Saturday movie marathon.

Last Saturday we crossed the border at 10 am, watched 3 movies in 2 cinemas and got back home at 3 am. Crazy? Yes. Worth it? Mmm... yes.

The movies:
The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo dir. Niels Arden Oplev 2009
OSS 117 Lost in Rio dir. Michel Hazanavicius 2009
The Human Centipede dir. Tom Six 2009

Three very different movies from all around Europe, Sweden, France and the Netherlands respectively. Three different genres, drama, comedy and very twisted horror. One thing in common, Nazi villains (a Nazilike German in Human Centipede).

What does this say? Are we still so obsessed/scared by the horrors of World War II that we have to be reminded of them constantly? Should we?

Truth is, each of the films is successful in what it sets out to do and how they make use of their villains.

I'll be posting on each film individually. (Hopefully soon).

Alice in Burtonland

Two weeks ago I went to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland expecting something I knew I wouldn’t get, mainly a good film. Driven by my undying love for Burton’s Ed Wood and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, I went to the theatre, put on the glasses and hoped for something not so terrible. No such luck.

Being Disney I sure wasn’t expecting a groundbreaking interpretation of Alice but at least, being Burton, I thought it wouldn’t just be a live action version of Disney’s 1951 animated classic. Wrong again.

Tim Burton’s seventh collaboration with Johnny Depp is just that, another collaboration between the two, just for the sake of it (well, for the sake of the money it generates anyway) and not much else.

Linda Woolverton’s screenplay lacks ideas, its greatest twist is making Alice 19, the rest is just a retread of, not Lewis Carroll’s book but Disney’s animated film. Everything we see we have seen before and better, sometimes by Burton himself (Charlie and the chocolate factory) sometimes by others who can actually direct an action sequence, which, as proved in 2001’s Planet of the Apes, Burton can’t do to save his life. Just the slaying of the Jabberwocky sequence was flawlessly executed seven years ago by Peter Jackson, as Eowyn slayed the Nazgul in the climax to Return of the King, without the need of 3D either.

Don’t get me wrong here, I love Tim Burton as much as any Hot-Topic-consuming-teenager, its just that I think his heart wasn’t really in this project. What was the Mad Hatter doing there at the end? A tribute to Michael Jackson? I would rather remember the “tribute” Johnny did when he played Willy Wonka, but that’s just me.

The most memorable moment in the film comes from what seems to be a projection of Tim Burton’s own feelings towards the film. As the Mad Hatter (Depp) works ecstatically on new hat creations he exclaims “I love my job!”, at that moment Alice points out to him that he is really a prisoner working as a slave and not really doing it for pleasure. The realization obviously drives him mad and fills him with rage. Maybe that’s what drove Burton into making such a soulless film in the end (besides the millions he received for it).

See it if you must. I’d rather recommend the rental of one of the dozens of better adaptations available now on dvd, just in time to cash in and ride on the Mad Hatter’s coattails.

Lightning reviews

Some of the films I've seen lately.

Out in theatres

The Ghost dir. Roman Polanski 2010 Flawless.
The Wolfman dir. Joe Johnston 2010 Avoid it.
Alice in Wonderland dir. Tim Burton 2010 If you must...


Blu Ray

Dark City dir. Alex Proyas 1998 Buy it.
Southland Tales dir. Richard Kelly 2006 A must have... if you get Kelly.
The Fountain dir. Darren Aronofsky 2006 A work of art.
Finding Neverland dir. Marc Forster 2004 For the young at heart.
Family Guy Something Something Something Dark Side 2009 Sidesplitting fun.
Justice League Crisis on Two Earths 2010 Could've been better.

As the world crumbles...

Last night 41.3 million people were watching the Oscars in the U.S.A.
Today there were earthquakes in Turkey and Greece, a freak hailstorm in Australia, snow in Barcelona. All of this following the earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Japan and Taiwan. NASA finally admitted that the Earth's axis has shifted. We are witnessing the beginning of the end of the world. It is no surprise that one of the best movies of the year wasn't even aknowledged by the Oscars, John Hillcoat's The Road.

