Every once in a while my daughters and I sit down for an art session, they draw, paint and color. I typically sketch. So…here is the product of today’s session. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge!

-Fco.

Director: Neill Blomkamp
Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure/Action
Year: 2009

I consider myself lucky to have been one of the few people that got to see the world premiere of this particular movie at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, it has given me the opportunity to post a review for this particular film a good two weeks before the film is actually released. I will also disclose that I will try to be a bit more careful with the plot discussion, given that it was asked by the director (Neill Blomkamp) and the producer (Peter Jackson), when they introduced it that no major plot points be revealed in order to keep the mystery about the movie under wraps a bit longer. I am not one to spoil a movie, so the danger of me doing that would have been small, with a good movie, the danger of that is even smaller. Sunshine, another movie that I put in this category is a prime example.

Right off the bat, I must say that I was extremely impressed with this film, particularly going in with very little knowledge as to the full plot and knowing that this was the work of a first time director who was slated to direct Halo (a project that never came to fruition). With all due respect, neither of those points inspired confidence on me. The two things this particular film had going for it was the backing of Jackson as a producer and the trailers which, regardless of my hesitation, were hooking me. In the end, the pay off was very much above the bar I had originally set myself.

Without ruining the plot of the film for you, I will give you a brief synopsis. Thirty years ago, aliens arrived on earth, not over New York, or some other great North American city, but rather over Johannesburg. There, suffering apparent technical malfunctions, the ship stayed and the attack we humans feared never really took form, instead what we seemed to gain was a wave of alien refugees which where taken in and later moved off to a sectioned off area of the city dubbed District 9. But with mistrust over the alien race and growing numbers in population, Multi-National United (MNU), the company in charge of the aliens well being, decides to relocate the aliens into a concentration camp, even if they try to paint it in brighter colors.

Bringing illegal alien issues, quite literally, to the table, this movie carries a bit of social commentary in its subtext even while providing a thoroughly enjoyable film on the surface, full of thrill, intrigue and ultimately action. Breaking form with the typical Hollywood movie, this film uses its lower budget to its advantage, delivering a fast paced, documentary formatted film. Its quick editing and rapid delivery leaves very little room for breath off the start and never quite slows down. There is great usage of special effects and humor, but it is the acting of the Sharlto Copley’s portrayal of Wikus Van De Merwe that truly seals the deal.

With one of the coolest mech battle scenes I have ever seen, great creature design and effects, District 9 hands down is one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies and I highly recommend that come opening day, you rush out to see this film, you definitely will not regret it.

Rating:
Comments: Violence, some language, disturbing imagery and adult situations…all of them presented to you in incredibly believable ways.

Director: Sam Mendes
Genre: Drama
Year: 2008

Right off the top of my head I would say this was one of the best films of 2008 and it goes to explain the number of nominations and awards it received, though disappointingly, that list does not include Best Picture. Given that the field was five and and that I have not watched every nominated film yet, it would be unfair of me to make any criticism on the matter, save for the fact that I did see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and I do think this film is better than that one.

In any case, you are now looking at a very powerful drama directed by Sam Mendes (Jarhead, American Beauty) and with moving performances delivered by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in one of their best roles to date. While less shocking in content, than Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, Revolutionary Road does carry with it a terrible amount of depression, melancholy and emotion in the way it paints the Wheeler’s marriage, which is realistically troubled and sadly headed on a downward spiral when their one aspiration, their one balloon of hope is shot down by unexpected circumstances. Plans fall apart, dreams shatter and the resentment on the part of both Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio; Body of Lies, The Departed), a thirty something stuck working the run of the mill job – struggling to find significance in life – and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet; The Reader, Little Children) a beautiful but unfulfilled housewife with a less than significant career as an amateur actress and ever increasing feelings of entrapment.

Set in the 1950′s before globalization took hold and when there was an unspoken ritual to how things are done, the Wheeler’s marriage is displayed with frank openness, at its worst moments and some tender moments in between. Its fantastic art direction and set design allow for the viewer to submerge into the role and the script and directing further enhance that with numerous details that are not important in and of themselves, but which serve to subtly create a story which becomes easy to relate to, for better or worse.

Living the life in a good neighborhood, with a good – if less than fulfilling – job and going about their existence matching the common expectations, the Wheelers are looked upon as the perfect couple by everyone around them, from their neighbors to their real estate agents. Behind closed doors however we are given a much more intimate view at the turmoils that brew, so intimate in fact that even their family appears segmented. They have children, the Wheelers, and they are an important factor in this film, but it is intriguing that though one of the catalysts to this film’s apogee, the children are rarely show on screen. There is no doubt that the focus is on Frank and April and most of what we see is shown through their eyes.

The secondary cast, however, is not to be under appreciated, regardless of the small amount of screen time they might have received. Kathy Bates (The Golden Compass, Love Liza), as Mrs. Helen Givings brings to the screen her most significant role in years, portraying a real estate agent responsible for bringing the Wheelers to the house on Revolutionary Road, from which the film gets its name. Bates plays an unforgettable woman with her own nuances and which represents that average of life in the 1950′s, only to be overshadowed by the performance of Michael Shannon (Before the Devil Knows You are Dead, Lucky You) as John Givings, her middle age son recently committed to an asylum after a break down. Bringing a poignancy and absolute honesty to his character, Shannon’s character shines in the few scenes he gets, ironically as the seemingly most sane person in this story and the one with most apparent clarity, however uncouth he might be in the delivery of his opinions.

