| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grown Ups - Unrated |
I totally get the fact that real life BFF gang Sandler, Schneider, James, Rock and Spade get together to make a comedy about stranded friends who get together after a couple of decades. I do get it. But if Sandler had recently lived the wonderful experience of creating a black but touching comedy about friendships (past and present) with Funny People (his best performance to date), why didn't he give this movie a dramedie turn and create the ultimate bromantic comedy of the decade?! Instead, the trailer reveals what we've always seen in any of these guys careers (specially the low/embarrasing parts) and doesn't offer anything new other than the extraordinary Maria Bello and the you-were-doing-so-great-lately-dammit Salma Hayek apparently hitting rock bottom in lame, offensive roles. I get it, but I don't like it. It could've been an extraordinary film, a new turn on old friendships and comedians doing touching work. But, nah! This is just another Sandler comedy, and not the classic kind, but the lame-Chuck & Larry kind. |
December 12, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Dear Pillow - Unrated | December 10, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Scènes de lit - Unrated |
I got my first approach to François Ozon's cinema tonight, when a friend and I saw his short films on DVD one after the other. When the Scènes de lit series came along, I was already hooked on his beautiful close-ups, his extraordinary direction and his witty, sexy screenplays. But when the last bit of this particular collection came along, I was a huge fan. From the hilarity of Black hole and the sexy cheerfulness of Heads or tails to the subtle sensuality of Madame and the icky dialogue in Mr Clean, every single piece of this flawless machinery works perfectly for the greater good and the machinist, Mr Ozon, knows his game so brilliantly that he's able to put his soul into several one-minute films and make them unforgettable, he makes you beg for more and he lures you into his realm with such dexterity, it's unbelievable. My favorite? The sexual simplicity and tenderness of The Virgins. It will haunt me til the end of time. |
December 5, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Brüno (Bruno) - R |
There are two things Borat fans should know before seeing Brüno: there are less vignettes and everything feels twice as staged. With Borat, everything felt like an actual documentary, not far from Michael Moore's antics if we consider he is a character making real people uncomfortable. Borat's thin, soft plot line (reporter travels to America, falls in love with Pam Anderson, looks for her, finds love with local prostitute) never got in the way of the satire and the rawness. Well, with Brüno we have a stronger try to actually develop a major plot line, resulting on a weaker story and less sense of reality. The brilliance and intelligence of Baron Cohen (a Cambridge graduate) are shadowed by his own extravagance and over-the-top character and he loses the fight against his own Brüno. Still, there are unforgettable, memorable, classic scenes like the final Straight Dave fight (outrageous, embarrassing, disgusting... and I'm, of course, talking about the redneck audience's reaction) or Paula Abdul or the whole Baby OJ saga (including future child molesters posing as stage parents saying anything to get their kids a job in showbiz), those are more than enough to balance Brüno's lack of reality with rough comedy, just the way we like it. |
December 5, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Time to Leave (Le Temps Qui Reste) - Unrated | After becoming a hardcore Ozon fan, this is the film I'd love to see the most. Can't wait. I'm a sucker for "You have (insert mortal disease here) and you have to change" movies, seriously. Don't know why, it's in my blood or something. And if you throw Ozon into the equation, I'm on my knees. | December 5, 2009 | N/A | |||
| X2000 - Unrated |
Haunting, every single frame is a new delightful visual surprise of highly erotic power and dexterity. François Ozon in his freest, purest, most creative and craziest state. Ozon creates a wonderful morning after atmosphere that lures you into the next vignette, waking up to a new millennium, discovering this new world of possibilities along with the lead character. Rich and beautiful. You can literally make a capture of ANY scene and hang it on your wall. |
December 5, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon - PG-13 | December 4, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Humpday - R | December 4, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| La Petite mort - Unrated | Probably not the best example of Ozon's ability to dig deep into human sexuality and troubled souls but, still, a pretty darn good short film with an uncanny performance by François Delaive and some iconic and unforgettable moments. An excellent beginning for Ozon newbies. | December 4, 2009 | N/A | |||
| 2033 - Unrated | November 27, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Hedwig and the Angry Inch - R | November 18, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Dreamgirls - PG-13 |
