Before Midnight

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“Before Midnight”, this is the last chapter in this romantic trilogy. Where a young couple who met on a train in beautiful, romantic, sexy Europe, walk around the historic city of Vienna, fall in love and live happily ever after for 18 years and three movies. Isn’t that so sweet and adorable? Just kidding, there’s of course way more to that story and a lot of good screenplay.

The movie takes place nine years after “Before Sunset”. Remember that one? The part where Jessie and Celine meet once again in the beautiful city of Paris after another further nine years that they had that awesome time in Vienna. This time, the couple spent a summer in Greece, where everything seemed so cool and ancient to look at. I may not love the romance thing so much at this point in my life, but the setting that these stories take place in are incredible. The best part about it is that they make it seem like you’re actually there. I’m also a geography nerd and have a huge itch for traveling. That is probably only reason I would watch romantic movies for. Ok maybe not the only reason. But a huge reason though, that’s for sure. Out of all three movies, I liked this the most when it comes to visuals. The Greek Peloponnese are freaking gorgeous! I think after this assignment, I’ll see how much tickets are running for. (Yeah, before I cry after looking at my bank account.) I like this trilogy for the cool European travel ideas I got each time I was watching these movies. I kind of wish they had a “Before” series in each continent. They would be pretty cool. Long, uninterrupted takes of two people walking around a nice backdrop just talking about all kinds of stuff. Well it doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic; it can be just a movie with a super enlightening message that represents the power of human face-to-face communication. But I’ll leave that for another review or assignment I write up.

Back to “Before Midnight”:

*Oh yeah, spoiler alert*

We get to find out that after the last scene of “Before Sunset”, Jesse and Celine end up having the raunchiest sex Paris has witnessed since Moulin Rouge. They say that it was so crazy that Celine ended pregnant with two twin girls. That forced Jessie to stay and he had pay a crapload of money to child support after French child services kept getting complaints due to CAFSIS (Crazy American-French Sexual Infatuation Syndrome)…Ok I just made about 90% of this up. I’m sorry. But the whole ‘Celine getting pregnant and Jessie and Celine end up being parents of two twin girls’ part is true.

**Umm, where’s my “live studio audience” ‘awwww’ sound? **

I can see how the generation right before me are such huge fans of the “Before” trilogy. I appreciate how Richard Linklater and the crew planned the movies to be released nine years apart in order to demonstrate the theme of love and romance throughout one’s lifetime and how the meaning changes as you mature through life. It’s like how probably feel about all the Toy Story movies growing up. I never realized that films could have so much impact on how we take life sometimes. Now the big question is, how many couples who went out to see this movie actually got to see all three movies with each other? If there are, that’s pretty cool I guess. I’d say that’s way better than a couple watching the “Twilight” movies together or that “Fifty Shades of How to Be Abused” movie that came out last month. Even for a guy who isn’t much into romance like that, I will even say that the “Before” trilogy is incredible example of a great romantic story. The films can really get you thinking about what about intimate romantic relationships make such a huge emotional impact on our lives. Another thing I’d like to point out is that I googled ‘top romantic movies of all time’ and found on RottenTomatoes.com that all three “Before” movies are considered in the top 100 romance movies. (“Before Sunrise”, #23, “Before Sunset, #44, and “Before Midnight”, #14). That means that they are in the top 50! I’m not one to disagree. I think that Hawke, Delpy, and Linklater wrote an amazing story for all the romantic and non-romantic fans. Let’s see if in 2022, there will be another “Before” movie called “Before 9PM” since they’ll be pretty old to be staying out late.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/top_100_romance_movies/?category=18

Before Sunset

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So I finally get to have most of my weekend off for the first time in like months! Saturday night + broke college student = MOVIE TIME! Yeah…not too fast. I’m watching a sequel to a romance movie that apparently was the ‘best’ ever. Ok, it wasn’t too bad but still not my cup of tea. After an exhausting opening shift and some hanging out with buddies after work, I lay down on my couch, open my laptop, set it on the table next to it and pull up the “Before Sunset” movie.

*Now to be honest, I don’t know if it was just I being extremely tired but I ended up knocking the heck out after the first twenty minutes or so. Not that the movie was bad or anything; it was probably those long takes that feel like forever that made me fall asleep. Makes me wonder what new attention disorders they are going to come up with in the future. My generation can’t even have a normal conversation without looking at their phones and checking how many likes they got on their picture of a sandwich that looks semi-edible with the hashtag and the word ‘gourmet’ next to it. (I think I’m the only one in my generation that still associates the ‘#’ symbol as pound, not hashtag. Please tell me I’m not the only one.) *

OH YEAH, “Before Sunset”.

So we find out nine years have passed since Jessie (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) had that awesome night together strolling in the beautiful, historic city of Vienna. We first learn that Jessie has become somewhat of a famous writer after writing a book about the day he met Celine. Is that a bit creepy or romantic? That a guy has the “best night of his life” with some chick, writes a bestseller book about it, and then manages to have a book signing in the city where this woman is supposed to live in. Hmm… I’d say hopeless romantic is a better fit for Jessie. Hey I can’t hate, I would have probably done the same even though that chance of seeing that person would be so slim. (Maybe not in this age of social media craziness but for 2004, yes) Since this is a romantic movie trilogy, OF COURSE the woman of his wet dreams shows up by surprise at his book signing. What a lucky son of a gun, right? Well we can call him lucky until we find out he’s married with a son back in the United States. Bummer right? I promise it gets more interesting as the movie goes in further.

