Titles and ratings...no time for reviews.

The Wrestler- Aronofsky`s newest.Rourke´s greatest 5 stars
Slumdog millionaire- Boyle´s latest. 5 stars
Milk- Hollywoods newest attempt at making the world a queerest place (by Gus Van Sant). 5 stars
Cocaine cowboys- A killer documentary about Paradise lost or how Fidel Castro took his greatest revenge on the states- 5 stars
El espíritu de la colmena- The greatest spanish film i ever seen. Maybe the source from where Del toro took his idea for Pan´s Labyrinth. 5 stars
Changeling- Clint Eastwood is a non stopable force of excellent moviemaking- 5 stars
Let the right one in- The real thing. What twilight wanted to be maybe. - 4 stars
Christmas on mars- Flaming lips making a psychodelic film. - 3 stars
The wackness- Ben Kingsley as a psychiatrist and pot smoker- -5 stars
Lakeview terrace- Samuel L. Jackson as badass as ever. - 3 stars

More titles to come. Sorry for the brief comments.

The Wrestler

This is a very special one so here is the trailer, i will come back with a good essay soon...

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Jim Carrey is great as a dramatic actor. I have reservations about how director Michel Gondry has been diluting his films with worst actors every time (Gael García and Franck Black). But this is a great film. About a method to erase the ones you loved but now hate from your head. It`s an endless loop of memories that are getting lost, erased. What i learn from it is that all we have is now and memories and if we lost them we have nothing. The photography is great and it really immerse you in that world. On par with Being John Malkovich but with more depth about humanity and its complicated relationships. Great film.

Serial Mom

I have never seen a film where you laugh after a murder. Here it is. This film by John Waters is a great comedy about a housewife who wants and needs to control what she thinks its appropriate for her and her family. The way she does it is by killing the undesirables in funny ways. What a difference having a real actress on a John Waters movie: Laughter upon murder and family values assured. Real killer fun.

If...

Malcolm Mcdowell was already a damn rebel on screen before A clockwork orange. Director Lyndsay Anderson made a film abut anarchy. A punk rock dream came true when the opressed kids at an english institute take it on all authorities with no contemplations. A scream for freedom and a fuck you to The Church, The state and the family values and repression. One of the greatest anti authority films of the late sixties.

Burn After Reading

The other day i had the pleasure of meeting John Malkovich in person and when i told him about how much of an inspiration he was for me, i realized that i was missing one of his latest films: The new film by the Coen brothers!. So i downloaded it and had tons of fun. My problem is that i`m not sure where the amusement came from. This is a movie of characters, there is no twisted plot or a message beyond. It`s a straight comedy where you can feel a little uncomfortable at the end because it destroys what it created and left you feeling like there has to be another chapter, as when someone you thought a friend betrays you. Brad pitt is outstanding as a moron from a gym who drinks "cherry blasts" and has so much energy as he lacks brains. Malkovich is an ex CIA agent who is fired, decides to write his memories and then is blackmailed. George Clooney is a man of many women with hipocondria and ultra paranoid. All is absurd, the way one thing leads to another. It has the quality of a classic comedy but i just don`t get the ending and how dark everything becomes. I think this is not black humor but just a comedy with a twist of sadness and deep feelings. Got to watch it again and again, as i will forgive betrayal one more time.
A final note: This part of the dialogue is one of the best film lines ever:
"yes sir; and we will interface with the FBI on this, uh, dead body? NO! No. God, no. We don`t want those idiots bumbling around in this. Burn the body. Get rid of it.

A short list

I haven`t been around for a long time but i still managed to watch some good films. Here`s the list with my ratings. I promise to make another review soon.

Lynch One-Cool documentary about Mr. Lynch. /4 stars

Pull my daisy-Photographer Robert Frank documents the beat generation with a script and a narration by Kerouac himself./5 stars

Season of the witch (Halloween 3)-A cool and underrated gem of cheesy 80`s horror with a nasty idea behind./3 stars

Taxidermia-Georgy Palfi`s second feature about 3 generaions of men, masturbation, vomit and surrealism. Very nice photography. /4 stars

Blast of silence- Film noir from the 50`s. Cool cinematography./4 stars

Taxi driver- Watched it for the first time in a special edition where you can watch the script simultaneously with the film.Flawless./5 stars

Diary of the dead- Someone should give some advice to Mr. Romero. Trying to combine Cloverfield with 28 days later and Night of the living dead is a bad idea./1 star

Moscow Zero- Curious about Gallo and Kilmer and very disappointed. Very pretentious, stupid, pointless and boring. /1 star

Vampyr- Dreyer`s film is beautiful, minimalist and scary. It`s a dark poem about human condition beyond life and the struggles of human passion. /5 stars

Karhozat (Damnation). A very special film, not for watchers that need fast edition to feel the pace. This is existentialist poetry./5 stars

Salò or the 120 days of sodom- It`s hard to believe that Pasolini died for making this film and that things haven`t changed much since then. Just watch fucking Berlusconi and it`s the same ol`shit.

