"From Hergé´s hands, to Spielberg´s cameras"

Title: The Adventures of Tintin

Year: 2011

Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writer: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish (screenplay), Hergé (comic book series "The Adventures of Tintin")

Runtime: 107min

Cast: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkins, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg

Produc.: Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, WingNut Films, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Hemisphere Media Capital, Nickelodeon Movies

Budget: $130 million approx. 

In The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, after having himself portrayed in a craft fair, Tintin meets a salesman that offers him a model of a boat. The young journalist gets the purchase, at a price that will later come to sound overly cheap, when he finds out of the incredible adventures that this ship holds to him and the fortune to which access he could be reaching down the road. But of course, none of this process will be easy, when he must face the fearsome Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine, who plans to sabotage his plans. In this way, Tintin must rely on the help of his dog Snowy, his new friend, Captain Haddock, and of police officers Thomson and Thompson, two clumsy, but always well-meaning servants of the law, to succeed.

With The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, famous American director Steven Spielberg has finally got to work, fulfilling his dream of bringing to the screen the most recognizable cartoon character of Hergé´s work, created in 1929.

Long time had to pass before this director got busy in the film, if we consider that he already owned the rights in 1983. It is also interesting to know how it was that cartoonist and director knew about each other. On the one hand, Duel (1971) was the first film that Hergé claimed to have known from the spielbergian filmography, and in his own words, he liked it so much that from that moment he tried not to miss any other.

On the other hand, Steven Spielberg would meet the cartoonist, following his 1981 release of Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark. On one occasion, when he was looking at a French criticism, the director noted that in the text there was made constant reference to a certain Tintin, at which he decided to refer someone to translate it for him. Right away he could learn that, according to critics, the film was a clear homage to Hergé. But the funny thing was the fact that Spielberg had never heard of this guy until now. It would be so, that Steven decided to learn more about it and read the comic, which would result in his immediate fanaticism and his subsequent acquisition of the adaptation rights. Something that would even serve as a greater inspiration for this man, would be to find out that Hergé himself considered him as the ideal filmmaker to make a movie out of his character. According to the author's own statements: "If anyone can bring Tintin successfully to the screen, it is this young American film director." This was written by the cartoonist shortly before his death in 1983, when negotiations between him and Spielberg had just started.

In this way, and even after, a somewhat late start, Spielberg finally directed the shooting of the film in March of 2009, in a total of 32 days, for then cede the recorded material to the special effects experts, responsible for giving color to a work until then, only of Motion Capture. It is worth to mention that Spielberg initially wanted to adapt Tintin in a live action film, to what Peter Jackson would have to convince him that a movie with actors of flesh and blood would not do justice to the comic. Jackson's idea was that all the characters were designed based on this capture, with the exception of Snowy, whom he saw better as all-digital. So, The Adventures of Tintin would become the first animated feature film directed by Steven Spielberg.

Turning now to my own observations, I think it is important to distinguish between "animation" and "argument". After watching it, more than once I made the mistake of saying aloud: "It's Indiana Jones, but in cartoons." This statement, in the end could end up looking bad for anyone who considers himself to be a fan of the comic, as well as erroneous, considering that Tintin came long before the archaeologist, in which case it would have been correct to say: "It's Tintin, but with actors." Despite this, I must clarify that my intention was never to lower this film adaptation of our beloved character, nor underestimate the tetralogy of Dr. Jones. In contrast, what has always been indeed my intention, was to imply that this adventure, made into a movie looks remarkably similar to those experienced by the flesh and blood character, played by Harrison Ford. Thus, anyone who saw it, either being or not a comic book fan, I think, should contemplate it with the sufficient lucidity to notice the undeniable similarity between the two protagonists. Because one should accept that both, each within his universe (one, a journalist and the other, an archaeologist and history teacher), they live their adventures under the same model of circumstances, such as, always been looking for treasures, on the verge of death, being constantly persecuted and always dodging bullets, to say a few.

