Change Your Image
dreammaniac
Reviews
The Golden Compass (2007)
Just read the book and wait for another more decent film to come out...
I watched the trailer and was disappointed at how the film looked. Then I had a look at the poster and disliked it even more.
I had a feeling it wasn't working, but I had enjoyed the book so much, I finally did go to watch the thing.
Didn't like it.
Everything is botched for me, even when they kind of had interesting sets and lighting they shot them from all these stereotypical angles, etc.
I hated the design and look in general.
The special effects were awful (the flying witches look so stiff and so obviously hanging from cables!)
Worse of all, the adaptation was completely downgraded for "children", beginning with the explanatory introduction that kills all possible discovery from the audience of what anything means.
Everything is said out aloud and everything is kept out on the open.
There is no rhythm and the power cuts are just trashy - there's no development of characters, little sense of reality and frankly, nothing but a spelt out sequence of images with things moving.
The book I really loved, the movie I already forgot.
I don't think it deserves watching.
Change the director, Weitz, I dislike your work. Every option you took I am dissatisfied with.
Paris, je t'aime (2006)
Hey, I liked it! A lot!
Back in 2004 I saw "True", Tom Tykwer's contribution to Paris Je T'aime. When I saw it I loved it and became thrilled. It became my favorite short film and made me appreciate the format so much. Of course I wanted to watch the whole film, and I would even check who was attached, etc.
Yesterday I finally saw it, courtesy of the internet.
First of all I must say that it looks AWESOME. The photography is BEAUTIFUL in every short and shot, at the worst being nothing special - but still brilliant and clear. Later I read the trivia here, and maybe it's how scanning in 6K gives more justice to all the DP's work. My special favorites are the "Quais de Seine" first scene (that sunlight!), the Sin City-esquire (but better for me) "Quartier de la Madeleine", and "14th Arrondisement" - but you know, what the hell I like them all: "True" or "Faubourg Saint-Denis" still makes me nervous with those brilliant colours (my eyes, they tremble!) and "Quartier Latin" is gold imprisoned on silver. Beautiful.
Yes, these are some BEAUTIFUL short films.
Now let's get onto the content. I very much (and I mean VERY MUCH) like the eclecticism that is so successfully felt. You never have have the same themes or treatment between two shorts, and I think the formula is restrictive enough to let all these artists explore beautiful and deepening things inside the shorts. I loved coming from a simple love story into a crazy-Chinese-musical-in-Paris-with-Barbet-Schroeder into a social commentary into a terror comedy into a humble monologue. I love surprises! And this film has them! It's great they took a chance to let all these director's flesh out things that are not usual in mainstream cinema (which I have come to heavily despise). It's not heavily experimental, but I can breath the breathing space these people had.
I like the small time and I love the acting. I love the simplicity and I love the love. I like the simple feelings and the beauty and the eclecticism and in general it's a film that is very very very nice to see, alone or with someone. To simply feel. It left me feeling very good.
There is something about the earnestness in it... it's so frank...
What I didn't like? Well, for me there are two shorts that aren't exactly the best - "Quais de Seine" (which is good natured, sure, and maybe even necessary, but feels too much like a commercial?) and "Père-Lachaise" that even though I love the acting, I felt it's themes were forced. But that of course, is just me. "Tour Eiffel" I also didn't love but I think is probably because of my very different sensibility from that of Sylvain Chomet? I don't know if this film has a special interest for people who already know the actor's and directors, and so they can delight in their interaction, in the surprises (look out for Alexander Payne in a funny role) and basically in "what will this director do with this?" great question. I enjoyed it very much in that way.
I repeat now: Most shorts I loved and all of them together form a beautiful and energetic mix. I definitely recommend it. Definitely!!! So, watch it if you like Eclectic Beautiful Love!
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
The Pursuit of Money
Though I think the movie was made with good intentions, it is sad for me, to see that none of the involved could foresee how it would turn out to be such a- Wait, forget it.
Now that I have written it, I think it's worse.
It seems to me that these people seriously don't think the way I do, and the way i do is i dislike equating happiness ("All those happy faces") to having a job. Moreso, a "good" (as in getting a lot of money) job.
