CASHBACK and CARAMEL

Today two movies at once, two different movies that we'd like to talk about:

"Cashback" from Sean Ellis from 2006 and "Caramel" from Nadine Labaki 2007




Cashback is set in a london and it's about an insomniac that start working on a night shift on the local supermarket in order to forget a hard break up and Caramel is about 4 lebanese women and their life in beiruth in the search for love.

Two films, two cities, two different visions but a same subject in common how we manage our lives in respect to love.

In cashback, the main character dreams he has the power to stop the time, to put the world on a "pause" mode as he says where he could then wonder and make the moments last for as long as he wanted. This escaping from reality is what helps him trhoughout the movie to cope with his sadness from the breakup from his girlfriend.

While in Caramel, the absence of dream and the crude reality brought by a hard city full of costumes and traditions is what makes these women go own, one of the main character for isntance dreams of a relationship with her married lover, and slowly she will meet his wife and kid and come to the sense that the relationship is just impossible. But everything quitte in touch with reality as if there were no place for dreaming in their lives.

It's interesting how the same subject can be treated by two different aspects and yet give the audiences the same result in the end. Both films have their own style and great choice of actors and both films leaves you with the feeling of wanting more.

We recommend these two films if you get the chance just let yourself be transported by them to their own reality. So our final words: to be absolutely seen!

Los Abrazos Rotos

Today one comment about the last Almodovar.

LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS



It premiered in spain and in the Cannes Film Festival Competition. It was destroyed by the critic and the public didn't enjoy it very much, i guess the fault is Almodovars! Just his. He got his audience to be used to soap opera like drama, sad spanish songs and more and more drama that i undesrtand people were dissapointed with this one. and yet all the elements were there, it's still a almodovar film! He is the only director i know that has the power of making strange crazy drama stories into these amazing films.

This last film tells the story of a blind movie writer who will tell his past to the son of his partner and in tell us how and why he got blind.

In my opinion it's a good movie, very well written (as usual) a little less dramatic if we compared with the others (which for me is a good thing) and using less drama music to creat atmosphere which I guess is also good. I undesrtand it bothered a lot of fans of his because the story is kind of déjà vu and much less dramatic or funny with the "movie in the movie" plot.

But Penelope Cruz and all the actors are really good. The film has a slow rythm and carried by calm music, beautiful images and many references to many other directors such as Hitchcock.

So in short, if you like Almodovar's style and drama you might be dissapointed with this one because it's really far from the usual Almodovar. But if instead you are curious and like to see different films from good directors then like me you will enjoy it.

Final words: do as you feel like. I liked it and recommend but don't say I didn't warn you!

Films to be seeing before you die: LES VACANCES DE M. HULOT from Jacques TATI

Today I'll talk about a movie I saw for the first time last week in spite of being a major classic.

LES VACANCES DE M. HULOT (Jacques TATI - 1953)


This black and white movie from 1953 has just been restaured by two french fondations fo cinema: The thomson fondation (The thomsom group owns Technicolor among other companies) and The fondation Gan pour le cinema.

I was invited to the premier of the film in Paris with the people who worked on the restoration and the actors that are still alive. I Know Tati's work from other films like "Playtime"and "My oncle" (which i highly recomend.

But Monsieur Hulot's Holiday I have never seen before and yet the great about discovering this old movie is the possibility to watch it on the big screen. The film is like a ballet, every movement or scene is programmed and works like a clock, the jokes are funny and the audiences laughs a lot during the whole film.

There's, like in all Tati's movies, almost no dialogues and yet you don't miss them, that's the beauty of Tati.

The story tells the holidays at a small seaside french city in the 50ies, it's amazing to see how summer holidays went by at those times, Mr. Hulot one very clumsy man comes to spend his holidays at the beach hotel and from the beggining to the end is responsible for all the problems and quiprocos happening in the small town. But he does that by pure innocence and clumsyness.

