Reviews

This is not the classic western. If anybody had ever asked what were the motives that led to Robert Ford to commit the murder of Jesse James, this movie is the answer. This isn't the story of a murder is the story of an introverted, fearful, nervous, somewhat gay, silent and little smart man that admired another man who was quite the opposite and that once this admiration wasn't reciprocated, like Robert Ford had wanted, then came hatred, revenge, resentment because he wasn't, not like Jesse James, but Jesse James itself.

This film is an analysis of how admiration for a person becomes an obsession to be what we are not (this story reminded me somewhat of The Talented Mr. Ripley) Does Robert Ford wants to be as Jesse James? The answer is no, basically story shows us that Ford was looking for what Jesse represented, an admiration by the people, an applause, but what he found was exactly the opposite by not realize that the only real applause isn't from cowardice, or vile acts, but it is to exploit what we are, what makes us be us.

This story whose message transcends beyond an historic landmark is also gratifying for any person who likes movie due to its technical details are extremely impressive, it is necessary to highlight the photo, that undoubtedly, they choose a number of perfectly frames that get making plastic each scene, at times actually seems we are seeing a painting by the way in which natural light becomes an essential element. Just include the value that music gives the scenes since served as a catalyst for emotions to give a touch more melancholic to some moments.

Perhaps the only things that could bring as defects are the abuse of the blur effect in the lens only to highlight what is at the center of the image, and the rhythm a bit slow but justified wonderfully with the editing and photography. In short this is a really beautiful film.

This is one of Hitchcock's films more direct and specific of all his entire filmography, isn't one of the best movies, but its an outstanding film of its English period. The reason why this film highlights of the others is because its plot is not about a crime but a character itself.

The whole story is built around Mr. Verloc and from the first minutes we know that he is the villain of the story, so everything that comes after the sabotage of the power plant is knowing what is going to do this man now?, What are their motivations?, How do they going to stop he before everything worse? And so Hicthcock begins to develop an odyssey of a man who is a traitor to the motherland. But unfortunately falls short, whether in later movies this filmmaker is going to delve into the psychological aspect of their characters, during this English period that mattered less was why?, so everything became a succession of actions that sought to engage the viewer with the suspense but they don't understand what was happening at the bottom of the story.

So the result is not boring, Hitchcock manages quite well the intercalation of planes with great action and suspense with those who are closest, this ones few and poorly worked. For the technique are few or no errors presented but on the performances Hitchcock doesn't look that the characters develop their emotions instead they just living the moment, so when the end comes no one believes the melodramatic reaction of Mrs. Verloc and the agent of Scotland Yard attitude towards her, this character in particular is at times quite pathetic. So the value of Sabotage is the story in general you shouldn't seek such great performances, they will come in a latest period of Hitchcock.

First of all this isn't a simple and silly romantic comedy, and that is its greatest charm. The film itself is an x-ray, an analysis of what is love actually and its beauty lies in the fact that it remains today, you could see it a lot of times and its essence continuous fresh thanks to a series of stories that show us the different faces of love and above all, by a spectacular cast for one single movie, in which none of the players is lost and each make their best effort to give a more real interpretation.

To be honest the biggest hit of the movie is the script and the direction of Richard Curtis that with subtlety builds a beautiful story that can move from comedy to drama without any complication because, at the end of all, is there a suffering or joy more great that love? In addition, photography and art design also contribute to create warm atmospheres, yet despite that the film takes place in winter, where the characters make great performances and show us more intimate sides that help achieve greater identification with some of the stories.

Another detail is that, definitely, if this story will develop elsewhere than London and at another time than Christmas, we would probably face a silly movie about love, but these factors combine to give a more consistent, as a wink toward anything that moves us the heart. But not everything is happiness there are also some details that are bad for the film especially with some stories that have a very open ending, like the case of Sarah and her love for the graphic designer, which makes it unnecessary.