With a great cast, an amazing script, one of the best contemporary directors, technically superior cinematography, detailed art direction and set design, this movie is nearly perfect if it were not so damned depressing. This is coming from me, who has been able to stomach multiple viewings of Requiem for Dream. The difference being that while drugs are perhaps to the most of us a problem at arms reach, the issues that boil so explosively in Revolutionary Road, are issues that might be too close to home, issues that likely every married person must at some point deal with and as such, this this quickly becomes an unnerving film which might lose some viewership and appreciation due to its open dissection of the American family as it was in our recent past.

Rating:
Comments: Make room for rating movement on this one, the emotional coaster it rides could easily decrease a star for the average viewer, replay value is also likely to affect rating, so a 4/5 star rating is completely understandable depending on your point of view. Also expect heated arguments, some language, powerful moments, some sexuality and very adult situations.
Quote: April Wheeler: No one forgets the truth, Frank, they just get better at lying.

Director: Cédric Klapish
Genre: Drama/Romance/Comedy
Year: 2005

Few are the films that match or improve on the first installment. By nature, it would seem, sequels are destined to suck, with a few notable exceptions. Oftentimes the trap is to use the formula for the original film, change a few aspects here and there, add more drama and call it a sequel. The problem with that – one of them anyway – is that nobody wants to see the same thing twice with the names and faces changed.

The Spanish Apartment is the original film (click here for review) and for all intents and purposes a twenty-something’s film about entering adulthood and finding your path in life among a myriad of foreigners. The sequel does not take us back to the apartment, but does use a number of the same actors returning to the same role but nearly a decade later. People have moved on with their life and are trying to make something of themselves, balancing their own issues and troubles in life and trying to find gratification in the process.

Xavier (Romain Duris; Dans Paris, L’auberge Espagnole), who gave up on the chase for a job in economics, opted instead to go ahead as a writer. His success, however, is heavily tainted by the fact that his “L’auberge Espagnole” novel has not yet been published and all the work he seems to find at the moment is ghostwriting and pleasing the execs with cliche screenplays for made for TV movies. Everybody in his life, it would seem, is willing to remind him that he is being half-ass about things. His housing situation is also seen better days, something which lands him rooming with Isabelle (Cécile De France; Un Secret) who like Xavi, is having relationship problems. It would seem, Xavier is long overdue to try to bring some order to his life, wooing new flames, dealing with old ones, (namely Martine – Audrey Tautou; Amélie, Dirty Pretty Things) and uncertain ones in the form of Wendy (Kelly Reilly; The Libertine, Pride & Prejudice), a former room mate at the Spanish apartment, who is now also a writer and facing her own turbulence in life.

So, take the fractured lives of these people and bring them all to culmination at the unexpected wedding of William (Kevin Bishop), Wendy’s younger brother to a Russian ballerina, to which they are all invited, bringing together once again the entire group of former friends, along with all their baggage.

If the first movie was a film made for twenty-somethings, this film is most definitely aimed at the thirty-something crowd and it hits the mark with fabulous results, both comic, touching and frustrating. It would seem the writer has grown up along with his characters and payed closed attention to the tribulations that life seems to bring when the responsibility level is kicked up a notch.

It helps that the characters are no longer new, we have their background, we know their story, we already relate to them, so that in this film we can simply hit the ground running and as a result we get something that is more complicated than the first, contextually and literally. Take the editing, for example, which was often broken up in the first but elevated on this second installment and curiously the title of the film is applied not only to its theme, but also to the way the story is put together, making for a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle that is a thrill to see put together at the end.

Stringing together ‘yay’ moments and ‘hell no!’ moments and ‘wtf’ moments along with a clever script and witty dialogue, Russian Dolls is a fulfilling flick that will have you laughing, frowning and cheering in turns as you see these characters develop very much in realistic fashion.

Rating:
Comments: Brief nudity, some language in multiple foreign languages and subtitled into English. Some brief sexual content, adult situations and drug usage. I also must say, it is crazy how much hair makes a difference in a girl, Wendy looks a lot hotter in this film thanks to her hair. Isabelle looks unfortunately less so, also due to her hair.
Quote: Xavier: What’s all this shit about love? How do we get so nuts? The time we waste! When you’re alone, you cry, “Will I find her?” When you’re not- “Does she love me as much as I love her?” “Can we love more than one person in a lifetime?” Why do we split up? All these fucking questions! You can’t say we’re uninformed. We read love stories, fairy tales, novels. We watch movies. Love, love, love…!
Isabelle: You could just call her back

For the next few days you might notice that the site is a bit off and costantly changing, I am updating to a different theme and changing options. I will try to make the process as quickly as I can so please bear with me. If there are any concerns, questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you for your patiece!

