Reviews

After then minutes of watching 303, is unavoidable to think in "before the sunrise", but the comparisons never stand, whit Richard Linklater's film still being at the top of its kind.

Some reviews mention how deep the dialogues in 303 are, but for me it looks the opposite, the dialogues are forced and fake, besides, the movie is too long, 2 and a half hours require a really great story with a solid script, but here we have to characters on a road trip, whit two or three out of the box situations, talking and talking, trying to make the movie longer, perhaps to show more European postcards.

Please tell me, how you can travel through Europe during summer almost without tourists.

I have had this film in my colection for almost ten years, the day come when i said "lets watch it", and what a great surprise, a marvelous little movie, full of hummor.

A great thing about "Closely watched trains", is that its clear political mesage does not overshadow the film,.

I was disappointed with the movie, is another plain story about an American war hero, with a superficial look of the persona and its actions, I expected more from Mr. Eastwood and its great directing skills, just think about Letters from Iwo Jima. A thing I must talk is about the scene with the baby, I know is just a technical aspect, but it was so poor that it must be reviewed, The scene was painful and hilarious, you can notice the awful doll they were using, and how awkward the actors where doing it, and you can not put that into this kind (budget) movie, this scene reached B rated movies standards in production as well in acting.

Contagio es una película totalmente plana, que no va a ningún lado, la historia no genera de tensión y no se logra empatía por los personajes.

Durante toda la película, la historia divaga entre investigadores de campo, de laboratorio, familias afectadas, blogeros, y un sinfín de personajes, pero no profundiza en ninguno de éstos, ni en el caos social que esta situación generaría, sólo se muestran escenas en cada caso que pintan la situación pero no llega a más.

El mejor ejemplo de esta situación es el del personaje de Marion Cotillard, quien después de un hecho trascendental, se pierde de la película y aparece al final solucionando una situación muy compleja en 2 minutos, dejando mucho que desear dentro del desarrollo del personaje.

This is a great movie, a simple story about a woman in her 30s that finds that she is unhappy with her husband and decides to begin a new life, no matter the sacrifices she has to do.

This movie has a lot of things to highlight, one of the most interesting is the approach to the marriage relation, most of the movies leading with this, portraits the woman as a victim, the husbands are almost a beasts that threats them like an animal, cheating and often physical violence, but this movie not, Karen is unhappy living with her husband, why? We don't know, it simply she is not satisfied, but is not a victim.

The picture is a continuous tribute to Eric Rohmer, is obvious at the beginning of the movie, when Karen is standing in front of a bookstore window and you can see lots of book of the director, and is not only that is the whole movie, a simple story about a woman and her search in life.

The movie is realistic in all its aspects, the location, the characters, the acting. It is settle in Bogotá, but in the real city, not the slump city or the fashion one, the real one where people lives and loves and works, the characters, are ordinary people that has to work, suffer and struggle and the acting reach its highest point of realistic in some scenes when Karen must beg for some money for the bus, it is clear that she made that for real and the sequences was shoot with a hidden Camera.

And other great thing is that the directors knows what he is doing, a simple story about a woman finding happiness in her life, just that, and that is what is shown on the screen, without any manipulations or statements.

One of the biggest problems of European and Northamerican movies about Latinoamerica and its problems, is that most of the those have strong neocolonialism "poor latinoamericanos, they are so poor, have so big troubles, the governments are always guilty and they need our help (Europa or Northamerica) to continue",and this movie is not an exception of it. Ken Loach is known for the high and strong social and political views in his movies,but here the neocolonial look is clear, and you can see it at trough all the movie and at is best, when a Scotish Bus driver, who drives perfect machines in good roads, drives a 5th class bus trough a typical rural road in Latinomarica (the worst road in the UK is not the half of one of those), and with a single gun defeats a trained army,something that none of the locals has done, it looked like Rambo with social beliefs, and it is great to have movies about these subjects, but please, not with this prejudgment.

When I first heard about María Llena eres de Gracia and its subject, I had many doubts about the treatment of such a delicate subject and how Colombian this movie was, with a writer/director from the USA; but when I heard the interviews and read de reviews I got really interested in the film and went to see it as soon as I could.

The first thing that must be highlighted about this film is the treatment of the drug dealing problem. In this kind of movies is really easy to fall in the conventions and make a story full of clichés with police chases and all powerful heroes, but not, fortunately the director takes another perspective and gets into the life of the 'Mulas', and shows the whole picture without any prejudgment.

Is admirable how a person that had never been in Colombia, before the movie, understands the problem and shows it in a so delicate and powerful way, and is able to put it in the big screen without extremes so common in films about Latin America made by foreign directors, as an example watch Len Loach's Carla's Song.

The story of the movie is quite simple: a 17 years old girl has many economic problems and takes the 'mule' work as an opportunity to get the money she needs. The narration is lineal and relays absolutely in the work of the two main actresses, and this is the success of the movie, the work of the two girls is superb, they transmit lots of energy in the screen, and although sometimes the decisions of the characters are quite sudden, their interpretation makes them absolutely believable.

The movie changed the cover, for commercial reasons of course, and that is a shame, because the first one was really beautiful, it showed Maria in the airport in the middle of a group as if she were in a procession, but the new one although good is more obvious and drug oriented and lacks the delicacy of the film.

Let's wait for Mr Marston next movie.

Dobermann shows how french can produce trashy films. They wanted to do a different action movie and they got it, but being different does not mean being good in fact when someone tries so badly to do different things, as anyone can notice in this film, the results are poor.

What makes a movie good or a cult? It is hard to say, but it is certain that Dobermann does not have anything of what is needed. A good movie, or a cult one, is not based in the appearances, it must have some substance and Dobermann does not have anything beyond the never ending gun fights, the shallow characters and dull dialogues.

But watching that movie is not a total waste of time, you can learn what not must be done in movies and Dobermann has many examples about that.

Mr Scorsese himself explains, Casino is a simple story, as, a powerful man that falls in love of the wrong woman and has friends he can not trust and he knows that but can not help it. There are hundreds of movies like that, but Casino is another movie is a very special one.

As usual in a Mr Scorsese picture the acting is great, the three main characters, De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pecci are outstanding, how they mix, how they make alliances and how they break it is just marvelous.

The story of the rise and fall of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein must be seen more than once to appreciate all the details of the story, from the dialogs to the costumes, everything fits in its place and is central to the story.

This is a great Martin Scorsese Picture, as good as he can be.

Cape fear must be seen in perspective, you can not forget that this is a Martin Scorsese Picture, One of the greatest directors ever, and then, comes to one`s mind, How he did this?, this is just another movie, one of the bunch. De Niro acting is good but not remarkable, the story is great but the ritym semms to break it so many times that by the end I was just "please, another twist".

So the film was not bad, but please, this is in the bottom of Mr scorsese pictures.

The Low Down can be rated as an undeveloped good idea, not more not less.

The good side of this movie is the effort to capture an transmit the confusion of those years, but it falls hard on that, sometimes the movie captures the esense of that behavior, but those not transmit anything at all. After watching the 96 minutes I was like `so what?', not a single feeling about the film or the characters, characters that just wander, one does not know where they come, where they go, what moves them, you can not make any contact with them just watch the as watching a pst in the street.

I am waiting for the next movie to see where the director goes; it can be a very good thing or jus another empty presumptuous thing.