What I enjoyed in this movie just like the one before it was the dialogue. This time Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were the ones writing the script and you can see that they genuinely put their personality and personal life into the script. For example, Ethan Hawke moving to New York from Texas or Julie Delpy moving to New York to study at New York University. In the movie, Jessie and Celine discuss how their lives have unfolded throughout the past nine years. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention they actually never met up in Vienna those six months after meeting. Which is what I predicted in the first place. How boring and predictable would the sequel have been if it took place six months after that night they met? Anyways, just like the last movie, this movie had outstanding dialogue (even though I had fallen asleep). I liked how the director just let the actors keep talking without taking any brakes as if they were really having a real life conversation. It makes the movie seem more realistic in that sense. Also, the fact that the movie was actually running on real time was pretty impressive. Most movies like to shove months, or even years into an hour and half of screen time.

Overall, the movie as a sequel is pretty good. Like I said if you like that sort of thing. One thing I want to criticize about the filming, was when they were filming around Paris you didn’t see any minorities. I think there was only one black guy in the movie. We all know Paris is a very diverse cosmopolitan city. It would have been nice to see an actual representation of the demographics of Paris judging by how real the director wanted this movie to feel. Other than that, I didn’t dislike the movie nor do I absolutely love it. Although after watching these two movies so far, I’d like to say that I’ve grown an appreciation for this genre of film. Maybe I’ll understand it better when I’ve grown older and had my heart torn in 9 million pieces in 37 different ways by 10 different women.

Before Sunrise

Right after our first exam, Professor Dunphy has us sit in class for a mandatory screening. Since it is Intro To Mass Media, I was assuming it would be a film pertaining to mass media such as the satirical classic Network or something more recent with the times such as The Social Network. No. The film shown had nothing to do with media besides a few lines about how “media is the new form of fascism”.

The film that was shown is called Before Sunrise; directed by Richard Linklater. The movie was released in 1995. It is a romantic movie starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Now let me be quite honest, romantic films are never my cup of tea or coffee. They always either end tragically or they ‘live happily ever after’ showing viewers how love and relationship ‘ought’ to be. In the case of Before Sunrise, it’s pretty much a traveller’s romantic European fantasy of meeting the love of your love on the train on the way to a beautiful historical city such as Vienna. This time though, you only have a few hours to spend time together before coming back into the horrible cruel world called reality. Nevertheless, the whole crew behind this film did an amazing job.

The opening scene of the movie takes place on a train bound to Vienna, Austria. We are first introduced to Celine, who is played by Julie Delpy, sitting across this annoying German-speaking couple that is in the middle of an argument. Frustrated, Celine then changes her seat a few rows back to avoid the couple. (Though I can’t see how this would make a difference since the couple is screaming at each other. But hey, this is a movie after all.) Celine ends up sitting across this young American guy named Jessie who apparently has been traveling around Europe for a couple of weeks and is bound to Vienna to catch a flight back home to the States. After Jessie and Celine have a pleasant conversation about their backgrounds and sharing stories of their pasts, Jessie persuades Celine to get off the train and explore Vienna together for one night. The entire film after this is literally following the couple and their deep conversations while going around the beautiful city of Vienna. My first thought after Jessie convincing Celine to get off the train with him was “Yeah that would NEVER work in New York City.” Here in New York City, we tend to think of people, as psychos first then figuring out they are normal. But again, this is Europe.

What struck me about this movie was the amazing dialogue exchanged between the two characters. The writers of this movie did a great job with the script and really showed the audience that words are powerful weapons for our understanding of the world. One particular conversation that was interesting was when Jessie and Celine are on the public trolley car…

*Now don’t worry, this isn’t going to spoil the plot.

So on this trolley, Jessie suggests that they take turns exchanging answers to questions they bring up such as first sexual experience, things you hate, and so on. When asked on what does she hate, Celine gave some cool answers that would have made us good friends. She mentions that she hates that there is a war going on 300 kilometers away and that people aren’t doing anything about it or don’t know what to do about it. I completely agree with Celine’s thoughts since most casualties in war are innocent people having nothing to do directly with the particular conflict. The next thing Celine says that she hates is how “the media tries to control our minds” and that “media is the new form of fascism”. For the most part, I actually agree with Celine. A lot of our opinions and perspectives of the world are shaped by the media. No entity, besides the corporate media, really has the power to convince a whole nation to go to war or to live in fear all the time. If you really think about, the news that is reported tends to lean towards the negative and not the positive. So in a way, Celine is right by saying the media tries to control our minds.

Like I mentioned before, what really made this movie really great was the dialogue. As far as the story goes, it’s your typical romantic movie feel. However, I would still recommend this movie to anybody who’s an avid romantic movie fan. I would probably put this under the “must-see” category. On another note, I would recommend this movie to anybody who wants to get some travel inspiration or ideas on their next trip. You see a lot of great outtakes of Vienna in this film including the old architecture and friendly people. I don’t know if I would watch this again on my own, but I can’t say this wasn’t a good movie.