The other day, when I was walking around across Barcelona's streets I found something quite curious: An English Grocery! Its name is "A taste of Home". Quite appropiate, don't you think?
It's nice to find a place in Barcelona where you can buy some 100% English products! Now, you can taste some disgusting English dishes, for example those awful pies! Name a part of a body and they'll show you a pie made of it! Ok, not everything's so bad! Puddings, muffins... Mmm... What else... I can't think about more stuff! Well, let's face it: English's cuisine's not very nice! It can't be compared to what people call Mediterranean Diet, but even thogh, there are some nice things. Most of all related to breakfast!
But the nicest thing about this grocery is this: They have SPAM! Maybe some young people know about Mail Spam, but not the original product... Hmm... So, Spam is basically some kind of canned precooked meat. It was invented back in the 30's, and it was used during World War II to feed English and Russian troops. In fact, this SPAM is quite popular in UK, but it's not British but American! You can even find a SPAM museum in the States!
But, why do we call our junk mail spam? It's all because of one sketch made by Monty Python, one of the best humourous gangs ever! Let's see it...
As you see, one of the customers gets quite annoyed about so much SPAM in the menu, and so happens the same in our mail inbox!
Ok, enough for today! For those who want to buy some SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM WONDERFUL SPAAAAM, you can find this shop in Floridablanca 78, BCN.
As I told you some time ago, I really like cinema! And, of course, every year I watch the Academy Awards Ceremony live, while wearing my best dinner jacket. So, every year I try to watch some of the nominated films, and after "Milk" I thought it'd be nice to watch a comedy. The chosen was "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". I guess most of all inhabitants of this precious city surely were transmitted with some kind of Allen's sickness. They probably thought: "Oh, it's so nice one of the best movie directors is filming a movie about our city!! I'm really looking forward to seeing it!". And so, I must confess, as an adopted Spanish and lover of Barcelona, I was one of those!
In fact, I'm not very keen on Allen's movies, but the curious stuff is, it's not about his movies, but people who watch his movies! There's some kind of Allen's fans who scorn people who doesn't like his movies, just like that! Sometimes, it looks like you must be some kind of jerk if you don't enjoy a movie directed by Woody Allen, and so on: Every Allen's movie's fantastic even before being released... That really makes me loose my cool! And you, Spanish people, have some kind of saying for this: "Para muestra, un botón".
I didn't like this movie at all, and the thing is, I had some predisposition to like it, because of where this movie's settled. Unfortunately, that city on the movie is not a real Barcelona. It's just a mixture of some postcards, quite beautiful, but not realistic at all. One of the scenes of this film is a fight between Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz in a street of this city. Those who walk a lot across this city would recognize it: It's St.Ramon's street. This street:
Of course this street's not on Barcelona's guides, between the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. It's a street plenty of prostitutes, pimp's, drug dealers and other kind of freelancers. It also has one of the most charming pubs in the city: the Marsella, one of the oldests bars of Barcelona (1820) where you can drink Absinth, if you dare... But I will talk about that another day! Anyway, THIS is a real Barcelona also! Of course, by the time Mr. Allen was filming, streets had been cleaned already, and there wasn't a trace of these people. Police do exactly the same when some polititian is visiting this area. Because, let's face it: Under this pseudo-alternative vision of that what they call "Raval", loved by non-working-artists, bohemian-whatevers, cafeteria-phylosophers, and old-bikes-riders, lies the true essence of that neighbourhood: The Barrio Chino. Don't forget it!
So, that Barcelona in the film is not true at all. And what about the script? Ok, let's see it! I can't find in VCB any of those witty conversations which Allen's always making a great show of! So, the characters in the movie simply follow this scheme:
Once I remember I was somehow waiting for a bull, appearing in the middle of Ramblas, or a bullfighter simply walking around!
And I really think Penelope Cruz is one of the best characters of the film, even if I can't stand her as an actress... But it'd be good to keep Rebecca Hall in mind, I think she's the best on this film!
Anyway, it's always good to watch a film, even if you don't like it! So, you can give your oppinion if someone's asking!