The film is fresh, funny and makes you feel like going right away on holidays but in the 50ies where time seems to pass much slower. The film will be re-lauched around the world in theathers again. DON'T MISS IT!

Final words: Check when it will be showing near you and go see it!

Rachel Getting Married

Small comment for a film that I left five minutes after the beginning.

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED Directed by Johnathan Demme.

Why I left? Because the camera is so shaky that I couldn't bare it.

Why in hollywood when they wanna do more intelectual movie they immediatelly think "shaky camera", they think Dogma style movie is better to add atmosphere to it? Why? I don't know but what I know is that it's annoying and that instead of adding to the movie it draws out attention from the story.

Also there's a limit in the shaking of a camera and in this movie it's like parkisson desease with a camera.

Final words: maybe it's a good movie, but the dogma style is so overdone and don't serve the story of this movie. Don't go see it!

Wendy and Lucy

ok, I saw it last week:

WENDY AND LUCY





Of course over exposed in the media because Michele Williams the ex-wife and mother of Heath Ledger's daughter and of course a sidesection Cannes Festival selection last year.

It's a second movie of this director, which I don't remember the name nor want to look for it.

The film is about a girl trying to go to Alaska with by car with her dog, she has only 500 dollars and is a bit stupid, she's going to alaska because she has no other alternative for jobs and she heard there's work up there. So far nothing bad.

But wait, the film starts with her arriving in a small town and that's when all the problems begin. The car breaks down, she goes to jail for stealing dog food the supermarket and then the dogs dissappeas, and so she has to stay in town until her she finds her dog Lucy.

The problem with this film is the wish that it has to do something new and interesting but in the end we just feel empty and shalow, I don't know if she deliberated wanted to do a shalllow very minimalist film (but so minimalist that it doesn't creat any kind of emotion on the viewers)

Anyhow, when the film ends you just look around and everybody is feeling the same: what happened? NOTHING, it's shallow.

A lot of moments in the movie we have the hint that something is about to happen, a lot of situations are created to make us feel that way but in the end nothing happens, we don't feel simpathy for the character, weel as I repetedly said already we don't feel anything. Numb movie.

Final words: Avoid it if you can.... Or maybe if you want something to help you sleep then go see it.

LINHA DE PASSE

Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas have co-directed this movie called in original Portuguese:

LINHA DE PASSE

The name is about the line in soccer where the player has to pass the ball to make a goal and win the match. It tells the story about a cleaning lady about 40 years old who raises 4 male kids alone and is pregnant of the 5th. The first three kids are from the same father and white, the youngest one is from a black father and he never met him. And the pregnancy we don't know who the father is. They all live on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, the largest and richest city of Latin America with almost 20 million inhabitants and responsible for more than 20 percent of the GDP of Brazil.

I saw this movie yesterday night and still i am thinking about it. The theater was empty and I guess it hasn't been a great success. It started very slow and boring and I thought to myself that it would be a film just exploiting the passion for soccer in Brazil, but then after the first 5 or so minutes you just get into the story of this touching family who has everything to be apart of adrift but are naturally connected and have a complicity of their own.

For me this movie is very realistic and shows the lives of many contemporary Brazilians who are living poorly and trying to become something in life beside all the riches around them, cleaning for them, delivering for them, playing soccer for them, driving for them and in the end stealing from them as an act of desperation and no solution.

But each of them have a dream and they live by it:
The mother: just wants to raise her kids and see her team win the championship
Older boy: is trying to be a soccer player the only way out for him but his too old already to be taken by any team and falls into the corrupted clubs who asks him 3000 reais as a bribe to sign with them
Second brother: the Latin lover of the family just wants money to raise his own kid who lives with the mother but is always fucking some other girl every other nigh and in order to pay all the expenses ends up stealing money with his motorcycle on the stoplights of the city
Third brother: He just want to pray on the evangelic religion very spread up Brazil where the poor people believe on the power of Jesus but asks the people for ten percent of their income. He is honest but discovers during his journey on the film that it doesn't always pay and also him will crack one day.
Fourth brother: the youngest, still in elementary school but already very old for his age, smart and full of language he's just obsessed to find his father who was a bus driver and spends all free time riding buses driven by black guys around the town.



