tbills2 Laurel Canyon is obnoxiously lull and a tad fruitless at times, like lazy suburbanite stoners glued to a couch, however it's overwhelmingly beautiful as it communicates softly experienced human heartfelt messages with love and real vibrancy and vulnerability. I love Kate. I tend to like Kate in this when she's laying naked in bed, or chitchatting, or just standing there looking beautiful, or wearing her glasses playing Scrabble on an airplane flight, or taking off her seatbelt in the passenger seat talking with Christian in the car applying her lipstick in the mirror visor, or kissing, or rolling her luggage by the pool, or introducing herself to Frances and the crew, or looking at framed photos listening to Steely Dan, or kindly declining invites because she's so tired, or getting comfortable in her new place, or getting ready for bed in her pajamas, or going through books and records, or writing on her computer in her glasses again, or explaining her work, or picking out food to eat, or being the cutest woman in the whole world, or jogging back up the hill with food, or getting on the back of the motorbike strapping on her helmet and holding on tight, or grocery shopping holding her purse, or offering pizza, or accepting a drink, or waking up to a cell call, or kissing again, or inquiring Natascha over coffee, or kissing again, or jogging again, or typing on her computer in her glasses again but this time with wet hair, or thinking, or hearing the music from the balcony, or sending emails, or walking in a room, or smoking a joint, or reading the morning newspaper in her pajamas again, or talking about the studio, or greeting the friendly dog, or checking out the lovely place, or kissing again, or walking by the pool again, or sitting on the bed, or smoking a joint again, or critiquing the band, or skimming Spin magazine in bed, or keeping on talking about the porno magazines, or kissing again, or going down under the sheets, or talking on the phone again, or walking out to the pool at night in her bare feet with skinny dipping Frances and Alessandro, or taking a shot, or relaxing with a drink by the pool, or hating to get wet, or stripping off her wet clothes and getting in the heated pool, or splish-splashing around, or kissing again, ok and now Frances and Kate are kissing, oh you get the picture. I love Kate Beckinsale she's so beautiful. Frances and Natascha are too. I've never seen intensely gifted Christian act so unintensively. I like it. He's Batman.

Armand the virtue of movie - the cast. Frances Mc Dormand,Christian Bale, Natascha McElhone. ball of situations, crumbs of humor, slices of Californian life style and music industry. heart - self definition out of others but as product of them. axis - character of Chistian Bale - scale of facts, words and strange world who gives measure of life. story is not original but solution is special. the pool is, in this case, not only a scene but one character, refuge, root, piece of unfinished relationship and kind of solitude. a good film but in strange form. ball of neurosis and fragile escapes, love as mist and place of the other in your existence, its end is just beginning. That is all !

rajah524-3 Recall the MTv video for Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open," Johnny Depp's "Eddie Rebel" and Faye Dunaway's would-be talentmeister. Rocket to Stardom. Everybody's got their knobs on "11." Where's the next new face, the next new pair of legs, the next new set of…?Pieces and players in the utterly denied, approval-seeking chess game we play up here back of the sign. We think we really =are= soooooooooo clever and on top of our… games. But we're just as obviously duplicitous, manipulative, competitive, seductive, jealous, petty, stimulation-obsessed and stupid when we're stoned as those people on Whittier or Budlong. We all run around declaiming that narcissism (as well as our determination to stay that way). But the instant an opportunity comes our way, the money's down. Everybody north of Ventura or east of Lankershim wants to =be= us. Or what they think we are. They should watch this first.Beckinsale =should= do more films like this (and she has). Francis should, too (and she does). Okay; now that all that's out of my system: This is an okay little art house piece actors and directors love to make to look at how people say this and do that. And then drive their little yellow school buses full of curious but confused, rule-bound but over-excited inner children over the cliff. In this one, at least, the characters "take responsibility" for the consequences the way people in Beverly Hills tend to… and then go right back to whatever it was they were doing to jack their lives up. Boredom is just the very worst thing one can admit to up here. And I really need to see a film like this every now and again.

napierslogs There's a clash of cultures, families and sexual orientations in "Laurel Canyon", and I enjoyed all of it. Sam (Christian Bale) and Alex (Kate Beckinsale) are an uptight, New York couple in complete control of their lives, until they move in with Sam's mother Jane (Frances McDormand) who is a loose hippie (in all senses of the words). Jane also has a slew of rock-and-roll men living in her house, most notably, Ian (Alessandro Nivola), her primary boyfriend with an irresistible accent - but then again Jane and Ian don't really label anything, especially relationships.As Sam grows increasingly frustrated by his mother's lifestyle, Alex grows increasingly intrigued by it. Sam's need to control everything can get annoying, but Bale plays well off of Beckinsale's quiet energy. The sexual tension between Beckinsale, Nivola and McDormand is electric and is able to keep driving the film forward.The dialogue is funny enough and the actors are all very good that they make up for the slightly predictable plot. At the Independent Spirit Awards, Frances McDormand was nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Alessandro Nivola for Best Supporting Actor. Well deserved nominations and quite possibly the best performances of their careers. Be prepared for sexual energy in every direction, but I recommend "Laurel Canyon".