Beyond that, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn ends up being an entertaining film to pass the time. Yet, regarding to its animation, both, in terms of its characters and settings, it is very reminiscent of what was done in movies like Avatar (2009) or Alice in Wonderland (2010). This two, synonyms of outstanding visual quality, and where three-dimensional images were endowed with such realism that it was difficult even to believe that they were not made of real footage, but generated images.

Finally I put up what it meant to me seeing this flick. And I have no doubt I might be expressing myself as someone who has never touched a single Hergé comic and lacks of a real understanding of the true essence of his character, when I say that as I watched it, there was a time when I thought, "I already saw this before." What happens is that if one took the trouble to take away all its mysticism, it would be possible to think that what one is watching is kind of like a fifth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, except that fully adapted to the animated format. So, if we ignored for a moment all it means the wonderful art of animation (in this case, in 3D), it all could well be reduced to: young adventurer who faces the worst dangers in search of the most hidden of the secrets and the greatest of the rewards. Seen from this perspective, The Adventures of Tintin ends up being much more about action and adrenaline, than of a good argument, which is not really a bad thing. This simply means that it´s creators intention (in this case, the director) is not to explore in the fields of human relationships, because that's not what it points to.

In short, and having said the above, in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, whether one sees it in 2D or 3D, the entertainment is assured, and won´t be few the ones to grant Hergé the reason, concerning to Spielberg.

My rating: 7/10

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"Four people, four walls and a lot of dialogue"

Title: Carnage

Year: 2011

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Director: Roman Polanski

Writer: Yasmina Reza (based on the play by: "Le Dieu du carnage"), Yasmina Reza, Roman Polanski (writer by)

Runtime: 80min

Cast: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly

Produc.: SBS Productions, Constantin Film Produktion, SPI Film Studio, Versátil Cinema, Zanagar Films, France 2 Cinéma, Canal+, CinéCinéma, France Télévisions, Polski Instytut Sztuki, Filmowej, Wild Bunch

Budget: $25 million approx.

One day in a park, because of a dispute between children, Zachary Cowan (Elvis Polansky) hits Ethan Longstreet (Eliot Berger) in the face with a stick, taking out two of his teeth. After the incident, Zachary's parents decide to visit Ethan´s parents to make it up as civilized adults. Except that for none of them will be easy to keep that so polite attitude.

Carnage is the title of this film, in which two eleven year olds are just an excuse for us to see their parents face each other. The hit scene is served to as a first course, after the opening credits, but is shown to us from a distance, through a static camera and in a barely chopped, open frame, from which we see the action that matters, in broad strokes.

In the next scene we get to meet the two couples (Michael and Penelope Longstreet, and Alan and Nancy Cowan) that will occupy the screen for the rest of the film, these, played by John C. Rilley, Jodie Foster and by Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet, respectively. Specifically speaking, Alan and Nancy have been those who decided to stop by the Longstreet´s place to show how civilized they are in response to the incident their son took part in.

The truth is, that I have never been a big fan of Polanski, and in fact this is only the second movie I have seen of this filmmaker, something that leaves me with very few tools at the time of reviewing his work. However, I will take the boldness to assert that, wether this man is the genius people talk about (and he probably is), I regret having to point out that I honestly could not find any trace of that talent, in the approach that he gave to this film. I think Polanski has committed a serious blunder in his vision of this movie.

The thing goes this way: In every movie we are located in terms of time and space, we are introduced to the corresponding characters and explain what the conflict is. Needless to say there is no story without a conflict. However, for this case, one will notice that is not even the conflict that matters to the director, and instead he shows us that what has fascinated him was the idea of ​​having four people stuck in the same room during the course of 80 minutes. This was the challenge that Polanski set out to solve, which ended up forcing him to find some way in which tying up four actors to work within four walls would be appealing, with a previous issue to resolve, designed only as an excuse, and whose resolution, either for better or for worse, was never of significance.

So, here the question. Once one has seen about 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, and has begun to notice that something strange is going on in terms of the space (because it seems that the visiting couple has been magnetized to the department), one could begin to worry about the enclosure of the characters being more important than the plot.

