Saturday, June 11, 2011

Travel is . . .

. . .Wonderful on film.

I saw the new Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris, this afternoon. The film, out about three weeks, has variously garnered three-and-a-half or four stars and for my money, it's definitely a winner.

Anyone who has ever spent time in the City of Lights, will love the film. They will love the opening shots of the Champs Elysees, Montmarte, Place de La Concorde, Fouquet's Restaurant (which is very tourist-y but serves great roast duck,) Musee d'Orsay, the bateaux mouche and the city's myriad outdoor cafes. Paris in the rain, the film's lead actor thinks, is wonderful.

After half a dozen visits to Paris, I concur. The city is probably the most romantic in the world and definitely one of the most beautiful. Certinly very photogenic.

The film focuses on a young American writer. He, his toxic fiancee and her parents, go to Paris and stay at the presitigious Hotel Crillon. He wants to wander, he definitely wants to discover the Paris of Hemmingway, Picasso, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tokls and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerland and the whole panoply of cultural icons of the 1920s who lived and loved in Paris. In his wandering he "sees" thexe amazing ex-pats and ultimately falls in love with a young woman who has lived with Picasso, Hemmingway and Modigliani and Braque. She, in turn, fantasizes about Paris of the 1890s, La Belle Epoque.

It is an entertaining film and may wind up an Allen classic.

And speaking of entertaining, I saw a piece on Saturday morning television about Debbie Reynold's costly collection of movie memorabilia going up for auction June 15.
She has been collecting for years and has Judy Garland's garnet slippers from the Wizard of Oz, Liz Taylor's headdress from Cleopatra, and the famed white silk pleated dress Marilyn Monroe wore in Seven Year Itch.

I saw some of her amazing collection in Las Vegas about 20 years ago. It is awesome.

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