HOP ON THE SPIRAL BITCH!

Everyone has a special place in their heart for Woody Allen–it’s an innate proclivity for the modern urbanite–and that spot in my ticker just got a whole lot bigger. I have my own, oddly sexual, reasons for loving Woody the man (a thing for short, neurotic intellectuals); Vicky Cristina Barcelona has, thankfully, reaffirmed my penchant for his movies. After a string of miserably out of touch films, whose formal programmes were dated at best and downright embarrassing at worst (Cassandra’s Dream, I’m talking to you), VCB is sexy as hell, impeccably cast, and wins for best comedic use of a narrator since the Royal Tennenbaums.

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem steal the show as a tempestuous, estranged artist couple with whom Cristina and Vicki become entangled. Cruz, as Maria Elena, is everything we girls secretly want to be: insanely gorgeous, unabashedly emotional, and batshit crazy. And watching Bardem as smoldering sexpot, Juan Antonio, particularly after his frightening turn in No Country For Old Men, is a more than pleasant shock. I’ll even go out on a limb and say that Johanssen actually acted in this film–she balanced out the pouting with some attempts at human emotion!

Woody has a knack for making women look more beautiful, cities more enchanting, and conversations perfectly existential, and this movie is a wonderful distillation of those talents.

I’m gushing, but allow me one last hyperbolic statement, and this one I actually announced aloud after the film: Vicki Christina Barcelona reminded me why I love going to the movies. So, now that I’ve embarrassed myself with this showering of Woody-ffection–no sarcasm! no irony!–get off the internets and go see it. HALEY