"Cherrys with no flavor"

Title: Ta'm e guilass (Taste of Cherry)
Year: 1997
Genre: Drama
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Writer: Abbas Kiarostami
Runtime: 95min
Cast: Homayon Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari
Produc.: Abbas Kiarostami Productions, CiBy2000, Kanoon

In Taste of Cherry, Badii (Homayon Ershadi) is a man who, for the purpose of committing suicide, travels in his car, looking for someone who would then, bury him. 

With a runtime of 95 minutes, what we mostly see in it is its main character, a depressed Badii, always driving. Badii travels along a road, sees someone who considers capable of carrying out the task, stops, invites him to get in, and then goes to explain, how by helping him out could be making good money and very quickly. The job details are, however, obviated in the beginning, not to scare them with something so delicate. 

Kiarostami tells much of the film with a camera pointed on its lead actor, Homayon Ershadi (or Badii), in the car, always in medium shots, and inserting panoramic images from time to time. So, when Badii stops and picks up a Kurdish soldier, in first instance, an Afghan seminarian (Mir Hossein Noori), in second instance, and finally, a Turkish taxidermist (Abdolrahman Bagheri), in each case goes to the typical shot reverse shot of him and his companion, and that´s all. It is not more complex than that. The director does not bother to put to our disposal any different alternative. 

If anything this Iranian director is really the master that is so much said, this is, definitely not, the best example. His visual monotony recalls a heart monitor for patients who are no longer among the living. Looking back, one could recall claustrophobic cases such as Phone Booth (2002) or 127 Hours (2010), where the directors had worried about not inducing us to fall asleep, to instead, keeping us wide awake with their scenes. Anyone could conclude that Kiarostami made his actors (or, amateur actors) improvise for the camera, and that, whatever they say, all of it would remain in the final montage. Thus, the taxidermist would end up being the only one who stood out, given his admirable account of his aborted attempt at self elimination. 

This flick got me thinking about, what would the public say if suddenly a famous director, like Tarantino, offered us something similar. Because if Kiarostami can do it, and be for that, admired, why not, other filmmakers? Although I think that, if any of these days Tarantino shot in the same way, the public would not hesitate to boo him. 

It is also true that we are talking about completely different styles, except that, in my opinion, the minimalism of the Iranian photography, along with his long dialogues, lead one to start thinking of, which part of all that is said, will be worth retaining, and what parts to discard. Kiarostami is in trouble, if he has not yet realized that movies are primarily a visual language and which is told through actions, that the spoken word is to be used with caution, and that in the case of putting long conversations, one must be able to demonstrate that it is an excellent dialogist. 

His work seems worthy of a film student, moderately trained to use a camera and cut and paste frames, which leaves this director looking very badly. 

So, is it the topic, at least, interesting? Well... It could be said that it is. I guess that everything concerning suicide is quite suggestive. Especially because human beings are morbid and curious by nature. However, a good movie is not only achieved by having a good subject, but also needs to be known how to tell it, and here it seems that, once elected his scheme, Kiarostami had forgotten about other options. 

I imagine that, undoubtedly, many will be able to find in it other ingredients that I have overlooked, and that give to it greater narrative depth and meaning. Like for example, in the very same geographical area in which all takes place, on the outskirts of Tehran. Different people may look for things here and there, and perhaps it is a movie that, although very simple in structure, requires a lot of work in the head. 

Nevertheless, something much more concrete is still missing in a visual level and in its characters. I'd say it comes down to what we see on screen, and to the emotions, here slim, that that transmits to us. 

My rating: 1/10

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"Till memory do them apart"

Title: The Vow
Year: 2012
Genre: Drama, Romantic
Director: Michael Sucsy
Writer: Jason Katims, Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (written by), Stuart Sendler (story)
Runtime: 104min
Reparto: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, Sam Neill, Jessica Lange, Scott Speedman
Produc.: Screen Gems, Spyglass Entertainment
Budget: $30 million aprox

In The Vow, Leo (Channing Tatum) and Paige (Rachel McAdams) are a happily married young couple, until one night, because of a car accident Paige loses her memory and is unable to recognize her husband. From that moment, Leo must do what ever he has at his reach to get her to remember him, and go back to what they had already built. 

