list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Two Lovers on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Two_Lovers/347625/default.aspx Title: Two Lovers
Year: 2009
Director: James Gray
Plot: A depressed young man moves back in with his parents and finds his life turned upside down as he struggles to choose between the beautiful daughter of a close family friend and the scintillating but volatile next-door neighbor whose passion helps to reignite his lust for life. The third screen outing for writer/director James Gray and actor Joaquin Phoenix following We Own the Night and The Yards, Two Lovers co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini, and Vinessa Shaw. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Number of Lists: 4
Number of blog posts: 13
Number of discussion threads: 1
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:59:31 GMTTwo Lovers2009James GrayA depressed young man moves back in with his parents and finds his life turned upside down as he struggles to choose between the beautiful daughter of a close family friend and the scintillating but volatile next-door neighbor whose passion helps to reignite his lust for life. The third screen outing for writer/director James Gray and actor <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___199220/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Joaquin Phoenix</a> following <a href="http://www.spout.com/films/275307/detail.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>We Own the Night</a> and <a href="http://www.spout.com/films/140441/detail.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>The Yards</a>, Two Lovers co-stars <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P____54871/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Gwyneth Paltrow</a>, <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P____61690/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Isabella Rossellini</a>, and <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___239177/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Vinessa Shaw</a>. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide41313http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s347625.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Two_Lovers/347625/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/7/2/42895.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 7/2/2009 9:01:22 AM
Body: T his review was originally published in February. Two Lovers is out on DVD this week. Rarely has movie love been handled with both the dreamy indulgence and the cynicism that James Grey pulls off in Two Lovers. It’s a pity that the film, which premiered nine months ago at Cannes and is now rolling out on VOD and in theaters via Magnolia, has been pegged in time as the allegedly final film of star Joaquin Phoenix. In this meditation on class passing and infinite adolescence, set mainly in Brighton Beach with a few giddy sojourns to Manhattan, Grey creates a mood pocket, as it were, that’s distinctly out of time. Working off a series of contrasts that’s very true to its New York setting, Two Lovers is implicitly concerned with the way romantic relationships give us an opportunity to slide back and forth across class lines; if that motion temporarily offers the potential for an erasal of personal history, our ultimate stations in life can’t be escaped. Gwyneth Paltrow and Phoenix both play adults who allow older men to pay their rent. For Paltrow, it’s a stock slimeball married guy who keeps her Michelle, an aging if well-bred bad girl, stashed in an apartment in The Old Neighborhood –– part easy alibi (his mama lives nearby), part obvious fetishistic class regression/emotional slumming (his mama lives near by). In Phoenix’s case, the older man is his father, an Israeli-born dry cleaner who wants to ensure his own comfortable retirement by making sure his wannabe photographer son Leonard hooks up with Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of a business partner. Too bad Leonard is constantly running off to answer text messages from Michelle, whose bought-and-paid-for pad is visible from his childhood window. He can gaze lovingly, creepily at his shiksa goddess’ blonde head floating behind a barred window across a courtyard while his too-close mom (Isabella Rossellini) spies on her son from just outside his bedroom door. Leonard begins relationships with both women simultaneously, and much of the film is devoted to the ways in which he immerses himself in the pleasures offered by one to ameliorate the disappointments of the other. The dry cleaner’s daughter says she wants to “take care” of Phoenix, but she probably shouldn’t––at worst unstable and immature and at best just something of a bore, he’s a 30 year-old boy who has moved back in with the ‘rents after a failed engagement and multiple suicide attempts. In turn, Paltrow (more impressive than she has been in years cast against type as a cannily manipulative roiling ball of need) exploits Leonard’s proximity (emotional, physical) as a salve for the constant pain wrought by her married boyfriend’s distance and seeming indifference. A film about emotional extremes, Two Lovers plays out in visual extremes. Grey very consciously color codes his spaces to correspond to his narrative’s alternating moods. All grey and green and drained of light during the narrative’s darkest points, Two Lovers shifts into chromatic overdrive when its bi-polar protagonist is closest to manic oblivion. A crucial clutch scene that might under other circumstances seem like a romantic high is marked as anything but by Grey’s choice of palette: there’s almost no color on the screen beyond the white-gold wisps of Paltrow’s windblown hair dusting the frame. Since this scene comes after a pair of less-ambiguous low moments (a suicide attempt, a miscarriage), all rendered in the same lightless matte, we know to read what the characters see as a moment of unexpected ecstasy, as in all actuality a third flirtation with death. It’s horribly bleak. It’s also beautiful. The film’s tone can be somewhat contradictory, and it’s hard to say whether Grey is saying that his obviously troubled protagonist’s ability to seduce two gorgeous women (and, most problematically, that he stuns both ladies into a state of something like love via swift administration of his dick) makes for comedy or tragedy. Maybe both: Phoenix himself, starting at the moment of seduction and carrying through to the end of each such scene, seems like he’s playing a completely different person. It’s a dramatization of the transformative nature of sexual attraction. In the film’s second to last shot, Phoenix locks a single, tortured eye on the camera from behind the embrace of the woman who he’s just, by default, given a diamond ring. It’s a single shot that undercuts any possibility that this apparent traditional romantic happy ending is in fact what it seems. It would be difficult to look at that image and still believe that anyone in this movie has actually been in “real” love since they stepped on screen, to not feel a cynical, momentary jolt that romantic love itself is never really more than a collision of circumstance and impulse, a way of taking care of a need via the most readily available means. It’s a testament to the childish madness of infatuation, and maybe even true love’s impossibility. Happy Valentines! This review is a rethink of some thoughts I posted after seeing Two Lovers for the first time at Cannes; a second viewing this week outside of the pressure and exhaustion of the film festival cleared up some of my questions about the film. Sometimes that happens! Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:22 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog7/2/2009 9:01:22 AMT his review was originally published in February. Two Lovers is out on DVD this week. Rarely has movie love been handled with both the dreamy indulgence and the cynicism that James Grey pulls off in Two Lovers. It’s a pity that the film, which premiered nine months ago at Cannes and is now rolling out on VOD and in theaters via Magnolia, has been pegged in time as the allegedly final film of star Joaquin Phoenix. In this meditation on class passing and infinite adolescence, set mainly in Brighton Beach with a few giddy sojourns to Manhattan, Grey creates a mood pocket, as it were, that’s distinctly out of time. Working off a series of contrasts that’s very true to its New York setting, Two Lovers is implicitly concerned with the way romantic relationships give us an opportunity to slide back and forth across class lines; if that motion temporarily offers the potential for an erasal of personal history, our ultimate stations in life can’t be escaped. Gwyneth Paltrow and Phoenix both play adults who allow older men to pay their rent. For Paltrow, it’s a stock slimeball married guy who keeps her Michelle, an aging if well-bred bad girl, stashed in an apartment in The Old Neighborhood –– part easy alibi (his mama lives nearby), part obvious fetishistic class regression/emotional slumming (his mama lives near by). In Phoenix’s case, the older man is his father, an Israeli-born dry cleaner who wants to ensure his own comfortable retirement by making sure his wannabe photographer son Leonard hooks up with Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of a business partner. Too bad Leonard is constantly running off to answer text messages from Michelle, whose bought-and-paid-for pad is visible from his childhood window. He can gaze lovingly, creepily at his shiksa goddess’ blonde head floating behind a barred window across a courtyard while his too-close mom (Isabella Rossellini) spies on her son from just outside his bedroom door. Leonard begins relationships with both women simultaneously, and much of the film is devoted to the ways in which he immerses himself in the pleasures offered by one to ameliorate the disappointments of the other. The dry cleaner’s daughter says she wants to “take care” of Phoenix, but she probably shouldn’t––at worst unstable and immature and at best just something of a bore, he’s a 30 year-old boy who has moved back in with the ‘rents after a failed engagement and multiple suicide attempts. In turn, Paltrow (more impressive than she has been in years cast against type as a cannily manipulative roiling ball of need) exploits Leonard’s proximity (emotional, physical) as a salve for the constant pain wrought by her married boyfriend’s distance and seeming indifference. A film about emotional extremes, Two Lovers plays out in visual extremes. Grey very consciously color codes his spaces to correspond to his narrative’s alternating moods. All grey and green and drained of light during the narrative’s darkest points, Two Lovers shifts into chromatic overdrive when its bi-polar protagonist is closest to manic oblivion. A crucial clutch scene that might under other circumstances seem like a romantic high is marked as anything but by Grey’s choice of palette: there’s almost no color on the screen beyond the white-gold wisps of Paltrow’s windblown hair dusting the frame. Since this scene comes after a pair of less-ambiguous low moments (a suicide attempt, a miscarriage), all rendered in the same lightless matte, we know to read what the characters see as a moment of unexpected ecstasy, as in all actuality a third flirtation with death. It’s horribly bleak. It’s also beautiful. The film’s tone can be somewhat contradictory, and it’s hard to say whether Grey is saying that his obviously troubled protagonist’s ability to seduce two gorgeous women (and, most problematically, that he stuns both ladies into a state of something like love via swift administration of his dick) makes for comedy or tragedy. Maybe both: Phoenix himself, starting at the moment of seduction and carrying through to the end of each such scene, seems like he’s playing a completely different person. It’s a dramatization of the transformative nature of sexual attraction. In the film’s second to last shot, Phoenix locks a single, tortured eye on the camera from behind the embrace of the woman who he’s just, by default, given a diamond ring. It’s a single shot that undercuts any possibility that this apparent traditional romantic happy ending is in fact what it seems. It would be difficult to look at that image and still believe that anyone in this movie has actually been in “real” love since they stepped on screen, to not feel a cynical, momentary jolt that romantic love itself is never really more than a collision of circumstance and impulse, a way of taking care of a need via the most readily available means. It’s a testament to the childish madness of infatuation, and maybe even true love’s impossibility. Happy Valentines! This review is a rethink of some thoughts I posted after seeing Two Lovers for the first time at Cannes; a second viewing this week outside of the pressure and exhaustion of the film festival cleared up some of my questions about the film. Sometimes that happens! Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/7/2/42894.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/2/2009 9:01:11 AM