In short, is an excellent film to see if you are in love but also if you don't, perhaps you will find here some love.

To me Gus Van Sant is a director with a career more or less constant, which has films that are better to forget, but if I must admit something is when their movies treat the side of the everyday youth, their idiosyncrasies, their way of life, then the director becomes an expert in this field and masterfully shows a story that in some hands would become a sort of melodramatic "Grease", like a soap opera.

For me his work summit "Elephant" won what few films had done, he risked to make the anatomy of a crime from the common life of a group of students, showed a social problem, denounced and said, without embarrassing, in front of the public: the blame for what happens to young people is yours, is of parents, is of our society. And if that message was not clear, in "Paranoid Park" there is something of that, but doesn't conform with that, Van Sant makes a film more intimate, deeper, analyzes a crime from the criminal, but especially analyzes how cruel and sad can be the adolescence that, believe or not, is the age when we usually hate everything in the world.

Here isn't the anatomy of a crime, is the reconstruction of a murder by Alex, a mischief that end badly, his fears, his pain, but above all his fault that can't share with anyone and that leads him to reflect about his friends, about love, about things that when we are adolescents should like us and at any moment they don't, about mature and begin to grow. So Van Sant with an accidental murder, does that Alex does something that many of us takes a full life do: mature.

While I write this I'm still immensely impressed with the forcefulness of this film, there are really few action or adventure movies that will create what "The Dark Knight" gets in just a few minutes, and that is to bring the climax of emotions with a script that is strengthened in each of its lines and with an edition that frame after frame doesn't exist any wastage. Anything that we had heard about this film before its premiere, all these positive comments that the criticism launched after having seen it, all the positive references are true, very true.

To begin with, the action sequences are a visual choreography, in each one's emotions are as much as possible, because not only are loaded by a perfect use of special effects, explosions and an audio editing forceful, but also because Bale, and Heath Ledger above all, build two characters who represent two sides of the coin and their clashes are so catastrophic that makes everything a witness from the edge of the seat.

And is that really the performances are at the level of what anyone could expect, but definitely this is the film of The Joker. Either that, including me, thought that no one could deprive the best interpretation of this murderer to Jack Nicholson, really we have our mouths open to the strength, vitality and terror that manages to combine Ledger villain in this, I confess at times was too crazy up to me, and that is what succeeds, it succeeds really that you think that this man is a man without any kind of moral questioning, everything for him is a macabre game.

So Joker works well because it also has a dramatic, dark and vertiginous screenplay that unfolds quickly to each of the characters and at the same time, for that speed with which everything happens, forcing the viewer to be attentive to each of the sequences, each of the planes, and the richness of this script is that even if it is full of action is also an ode about a moral antihero, that make you think about the various faces of good and evil, and leads to comic character to a much more psychological level, reflected whenever Joker and Batman exchange lines, and which culminates with a hopeful end even when circumstances suggest quite the opposite and balance between the two sides of the coin has been broken. That's because the script is really something worthwhile, for all Batman, The Joker, Harvey Dent and James Gordon mean and represent.

The film is not an idealistic and beautiful portrait of a hero, is a dark film about a man who loads a weight of being a hero that nobody wants, is the battle of a man in front of the chaos, is the fascination of anarchy and violence and hope that lies even after the cataclysm. Yes, it has its errors of continuity, some holes in the plot, but not all opaque this marvelous film. This is a great film in a genre in which there seemed no room for maturity, for the visual beauty that has made the best Batman film.

It is a film about everything and anything. It would appear that there is no plot in particular rather than be witness to what happens to a group of kids in a English private school. The story, without major shocks, follows Travis and his group of friends, their classes, their hobbies, their thoughts and reasoning. But at any moment, everything begins to change. In a subtle way the differences between "the dominant bourgeoisie", in this case managers and coordinators, and " student's proletariat" are increased to such an extent that breaks down completely that peaceful existence. Thus there is no longer reverse and the bloody end is only an analogy of intolerance by a society between one generation and another, between those who have power and those who suffer from it.