Stellet Licht (Luz silenciosa). Carlos Reygadas is a director without fear of paying tribute to his heroes and makes Dreyer`s Ordette, a beautiful hommage and at the same time gives mexican regular directors things to think about and reasons to hate him. Excellent. /5 stars

Mother of tears. Dario Argento resurrects as a great horror director and finishes after 30 years his mothers trilogy. /4 stars

The year punk broke. A revealing documentary of real life on the road. Nirvana and Sonic Youth at their weirdest. Cool but sad. /5 stars

Last house on the left- Wes Craven`s debut film. A recreation of Bergman`s the virgin spring in the seventies. A little outdated but cool. / 3 stars

Cinema is deceitful above all things...

Well, no. It`s not cinema but the world we live in today. September was the worst month for me. I only watched 3 movies from a list of 20 and now i feel outdated. Taxidermia by Gyorgy Palfi- Good but i don`t get it. Halloween 2- much better than i expected, never saw it before.
Saló, Stellet licht, A nightmare on elm street, The year punk broke, Moebius and The rape of Europa are on my list but i don`t know until when i will watch them. The nerves are eating me because in 13 days nine inch nails will be playing in my city and i can`t wait. And no, this is not a review but an apology to my only and beloved two readers.

The heart is deceitful above all things

Asia Argento directs and stars in this movie about child abuse. I almost faint. It is a hardcore relentless tale of non stop drama, white trash from the heart of America where social workers, cops, families and values are fake, distorted, ignorant, degenerate and cruel. There are so many tough moments in the film i don`t want to remember. I must say that i`m reviewing it because i find the way of Argento pretty interesting in what concerns to style and result. The effect that you get after watching this movie is as if you were drunk with perfume; it`s a cheap, dirty feeling. After watching this you get a different level of conscience about what goes on in redneck America, where a mother should have her son just for the fuck of it, and nobody cares if she drugs him, rapes him, poisons him and abuses him mentally to a level where there will be not much left for him when he grows, a kid destined to die prematurely or end as her mothers numerous boyfriends: as a psychopath or driving a trailer or making illegal dangerous drugs. It`s shocking and i love the way of the movie but i don`t recommend it because it sticks in your head like a bad disaster or the memory of a nightmare.

A dirty shame

John Waters has never been a stylish or pretentious filmmaker. In the beginning he used to be ultra-provocative but with time the issues that obsessed him changed their shape a little like in the great Pecker or Cecil B. demented. Now, in A dirty shame, he makes a mix between his earlier kinky stuff and his late style. What i find valuable and interesting in this particular work is the idea that`s behind: Fuck hypocrite America. The neuters are the normals (two faced people) and the perverts are the majority (honest lusty people). When a frigid woman gets hit in the head she becomes lusty as a dog and a sexual healer finds her as the chosen one to taught the world the new sex act. I leave it to you to discover in what consists that act. Funny, kinky, fetish pervert, political incorrect, in your face stuff. This is what John Waters thinks that America needs the most: a healthy and honest sexual life, respect for other peoples tastes and views and desecration of old useless values done with humor. I respect that.

Super high me

This is a documentary based on a joke by stand-up comedian Doug Benson in which he said that having watched Super size me he decided to submit himself to a 30 day regime of heavy medical marijuana smoking. After 30 days of sobriety we are told in the form of a countdown the way the law is in the state of California, Doug is submitted to several mental tests and has no problem with not smoking during the period. Then the 30 days of smoking start and also as a countdown we see Doug in every possible situation smoking a joint, making observations about the way the law is respected by the state government but ignored by the federal. We ared witnesses to some raids by the DEA to some dispenser stations. All the cannabis varieties, the pros and the cons, narrated with humor and wit, Doug Benson is a subversive comedian with a lot of style to say the things. He never falls into vulgarity and it may promote a little the use of marijuana but as we see at the end, he reaches better scores on his tests and is generally more happy when smoking. It`s a well directed documentary that opens us the eyes to the reality that cannabis don`t hurt you, that it depends on the background of the subject the reactions obtained and that you must enjoy life the way you want being respectful but keeping your freedom and your right to think as you need. Everyone should see this.