The directors have chosen to portray a city that is harsh and has no beauty as the city that this kind of poor class people know and yet it's showed in a very real way showing the solidarity among the Brazilians and that in spite of their poor lives this family hangs on, happy as they can be.

The main actress totally deserved her "Palm for best actress" in Cannes Film Festival 2008. Finally one good movie from Brazil that's not cliché about "favelas" and drug dealing and criminality but just poor class, hard life people portrayed in a very subtle and gentle way by the directors. Bravo for both.

Final words: WATCH IT and let yourself get involved by the excruciating reality of the life of these family!

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

Today we got our accreditation to the Cannes Film Festival.
The biggest market and festival in the world. we'll be writing on this blog all my stories and notes made during the festival.
It's just two months away

The Queen and I

Good idea for a documentary but "ball-less" director.

THE QUEEN AND I
A documentary by Nahid Persson Sarvestani

The idea is controversial, one one side an ex-revolutionary from Iran who became a doc director and on the other side the ex empress, the wife of Iran's Shah Farrah.

They supposedly hate each other and the director wants answers for all those years of poverty, tortures and social differences that she claims the Shah was responsible of.

They meet in the luxury apartment of the empress on exile in Paris. It starts very well but we can easily see that Farrah is controlling everything and just showing what she wants to show in front of the camera, the film becomes then as mean for her to communicate.

Synopsis:
When Nahid Persson Sarvestani, an Iranian exile, set out to make a documentary about Farrah, the wife of the shah of Iran, she expected to encounter her opposite. As a child, Persson Sarvestani had lived in dire poverty, watching Farrah’s wedding as if it were a fairy tale. As a teenager, she joined the Communist faction of Khomeini’s revolution that deposed the shah, sending him and his family volleying from country to country. When Khomeini betrayed his promise for democracy, imposing more violent measures than the shah had, Persson Sarvestani was also forced to flee. Thirty years later, she needs key questions answered and goes directly to the source. Surprisingly, Queen Farrah welcomes her as a fellow refugee from their beloved homeland, granting unprecedented access.

BUT THE REALITY of the film:

Two women around talking about life together, one (the director) trying to ask the important questions and elucidate something about those days in Iran and on the opposite Farrah, who stages her life and scares the director in such a way that the director won(t be able to ask any of those questions and film in the end will just be a shallow portray of the empress. Too much narration and doubtful director which is more than half of the movie.

Pity! I'd love to have seen more, more about real things and real discussions. What makes me mad is that because of its subject this film is going to all film festivals and being bought from all tv channels and distribution companies around the world. Easy money from a bad film, but I guess in this business audience is what we tell them to be!

Final words: If u want to see a director holding her cheek while she's thinking for 40 minutes and in the rest the amazing houses the poor exiled empress lives on go see it, if you have an hour and a half to loose go see it... for me instead no interest in this movie so forget about it!

ANTOINE - Director Laura Bari

Enough of big Hollywood blockbusters today I'm gonna talk of an independent movie directed by an Argentinian director Laura Bari that I saw some weeks ago:

"ANTOINE "

Laura's first movie is a big success to me. The film tell the story of Antoine a Vietnamese born in Canada boy who happens to be blind.

In this documentary in order to make the boy share and show his life with the audience, Laura created a role-play game with the boy on which he would be a detective, a blind detective. She follows him in the intimate of his life at home and at school.

The imagination and the freedom of this blind boy who is perfectly at ease with the microphones and being in the center of this movie is amazing and give us lessons about how we can live our lives in spite of all the problems.

The film has a very good editing and great music and images. It could last 10 minutes less but in general is a great movie, Bravo to the director, it's always good to see low budget independent movies breaking through like this! I'm curious to see what she's gonna make next.

Final words: If this movie is screened on a festival or theater near you... don't miss it!