Photography, direction, editing, art and the perfect performance of Malcolm McDowell combine to create a film that, despite its slow pace, from the sixth chapter and on seems have sense and it is too late to reverse the gear of a society, of an entire revolution.

If someone was waiting for a film that really shows a Hulk as it is, then I must say that this is the movie that always wanted to see about this character. "The incredible Hulk" has many qualities that make it off completely form the stylized and a little boring Ang Lee's version, who although isn't a bad movie, but it didn't meet the expectations of an adaptation more serious of this comic. What are the differences that make this film better than its earlier?

Lets start from the beginning. This version of Hulk resume, in its initial sequence of credits, everything that someone who does not know anything about comics should know to understand the story. This movie didn't deny the Ang Lee film, actually takes up the fact that Bruce Banner has fled to a place in South America and from there begins the story as a kind of sequel. Another success is that strips the movie completely of greater existential reflections and makes it what it is par excellence, a ribbon of pure entertainment, with big action sequences, chases and fights between giant monsters that make this version of Hulk more like the comic, but also has its romantic side and the human and painful part of Bruce Banner, but not focuses only one hour on that.

Visually the Hulk design compared to that of Ang Lee is much more stylized, less coarse than the last and most rugged, looks even stronger than the Lee's, while the FX are used much more stylized and harmonics, they are more precise, which results in sequences, like the battle of the university, that are really spectacular. Finally the choice of players compete much with the casting of the previous movie, but I think that is better the choice of Norton than Bana, and more beautiful Liv Tyler than Jennifer Connelly. Excellent choice of William Hurt and Tim Roth as "the villains" and much better even the preamble to "The Avengers" with Tony Stark.

For these reasons, this is for me the real Hulk.

Someone said that hit the first time and you will hit twice, and in most cases, this is one hundred percent true, but in the case of M. Night Shyamalan something happened along the way and the result wasn't what generally would give this equation. After "The Sixth sense" I expected from him only masterpieces but it wasn't, well "Unbreakable" is more or lees good, I can even say that I liked, like his next movie "Signs" but I must admit that during these three films not only the quality was lost in some directing aspects, also the scripts became increasingly incomprehensible, with several plot holes, his moral questionings becoming less solid and its " screw turns" very forced, giving by result mediocre endings. If we didn't want to believe this with these first three examples "The Village" and "Lady in the Water" completely sealed the belief that we had.

For "The Happening" everything seemed to be changing. From an ad campaign that showed little or nothing about the story until a trailer that only anticipated an apocalypse film, the assumptions began to run and we thought that Shyamalan was returning; the star director-screenwriter of "The Sixth sense" is back. But it didn't. I can summarize what I think of this movie in two words: Great disappointment. Why?

Because even though the premise of nature vs. man was interesting and the beginning of the tape, with that single number of suicides, that impacts any, like the story line advancing becomes more predictable, unbelievable and culminate with a very bad ending, so messianic, the couple protagonist survive through a coincidence of fate (where love also has something to do). Because the moral conflict that facing the players is irrelevant, the woman who refuses to mature and the men that can't understand the needs of his wife, in some point of the movie it disappears like a breath of air. Because the performances are appalling, one of the worst Wahlberg roles, you don't believe him absolutely nothing because the majority of his lines are stupid and lacking in naturalness, and neither Zooey Deschanel do a good work, in fact, Does anyone believe her character?. And because, Does anyone remember the end of "28 weeks later"? Yes, France too.

To summarize, the movie isn't good because it is not what is expected of someone that made a great film the first time. OK, I must admit, it was beginner lucky.

There are films that are made of cherished moments and there are others who don't have any and they really are betting more on the work of the actors or the entire structure of the film in general. Ordinary People can put it in the final classification, because when I'm writing this I think of some really memorable scene within the film and I don't remember any specific that has impacted me, but I may say that history is well made because the intent of Robert Redford, as director of the movie, is met by a simple way showing that the common life is also full of drama and that ordinary people also suffer, laments and dreams with a happy life.