The Road is a post apocalyptic tale, based on Cormac McCarthy's novel, that shows without any fancy special effects the aftermath of a global cataclysm and its effect on the remaining human population. At the core, is the journey of a man and his son trying to find... something and just simply strugling to survive in a hostile environment, trudging through the ruins of a world long gone, now inhabited by scavengers and cannibals. It is not a pretty picture, it is harsh and depressing and the worst thing is that it rings tragically close to what would really happen. The most terrifying aspect is that we are getting closer to the depicted apocalypse with each passing day and that makes us feel uncomfortable. It is so uncomfortable that the Academy decided it was better to erase such a powerful film (and performace by Viggo Mortensen)and pretend it never existed. It's better to celebrate an American soldier in Irak, or to put on a pair of 3D glasses and fly to Pandora, than to think about the impending demise of civilization as we know it and the final descent of humanity happening in a very, very near future.

Once again politics ruled the Oscars.

Obvious win: Kathryn Bigelow (first woman ever to win).

No Oscar for Avatar (cause it was too expensive)good choice.

No Oscar for Inglourious Basterds (it would be a bit of an embarrasment if a mainly jewish community celebrates a revenge fantasy on Hitler).

The rest is all politics too. Precious...

But... Sandra Bullock!!! Come on.

More on this to come. Stay tuned.

button, button...

The Box
Directed by Richard Kelly

Just as (500) Days of Summer was a thinking person’s romantic comedy The Box is a thinking person’s sci-fi/horror film. Richard Kelly, (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales) has proven his ability for serving up cryptic socio political commentary through sci-fi and this is no different than his two previous outings (Donnie Darko and Southland Tales).

This time around Kelly works on the classic short story “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson, which was previously adapted as a Twilight Zone episode. This version is expanded to feature length by the addition of government conspiracies and visitors from outer space. The premise remains the same, a mysterious and disfigured stranger, Arlington Steward (played by Frank Langella), delivers a box with a button on it, to a young married couple in financial distress, Arthur and Norma Lewis (played by James Marsden and Cameron Diaz). If they press the button they will receive a million dollars but someone they don’t know, somewhere, will die.

This simple idea makes us ask the question. What does it mean to know someone? Do we really know anybody?

Needless to say, the button is pushed (by Norma) and with it the plot moves forward. After a couple of weird incidents a la Richard Kelly, Arthur and Norma are confronted with “technology that is indistinguishable from magic” (Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction), their son is kidnapped and the mysterious Arlington Steward returns to offer them a final choice.

Since I do not want to spoil the film for anyone I will stop here.

I am a big fan of both Donnie Darko and Southland Tales and when I first found out that Richard Kelly was going to adapt “Button, Button”, I was a bit disappointed, since this was a tale I already knew and there would really be no mystery involved or cryptic storytelling to look forward to. Fortunately I was wrong, Kelly managed to go behind the button and its raison d’etre, giving us more than we could have asked out of this philosophical conundrum. To push or not to push the button. The answer should be obvious to any decent person but in a way, that is precisely the point of the “test”, as Arlington Steward calls the entire process, to find out who and how many are capable of pushing the button.

Watching the movie, the answer could be taken as misogynistic, since the three times that a button is pushed it is always done by a woman. What does this tell us about our society or about our women? Is this only because the story unfolds in the seventies?

Truth is that The Box leaves us with much to ponder and with a general feeling of uneasiness. During the climax there is a particular unpleasant feeling that seeped to my very core, a feeling rarely evoked by a movie (only Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs comes to mind). It is the realization of just how low humanity can sink and the sadness of knowing that it is all too real and all too common.

The Box is a story about the greed in humanity and what people are capable of doing because of it. In the end it is clear that the choice is ours, and that… gives us hope.

(500)

Yes, I know it has been twelve days since last I wrote, so let’s just get to it.
I promised my ten best of 2009. Alphabetically.