I will stop here a second to make a brief parenthesis, because I also want to be fair to Polanski. It would be wrong to say that in his work he has done "all bad" because it is not like that. With Carnage he has been able to show us an excellent ability to display certain, very interesting aspects of the human behavior, through dialogues and viewpoints that are fairly well handle, and where he gives us the possibility to find out about what humans hide from others, that, that is restricted by the social barriers of our psychology. This, thats seems very complicated, I explain it in other words: Polanski shows very accurately how people is in reallity, when they speak their minds. And I close the parenthesis.

Back to my eariler point, and for those who have had the opportunity to see The Man from Earth (2007), you will recall that it also took place almost entirely in one room, in which a group of profesors was engaged to discussing, whether or not one of them was actually an immortal human being, born in the days of cavemen. This movie referred to several moments in the history of mankind, but always to promptly focus in that one of the teachers claimed to be a lot more older than his peers. That is, that the question to be solved by the other teachers was, what is commonly called "conflict". In this case: several skeptical teachers, refusing to believe they were in the presence of Mr. John Oldman, an ancient being. And so us, viewers, would follow the film until the last minute to find out the truth about this insane or liar fellow.

Another very clear example is 12 Angry Men (1957) by Sidney Lumet. Those who have seen it, will remember that it took place 99.9% in a jury´s deliberation room, where 12 individuals were to define the fate of a boy, ruling among all if the boy would be o not, declared guilty. In this film the conflict was quite clear from the first minute, and probably no one had wondered if they would or wouldn´t leave the room, because one was too attuned to the very development of the situation, of how the opinion of each of the present was changing or showing evidence of doubt, second to second. Then it is clear that the walls surrounding this group, little mattered, rather than to know where the scene was taking place.

Then, if one jump from 12 Angry Men to Carnage, ends up understanding that little really matters if the parents of the child offender will have their kid to apologize, or how the situation be resolved. Which leads to, that after a while, the discussion regarding the children becomes terribly boring, because we know that we will not see their kids making it up, that we will not witness a scene of serious dialogue between parents and children, in which they reflect. By contrast, basically what we are going to see is two couples trying by all means to stay calm and be respectful, but at the same time feeling offended, insulted or attacked, and then responding to these verbal assaults in an increasingly worst way. But no matter how much this could continue, how deep could they come to discuss, or how much, more or less, everyone could remain calm, because they would never actually come to a "conflict resolution", as this is secondary. Polanski has taken this film to experience with certain aspects of human behavior, so that when we leave the theater, we won´t yet know what was of the aggression in the park. Instead, this director has indeed managed to show us how he was perfectly able to lead four people to the edge and make one to get drunk, another to throw up, or that a third raise his voice and shout and insult another. But as to have an argument... From that, nothing. When we leave the cinema room, what are we going to say we saw? A film about four people fighting in a living room. No more than that. Four people talking about their children's behavior, either to defend or admit their mistakes. But to then go to other issues, talk about problems in Africa, criticize each other's ways of dealing with life, and end up stressed out. Them, stressed, and us, bored.

My rating: 3/10

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"Winter´s story, told by herself"

Title: Dolphin Tale

Year: 2011

Genre: Drama, Family

Director: Charles Martin Smith

Writer: Karen Janszen, Noam Dromi

Runtime: 113min

Cast: Nathan Gamble, Cozi Zuelhsdorff, Harry Connick Jr., Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Austin Stowell, Kris Kristofferson 

Produc.: Alcon Entertainment, Arc Productions

Budget: $37 million approx.

In Dolphin Tale, Sawyer (Nathan Gamble) is a child who after meeting a bottle-nose dolphin stranded on a beach, he communicates with a team of rescuers. The team arrives on the scene and transfers it to an aquarium, where the animal must lose its tail to survive. Sawyer will soon feel more and more attuned to the dolphin and will be thereby assisting Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr.), along with his daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff), in its care. Within a short time, Sawyer and the now named Winter, will have created a very strong bond.

Dolphin Tale could be defined as one of those cute little movies that are for the enjoyment of the whole family. In this case, while one becomes aware of the circumstances which once surrounded Winter, after the cetacean was rescued in December of 2005 off the coast of Florida.  