The problem with this film lies at times because in some moments is too slow the characters evolution and the moments of crisis takes a lot to appear, something that happens in real life but would have been helpful for the public if everything had happened so more agile. Another detail that for me seal the film is the three main performances because there lies the story, unfortunately, although Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler plays at the level it needed to move feelings, one like the comprehensive father who fights for being a happy family and she like the mother who blames her son for the death of the firstborn, but not happens the same same thing with the Jarret's son, played by Timothy Hutton, whose acting, or rather say over acting, makes the impact on the death of his brother less credible and transforms the film in a soap opera.

Even with some details the balance is tilted more toward the virtues of the film that makes enjoyable the drama of real life.

Where is the place which our dreams lead us? What is the way to freedom? It's film is indeed a jewel of U.S. independents films, is not just a road movie about a duo of motorcyclists who travel across the south, its value is more than that, is a portrait of an era, is the complaint of a lifestyle, is a journey to the fate that awaits for us for wanting to fulfill our dreams.

I don't know where begin. I think that is one of the films that combines too many elements and all fit perfect in the puzzle of his message, to start the music is undoubtedly a key element of the plot not only the use of rock songs but, in particular, every one of them, someone imagines the beginning of this movie without "Born to be wild." The same applies to photography and edition, the first showing the beautiful scenery of the south with its contrasts between urban and rural; the second, using jumps to beat the viewer to take him to travel the world of drugs or follow a travel by motorcycle in the middle of the desert.

The story itself is nothing special, but it is all the episodes that the characters are going through what makes us realize the different ideologies of a country, the hippies and their world without rules facing decadent destination, racism and intolerance of a people towards expressions of young people who sealed the future of the protagonists and a denunciation of the time, so painful for a nation, performance by a explosion of a motorcycle with the flag of the country. So Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda develop two characters that aren't only a pair of motorcyclists addicts, instead they are two young men who seek their destiny, that live their American dream.

Long time after I finally culminated to saw The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and indeed I think it was a good way to finish the story. To be honest, this latest film isn't as spectacular and successful as the others, but we must admit that it has good performances and excellent special effects, that are carried to the limit in a classic epic battle in a whirlwind, but even this the story itself alone, in other words, viewing the film as a single movie, it doesn't work and doesn't propose anything new rather than closing all questions made in the previous chapters.

For many this is the most boring of the three films, since they focused much of its story in the love triangle and history of Turner-Swann-Sparrow, which is actually good as we move further into the motivations of the characters and know closer his "human" side. To others this is the movie that puts less emphasis to pirates fights, but the battles here are much more striking than in previous deliveries and the effects much more detailed, the reality is that the film works well and fulfills its mission.

I was satisfied, it isn't the great film that I hoped but meets my expectations, especially given this kind of end to the film, something totally anti-Disney, because is a "happy" ending but not the circumstances that makes it in a sad way to finish the story, thanks to screenwriters Elliot and Rossio we can say good end to a story of pirates. I can only add, and warmly I wonder now, what's next?

This was one of the movies that I most have expected of this summer. I got to the cinema thinking about all those memories that had about the archaeologist hero who wears a hat and uses a whip, I must admit that I'm a Indiana Jones fan and that's the reason why I expected this fourth delivery to see what happens now with this character. At the end of the film I didn't know what I have to think, was it good?, Was a good story? What happened to Indiana Jones?

Now, time later, I clarified that I felt about the film, which although has the essence of the saga, contain a lot of elements that make it feel distant. First the successes: The story is more or less good, changing Nazis by Russian communists follows the line par excellence stalls the dichotomy of good versus evil, the environment reflected by a successful design art leads us to live at that time, the winks to previous tapes (especially Radiers ...) make the public, who saw the first film, smile, the constant jokes, that break moments of tension and print the stamp Lucas-Spielberg and especially the final thought that raised the idea that there will be more Indiana Jones's movies, and although the years to weigh the protagonist, has not yet established the generational transition from father to son, this makes us live again on the movie.