Aside from being the typical romantic movie, The Vow is about what could mean for a person, that given some circunstancies wich where no ones fault, suddenly you were for your soul mate, someone completely unknown. That that person with whom you had decided to share it everything, put you to one side in the blink of an eye, but for reasons that went beyond her own understanding. 

The film reminded me of 50 First Dates (2004) quite a bit, with what I am not saying that it looked like a copy of it, as memory problems suffered in each case are very different. It is the idea of ​​the boyfriend and/or husband who must make her partner love him back, what they share, and that in both is magnificently handled. 

One night, Leo and Paige, fresh from theater, get in their car. On their way home they entertain themselves joking, until Leo stopps at a stoplight. There, Paige becomes affectionate and Leo gets excited. But suddenly, a runaway truck hits them from behind and Rachel is thrown through the windshield, what we see in slow motion, and allows us to appreciate the brutality of her coup. One can even anticipate what is coming after, even while sees her flying through the air, among fragments of shattered glass. 

The director, however, chooses for another way. Leaving us with the question for a few minutes, he uses a flashback to tell us how Leo and Paige had met and hit it off, then marry and read, each their vows, during a museum ceremony. Personally, I would have omitted all that background, except for the marriage, which I would have included, but later. To begin with, because after having us on hold and with even slowed up images of the accident, what one would have liked, would have been to pass directly to the whole "post - clash", with the nursing home admission and the bad news. Michael Sucsy prefers to delay us the awaiting, casting a whole, overly romantic context, that is irrelevant and would probably bore the male audience. Because, actually, how did Paige ended up?, Is what one would like to know, not, how they ended up together. 

The other reason responds to a matter of repetition. Throughout the film Leo is continually striving to help her. With this goal is that he leaves some material in the open view, classified as “evidence” that they really loved each over. However, when Paige sits down to watch the video, it is basically the same wedding that we had already been shown, but now from the viewpoint of one of their friend´s camera. 

Paige awakens from a coma and it is the moment of the truth. Leo updates her on what happened, to what then Paige confuses him with her doctor. It happens that she has forgotten the last five years of her life. Leo had already been warned by Dr. Fishman (Wendy Crewson) on this possibility, of total or partial memory loss, and that could in turn be reflected, in short or long term. Everything, depending on the severity of the brain damage. 

Paige's injury means, amazingly, that she has not only lost all memory of her marriage, and of any aspect in general, from that period of her life. Together, she preserves in her head, and vividly, every memory of her past at her parents' house, before her departure, plus remembers to be committed to Jeremy (Scott Speedman), her old boyfriend. 

In short, memory loss could alienate her from the person whom she loved the most until just a while ago, and work in reverse with respect to her parents, who having lost contact with their daughter, are planning to retrieve her. Bill and Rita Thornton (Sam Neill and Jessica Lange), with whom she had fought even before the accident and did not spoke with. But Paige does not even remember having left the house. For Jeremy (Scott Speedman), on the other hand, memories of that relationship are now fresher than ever. 

That Paige does not recognize Leo is to say that for her, who claims to be her husband is a complete stranger. And how is that suddenly you wake up, for someone you guarantee never to have seen before, says to be attached to you in the strongest of bonds? On top, when you get discharged, that same person intends to take you with him. 

With Bill, Rita and Jeremy in the middle, The Vow becomes a complicated interweaving of existential and loving dilemmas, and the struggle of interests between a poor young unfortunate and three ruthless opponents. Both sides want to win the confidence and affection of a confused Paige, who has no idea of ​​which way to chose. 

As for Paige, the fact of having to assume that she is no longer the girl she remembers, which, in her head, still lives with her parents and wants to study law, is another heavy blow. Having been erased everything about her marriage, she finds it very dificult to worry about not hurting Leo, when he loves her, and instead, again and again, she can no longer be reciprocal. It seems as if it was a constant act of selfishness, but it is not. What happens is that in her mind everything is confusing and she needs to think it over. 

Although Paige is the one who has suffered the worst luck in the impact, it actually becomes easier to sympathize with Leo, and not with her. Because Paige lost her memory, but Leo, his partner. To Paige, everything could even become as simple as returning to her parents and pick it up where she had already left it. But that, for Leo would mean to make a clean slate and start from scratch. 

The Vow invites us to reflect, if we have not already done it, about what is really the meaning of saying yes to that legal, but most of all, sentimental union that is marriage, in both, the good and bad, but especially in the bad, no matter in what field, and even if the other does not know who you are. 