Now I can say this out and proud: Jennifer Hudson was born to be an actress. After seeing her entire repertoire (except Sex and the city, which doesn't count), I can confirm she's an extraordinary talent on the rough, with an uncanny sensibility and passion every moment she's on screen. From her courageous turn in The Secret Life of Bees to her subtle, beautiful bit in Winged creatures, she doesn't need to sing to show incredible depth and tear out her guts in front of a camera. I'm a big fan from now on. And so, I watched this. I expect the whole razzle-dazzle and big momma's voices but everything was just kind of... lame. Jamie Foxx bored me to death, I never understood Danny Glover's character, Keith Robinson stole a role that was hand-made perfect for Elijah Kelley, Anika Noni Rose was cute but annoying and I don't think Beyonce was even in the movie. Her creepy eyebrows confused me. But Eddie Murphy is cool in his flashy role. Not great, not extraordinary, not Oscar material: just cool. His drug problems are so weakly portrayed, it's almost as if they were scared or censored. Technically, the film is marvelous, and it is really entertaining, but it's not the wonderful spectacle everybody hoped it'd be. Weird enough, there's no soul in it, no spice, nothing to chew on. Just drag-queen costumes and Jennifer Hudson's larger-than-life performance. Her main song (you know which one) is not even her biggest moment: she has a lot more to choose from. You can touch her pain through the entire thing. It's incredible. In case you wondered about my opinion on certain issue: yes, she deserved that Oscar. Barraza, Kikuchi and Blanchett were all unforgettable but Hudson is here to stay: and her next films proved it. Except the one about martinis and high heels, obviously. Loretta Devine's cameo was a dream. |
November 13, 2009 | N/A | |||
| (500) Days of Summer - PG-13 |
Picture this: a group of friends go to the movies. One of them is a sweet, dreamy guy who recently broke-up with his sweet, rocker girlfriend but can't let go. Another one is a metalhead girl who can't move on after she broke-up with her boyfriend... more than a year ago. Two of them are a brand-new couple where she loves him more than he does. And the other one is me: a lonely film buff who recently came out as asexual after deciding love wasn't in his plans. The lights go down and we're all excited about the indie, bittersweet film we're going to watch. Smiles on our faces, laughs and thrills. The lights go up after an hour and a half and we're all in shock, in complete silence. Speechless, I turn to my friends and mutter an apology: we were not expecting to get so hurt with a film. From the outside, it may seem like just another indie, rom-com with cute moments and quirky characters but you can't begin to explain the perfection of this film til you experience it. The screenplay is like a ticking clock: everything works flawlessly in its right moment and place, every dialogue, every joke, every sweet moment, every painful memory. Both lead characters are so uncannily developed it's scary and tough to get through how real they are. The film is so perfectly built that we fall in love with Summer at exactly the same pace that Tom does, we are crushed by her actions and words as if she was doing it to us, and we hate her just as much as Tom does -or maybe even more. But we need her. We need her so badly that we can't stop watching, hoping for a lame happy ending. Hoping for a guiding light that tell us everything will be OK, that love is real and possible. But this is not a movie. This is life in its most painful, true portrayal I've ever seen. And life, like love, doesn't have happy endings. Hysterical scenes, unforgettable dialogues and brutal moments (you know you covered your eyes when the split-screen Expectations v. Reality scene came along), (500) Days of Summer is a painful experience, and that's awesome: it's exactly how movies are supposed to be. An experience to live in its fullest, to feel right in the guts. To reject, to love, to remember, to rinse, and repeat. |
November 13, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Norbit - PG-13 |
The painful thing about this isn't the collage of retarded moments out of a moronic, 10 year-old written screenplay: it's how little it tries to actually be something. There's nothing new, nothing original, nothing smart, it's just a clip show of old comedy routines filled with fat joke after fat joke. The worst part? I sat through the whole thing and I smiled. Twice. But mostly at how weird/funny/cute it was to see Thandie Newton believing she was in some sort of intelligent british comedy instead of an Eddie Murphy fat suit movie. I have a question: are black audiences really that stupid and easy to please? Don't get me wrong, I live south of the border, where we have our own issues with stupid audiences laughing at shit like this but it looks like something cultural or idiosyncratic: Tyler Perry, ghetto jive and fat suits. Seriously? That's what it takes to make a "proud" race laugh? A friend said: "I love how shiny everything looks." and he's right. It's weird how technically competent this movie is: good cinematography (specially at the beginning, with all the flashbacks shot in sunny, warm atmospheres) and probably the best make-up in a fat suit movie yet. But, is that truly a compliment? |
November 13, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Over Her Dead Body - PG-13 |
