Anywhere But Here
Anywhere But Here is a 1999 American coming-of-age comedy drama film based on the novel of the same name by Mona Simpson. It was directed by Wayne Wang from a screenplay by Alvin Sargent, and stars Susan Sarandon, Natalie Portman, and Shawn Hatosy.
Anywhere But Here
Adele August and her reluctant teenage daughter, Ann, leave their small town in Wisconsin and move to Beverly Hills. Adele hopes Ann will become a Hollywood actress despite Ann's interest in going to Brown University. They rent a run-down apartment and Adele becomes a teacher at the high school where Ann enrolls.
Anywhere But Here was initially slated for a spring of 1999 release, but Fox deemed the film was not ready for release until that September. Fox then set an October 22 release date, which ultimately changed to November 12.[9]
The film received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a score of 64% based on reviews from 89 critics. The website's consensus reads: "The strong chemistry between Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman as a mother and daughter trying to make a fresh start in L.A. helps to elevate Anywhere But Here above its occasional forays into melodrama."[10]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars and noted "The movie's interest is not in the plot, which is episodic and 'colorful,' but in the performances. Sarandon bravely makes Adele into a person who is borderline insufferable. Sarandon's role is trickier and more difficult, but Portman's will get the attention. In 'Anywhere But Here,' she gets yanked along by her out of control mother, and her best scenes are when she fights back, not emotionally, but with incisive observations."[11]
Wayne Wang's "Anywhere But Here" is about a frustrated mother who believes she is rotting away in a small Wisconsin town. She buys a used Mercedes, shoves her teenage daughter inside, and drives them cross-country to Beverly Hills, where she will put her master's degree in early education to work, and her daughter will go to auditions and be discovered by the movies.
The affordable streets they live on reminded me of "The Slums of Beverly Hills," the 1998 movie where jobless Alan Arkin steers his kids into the same school system, but "Anywhere But Here" isn't a ripoff of the earlier movie--it's more as if the mom saw it, and made up her mind to try the same thing. For that matter, it's based on Mona Simpson's 1987 novel, so the inspiration may have traveled the other way.
The mother is Adele August (Susan Sarandon), sexy, wildly optimistic, consumed by her visions. Her daughter Ann (Natalie Portman) is a serious kid, smart and observant, who is tired of her mom's sudden inspirations. I think there's a possibility that Adele is manic, but the movie doesn't go that route, preferring to see her as a dreamer who needs to grow up.
The movie's interest is not in the plot, which is episodic and "colorful," but in the performances. Sarandon bravely makes Adele into a person who is borderline insufferable. This isn't Auntie Mame, but someone with deep conflicts and inappropriate ways of addressing them. And Ann is complex, too. The movie is narrated in her voice ("mother made an amazing amount of noise when she ate, like she was trying to take on the whole world"), and her drift seems to be that her mother did the right thing in the wrong way for the wrong reason. When a family tragedy brings them back to Wisconsin, "the streets weren't as wide, the trees seemed lower, the houses smaller." Sarandon's role is trickier and more difficult, but Portman's will get the attention. Her big career break was in "The Phantom Menace," where she played young Queen Amidala, but her talent also glowed in "Beautiful Girls" (1996), where she was just on the other side of the puberty line and vibrated with . . . well, kindness and beauty, I'd say. In "Anywhere But Here," she gets yanked along by her out of control mother, and her best scenes are when she fights back, not emotionally, but with incisive observations.
Every human has their own longings and every trip has a purpose. Couples, solo travelers, families and groups deserve detailed planning that elevates their vacation to a life-affirming experience. Especially when there are wide-ranging requests, we make sure every person on the trip has reasons to engage and celebrate.
Habibi released its second album, Anywhere But Here, last month. The band's sound is heavily influenced by the Iranian psychedelic music lead singer Rahill Jamalifard listened to growing up. Bailey Robb/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Last month, Habibi released Anywhere But Here, the band's first full-length album since its self-titled debut in 2014. Just like that first record and the EPs and singles over the past six years, the new album is full of Habibi's signature mix of psychedelic rock and Iranian music.
"It was just wild to me, because I know record collectors, I know all these people who love that sound, but for somebody who's my age, clearly white, and knew Iranian musicians that I loved, it was so amazing," she says "Because now there are a bunch of reissues of old Iranian psych and pop music, but at the time there wasn't as many and they weren't uploaded to YouTube."