Body: T his review was originally published in February. Two Lovers is out on DVD this week. Rarely has movie love been handled with both the dreamy indulgence and the cynicism that James Grey pulls off in Two Lovers. It’s a pity that the film, which premiered nine months ago at Cannes and is now rolling out on VOD and in theaters via Magnolia, has been pegged in time as the allegedly final film of star Joaquin Phoenix. In this meditation on class passing and infinite adolescence, set mainly in Brighton Beach with a few giddy sojourns to Manhattan, Grey creates a mood pocket, as it were, that’s distinctly out of time. Working off a series of contrasts that’s very true to its New York setting, Two Lovers is implicitly concerned with the way romantic relationships give us an opportunity to slide back and forth across class lines; if that motion temporarily offers the potential for an erasal of personal history, our ultimate stations in life can’t be escaped. Gwyneth Paltrow and Phoenix both play adults who allow older men to pay their rent. For Paltrow, it’s a stock slimeball married guy who keeps her Michelle, an aging if well-bred bad girl, stashed in an apartment in The Old Neighborhood –– part easy alibi (his mama lives nearby), part obvious fetishistic class regression/emotional slumming (his mama lives near by). In Phoenix’s case, the older man is his father, an Israeli-born dry cleaner who wants to ensure his own comfortable retirement by making sure his wannabe photographer son Leonard hooks up with Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of a business partner. Too bad Leonard is constantly running off to answer text messages from Michelle, whose bought-and-paid-for pad is visible from his childhood window. He can gaze lovingly, creepily at his shiksa goddess’ blonde head floating behind a barred window across a courtyard while his too-close mom (Isabella Rossellini) spies on her son from just outside his bedroom door. Leonard begins relationships with both women simultaneously, and much of the film is devoted to the ways in which he immerses himself in the pleasures offered by one to ameliorate the disappointments of the other. The dry cleaner’s daughter says she wants to “take care” of Phoenix, but she probably shouldn’t––at worst unstable and immature and at best just something of a bore, he’s a 30 year-old boy who has moved back in with the ‘rents after a failed engagement and multiple suicide attempts. In turn, Paltrow (more impressive than she has been in years cast against type as a cannily manipulative roiling ball of need) exploits Leonard’s proximity (emotional, physical) as a salve for the constant pain wrought by her married boyfriend’s distance and seeming indifference. A film about emotional extremes, Two Lovers plays out in visual extremes. Grey very consciously color codes his spaces to correspond to his narrative’s alternating moods. All grey and green and drained of light during the narrative’s darkest points, Two Lovers shifts into chromatic overdrive when its bi-polar protagonist is closest to manic oblivion. A crucial clutch scene that might under other circumstances seem like a romantic high is marked as anything but by Grey’s choice of palette: there’s almost no color on the screen beyond the white-gold wisps of Paltrow’s windblown hair dusting the frame. Since this scene comes after a pair of less-ambiguous low moments (a suicide attempt, a miscarriage), all rendered in the same lightless matte, we know to read what the characters see as a moment of unexpected ecstasy, as in all actuality a third flirtation with death. It’s horribly bleak. It’s also beautiful. The film’s tone can be somewhat contradictory, and it’s hard to say whether Grey is saying that his obviously troubled protagonist’s ability to seduce two gorgeous women (and, most problematically, that he stuns both ladies into a state of something like love via swift administration of his dick) makes for comedy or tragedy. Maybe both: Phoenix himself, starting at the moment of seduction and carrying through to the end of each such scene, seems like he’s playing a completely different person. It’s a dramatization of the transformative nature of sexual attraction. In the film’s second to last shot, Phoenix locks a single, tortured eye on the camera from behind the embrace of the woman who he’s just, by default, given a diamond ring. It’s a single shot that undercuts any possibility that this apparent traditional romantic happy ending is in fact what it seems. It would be difficult to look at that image and still believe that anyone in this movie has actually been in “real” love since they stepped on screen, to not feel a cynical, momentary jolt that romantic love itself is never really more than a collision of circumstance and impulse, a way of taking care of a need via the most readily available means. It’s a testament to the childish madness of infatuation, and maybe even true love’s impossibility. Happy Valentines! This review is a rethink of some thoughts I posted after seeing Two Lovers for the first time at Cannes; a second viewing this week outside of the pressure and exhaustion of the film festival cleared up some of my questions about the film. Sometimes that happens! Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:11 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/2/2009 9:01:11 AMT his review was originally published in February. Two Lovers is out on DVD this week. Rarely has movie love been handled with both the dreamy indulgence and the cynicism that James Grey pulls off in Two Lovers. It’s a pity that the film, which premiered nine months ago at Cannes and is now rolling out on VOD and in theaters via Magnolia, has been pegged in time as the allegedly final film of star Joaquin Phoenix. In this meditation on class passing and infinite adolescence, set mainly in Brighton Beach with a few giddy sojourns to Manhattan, Grey creates a mood pocket, as it were, that’s distinctly out of time. Working off a series of contrasts that’s very true to its New York setting, Two Lovers is implicitly concerned with the way romantic relationships give us an opportunity to slide back and forth across class lines; if that motion temporarily offers the potential for an erasal of personal history, our ultimate stations in life can’t be escaped. Gwyneth Paltrow and Phoenix both play adults who allow older men to pay their rent. For Paltrow, it’s a stock slimeball married guy who keeps her Michelle, an aging if well-bred bad girl, stashed in an apartment in The Old Neighborhood –– part easy alibi (his mama lives nearby), part obvious fetishistic class regression/emotional slumming (his mama lives near by). In Phoenix’s case, the older man is his father, an Israeli-born dry cleaner who wants to ensure his own comfortable retirement by making