El ángel exterminador

I always praised Buñuel`s Phantom of liberty, That obscure object of desire and The discreet charm of the burgeoisie as his best 3 movies. After watching The exterminating angel things changed; this is in my opinion his number 1 film because it has all of is early and late obsessions as a filmmaker. The critical tone to high class people, ignorant and superficial, the merciless attack to catholic church and the surrealism that serves as a narrative form that goes further from it was intended to hit. Several friends are invited to dinner at a big upper class house. When it`s time to leave, they just can`t go. Days go by and they start to fight and to lose their upper education to end becoming wolves of each other. There are a lot of incredible surreal images, dark dark humor, the feeling of being trapped in the living room trascend to you as spectator, you feel trapped and you cannot leave as the guests. I will not say more because everyone needs to discover this film by themselves. One of the greatest of all time.

Avida

This movie is an absolute hallucination; there is no plot, visually is black and white standard, nothing new, but it is powerful in the realm of the subconscious. Avida is a fat woman that somewhat resembles Divine. But this is a woman that is eating chips all day and when her dog is kidnapped she asks to the kidnappers to take her life. So you`ll have an aproximate of your worst nightmare from a drunken night when watching it. The movie was selected to compete in Cannes but was discarded inmediately. Maybe this kind of experiment is a cool thing to watch when smoking a good joint but i wonder what is the meaning or trascendance of this mess. At least when you watch a David Lynch movie you are also confused but you can appreciate the work behind: In his movies there`s good direction, organical and artesanal decorates, good actors and the presence of emotions as another character but here is all nonsense. Funny nonsense, anyway. There`s a cameo from Claude Chabrol. All is absurd and pointless but it aquires some meaning if you see it with the eyes you watch your dreams. 4 stars.

Sweet Movie

Oh damn. Piss, shit, vomit, blood, semen, tears, farts. The desecration of the revolutions that failed and the subversion of it`s icons through a movie that`s excellent shot in color, masterfully directed. It is a provocation to the senses and the burgoise conventionalisms. From here Ferreri and von Trier and even Pasolini took some ideas. The only possible revolution is sexual. That`s the message i found in all this beautiful mess.

TIDELAND

I have read and heard really poor observations about Terry Gilliam`s new movie and i can`t believe how narrow minded people becomes when exposed to the breaking of taboos. I understand this movie is an uneasy one. (Everything was praises and hugs to Pan`s Labyrinth which is similar to this one on its subject but very different on its treatment.) Its uneasy because a little girl has to live in the dark and bizarre world her parents inhabit. The wonder is how she deals with that. Due to her innocence she transforms the world inside her and all becomes happy but it`s sad its not real.She deals with madness, loneliness and her parents drug addiction (she even cooks the spoon for them). So her mind and her decapitated dolls are her salvation, the beautiful way in which she escapes from what is ugly and finds herself suddenly encouraged to change by the witch and her retarded and visionary brother and later rescued by destiny to maybe lead a normal life or maybe not. All the people that says it`s unwatchable shouldn`t see any more movies. I understand they are saturated with their arrogant selves and maybe they should let rest their conscience and think that when you`re offended by a work of art its not art what`s wrong and what will prevail will not be anyone`s oppinion. So watch it with new and innocent eyes as the director says or forget about it. Art will never need personal oppinions. I`m so happy that in Northamerican cinema there`s still artists and not just patriotic businessmen making movies...To hell with the so called critics. This is Terry Gilliam at his best.

The saddest music in the world

I love Isabella Rosellini. And now i also love Guy Maddin. This film is set in the 40`s during the alcohol prohibition in America, Rossellini is a beer baroness who set up a contest for the saddest music and all the world goes to try and win the big prize. She has no legs due to a car accident where the man that loved her cutted her legs. The film is bizarre and has a dark tone of humor that is unique, the music that is played is beautiful and visually it looks as if it was really made in the 40s, all washed up, grained and sometimes it uses color but in selected sequences and with the look of a videotape. Beautiful experience.