The film uses some characters that although never existed in real life, helped to create the drama that we see on the scene. 

The first one we know is Sawyer, a dejected boy and who in an emotional level, has not been able to cope in the best of ways, either with his mother and in terms of his studies. So we are facing a worrying child and which is in need of something that excites him. This "something" will come up just when one morning, a fisherman (Richard Libertini) sees Sawyer from the beach (where they are man and dolphin) and asks him if by any chance hasn´t he got a cell phone to call for help. Sawyer, who does have one, inmmediately goes down to help him and soon releases the dolphin from the crab trap. Not much later, rescuers arrive at the scene and she is taken to there facilities. Then, when the action has moved from a first, secondary location, to the most relevant place of the plot, all ingredients have begun to combine for us to enjoy a story, mostly intended to reach the smaller public.

So Sawyer is curious to know what became of the dolphin, which leads him to venture to a part of the aquarium that is restricted to the public. This is when we meet Rufus, a pelican who lives in the aquarium and that is in charge of putting a certain amount of humor to the narrative.

Then Sawyer meets Hazel, with whom he will share many moments and who will be his best friend (except for Winter, of course) throughout the movie. As expected, Sawyer manages to please Hazel´s father, who allows him to collaborate with Winter. Thus the link between Sawyer and the staff of the aquarium and marine life becomes very narrow, except that Sawyer tries to keep it hidden from his mother, who eventually ends up knowing and giving in.

In Dolphin Tale its director cares not to serve us all the information in a row, showing us some very general aspects of Kyle´s (Austin Stowell) going and coming back from war. Kyle, Sawyer´s cousin and a figure who the kid admires, has to go to fight, in spite of the anguish this causes to Sawyer, to later come back wounded, to occupy a wheelchair.

The rest of the film is developed with a Winter who has had her tail amputee for her own health. It is now that Sawyer uses the collaboration of Dr. Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman) -who he knows through his crippled cousin-, an expert in the development of prosthetic limbs. Sawyer presents him his friend´s case, to what the man says he will see what he can do, but making no promises about it. Obviously, Cameron will be able to give much more than he had thought. Us, on the other hand, will discover how it is given the relationship between the kid and the dolphin, while Cameron dedicates himself to getting Winter´s new tail, and up to the moment of the truth, where we learn whether it was or not worth the waiting.

Furthermore, Dolphin Tale covers important issues such as the meaning of friendship or of the personal effort to achieve what we want, and that never hurts to translate into the language of cinema.

My rating: 6/10

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"When love has no barriers"

Titile: Viudas (Widows)

Year: 2011

Genre: Drama

Director: Marcos Carnevale

Writer: Marcos Carnevale, Bernarda Pagés

Runtime: 100min

Cast: Valeria Bertuccelli, Graciela Borges, Rita Cortese, Martín Bossi

Produc.: Aleph Media, Corbelli Producciones, Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA), Patagonik Film Group, Tronera Producciones 

In Widows, one morning Elena (Graciela Borges) is directing a documentary when she receives an urgent call from the hospital, where her husband Augusto has being recently admitted. Interrupting the shoot, Elena arrives at the sanitarium at the precise moment when the doors of the operating room are being closed and Augusto has been hospitalized for a stroke. Nonetheless, accompanying the stretcher was a girl, her name Adela (Valeria Vertuccelli), which now she sees walking away and whom Elena does not knows.

Elena, sitting in the waiting room waits with Esther (Rita Cortese), her friend and assistant, when she sees through the window that in the courtyard is the girl she had seen before, and occurs to her that she must be the one who found and brought him to the emergency. To remove this doubts Esther decides to go talk to her, while Elena sees them from the other side and unable to hear a word of it. We hear a part of the conversation, where a young woman too concerned as to be a stranger, informs Esther that she does not intents to go until Augusto recovers. We see the rest of the conversation from Elena´s point of view and only based on physical mannerisms. When minutes later Esther goes back inside, watching her words she would tell her friend that she was right and that the girl was the one who found him and brought him in.

