Movies watched recently 13

Undertow: This is a raw, gritty thriller that I really like. It's a simple story, gorgeously shot and extremely well-acted. It's a twisted fairytale ( a bit like El Laberinto del Fauno). The dialog is natural and realistic, the characters are fully-developed and the pace is gripping. The acting is excellent: Jamie Bell becomes his character and fully nails the accent, he's the standout in a very good cast. This is the director's movie, though. It's style is distinctive, with effective freeze-frames, small details and quirks in every scene, and capturing images. You really feel like you're inside the movie. The cinematography is inspiring and vivid. The score is packed with tension and also lyrical beauty. The editing is intelligent, and the voice-overs are emotional and fitting. It's a strange, disturbing movie, but I loved it.

Italian For Beginners: This is a great love story, with realistic characters, believable relationships and a romantic heart that will get to everyone. Its style (using the Dogme 95) makes it look more realistic but also seductive in an everyday life kind of way. The story is simple, honest and charming, with involving pace and an uplifting ending. The acting is great by the whole cast, that just gets into character. I can't single out any of the leads. Overall, this is a really good movie that will make you feel good about love and life. I recommend it.
Brokeback Mountain: I really liked this. It's a poignant, touching romance, that uses all the conventional romantic formulas in a gay love story. The screenplay is excellent, with humane characters, beautiful, poetic dialogs and it is subtle. The acting is excellent: Heath Ledger is truly amazing, getting perfectly into character and breaking your heart with his sensibility and fears and Jake Gyllenhaal fills his character with life and is the heart of this love story (you can't avoid to love him). Michelle Williams is also perfectly intense. The direction is gorgeous: during the beginning it captures the Westerns, showing heart-stopping views and revealing close-ups. It also chronicles the characters as they get older subtly and explores all aspects of their life carefully. The cinematography is beautiful, and the score, with its traditional american sound, has depth to this. If the movie has flaws, those are the small episodes that could have been better developed. Even so, this is a beautfiul, affecting love story.

Birth: This is the perfect example of style over substance. The screenplay creates a believable leading character and an interesting exploration of grief, but it has many plot holes, a ridiculous ending and the supporting characters are sketches that lack personality. Nicole Kidman's performance is mind-blowing: her quiet withholding, soft delivery of dialog and intense scenes perfectly fit the movie. Cameron Bright is annoyingly bland and you just can't believe him (probably he was also badly directed). The direction is exquisite, with cold, detached shots in sober colors giving it it's controlled feeling. The soundtrack is hauntingly creepy. It wounds up being mostly a failure: a movie with a tour-de-force performance and good techs but with a meaningless story and nothing to say.

Monsieur Verdoux: This is a dark comedy by the usually sunny Charlie Chaplin, and it doesn't work very well. The basic idea is brilliant (a man who robs and murders widows to support his family) and it has some ironic touches that work. The dialogs have no wit and are perfectly unnecessary, because Chaplin just acts like he's in a silent movie. It gets worse as the story moves: the gags start by being mischievously funny but wound up being flat and the story starts as a dark comedy but develops into a moralistic drama. Technically, it's well-done and fluidly directed, but it's not very good.

2 Days In Paris: This is a very acute examination of relationships and cultural differences. The screenplay is totally hilarious, filled with realistic characters and situations and Woody Allen-esque dialog. It make you laugh because it takes a light-hearted look at extremely realistic situations. The differences between societies are alos fascinating and create a lot of funny moments. The direction is very good, making everything come together organically and filling each scene with little details that make it seem real-life. The acting is perfect by everyone: they are all talented and funny, embodying their characters and delivering their dialog explosively and naturally. It's a fantastic romantic comedy. Monster House: This is a very enjoyable animation movie. It perfectly captures the 80's feeling and has an irresistible innocence. The animation is original, well-done and with charmingly simple lines. The voice-work is phenomenal, specially by Steve Buscemi. The direction is very good, with a slightly shaky camera and "scary" shots very well-used: it's different form normal animation movies, and it's very effective. The screenplay is good: the story is simple and captivating, the supporting characters are amusing, the dialogs are funny and the concept of the house is fantastic, but the leading characters and the chemistry between them is clichéd (Harry Potter, anyone?). Overall, it's a real fun ride for everyone.