I've been speaking to them most every day, just to my cousins and checking in on them. I have a lot of elders so it's very, very scary, but luckily for now I know my family is safe, and they're staying home. But it is a time of great struggle there. And especially with the sanctions, not being able to have access to medicine and humanitarian aid: It's really scary and heartbreaking to know there could be preventable deaths. I mean everywhere, it's not just there, but there is particularly a very bad situation.
Brooklyn's Habibi brought an explosive and celebratory fun to their self-titled 2014 debut. That brief collection was overflowing with bubblegum melodies, upbeat pop, and the kind of giddy excitement that bands only revel in during their earliest stages. Six years later, sophomore album Anywhere But Here retains some of that excitement, but sees the band expanding into moodier expression, more complex songwriting, and an expanded instrumentation that includes occasional Middle Eastern touches. This kind of progression was hinted at on the band's 2018 EP Cardamom Garden, which saw them incorporating Persian hand percussion and lyrics sung in Farsi into shadowy rock tunes. Anywhere But Here splits its track list between higher-energy power pop songs like the attitude-heavy "Misunderstood" and more simmering, downtempo slow burns like "Flowers." On the moodier songs, spindly surf-rock guitar leads blur into reverb-coated vocal harmonies. The relaxed pace and sun-dazed atmosphere of "Angel Eyes" sounds like the Allah-Las at their most subdued, but before long, Habibi calls on the jittery fire of their earliest material for the dancey garage pop of "Bad News." Both Habibi's pop-friendly and atmospheric sides grow on Anywhere But Here, with more direct hooks on songs like "Hate Everyone But You" and a daring willingness to explore outside of their known parameters on songs like album-closer "Come My Habibi." Along with auxiliary percussion from a tombak player, the song finds a droning riff stretching into a psychedelic workout, taking the band further out than they've ventured before. Being able to break new, more serious ground without losing any of the pop core that made the band so fun to begin with is the album's key strength. Anywhere But Here not only has some of Habibi's most adventurous songs, but also some of their best yet.
I remember reading somewhere that being dumped can be as bad, if not worse than, a sudden bereavement. Everyone has had one of those sudden, awful breakups and can relate to the way that they completely dislocate you in time and space, turning once familiar faces and spaces into weird alien moments, filled with regret, loss and painful memories.
A creature that is transported by anywhere but here cannot be affected by a subsequent casting of anywhere but here for 24 hours afterward (but can be affected normally by other forms of planar travel).
I have seen it multiple times but over the years I've gotten it confused from time to time with another Natalie Portman title, "Where the Heart Is." Now that I've seen both in close proximity to each other I think I'll remember going forward this is the good one.
Anywhere But Here explores all levels of Caution's personality. The Brooklyn-bred MC gives listeners several flows including the boom-bap style that helped him and his Pro Era collective gain popularity.
UK rock outfit Sorry have released their sophomore album, Anywhere But Here, today (October 7th). Their second LP is a nuanced and layered effort both in songwriting and production that at times feels like an anomaly. Even in the dreary, bleak moments of the record, a sense of ecstasy manages to permeate through, resulting in an extraordinary project that evokes an array of emotions.
The conflicting feelings of somberness, anger, nothingness, and at times, joy, are what make Anywhere But Here a record that stays with you. Whether it be the relatability of their lyrics or the addictive instrumentals, Sorry have a variety of methods to keep listeners enticed through this poignant vessel.
he mother and daughter in Mona Simpson's widely praised novel "Anywhere but Here" spend an awful lot of time driving around and going out for conciliatory ice cream cones after they fight. That would not bode well for a movie version, but the film happens to have a knowing, well-distilled screenplay by Alvin Sargent and the same incisive, affectionate direction that Wayne Wang brought to "The Joy Luck Club." Wang once again works splendidly with actresses, and boy, does he have a lot to work with this time.
It's a pleasure, if not a surprise, to find Susan Sarandon so show-stopping in the role of Adele August, the mother and nemesis of the story's adolescent heroine, Ann. Adele is flamboyant and outrageous in ways that could have been as painful for an audience as they are for 14-year-old Ann, but Ms. Sarandon makes her enormously funny and appealing, too. It is Adele's idea to uproot her daughter from family and friends in the Midwest and head for Beverly Hills, where she has big ambitions but no prospects. "You're gonna die one day too, Mom, just like the rest of us," Ann remarks acidly before the two leave Bay City, Wis. "But not in this town," Adele blithely replies. 041b061a72