sure his wannabe photographer son Leonard hooks up with Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of a business partner. Too bad Leonard is constantly running off to answer text messages from Michelle, whose bought-and-paid-for pad is visible from his childhood window. He can gaze lovingly, creepily at his shiksa goddess’ blonde head floating behind a barred window across a courtyard while his too-close mom (Isabella Rossellini) spies on her son from just outside his bedroom door. Leonard begins relationships with both women simultaneously, and much of the film is devoted to the ways in which he immerses himself in the pleasures offered by one to ameliorate the disappointments of the other. The dry cleaner’s daughter says she wants to “take care” of Phoenix, but she probably shouldn’t––at worst unstable and immature and at best just something of a bore, he’s a 30 year-old boy who has moved back in with the ‘rents after a failed engagement and multiple suicide attempts. In turn, Paltrow (more impressive than she has been in years cast against type as a cannily manipulative roiling ball of need) exploits Leonard’s proximity (emotional, physical) as a salve for the constant pain wrought by her married boyfriend’s distance and seeming indifference. A film about emotional extremes, Two Lovers plays out in visual extremes. Grey very consciously color codes his spaces to correspond to his narrative’s alternating moods. All grey and green and drained of light during the narrative’s darkest points, Two Lovers shifts into chromatic overdrive when its bi-polar protagonist is closest to manic oblivion. A crucial clutch scene that might under other circumstances seem like a romantic high is marked as anything but by Grey’s choice of palette: there’s almost no color on the screen beyond the white-gold wisps of Paltrow’s windblown hair dusting the frame. Since this scene comes after a pair of less-ambiguous low moments (a suicide attempt, a miscarriage), all rendered in the same lightless matte, we know to read what the characters see as a moment of unexpected ecstasy, as in all actuality a third flirtation with death. It’s horribly bleak. It’s also beautiful. The film’s tone can be somewhat contradictory, and it’s hard to say whether Grey is saying that his obviously troubled protagonist’s ability to seduce two gorgeous women (and, most problematically, that he stuns both ladies into a state of something like love via swift administration of his dick) makes for comedy or tragedy. Maybe both: Phoenix himself, starting at the moment of seduction and carrying through to the end of each such scene, seems like he’s playing a completely different person. It’s a dramatization of the transformative nature of sexual attraction. In the film’s second to last shot, Phoenix locks a single, tortured eye on the camera from behind the embrace of the woman who he’s just, by default, given a diamond ring. It’s a single shot that undercuts any possibility that this apparent traditional romantic happy ending is in fact what it seems. It would be difficult to look at that image and still believe that anyone in this movie has actually been in “real” love since they stepped on screen, to not feel a cynical, momentary jolt that romantic love itself is never really more than a collision of circumstance and impulse, a way of taking care of a need via the most readily available means. It’s a testament to the childish madness of infatuation, and maybe even true love’s impossibility. Happy Valentines! This review is a rethink of some thoughts I posted after seeing Two Lovers for the first time at Cannes; a second viewing this week outside of the pressure and exhaustion of the film festival cleared up some of my questions about the film. Sometimes that happens! Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/kevynknox/archive/2009/6/29/42858.aspx Post By: KevynKnox
Post To: KevynKnox Blog
Post Date: 6/29/2009 6:36:23 PM
Body: The in-joke right now (or perhaps the played-out one) is the strange new incarnation that is Joaquin Phoenix. Announcing that he is quitting acting to become a hip hop superstar, and his subsequent bizarro appearance on Letterman, may be part publicity stunt, part legitimate personality quirk but after watching his alleged final film, James Gray's Two Lovers, one may also add crime against art to that descriptive. Though Gray's film may suffer at times from a certain lack of energy, thanks to its lead, it never becomes boring. Phoenix, who has always been one of the bravest of actors, freak or not, here gives what may be both his most subtle work and his best performance yet. Part sad clown, part romantic dreamer, part forgotten man, Phoenix portrays the suicidal Leonard, broken engagement and heartbroken, and once again, at thirty-ish, living at home in his parent's Brighton Beach flat. His depression is finally lifted by the two lovers of the title. The first is the sweet, stable Sandra, played by the deceptively sirenesque Vinessa Shaw, daughter of the man who wants to buy the family dry cleaning business, and the second is the sexy shiksa girl next door, Michelle, played by the pretty but blandish Gwyneth Paltrow, who, like a flame to Leonard's moth is just as fucked-up as he is and thus the apparent soulmate to Leonard's fragile tottering psyche. Hinting at allusions to that great tongue-in-cheek Gilligan's Island philosophical parable "Ginger or Mary Ann?" (I have always been a Mary Ann boy myself and thus am rooting for Sandra here) Gray's film, just like Phoenix's Leonard, switches back and forth in allegiance. The last twenty minutes or so, which I will not give away here, manages to circumvent any real answer to this quandary while, with stupendous audacity, blowing the entire question to pieces. The final scene, reeks of both lonely abandon and some sort of strangely appropriate saving grace. Setting Gray's intimate yet sensibly so direction aside, it is Phoenix who makes this film soar the grey Brooklyn skies that it does soar. Where Gray gives us an overall moody and confined, almost claustrophobic, atmosphere - an atmosphere that is completely and sensibly the right one to give - Phoenix gives the film the inner life that is its heartbeat. Whereas Gray is the mind, Phoenix and his puckishly fucked-up Leonard, is the heart. But alas, this is meant to be the actor's final heartbeat, and though I do not believe that for a second, there is a part of me that already misses the crazy fucked-up actor. As my wife turned to me and said after watching the film, "Joaquin Phoenix quits acting but we can't get Jason Biggs or Dane Cook to ever go away?" Oh Joaquin, say it ain't so.