Let's get this straight, once and for all: I laughed. A lot. Seriously. I liked it. A lot. Now that that's out of the picture: this has to be, by far, the most stupid, moronic, retarded collection of characters ever put on film. Every single one of their actions and decisions are on the verge of kindergarden level of intelligence (no offense to those poor kids) and it amazed me how no one saw the retardation in every single one of their choices. There's a guy who spends 5 years pretending to be gay in order to make his business partner fall in love with him; there's a girl who convinces a medium to trick her brother into believing she speaks with his death fiancée; there's the medium who can't seem to foresee the consequences of such a stupid deal; and there's a poor (cute) guy in the middle of everything who can't fuckin see everyone is lying to him. Still, everybody involved is completely freakin hilarious 90% of the time (specially the lovely Lake Bell doing her best Tina Fey impersonation and playing clumsy/cute like no one else) and they seem to be enjoying turning off their brains while they recite stupid dialogue after stupid dialogue. Paul Rudd sleepwalks through the entire film and, yet, he manages to stay sassy, dreamy and funny, while Jason Biggs and his weird comeback (remember Wedding Daze?) are nice to sit back and enjoy. Oh, yeah, I think Eva Longoria is in this. Maybe. I don't really remember her at all. But there were some weird moments when the director decided to put some Desperate Housewives outtakes into the plotline. I didn't really pay attention to that part. Fun. Or maybe it was just me having a bad day and seeing this at 2 AM. BTW, did anybody else enjoy how little any of the lead ladies actually cared for Paul Rudd's character?! It was freakin hilarious! After a while, they completely forgot about him and focused on bitching. An excellent screenplay for What-not-to-do class. |
November 12, 2009 | N/A | |||
| eXXXorcismos - Unrated | October 29, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Witches - PG |
Seeing it once again after more than 15 years without setting eyes on it became one of the most amazing moments in my lifetime: everything I remembered loving was there, only better. On an objective side, I discovered this was a much better film than I expected it to be: Anjelica Huston's performance ranks high on iconic and timeless, she's larger than life and commands the whole thing every time she's on screen. The make-up is still extraordinary and the whole transformation process (for both kids and witches) and Anjelica Huston's human mask are still timeless and unforgettable but, unfortunately, the visual effects (explosions and ray beams coming out of fingertips) grew old very quickly and feel more dated than the freakin Bible. While there was one Roald Dahl book-turned-movie that needed to be remade for the sake of Dahl's legacy (Willy Wonka), this one stands right there with Matilda as a truthful adaptation of one of the greatest voices in children's Literature: a man who never talked down to kids. Including some exact extracts from the original book (you can tell when the narration is word-by-word from a literary text rather than a screenplay), the essence of Dahl's rebellious, intelligent spirit is right there, frame by frame, mouse by mouse. |
October 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| A Good Year - PG-13 |
A delight! Russell Crowe has a natural cute charm that he doesn't let out as much as he should. He's lovely and hysterical, and he carries the entire movie with so much ease it's insane. Philippe Le Sourd's cinematography is a true discovery. Look out: he's gathering an extraordinary resumé. |
October 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| District 9 - R |
A timeless classic. We're watching history in the making, like those people who saw those movies back in the day. |
October 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Jennifer's Body - R |
People just don't get it. I got it and I had the time of my life. Fuckin awesome! |
October 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Inglourious Basterds - R |
By far, the greatest movie experience I've ever had. Breathtaking, that's the word for it. |
October 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Lokas - Unrated | October 11, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| 13 Tzameti - Unrated | October 11, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Fritz the Cat - Unrated | October 11, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 - R |
Exciting, engaging and sometimes hilarious and ridiculous. Washington is the master of cool even when he wears a belly, gray hair and an office-yellow shirt, and Travolta is absolutely over the top but he's just so damn charming you can't help but love him all the way through. I've realized I'm not a fan of the Crazy Scott (Ridley is the Cool Scott) and his hyperkinetic style of a thousand cuts per sequence but this time I bought it completely, blindly and lovin' it! Nice for a Saturday night. Seeing this in Mexico City, just a couple of weeks after the shooting in the subway was weird, uncomfortable at some moments and strangely relaxing. People clapped at the end. Awkward. |
October 4, 2009 | N/A |
2187 ratings
940 reviews