MAMMA MIA

I can still recall ok ok it's not a NEW MOVIE, but I was on my way to NYC some weeks ago and feeling very tired and this movie was on the list of movies showing during the flight on those small TV sets they have now on intercontinental flights so I watched again:

"MAMMA MIA"

Big production, nice style, good actors, amazing Meryl Streep dancing like a young girl, very good acting, they really seems to be having real fun while shooting this movie and this complicity transparent to the screen.



Some minor errors specially in continuity and synchronicity sometimes but not enough to cause any trouble to the movie.

The idea is quite simple and already made millions of fans on the musical presentations, using well known musics and create a plot where those musics fit in without any trouble. Sounds easy.

The story: The girl who's getting married and plan to stay taking care of her mothers small hotel on a paradisaical Greek island. She wants to know who her father is and finds three possible men in her moms diary, she decides to invite them for the wedding without telling anyone and thats where all the quiproco starts. But since this is a musical it all ends more than well.

It all takes place on this amazing greek island (which is been trying to surf on the movie's success to increase its tourism there with their website: http://www.mamma-mia-island.com/)

You really have a good relaxing time watching this musical, it's well edited, the frames are good, they could have used a little less the color correction and the scratch software and maybe have a third and final part which could have been a little less longer with the Meryl Streep solo of "The winner takes it all"

A part from that the musical is very successful. You feel like getting on a plane and going to the greek islands, it's summer time all over again. That's the magic of this musical. A little easy film that is up to it's pretentious: make us relax.

Final words: A good pass-time. worth watching.

The curious case of BENJAMIN BUTTON

Oh yes... today let me talk about :

"The Curious case of Benjamin Button"

Again, a very promising story, good casting, big budget but unfortunately we can say that the director was like a child with a new toy: using and abusing of the effects and editing.

I had a "Déjà vu" impression when I watched this movie, the script had many unnecessary parts which were supposed to make us laugh such as the man who was strike by lightning 7 times and every time we would see a small clip old-fashion style of the lightning bolt. It was very "Amélie Poulain" like and totally unnecessary and annoying.

The movies is too long, too slow and a part from the fact that he's old and getting young. All the rest is not interesting. The fable just don't work hence I got so bored I slept through some parts.

Cate Blanchett and Queenie are the only ones worth while in this movie. Cate is as usual astonishing and plays beautifully. Brad Pitt on the other hand is loosing hand, he's flat in this movie, I can't believe he even got a nomination for the Oscars.

It's not that I don't like love stories or big blockbusters with famous actors, I just wish some directors would stop taking us viewers for granted.

Final words for this film: Boring, Not worth it!

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

For this first article I decided to talk about the last film I watched:

"SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE"

I watched at home with a DVD lent by a friend who works for a cinema festival, I was happy in the end because I would have regretted so much If i'd payed a ticket to see this movie on a theater!

I love this directors' work but I hate when in the movie business they just create fake trends or fashions in order to defend their lack of new ideas.

Slumdog Millionaire is nothing new, is nothing interesting it starts by the protagonists at young age, very cliché the poor boy from the slums who's always in trouble and who losses everything including his mother and is betrayed by older brother. It sounds and looks like "déjà vu" as an indian "CITY OF GODS".

Then the story just follows on the "clichéism" and bad editing altering one TV program question and a flashback to let us know how the poor boy new the answers to those questions.

As the film goes by we just get bored by the lack of interesting story, as a matter of fact we know the end from the very beginning, and from its diagonal camera shots that instead of making it look cool or interesting just makes us annoyed.

I don't understand why all the buzz around this movie, I tried to avoid to see it but after listening to people adoring it i decided to let myself go and watch it. well I regret it.

Under the excuse the director had no new ideas and wanted to do a tacky-cliché-fable-love-story he just chose to say: "I wanted to do a bollywood movie!" that's the easiest excuse from a director in order to defend a bad tacky no interest story.

Final words: Not worth seeing it !