The toolbox murders

Tobe Hooper has always been a great horror movie director. Since The Texas chainsaw massacre he showed a talent to display the sick and deranged, the dynamics of evil and the psychology of the mass murderer tied to the idea that houses and places enclose in themselves energy and sometimes that energy is evil like in Poltergeist. The toolbox murders is a remake of a seventies flick, the main actress is better known for having made the great May where she plays the role of a sad and sick girl turned into dr Frankenstein. Now she plays as a teacher that goes to a buiding in Los Angeles where all the aspiring actors with no money go. But the place has Black juju, every wall has a bad spell and when constructed, people died there. There`s a killer and he uses every tool in his box to get rid of the people in the building. It`s well made, has gore as never before in a Hooper movie and somehow pays tribute to the old days of horror cinema. Just an exercise in style but an effective one. Only for diehards of horror film.

Halloween by Rob Zombie

Well, it took time for me to dare to see this. At first i was angry because i thought nobody should remake this but when i saw it has Carpenter`s approval i immediately bought a dvd copy. Having enjoyed House of a thousand corpses so much i entered again into the mind of Rob re-interpreting the Myers story. And it kicked ass. The first hour is an explanation of the childhood and of the shape that took Myers as a serial killer and the second is a tribute part that entirely remakes the same shots and situations of the last part of the original movie giving it the pace and atmosphere it needed to be the story as envisioned by Carpenter. Zombie used the original score along with his own classic rock selection of songs and Sheri Moon is adorable as Myers mom. It surprised me to see Malcolm Mcdowell as doctor Loomis. A great version. I just love Rob Zombie`s filmmaking style.

The cottage

What a silly comedy, what a boring horror movie. Two brothers kidnap a girl, all go wrong with it, then she escapes and all ends at the farmhouse in the middle of the forest with a Leatherface-like psycho. You are never frightened because you are trying to make up what`s about with the dull mumbo-jumbo "funny" parts and you never have a decent laugh because you are watching bloody murder gone porno gory Hostel-like carnage. A bad mix, the worst idea i have put myself through this year. No prejudice against it because it is english cinema. The actors are good but nothing beyond. What has me wondering is why so many critics have reviewed this as an effective movie. It`s boring and stupid and thank god i downloaded a torrent and don`t spent a cent on watching this. Funny because attempts to do a good flick but is incapable of, and horrible because what it gets is make you snore. Below two stars. Crap.

The darjeeling limited

Wes Anderson has the talent to make sad comedies. From Bottle rocket or the Royal Tenenbaums until Life Aquatic he always managed to make his movies soursweet. In this new offer we find all the previous trademarks of his filmmaking but with a twist; The humor is loud, the sadness is pointed at and removed and when in the end you catch some of the crucial points of the plot you end up feeling better. Better for yourself and for the charachters. There`s so many special moments, to laugh out loud, to meditate on family relationships and spiritual journeys. All tainted with pop music from India and with it`s beautiful and exotic landscape, people and colors. Nice movie. Very kind.

Before the devil knows youre dead

I will make a reverence to Sidney Lumet after watching this movie and after having watched what he has done in the past, specially on Serpico or Dog day afternoon i am impressed that he did a great five star no holds, no cheap thrills movie. What i felt with this reminded me a little what i felt watching Mystic river. A couple of brothers plan to rob their parents jewelry store and all goes bad. From that point Philip Seymour Hoffman goes slowly losing his mind and Ethan Hawke is always about to explode for the pressure. Their father was not a good father. They are not happy with their lives. There is resentment and every charachter on the movie goes talking about their true self until getting soul naked and exposed to their own weaknesses. The movie is made with a flashback narrative that results very effective for the kind of story it is and the music score is discreet and also very effective when it comes to make atmosphere for the robbery, the killings, the confessions, the drug use, and in general the desperation of what was supposed to be a happy family that went bad with no return. He used digital video and theater actors only. Far beyond...

There will be blood

I don`t know how to describe what i felt with this movie. It`s the best i have seen this year but it is not a film i like to watch again or buy or nothing. For Paul Thomas Anderson is a great achievement; the biggest of his brilliant career since Boogie nights and the good hearted Magnolia. Daniel Day Lewis gives a KILLER performance. Visually is beautiful, you could take every single shot and make two books of contemporary photography. There`s so much quality in this movie that you don`t know what`s best: direction, story, photography, charachters or music (beautiful score composed by Jonny Greenwood). My personal issue is that depicts the story of a man that cares for no one, not even himself, hates and uses everyone and is so cold hearted that sometimes is pathetically comic. Paul Dano (from Little miss sunshine) also delivers a great work as actor playing the role of a traitor and his twin brother, a preacher. It plays as an innevitable train of consequences for a man obsessed with money and power and don`t resist that the preacher has more power of conviction than him. I wil lnot say anything else because it is not needed. This kind of film you should watch and experience for yourself . The ending is so absurd and so powerful. It is logic inside the context of a man crazy with his power getting mad, a son of a bitch that gets away with it. Never seen a movie like this before. Far beyond five stars. An experience that nobody will forget.

