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Reviews
Plata quemada (2000)
A gay relationship isn't enough for a movie to be good
I have always hesitated when seeing the DVD at the video store, but finally watched it. The only thing I knew about it was that it was about robbery and a gay couple. I also knew that I was going to see the leads 'behinds', which I thought would at least give me something to be happy about in case I didn't like the movie. My fears were confirmed.
Having seen the user rating (7.4) and read the reviews posted so far I've concluded that most of grades/reviews must be on behalf of the "real", "not stereotyped", etc. relationship portrayed in the movie. That is true, but that alone doesn't make a movie good.
I wasn't hoping for action (which in fact is there), but for good characters, for a good, well paced story, something to think about or at least mess with something inside me - good cinema. That didn't happen at all.
The characters are poorly developed: we get to "know" them through their "thoughts" and the narrator's speech rather than through their actions and expressions, which doesn't help much to make the viewer sympathize with them. Just being gay and hot is not enough to make a -even gay- viewer like with a character, is it?
The relationship between the three repeats its (poorly developed) pattern throughout the movie. Nene wants Angel, who also wants Nene but feel guilty (the "voices"), and El Cuervo makes fun/gets angry at them for being gay. Then, by the end, during the shooting, it all resolves itself in a cathartic moment: El Cuervo becomes tolerant and even sort of nice, and both lovers make peace shortly before dying. Come on, only because it's a gay couple it's not a cliché?
And the movie is mostly just plain boring, as if the director was trying to stretch it for no reason with scenes that added not much to the plot and/or character development (and I'm not talking about "meaningful silences" either). Also the abuse of voice-over usually indicates lack of acting/directing skills to give the spoken message in a more artistic way. Plus the voice-over thoughts were sometimes pseudo-poetic and sounded pretentious.
I don't recommend it unless you're really eager to see a gay couple on screen (and not much more).
Cidade de Deus (2002)
Everyone should take that bath of reality
I'm brazilian, but I can't get shocked enough by how (too) many people live there. You see little boys as those sleeping in the street or under bridges, alone and stoned. You or at least anyone of your family have already been mugged.
Brazil is not the only one in South America, but it seems innocence was (and keeps on being) lost earlier than everywhere else. It's already a cliché among Rio de Janeiro's citizens, the cariocas, to say "um dia o morro vai descer" - "one day, the favelas will come down" (the slums are mostly on Rio's mountains).
Go see this movie, and please be disturbed by it as all brazilians were.
Darkness (2002)
Really scary... only if you NEVER saw a horror movie before
Wes Craven shot "Scream" to make fun of all the horror film clichés, many of whose he himself helped to create in his earlier works. And any person who has seen, let's say, 10 decent horror movies, should know them. Well, Jaume Balagueró apparently didn't know that when he conceived "Darkness".
Most of the movie is just a parade of horror movie clichés, like: old-house-in-which-some-tragedy-happened-years-ago, nice-family-that-moves-in-and-stays-though-weird-things-happen, father-that-goes-nuts, little-kid-that-gets-haunted-by-ghosts, big-daughter-that-seems-the-only-one-to-see-that-things-are-weird, weird-and-scary-man-that-helps-to-unveil-the-mystery, book-in-library-with-all-the-info-they-needed, etc.
There are SO MANY plot holes that's kind of difficult to find any plot in it. What kind of theory of the "Darkness" is that, for Christ's sake? Even MY granpa could come up with something more believable than that. And the eclipse thing, oh God. Seriously, this movie is so bad that's difficult to say what sucks most.
The character are flawed, and the acting seriously doesn't help much. Iain Glen is pitiful as the psycho-father. As a matter of fact, writers & directors should give up the idea of putting psycho-turned-into-psychos-because-of-a-house since no one is going to top Jack Nicholson's character in Shining. The mom is sometimes a real careless bitch, sometimes the most overprotective mummy. Has she got a double personality, and they forgot to mention it? Everyone just acts weird, not even close to what real people would do in situations like that.
Nonetheless, you get some scares in the last 1/2 hour of the movie. But then again, it's not so difficult to achieve it, ain't it? Get a big old ugly house, add some darkness and flashing lights, play some creepy music with some 'boo's' and quick cuts of child slaughter and screams every now and then, shake the camera Blair Witch-style and there you got your scary scenes. Unfortunately, this is not too much to be the best of a movie.
One star for the creeps and because it's impossible to give less than that.