(500) Days of Summer
Directed by Marc Webb

If you read my post about the Spider-Man movie reboot you already know how I feel about this movie. It’s just a perfect portrayal of modern urban romance, the Annie Hall for the new millennium. It packs everything we have all experienced in a relationship (if you are an ultra romantic hipster that is), infatuation, affinity, first date, sex, love, fighting, hating, moping, feeling terrible and moving on. Not in that order mind you and that is one of the things that make the film so special, its non linear narrative, as it jumps back and forth throughout the 500 day duration of Summer and Tom’s relationship.
Zooey Deschanel, the titular Summer, does a great job as the saucer eyed girlfriend that never seems to quite really fall for Tom. In Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Tom we can easily recognize our own romantic fantasies for the perfect girl. Together they make the relationship work (or not)but most importantly, they make it believable.
A highlight of the film is the scene that represents that natural high that comes with falling in love, as Tom walks out of his apartment and breaks out into song and dance as everyone on the street joins him. Is it just me or haven’t we all felt like that once.
My only complaint would be that despite showing Tom’s life and aspirations, Webb never really gives us a glimpse into what makes Summer tick. But after all, we are looking through Tom’s glasses and it seems he was quite nearsighted and possibly just appreciating what he was projecting unto Summer and not much more.

In any case, (500) Days of Summer is a true romantic comedy, one for all those of us who wouldn’t be caught dead watching a romantic comedy.

Oscar time of the year

So the nominees are… ten movies! Yes, we now know the Oscar nominees for 2010 and this year the academy decided to expand the nominations for best picture to ten films.
Avatar, James Cameron’s animated (motion captured) attack against American imperialism.
The Blind Side, the Hallmarkized version of Michael Oher’s and foster mom Leigh Anne Tuohy’s true story.
District 9, an extraterrestrial allegory of apartheid.
An Education, a young girl/older man relationship drama.
The Hurt Locker, Irak through the eye of Kathryn Bigelow.
Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino’s self appointed masterpiece.
Precious, incest, abuse and the chance for a new life.
A Serious Man… faces his own life.
Up, animated life lessons.
Up in the Air, reassessing a controlled life.

So those are the academy’s nominees. I think there where many, much more interesting films out the past year, that also deserve recognition. Here’s my top ten of 2009 (the ones I’ve seen so far) in alphabetical order.

(500) Days of Summer (dir. Marc Webb)
The Box (dir. Richard Kelly)
Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos) (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
District 9 (dir. Neil Blomkamp)
Drag me to Hell (dir. Sam Raimi)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (dir. Wes Anderson)
Inglourious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino)
REC 2 (dir. Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza)
Star Trek (dir. J.J. Abrams)
Whatever Works (dir. Woody Allen)

On my next post I will go into detail on why I picked these films. Stay tuned…

A decade later… are we still living inside The Matrix?

It had been quite a while since the last time I had watched The Matrix trilogy, so I got my hands on a Blu Ray of the first film to rewatch it in high def and enjoy the new video transfer while listening to the commentary by philosophers Dr. Cornel West and Ken Wilber.

When The Matrix originally came out in 1999 I wasn’t really interested in watching it, although I had loved Bound (the Wachowski’s first film) I thought they had sold out when I saw the trailers for The Matrix, as it seemed like another brainless action film starring Keanu Reeves. At the invitation of my yoga teacher, I was surprised by her endorsement and went to see the movie. Needless to say I came out of the cinema astounded, both by the cinematic brilliance and the philosophic depth of the story. This was a game changer, this movie could transform the world. Or so I thought.

As in any experience, I got out as much as I was already taking in. The Matrix was a metaphor for humanity’s pathetic controlled life. We were all living a dream of mediocrity and unhappiness, totally unfulfilled and sedated. At the same time the opportunity of acknowledging the reality of our existence and changing it was within ourselves. If we had woken up from the dream we had a responsibility to ourselves and the world to act on our newfound knowledge and not only transform ourselves and our lives but also to wake up everyone else around us. We had been given power, now, we had to take responsibility.

