Films and more: películas, teatro y más

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...

There's something that scares more than a horror movie, the sensation of the spectator who goes to the theatre with the feeling that the film won't scare him/her, even thrill. That's true. There are few movies nowadays that really scare or thrill. Maybe are we, the spectators, who have changed and we didn't notice it. So, if a horror movie doesn't scare us, what we can expect about it? To get our attention, to keep us alert about the action and to not bored us, at least that thrill us. This four qualities is what Stoker  has. Maybe doesn't scare, but it isn't a horror movie as we known. We can be mistaken for the name of the film that makes us think about vampires. But it really isn't in a strict sense. Stoker  tells a story about a mother and her daughter, India. Their husband/father died. And in the funeral his brother appears to stay with for a while. But he is misterious. He've never been with them before, but he catch the attention of the...

There's more than a childhood portrait on Hirozaki Koreeda films. The japanese director doesn't only take care about the future but specially the present. We can find an example in his new film  奇跡 ( Kiseki, I wish ) that arrive today at UK cinemas. The movie follow the story of two brothers living apart for their parent's divorce. Specially one of the brother's, Koichi, is obsessed to live all together again, and even wish that the volcano close to his town will erupt and he and his mother have to come back with his father and brother. But there's more than a wish in the movie. There's more than a view of the sentiments of this kid broke inside who miss his little brother, who fell that, because of their parents fault, his life is not complete. He really wants to fight, and as in the most of Koreeda films, the kids find the way to make their dreams come true. Or almost. The hope is there, but in a sad way... or not, it depends of the spectator. In betwee...

Tarantino doesn't need to explain himself. He doesn't try to pretend. His movies are commercial, even mainstream, are not playing with the shots, the double meaning. He grew up watching movies like of this kind. And he love the movies thanks to its.  For some people be mainstream is be a "sold director", and that's a thing Tarantino isn't. If the Weinstein brothers asked them to short the film, he did it. That's be a mercenary? Not when you are reasonable, you understand that people doesn't wanna stay at the theatre more than three hours, and Hollywood movies are an industry. And you have a mean scene to talk about it in your own film. But the most important part is that, even with all the things Tarantino did for his movies when he had another large concept in his mind, the essence of the author is still there. Tarantino never avoid the violence. He love it, it sells tickets in the box office and he offer that to the public since...

No son pocas las películas que, para bien o para mal, usan el sentimentalismo para llegar mejor al espectador. Como herramienta cinematográfica es lícita, obviamente. Sólo es decisión del espectador considerar si su uso es justificado, moderado o exagerado. Imagino que por eso no son pocos los directores noveles que deciden apelar al sentimiento del espectador para entrar en su mundo o al menos contar con cierta aprobación. Benh Zeitlin , director de Beasts of the southern wild , no tiene ningún inconveniente en usarlo, aunque por suerte sin que el peso del film recaiga en la emoción que quiere provocar en el espectador. El film nos planta, en principio, en un lugar del sur del mundo, en esta nueva etapa en la que muchos cineastas recientemente han decidido ubicar sus historias: en las proximidades del fin del mundo. Pese a ello, el espectador contemporáneo no podrá sacarse de la mente un referente obvio, el Nueva Orleans  post-Katrina. Puede parecer poco relevante pero así e...

En las películas, como en la vida real, hay una diferencia entre lo que se dice o vive y cómo es explicado o vivido. No es nada nuevo, Góngora y Quevedo lo pusieron de manifiesto allí por el siglo XVI. Uno elige con que quedarse en función de su realidad y como es vivida en cada momento. Estos días, en el London Film Festival uno se enfrenta a estas cuestiones al ponerse frente a la pantalla para ver las diferentes propuestas. Por un lado, está, por ejemplo, Deraun narayeseo ( In another country) , film del director sur-coreano Hong Sang-soo que, con su particular humor, narra las posibles historias que pueden llegar a suceder a una persona cuando se encuentra en un país extrangero. Isabelle Huppert  encarna ese foráneo en una pequeña poblacion de Corea. Allí le suceden una serie de aventuras o posibles aventuras propias de aquellos que, como bien dice Sofia Coppola , se encuentran Lost in translation . Los problemas de comunicación y m alentendi...