Movies watched recently 18

I Could Never Be Your Woman: This is an amusing, though forgettable, romantic comedy. The script is unpretentious and mildly intelligent, with funny characters and some interesting themes and dialog. The storyline is believable enough and the humorous subplots work incredibly well. The acting is good, with the beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer adding depth to her character. Paul Rudd is perfectly charming and dorky and Saoirse Ronan is very spontaneous and works well with the accent. The technicals are fine, except the editing, which is just careless. The soundtrack is fun, though. This is an engaging romantic comedy.
Badlands: This is a unique movie, mostly due to its direction. Terrence Mallick has a distinctive, poetic style, here used in distancing you from the characters, showing a murder-spree with neutral eyes, but capturing details that make you love the movie. The numb acting and ironic, though naive narration, the haunting soundtrack, the natural cinematography, the slow-pace given by the editing, all add up to create an unforgettable experience. Everything about this movie is perfect and it all adds up to a thought-provoking, achingly beautiful but horrifying movie that I highly recommend.

How Green Is My Valley: This is a classic coming-of-age story with a winning charm. The screenplay inspiring: the characters are humane, the story is believable, the subplots are affecting. Its flaw is the corny dialog. The acting is very good, with a charismatic, natural performance by Roddy McDowall, a touching Donald Crisp and Maureen O'Hara perfectly capturing her character's changes. All the supporting cast is also attention-worthy. The editing gives the movie a slow, involving pace and the music is fitting. The direction is the standout. John Ford shapes up an iconic portrayal of a family and a village, giving us scenes that are remarkably heartfelt. I recommend this for anyone looking for a movie with a big heart.
Trust: This is a wonderful indie movie. From the very first moment, you are confronted with realistic, organic characters, witty, dry, unique dialog and an amazing capacity to find humor in the grimmest situations. The accting is simply fabulous: Adrianne Shelly convincingly carries her character through mood swings, despair, love and huge growth, while Martin Donovan shows hardly contained anger, withholding and darkness through subtlety. They have a fabulous chemistry and are supported by a brilliant cast. The soundtrack is beautiful and the cinematography is able to find poetry in these arid lives. The direction gets all these elements together showing Hal Hartley's spirit. It's a great lçove story and I highly recommend it.


Pretty Persuasion: I have mixed feelings about this acid comedy. On one side, it features a bunch of amazing comedy performances, specially the fantastic Evan Rachel Wood, portraying cold bitchiness perfectly and a flawless cinematography, with clean color and darkly funny tracking shots and zoom-ins. On the other side, there are too many story changes and mood changes. The dark, inappropriate humor is irregular, and sometimes there's just not enough humanity. Despite these flaws, Kimberly is a fascinating character and this is thought-provoking. This is the type of movie that you might just hate or love.

The Kid: This classic is my favorite Charlie Chapman movie. It's not just slapstick humor, though obviously those scenes are great and used to portray the characters. It has heart, it has a message, and it's not preachy but sweet and endearing. The chemistry between Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan is priceless, and the later shows a natural talent for comedy while touching everyone's heart. The story is simple, but filled with precious moments of beauty. Overall, this is the heart-warming movie that inspired all the others.

Movies watched recently 17

Enchanted: This is the type of lovable movie that everyone will fall for. It has all the Disney magic you could hope for: it feels like a Walt Disney cartoon. But Enchanted also modernizes the story creatively, adds depth to the traditional characters and includes a lot of different themes, not just for little kids. The jokes are hilarious, mixing naivety with irony explosively. The special effects are excellent and imaginative, not overused at all. The animation is fabulous and it's greatly mixed with real action. I also loved the gorgeous costumes and the joyful musical sequences. But the true heart of this movie is the lovely Amy Adams. This is the freshest, funnest and most perfect turn in a light role since, well, a long time. She captures the magic and feel of traditional Disney princesses, so that you can not avoid to fall in love with Giselle. She's deliciously over-the-top, she's subtle and emotional, she's just awesome. Go watch this , you'll have a great time!

Buena Vista Social Club: This is one of the movies that defines boredom. It's technically not a bad movie but as the subject didn't interest me and I didn't like the music, it just made me sleepy. I also felt it was kind of fake, a tourist's view of Cuba. Some of the interviews were interesting, but they got repetitive quickly. The live shows were just snore-inducing-that's the biggest issue with this.

The Phantom of the Opera: The book in which the musical is based is a remarkable love and obsession story; I haven't seen the stage musical, but the movie fully failed at capturing the book. The narrative was relatively faithful (though the disturbing themes were watered down)but the style and interpretation were cringe-inducing. I could make a big list with what they did wrong. The story was told as a flashback: bad idea, iconic characters don't grow old. Joel Schumacher decided to eliminate almost all feelings and replace them with elaborated dancing numbers and costumes. The scenes which were supposed to be most affecting were laughable. The acting is the most decent thing: Emmy Rossum's acting quality changes through the movie, but she mostly gets the vulnerability of her character and she's a good singer. Gerard Butler and Patrick Wilson were fine but they didn't have enough material to create appropriate characters. It's just fluff, and even as that it's not very good.

The Upside of Anger: This is a bittersweet story. I really enjoyed it. It's the type of movie that slowly wins you over with its honest, raw characters trying to overcome their issues. It has a wonderful screenplay: the characters are all developed and their lives are realistic, funny and aching. The pace and storyline are equilibrated and keep you interesting. The acting is brilliant: Kevin Costner delivers a mature, subtle performance and Evan Rachel Wood is quirky and very expressive, like all the daughters but the star of the show is Joan Allen. She is fully convincing as a woman going through a crisis. Her character is not always sympathetic, but Joan Allen fills her with pain and conflicted emotions and shows that through humor. The acting and story make this a beautiful movie.Thirteen: This is a frightening and disturbing vision of some 13-year-olds lives and how everything can go wrong. It's not a perfect movie, but it's a honest depiction of real lives coming straight from the heart. The story is simple and character-driven, following Tracy's change. The dialog and characters are very realistic, though some of the subplots should have been better developed. The acting makes this rawer and much more believable. Evan Rachel Wood delivers one of the best performances as a teenager: she isn't afraid to show Tracy in all her aspects, vulnerability, anger, loneliness, ecstasy, despair, and she stays in character from the first frame to the very last. It's really a unique tour-de-force. Holly Hunter and Nikki Reed are also excellent, providing great support. The first one is perfect as the mother, making us understand her side of the story. The direction is experimental: it's not great, but the digital cinematography is poetic and the hand-held camera actually feels edgy and gritty, like someone is actually following this girl. This is a very affecting movie that people should watch.


War of the Worlds: This is a very good adventure film. It gives a fresh look on the book, following its main ideas and spirit while adding humanity and chilling action. Tom Cruise, who I don't like at all, gives a good performance here, as a loser trying to bond with his kids in the middle of total disaster. He's charismatic. Technically, this is very good, with some of the best special effects I've ever seen, a great cinematography, fitting make-up and good set design. But what really stands out is Spielberg's direction, simply masterful. He blends all the elements together beautifully, creates impressive suspense (the hiding scene with Tim Robbins) and actually made me feel empathy for the characters. It's an excellent blockbuster because it's not only explosions and action.