The recurring religious mythology of a saviour predestined to appear when humanity most needs him, appealed to our intrinsic need of being saved by someone other than ourselves and as an audience we were played like a fiddle. Fortunately the myth was turned on its head when the saviour needs saving and this salvation comes in the form of love (Trinity resuscitates Neo through the power of love).

With its conclusion The Matrix seemed like a perfectly self contained story of black and white, good versus evil, man against machine. The final message, we have the key to our own salvation, we just have to wake up.

Four years later we were offered parts two and three of the trilogy, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. I was excited at the prospect of a new voyage into the Matrix and what it could offer this time around. As the vast majority of moviegoers I was disappointed and I thought this time the Wachoswki’s had really sold out just making sequels to cash in on the enormous success of the original. Oh, was I wrong.

On first release, I saw the sequels as just action spectacles with little of interest regarding philosophy, except for the monologues by the Architect and the Merovingian, which at first, did not make that much sense to me.


Flash forward to 2010. After finally watching The Matrix trilogy as a whole from start to finish I found a new meaning to the entire story and realized that back then I was looking at it through maniqueistic glasses. I just couldn’t accept the fact that the machines were also made of light (as seen in the final sequence of The Matrix Revolutions).

The first Matrix was meant to be a simple introduction to much more complicated themes which were developed throughout Reloaded and Revolutions. The story was not about a messiah. It is a story about humanity and its evolution, about technology and its evolution, about illumination.

The One is not just one person. There are many aspects to the One. There is the dual nature of the One represented by Neo and Trinity, two parts of a whole. There is also the bipolar aspect of the One represented by the relationship between Neo and Agent Smith who somehow are also different sides of a coin. As Neo becomes more divine also Smith becomes more human after Neo enters him. Smith changes and starts multiplying himself just like the virus of humanity he described in the first film, until Neo finally assimilates him and destroys him in the third chapter.

A very important point is the fact that technology is not evil per se. At its inception, technology is not good or evil it is a tool at the hands of humans who are the ones that decide how to use it. As technology comes closer to acting like humans it just strives for survival. The reason why Neo sees that machine city is made of light is precisely because the machines are essentially pure and are following their “nature” as any other entity of creation.

The only possible solution to achieve peace on the three worlds (Zion, Machine City and the Matrix) lies in choice. Choice allows for harmony.

We decide how we want to live our lives. Ultimately there will be humans who will decide to continue living inside the Matrix, thus feeding the machines, which will be peaceful to Zion, which in return will have no reason to destroy the machines. The Matrix will have no need to enforce obedience through agents since the humans living inside have chosen to do it. A perfect system.

It all comes down to choice. We are the masters of our lives. We just have to make the choice.

Late

I’m late, I know. Very late. It was a long weekend (holiday in Mexico) so I was just too lazy and a bit busy. I had to move all the boxes of comic books, dvds and books that were still left at my parent’s place to my apartment before they had the chance to burn them. I also tried to sort out what to sell and what to keep. A lot of comics are going, if someone buys them, that is. On Saturday I met up with the guys who are organizing Com Com, a small comic book convention in Tijuana, to make arrangements for Sadhaka Studio's booth space and conference schedule set up. The event is programmed for early March. I still had the chance to watch a couple of movies each night, which sent me to sleep very, very late. Here’s the list of what I watched: Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Buñuel’s Susana, The Matrix 2 and 3, the Oscar nominated The Blind Side, Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket and Fantastic Mr. Fox (also nominated) and Justice League The New Frontier. I’ll probably be writing about some of them. First up, on my next post, I’ll be delving into my reevaluation of The Matrix trilogy. A look at the Wachowskis' message eleven years after the original release.
Stay tuned…

From bad taste to paradise. Peter Jackson's journey

The long awaited release (it’s been years for me), of Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, has been, like almost every anxiously expected event, disappointing. Why?