CLOVERFIELD

This movie gets five stars for doing so much with so less. America never get really into the monster destroyer of cities like Asian Godzilla or Mazinger until this one. (There`s King Kong but is not as big). The making of speaks for itself. Some people has told me they don`t get how the battery could have lasted 12 hours. No, it didn`t, it only lasts the hour and minutes that we see, the duration of the movie is the life of the camera. Many people have said this is Blair witch project meets Godzilla, and i agree, but this one have a twist: I made a political reading of the movie and you can see clearly that the monster was created somehow by the government, well there you have an allegory of 9/11 and Clover (the monster) is like the terrorists, he "is winning" and he is inside but nobody and nothing can finish him , like the parasites in the subway. The actors made a great job by being natural and unpretentious, the visual style and the sound are flawless, the greatest thing is that there`s never a scientist or alike that explains what is going on. Finally i loved it was made in New York and it has so many resemblances of the 9/11 issue that i don`t know how it wasn`t banned. Cool movie destined to be a cult one like The Texas chainsaw massacre, nobody survives. What a ride.

Performance.

The end of the sixties and the begin of the seventies. A great trip movie. All you have to do is roll a good joint and enjoy it. Mick Jagger is a retired star living off his royalties having free sex with beautiful Anita Pallenberg and using drugs, (marijuana and mushrooms) until a man of the mafia accidentally stops by looking for a change of look so he can escape with a fake passport, but gets involved with Jagger and his lifestyle. At the beginning the movie is kind of slow but is preparing you for what is to come. Pallenberg administrates the outsider a good dose of a big mushroom, and when under the effect, he changes his mind, his personality is trastorned, he transforms, lets his unconscious desires out and there`s a point where Jagger wants to be no more a star and the mafioso wants to get out of his world. So they start having allucinations of being one another. Jagger as a mafioso and the other guy taking his place with the girls, the drugs and the free love. At the end we realize that is not exactly a pipe dream, they really switch personalities and Jagger ends becoming what he wanted and going away with the mobsters. What a trip. Beautifully shot in technicolor , dream like sequences, free use of drugs, unpretentious, entertaining, it even has a kind of music video with Jagger singing in the middle of the movie and it`s not an out of place thing, you can see an early version of what came to be music videos in the mid eighties. There`s flashbacks, flashforwards and the details of decoration and ornament, the clothing, all is very sixties, a seed from where maybe Oliver Stone, Anthony Hopkins, David Lynch and a large etcetera got influenced. Highly recommended, interesting trippy movie directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg.

Little miss sunshine

This movie is a beautiful meditation of the american family in the 21st century. Grandpa snorts heroin, tired of life wants to fuck and has a big heart. Brother is Nietszche addicted and has made a vote of silence until becoming an aviator, mom is always busy, uncle is gay and sad and tried to commit suicide and dad is an absolut waste that wants to sell a program to success. One day they find that little Olive is on the little miss sunshine contest and all of them pack their bags and hit the road where they will all meet a sour destiny and in between they will learn to be a better family by accepting their weirdness and rejecting the hipocrisy of the american dream that in the end the beauty contest suggests. Great music, acting and direction, it makes you laugh not because it has stupid gags like National Lampoon`s with Chevy Chase but because it touches you by it`s honesty with real life. Check out what they do with the grandpa`s corpse and at the moment of the contest when they feel bad because the girl will be rejected and then don`t give a damn and celebrate themselves when they turn their backs to fake attitudes and reunite with Olive on the dancefloor as they dance superfreak by Rick James. Beautiful, i have no more words. Go and watch it. A road movie with a big heart and a true sense of reality.

¿Què he hecho yo para merecer esto? (What have i done to deserve this?)