So far the situation seems to have nothing unusual, except that in another scene a nurse asks Elena to remove her daughter from her father's bed, something that Elena does not understands. Then, when she enters the room and sees this stranger lying next to her husband, she sends her out immediately, enraged.

Back with her husband and now angry, Elena asks a man unable to answer, in his state of unconsciousness, if he was cheating on her, but it is understood that what Elena wants is to unload.

Later, in the day of the funeral Elena and Esther are leaving after the last goodbye when they see Adela approaching, now with a bouquet of flowers she delivers to Elena, who short-tempered, in turn gives them away to Esther.

After the last meeting, and when it has become clear that Adela had been Augusto´s lover, Elena prepares to start living without the man who she loved, without having any idea of ​​the problems that are to be coming, because this girl does not intend to leave her alone. Then, on the day of her birthday Elena receives an unexpected and unwanted visitor. Adela with a bouquet of flowers waits for the door to be opened to her, but Elena asks her through Justina, the maid, to leave. At nightfall Adela comes back to insist, this time calling her on the phone and wishing her happy birthday, testing the tolerance of a widow who wants to be left alone. So the director continues to anticipate as what is coming, while making us wonder what could be this girl´s problem. Is she perhaps crazy? Or is she some kind of psychotic?

Finally, Elena gets a phone call to which she says that yes, she is the one their looking for, but no, she has no daughter. However, now things have become larger and she is being urgently needed. Elena arrives at the apartment that Adela had shared with her husband, to meet with the lucky survivor of a suicide attempt lying on a bed in full cry. Within the environment of that apartment Elena has become unwittingly the mother of this girl, after that for some strange reason she had been contacted after the attempted self-elimination. One at this point could try to get into the thoughts of this poor widow and wonder what could be this girl´s intention. To make matters worse, Adela continues to express how sorry she is to bother her, always in tears, as if  it were a consolation to a tired Elena. But the thing does not ends there, as from here on Elena will take Adela temporarily under her roof until she recovers. Because apparently, the options boil down to that or that the girl stays in her own apartment, with the rent not yet paid, and that she ends up being throwing out.

Thus, using some very specific situations is that director Carnevale has been able to show us how, by a twist of fate, these two women of different realities but who share a common bond, end up being roommates, one who aspired that, and the other, unwittingly.

Once Elena and Adela are together is when we finally found out what the real conflict in this film is, which is not that of a widow who must get used to living alone, or of a girl with obsessive behavior. Here the conflict is of a widow (older person who lives with the normal realities of old age) who must learn to cope with her grief, carrying with the sorrow of a girl who has had the audacity to fall in love with "her" husband. Because at the same time, Augusto being a married man had the nerve, not only to cheat on her, but after dying, of leaving her to the care of her lover, who is almost a child and could have been his daughter.

Something here to point out concerns to the relationship that develops between the two women living in Elena´s place. While it is true that in the movie we often see them distant from each other and in silence, every time we see them together and talking, it ends up being Adela who tells Elena how good he and she hanged out together, how they laughted, or how Augusto insisted that he could never imagine a life without Elena at his side. This in turn would be like a bucket of cold water to Elena, for whom it was probably unreal to think that her husband had shared so many intimate moments with this girl.

If we wanted to be more precise we could even define a second issue of ​​interest in this movie, and that relates to the idea that love goes beyond the distance among ages. Probably anyone could find it easy to conceive that a man of about seventy years of age to be attracted to a young girl, but not equally normal to see that a girl in her thirties may feel sexually or emotionally attracted to an older man.

In Widows it is done quite well, showing us the collision of problematics that occurs between these two women, and where one is forced to give in if both want to get on.

Also noteworthy is the performance of Valeria Bertuccelli as an Adela that feels lost, since Augusto´s death appears to have taken with him also part of her soul.