Let’s hop on the wayback machine and travel twenty years in the past when the name Peter Jackson meant nothing and most of his current fans weren’t even born yet. By 1990 Jackson had already released two essential movies in the world psychotronic filmography, Bad Taste (1987) and Meet the Feebles (1989). The first, apparently, just a simple exercise in what Jackson called splatstick, a mix of splatter and slapstick, took him four years to complete by shooting it on weekends with his friends as he played two hilariously antagonistic roles (fighting himself to the dead atop a cliff). What seems like an absurd and demented sci-fi comedy, is on one hand, a cinema’s great moments referential fest (covering from Ed Wood to Kubrick) and on the other hand a criticism of imperialism and globalization represented by greedy extraterrestrials that plan to use humanity as the main ingredient for their intergalactic fast food restaurants.

From this first feature Jackson displayed his technical mastery through the movements of his unstoppable camera while establishing some of the recurrent main concerns of his filmography.

For the fans of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, Bad Taste was a delicious treat, sent all the way from New Zealand, which would only be topped by Braindead, Jackson’s planned next film. After not being able to get financial backing, the plan was delayed and the failure spawned a new screenplay full of cynicism and black humor. Meet the Feebles, which could only be described as the Muppets on acid, is a gory romantic comedy starring puppets that murder, take drugs and engage in all kinds of sexual acts, basically a Jackson styled romp.

In 1992 Braindead is released, considered as the apex of splatstick and gore and proudly bearing the world record for most artificial blood ever used in a movie (300 liters). Behind all the blood, zombies and delirious humor the film presents a story of repressed love by a castrating and murdering mother, where liberation is at the hands of a most improbable hero. Braindead is thematically and stylistically essential in Jackson’s career, solidly cementing his signature.

With his fourth film, Heavenly Creatures (1994), Jackson delves into more mature content, creating a veritable masterpiece. Not just anyone can make a poetically romantic vision of forbidden love and a place beyond reality, the fourth world, where anything is possible through imagination, out of a true story of matricide.

That autumn night in 1994, as I walked out of the cinema, I wasn’t just drunk on Jackson’s cinematic achievement I was also completely in love with the discovery of a superb teenage Kate Winslet in her film debut.

The following year, alongside Costa Botes, Jackson shot the hilarious mockumentary, Forgotten Silver (1995), which tells the story of kiwi filmmaking pioneer, Colin Mckenzie, precursor of the greatest achievements in film history. When the movie was aired on New Zealand television a lot of people thought it was a real documentary and felt very proud until they found out the truth and were outraged at the mockery.

Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures had caught Hollywood’s eye and he decided to take advantage of it by selling a screenplay written with his wife for a Tales from Crypt movie
to Universal. Robert Zemeckis decided to produce the script hiring Jackson himself to direct it, who convinced the studio to let him shoot in New Zealand. The Frighteners (1996), speaking as a huge Jackson fan, was a bit of a let down. Despite the huge Hollywood budget and the presence of Michael J. Fox, the final product didn’t work, the mix of supernatural comedy and serial killers didn’t quite gel. What we got to see again, was Jackson’s interest on the themes of homicide, the afterlife and love conquering evil, even beyond death.

It is notable that Jackson, like Hitchcock, has an interest (obsession) for murder and its motivations, entering the minds of killers and telling their side of the story. Curiously, like Hitchcock, Jackson also has cameos in all of his films.

After The Frighteners Jackson was ready to shoot a remake of 1933’s King Kong, the movie that inspired him to become a filmmaker as an eight year old, thanks to its wonderful stop motion animation. Ultimately the production fell through and he decided to focus on his epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

A few years of production and legal battles later, the rings trilogy was released: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and Return of the king (2003). The saga is really a single, twelve hour film (in the complete versions) and that is the way it is meant to be seen, that is also the reason why Jackson received the Academy Award for the final chapter of the trilogy. Not only did Lord of the Rings make Peter Jackson a household name the world over, it also defined him as one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers proving his capability at a scale that very few directors reach in their lives and most importantly doing it all on his own terms by producing and shooting, once again, entirely in New Zealand.