]]>Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:36:23 GMTKevynKnoxKevynKnox Blog6/29/2009 6:36:23 PMThe in-joke right now (or perhaps the played-out one) is the strange new incarnation that is Joaquin Phoenix. Announcing that he is quitting acting to become a hip hop superstar, and his subsequent bizarro appearance on Letterman, may be part publicity stunt, part legitimate personality quirk but after watching his alleged final film, James Gray's Two Lovers, one may also add crime against art to that descriptive. Though Gray's film may suffer at times from a certain lack of energy, thanks to its lead, it never becomes boring. Phoenix, who has always been one of the bravest of actors, freak or not, here gives what may be both his most subtle work and his best performance yet. Part sad clown, part romantic dreamer, part forgotten man, Phoenix portrays the suicidal Leonard, broken engagement and heartbroken, and once again, at thirty-ish, living at home in his parent's Brighton Beach flat. His depression is finally lifted by the two lovers of the title. The first is the sweet, stable Sandra, played by the deceptively sirenesque Vinessa Shaw, daughter of the man who wants to buy the family dry cleaning business, and the second is the sexy shiksa girl next door, Michelle, played by the pretty but blandish Gwyneth Paltrow, who, like a flame to Leonard's moth is just as fucked-up as he is and thus the apparent soulmate to Leonard's fragile tottering psyche. Hinting at allusions to that great tongue-in-cheek Gilligan's Island philosophical parable "Ginger or Mary Ann?" (I have always been a Mary Ann boy myself and thus am rooting for Sandra here) Gray's film, just like Phoenix's Leonard, switches back and forth in allegiance. The last twenty minutes or so, which I will not give away here, manages to circumvent any real answer to this quandary while, with stupendous audacity, blowing the entire question to pieces. The final scene, reeks of both lonely abandon and some sort of strangely appropriate saving grace. Setting Gray's intimate yet sensibly so direction aside, it is Phoenix who makes this film soar the grey Brooklyn skies that it does soar. Where Gray gives us an overall moody and confined, almost claustrophobic, atmosphere - an atmosphere that is completely and sensibly the right one to give - Phoenix gives the film the inner life that is its heartbeat. Whereas Gray is the mind, Phoenix and his puckishly fucked-up Leonard, is the heart. But alas, this is meant to be the actor's final heartbeat, and though I do not believe that for a second, there is a part of me that already misses the crazy fucked-up actor. As my wife turned to me and said after watching the film, "Joaquin Phoenix quits acting but we can't get Jason Biggs or Dane Cook to ever go away?" Oh Joaquin, say it ain't so. http://www.spout.com/blogs/angelo2angela/archive/2009/3/22/41173.aspx Post By: angelo2angela
Post To: angelo2angela Blog
Post Date: 3/22/2009 6:58:38 AM
Body: watch it online at high quality: http://xtshare.com/movie/viewfilm.php?Id=182&view=Two-Lovers
]]>Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:58:38 GMTangelo2angelaangelo2angela Blog3/22/2009 6:58:38 AMwatch it online at high quality: http://xtshare.com/movie/viewfilm.php?Id=182&amp;view=Two-Lovers http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/2/27/40730.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 2/27/2009 6:02:33 PM
Body: Rarely has movie love been handled with both the dreamy indulgence and the cynicism that James Grey pulls off in Two Lovers. It’s a pity that the film, which premiered nine months ago at Cannes and is now rolling out on VOD and in theaters via Magnolia, has been pegged in time as the allegedly final film of star Joaquin Phoenix. In this meditation on class passing and infinite adolescence, set mainly in Brighton Beach with a few giddy sojourns to Manhattan, Grey creates a mood pocket, as it were, that’s distinctly out of time. Working off a series of contrasts that’s very true to its New York setting, Two Lovers is implicitly concerned with the way romantic relationships give us an opportunity to slide back and forth across class lines; if that motion temporarily offers the potential for an erasal of personal history, our ultimate stations in life can’t be escaped. Gwyneth Paltrow and Phoenix both play adults who allow older men to pay their rent. For Paltrow, it’s a stock slimeball married guy who keeps her Michelle, an aging if well-bred bad girl, stashed in an apartment in The Old Neighborhood –– part easy alibi (his mama lives nearby), part obvious fetishistic class regression/emotional slumming (his mama lives near by). In Phoenix’s case, the older man is his father, an Israeli-born dry cleaner who wants to ensure his own comfortable retirement by making sure his wannabe photographer son Leonard hooks up with Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of a business partner. Too bad Leonard is constantly running off to answer text messages from Michelle, whose bought-and-paid-for pad is visible from his childhood window. He can gaze lovingly, creepily at his shiksa goddess’ blonde head floating behind a barred window across a courtyard while his too-close mom (Isabella Rossellini) spies on her son from just outside his bedroom door. Leonard begins relationships with both women simultaneously, and much of the film is devoted to the ways in which he immerses himself in the pleasures offered by one to ameliorate the disappointments of the other. The dry cleaner’s daughter says she wants to “take care” of Phoenix, but she probably shouldn’t––at worst unstable and immature and at best just something of a bore, he’s a 30 year-old boy who has moved back in with the ‘rents after a failed engagement and multiple suicide attempts. In turn, Paltrow (more impressive than she has been in years cast against type as a cannily manipulative roiling ball of need) exploits Leonard’s proximity (emotional, physical) as a salve for the constant pain wrought by her married boyfriend’s distance and seeming indifference. A film about emotional extremes, Two Lovers plays out in visual extremes. Grey very consciously color codes his spaces to correspond to his narrative’s alternating moods. All grey and green and drained of light during the narrative’s darkest points, Two Lovers shifts into chromatic overdrive when its bi-polar protagonist is closest to manic oblivion. A crucial clutch scene that might under other circumstances seem like a romantic high is marked as anything but by Grey’s choice of palette: there’s almost no color on the screen beyond the white-gold wisps of Paltrow’s windblown hair dusting the frame. Since this scene comes after a pair of less-ambiguous low moments (a suicide attempt, a miscarriage), all rendered in the same lightless matte, we