Reviews

Some sequences here look like deleted scenes from Blue Velvet. They are welcome.

Tragedy shows its ugly face in this episode, with two scenes that left me in the bitterest mood. The gloomiest episode so far. New additions of Laura Dern and a 90 year old Harry Dean Stanton (reprising his Fire Walk with Me character) may come to help and save us in this dark, dark age. As a character repeatedly says: Help is needed.

Movies about losers usually don't get the recognition they deserve; take for example Kaurismaki's 'La vie de bohème', maybe his best movie, or Ettore Scola's 'Romanze di un giovane povero', people don't want to be reminded about the losers, the ones that finish at second place or worse, and "A good day" is not an exception to this rule. If someone had tried consciously to make a movie that is a mixture of Richard Linklater and Edward Wood styles, she would never have achieved such an outstanding result. Right when the movie starts you begin to notice some bold stylist choices (background actors in the foreground, abrupt little spatial-temporal cuts in the editing, dialog completely out of a soap opera) , and it goes on and on relentlessly until the very end. First you dismiss the movie for its evident lack of Qualité, then you start to mock it as campy, hilariously quoting its dialog or joking on the plot twist, but after that you might realize that this movie has passion on it and is the work of somebody with a heart; that the two characters (a charming bohemian loser and a grown up spoiled brat) probably would talk like that in real life. The force of nature is refreshingly powerful in this movie. After sunrise and before sunset, there's a good day.

* I want to thanks to Magrio and S. Ayala for giving this movie the appreciation it deserves.

Music is remarkably present in the last three features directed by Tim Burton, bur I found the musical numbers the weakest thing of the movie. Maybe because of the choppy editing (Was Burton trying too hard to avoid a 'stage look'?), maybe because the songs aren't that memorable. But anything else works perfectly, it is like a remake of an inexistent horror movie of the thirties, with the artificial locations, the obsession of vengeance beyond verisimilitude, and the naive romantic couple. The actors are all great, Depp doing Edward Razorhands again but in a different way, and Bonham Carter as good as ever. Alan Rickman should stick to villain roles instead of looking for versatility. He is always a great villain.

Like classic directors invented the western imagery, Tarantino recreates a world of vinyl jukebox, groovy cars and adventurer-girls that only exists as an illusion. The girls, low-middle class , behaves with an independence that many housewives would envy and they are clearly inspired in the Russ Meyer pictures. But they are real, even one of the girls is credited as 'herself'.

The famous Tarantino's dialogs are a hit-and miss in this one. Sometimes they seem forced, others they flow naturally, the sheer pleasure of conversation, and they help to make the movie a lightweight experience, that could keep on running. I said that the world exists only as an illusion, but that doesn't apply to the objects (the cars, the jukebox). Tarantino is like an antiquarian that doesn't want to see his beloved treasures getting dust.

Did I mention the virtuosity? The cinematography is ostentatious and generous, showing colorful scenarios. They don't try to be pervasive, on the contrary it is a "Hey, look what I'm doing" way all the time, and it works.

My only complaint is that I'm sure I'm gonna see a few semi-obscure movies from the 70s and think: "I've seen this before somewhere..." It is time for QT to do something that could be described as 'original'. Only Pulp Fiction fits in that category.

Few more interesting political personalities of the 20th century than Salvador Allende, and few has been least debated and spreaded, maybe due to the subversion that yields in his ideas. Patricio Guzman, a Chilean filmmaker, has based almost all his work on him. Allende won clean democratic elections and assumed the presidency with a socialist program, which was deeply resisted by the Chilean bourgeoisie and the United States, afraid of the growing USSR influence on the region. This documentary shows priceless images and details of his life and presidency, for example:

• Direct witnesses of Nixon and Kissinger's meetings planning Allende's overthrown, giving details like Nixon usually referring Allende as "that Son of B*itch". - Extracts of the famous Allende's speech in the UN denouncing the abusive power of multinational corporations, which was his 'death sentence'. - Leonardo Henrikssen, a journalist, filming his own execution by a Chilean soldier.

It is sad how the illegal overthrown is justified and neglected by certain people. I found a typical remark on this in an IMDb's user commentary: "There was abuse of authority, I don't accept it, but try to make understand somebody with a gun or a fusil in his hand that his old lifestyle was over..." Well, I understand somebody who didn't like government's measures, but justifying this way the murder of thousands of people, and the exile of other thousands is criminal. The contrast between the popular political Chilean participation of those days with today indifference and unworthy mere-decorative Latin-American governments is awesome.

OK, This isn't the best movie ever made, but all the reviews in this site seem to start this way, so I'm just adapting my writing style to this fact.

Ambiguity is the key of the movie. Quoting one character, "Truth is the bottom of a bottomless well." Also, a character mentions that, he thinks, "We should at least consider the possibility that the girl's story is true". Both writers, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal were gays. Gayness without ambiguity was unthinkable at Hollywood, 1959.

But there are more, much more. It's a melodrama, which means that relationships among characters are over the top. A fine example of what is over the top really this movie gives.

