Reviews

I finally got to watch "The black swan" after hearing good comments about it for months. Once it ended, I came to IMDb to see if I was the only person in the planet who didn't like the movie. Well, it was a relief to see I wasn't alone. But it startled me that this movie is now 73 in the top 250 movies at IMDb! Well, this movie left me cold. Two hours passed watching a cliché ridden story about a crazy ballerina who somehow managed to get the role of Odette/Odille in Swan Lake at a presumably large American Ballet Company. I guess a ballerina slowly going crazy or destroying her personal life in search of perfection in her art is not a bad idea (watch the Red Shoes), but this is not the case of the movie. If I can define this movie, I would pick the lack of one thing: SUBTETLY. Oh well, I would also add CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Two things completely absent in the movie. Everything over here is told/narrated/musicalized/filmed in the worst in your-face way. It's so clear that the girl is crazy from the very beginning that what's the point on going on with her hallucinations? We know perfectly that what we are seeing is her deranged mind. No surprises, no turns here. The end is completely predictable though is utterly unbelievable. The acting? I haven't been impressed by Natalie Portman in other movies and this was no exception. I had seen enough lived and recorded ballet to have an idea how a prima ballerina looks and moves. Though Miss Portman underwent a difficult training for several months, it doesn't replace the years of hard training of a true dancer. If the effort on training your body is the best resource you have as an actor to pull the part, instead of facial expression and a thorough investigation of what being a dancer means, then Miss Portman deserves her Oscar. I personally prefer actors that may not be so fit physically but can communicate with their audiences with their eyes, facial expressions or language. I only saw a blank faced one expression Portman through the movie and a few shots of her arms trying to mimic a ballerina's moves. Mr. Cassel fares better with the little he was given to. Winona Ryder is properly over the top as the former prima ballerina dumped by Cassel. Ms. Kunis at least looks sexy and sympathetic in her brief role. Direction and cinematography: I know is hip and artsy to film as a 10 years old with an old camcorder, but don't you have the feeling that this is just becoming a tired way of trying very hard to be original when using such an old story thread as the one used here? I'll watch now The Red Shoes for a movie about ballet. And then I'll watch Psicosis for a thriller. And I'm sure I'll forget "The black swan" in a couple of days. It wasn't even interesting enough as to enter in my list of movies that other people love and that I love to hate.

I really wanted to love this movie, because it's one of my mom's favorites. But the truth is that I couldn't make any emotional connection with it. Young Englishman meets middle age Greek man in his way to Crete, who unabashedly asks him for employment. Englishman (Basil) accepts and takes Zorba as a kind of personal assistant. 15 minutes have passed, and you still have 2 hours and 6 minutes to go!

They meet aging French lady, whom Zorba romances. Next, we are introduced to the beautiful and inaccessible young widow of the town; every man in town desires her but she doesn't like anyone, so the men despise her. Basil has a kind gesture to her. 1 hour and 15 minutes to go … Basil and Zorba get their hands to try to put an old mine property of Basil to work, Zorba gives us a few one liners, calls the French lady a dirty old cow, incites Basil to go and chase the widow and spend less time with books, Zorba goes to town, spends money that it's not his own with a young chick. 45 minutes to go … Basil finally decides to aboard the widow, they spent the night together, young boy in love with her kills himself, town men go mad, they kill the widow while Basil does nothing but to call for Zorba, and Zorba "defends" the widow but leaves her alone amidst all the men … next the French lady dies while the villagers loot her house. Next, the mining project fails, but what the heck, sh%t happens in life, right? Basil and Zorba eat lamb, they know Basil will soon depart, and they dance in a long shot primarily designed to hide the fact that these are doubles who are dancing and not Alan Bates and Anthony Quinn –end of the story- thanks God because it already clocked 141 minutes.

I don't mind to disrespect those who really like the movie and have a deep emotional connection to it. As I mentioned, my own mother belongs to this group, though a suspect her liking of this movie is more related to fond memories of her youth than to actual appreciation of the movie. I love Anthony Quinn as an actor; my favorite movie of all times right now is La Strada. But in this film, I think he was a real ham, especially on the early scenes. And the accent was awful to me; I have to admit I have heard very few Greeks speaking English, but the accent wasn't believable enough for me, it was more Mexican than anything else, and it came and go along the movie. Alan Bates was completely comatose. I mean, his character has spent what should be a passionate night with this gorgeous woman,she is killed, and he has no feelings at all? No sadness? If he does, this actor has nothing to demonstrate it. Lila Kedrova was much better,but after spending a morning hearing a real Frenchwoman navigate through English didn't do much to convince me about Kedrova being a French lady.

I know the Director won an Oscar, and the Academy should know better, but for some reason I didn't like it; it came as pretentious and cheating, but it maybe that I'm just going through a Fellini's period where my standards are too high. I especially detested the scene where Zorba is dancing outside Basil's bungalow. The fast editing shots between legs and torso are nothing to me but a mean to disguise that those weren't Quinn's legs doing the dance. About the script, I beg to differ, but I didn't found anything enlightening about human condition but the sense that man are cruel, very cruel, no matter if they are educated English writers or ignorant Greek adventures; in any case, the life of a woman has zero value and life has to go on eating and dancing and looking for new experiences. But again, it maybe that my expectation was to find something similar to La Strada, where a human being suffering does have an impact on the conscience and emotional life of a brutish man. These were some of the most excruciating 141 of my movie watching experiences, but they were worthy; now I don't have to accept from anybody the argument that this is one of the greatest movies ever made. If you think so, I totally respect you, and more power to you. It just doesn't fit on my "greatest movies list". Maybe I'll give it another try in some twenty years (If God gives me life of course, and if the movie is still preserved in some mean) and I'll see if my opinion changed. Meanwhile, this movie belongs to the category "I'll see it again if you put a gun on my head and force me to".

