Café Society

With a 1930's swing in its step and colors that feel as vibrant as the characters are not, Café Society will at first peak your curiosity, only to leave you with the desire to slap nearly every character hard enough to knock the 'settling for a mediocre life' mentality out of them. 

Directed and written and narrated by Woody Allen, the film follows the life of Bobby Dorfman (played by Jesse Eisenberg), nephew of the great Phil Stern (played by Steve Carell), movie agent extraordinaire. Dorfman is a shy, awkward kid who dreams of a grand life in the big city of Hollywood. What befalls him instead is getting mixed up in an awkward, uncomfortable love triangle between his uncle, himself, and his uncle's secretary Vonnie (played by Kristen Stewart). While Vonnie is aware that she is seeing uncle and nephew, neither Stern nor Dorfman know that they are the other man in Vonnie's life. 

When they both accidentally discover that they are both lovers of Vonnie, Dorfman and Stern give Vonnie an ultimatum, forcing her to choose one. Inevitably, she chooses Stern, and a defeated Dorfman abandons his dreams of fame and fortune in Hollywood and instead returns home to New York to work with his brother Ben (played by Corey Stoll). By night, Ben runs a nightclub, but by day, he's an infamous gangster, unbeknownst to Dorfman or the rest of his family. 

With Dorfman's help, Ben's nightclub gains notoriety and excessive popularity, allowing Dorfman to mingle with the upper class, including beautiful Veronica Hayes (played by Blake Lively). Dorfman seems to instantaneously fall for Hayes' charm and looks, as the audience quickly catches the irony that her name is Veronica, just like Vonnie's full name. After a somewhat brief romance, Hayes reveals that she's pregnant, and she and Dorfman begin a marriage together to raise their child. 

While Dorfman's life seems full of bliss, Ben's life takes a toll for the worse when he decides to help his sister Evelyn (played by Sari Lennick) with her unruly neighbor Joe (played by Brendan Burke) by killing him instead of just talking to him, as Evelyn asks. While Ben has been able to keep his gangster dealings a secret up to this point, he is caught and sent to prison over Joe's death, and eventually electrocuted for the murder. 

In the meantime, Dorfman gets a surprise visit from his uncle Stern and Vonnie at his nightclub. While Stern and Vonnie seem happy and content in their new marriage, Vonnie still can't help but flirt with Dorfman, and Dorfman reciprocates, despite his happy marriage with Hayes. Dorfman and Vonnie agree to meet later and spend the next day together, which ends with them kissing on a New York bridge. However, that is as far as their relationship goes, and both return, somewhat reluctantly, to their spouses. Even though the day spent together was in secret, Hayes approaches Dorfman later to ask if he has cheated on her with Vonnie, as she had a dream that he did. Dorfman of course assures her that he did not, and Hayes seems appeased. 

The film ends with Dorfman and Hayes, and Vonnie and Stern at separate New Year's Eve parties, both Dorfman and Vonnie nostalgic over their old romance. 

While Woody Allen's film starts out with ample promise and excitement, both quickly drizzle into melancholy and lost dreams. The characters seem to accept their fate without a word, but still clearly long for something better, making the audience also long for something better. The redeeming quality of the movie is the time period Woody Allen was smart enough to set the story in; the 1930's setting provides terrific music, fashion, and an overall colorful feel to the story, but even the vibrancy of the time can't make up for the lack-luster and somewhat depressing tale. 

The Beginning

If you had asked me junior year of college where I would be in five years, I would have probably told you some cockamamie answer. I was naive and dumb junior year.

But somehow writing would have been involved in that cockamamie answer, and that's the one thing I wasn't dumb about junior year; I knew I loved to write.

I graduated college four years ago, and still have yet to actually do anything in my vocation that really involves writing.

Don't get me wrong, I've learned to accept and (most days) be relatively happy in my current vocation. And while the majority of my job is writing e-mails in a customer service-type setting, that's not the kind of writing I thought I'd be doing post-graduation.

I still cling to the hope that one day, I'll find myself in a job that allows me to really write like I want. But that's not today, so instead of moping about it, I choose to be proactive.

Thus this new blog was born.

When I was a kid, I thought I was real cool so I started a fake newspaper and sent it to all my friends and family. Basically, it was me doing things like writing movie reviews or sharing my weird dreams or bribing my friends into writing guest columns for me. My favorite part though was always the movie reviews.

I guess this is my sophisticated adult self following in my kid self's footsteps. But I think I'll just stick to film reviews this time.

If you know me at all, you know that I watch way too many movies.

Like. Way too many. So many that I have a budget every month just for going to the movies.

So here's me combining two things that I love in the hopes that it takes the edge off of my writing itch.

I'm not promising any regularity (for the three people who will follow this blog...) or type of movies that I'll review, but I can promise this: There will be reviews. At some point. Of like. Movies.

Yeah. So enjoy and stuff.