Mean Creek: This is a great, very sensitive and poetic movie about being a teenager. It perfectly captures the changes and feelings, the fear of having to choose. The characters are realistic and human, with flaws and problems, but also qualities, the dialog is incredibly natural, the story has a striking simplicity with lots of thoughts running under. The acting is amazing: some of the most natural performances you'll see delivered by a very young cast. They are all brilliant, and extremely charismatic and capture the feelings, always embodying their characters. They have a great, almost palpable chemistry between them. The direction is excellent: Jacob Aaron Estes involves you and gets the ideas and thoughts across . The cinematography is brilliant: the color is rich, while believable, and the hand-held camera is perfectly used to get you into the movie while there also are some revealing, simply beautiful still shots. The soundtrack is also amazing, giving the movie an ethereal feeling and making it even more poignant. Overall, this is a truthful, beautiful representation of teenage life.

Away From Her: This is an impressive romantic drama. It's the story of a couple, married for many years, when she discovers she suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The screenplay is beautiful, with believable, poetic dialog, realistic, well-defined characters and a simple, well-developed story told at the right pace. All it's elements work together. The acting is perfect: Julie Christie is incredibly expressive and fills her character with personality, life, youth and beauty; George Pinsent lets Julie Christie shine, while affectingly portraying Grant, an example of perfectly-suited underacting. The supporting actresses are also excellent. The direction is mature and amazingly captures the suffering and pain of this situation without ever being sappy or begging for sympathy:a rare thing. The sets, wardrobe, cinematography and score are disarmingly simple but make all the emotion flourish and are realistic and well-suited. Overall, this is a brilliant drama with great sensibility and honesty.

Movies watched recently 12

The Darwin Awards: This is just a goofy comedy that will make you laugh, but it's very flawed. The screenplay is obviously hilarious, and some of the solutions presented are interesting, but certain points of the plot are useless (the forced romance, the kid shooting a documentary, etc.) and Siri was very poorly written. The acting is good: Joseph Fiennes and Winona Ryder pair well and have a good comic timing. The cameos are very amusing. The direction has some effective shoots and it elevates the funny moments. The technicals are alright. Overall, this is a fun, but forgettable and flawed movie .
King Kong (2005): I don't like action movie, but I found this intelligent and obviously a work of love, even if it was way too long. The screenplay is good, with a simple love story, moderately well-developed characters, appropriate and witty dialogs. The direction brings it to life with all little details developed: the shots are always lively and well-thought, you can feel the care Peter Jackson put on this. The sets and wardrobe are perfect and amazingly detailed, getting you into the movie. The extraordinary soundtrack and lushly beautiful cinematography also add value to this. The special effects are satisfactory, but not wonderful: they don't capture weight and the dinosaurs are obviously fake. Kong is amzingly expressive and one of the best things in the movie. The acting is very good: Naomi Watts is engaging and transmits emotion, Adrien Brody is smokin' and very expressive and human, Jack Black brings his character's obsessive quality to life and Jamie Bell captures his character and gets him under the spotlight with little screen time. The problem is the (lack of) editing: many of the action sequences could easily have been cut out, because they reduce the emotion and get very repetitive. It is good, but sincerely overrated.

Once Upon A Time In America: This is a very lauded movie about the Mafia. It has a good screenplay, with complex, interesting characters and realistic relationships between them. The dialog is intelligent. The acting is all-around excellent: Robert DeNiro is brilliant filling the screen with his charisma, and all the huge cast is talented. The direction is gorgeous, with evocative images and shots that capture all the feelings of the characters. The cinematography is very good, with subtle changes through the movie and gorgeous images. The complex editing is a bit confusing, but it adds originality to the film and helps building up tension between characters. The Ennio Moriconne is lyrical and really original. This is worth watching (but not the best gangster movie ever).