Besides the evident anti imperialist theme already present in Tolkien’s original text, Peter Jackson emphasized the importance of friendship and loyalty between Frodo and Sam once more championing the triumph of love over the dark forces of evil.

In 2005 Jackson closes a circle in his life with his mega budget reinterpretation of King Kong where he gave free reign to all his childhood fantasies about the giant gorilla and the perfect way of reimagining it for the new millennium. In the end the story remains the same as seventy years prior, beauty and the beast and the love that transcends all obstacles but can only end with death.

The recently released The Lovely Bones, based on Alice Sebold’s novel promised a return to Heavenly Creatures’ territory by Jackson, with its similar topics of teenage girls, love and murder. Unfortunately Jackson seems to have lost his touch. Maybe he lost it as he navigated all those sugary digital effects while trying to come up with the perfect way of showing the heaven/limbo that Susie Salmon inhabits. Saorsie Ronan’s portrayal of Susie is without a doubt the best element of the film which is at times an unsettling murder story, a teenage drama, a Hallmark channel movie and a Peter Jackson fantasy that never quite makes up its mind and never quite reaches the evocative moments of the novel nor the flight of a heavenly creature. Nevertheless the movie is not a total disaster but my twenty year old admiration for Peter makes me a harsh judge. There is in the end a sweet flavor that carries over from the original text, the strength of the love between a father and a daughter and the delicate healing that time brings to all wounds.

For the time being Peter has a very busy schedule with the upcoming productions of Tin Tin and his return to middle earth, The Hobbit, directed by Steven Speilberg and Guillermo del Toro respectively.

I am sure he will soon take us on another unforgettable journey. After all, for those who have the key to the fourth world everything is possible.

Spidey's tangled web

A few days ago the announcement was made official, Spider-Man 4 was scrapped, Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire fired. The franchise will be rebooted. Marc Webb will direct.

Let me backtrack a bit. I have been reading comic books since before I can remember and my favorite character since I was six had always been Spider-Man, there’s an everyman quality to the character that makes him immediately relatable and because of this I followed his adventures on and off for decades.
In the late 80’s I discovered Sam Raimi and immediately fell in love with his films, starting with The Evil Dead and never letting go from there.

In 2000 when I first heard he was directing Spider-Man I was ecstatic. I had lived in fear for some years with the rumors of a James Cameron helmed Spidey, played by DiCaprio (thankfully, that never happened).
Finally, in 2002 Sam delivered, with one of the best comic book movies in decades, and though no one can touch Richard Donner’s Superman yet, he came close. One of the most interesting things in Raimi’s Spider-Man 1 and 2 are the similarities they bear with the first two Superman films, some shots are taken straight out of Donner’s films (an obvious homage by Raimi). The storylines are the same, origin, responsibility in the first ones and losing powers/quitting in the second ones. Even the widely panned Spider-Man 3 is a reflection of Superman 3 with its “hero turns bad” storyline (remember the dark, evil Superman?).
Truth is only Sam Raimi had the sheer kinetic energy necessary to pull off a Spider-Man film correctly but there was another essential ingredient to create the perfect Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker. If there was ever someone born to play a part (besides Christopher Reeve) it was Tobey as Spidey.
This perfect mix of director, subject and star gave us two great films and a convoluted though enjoyable third outing. The fourth film would be for Sam Raimi a chance to right all the wrongs brought upon the third movie by studio meddling, he was ready to hold on to the reigns and not let go this time around.
So what happened? Hollywood happened. When Raimi stated his dissatisfaction with the screenplay the problems started. After a series of writing and casting disagreements, in a final show of power by the studio they pulled the plug on the project right from under Raimi’s feet, clearly sending a message to any other rogue directors that might be getting the wrong idea. The message: no matter how big you are or how much money you have made for us we can always replace you. And that’s what they did, shattering the hearts of millions of mouthwatering fanboys who were expecting the best Spidey movie ever, and a return to form by Raimi, as clearly seen in his Drag me to Hell, which, besides being one of the most enjoyable films of 2009, was in itself a way of showing what he can do without studio interference and a fraction of their mega budgets.