know to read what the characters see as a moment of unexpected ecstasy, as in all actuality a third flirtation with death. It’s horribly bleak. It’s also beautiful. The film’s tone can be somewhat contradictory, and it’s hard to say whether Grey is saying that his obviously troubled protagonist’s ability to seduce two gorgeous women (and, most problematically, that he stuns both ladies into a state of something like love via swift administration of his dick) makes for comedy or tragedy. Maybe both: Phoenix himself, starting at the moment of seduction and carrying through to the end of each such scene, seems like he’s playing a completely different person. It’s a dramatization of the transformative nature of sexual attraction. In the film’s second to last shot, Phoenix locks a single, tortured eye on the camera from behind the embrace of the woman who he’s just, by default, given a diamond ring. It’s a single shot that undercuts any possibility that this apparent traditional romantic happy ending is in fact what it seems. It would be difficult to look at that image and still believe that anyone in this movie has actually been in “real” love since they stepped on screen, to not feel a cynical, momentary jolt that romantic love itself is never really more than a collision of circumstance and impulse, a way of taking care of a need via the most readily available means. It’s a testament to the childish madness of infatuation, and maybe even true love’s impossibility. Happy Valentines! This review is a rethink of some thoughts I posted after seeing Two Lovers for the first time at Cannes;  a second viewing this week outside of the pressure and exhaustion of the film festival cleared up some of my questions about the film. Sometimes that happens! Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:02:33 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog2/27/2009 6:02:33 PMRarely has movie love been handled with both the dreamy indulgence and the cynicism that James Grey pulls off in Two Lovers. It’s a pity that the film, which premiered nine months ago at Cannes and is now rolling out on VOD and in theaters via Magnolia, has been pegged in time as the allegedly final film of star Joaquin Phoenix. In this meditation on class passing and infinite adolescence, set mainly in Brighton Beach with a few giddy sojourns to Manhattan, Grey creates a mood pocket, as it were, that’s distinctly out of time. Working off a series of contrasts that’s very true to its New York setting, Two Lovers is implicitly concerned with the way romantic relationships give us an opportunity to slide back and forth across class lines; if that motion temporarily offers the potential for an erasal of personal history, our ultimate stations in life can’t be escaped. Gwyneth Paltrow and Phoenix both play adults who allow older men to pay their rent. For Paltrow, it’s a stock slimeball married guy who keeps her Michelle, an aging if well-bred bad girl, stashed in an apartment in The Old Neighborhood –– part easy alibi (his mama lives nearby), part obvious fetishistic class regression/emotional slumming (his mama lives near by). In Phoenix’s case, the older man is his father, an Israeli-born dry cleaner who wants to ensure his own comfortable retirement by making sure his wannabe photographer son Leonard hooks up with Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of a business partner. Too bad Leonard is constantly running off to answer text messages from Michelle, whose bought-and-paid-for pad is visible from his childhood window. He can gaze lovingly, creepily at his shiksa goddess’ blonde head floating behind a barred window across a courtyard while his too-close mom (Isabella Rossellini) spies on her son from just outside his bedroom door. Leonard begins relationships with both women simultaneously, and much of the film is devoted to the ways in which he immerses himself in the pleasures offered by one to ameliorate the disappointments of the other. The dry cleaner’s daughter says she wants to “take care” of Phoenix, but she probably shouldn’t––at worst unstable and immature and at best just something of a bore, he’s a 30 year-old boy who has moved back in with the ‘rents after a failed engagement and multiple suicide attempts. In turn, Paltrow (more impressive than she has been in years cast against type as a cannily manipulative roiling ball of need) exploits Leonard’s proximity (emotional, physical) as a salve for the constant pain wrought by her married boyfriend’s distance and seeming indifference. A film about emotional extremes, Two Lovers plays out in visual extremes. Grey very consciously color codes his spaces to correspond to his narrative’s alternating moods. All grey and green and drained of light during the narrative’s darkest points, Two Lovers shifts into chromatic overdrive when its bi-polar protagonist is closest to manic oblivion. A crucial clutch scene that might under other circumstances seem like a romantic high is marked as anything but by Grey’s choice of palette: there’s almost no color on the screen beyond the white-gold wisps of Paltrow’s windblown hair dusting the frame. Since this scene comes after a pair of less-ambiguous low moments (a suicide attempt, a miscarriage), all rendered in the same lightless matte, we know to read what the characters see as a moment of unexpected ecstasy, as in all actuality a third flirtation with death. It’s horribly bleak. It’s also beautiful. The film’s tone can be somewhat contradictory, and it’s hard to say whether Grey is saying that his obviously troubled protagonist’s ability to seduce two gorgeous women (and, most problematically, that he stuns both ladies into a state of something like love via swift administration of his dick) makes for comedy or tragedy. Maybe both: Phoenix himself, starting at the moment of seduction and carrying through to the end of each such scene, seems like he’s playing a completely different person. It’s a dramatization of the transformative nature of sexual attraction. In the film’s second to last shot, Phoenix locks a single, tortured eye on the camera from behind the embrace of the woman who he’s just, by default, given a diamond ring. It’s a single shot that undercuts any possibility that this apparent traditional romantic happy ending is in fact what it seems. It would be difficult to look at that image and still believe that anyone in this movie has actually been in “real” love since they stepped on screen, to not feel a cynical, momentary jolt that romantic love itself is never really more than a collision of circumstance and impulse, a way of taking care of a need via the most readily available means. It’s a testament to the childish madness of infatuation, and maybe even true love’s impossibility. Happy Valentines! This review is a rethink of some thoughts I posted after seeing Two Lovers for the first time at Cannes;  a second viewing this week outside of the pressure and exhaustion of the film festival cleared up some of my questions about the film. Sometimes that happens! Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/groups/Coming_Soon/New_Movies_2_13_Get_your_date_movie_on/216/40390/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: spout