Gothic is very often associated with darkness, yet this movie resolution is an example of white, luminous, Gothic style.

There are four main characters. The manipulative Mrs. Venable, her son Sebastian, who remains always off screen, Sebastian's cousin Cathy, and a psycho-surgeon that maybe will make a lobotomy to Cathy.

An aberration of the 20th Century, lobotomy has a story worthy of being read. It's a fact that Williams's sister was lobotomized, so maybe he put more personal issues here than one could suspect.

All the technical aspects of the movie are first rate. There are divergences in the reviews I read about the performances, but I think the whole cast did it very well.

And there are more, much more, but I don't want to spoil anything. I said enough.

As a final note, I must say that I'm usually against remakes, but I would love to see a remake underlining the subtle movie eroticism.

Some good acting, some interesting subplots, but a banal main story makes this film something near nadir, If you like actors doing their thing, and you don't care about interesting plots, then this is your kind of movie, but in any other case just skip it.

Of the actors, I liked specially Patricia Neal, Glenn Close was a little too much 'theatrical' and people like Lyle Lovett, Chris O' Donnel and Liv Tyler were just ok. Julianne Moore was as good as ever.

The ending leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth, maybe because the characters didn't seem real, or either because the improbable plot, I don´t know...

Well, It's very simple. A man and a woman get married. Yet, in the wedding night, she suddenly die. Alas, What a pity. He's very sad for this fact. And then the movie ends. Only the acting of Perret highlights in this movie. The movie is relevant only if you are interested in the pioneers of the film industry. Perret is a relatively unknown french pioneer. The simplicity of this movie is funny in its way. It's very basic and silly, you know.

But thinking about it, you can say the same about 'Sweet November' or 'The Last Boy Scout'.

Sometimes a manmade disaster can set off a chain of events that causes even greater damage. On February 15, 1898, a mysterious explosion sunk the U.S.S. Maine, an American battleship that was in the harbor of Havana, Cuba. This occurred while Cuba was fighting for its independence from Spain. During this period, William Randolph Hearst, who owned a chain of newspapers, knew that stories about disasters sold papers. Hearst decided that his newspapers would report that Spain was to be blamed for the explosion in which 260 American seamen lost their lives. (Most historians now believe that the explosion was caused by a malfunctioning boiler.) The incident led the U.S. to go to war with Spain in the Spanish-American War. In this film you can see what was left of the U.S.S. Maine surrounded by wrecking boats.

I didn't find interesting to see a bunch of mediocre intellectuals talking during 2 hours. I don't have nothing against mediocre intellectuals, maybe they're more intelligent than me, but particularly in this movie they didn't say interesting things. One of these intellectuals is dying, and all his friends come to visit him. The movie is full of common places about death, and 'The Straight Story' or 'Driving Miss Daisy' are better movies about people getting old or dying. Also, the relationships father-son and mother-daughter shown are poorly developed. Visually, the movie could be a made for T.V. movie.

There were just two scenes I found interesting. One showing a public hospital of Canada (They seems equals to the ones here in Argentina). And one showing a cellar full of catholic images, without any value and use, due to the decline of catholic devotees.

A movie with good pace about life's motivations at the thirties; but its simplicity is sadly joined with lack of elaboration. It confuses passion with hysteria and almost every dialog finish with the people screaming. I didn't understand why it's called 'the last kiss'.

3/10

It's a very entertaining movie that comments the disrupt in the life of ex-workers of an shipyard, whose owners seems to get more earnings constructing an hotel at the place. With a proved formula, the movie follows the misadventures of five of these unemployed people of around 40/50 years, left out of a modern Spain. It's the way in which the characters are showed is what make the movie worthy to see. Most of them never lose the sense of humor in so adverse situation (Though the russian one seems to be better than in the ex-USSR). Javier Bardem makes a wonderful job as Santa, the leader of the group. Some of the ex-workers have got a reparation for being fired, but they didn't have the skill to use it correctly. One of them has sucess opening a bar, and remarkably he always shows solidarity with their ex-colleagues.

Technically, the movie has no faults. Though without originality (There are many similar stories), the movie is really well-made and scene after scene it doesn't present mistakes. That makes it highly recommendable, and one of the best movies of the last year. 8/10

The director Alex de la Iglesia found 'Texas, Hollywood', in the middle of Almeria, Spain and fell in love with the place where movies like 'Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo' , '100 rifles', 'Patton' or 'Lawrence of Arabia' were filmed.

The too silly script is just a pretext to show that forgotten place, and his inhabitants, people that remember seeing Raquel Welch changing her clothes in the backside of a taxi cab. The main role is played by a former stunt man. It gives the movie a nice touch. The movie is just the town, the nostalgia, some occasional good jokes and a bit of political incorrect attitude. 6/10

It presents an obsessive jealous guy in a good mix of suspense and comedy. In fact, the jealousy seems to hide his unconformity with his relationship. After a highly enjoyable first hour, the movie decays a little, being at the end just a nice note about maturity. The cinematography is good. Clever jokes in a silly movie. 6.5/10

really liked De Niro, Costner , Garcia , Martin Smith, and Connery. Were Costner, Andy Garcia, or Martin Smith better in any movie? Costner gave the correct tune of righteous for Elliot Ness, without sh*tty sentimentalism or excess of gesture, so common in today's movies.