For all of this is that I see no right to say that this film is one of the bunch. It is true that, somehow does meet the same general structure of any romantic flick, although its development, I could say, raises a conflict that has nothing silly, and deserves a close following. 

My rating: 7/10

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"Applying extermination policies"

Title: God bless America

Year: 2011

Genre: Comedy, Crime

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait

Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait

Runtime: 105min

Cast: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr, Mackenzie Brook Smith, Melinda Page Hamilton, Rich McDonald

Produc.: Darko Entertainment

In God Bless America, Frank (Joel Murray), an unemployed misfit, and Roxy (Lynnne Tara Barr), a rebellious teenager, unite to carry out what they both believe the U.S. has been needing for quite some time: to end with all the filth.

Many would probably see this film as a respite from the typical cinematic entertainment. God Bless America seems to be the work of a director really angry with the Americans. More precisely, we are talking about Mr. Robert Francis Goldthwait, better known as Bobcat Goldthwait, born May 26, 1962, no more and no less than in Syracuse, "United States". What leads one to wonder what might he feel, exactly, for his country. We might assume that it embarrasses him.

In God Bless America are precisely revealed, a number of reasons why any lucid U.S. resident could think, "God damn this country full of ignorants, materialistic and egocentric people." The film is, quite simply, the critique to a society in which certain sectors have been quick to fall into the worst of the decadences, and this, for example, expressed through consumerism, the disrespectful citizen and the television programs, that rather than encouraging the good individual growth, we could assume they have proposed to finish with any posible evidence of thinking beings. Bobcat does not waste a single minute and addresses some of the flaws he sees in his people, without beating around.

Frank is a divorced office worker, of about fifty years old, whose former wife is a dim-witted, his daughter a spoiled child, and his neighbors, a couple of feeble-minded, unable to quiet a baby that keeps crying all the time. All of this panorama not only lacks of positive aspects, but has also turned Frank into a time bomb. The entire society is full of inepts and someone should take hands in the matter.

Already in the first scene Frank is far from being relaxed. While watching TV (with all the crap that is in its channels) he must bear with the, already mentioned bastards next door, who are on the other side of his living room´s wall. Frank just wants some peace before returning the next day to his cubicle, surrounded by more idiots.

Bobcat takes this wonderful opportunity for us to see what is happening, internally, to Frank. Suddenly he has entered armed to his neighbor´s house, to do something good for humanity and end both with them and their baby in a radical way, at gunpoint. Fortunately, as soon as we see the situation we come out of it, as to be assured that everything has been a montaje, constructed in his fantasies.

It is highly attractive the way the director describes it to us, making use of the "idiot box", the loss of values ​​and the unfortunate course this society has taken. All Frank has before his eyes can be summarized to vandalism, jokes to politics, discrimination, advertising guidelines that set out the garbage that is sold today on the market, and the most amazing of the new television era, destructive reality shows. Of those that have the power of reducing owr reasoning to the size of a hazelnut.

Frank, who suffers from migraines, sees a doctor to be told that he has a tumor and has only little time left. After the news, the most immediate option is suicide. The thing is that the whole society has gone to hell, and given what awaits him, sees no reasons to delay his death any longer.

But suddenly, a TV show captures his attention. The turning point occurs precisely when, through a reality show, Frank finds that there are still reasons for delaying his own departure. In this particular reality, some girl called Chloe (Maddie Hasson), a blonde and attractive young teenager, with a well maintained body but horrific nature, demonstrates such a lack of brain that makes it even more visible when she says: "My name is Chloe, I live in Virginia Beach, and everyone loves me because I'm so pretty". Then we see her parents and understand that, "like father, like son." Frank certainly has had enough.

If there was ever a citizen that dare to call out "God Bless America", then one of two options: either he was raving mad, or perhaps he have had found sane and decent people, but who had then been reduced by a large majority of lunatics. Erroneous or not this phrase, Frank is willing to give it meaning, and his first goal will be that so pretty girl.

From now on and through black humor, is that are mixed some of the best examples of a daily reality, which many will, surely, feel identified with.