I mean, I know one has to live - but the film is grossly assuming people have perfect lives if only they'd have money... or maybe it is simply centering on the "getting a job" theme but it certainly mixes that small part of life with other themes that also certainly don't have ANYTHING to do with that. Maybe it permits to live, but there are definitely more important things, at least for me.
Also, the movie is just too typical, and even though I admire Mr. Smith's character's struggle to just get his son a life he wants him to give, it smells of that too well known, rancidly recycled American dream. Maybe it was a real story (what's real?) but don't you think they should have taken more care, for example, on the relationship between father and son; maybe wife too? It's so taken for granted... he's a good father, little child loves him, if only, oh poor him, he had a job. THEN EVERYTHING COULD START GETTING BETTER.
And that's the thing: It could. But so many times it doesn't. With a title like "The pursuit of happiness" one could only imagine so many things... maybe it could be more appropriately retitled "to start the pursuit of happiness". Yeah, we need money, arguably a job, but then? What? I admire the intention of saying "if you want it, go get it" - but it is dangerously close to a brainwashing video from a workplace with a capitalist philosophy doing heavy revisionism to get people to PRODUCE MORE!!! LOVE YOUR JOBS! MONEY IS GOOD! MONEY IS FREEDOM! MONEY IS HAPPINESS! ...
that's it, suffice is to say, i didn't exactly like it. Except when Will Smith cried... he's a good crier.
And Gabriele Muccino - if you read this: don't lose yourself on Hollywood, please.
Cheers
Yes (2004)
Worth the watch
I very much looked up forward to watching this movie. As soon as I could, I did. It was an interesting experience. I like the texts, I like the fact that they are in Iambic Pentameter, and even if sometimes it sounds a bit cheesy or pretentious in a bad way, most of the time it is handled very well and when it is good it is best, much more better than worse. He. Nonetheless, the movie is not perfect at all I feel. Even though the cinematography is cool, I think the production design could have been more lavish - there obviously wasn't much money to use up, in a project like this. Iambic Pentameter? Divided world and racial issues openly discussed? Risky project, yeah, but like all the good ones. It isn't politically correct (which is good for me), but maybe that expression is dead by now in the real world. I admire it for it's many ambitions and how also many of them are accomplished, because it is honest and brave and it got done in a good way. Nonetheless, I had artistic problems. First yeah, it was sparse, second the editing and music selection - I don't know if I like. What is Gustavo Santaolalla's charango music doing there? Doesn't fit in my ears. But it's me. And the editing - those transitions... just didn't feel good to me either.
Apart from that, a very worthy movie to see, not majestic or really profoundly dramatic but certainly daring and true to it's view.
And Simon Abkarian is BRILLIANT. Just watch him cry in the parking lot scene. (Everyone else is solid too). Certainly the film deserves a view - the deepest of themes, no, but thoughtful and nice in the end. The aunts monologue is also of worthy praise.
I couldn't help thinking how it could be done quite well as a theater piece? Check it out, it's worth it.
Se arrienda (2005)
Amazing film - simply SO close to my heart
I don't know what can be thought about this film in the rest of the world, even in the rest of Chile. Because it talks about something in particular, and I do not really know how universal it is. I cannot look at it objectively. I am part of it. I know it. Never had a movie touched me so close, and I mean in the geographical but also in the heart. Because it is like my best friends talking about us - it is mad. And it is also marvelous. I know the movie is at least good. I don't know if amazing for the rest... for me it is. It is marvelous. Brilliant. Honest. So honest in fact, it made me cry. I swear the screen became a mirror. And this was catharsis in a way that I had never really experienced this close. Chilean cinema has been plagued forever with anecdotes. Anecdotes that do not have much to say apart from the action and only in a residual way. This is a cinema that takes it's time and talks about himself. Alberto Fuguet, the director, opens his chest and let's us into this world, this world that is my own so in his chest I am myself. It is a beautiful film, very well acted, intelligently shot and with the best dialogue I've heard in some time. And as his friend ask Gastón in a point - if his music is any good... Gastón can only say: "I blush with it - I think it's good".
Then again, who'd want to see this film with such a subjective intent into it - but I do know this: even if it may talk so particularly about things, in doing so it becomes general and that happens here. This movie will talk through particularity to everyone that enlists in it's search and exposition - the communication is culturally worldwide and as such I expect it to go a long way in the hearts of those who experience it, as it did in me.
Cheers.