The planned reboot which will be directed by the aptly named Marc Webb is supposed to follow the Ultimate Spider-Man (a reboot itself) comic book storyline, meaning, less superheroing and more teen angst. The word gritty has also been thrown around in talks of this new take which makes absolutely no sense, since Webb, I’m assuming, was hired for his excellent and very funny handling of modern romance, (500) Days of Summer, which is very much in tune to Spidey’s original tone.

One thing I can say is I was pleasantly relieved at the news of Webb as director, since the shortlist of possible helmers included James Cameron, David Fincher and Michael effing Bay! So yes, I was quite relieved. I enjoyed (500) Days so much I went to see it twice at the cinema and I can really see how Webb will be able to capture Peter Parker’s mental space on film. What I am skeptical about is the way he will be handling the action and budget but there is always a first time and after his pitch perfect "Summer" he sure deserves the benefit of the doubt. Let’s just hope James Vanderbilt (screenwriter) delivers a decent “non gritty” script.

Well that’s the saga of Spider-Man’s cinematic tangled web so far. Now we’ll just have to wait until 2012 to see the end result and hope for the best.

Though I’m sure he has been told this a million times since he signed up for the reboot
- Marc? Please remember “with great power comes great responsibility”.

Find your passion, find yourself.

Julie & Julia


Directed by Nora Ephron


2009







I wasn't really keen on watching Julie & Julia. So, why did I?
Yesterday was my mother's birthday, she originally wanted to watch the film when it was playing at the cinema but she couldn't catch it. Amongst the gifts I gave her yesterday I included the dvd. After having dinner with both my parents, we decided to cap the celebration by watching the movie at their place.

Julie & Julia is not a particularly exceptional film but it is an inspirational film. Through both of the real stories that make the film you get a joie de vivre vibe. Maybe at first, both Julias, are not really happy with themselves or the way their lives are developing, regardless of the fact that they are both happily married to excellent husbands. What they feel uneasy about is the lack of a personal passion, Julia Child is a regular 1940's housewife, Julie Powell works at a government call center. We see how their stories unfold in a parallel narrative as Julia Child discovers her love for cooking and Julie decides to cook her way through Child's entire cookbook in one year, as she writes about it in her blog.
As usual, Meryl Streep's performance is a delight, she creates an interpretation of a familiar character and makes it her own. While Amy Adams' Julie is charming and easy to identify with. They both portray strong women who become themselves one step at a time, enjoying every single moment of their journey.

Julie & Julia may not be the best film of the year but it is funny, endearing, brimming with love and most importantly it is very inspiring. As proof, this evening, my mother, who is not normally a very animated cook, prepared a delicious potato soup with chiapaneco cheese which was simply irresistible and... credit where credit's due, I decided to start writing this film blog.

My thanks go to Julie, Julia, and Nora.

...and so it begins.

January is almost over but it's still early in the year and it's never too late to start something new. In this case I am starting a new blog... with a purpose. I love films. I could spend an eternity watching films. So I decided I should write about them and about what I love in each and every one of them. Besides, when you write about something, you discover more about the subject and about yourself in the process, so it becomes a journey of self discovery and exploration. Yes, as incredible as it may sound, watching and writing about movies is an adventure into a different world. The fourth world. The world of imagination, creativity and art. That's what all this is about.

Besides the regular blog entries, I will also include here the monthly film column I write for Infobaja magazine, in both the original spanish version and an english translation.

The purpose of the blog? Almost forgot about that. Simply a way of forcing myself to write on a regular basis. How regularly? Everytime I watch a movie, I'll write about it. This means you'll be able to read about recent releases, silent films, classics, animation, euro horror, indies, art films, in short, anything that I'm in the mood for watching any given day.

Maybe my blog won't change the world but if I discover new things about myself as I write, that will surely change me, and when you change yourself you change your world. So... it's a start.

I guess that's all you need to know for now. So sit back and enjoy the show.