Soon, Frank meets Roxy, a young girl with whom he shares in many ways his general view of things, except that there is in Roxy a much more settled position. He wants to choose their victims and then just finish them up, and she instead intends to move faster and go right now to sow panic, willing of adrenaline, to kill and then celebrate it.

Roxy does not hesitate to join him in what is going to be a massacre in the style of Bonnie and Clyde, except, without the banks. Both are even wearing hats like those of their predecessor, criminal duo. Later, in a motel, Frank acquires better weapons, running from a pistol to a shotgun. And now, yes ... the real fun begins.

Bobcath Goldthwait ultimately created two characters that are able to perfectly represent human idiocy. Frank, who has his problems, of both health and for being a misfit, and who has not ocurred nothing better than, before dying, going out shooting a gun. And Roxy, who is so mad as a hatter that, to start with, has fled from two parents who loved her and now suffer her absence, arguing that she was abused at home. That is to say that, the same ones who have proposed themselves to clean up the scum, are nothing but a part of the problem.

Once the film reaches its end, we have met a director who did not spare anyone and who pretended to call the attention of those who had the fortune of not being part of that majority with limited capacities.

On my part, not being myself a resident of the United States, or being neither of American origin, little is actually what I should say in the matter. It's easy, sometimes,  to talk or criticise from the outside, but very preferable not to. Bobcat, in his viewpoint is very clear, but I initially take it as just that, a viewpoint.

My rating: 7/10

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"Nonsense at its best"

Title: The Tree of Life
Year: 2011
Genre: Drama
Director: Terrence Malick
Writer: Terrence Malick
Runtime: 139min
Cast: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Sean Penn
Produc.: Brave Cove Productions, Cottonwood Pictures, Plan B Entertainment, River Road Entertainment
Budget: $32 million approx.

In The Tree of Life we meet the O'Briens, a family of the 50's, where Mrs. O'Brien (Jessica Chastain) is the loving mother and Mr. O'Brien (Brad Pit), a hard father who raises their children in a very strict and controversial way. Jack (Hunter McCracken), one of those kids, who after going through that childhood, once adult (played by Sean Penn) won´t be able to forget those moments so far away, that changed his life forever. 

After six years of absence behind the cameras, Terrence Malick has returned to the director's chair. This time to devote to a movie whose plot is simpler than its execution. 

There are those who claim to have perfectly understood it and to have been captivated by its unfolding, especially, in a visual level. Others, however, say to have not understood anything at all, and this is partly, understandable. 

What in it is stressed out, is the clear need to watch it, with the senses quite sharpen. This is, because it´s almost certain that if you were thinking of something else, you would end up letting out some essential elements of its thread. 

Something that struck me, even, before having seen it, was to run, on the Internet, with reviews ranging from those who had loved it, to those who had hated it. This curious fact made me become more analytical. Considering that The Tree of Life is not easy to digest and that Malick himself has taken care of complicating our existence, I would say that it is not odd that many feel confused and upset (and even, a little bit mad with this man) and might wonder what on earth did he intended, with this unique cocktail of images. 

Several hundred people who went through a before and after this experience, decided, without even noticing, to join into two different streams of very extremist views, each of which was completely opposite to the other. On the one hand would be the Malick worshipers, to whom the veteran director had been able to convey very strong feelings and to touch them deep inside, and therefore, saw in the movie the excellence of a filmmaker whose sensitivity was extraordinary. 

On the other hand would be those who, feeling insulted, would be able to throw it into the toilet and flush it away. The Tree of Life would not even qualify as a consumable product, in the eyes of its members, but as the meaningless indifferent assembly of several sequences, taken and mixed by a man without much clarity of ideas. 

In the end, I still have some questions. For example, if those who claimed to have grasped the message without difficulty, had actually achieved it. Or, if any, had maybe played a key role, one´s level of understanding. That is, if perhaps to tune in with Malick in his complicated odyssey, had maybe been essential to, whether, be very smart, or have a high level of "cinephile culture" already built up. 

All these would represent valid alternatives. Although I believe, that many of those who had the nerve to say that they got everything right away, have not been sincere even with themselves. There are people for whom the more complicated and intelligible a film is, the more they like it, who knows why, and who are able to look for the fifth paw to the cat, where sometimes, in fact, there is nothing there.These geeks, who enjoy pretending to be the enlightened consumers of the “good cinema”, one could hear them mention under the label of snobs, although, this is incorrect. 

