Films and more: películas, teatro y más

There's nothing special in   La vie d'Adèle. Chapiters 1 & 2 's plot but a movie is not a book. It's more than a story, it's moving images and how these images can speak on their own , how a camera movement has a meaning as   Godard   and the theoretics said. Abdellatif Kechiche   knows it.   La vie d'Adèle   could be a lesbian story as it could also be straight or gay, but it's not. More than a love story it is a piece of life. Not in vain the title said it's just 2 chapters of one life. In that case, Adèle's life. Adèle ( Adèle Exarchopoulos ) is a teenager, lost like everyone at her age. Sex, boys, confusion, an unclear future,... We can see it in her face and in the way she sleeps, and thanks to the work of the director. From the first moment we can see how she eat s , dream s and feel s because the camera is close to her, it doesn't let her breathe. When she's with her family, her friends, or at partie...

I try to go the movies with a clear mind, even if I heard great or bad reviews of a movie. But I tried to go "clean". With Gravity  is almost impossible. But I just try to watch it in the best conditions possible. As an IMAX experience. Another thing I use to do is avoid myths. Everything about "masterpieces", "classics" and staff like that really common in the world of cinema. Why do I say that? Because my though after I watched Alfonso Cuarón 's new film was: "How amazing could be Kubrick 's 2001. A space odyssey  in IMAX 3D. Why? 1.- The mexican director use the new technology better than James Cameron  in Avatar . I admit Gravity  is an amazing 3D show as amazing as dizzy. Cuarón  abuse so much of this effect than the audience can feel sick after so many camera movements. They are not fast most of the times, they are just exhausting. 2.- Thinking about the "dizzy experience" I wanna think it's something personal, mayb...

The global crisis is changing everything: the life style, politics, economy, cinema, directors... In the last few days I watched two movies of two different creators Blue Jasmine  by Woody Allen  and L'écume des jours ( Mood indigo ) by Michel Gondry . The themes of each movie are completly different in a first viewing. The north-american director tells the story about a woman who suffer a breakdown after a divorce with a corrupt business man. Jasmine ( Cate Blanchet ) tries to come back to her past with her sister in San Francisco. But she can't come back to a normal life after enjoy all the pleasures, parties, and privileges of the rich world. On another hand Gondry  seems to come back to his origins. A completly fantasy low-budget world, made of simple things and effects to explain a sad love story between Colin and Chloe. The live the "foam of days" as a couple in their own fantastic world but soon the real life is gonna invade everything. The story...

Controversial. The new movie of Drive's director wasn't welcome at last Cannes Film Festival. The temple of author's films. And I can understand why. In that festival they reject Gaspar Noé 's  Irreversible  for his violence and almost the same happened with Only God Forgives . First point. Violence. It isn't new that Nicolas Winding Refn  likes violence, all his movies were full of it. Rude, brutal but at least he filmed how is it. Not nice, cruel. Critics likes his sophisticated style in Drive  because the violence was less obvious, never appear in the screen. Now those critics refused his new movie to show it all, without respect to the eyes audience, as violence doesn't have respect for anybody. Second point. Style. Drive  is clean more than the rest. Winding Refn  control the tempo, the city lights aesthetic, the rythim of the story, that's what the critics appreciate and now some of they said that he abused of that too much in Only God Forg...

We can all agree that fame seems to be the goal. We can try to don't think about famous people, gossip websites, yellow press,... but all we know who Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are. It's not bad if you just have fun with this world full of nothing, meaningless. If you can watch it with perspective and sense of humor and not take it personally even you can enjoy it. But the new generations are educated about that? Not. They are growing up admiring people like Kardashian 's sisters or worst, Snooki or other misses and misters nobody from MTV programs. It's obvious, sad and shameful. But it's what it is. Sofia Coppola , a director who grew up surrounded by fame and famous people knows lots about that. That's why in her movies she speaks about actors or famous historic icons. She is one of them and she filmed really well this fame world that most of the times is full of nothing, empty.  Then, it's not a surprise that her last film, The bling ...

How many love stories arrives every weekend at cinemas? How many say that it's catching, sensitive, emotional,...? How many times is true? Really few. Most of the times the small movies hidden in the hoardings are the good ones, but it's true that sometimes are like the other ones but with a low budget for advertisement and a indie touch. Eighteen years ago, in 1995, arrived at cinemas Before Sunrise , a small story with two almost-unknown actors, Julie Delpy  and Ethan Hawke , directed by an almost-novel director, Richard Linklater . The three of them was the creators of that movie who told the encounter of Jesse and Céline in a train in Europe. He is from Chicago, she from Paris. Both live a short love story of 105 minutes (the length of the film), a night in Vienna that starts and ends there. It was a small phenomenon. The simplicity (or not) of the plot was so realistic, without any expectations or relevancy, that not only capture the attention of the spectator, their...

