Vicki Christina Barcelona

One of the few Oscar films I saw, since it's pretty much DVDs for the foreseeable future, was "Vicki Christina Barcelona." More amusing than I expected, although the best part by far was the background scenery: Never been to Barcelona, but now I want to go. Maybe it's that I'm getting older, but it's very noticeable now that while Woody Allen writes mostly detailed characters for the female actresses (although I'm not sure that Penelope Cruz shouting in both English and Spanish and acting like a nut-case is really great "acting"). The male characters are either wish-fulfillment fantasies for him (the Spanish painter) or cardboard figures who exist simply to advance the plot. In the film, the female characters all seem to have unlimited funds which enable them to spend their time emoting in Spain, but without doing anything to earn their keep. The Spanish painter also seems to have unlimited funds to indulge in creating abstract art while flying his own private plane, yet knowing all the best hidden restaurants in Spain. His father is a poet unpublished by choice, yet who seems to own a beautiful country estate (no hint of what the plumbing must be like.) The only two male characters who appear to have actual jobs, earning the money to support this motley crew, are cardboard cutouts who, because they work for a living, are shown to lack "soul."

I must be getting cranky in my old age.