Another element to consider responds to the ease that some people has when praising certain films over others. Lets suppose that Malick had approached it in a different way, with the traditional narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, all, well defined. The question that arises to me is if these intellectuals, enthusiast of the odd, would dare, to this approach, to stand out with the same excitement. Or perhaps, having in hand a flick of too lineal content, could lead them to put into question its apparent, narrative quality. 

With already a few films under my belt, some, more simple, and others less so, some more linear, and others, not so much, I believe to have been relatively well trained when to judge, when one has stood out for its good use of the cinematic expression, and I do not think that approaching an idea in a simple, linear way, understandable and uncomplicated, can often mean nothing more than, that it has come to the right filmmaker or filmmakers. Because "simplicity" should not be confused with "poverty." Erroneous would be to think that, by telling a story through the more direct of the languages, you were sinning by a lack of "artistic stamp." Such language, translated into an effort to make us reason and not wanting to give us the information already diggested, so that we squeeze our brain. 

Any good director should be able to reach out the mass audiences without falling into the offensive and ridiculous simplicity. Then, that a director wanted to shoot something just for himself, of more than three hours, in silent cinema, and told, for example, in one single shot, fixed and frontal, would also be permissible, why not? But, then. Better forget about exposing it to a wide audience, because the personal whims of a filmmaker are just his business and no one elses. Otherwise, should better wake up and forget about his absurd fantasies, leave aside the nonsense and produce something for which nobody will want to hang him. 

I think that, a more or less lucid director is one that, beyond his artistic and/or financial interests, would care to attract and not repel, his audience. I do not see nothing more pleasant and comforting that to know that when you expose your work, the halls of the theaters are going to be quite or very full, and thus, you were going to be able to convey your viewers a certain personal perception of something your care about. On this basis, if then they started to fall asleep or get up from their seats, it would sound to me as a cheap excuse to argue that, that was because of a too complicated pose and was not within reach of the most. Because, if the first were to occur, it would not have failed the public, but, the director. 

If filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese have been able to tell their stories without entangling us, and likewise, they are described as geniuses, what sense would have to present a family with shots where they almost never speak, in which mattered, more than anything, the expressivenss or inexpressiveness of their faces, and where we repeatedly heard voice-overs of some of these characters, by the way of their thinking? On top of this, after the introduction, the director comes to us with the occurrence of mounting a number of images worthy of the Discovery Channel, to see from The Big Bang, to the early days of the Earth, the appearance of the dinosaurs, and again, the use of the voice-over, throwing loose phrases. The problem arises when one realizes that, all that to what Malick has dedicated about half an hour could have been skipped through or reduced to five minutes, not to get us bored. It is possible that Malick may have wanted to reach us through our senses, looking for something different to what we were accustomed. Equally true is that movies have always been to be addressed in many ways, being very well seen, to innovate. However, Malick here has been anything, but, realistic, directing a picture just for fans of the oddities. Always has been and will continue to be admitted, that everyone direct his own projects as pleased, as long as one has the means to. The issue is that Malick crossed the line. In the same way that he has made us look at shots of the universe, planets, volcanoes and even underwater takes, he could have perfectly added two timeless minutes of a pan on a deserted beach, and we would have had someone explaining us its meaning, like a greek philosopher. 

Finally, I see as importat to point out that if we departed from the idea that in the movies anything goes, then, today we have Malick with this (I say it again) "rareness". But, lets imagine that tomorrow, three of four similar films like this one began to be distributed. What would we, the spectators, do in that case? Which would be the benchmark, to define between a good movie and bad one, between a fun movie and a boring one?, if then we are saying that all of this is part of the same objective to communicate something to us all, only varying the structures. Because if we saw another flick like this, say that we do not like it, and to what then appear to counterattack, the offended ones who thougth we should open up more to new things, rather than criticize, where would, our “linear and menaingful cinema” end up being positioned"? If someone else came to refute our negative comments, saying: "Why do you say that it is slow? Maybe that's what the director wanted. Why do you say that? Maybe what Malick wanted was the other".

Then, no matter what kind of flaws we saw in an extremely rare and complicated, or rare and boring movie, for all of this we would have someone playing the defense attorney. For every negative that pulled it down, there would be an answer to raise it back to the podium. The same as saying that, it does no longer matter to follow any criteria. Anything is valid. 