My rating: 7/10

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"The Lord of the ring: but, without the rings"

Title: Mi Primera Boda (My First Wedding)
Year: 2011
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Director: Ariel Winograd
Writer: Patricio Vega
Runtime: 102min
Cast: Natalia Oreiro, Daniel Hendler, Martín Piroyanski, Muriel Santa Ana, Clemente Cancela
Produc.: Film Suez, Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA), Luz Libre Producciones, Televisión Federal (Telefé), Tresplanos Cine, surDream Productions

In My First Wedding, Adrián (Daniel Hendler) must do everything that has at his disposal to delay the ceremony of his marriage to Leonora (Natalia Oreiro), after his nervousness made him lose both rings.

Adrián is Jewish and Leonora, Catholic. Initially they should have chosen from one of the two religions to perform the ritual on the day of their marriage. However, thanks to some friends that are beside the point both managed to find both a Jewish priest and a Christian one that had no problems in sharing as hosts of the ceremony. Starting from this unusual situation and other situations with similar characteristics will be how this comedy works and knowing to stay away from decadent jokes.

As if their differences in religion were small matter, throw into this that he is very mild and a gentle guy and she instead a woman of strong temper. This difference of character is the reason or everything that happens in the film, when Adrián is terrified when his clumsiness makes him lose both wedding rings, although one gets to see as evident that among them there is a true love. Then Adrián must do everything possible to prevent the emcees to arrive on time for the celebration, mainly because he understands that if his girlfriend finds out about his accident, she strangles him.

What to do to gain time? wonders the groom. Adrián rides a horse, gallops up a sign indicating the way to the residence and rotates it to confuse the remise chauffeur.

Back at the residence´s garden, Adrián now tells his cousin Fede (Martin Piroyanski), a dim-witted young man, of the mess he just got into, and both are launched in the search of Leonora´s precious wedding ring.

In this film one also has the chance to have fun not with one but with several of the guests. This is the case of uncle Lárazo (José "Pepe" Soriano), who never stops asking marijuana to Adrián, or the case of Inés (Muriel Santa Ana), a young lesbian who soon has a crush on another girl. And there is also the case of Esteban (Clemente Cancela), who, though considerably older than Leonora, had an affair with her years ago when he was a profesor and she was his student, and who has had the guts to accept her invitation, showing up and behaving like a cynic.

Finally, lost on the way to the residence we have Father Patricio and Rabbi Mendl, both divinely interpreted neither more nor less than by Marcos Mundstock and Daniel Rabinovich, best known for their excellent participation in the comedy group Les Luthiers. The perfomance of these two men, who already possess an intrinsic quality to make us laugh, arises the question if perhaps haven´t they written their own dialogues. Taking each of their religions as a starting point they pass the time exchanging different observations with which they joke about very finely.

So, My First Wedding works a triple parallelism (the groom, the bride and the priests) and jumps from one to another, to see how Adrián increasingly entangles; how Leonora begins to wonder if she still wants to get marry, and how the two religious men live together without major complaints with the delay in their arrival.

Turning briefly to the failed aspects, it is true that while the issue of the lost ring is good material to exploit, yet it comes a moment when the joke wears out. By the time Adrián and Fede have been long looking for it, and on top of that now they lose the other one, the dilemma of the ring has already expanded too much, making it clear that creativity stagnated there. We must be content with was we see, and therefore this comedy won´t stop being one of the pile.

My rating: 6/10

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"Is a bird, is a plane. No... Is Arthur Christmas"

Title: Arthur Christmas
Year: 2011
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama
Director: Sarah Smith, Barry Cook
Writer: Peter Baynham, Sarah Smith
Runtime: 97min
Cast: James McAvoy,  Jim Broadbent, Billy Nighy, Hugh Laurie
Produc.: Aardman Animations, Sony Pictures Animation
Budget: $100 million approx.

In Arthur Christmas, Santa (Jim Broadbent) and his team of elfs are carrying out the mission of delivering their gifts to the children all over the world, when carelessness leads to an english girl to be about to be the only one who does not receive hers. Realizing this fact, Santa and his son Steve (Hugh Laurie) see it as absolutely impossible, given the lack of time, to do their bit with the child. From that moment it would be up to Arthur (James McAvoy), youngest son of Santa, to make the present reach the girl and prevent her from stop believing in Christmas.