All these details fit with the earlier deliveries but unfortunately there are some elements that destroy everything that has been achieved: the many historical references that make it implausible everything that happened between The Last Cruised and this new tape, a script that is only a projection of Spielberg and Lucas fixations, this is, in my view, the worst mistake (introducing aliens, spacecrafts and an endless number of galactic things that detract from the excitement and enthusiasm caused by the legend of Jones, plus some other details, such as the nuclear explosion, that within the world incredible raised during all Jones's films jump to make it even harder to believe and especially to assimilate.

There is no doubt that I have mixed emotions in front of this movie, I don't know yet if I was wanting to see another movie about an archaeologist with hat and whip or live of illusions and the legend created in Raiders ... I don't have it clear, the only thing that actually I'm sure is that however I prefer yesterday.

This film can be defined as the perfect manual named "how not to make a gore or horror film" First use a story very similar to Saw but begin to give small twists of moments and places, and you end up using the story of a woman trapped by a manic that like, yes you guess, torture in all aspects and then kill his victims. After you introduce "the girl" a beautiful blonde woman but completely brainless (Cuthbert-model), then introduces "the boy" that for the moment and the ridiculous way of the plot, all the people know that he is the murderer. Then put tons of blood and gore scenes but repetitive it a lot of times and direct the film like a high school project. The result will be a bad movie completely predictable, boring, with too much gore and but without style sense with bad performances that at the end we want that all, without exception, finished dead. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

Beauty is something relative, but nobody can deny that, in the bottom, Cashback is beautiful, at least aesthetically, the film's photography and art recreate an environment so common, such as a supermarket, and transformed it into a peculiar area where beauty can be found in an instant and where time stops to contemplate the myriad details and textures that make up these places or people that shape our existence, and because our chaotic life that we have we are unable to appreciate it, but it's just where Sean Ellis makes people stop and observe a moment of beauty, the beauty of naked woman, in a word, a look, a kiss ...

The story itself is a tale that has been counted a lot of times, a story of being or not loved, but this turns out to be a mere pretext, as well as each of the protagonists, to show a reflection about the beauty, and more important, about love, because the human being finds in this feeling the real meaning of existence and so the world becomes beautiful, becomes the artwork that is painted in the colors that we want, and everything negligible becomes in something beautiful.

I didn't know anything about the Bob Dylan's life only a few songs that I had heard of him once. But even so, for me it was a film well done, each of these episodes-characters shaped Dylan's personality, all his dreams, concerns, afflictions, obstacles, that converge into one point: the myth, the legend.

This dream's touch that has the story for many is the biggest hit to mix it with each of Dylan's songs, but it is also true that this is the characteristic that makes keeping the viewer, more often, on the sidelines because we are not able to go depth to the outcome of each conversation, phrase or episode submitted by Haynes's direction who knew how to summarize, simplify and splitting a story without beginning or end, as must be the life of any myth.

Technically the film is a visual delight. The frantic editing that combines a story with another through a photography that uses the white and black's mysticism and dark colors's melancholy that make the film easily advance, even its incomprehensible moments, as all human life, but beautiful for being exactly the same thing. The performances achieved are perfect too, especially Blanchett and Ledger that performed someone closer to a Bob Dylan.

At the end of all the movie is a journey through a legend that never met, a character who is on the screen but isn't the original, which is set by all the stories but that doesn't belong to any. This is the story of a man who rather than a man is the lyrics and chords of a song.

There is not much to say about this thriller, although its premise was interesting, a man who must solve his own murder in 88 minutes – real time in the film- but when the movie begins, even when it doesn't abused of common places, falls into the trap of letting too many pieces to solve the mystery and makes action sequences so predictable as the climax in the university building that results chaotic, incredible and very complacent.