And I love a lot of scenes of it:

• the beginning. First, Capone talking nice to the press. Right after that, his gangsters kill a little girl, and all his charm has completely vanished.

• the baseball bat scene, showing the real face of Capone.

• the killing of Jim Malone - the hommage to Potemkin - the recruitment of Andy Garcia's character

The movie is certainly more than entertainment. It's a epoch reconstruction without ostentation. It's a serious movie without the solemnity of movies like 'The Hours'. It's about hypocrisy of powerful people, and an ethical response to it, represented principally by Sean Connery, as Jim Malone. It has a place among the best works of De Palma, and among the best movies ever made.

The highway scene shows the absolute absence of imaginations of the makers of this movie. No matter that they have a lot of alternate worlds. There is a highway inside them. A gruesome movie. And an awful script. Please, get some scientist to give more flight to the plot! Philip K. Dick is in hollywood, dead and with a smile painted in his face. 3/10

I found that this movie wasn't barely more than an annoying spin-off of 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'Repulsion'. Slow, lacking of real plot. And with that supposedly ingenious circularity that i dislike it in 'Lost Highway', too. Only some notes about xenophobia, and the supporting cast are real points of interest. If you're not a big Polanski fan, watch 'Rosemary' instead. 6/10

This movie could have been interesting at 1963, but it has aged. Now the implicit homo-eroticism seems unnecessary implicit, and the script is loose and inconsistent. Class fight is represented here, but the description is poor and gruesome. Fortunately, there is no such thing as a message to the audience.

The highlights include an adequate photography, and precise direction; the actors are really good. Dirk Bogarde and James Fox seem really enjoying their work. They are on screen almost all the movie. They barely sustain it.

6/10

'La patagonia rebelde' recreates the story of some workers of the patagonia farms trying to get better conditions of work from his patrons, inflated by a couple of socialist men that arrived to this town at the bordering of the world. While the story could be typical, the development isn't. It is based on true facts, and the final is one of the most chilling moments I've remember to see in a movie. A very good movie, great script and great acting.

9/10

"El viaje" is a simple movie. But it has the most precise look of Argentine's reality at the beginning of the nineties. Pay special attention to the tragicomic representation of Carlos Menem, by Carlos Carella. If people would have paid more attention, maybe Argentina would have been a better place today. Sad to see it now.

the hours is an entertaining movie about the tedium. The dialogs are full of common places and cliches, the characters are dumb and some scenes are unconnected with the rest.

However, it has a story, that seems to be similar to the book 'Mrs. Dalloway' and it is repeated 3 times with slight variations and a nice editing. While this repeating could be annoying, it makes the tedium of the woman leaders an universal ( or social, i don´t know) phenomena, more than something personal.

The movie diffuses the figure of V. Woolf , being her words the best parts of the movie. Probably, the real V. Woolf hadn't nothing in common with the overacted, yet interesting, Kidman's performance. Julianne Moore deserves the Oscar. 6/10.

Oscar nominated 'La venganza' fails IMO because i can see the real origin of the conflict between the two antagonists principal characters. Then, all the discussions that they have seems forced. The movie tries to embrace too many topics, too. 5/10.

"11'09''01" is a bad idea. I didn´t wanna see it, but this time my girlfriend choose the movie. is really necessary for a tragedy related movie, to have solemn people and moments, funerals, prays, and celebres phrases? I don´t believe in solemnity as the right approach to a tragedy.

It has 11 episodes, 11 minutes runtime each:

Yussef Chahine (segment "Egypt") : A debate approach, well made , but i found it hard to follow. Amos Gitai (segment "Israel") : The message of this one: Very often, The media is scornful. Fresh news, you know. Alejandro González Iñárritu (segment "Mexico"): Bulls*it. Obvious ten minutes than could be summarized in thirty seconds, the rest is boring. Even worst than 'Amores Perros' Shohei Imamura (segment "Japan"): Another one that could be summarized in less time, but at least it has a story. And it's funny. Claude Lelouch (segment "France"): A story of love, or not. Whatever.

Ken Loach (segment "United Kingdom"): A lesson of history. And i like the history lessons, if they're well-made. Correct written, Good archive footage. Great use of the time. One of the best. Samira Makhmalbaf (segment "Iran"): A nice segment,contrasting Iran and USA, yet forgettable and with a bit of solemnity, too. Mira Nair (segment "India"): A segment based on a true story, interesting and comprising, yet with the gravity of the whole movie.

Idrissa Ouedraogo (segment "Burkina Faso"): Another uninspired one about childrens hunting Bin Laden. Sean Penn (segment "USA"): LOVELY! A vague story, a pleasure for the eyes. A segment of other movie, undoubtely. What a great acting of Mr. Ernest Borgnine. Danis Tanovic (segment "Bosnia-Herzegovina"): Politically correct and with the mediocrity that fulfill the movie.

4/10