Qatar: Monfils Beats Nadal; Faces Tsonga In Final

Karim Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

Gael Monfils of France stunned World #2 Rafael Nadal in the semifinals of the first official ATP tour event of the year in Doha, Qatar by winning their semifinal match in straight sets 6-3 6-4. Monfils' win sets up an all-French final since World #3 Roger Federer was forced to forfeit his match against Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga due to a back injury. It was only the second time in his career Federer had been unable to play a match due to an injury.

It was Monfils' first win against the 10-time major champion in 10 tries and bodes well for the prodigiously talented Frenchman to breakthrough to the Top Tier of Tennis in 2012. Tsonga continues his stellar play from the end of 2011 into 2012 and has a 2-1 head-to-head career record against his fellow countryman.

FILM REVIEW: The Artist

The Artist is not like any other recent movie you have ever seen. The Other Half and I saw it at the Arclight Cinemas Pasadena in the week between Christmas and New Years. At Arclight they always have the usher come in before the film and make a little speech about the film and the theater. At this screening the usher mentioned that the film was in an "old school" format of 4:3 in addition to being in black and white and nearly silent (no spoken dialogue). He wanted to warn the audiences not to think that there were technical difficulties with the sound or the projection: the unusual look and lack of dialogue were artistic choices by the writer-director Michel Hazanavicius.

The movie cleverly begins by showing a movie within the movie which is a silent movie, letting the audience become acclimated to the black and white format and the lack of sound. Eventually the camera pans back and shows that the movie within a movie is occurring at a gala premiere and it is precisely at the moment in which the audience has to buy into the central conceit of the film: the action outside the screen is also in black and white and silent! It is a very fun idea, which even gets more "meta" when one realizes that The Artist is a silent black-and-white film about a silent black-and-white film star! The film star in question (who also starred in the movie within a movie) is named George Valentin (played by the debonair Jean Dujardin) and in the beginning is shown to be a wildly popular leading man, a sort of combination of Rudolf Valentino and Errol Flynn.

The main plot involves the change in Hollywood with the advent of "talkie" movies and we are shown the meteoric rise of Peppy Miller (played by the luminous Bérénice Bejo) and corresponding precipitous fall of Dujardin. Miller is introduced to the audience as just another fan who is besotted with Valentin, hoping to get an autograph when through an accident her picture gets put in the paper with Valentin and she is discovered by the head of the studio (played by John Goodman).

One of the highlights of the movie is Valentin's sidekick, a dog named Jack who is a very well-trained Jack Russell Terrier, who appears in almost every scene of the film that Valentin appears in. Another highlight of the film are the beautiful locations around Los Angeles around which the plot takes place, depicting a 1930s Hollywood (then called "Hollywoodland" of course).

Overall, the film is a delightful homage to the storied past of cinema, with filmic shoutouts to some of the highest regarded movies of all time, such as Singin' in the Rain, A Star is Born and even Citizen Kane.

One caveat is that for modern-day audiences used to the high impact look and feel of HDTVs and Blu-Rays,  The Artist is a demanding film to watch, requiring more concentration and attention, but it is worth the effort.

Title:  The Artist.
Director: Michel Hazanavicius.
Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for a disturbing image and a crude gesture.
Release Date: November 25, 2011.
Viewing Date: December 27, 2011.

 Plot: A-.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B+.

Overall Grade: (3.67/4.0).

Celebrity Friday: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Poses Nude

Here's a little break from our coverage of the 2011 French Open. French tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga posed nude for the July 2011 UK edition of Cosmopolitan and said "My favourite part of my body is my buttocks."

Hmm, I think there some other parts of his body which would be my favorite!

Hat/tip to Rod 2.0

MOVIE REVIEW: Incendies

For my birthday last year the Other Half and I saw the film that won the 2010 Best Foreign Film Oscar, El Secreto de Sus Ojos, a suspenseful, mysterious drama set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in Spanish with English subtitles. This year, I decided I wanted to see Incendies, which many thought should have won the 2011 Best Foreign Film Oscar (Denmark won for In a Better World),especially after hearing this review from Bob Mondello of NPR:

I can't recall seeing a film in which I have so often wondered, "My God, how must that feel?" We in the audience are meant to be as unsettled as the characters. I've heard complaints about the ending being over-the-top, but my background is live theater, and you won't hear them from me. The storytelling in Incendies strikes me as primal the way Greek tragedy is primal. Shattering. Cathartic. It is a breathtaking film.

So clearly Incendies is a suspenseful, mysterious drama in French (and Arabic) with English subtitles. It was Canada's entry into the Foreign Language Oscar competition, but most of the scenes occur in an unspecified Middle Eastern country (presumed to be Lebanon).

The story begins with the reading of the will of a mother named Nawal Marwan to her surviving twin children, a boy Simon and a girl Jeanne, in a somewhat depressing Montreal notary's office on a cold, wintry day. The notary delivers two letters from Nawal to her twins, one is to be delivered to their older brother and one is to be delivered to their father. The twins are amazed: as far as they know, their father is dead, and they have never been told that they have a brother! Her mother wishes to be buried in an unmarked grave, face down until they have completed her requests of communicating these letters to her twins' brother and father. The male twin reacts with anger and storms out of the office while the female twin sobs quietly. Thus the movie begins as a mystery about family secrets.

The scene shifts to Nawal as a young woman, and we see that her "immigrant" (Palestinian?) boyfriend get attacked and killed by her brother. However we find out that Nawal is pregnant, and she eventually has a baby boy who is immediately taken away within minutes of birth. This solves the mystery of the existence a brother to the twins.

There are many more mysteries to come, however, because Nawal leaves home to go to University in the big city and finds herself in the middle of war zone. The Christians and the Muslims are fighting a civil war "in the South" and the hostilities have spread throughout the city as well. Nawal is Christian and when she finds out that that orphanages are being attacked she travels to the South to find out if she can find her son she gave up who would now be a toddler. The movie turns into a war story as Nawal witnesses horrific atrocities committed by both sides first hand and ends up in prison.

The movie then shifts again into a "fish out of water" story as we follow Jeanne, Nawal's daughter from Canada as she attempts to retrace her mother's steps a generation removed in time in order to solve the mysteries surrounding her father and her brother and comply with her mother's dying wishes. Eventually Jeanne's twin brother Simon joins her, along with the notary who had employed their mother for decades and is insistent that they do all they can to fulfill her dying wishes.

Incendies is an incredibly haunting film. You will either hate or love the final twist at the end but you will not quickly forget it. Incredibly, they were able to get the rights to one of Radiohead's most psychedelic songs, "You and Whose Army?" which is deployed to devastating effect in the film's opening scene. I would strongly urge you to see the film in the theaters, but if you miss it there add it to your Netflix queue as soon as it is released on home video. It really should not be missed.


Title: Incendies.

Running Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

MPAA Rating: R for some strong violence and language.

Release Date: September 4, 2010.

Viewing Date: May 21, 2011.

Plot: A+.

Acting: A.

Visuals: A.

Impact: A+.

Overall Grade: A- (4.167/4.0).