This is an early film by Almodòvar. Before all the attention he got from Hollywood when attracted them with poor, middle and light offerings, he used to make good cinema with low budget and great stories and actors. Here we have Carmen Maura in the leading role, a middle class woman with a husband that drives a taxi and loves singing german music (he`s an asswipe too), the mother of his man, a woman so infected with religion and tradition that is ultra comic, her two sons, one sells drugs, the other fucks older men, a neighbour with a daughter that has super powers Carrie-style, a crocodile as a pet and a good friend that is also a whore and a neighbour. Together they explode, we see Maura going progressively crazier with everything that happens in her tormented life. I will only say that is an underrated gem, an early film by a director who used to be subversive but ended selling himself out. Check the dialogue in the movie and you will find his all-life obsessions: "No te olvides nunca de que soy tu madre" ("Never forget that i`m your mother") and "He vuelto" ("i`m back). The early work of a spontaneous artist that ended going for the money and the glamour of the red carpet as if he never had been underground.

Kurt Cobain About a son

First, this is not a movie, documentary or music video. It contains the recorded voice of Kurt Cobain interviewed by Michael Azerrad, author of one of the most comprehensive Nirvana biographies. This material couldn`t make it into the book and was used by AJ Schnack to make this work. I turned off the screen and listened to the revelations of Cobain about music, his early influences, his perspectives of life, drugs, marriage, family and the problem with being a rockstar and how he didn`t wanted it. It`s great to listen to the man directly for the first time, now that everything about him has been sold out (like the new Converse shoes designed by him and recently sold by that bitch called Courtney Love). The problem i found with this "work" was the visuals. You start listening to Cobain, and the music that influenced him (there`s no Pixies or Sonic youth surprisingly) and listen to a beautiful but sentimental and out of place score. The worst is that there`s no visual link to Cobain`s life or death or birthplace or scenes of touring or whatever. The visuals are more like watching Naqoyqatsi or Baraka, they are beautiful but had nothing to do with Cobain, and it`s sad the people making this work couldn`t wait to get some images that actually matched their music and conversations. This works for me more like a spoken word record. I bet anyone familiar with Kurt or Nirvana will have the same opinion so thanks a lot to Kurt, Azerrad and the musicians. No comments about the pretentious and out of place visual matter that comes with the package.

Eastern promises

The existancialism of russian mafia in America and its inner ways of thought and behaviour are the core of Cronenberg`s latest film. The director has gone beyond any movie he has done in the past, maybe Spider or A history of violence anticipated this one but frankly i think this is his greatest effort to date. Viggo Mortensen is great as the driver-confident of a low profile charachter played greatly by Vincent Cassel (i mean, a frustrated, queer mafioso who don`t score a point and is submitted to his father emotionally). You don`t realize until the end that all the loyalty and braveness of Mortensen`s charachter is not coming from a servant but from a well phisically and psichologicaly trained ambitious man who`s looking for his place inside the mafia. There`s the narration of the 14 year old girl that`s raped by Cassel`s father and whose diary is found by Naomi Watts that gives the movie a great flashback rythm and explains what has happened when she discovered she`s pregnant and realized don`t wanted the baby because she came from russia believing the promises of having a good job and all that she found was mafia and prostitution, she is injected a heroin dose everyday and dies leaving the baby alive, unsetting this train of consequences that starts when Watts finds the diary. Visually is beautiful dark and cold England, there`s great details like Mortensen`s fight in a bathroom naked, or Cassel`s charachter in conflict when trying to get rid of the baby. The tattoo issue is very interesting; the dvd comes with a comment of Cronenberg about their use in russian mafia and what they mean. Hopefully from now on Cronenberg will grow as an artist, he already did. This kind of film is what keeps alive north american cinema, if it was determined only by blockbuster crap it would have died a long time ago (Rambo anyone?).

I Stand alone (seul contre tous)

This film rocketed director Gaspar Noe to the public and critical attention, and once in the spotlight he made Irreversible. His greatness can be defined as a blend of technical and writing skill. The treatment of the story is what makes his movies unforgettable. Here we have a middle aged man whose life has been from worse to worse. He is sad for having been in prison accused of having sex with his daughter. He`s involved with a woman that`s pregnant and will lend him some money to rent and have his own place as a butcher. But bitter as he is, he cannot find peace of mind and loses the opportunity with the woman when he beats her until killing her baby and then escapes. Until here the movie plays as a culmination of causes-effects. The second part is more dynamic with him having flashbacks of what happened and what might happen, so he finds his daughter and takes her with him. The girl is mute and both end up in a hotel room where he fantasizes about killing her. Then he goes on a monologue of human existence and ultimately, makes an apology of incest. He says to his daughter that the world doesn`t approve their love because its pure. So they take each others hands in one of the weirdest but most beautiful father-daughter movie scenes ever. A great achievement with minimal elements and a film debut that was as impressive as the follow up. Don`t miss if you like french cinema and the possibilities of nihilism inside of it.

