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All reviews - Movies (22)

There Will Be Blood review

Posted : 13 years ago on 16 November 2011 06:50 (A review of There Will Be Blood)

In the beggining of the last century,Daniel Plainview looking for silver in the American South.He discovered oil and soon became fabulously rich,and continued to seek new sources of greed in California.
This is with few words the plot of the movie of Paul Thomas Anderson,one the most interesting directors of our days.

And in this movie Anderson reduces the criticism in order to shed light on the results of the influence of power in values โ€‹โ€‹of a man.Anyway through the script and the narration of the story is easy to do comparisons to contemporary life and the the conflicting ideologies of the main characters of the film with contemporary political controversies surrounding the oil and religion.
The script is amazing and the music of Jonny Greenwood too.The music gives a basement,dark and pessimistic atmosphere stripped of every healthy human emotion.
And now few words about Daniel Day Lewis.That he is a very good actor we already know.But in this movie is simply brilliant and amazing.There are no words to describe this performance (one of the best performance in the history of cinema).Creates from the start a character which is ahead of his time based on speech and behavior of the period.Definitelly his best performance.Paul Dano plays the two key men in the life of Plainview,the informant and the pastor,and he is going very well in this difficult double? role.

Brilliant,very smart and effective multi-level script,with a pile variations and meanings.Affect the American dream, capitalism, religion,and the ambition of every man for success,and all the elements that surround our human existence like jealousy,betrayal and revenge.


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The American review

Posted : 13 years, 1 month ago on 9 November 2011 07:47 (A review of The American)

When a mission goes wrong in Sweden,Jack (George Clooney),a professional executioner,will resort to central Italy.There should be organized, without attracting the attention of people who living there,the next job that intends to be his last.But now from hunter has become hunted.As always,alone among strangers who can be trusted,Jack searches for redemption for the acts of a lifetime.Two strangers,however,one priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and a beautiful prostitute,Clara (Violante Placido),are perhaps the only reminder that there may be a way out of his old life.


With George Clooney taciturn and perfect for the role of "American"and pics to bet to the beautiful Italian landscape and to sensual female presences,the movie of Anton Corbin has all the elements that can make managed to initially managed to impress in the beggining.
Adopted slowly rythms and gives,through a subtle threat,underground activity to the film. Uses increasingly panoramic shots and dark colors but the most impressive of all, however, is the place who choose for filming.Italy,transformed in the hands of Corbjin into the ultimate tool to set up the film.The stone buildings,the weather and the feeling of isolation give you the ultimate feeling of constant persecution.
But after the first half,the weak script drop the final result.Yes the script has problems and the final scene i think that is emotionally indifferent.
The performance of George Clooney is very good but as the minutes roll,seems like lose the hypocritical game in some scenes.


With few words a very good film,but needs patience to enjoy it.


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Drive review

Posted : 13 years, 2 months ago on 15 October 2011 01:38 (A review of Drive)

A young man with a passion and natural tendency to cars,boring life,the dark night job,a pretty neighbor,a rival,a 'last trick and a dirty job that goes very, very wrong.
That's the story of Drive.Simply and nothing special.We see it a thousand times in cinema.But we doesn't see it with this way.From the first hypnotic synth notes,the shamelessly 80s opening gredits and an initial scene that introduces us without many words, but with speeds that are breathtaking, the unnamed protagonist-Driver,we understand that this is a film primarily aesthetic . Artfully filmed and with fetishistic devotion to details,the film of Refn is a film that proves that love from a director to the film and his dedication to aesthetic may be flooded images with emotion,even when the story is not something special.

Another great part of the movie is the supporting characters.The sweet neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) with the shy gaze tells everything they don't dare to confuse the two platonic lovers.The ingenious Shannon (Bryan Cranston),boss and mentor of Driver,hiding his dissapointment for the past and the admiration for the Driver in ambiguous smiles.The gangster Nino (Ron Perlman) a scary man but ultimately inadequate for the dirty work.The husband,Standard,who just rellease from the prison and is scared about the last job.And the unscrupulus Bernie (Albert Brooks) who must clean with his 'dirty hands' the bloody carnage.

But the real protagonist is one.And like Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone movies has no name.Is the Driver a guy with unknown past,and a present who is restricted to silence.A lonely character but you feel only with his gaze that he knows much.That he has live very much things,and he has choose to live anonumus,drives the other's lifes.With no name,drives cars as a stunt in movies,drives in races for someone else,is a part of robberies in nights.And for him what left?Only the toothpick and the scorpio jacket and the car who drives very fast.As can you imagine for my words Ryan Gosling is amazing.He plays with silence and gaze and he don't play the bad guy,is the bad guy.Reminds a lot classic characters of the cinema,gives maybe his best performance.

Maybe the best movie of the year?Propably.But definitelly a movie proving that to make a film you need love and passion.