2:37: This is a gritty indie movie about australian teenagers, with several interconnected story lines with different levels of quality. The story is mostly well-written: the characters are generally well-developed, the pace is involving and the ending is brilliant. Its flaws are in some forced dialog and clichéd characters, but it's nothing too bad. The acting is natural ( mostly by unknowns) and Teresa Palmer delivers an amazing performance, making you really feel for her character. The direction is predictable but well-executed and effective, and the cinematography is really outstanding, using natural light to give the movie a unique feeling. The editing is a bit clumsy: some characters disappear for long stretches of time. The atmospheric soundtrack works well. I think that it could have been less graphic: it wasn't needed. Overall, this is a great achievement for such an amateur film, and it succeeds at showing what high school can be like.

Books read recently 5

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: This is a very touching and affecting read. It's written almost as a play: the characters are shaped through realistic dialog and the scenery is evocatively described. It's a very simple and short book, that will grip you and make you feel for the characters, who are human and beautiful. It's thought-provoking and it has a great epic feeling about it. The story is well-told, at the perfect pace, and it perfectly analyzes these men's lives. The ending is brilliant and raw. I recommend this for its humanity and simple, raw portrait of life.


Bridge To Terabithia by Katherine Patterson: This is an excellent book.The characters are believable and intelligent, and the relationships between them are well-developed. The writing is appropriate for its age group and effectively conveys emotions and feelings. The plot is subtle and realistic, with a positive message delivered naturally. There are a lot of themes developed, adding depth to this story and successfully drawing you into this world. It has a great pace, that will keep you wanting to know what's going to happen, and gives you emotional blows at the right time. It's a book that everyone can enjoy!

My Blog Turns One Year Old!

And to celebrate, you get a list of my favorite performances.

I'm in a listing mood, so here it goes. These were performances that touched me, fascinated me and kept me glued to the screen. They had something uncommon about them: these were not just actors playing their parts, these were real people living inside the screen.

John Hurt in The Elephant Man:His portrayal of John Merrick, cruelly nicknamed "the elephant man" is the most touching performance I've seen. He made his character humane and sympathetic, transmitting all emotions subtly and beautifully. Physically, he fully transforms, but still, he's able to show what's under all the make-up. It's the type of performance that reaches deep within you and I'll never forget it.


Al Pacino in The Godfather Part I/II: Al Pacino plays Michael Corleone, the son of a Mafia boss who is forced to become the Boss perfectly. His transformation is wholly believable: the character always keeps his core, but changes a lot. With his subtle use of body language, unforgettable dialog delivery, expressive, focused eyes and sexiness, he creates a man who's trapped in his own life but still tries to keep his values and family intact. No one else has ever given a performance like this.


Nicole Kidman in To Die For: Suzanne Stone really is an unforgettable character. This ice-cold, ambitious woman, who'd do anything-really anything- to be in TV is awesomely played by Nicole Kidman. She sugarcoats the character, while allowing you to see what's inside. She never gets out of character, creating a unique body language that shows the character's fake nature, expressive eyes that create a full-fleshed person, and using a soft, mellow voice to deliver her dialog. She elevates this film and creates the most fascinating mean character. You just can't take your eyes off her.


Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Clementine Kruczynski is an extroverted, impulsive, foul-mouthed young woman. It's an extremely risky character, who, in the hands of someone less talented than Winslet, would have become an hysterically over-the-top caricature. Instead, she makes her character fascinating, with her ordinary beauty, unpredictability, and quirks hiding a sensitive, confused girl. She's able to show all this with a single look. It's a unique mix of entertainment, humor, sensibility and raw emotion. You can't avoid loving her.


Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense: Cole Sear is a troubled kid: he can communicate with the dead, and because of this he's picked on at school. Haley Joel Osment becomes Cole, it's as simple as that. He plays him with rarely seen intensity, without making this boy cutesy or precocious (which happens so many times with young actors). He is perfect in every aspect, but what really stands out are his eyes, permanently teary and expressive. When he's delivering his dialog, he captures all the cracks and nuances in his character's feelings. It's an imposingly natural performance, and Osment is a scene-stealer here.


Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands: Johnny Depp gives a pitch-perfect, heart-felt performance here. Edward, the shy man created by an inventor, deeply desires to love and touch, but he can't. This gives the performance its undercurrent of sadness, that becomes heart-breaking by the end. The awesomeness of this resides in the amazing mix of hilarious slapstick comedy and raw emotion, both of them beautifully played. This is the type of performance you feel, the type of performance that reaches a higher level.


Julianne Moore in The Hours: Any of The Hours leading ladies could be here, honestly, but Julianne Moore was the most impressive to me. Her depressed housewife is just like I imagined this character to be. She's likable even if she leaves her family: you can't help but understand her and root for her to be happy. She captures depression without ever being melodramatic or getting out of her part even for a second. She's sympathetic without begging for sympathy, and makes her storyline even more affecting. The chemistry she has with the camera is divine: she's not a showy performer, she simply becomes this woman. The magic of this is contained in little moments, looks, sentences that build up to create a woman.


James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause: This searing portrait of being a teenager is raw and true. It's obviously a deeply felt performance, with James Dean blending with his character forever. The special touch of this is its deep clinging for affection and search for a beautiful world. His confusion and fear come off perfectly with his whimsy moments, aggressive delivery of dialog, dreamy stare and self-aware movements. Everyone can relate.


Diane Keaton in Annie Hall: Annie Hall is the core of this movie, with her apparent simplicity and loveliness. Diane Keaton makes her imposingly funny while also believable, infusing her with vital little quirks and, above all, a darker side. She never makes her dramatic, going with the spirit of the movie, but explores Annie's insecurities, issues and obsessions through dizzy body language and fast dialog delivery. It's a simply human character, while also being one of the most hilarious nes ever portrayed. Oh, and some of the lines she speaks are just immortal.


Jamie Bell in Billy Elliott: This was the first acting performance I really loved. Jamie Bell filled this role with youthful energy and life, doing brilliantly expressive dance scenes and presenting a very realistic, natural 11-year-old boy with ease. You like this character from the moment you see him and you root for him. His chemistry with the other cast members is perfect and is dialog delivery is remarkable. He has natural charisma, holds the screen and fills this movie with feeling, without ever being unnatural or sappy.

Movies watched recently 11

The Painted Veil: This is a beautiful romance with excellent acting and gorgeous images. The screenplay is good, realistically portraying the relationship between a young couple and their development as people. The setting is also superbly developed, exploring chinese society subtly and intelligently. Its flaws are that the dialog could have been a bit less pompous in some scenes (but it's mostly fine) and the ending scene wasn't needed. The acting is immensely powerful. Naomi Watts left me in awe: she embodied the character in all little details, creating a real person with nuances. Edward Norton was also good, with some brilliant scenes and always convincing: they have a brilliant chemistry between them. The supporting actors are also good. The direction captures beautiful images and allows the characters to develop. The cinematography is inspiring: the color is vivid and beautiful, and it absorbs you. The soundtrack is very beautiful, completing the movie without being intrusive. Overall, this is a movie I'd recommend.


The House Of Mirth: I thought this was a very boring movie, with a good leading performance. The screenplay is clichéd and doesn't fully develop, with disinteresting characters and bad dialog. The basic story line is fine, but the pace ruins it. The acting is mediocre by everyone except Gillian Anderson, who gives her clichéd character life and feelings, using great body language and edgy delivery of dialog. She makes this not a total waste of time. The direction is unremarkable, and the technicals are genuinely bad. The cinematography makes this look cheap, the editing is not swift and doesn't allow supporting characters to develop, spending time repeating the same things. The (almost) lack of soundtrack doesn't fit here. Overall, this is not worth-watching.

Les Invasions Barbares: This is a good, though flawed movie about Canadian society. The screenplay has some very good dialog but the storyline is too static, as the relationships between characters never really develop. Rémy Girard was excellent, with funny delivery and convincing emotions, but Stéphane Rousseau isn't believable. The supporting cast is unremarkable. The direction is quite good: the beginning is absorbingly well-done and there are some really beautiful shots. The technicals are fine but ordinary. This succeeds at portraying a fragile society and intellectuals, but not at showing human relationships.