handyfloss

Yesterday I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, as it was a must-see for me, after the first part, which I liked very much.

I have to say I liked it much (my critic[es] at FilmAffinity), but it lacks originality (this was to be expected). The special effects are superb, and the setting, the script, the costumes and acting all join together to make the story believable (meaning that just the fights and chases are incredible, not the development of the events) and easygoing. Ten points for that.

However, the movie is little more than a clone on steroids of its predecessor Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: it repeats the “success recipe” of the first part shamelessly. Bad boy, Gore Verbinski!

All in all, very funny and a good pastime, but not as good as the first one.

Yesterday I watched Tu vida en 65′, a Catalan movie about three young men who mistankenly attend the funeral of a guy they thought was their friend, but isn’t, and some existential questions follow.

I have posted a comment of this movie (in Spanish) at FilmAffinity.com.

The movie is not bad, but it is no masterpiece. Often times “strange” movies are mistaken for “high quality” movies, and I think that this one slips towards the former, rather than the latter.

This is an unconventional movie, with some skillful use of techniques, shots and photography, but some other ingredients are lacking. The story is OK, but the script is irregular, and some things (e.g. the ending) are difficult to understand. There are very humorous moments, and also sad ones, but they just don’t cut it.

The acting is not academy award-winning, but is correct in general. However, I didn’t like the main actor (Javier Pereira), at all. I don’t know if it was the actor’s or the character’s fault, but he had a frightening wako face all through the film. He had the eyes too wide open, and the face of someone expecting something, like one is during the seconds between asking a girl for a date, and her answer… just Pereira has this face the whole 93 minutes.

I expected more from that movie.

Yesterday I watched Domino, a movie loosely based on the life of a bounty-hunter woman, played by Keira Knightley.

Where can I start describing the movie? Take a look at the IMDb review I link above for a good description. I agree to some extent with that review, in that the movie is like a videoclip/reality show mixture, and the video and music setup is… different. I didn’t like the brave use of the photography they do in the movie, with unfocused shots and a camera movement akin to that of a monkey on crack, but I have to admit it is well done.

The IMDb review says the movie is about attitudes and roles, not about a plot… sorry man, but a movie is a plot. Otherwise it is a videoclip, a documentary or whatever. When I watch a movie, I want a story to be told and understood by the audience. In this regard, Domino fails misserably. There is a story (I think), but one is hard pressed to follow it, not because it is complex, but because it is not well told. I believe it is not the director’s intention, either.

To summarize, a movie I can not recommend. Could make a better use of the action scenes, develop the plot more, and shoot the video more “conventionally”. But then, it would not be Domino.

Yesterday I watched Scary Movie 4. Yes, it is not the kind of movie I’d choose in ideal conditions, but first there wasn’t really much to choose from, and second I went to the cinema with a friend who was less than willing to watch something like The road to Guantanamo, or The assassination of Richard Nixon. So Scary Movie 4 be it.

At this point, I guess everyone knows that the Scary Movie series satirizes the horror movies in general, making parodies of some selected ones (for example, for that one they chose War of the worlds, The Village, and Saw I and II). Not only they poke fun at some movies, but also to popular characters as the stupid scientology advocate Tom Cruise, and the incredibly inept and fanatic George Bush, elected head of the UN “for his genuine wit”, as they say, ironically, in the movie. These two persons were elected among the five dumbest persons in the USA last year by their fellow citizens, by the way.

As for the movie itself, it is funny, but not wicked funny. It has a couple of really good spoofs, but they try to make so many jokes, about so many movies/characters, that 75% of the jokes are a bit flat.

Not a bad movie, but definitely perfectible.

They say, “Evil prevails when good men fail to act.” What they ought to say is, “Evil prevails.”

Yesterday I watched Lord of War… and what a movie it is!

I was a little worried that this could be one of Cage‘s bad actings, because I have a kind of love-hate relationship with this guy. I like most of his characters, but some of them are not well played, kind of not very believable.

However, in this movie Cage acts quite well, as do all other actors and actresses. The movie is very well made, with a photography, and specially a soundtrack, that helps telling the story quite beautifully.

However, the main point of the film is its truthfull, even cruel, portrayal of not only the weapon smuggling, but also the corruption and complicity of the “respectable” governments, and casts a dark shadow over the humanity as a whole, I believe. All that is accomplished through the speech of the main character, Yuri Orlov (Cage), a Ucranian immigrant in the USA who becomes the world’s biggers arm trafficker. Orlov tells us everything about his life as a smuggler, his moral degradation, his perception of the world, how the whole arm business works…

This movie is a definitive must-see, if you want to open your eyes to some sad truths. If you don’t, just go watch Superman and enjoy the good white American boy saving the world, the democracy, the right to bear arms, the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Terrific movie! My weekly dose of cinema consisted this week on American Dreamz, a wild satire of some aspects of the western society (specially USA), but not forgetting to poke some fun at muslim fanatics, and everything in between.

The whole movie is a compilation of surrealist realism, incredibly believeable. The plot is a brutal parody of the reality shows like the Idol series, Popstars series, and Star Academy series (“our” pitiful Operación Triunfo is the Spanish branch of the latter), and also of the North-American government.

The president is played by Dennis Quaid, being portrayed as quite stupid a man, with an alcoholic past, a puppet of his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe), knowing little of international affairs, with verbal communication problems and a childish attitude with rapidly changing moods (rings a bell?).

The Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe), is a 99% clon (or was it “clown”) of vice-president Cheney (who also was Chief of Staff under Ford, in the 75-77 period): egomaniac, manipulative, tyranical with this supposed boss, with bad temper and a foul vocabulary, and up to anything to stay in a power position. On top of that, he was also physically similar to our beloved friend-shooter (see Wikipedia).

The portrait of the acute hypocrisy of the show biz is not new, but this movie has it spot on. Specially interesting is Hugh Grant‘s character, the conductor of the American Dreamz show: selfish, shallow, slave to his job, which at the same time he hates and as hypocritical as famous.

Very funny, highly parodical, enjoyable but with a message of brutal criticism… watch it, have fun, and then make your considerations.

This week I am late with my chronicle of the movie I have watched, as every week, on wednesday. Real life sucks. Or at least, sucks one’s attention into it, which is similar.

The movie I will comment is Kurt Wimmer’s Ultraviolet (Ultravioleta), starring Milla Jovovich.

Now, we have a bad ass female main character, delivering a fair amount of pain and death into unsuspecting dummies, who just happen to pass by, or (idiots!) put themselves in her way. It reminds one of movies like Aeon Flux, Underworld, and Resident Evil (in which Jovovich also starred), and, like the three of them, it is a smelly piece of crap. And I am sorry to say so, because I am quite a fan of Jovovich.

I would like to say that these movies pack some action that saves them from oblivion… but that would be too kind a thing to say. Really good action is more than senseless special effects, pretty bullet-time scenes, or people shooting and kicking each other.

The heroine of this movie, like most others, is clearly inspired by William Gibson’s Neuromancer series character Molly Millions (by the way, Gibson’s books are very recommendable), as all modern cute-looking butt-kicking killing-machine girls are (think of Trinity in The Matrix). A kind of action heroine who is not like Molly Millions would be, for example, Lt. Ripley in Alien. She is also effective in her fight against the enemy, but she actually struggles and suffers, and doesn’t have ultra-fast reflexes, strenght and speed, with a weapon use that would make John Rambo go pale, and a martial art expertise akin to that of Bruce Lee on top of Tony Jaa, and then throw in some Neo skillz for good measure.

The movie Ultraviolet is too hard to follow, too little explained, too ilogical, and too silly. All in all, don’t expect much if you go to watch it. Or better still, save your money for another movie.

Yesterday I watched the Argentinian movie Tiempo de valientes, and I have to say it is a superb movie.

Like many Argentinian movies, it tells the story of everyday people whose life goes through tough times, but at the same time the story is full of humour. No wonder it is like that, since the Argentinian real life is much like that, with a brittle economy since the corralito in 2002, but with humorous and optimistic citizens, nontheless.

The movie Tiempo de valientes, however, is not a tragic comedy, but an action comedy. The main characters are a policeman in need of psychologycal aid, and the psychologist who assists him. As the movie moves on, the latter becomes more and more involved in the professional affairs of the former, with interesting results. It portrays the Argentinian society also in the fact that the economic problems make corruption abound, specially within the police, but still some honest people save the day with their good practices.

Highly recommendable movie. Go ahead and enjoy it!

OK, I wanted to watch Jet Li’s Fearless (Sin miedo), but I was late for it, so I dumped it for What the bleep do we know!? (¿¡Y tú qué sabes!?). In my defense, I’ll say that the other options where X-Men III and Crash, which I had already watched and commented here.

Everything was odd from the start. First off, the ticket clerk made me repeat the title of the movie. I thought that he hadn’t understood it the first time I’d said it, but retrospectively I wonder whether his “Sorry, what movie?” wasn’t an exclamation of disbelief.

I then entered the theater room, just to find out that I was the only one there. Once the movie started, a young couple came in too, making a grand total of 3 people.

If you want a short comment of the movie, here you are: For God’s sake, never ever watch it!

The long story: the movie is a blend of a fiction story and some documentary-like interviews and voice-over comments. It comprises three stages: in the first one, a pseudo-scientific discussion of Quantum Physics is given, strongly focused in the state superposition theory (that there are infinite “realities” happening at the same time, and we see a “sum” of all of them. The view of the movie is that we see “one” of them), and the effect of the observer in the observed (Is reality there when we don’t look?). They take it to stupid limits, like implying that we create the reality (and can therefore twist it at our will), because the reality doesn’t exist independently from the observer. I am finishing a Ph.D. in Quantum Chemistry myself, and trust me: the quantum theory doesn’t say that.

The second part of the movie is devoted to explaining the molecular chemistry behind the feelings and the way the brain works. This part was quite interesting, and, from what I know as a Bc.S. chemist, mainly correct (Disclaimer: I am not a biologist).

The third part was a presentation of the conclusions “based on” the “scientific evidence” presented in the first two sections, which mainly consisted on some New Age sect ideas (go to “Beliefs” in the preceding link), chiefly the belief that consciousness creates the reality, a diffuse idea of God (instead of its denial), spirituality above all, and ad hoc inclusion of scientific theories into that spirituality.

I find it sad to make such a max-mix of science and pseudo-science to justify funny ideas dope smokers come up with, but… that’s New Age for you.

Yesterday I watched X-Men III: The Last Stand (X-Men III: La decisión final). It delivers what is expected: good action and a poor script, although the plot itself (“what happens”) is not that bad.

I have always thought that the most captivating idea of the X-Men series is the struggle of people that is “different” to fit in the society, and not to be segregated and prosecuted. This movie takes the idea a step further, because a mutant appears that puts fear into other mutants (much as mutants scare regular human beings), which, to me, should make them think on where the injust segregation ends and safety enforcemente begins… Thorny issue, now I think of it.

All in all, a good action movie, but don’t expect Macbeth.