Post To: Coming Soon
Post Date: 2/10/2009 10:29:01 PM
Body: NEW TO THEATERS 2/13 Friday the 13th -- Watch the trailer. Did you know that hospitals are busiest on full moons? Yeah, weird but true. Do you know what buildings are busiest on Friday the 13th? Tents and cabins in the wilderness. Weird, huh? The International -- Watch the trailer. I've heard some rumors that this is suprisingly good. I'm intrigued by the premise, that a large multi-national bank would use its (our) funds to support terrorists and other criminals. And hey, two winners heading the show: Naomi Watts and Clive Owen. Confessions of a Shopaholic -- Watch the trailer. Hmm. I haven't read the book, but I have bought it several times. Anyone looking forward to this? Two Lovers (limited) -- Watch the trailer. Did you know that Joaquin Phoenix has retired from acting? It's true. And now for something that's not true: Two Lovers is the first installment in a teen-fantasy-based trilogy, completed by I Beat Up the Bully In Front of Everyone and I Win The Talent Show With My Own Power Ballad. Gomorrah (limited) -- Watch the trailer. This mafia movie set in modern-day Naples won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, and its American release is sponsored by Martin Scorsese. This movie looks like it can boast authenticity from its head to its toes...three of the actors are tied to mob activity, and the author of Gomorrah (the book this is based on) has been living under 24-hour protection since the book's release. NEW TO DVD 2/10 Blindness -- Watch the trailer. Sort of like Children of Men, but is it as good? Listen to Filmcouch. Burn After Reading -- Watch the trailer. Foot Fist Way -- Watch the trailer. I liked this one a lot. Listen to the review. Frozen River -- Watch the trailer. Won Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature at Sundance 2008. Miracle at St. Anna -- Watch the trailer. Just a heads-up, I haven't heard one good thing about this movie. Son of Rambow -- Watch the trailer. Soul Men -- Watch the trailer. The final film performances of Isaak Hayes and Bernie Mac. W. -- Watch the trailer. Eh, it was so-so.
]]>Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:29:01 GMTspoutComing Soon2/10/2009 10:29:01 PMNEW TO THEATERS 2/13 Friday the 13th -- Watch the trailer. Did you know that hospitals are busiest on full moons? Yeah, weird but true. Do you know what buildings are busiest on Friday the 13th? Tents and cabins in the wilderness. Weird, huh? The International -- Watch the trailer. I've heard some rumors that this is suprisingly good. I'm intrigued by the premise, that a large multi-national bank would use its (our) funds to support terrorists and other criminals. And hey, two winners heading the show: Naomi Watts and Clive Owen. Confessions of a Shopaholic -- Watch the trailer. Hmm. I haven't read the book, but I have bought it several times. Anyone looking forward to this? Two Lovers (limited) -- Watch the trailer. Did you know that Joaquin Phoenix has retired from acting? It's true. And now for something that's not true: Two Lovers is the first installment in a teen-fantasy-based trilogy, completed by I Beat Up the Bully In Front of Everyone and I Win The Talent Show With My Own Power Ballad. Gomorrah (limited) -- Watch the trailer. This mafia movie set in modern-day Naples won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, and its American release is sponsored by Martin Scorsese. This movie looks like it can boast authenticity from its head to its toes...three of the actors are tied to mob activity, and the author of Gomorrah (the book this is based on) has been living under 24-hour protection since the book's release. NEW TO DVD 2/10 Blindness -- Watch the trailer. Sort of like Children of Men, but is it as good? Listen to Filmcouch. Burn After Reading -- Watch the trailer. Foot Fist Way -- Watch the trailer. I liked this one a lot. Listen to the review. Frozen River -- Watch the trailer. Won Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature at Sundance 2008. Miracle at St. Anna -- Watch the trailer. Just a heads-up, I haven't heard one good thing about this movie. Son of Rambow -- Watch the trailer. Soul Men -- Watch the trailer. The final film performances of Isaak Hayes and Bernie Mac. W. -- Watch the trailer. Eh, it was so-so. http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/11/14/37334.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 11/14/2008 6:01:17 PM
Body: I’ll be heading out to the Denver Film Festival on Wednesday, to sit on a jury and moderate a panel. The festival started last night, and through next Sunday they’ll be showing a ton of my favorite films from the 2008 festival circuit (like Intimidad, Guest of Cindy Sherman, Prince of Broadway, Finally, Lillian and Dan, SIta Sings the Blues, Two Lovers, and Everything is Fine), plus a number of titles that I’ve missed at over festivals but hope to catch up with (like Three Monkeys, Woodpecker, Song Sung Blue). Also, they’re doing a tribute to pioneering video/performance artist Carolee Schneemann, which is awesome. The panel I’m moderating, called DIY Filmmaking in an Indie Apocalypse, will bring together a number of filmmakers who have found some success (with critics, with festival juries, or even financially) making personal films outside of the broken indie film stuctures that we’ve all been wringing our hands over for the last couple of years. It’s on Friday, November 21 at 7pm. If you’re going to be in town, do stop by. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:01:17 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog11/14/2008 6:01:17 PMI’ll be heading out to the Denver Film Festival on Wednesday, to sit on a jury and moderate a panel. The festival started last night, and through next Sunday they’ll be showing a ton of my favorite films from the 2008 festival circuit (like Intimidad, Guest of Cindy Sherman, Prince of Broadway, Finally, Lillian and Dan, SIta Sings the Blues, Two Lovers, and Everything is Fine), plus a number of titles that I’ve missed at over festivals but hope to catch up with (like Three Monkeys, Woodpecker, Song Sung Blue). Also, they’re doing a tribute to pioneering video/performance artist Carolee Schneemann, which is awesome. The panel I’m moderating, called DIY Filmmaking in an Indie Apocalypse, will bring together a number of filmmakers who have found some success (with critics, with festival juries, or even financially) making personal films outside of the broken indie film stuctures that we’ve all been wringing our hands over for the last couple of years. It’s on Friday, November 21 at 7pm. If you’re going to be in town, do stop by. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/11/14/37333.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 11/14/2008 6:01:02 PM