Hiroshima mon amour

Shot in black and white this movie has two central characters ; a japanese man and a french woman who met, fall in love with each other and in between, make an elaborate and beautiful dialogue about the impossibility of their love, the beauty of the pure moment and war. Master director Alan Resnais first intention was to make a documentary, but Marguerite Duras had wrote this great script and he adapted it to cinema. The film is pretty actual for the 21st century. Its visuals are a mix of poetry and mute violence, contained feelings, and as good philosophy, questions things more than answering them. Its a gem of pure human emotion. The scenes Resnais planned to use for the documentary were inserted in the movie to relief tension and meditate about the fact of Hiroshima and the differences and similarities the two characters find in each other as they go speaking and loving. You can see this film a lot of times and never get tired of it as you`ll never get tired of a good poem. Talking more about it is unnecessary. I`m pointing at it because new generations should see it and the old ones that never saw it should too. Go for the criterion dvd. The transfer is great and features a booklet with interviews and excerpts from Duras script.

Bug

This is the latest, newest and most overrated movie by Willam Friedkin. The story of a vulnerable and emotionally affected woman and a schizoid, paranoid man. The actors play their roles with conviction and Friedkin shows again his talent to maintain audiences tense during the movie`s arguments and explanations. Unfortunately the story is consistent only into its own small universe. This woman lost her child and her husband is in jail, but he comes out to make her life miserable, so she meets a man through her lesbian friend, a man who claims having been in war and who starts developing a psychosomatic affliction that has to see with bugs that were put on him as an experiment, so she`s alone and needs him and both start to develop a mental case in which he is the male bug and she is incubating. They go as mad as they can to a point of no return in which they found themselves lost, dangerous and take a radical solution that involves some fire and aluminuum foil. It`s well made but you will forget about it after a couple of hours because its intensity doesn`t trascend beyond the two main characters and the way they end is the solution to the conflict and period. There`s a virtue in this movie: You will believe both stories the same way because they are explained in a way that confuses and makes you think that yes, they are infected and all is wrong and also that they are a couple of nutcases. Personally i have no problem in telling the late is the true and is what makes it a little dull because they make it up and finish it without affecting anything or anyone in their path. Mr. Friedkin will always be the director of The exorcist and his impossibility of going beyond that is a real shame. Anyway i applaud that he`s still working and taking chances. Unfortunately, the risks he takes are more oriented to appeal the mainstream audiences and holds the talent he showed before, pulling him back from the great directors and inserting him more where he was before the French connection. Decide for yourself.

Inland empire

It takes a lot of time to get this film. First i want to say that since the beginning (when i was looking for the tickets) this was weird. When i went to the cinema where it was announced the person at the ticket sales watched me intrigued, then he told me "no sir, we don`t have any movie with that name" Then i found it was re-scheduled to another teathre where every ticket was $12 bucks because of the reclinable seats, bar service and a pillow. God, i just wanted to see a movie! And then it happened that my two tickets were the last and the friend that went with me was angry for the price so i had to refund him. I thought that from there on everything will be fine. Wrong again, i watched without a blink of an eye straight 3 hours of Lynch and found myself ecstatic, as if every movie before that was meaningless, my head was a mess, emotionally and phisycally i had to run to the bathroom. When i found my friend again he was double angry, he totally hated the movie and when i wanted to explain or be conciliatory he was about to explode so i shut myself and for months i was in doubt of why my friend hated the movie so much and if he hated me too. It was a long trip and then came the dvd with an hour and a half plus of movie. I became tired of saying it was the best i watched in 2007 and end up concluding that it`s not a movie for everyone. If you watch it make it under your own risk and if you can do it alone, better. I loved the hitchcockian moments, the surrealism and generally the convergence of Lynch personal obsessions and recurrent subjects from his past movies. Technically digital video was awesome for this movie and the actors, specially Laura Dern, the commonplaces out of context, the Hollywood meta movie inside the movie, the multiple charachters trapped in one actor at every time a turn or a confussion that ended explaining itself somehow, the perspectives from every thing said being so multiple meaning, the screams, the audio, the songs, the humor, everything set to upset you. The rabbits and the lamps, the extreme close ups and dreamlike atmospheres. I understand that is the story of a woman that wants to be an actress and gets frustrated and becomes mad, this played by several Laura Derns that are poor, then rich, then a whore, then a white trash woman, in Hollywood and Poland but i really don`t want to make sense of what i saw. This is the film. Definitive David Lynch, sadly, i don`t think he can do any greater than this. Ten golden stars.

