have a chance to catch this one don't miss it, because cinama and music, especially the blues have a deep relation and blues is the music of the night, of the misfits and of the lonely, and a lot of the movie making comes from these primal elements.