My rating: 1/10

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"Weapons are loaded by the devil and unloaded by the stupid"

Title: 96 Minutes
Year: 2011
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Aimee Lagos
Writer: Aimee Lagos
Runtime: 93 minutes
Cast: Brittany Snow, Christian Serratos, Evans Ross, Jonathan Michael Trautmann, David Oyelowo
Produc.: First Point Entertainment, Katonah Pictures, Perfect Weekend

Inspired by real events, 96 minutes is a very well made film that cares, more than anything, to show us the society that we have come to built. Recreating the events that would lead four people from two very different worlds to spend a stressful situation that would change them forever, director Aimee Lagos takes the trouble of calling our attention, to remember us that we are all, even if we don´t like it, part of a society that is increasingly going down. 

One can be born in a privilege position, in a family with high or medium-sized financial possibilities and a rich cultural level. This probably means that one will have more options, at the moment of making certain choices in the right direction. Or in the case that they were not, presumably there would always be time to retrace the steps and try another way. This is the fate of those who were born in "golden cradle", but that are a small group. For these privileged ones, to meet someone of the most marginalized sector could wipe out their joys. 

Carley and Lena (Brittany Snow and Christian Serratos) are two smart college girls. In Carley´s case it is made quite clear when she is seen in action with her debating group where, faced with their opponents, they exchange with strong determination, their different viewspoints on the treatment that should be given to criminals. Then, in Lena´s case, she is shown in other circumstances, suffering from an unfaithful boyfriend. 

On the opposite side we have Dre (Evan Ross) and Kevin (Jonathan Michael Trautmann), two boys born under difficult conditions and to whom is terribly hard to distinguish the fine line that separates the good from the bad behavior. 

We know Dre as a boy who goes to class, that is, that strives to make himself a future. Today, precisely, when he is about to receive an important and encouraging high qualification, something to be proud of. After the good news Dre meets his girlfriend, whom he updates, but when she talks about meeting later, Dre says that he can´t because he is catching up with his friends. Kisha (Jamila Thompson) tries to talk him out of joining those people, to what Dre, apparently sure of his arguments, insist on knowing exactly what he is doing. 

Despite his unfortunate attitude, Andre ends up not being quite the person we should be worrying about. Kevin, however, is here, the time bomb. 

Kevin, among the characters, is the one who has it worst. With a background that leaves much to be desired, the poor boy has no idea of what to do or what he is getting into. His every day consiste in acting on impulse, believing he can do what he pleases. Yet, he ends up letting himself be manipulated by the worst of the influences, a bunch of guys who look really bad, individuals lacking of the sense of civilized behavior. 

The fact that before, I described Kevin with the adjective of "poor", may sound wrong to many, and more if it is taken into considetarion the atrocities that he is about to do. What happens is that, if one actually stopped to think of it, perhaps could understand that this guy is not what we see, just because this is what he always wanted. With the kind of existence that leads, with, for example, a mother who is beaten, we are talking about a guy whose role models are not the most helpful. Adding to this that Kevin has set as a target to be accepted by the gang, have full access to guns and shoot to death anyone he wants, is the same as to indicate that Kevin is lost, has no idea of what he is dealing with, nor what is to comit a felony. Kevin is angry, who knows if with someone in particular or with everybody, given the so screwed up environment he has come to call "home". 

Night falls and Carley and Lena go have fun to a bar. There, Lena sees her boyfriend from the distance and that anguish her. Lena now wants to leave when the party is just beginning, but fortunately, the very sweet Carley offeres to drive her back. 

Unfortunately, sometimes without realizing it we are taking a decision at the wrong moment. Carley and Lena go toward their vehicle, just as two other boys are coming close (Dre and Kevin), one of which is at his worst (Kevin) of the day. Then, the destinies of this four people from two opposite realities, intersect, and comes the disaster. 

Carley and Lena are in their own car, prisoners of a stranger, and Lena has been seriously wounded. Dre, who is the one driving and who could already be prosecuted for assault and kidnapping, begins to operate without a fixed course, but his goal is to reach a hospital. His seatmate, aware of what happens but terrified and angry, knows that he is going to jail and prefers his freedom, to the girl to survive. Therefore, no health center is an option. 