The Manson family

This film is beyond horror cinema or docudrama. It's a fearless movie,
one in a million for the uneasy subject and the way it describes an
era, the end of the sixties and the beginning of contemporary media
coverage of murder in Hollywood. It took from 1988 to 2003 to make and
it was due to the zero concessions director Jim Vanbebber made to the
film industry and obviously to a small budget. It's absolute
underground and once you watch it you'll be haunted forever. I loved
the way it's made thematically because it doesn't glorifies or condemns
Manson and is also impartial when it comes to the victim's point of
view. From the opening sequence you have flowers stained with drops of
blood, the acting is adequate when it comes to describe a generation so
lost and disperse at the end of the sixties. Visually it takes you from
pastel pale tones and scratched emulsions that evoke a real sixties
b-movie to the high definition late nineties and the blurred TV style
of the eighties. You have the story as lived and told by the murderers
before and after the killings, the story as watched by 80's media and
the seeds planted on the same lost minds of the young people of today.
Having read Helter Skelter and Manson in his own words i think is the
closest recreation of the case so it scores beyond 5 stars. It gets
until your guts and clarifies any doubt about what really happened. For
me is as clear as this: A lot of young people with many drugs, sex and
free time and no love or aspirations, thinking they were being so neat
by living out of the system and with so much freedom and mental
confusion as to make what they made: kill the so called pigs because
untalented Charlie couldn't get a contract with a record label.
Retaliation, creepy crawling, "stabbing and stabbing", they lost it and
found themselves suddenly in hell and more lost than before. If you
want to see graphic murder depiction, rivers of blood, great
camera-work and photography then go for this one. It's a great drama of
a real case, one of the blackest points in recent American history. A
symptom of the infections that this country spelled on it's people
after world war 2 and Vietnam and the beginning of new cults, leaders,
fakers and outsiders. Also great is the music made mostly by Phil
Anselmo. A cult classic and an example of perseverance by director Jim
Vanbebber from whom a lot of Hollywood "movie makers" can take note
when making garbage just for money.

The brave one

The newest film by Neil Jordan is a great addition to the vigilante genre and a ride on a rollercoaster of revenge. The photography is master crafted some kinda reminiscent of The crying game. Set in New York it reminded me Ms.45 by Abel Ferrara but without the budget limitations and with a great acting job by Jodie Foster who puts herself in danger cleaning the streets of scum until she gets to the murderers of her boyfriend. A film of high tension, it has the right pace from beginning to end. We see the city of New York turned into Murderland, "the safest city in the world" as they call it since 9-11, shows it`s true face in a movie again. Having seen the "cool" New York a lot of times as if it has been cleansed of crime this movie is a reminder that no place is safe and laws are stupid when trying to apply justice. Here that is forgot and a single woman with a weapon is the vehicle of justice for the city and for herself. Jordan made a great insight on human fear in the big cities, he tooks a lot of common places and make them real for a movie again like the shooting in the grocery store or in the subway.I felt kind of catharsis with the ending and living in a big city too, the thoughts that Jodie as a radio host makes about her city are the same anyone in urban exposure feels the need to do. You forget about fear, you think it will never reach you, you meditate on why people has fear until you feel it and it transforms you as with the character of Jodie, you are changed by it and become another person that was inside of you but you haven`t met. Intense, raw and splendid, the only thing i think is a little out of place is the music score but i will rate it 5 stars because no movie had felt so sincere about this subject in a long time. Great work.

Planet Terror

It took long for me to see this movie and i´m very exited about it. First i think is great because of the way it pays tribute to 70`s cinema; to b movies, horror flicks and low budget horror. The difference is that here you have a formal script, well known actors and great special effects. Robert Rodriguez scores again with his great understanding of past cinema and its particular aesthetics, the movie is washed out in a way that it makes you think it was made 40 years ago. The violence is intense and gory and the music was made also by Rodriguez and it resembles a lot the type of music of most italian giallo flicks, specially early Argento. There are no cheap concessions, this director is true to his vision. What he is doing is redefine the way we look at horror movies in the 21st century by making them more enjoyable with elaborated atmospheres and dumb dialogue, a cool contrast like in the trailer of Machete at the beggining of the movie. Five stars to Planet Terror for making the most popular elements of cheap films sublime.