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Scarface (1932) review

Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 10 September 2011 12:14 (A review of Scarface (1932))

Scarface is a stunning and hard,for it's time,movie.Tony Camonte is a gangster who not understand anything beyond violence.The only aim for him is to reach at the top,which is nothing more than than the financial success and only that.
Howard Hawks captures well the thirst for power by Tony,and creating a harsh, pessimistic, bold and pitch-black film, influenced by the era,the economic crash.
The performances are very good. Paul Muni,an excellent actor,gives one of the best performances in history of cinema.Lives the role of Tony Camonte.And the other actors are very good especially Ann Dvorak in the role of Tony's sister.
Scarface is an excellent film noir film with amazing scenes and very good performances.Do you need anything more to watch a movie?


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Persona review

Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 2 September 2011 03:07 (A review of Persona)

Actress Elizabeth Vogkler,married and she has a young son,collapses during a performance of Electra. Then resort to silence and isolation from the rest of the world.The nurse who take care of her,Alma,came to the seaside home of her doctor,to improve conditions for recovery. Although totally opposite characters something weird will be created between two women.

Persona is a word that defined masks, behind which the actors of ancient times. were hiding their faces, to go on stage.
Persona of Bergman is the most personal movie of the legendary director!
Starting the film, says directly to the viewer that he watches a movie and only a movie.The pictures help Begman to that.
In the middle of them,the film is cut off by stating,with this impressive directorial elaborate way,that everything in the movie is variable and fluid, and,so the film itself and generally the movie,is a dream,an image on a screen,confused with reality and especially with the existence of the artist.
The viewer doesn't know and never learns from what he sees is real,what is fiction and what is cinema.
In one of my favorites scenes,Alma describes the horrible feelings of Elizabeth for her child as being the same,while the camera focuses on the face of Elizabeth and in the next scene the dialogue is repeated unchanged,with the camera focus to Alma.Anything is true in this movie in one time can be disproved.
The two characters,Elizabeth and Alma,collide and complement each other,to reach the final,amazing,scene where the exchange personalities crossing their heads.
Now the performances.First of all Liv Ullmann is ,as required,so beautiful and sweet as to be eerie.Gives an excellent performance saying only a word:'nothing'.
Bibi Anderrsonn More human,according to the role and character,and very sexy,gives one of the best performances in the history of cinema.

With a few words Persona could be described as a philosophical essay of the search for identity and the contrast between silence and words, treatment and psychopathy and navigation on the limits of art.
With one word:Masterpiece.


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The Horror...the horror...

Posted : 13 years, 3 months ago on 24 August 2011 12:56 (A review of Apocalypse Now)

Well..what can you write about the best anti-war movie of all time?
First of all the film is a war epic, with a strong antiwar message and sublime scenes. The chaos, misinformation, madness and horror of Vietnam are presented in their entirety over the celluloid. The movie however did not stop there, but slowly turns into a surreal nightmare to study the impact of war on the psychology of every soldier to end up as the ultimate definition of horror.


Captain Willard begins by saying that he tells the story of Vietnam through of his own story.Everyone can say only his own story, which always takes place at a specific time.Well..Who has the knowledge of the whole story to describe it?
Is a modern Odysseus,he passes a series of adventure and remains silent and enigmatic,until he reach his Ithaca,up to atone for what he has lived. Be redeemed or reach its own tipping point and break once and for all?
The screenshots in this impeccable three-hour film intact to the horrors of war, at political, philosophical, and especially in human terms. 'From the fury of the corrupt rulers in power, the merciless slaughter of soldiers who has been participated voluntarely, almost hypnotized,as the internal conflict and dissolution to bring the king of horror.The war is for everyone equally destructive and merciless.


The other big point are the performances.First of all the amazing silently and enigmaticaly Martin Sheen,gives to his character the face of Odysseus.Robert Duvall,an amazing actor in one of his best performances.And the secondary roles,Lawrence Fishburne,Sam Bottoms,Frederic Forrest and Albert Hall,have all a story to tell and show the madnesss of the war.Very good and the "crazy" Dennis Hopper.Everybody lost their mind there.
But the big star is one:Marlon Brando.Horror and madness in this masterpiece have a name and is Colonel Walter E. Kurtz.He has founded a new nation in Cambodia. He has totally lost track of the imperialist image. He has traumatical experiences from the destructives wars.He finds the solution only by himself.This different kind of persona scare both genuine imperial princes and send the captain a secret mission.
The performance of Marlon Brando is brilliantly amazing.You feel scary only by watching him.


It is a long movie..but you have not to be worry because Apocalypse Now is a experience you must live.


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Seconds Apart review

Posted : 13 years, 4 months ago on 15 August 2011 02:07 (A review of Seconds Apart)

First of all "Seconds Apart" has a very good first scene.A scene that you don't forget easily.
A group of dynamic and beautiful athletes of a school sitting at a table drinking beer and making sexual jokes about the girls from the school, while in the next room is one big party.
Suddenly, the jokes go to a game of Russian Roulette ... with hard results.
What would make but a bunch of popular and beautiful students to commit suicide en masse?
Did a couple creepy twins sit in the corner with a camera recording the event?
This movie is not bad.Actually is a decent film with some bad performances and average direction.
The twins Seth and Jonah (Gary and Edmund Entin) have the power to induce others to terrible things to the telepathic ability, only when they are together.