Dre tries to think. The stupid of Kevin, who won´t stop speaking, does not allows him to do so, and on top he turns on the radio to get distracted with his damn music. Nothing good can come out of all this. 

96 minutes is of those movies where everything goes from bad to worse, but has a great lesson that tells us to be aware of who we are, of whom we coexist with, and that sometimes we “do have" options, and use them depends only on us. 

Thanks to a very good work of handheld camera and a well-chosen cast, was that Aimee Lagos would manage to show us as near as possible, and also, in the more realistic way, how is that a conflict that looks like hell, takes place. 

My rating: 8/10

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"Great power means great responsibility"

Title: Chronicle

Year: 2012

Genre: Drama, C. Ficción, Thriller

Director: Josh Trank

Writer: Max Landis (screenplay), Max Landis and Josh Trank (story)

Runtime: 84min

Cast: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw

Produc.: Davis Entertainment, Adam Schroeder Productions, Film Afrika Worldwide

Budget: $12 million approx.
 

In Chronicle, three friends are exposed to a strange substance found in a forest. From that moment they begin to experience the power of telekinesis. 

Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHann) and Matt Garetty (Alex Russell) are cousins. However, the relationship of intimate friendship that they held in their childhood, no longer exists. Meanwhile, Andrew is a young shy man, unpopular, and who manages to feel comfortable at a party by carring a video camera, which also brings him problems. Andrew ends up leaving the party, beaten, and sitting in the open air. 

Soon, another boy, his name Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), goes to Andrew for a favor. He and Matt have found something and want Andrew to register it. Andrew follows Steve to the scene of the events, which could be described as a curious hole in the ground. Within it, they find something inexplicable, a substance never seen before, that makes noises and emits very sharp colors, and which endows them with a power that is perhaps too large for them to control. Later, the two cousins enxperience together, shortening their distance again. 

Chronicle is one of the first novelties of 2012, in the line of The Blair Witch Project (1999), Paranormal Activity (2007), Trollhunter (2010) or Grave Encounters (2011), in a time when the sugenre of movies on the type of "fake documentary" or "found footage" has become the new fashion. 

Here we have, obviously, the typical guy who carries his camera everywhere and no matter what happens, which is an excuse for us to see, almost at first hand, all that happens. The largest differences compared to similar products is that, while in Grave Encounters or The Blair Witch Project we were expectant to the appearance of ghosts, monsters or demons, the focus here are the main protagonists, of whom we are always expecting to see move or break something, or do something that surprises us. Each scene is another occasion for discovering how far they can go, from having fun doing harmless pranks, up to comiting almost fatal mistakes. The latter, which leads Matt to see a need to establish certain rules. 

It is possible that some see a resemblance to Brian de Palma´s Carrie (1976). On this, I can only say that Chronicle is far from being a copy of the classic of the 70s, as evidenced by its starting point, which is another completely different, or for the approach given to the characters, along with the sort of staging. 

From time to time, the different paranormal circumstances are set aside for addressing Matt´s complicated family situation. The boy lives under the same roof with his ailing mother, who is always in bed, and with his disabled father, a former firefighter, and a man terrified by his wife´s illness and who only knows how to express himself through reprimand. 

The film leads us through this world full of possibilities, which involves being able to manipulate objects, almost regardless of the number or sizes and without having to lift a finger. From playing with the pieces of a Lego, to tow a car or even fly like Peter Pan, through the clouds. However, something that these guys should have never forgotten is of the enormous responsibility that means having something so huge. Because Matt is an intelligent and lucid guy, the same can be said about Steve, but not, about Andrew. 

Andrew is not a bad boy and has no bad feelings, but not even the greates of the powers has been able to evade him from the weight of a dying mother, or of a father who can only yell or question him what he does and who he hangs out with. 

Fortunately, Chronicle have been able to offer us a concept that went beyond the flying and moving stuff. It deals with the problematic of a boy who, unable to stop to reason, is forced to go to the extreme, to distrust of all, seeing them as enemies and feeling that they should be punished. Andrew ends up becoming a sort of male version of Carrie, only that his possibilities of action and destruction are much larger and more catastrophic. 

