Barcelona

This review is an excerpt from my book “Killer B’s: The 237 Best Movies On Video You’ve (Probably) Never Seen,” which is available as an ebook on iBooks. If you enjoy this review, there are 236 more like it in the book (plus a whole lot more). Check it out! BARCELONA: Call it “Annie Hall Abroad”; it’s a relationship comedy about a pair of uptight, conservative American yuppies thrown into a hip, sexually liberated environment. And it’s a buddy flick, as the cousins bicker continually, as they’ve done since they were kids. It’s a cross-cultural comedy as well, as the boys find themselves entirely out of their league debating politics with anti-American Europeans who discuss politics as facilely as Americans discuss celebrities. It’s a fish-out-of-water flick: the American boys, for instance, attempt to be “retro” among the ultrahip Eurotrash who, ironically, haven’t caught on yet that retro is more cutting edge than they are. Simultaneously, it’s a sweet, off-kilter, coming-of-age comedy bursting with hilarious insights into cultural differences and confusions. (The Barcelonans constantly accuse the U.S. of being a land of crime, consumerism, vulgarity and fascism, so Fred must explain to the freedom-seeking girls that Ted isn’t “a fascist of the marrying kind.” But when the girls are given a chance to live here, well...) The dialog is smart, sharp and witty; comically arch, exaggeratedly overintellectual, and delivered with a deadpan sincerity that only enhances its laugh-out-loud content. It’s an insightful satire with a good heart, gently poking fun at the troubles between genders no matter what their cultural background.

iTunes has horrible quality and playback. Takes 3 hours to download. Then, if that wasn't enough time to download properly, the movie lags and glitches. I have had this problem every time I download a movie from iTunes.

I lived in Barcelona, and can say this film does a good job representing a specific kind of culture clash that happens in the realm of thirty-something pretensions to grandeur. There is a tension in the air that gives life to the city, and this film somehow captures that, though it explores a unique, and awkward perspective. The foreigner's view is important, because Barcelona is both an intensely locally focused city with its own regional culture and also a cosmopolitan patchwork full of creative and hardworking immigrants who do a great deal to make the city what it is. The humor is dark at times, or wry, or just oddball, and you may need to see it more than once to realize how good it is.

Funny. Chatty. Will make you want to travel, and to find your mate in a foreign land. And you'll learn what Maneuver X is and how to apply it in your own life.