If I am to be honest, I must say that I had no idea of what I would come across. What happens is that if one were to follow all the Christmas movies that are made every year, one would notice that a large majority of these appear to be  the result of the "cut and paste", which leads them to be very boring.

When I heard of its release I immediately arose into two streams of thought, opposite from one another. On one hand I questioned the fact that a producer had decided to launch another Christmasy boredom, probably full of the usual clichés. On the other hand, however, I wonder if maybe in this Arthur Chsirtmas was to be a twist that distinguish it from other films of the same style, and finally I ended up being very pleasant surprised.

In this new cinematic vision of Santa´s activities it does no longer starts from the idea that this chubby and graying-beard guy is an immortal, who for centuries has been devoting to please billions of children worldwide. On the contrary, and as in the rest of us, Santa is part of a family with several generations, and where every so often is emerging a new St. Nicholas.

As we are shown, and given the century we live in, Santa has lately been able to take advantage of the best in high technology to work more quickly, comfortably and safely on board of the magnificent S-1, a sort of spacecraft, easily mistaken for a UFO. At the same time, Santa is accompanied by a team of small, agile elves, who constitute an essential element in each operation.

On the beginning of the film we learn how complex comes to be the working methodology of Santa, whose elves move as if olympic gymnasts, delivering the gifts in the style of Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible. What's more, Santa has an impressive infrastructure worthy of the NASA, from where he is being made a complete and constant, minute by minute tracking of his progress around the planet. In control of this facilities is the unique Steve Christmas, eldest son of Santa, a guy who has seamlessly fulfill his tasks, but who we later learn that lacks of a true notion of what is the meaning of this festivity. Then, on the other side we know Arthur, who receives, responds and manages the millions of letters that come to his father. Arthur, the youngest of the family, we see that is quite clumsy, although he will very soon play a key role in the film, being of the family the one who fits the name better, something of which he will be able to feel proud of.

The problems for Santa will begin when, given a little accident, a gift is moved from its location so that when the gifts are to be delivered, this one (a bike for a girl) goes unnoticed and fails to reach its destination. When the mission is finished and Santa's already gone to sleep, an elf who is taking care of the cleaning runs into it, lost in the dirt, and raises the alarm immediately. At this point, and now with Santa, Steve and Arthur and all the elves aware of the incident, a dispute will arise between whether or not it is possible to deliver this bike, and if for the first time in history will they have to accept that after many missions, the perfect and so meticulously planned roadmap of the Christmas has had a flaw.

The situation here could not have been raised better, where we have on the one hand Santa and Steve, a father and son who want to terminate the mission to go to rest, and who claim that Arthur, who according to them shortly understands the issue, gets that, considering the millions of gifts that are given, a single one that does not reach its destination should not bother him. But to us is much more easier to agree with Arthur, who is the one who really lives the Christmas spirit, and the only one who has had the opportunity to read the letter from Gwen, where the girl was telling Santa that she believed in him. Arthur knows that no child deserves to be left without a present, and that there could be no worst pain than waking up in the morning to see a little girl discovering that her bike is not under the tree.

A worried Arthur ends up talking with Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) on the issue. Grandsanta, one of the most interesting characters of the film, a funny 137 year old, short and stooped man, who uses a cane and a denture. It ends up being very interesting how this man, which none of his relatives would believe, becomes the voice of wisdom and experience, and who guides his grandson on the way to do things as should be done.

Grandsanta will propose Arthur to go out and deliver that last gift, but not in an advanced ship but in a sleigh pulled by reindeers, and although Arthur is not very convinced at first, he ends up giving in, venturing into what will become from now on practically a road movie, played in large extent by them. Along the road to the town of Trelew in England (home of the girl), Arthur and his grandfather will go through a lot of crazy situations, which include having to face a hungry pack of lions (and which´s resolution will be something completely crazy), evading the police, or missing, one by one, each of the reindeers that pull the sled along different scenarios, which will force them to take measures, first absurd, then could be said as "extreme".

As the flick is nearing its final development will be just when Steve and his father come to understand what Arthur meant when he emphasized the importance of every child receiving his gift and no matter the difficulty thatt that could implied.