With the wanderings of these guys is revealed to us how each one enjoys his superhuman ability, to then see, in the ending, the actual deployment of visual effects. That's where the action fills the screen with extras, vehicles and glassess flying everywhere, because of a disturbed kid. All we see constitutes the sum of a work of pyrotechnics, extensive use of chrome (green screen) and large variety of digital additions. In this very same ending is where the film loses part of its dramatic dimension, so that everything becomes something purely entertaining, similar to the battle between superheroes and vllains. Out of that, this new successor to The Blair Witch Project is certainly worth it, and is not, just another one of the pile.

My rating: 7/10

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"Scorsese in the birthplace of cinema"

Title: Hugo
Year: 2011
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Family
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: John Logan (written by), Brian Selznick (book)
Runtime: 126min
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ray Winston
Produc.: Paramount Pictures, GK Films, Infinitum Nihil 
Budget: $170 million approx.

In Hugo we are located in the Paris of the 30's, where Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan who lives hidden in a train station and whose specialty is to repair appliances. Hugo leads a solitary existence, with an absent guardian, his alcoholic uncle Claud (Ray Winston), a good for nothing, unable to care for him or to fix the clocks in the terminal, work that does his nephew. 

Among his belongings Hugo has an automaton, a machine that mimics the shape and movements of a living being and that constitutes the greates legacy left by his father. He knows that this device has been designed to express something on paper, either a phrase, a drawing or some kind of message. However, his automaton is not complete and Hugo must find certain items to facilitate the functioning of its mechanism. Thus, one day that Hugo is active doing his stuff, he meets Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), a toy salesman from the station, who has no sympathy towards him, in addition to calling him a thief. Furious, Méliès takes away another of his most prized possessions: a book, to the child, of crucial importance, and without which he will be lost. To make matters worse, his very presence at the station is not well seen, where in the eyes of the inspector, he is nothing but a fugitive. This means that Hugo has to approach Méliès business to recover what is his, but without being arrested in the act. A little bit later Hugo will meet Isabelle, a girl, goddaughter of Méliès, whom he will ask for help to retrieve his book and who, along with him, will discover a wonderful secret. 

After many years telling us of tough guys (1990 GoodFellas, Casino 1995, Gangs of New York 2002 or The Departed 2006), Martin Scorsese has decided to go into a story that finally children and adults can enjoy the same, and where we do not hear a single insult along the entire film. Scorsese leaves the world of corruption and violence to try and provide his signature to Brian Selznick´s book, granting himself the possibility of doing homage to one of the key moments of the emergence of this entertainment world, that opened its doors to him once. 

Brian Selznick previously addressed this history, showing the circumstances that surrounded Georges Méliès, illusionist, and later, filmmaker. Méliès was a man who in a fair, after meeting the Lumiere brothers and their intriguing movie projector, had been fascinated and wanted then to buy it to them. But the brothers had refused to sell it and in the end Méliès had designed his own version of the device. 

In the book, on the other hand Selznick invented Hugo, a child, skillful with his hands and who would link us to Mr. Méliès. 

Concerning the film, Scorsese shows us who Hugo is and what he seeks, using flashbacks to explain it better. The kid lives entirely by his own and in a reality that is alien to the rest. Now, when Hugo sees how injustice or bad luck accompany him again, it becomes very difficult to feel his suffering from the outside, because at all times he is seen with the exact same expression on his face, which speaks of a not very good job at directing actors. If one put the film, looked closely at Hugo in three or four scenes and then speeded up the tape about forty minutes, would be surprised to find the exact same gestures, ineffective at the moment of conveying what the child feels or thinks. Being then a film which subject is indeed interesting, easy to understand, very well photographed and superbly recreated in terms of historical reconstruction, the perfect finishing touch would have been a more convincing and heart-breaking performance, that we certainly never see. 

On the other hand, it should be emphasized Scorsese´s quality to make a brief review of the history of cinema, whose origin was precisely in France. Drawing on Georges Méliès as a motor trigger, the director gives us a glimpse of the primitive cinema, and where we are pointed out how did all began and how did the special effects appeared, from the first few hundred meters of celluloid. 

I think the worst that could happen at this point would be that the audience was oblivious to these circumstances. Those who know the more basic historical details about the beginnings of this art may be excited and feel the hair on the back of their neks stand up against this segment. Those who, however, do not know nothing about it, will probably believe that this is a very entertaining little story, but invented. To those of this second group I recommend Forgotten Silver (1995) by Peter Jackson. 

My rating: 7/10

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