The world needs a hero. The news are worst everyday, humans can't stop fighting between each others, and the movies can see that. And a director more than the rest: Christopher Nolan . After his Batman that talk to the world about nuclear weapons and nihilistic terrorism, the author has decide to co-write and produce the story of another superhero well known for the audience: Superman. Maybe because be the director of two reboots is a mess, or the huge responsibility of be a father of two superheroes is too much for a human being, the case is he tries to stay in the back. But he can't. His signature is in every single frame, line and deep thoughts of this Men of Steel  even if the credits say is directed by Zack Snyder  (the man behind another epic movie 300 ). The deep of this new Superman is there because Nolan  has decided as he decided than for the action shots  Snyder  was the perfect director. Why I say that? Obviously, because as we saw in the re...

Insensibles  podría referirse al espectador medio de nuestro país que aún sigue teniendo cierto complejo de lo que el cine español puede ofrecer. Por mucho que esté cada día se esté esforzando más en crear grandes producciones, desarrollar un cine comercial para adolescentes (la calidad ya es más dudosa), cine independiente reconocido en varios festivales y, recientemente en sumergirse en el cine de género. Y realmente, ciertos films y directores son un auténtico descubrimiento con potencial. Juan Carlos Medina  sin duda, apunta muchas maneras. Con su primer largometraje, Insensibles , demuestra que ha bebido del mejor género fantástico, ese que España ya vivió con Jesús Franco  y que Guillermo del Toro  vino a rescatar con su Laberinto del fauno , además de tantos y tantos otros que han ido pasando desapercibidos. ¿A que me refiero cuando digo que ha recuperado lo mejor del fantástico? El espectador no instruido puede pensar que cualquier película que tiene ...

There's a small problem in Behind the candelabra . The latest work directed by Steven Soderbergh  it's just a tv-movie for the HBO channel. Not a film for the cinemas. With all the admired tv-series it could be hard to understand why this is a problem. The excellent qualities of this shows or tv-series are designed exclusively for the tv spectators. An audience that doesn't pay (or not to much) to see what it's on the tv. The want quality but they not required perfection, even when some shows they offer it. The stereotype of a tv-series, and more if it's a biopic it's simple: it has to be emotional, it has to be tough or sensitive, tell us about a life problem to fight (drugs, poverty, fame, illness,... all together). The spectator doesn't require a fidelity of the facts if the show satisfy them expectations. Behind the candelabra  does it. And does it well. It has all the components, plus a good budget, a good director who use all his skills to do a dig...

Say "I prefer the novel" is quite smart, and pretender. Say "the book is better" or "impossible to adapt" it isn't right in all the cases. There are sort of movies quite good and even better or at the same level that the original text. One of it it's Romeo+Juliet   Bar Luhrmann 's. He combine the fidelity to Shakespeare words' with the crazy movements of the camera, the contemporary music and the video-games aesthetic. A version for the new audience with the same spirit than the original. But that's not the case of The great Gatsby . Another big fail from the Aussie director of the excellent Moulin Rouge . After Australia , his intent to film a classic epic movie about his country as Gone with the wind , Luhrmann  try to come back to his first succeed, but with a novel so narrative that eat him in every single moment. His sense of the show fail completely on the Scott Fitzgerald  adaptation. The life in ruins that the writer desc...

There's something in The place beyond the pines  that makes feel the spectator just fine when they leave the theatre. Nobody can say that it's a bad movie, but, of course it isn't an amazing movie who you'll remember in the future. It's obvios that it's not a casting failure. Ryan Gosling , Bradley Cooper and the rest of the cast are correct. They don't do the interpretation of their lifes but at least sometime you can feel what their characters are passing through. We can say the same of the direction work. The action scenes are well filmed, they don't over dramatized the drama parts most of the times, Derek Cianfrance  don't use too much the music to get the spectator involved in the story in an easy way. The story it isn't original, that's true, not complex, not too easy, but nothing new and kind of lost. That's the weakest point. You can say that The place beyond the pines  tells the story of two families. One about focus on ...

El drama no es el único género en el que la crítica social encuentra su mejor baza. La denuncia de los males de nuestra sociedad se pueden explotar desde todos los ámbitos, incluido la comedia, el thriller o el terror. Prueba de ello hay muchas. Esta Semana Santa, en las pantallas españolas coinciden dos films que desde géneros muy distintos intentan apuntar a los vicios y defectos que España y parte del mundo está viviendo. Por un lado tenemos al director patrio más internacional, Pedro Almodóvar , quien desde la comedia y a través de Los amantes pasajeros  realiza un repaso a los titulares que asolan las páginas de todos los periódicos. Por su parte, dos hermanos, Álex y David Pastor , que empezaron al otro lado del charco con Carriers (Infectados) , han regresado a Barcelona para realizar un film futurista que nos muestra como puede acabar nuestra sociedad si sigue estos pasos. Ambos intentos son buenos, sus resultados más dispares. Vuelo accidentado Empecemos por e...