Body: I’ll be heading out to the Denver Film Festival on Wednesday, to sit on a jury and moderate a panel. The festival started last night, and through next Sunday they’ll be showing a ton of my favorite films from the 2008 festival circuit (like Intimidad, Guest of Cindy Sherman, Prince of Broadway, Finally, Lillian and Dan, SIta Sings the Blues, Two Lovers, and Everything is Fine), plus a number of titles that I’ve missed at over festivals but hope to catch up with (like Three Monkeys, Woodpecker, Song Sung Blue). Also, they’re doing a tribute to pioneering video/performance artist Carolee Schneemann, which is awesome. The panel I’m moderating, called DIY Filmmaking in an Indie Apocalypse, will bring together a number of filmmakers who have found some success (with critics, with festival juries, or even financially) making personal films outside of the broken indie film stuctures that we’ve all been wringing our hands over for the last couple of years. It’s on Friday, November 21 at 7pm. If you’re going to be in town, do stop by. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:01:02 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com11/14/2008 6:01:02 PMI’ll be heading out to the Denver Film Festival on Wednesday, to sit on a jury and moderate a panel. The festival started last night, and through next Sunday they’ll be showing a ton of my favorite films from the 2008 festival circuit (like Intimidad, Guest of Cindy Sherman, Prince of Broadway, Finally, Lillian and Dan, SIta Sings the Blues, Two Lovers, and Everything is Fine), plus a number of titles that I’ve missed at over festivals but hope to catch up with (like Three Monkeys, Woodpecker, Song Sung Blue). Also, they’re doing a tribute to pioneering video/performance artist Carolee Schneemann, which is awesome. The panel I’m moderating, called DIY Filmmaking in an Indie Apocalypse, will bring together a number of filmmakers who have found some success (with critics, with festival juries, or even financially) making personal films outside of the broken indie film stuctures that we’ve all been wringing our hands over for the last couple of years. It’s on Friday, November 21 at 7pm. If you’re going to be in town, do stop by. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/7/31/33322.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 7/31/2008 9:01:21 AM
Body: I believe this Hollywood Reporter story on the struggles faced by several American Cannes premieres to find a stateside distributor is the first notice that 2929 Entertainment has decided to give James Gray’s Two Lovers to Magnolia to distribute. The film famously drew mixed reactions in Cannes; I gave it a thumbs up with some reservations, whilst the very idea of waiting in line for it drove Lisa Schwarzbaum to expletives. Lovers has a lower profile than What Just Happened?, another film which 2929 recently decided to let their sister company distribute when buyers didn’t materialize. Both bleak and stylized, the romantic melodrama might even be a tougher sell to audiences than a satire about old men who work in the film industry. We’ll see––Magnolia’s planning a limited release in early 2009. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:01:21 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog7/31/2008 9:01:21 AMI believe this Hollywood Reporter story on the struggles faced by several American Cannes premieres to find a stateside distributor is the first notice that 2929 Entertainment has decided to give James Gray’s Two Lovers to Magnolia to distribute. The film famously drew mixed reactions in Cannes; I gave it a thumbs up with some reservations, whilst the very idea of waiting in line for it drove Lisa Schwarzbaum to expletives. Lovers has a lower profile than What Just Happened?, another film which 2929 recently decided to let their sister company distribute when buyers didn’t materialize. Both bleak and stylized, the romantic melodrama might even be a tougher sell to audiences than a satire about old men who work in the film industry. We’ll see––Magnolia’s planning a limited release in early 2009. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/31/33321.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/31/2008 9:01:07 AM
Body: I believe this Hollywood Reporter story on the struggles faced by several American Cannes premieres to find a stateside distributor is the first notice that 2929 Entertainment has decided to give James Gray’s Two Lovers to Magnolia to distribute. The film famously drew mixed reactions in Cannes; I gave it a thumbs up with some reservations, whilst the very idea of waiting in line for it drove Lisa Schwarzbaum to expletives. Lovers has a lower profile than What Just Happened?, another film which 2929 recently decided to let their sister company distribute when buyers didn’t materialize. Both bleak and stylized, the romantic melodrama might even be a tougher sell to audiences than a satire about old men who work in the film industry. We’ll see––Magnolia’s planning a limited release in early 2009. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:01:07 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/31/2008 9:01:07 AMI believe this Hollywood Reporter story on the struggles faced by several American Cannes premieres to find a stateside distributor is the first notice that 2929 Entertainment has decided to give James Gray’s Two Lovers to Magnolia to distribute. The film famously drew mixed reactions in Cannes; I gave it a thumbs up with some reservations, whilst the very idea of waiting in line for it drove Lisa Schwarzbaum to expletives. Lovers has a lower profile than What Just Happened?, another film which 2929 recently decided to let their sister company distribute when buyers didn’t materialize. Both bleak and stylized, the romantic melodrama might even be a tougher sell to audiences than a satire about old men who work in the film industry. We’ll see––Magnolia’s planning a limited release in early 2009. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/lovetriangle/MemberTagFilms.aspxlovetriangle
Number of films tagged: 2902

Number of people who tagged: 38

Number of times used: 75

]]>Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:12:01 GMT29023875Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/neighbor/MemberTagFilms.aspxneighbor
Number of films tagged: 684

Number of people who tagged: 20

Number of times used: 35

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