The intelligence with which the directors have put into images the pose is so outstanding that one could even ask, "Why did I have to grow up and stop believing in Santa?". Out of the many endings, which as I said before, seem things of the "cut and paste", in this case we have a script that uses fresh material and ideas to focus on the meaning of gifts and to discover the magic that comes with that moment when the kid opens the present and smiles.

My rating: 8/10

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"Animated cinema made at home"

Title: Selkirk, el verdadero Robinson Crusoe (Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe)
Year: 2011
Genre: Animation, Adventure
Director: Walter Tournier
Writer: Walter Tournier
Runtime: 80min
Produc.: Maíz Producciones, Patagonik, Cineanimadores, La Suma CineTV, Tournier Animation
Budget: $1,2 million approx.

Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe tells us the story of Alexander Selkirk, who joins Captain Bullock´s crew to embark toward the South Seas in the search of treasures. Finding no enemy threats in the way, the pirates entertain themselves by betting their money and Selkirk himself ends up being the lucky winner of each bet. Thus, no sooner they sight land and descend to stock up, Selkirk is abandoned as a revenge in the solitude of the island while the others take up with the journey.

After many decades filling the movie theaters of our country, either against films such as Peter Pan (1953), The Lion King (1994), Ratatouille (2007) or Puss in Boots (2011), now hits uruguayan theaters what is coming to be our debut in the category of animated feature film, and it could not have started in a worst way.

Walter Tournier, already known for his work on Los Tatitos, has been commissioned to write and direct this project, which I was able to inform myself about, would envolve an investment of something over $1 million dollars. As a curiosity, it is worth mentioning that Selkirk was not to be developed by the more traditional techniques, the hand drawing or the latest digital animation. In the case of this film it would be subject to the called stop motion animation or animation “frame by frame”, where puppets of 20 to 30 centimeters in height, of metallic internal structure and covered in silicon would be handled by different animators, a total of 10 and divided into two shifts, to obtain (based on the rule of 24 frames per second) an average of between 15 and 20 seconds of film per day.

With Selkirk, Tournier brings to the big screen a story inspired by Alexander Selkirk, real character whose circumstances later inspired the english Daniel Defoe to write his acclaimed novel Robinson Crusoe.

To analyze this film is important to be divided into two parts: on the one hand to what concerns to the animation, and the other, to its script. Regarding the first one, I can only say that the performance of all the team bore good fruit, as this production has nothing to envy to the U.S. animations of the same style, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Jim and the Giant Peach (1996) and Corpse Bride (2005). As for the second point, it is due to a very bad scripted, that we must agree as to that the uruguayan animated cinema "has started on the wrong foot."

It turns out that Tournier's script is so very bad, as to probably leading many to want to leave the movie theater after 20 minutes. As we all know, today´s animated films are mainly characterized by its sense of humor that appeals to both children and adults, and the sad truth is that there are count with the fingers the jokes that we can see here. To make matters worse, the dialogue is so flat and lacking of spark that bores at all time, besides being one hundred percent explanatory.

Another quite significant flaw is in the handling of the scenarios, since is much more the time that is devoted to the adventures of Selkirk on the galleon, than what is given later, to the island. This is precisely where it should have been the strengh of the story, as it is the problem of this shipwrecked man that interested us all, and not his social life with the other pirates.

The narrative poverty is also recognizable in terms of the score, in which there is little to actually call "soundtrack", as there are only a couple of little songs with some rhymes, but lacking any possible appeal.

Further more, there was also an element which, by the end of the movie caught my attention. I mention this because it is not a detail that will reveal anything too important on the plot. This happens when, in the end Selkirk is rescued, boards a boat and says something like: "From now on I will not be anymore Selkirk, and I shall be called Robinson Crusoe." It's amazing and unfortunate that the director had made use of a phrase so graceless and fetched, to explain how his character changed his name, as well as completely unnecessary, as the story he invited us to see is the one about Selkirk, not Robinson Crusoe. In short, Selkirk is just a silly little tale without emotion or surprises.

My rating: 2/10

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