Before I was able to get this movie, I read a lot of negative criticism about it, especially from people who seem to be very fond of Mr. Berlanga's distinguished career. This early film was marked by controversy and bad blood from the beginning; look at the office number given by IMDb; 236 people viewed it at its release. Yes, only 236 people: talk about box office failure! Berlanga was starting to be a bitter critic of his society at this point; he had already had problems with censorship, but somehow he was able to have his view respected on his previews films. Not with these one. Censorship was so hard that Berlanga requested to feature the name of the Priest who imposed major changes on the script as the actual script writer. It didn't happen that way, but the movie's script had to reflect the changes introduced by the censors resulting in a much watered down picture and quite far from Berlanga's intentions, but still bearing Berlanga's seal. Thus, the film didn't satisfy anybody; neither the catholic censors nor Berlanga's followers.

And some of the controversy goes on after 50 years of its release. Fortunately, I'm a casual observer and I can overlook those debates so deeply attached to Spain's tumultuous mid to late XX century life, and take this movie for its sheer value.

It's been said that Berlanga's early style reminds that of Frank Capra. You can take "Los Jueves" a little bit like an evil sister to "What a wonderful life". Instead of having a good hearted man who has selfishly influenced the lives around him and is now in disgrace, you have a bunch of mean and really selfish characters (the teacher, the mayor, the doctor, the inn owner and the wealthiest citizen) who are now in disgrace and come with a plan to boost the economy of the once prosperous town of Fontecilla: they will fake the apparition of Saint Dimas and make a huge business out of it. As in "What a wonderful life", you have a celestial intervention to make our protagonists see their lives in retrospective. But instead of having a nice angel in the making, our citizens of Fontecilla will get gangster looking, straight from film noir Richard Basehart, who will make them see the evil of their ways with a very unorthodox method.

At the end, everything goes well, faith and goodness triumph, and why should this be a bad thing? In the process, we are highly entertained, the photography is great, the direction is excellent, the pacing is fluid and all the actors are superb, remarkably Jose Isbert and a solid as always Basehart.

Give this movie a chance and enjoy it!

Richard Basehart was an extraordinary actor, who never received the accolades his talent deserved. There may be many reasons for it, but I guess one of them is the kind of roles he played in his early carrier. These roles are so hard to classify as the actual movies in which these roles appear. Take this movie for instance; it's easy to take it as a film noir, it isn't. I'm not sure if there is a gender in which it can fit.

In this, Mr. Basehart plays a young man who has been released from prison to 1950 Philadelphia, after purging a sentence for accidentally killing a guard at a reformatory school at age 14. He is alone, friendless and has no experience dealing with the outside world as an adult, and certainly he has no experience with the "dames". But having no experience doesn't mean he is naïve or innocent; he has received lessons from thieves, kidnappers and killers though our boy is an inherent straight soul.

Larry (the young man's name) soon gets tired of the crime filled, mean streets of Philadelphia, and he is also disenchanted of women (the first woman he finds in a bar tries to get away with his wallet), so he moves outside town to try to find a quieter place. He ends up in a sleepy town called Jewel Lake, where he lands a job as lab assistant in a TB clinic. Larry thinks he will finally have a problem free life when … he meets sexy blond chief nurse Charlotte, who is more an ambitious working girl willing to use her sex charms to climb than pure femme fatale. Larry is attracted to sexy Charlotte and though she is not indifferent, she is expecting to hook someone with money, lots of money.

Larry also meets sweet nurse Ann, who is a much nicer working girl and also seems attracted to him (I can't blame any of the ladies making passes at Larry; Mr. Basehart looks absolutely hot in this movie) but he also encounters fellow ex-convict Stoker, who is a patient but has stole no less than one millon dollars, and this encounter and his desire to get Charlotte as his girl set troubles in motion! I won't spoil the end of the movie for you; it's hard to get, it has its flaws, but it's worth to watch. Enjoy it!

What a sweet little romantic movie this is! Situated on Rome's outskirts on late 19th century, Young Corrado (an unrecognizably young Mario Girotti a.k.a. Terence Hill) is a high school student who wants to be an archaeologist; he is accepted by Professor Manfredi (Richard Basehart) as his assistant. Young Corrado is fascinated by the man, who is attractive, intelligent and educated (and single!). Corrado takes him home to dinner and meet his mother, who happens to be a beautiful young window (Marta Toren). Professor and mother fall for each other instantly in a tender scene with some beautifully arranged Mozart based music. Corrado is busy flirting with a sort of cougar, a Contessa, and also dealing with his tender sweetheart. But he finally realizes that mother is having the time of his life with the Professor. At new year's eve ball Corrado sees his mother kissing professor Manfredi and he goes mad with jealousy; he runs away; mother feels awfully guilty and she and professor break away with deep sadness even if they confess their mutual love. Luckily our spoiled brat is good hearted and he learns a thing or two about true love, he comes to his senses and accepts his mother's right to be happy with Manfredi. He realizes mom is a woman and that he'll gain an ideal father figure. End of the story. It's quite simple, but the movie is so beautifully directed and photographed, has gorgeously looking exterior and interior sets, and it's so well acted by beautiful people, that it's a delight to watch. Not a classic a la Fellini, but well worth to catch it.