After that scene the film comes to known paths.
A detective (A decent Orlando Jones) who has lost his wife in a fire and then sees nightmares, he realizes that something is wrong with the twins, especially after the suicides continue in school.
Here is my first compain:The nightmares of detective are the same and very average optically.
Also, the story suffers too from its structure.
The first time we have always the same things - the detective suspects the twins deny it, accidents happen again and again the same - and research at birth and the dark background of children and the significant involvement of a girl (Samantha Droke) sandwiched in the final summary half hour.
Finally, I have an objection to the motive of twins, which really never understood.
Despite the negatives, the Seconds Apart has some scenes that will remain (the babysitter say), a careful and interesting script, creepy 'evil' and a very subversive and clever tricks which revealed ...


If it was technically better, maybe talking about a happy surprise however is a decent movie.



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The Godfather: Part II review

Posted : 13 years, 4 months ago on 12 August 2011 04:35 (A review of The Godfather: Part II)

There are no words to describe this movie.Maybe the best movie ever made and definitely the best sequel for a movie.
In the second part of THE GODFATHER Francis Ford Coppola presents two stories simultaneously. Since we have a consolidation of Michael Corleone as a Godfather, leader of Corleone. Trying to overcome the difficulties of enemies in politics and crime, for his work in the gambling, the betrayal in his own environment,and family problems.



On the other hand we see the first year and the rise of Vito Corleone in the throne of the Italian Mafia, the beginning of the village of Corleone in Sicily, his first years in New York and how he became the Godfather.
In both stories we see that the characters they love, betray, and revenge, in a life that makes it increasingly hard.
Again if the first film was amazing, no words to describe this creation of Coppola, where all players give their best to achieve an excellent result.
Al Pacino gives an amazing performance as Michael Corleone.Michael continues to be plagued by personal dilemmas and Pacino, is still able to manage, both emotionally and practically.He have confirmed that is worthy son of his father, however, must give proof, only to have the ability to expand his empire, but he inherited, and he has the strength to support his family without having to mingle with his jobs.
Robert De Niro Vito Corleone?What can you say for this performance?
The fact that De Niro won an oscar speaks for itself. And this, not because he put this prize to collect, but they really deserved it. A performance of robust, integrated,and away from mannerism. A performance of thought, a performance which supports the future character of the hero.
And the big surpise?John Cazale as Fredo Corleone.Simply amazing plays weak and fearless brother of Michael who just want respect.The amazing scene between him and Michael is a lesson to all young actors.



Some years after the "Godfather", Coppola returned to the continuity of history. A continuation of the first equal, a sequel that can not fail to enchant and not cripple even the most discerning viewer. Traveling through space and time, while playing with shadows and memories of the past and images of this creates an atmospheric gangster drama characters. Two unrelated stories, however, seem to have a common axis that leads them, despite the gap of years that separates them. All this is complemented by, once again, powerful interpretations of major actors, great men.


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'It would make a stone cry'

Posted : 13 years, 7 months ago on 15 May 2011 01:02 (A review of Make Way for Tomorrow (1937))

'It would make a stone cry' said Orson Welles and was right about Leo McCarey film.
Make Way For Tomorrow,showed a couple talks about losing his house by the bank because don't have resources to repay it and they call the 5 children to inform them of the problem.Unable to host both of them,suggest and virtually force them to live in different homes and cities.The couple separated out and knows the non-acceptance of his children, who more than take care of their own, looking for ways and excuses to get rid of them.However, the communication between them keep their power and given an appointment after months of reminding them of the happiest days of their lives.
The management of the material is great,the comments on other aspects of American society while not missing dialogues and especially the sight of actors often create strong emotional charge.Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi are great, playing simple,without extremes in order to present the more accessible and real characters in public.McCarey fought and succeeded to keep the end as he wanted, without fake happy end, but holds an almost magical atmosphere in the last 20 minutes showing a New York unrealistic friendly to old couple to ease the pain caused by the distance between them.
And the final scene?Just amazing with excellent dialogues and Orson Welles says it all.
Leo McCarey used to say until his death in 1969,that it was the best and most beloved film.I totally agree!!!!


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Taxi Driver review

Posted : 13 years, 8 months ago on 5 April 2011 11:27 (A review of Taxi Driver)

The 'Taxi Driver' is one of the movies that are unforgettable and this is due to unique interpretations of the actors (especially Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster, who won her first Oscar nomination for 'B ACTRESS once in the 13's) but also in fact that so much identified with the protagonist, who experiences the situations facing them. An injustice by an underclass movie director's (Martin Scorcese), Oscar nominated for four but did not win.Regarded as one of the major films of the 70.


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