Even with all this Al Pacino goes well with his return to a principal role in a movie of this kind, despite the age, but it doesn't happen with the overacting of Sobieski and Witt, whose interpretation of naive and intelligent criminal psychology's students, never ends to convince.

So even though edition remains agile the 88 minutes or more that runs the film, the lack of steady directing and the maturity necessary in a script very complacent opaques what sounded like a memorable action film. One more to forget.

There once was a cartoon called Speed Racer, I never went his fan, in fact I can say that I felt it a bit tedious, but I must admit that the music was good and overall the series was quite acceptable. Several years later I heard that the creators of the more or less Matrix trilogy will adapted this peculiar character and his fellas, then I said "good FX + an interesting cartoon + lot of action = a superb summer movie" but no, it didn't happen .

In fact Speed Racer loses absolutely the size, grace, intrigue, so any quality of the series is lost in this adaptation that shows many special effects (mostly pathetic) and little substantive action. One hour, more or less, was what I had to watch a series of lines poorly planned, pathetic performances and above all a kind of transitions, used when the characters argue with each other, that were an insult to any sense of aesthetics. I said one hour because from there the film begins to show a little more resemblance to the original series with some action sequences well made and a successful use of effects, but still it falls short.

It really is, so far, the worst movie of 2008 summer, this film is more closer to Matrix Revolutions than the first MAtrix, there is no doubt the Wachowski brothers should engage only in special effects. What they have done with Speed Racer?

"The queen" has three things in its favor where lies the value of the film: the direction of Stephen Frears, the excellent and superb performance of Helen Mirren and an actual script, although measured in many parts it risks showing a historical fact with real characters who still remain the same office like in the film. These three points achieve this movie to be a compelling drama despite its failed edition (at times it seems to me a BBC's television production) and some characters representations are little faithful to the original (as Prince Charles and Tony Blair), whose physically aren't the same.

The plot focuses on the death of Lady Di and its impact on the people of England as well as the royal family, but it is also true that what is most interesting isn't these consequences, most important results how the queen thinking and acting, so this intimate drama helps us to visualize perfectly a character emblematic of the current worldwide monarchy. Their feelings, concerns, the coldness with which she reacts to what her people want and the disjunction between pay tribute to the woman who attacked his reign or lose the acceptance of people but not betray their principles, all this make the interpretation of Mirren a faithful portrait of a woman who holds a great weight on her shoulders and still goes ahead, and that is what most impresses and impacted the viewer. The rest are just circumstances.

Before viewing this Jodoroswy's film I had heard an endless number of adjectives describing it, in one way or another, the many characteristics of it. Far from being a subversive, anti-religious, spiritual or incomprehensible movie, the Chilean director decided to make a mockery of what we consider religion, of the beliefs that every human being has and the defects of cling to an absolute truth, that far from being unattainable, becomes unusable in the hands of people who are not ready to understand it, and much worse, the search becomes an obstacle to the significance of being, to the real meaning of life: happiness.

So the film brings together a group of people representing the planets of the solar system and introduces us to the world of each, allegorical representation of the concerns and attitudes of modern man, to embark on a journey to the holy mountain in the company of master and the son of God made man with the unique result: to reach the only truth. This is where Jodorowsky masterfully gives an excellent conclusion: all religions are true until respect the mind and thoughts and the absolute truth is impossible to achieve, just enough to live.

Despite all the analogies and symbolism that manages the film, the mistake of the actor-director-writer is desired to cover too many topics so this make baroque the film and convert it into something indecipherable or nonsense, devoid of symbolic value, Is there when one, as a spectator, feels tired for everything that has seen and that amount of useless information is which makes people miss the true value of the proposal.

Still is an excellent film that breaks with the canons of cinema in all its facets, just, as said Jodorowsky just to finish the story, take this as a mere fiction, for what it is: a movie.