-Fco

Regardless of your stance on God, it is undeniable that these houses of worship are downright amazing. For some Architectural candy, click on the link below and be sure to click on the gallery of ‘related images’ on the right to see all fourteen, mind-blowing pictures.

Architectural miracles – Beautifully intimidating houses of God by Christoph Morlinghaus – Lifelounge – Daily Goodness.

-Fco.

Song of the Day: “Varka Sto Yalo” by Karl Zero

High Tension

Director: Alexandre Aja
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Year: 2003

For starters, allow me to say that you should not watch this movie while eating cold pizza. Or eating anything for that matter…not very conducive to the appetite. Really.

With that out of the way, I should also disclose that slasher films are not my favorite, not necessarily because I can not stomach them (I have seen things in film that can be pretty damned disturbing), but because most of the time, slasher films rely on their ultra-violence for shock value and little else. I am willing to accept there is a place for this type of film and that they do have their own cult following, which means that somebody out there is actually going to like this film. Not me though.

It does not start off too bad, honestly, setting the story at a remote location in rural France where two young college girls, Marie (Cecile de France; The Spanish Apartment) and Alex (Maïwenn Le Besco; The Fifth Element), are heading to take some time away from the busy urban life to focus on their studies. They are welcomed by Alex’s family in the middle of the night, out in a farm that is too far from neighbors, let alone civilization. That is when things go wrong, unexpectedly an uninvited guest makes his presence known in a most gruesome fashion and proceeds to eliminate the family members one, by one, unaware that Marie has alluded him. When the shock sets in and Marie gains the upper hand over her role of victim, she opts to go after her tormentor with a vengance.

Trailing from one senseless moment of violence to the next, failing to truly capture the power of an implied moment and instead giving us the gory details that are less than believable due to make up that comes close but fails to convince. The film gets off to a rocky start, but soon hits an interesting pace when there are ultimately three characters left and the story becomes a captivating game of cat and mouse. Suddenly, it would seem, this film finds its self and it goes from becoming a simple slasher story into an actually intriguing thriller that uses Cecile de France to great merit, making of her a believable heroine, both beautiful and powerful at once, capable of standing her own, believably. As the murders come to a crawl and the film develops into this suspenseful tale it nearly redeems itself…that is until you hit that ridiculous twist that makes Shyamalan look coherent. Everything falls apart.

In an effort to not ruin the film for those that might actually get something out of this, I will simply say that the trick this film employs is not only preposterous and impossible but down right insulting to the audience, expecting it to believe the unbelievable. We are unavoidably, completely manipulated and forced to accept a film that after this development fails to work no matter which way you cut it and it continues to surprise me that films this poorly written continue to make the circuit. That nobody in the production team realized this ending did not work in the least surprises me, and does speak volumes about the sorry state this genre happens to currently be in. I do not recommend this film at all, with a slow start and awful ending, the thrilling middle part is not worth your time or money.

Rating:
Comments: Expect some extreme violence and brief nudity. French language with English subtitles, though you also have the option of watching it with some pretty awful English dubbing (which in retrospect might make the movie more entertaining).
Quote: Alexia: The problem is, he’s got a girlfriend he doesn’t want to split up with.
Marie: Why are you so interested, then?
Alexia: Someone who’s taken must be worth it. I’m skeptical of single guys.

Song of the day: “SFM” by Basement Jaxx

Look

Director: Adam Rifkin
Genre: Drama
Year: 2007

This movie is like that dessert you had all the right ingredients for but either you put too much of it, or too little and by the time you take it out of the oven and bite into it, you are no longer so thrilled. It looks good, but does not quite taste as good as it promises to be. The concept here is ripe, honestly, the paranoia is already out there with all the video cameras installed for ‘our security’. It is not entirely a stretch to think one can put together a whole film consisting only of footage that is already out there and shot. Does that sound like an awesome idea? Hells yes it does. Does it pan out that way? Not exactly.

Look is a film comprised entirely of ‘found footage’, the stories of a handful of people as they go about their lives told entirely through surveillance cameras. At the gas station, at school, at the store, in the parking lot…a ton of work went into making these visuals convincing, which is nice. At the center of the film are a teacher with aspirations, a teenage student with raging hormones, a store manager with no limits, an insurance worker who is the constant butt of practical jokes, a lawyer with a secret, a fame-aspiring gas station clerk and a couple of outlaws on the run. While they might seem haphazardly thrown together into this film, they do come together to make a more cohesive story by the time the film is over.

The concept is arresting at times, which is good…or would have been good if they had taken the extra amount of time and done the detail work that would seal this off. For starters, if the concept of your movie is that all of this is witnessed by the unmanned cameras, the ever seeing eyes…then make it so. Sure, it is understandable that perhaps a security person would be moving the cameras around, zooming them in and out on particular people, but not in the way this film often employs. The fact that they zoom in to a character in order to tell you to pay attention to a particular character is not only against the set rules they established for themselves, it also assumes the audience is not smart enough to follow the plot. Which might explain why so many of their shots are well framed, where in all honesty, a lot of the action would not be so well centered. On the plus side, they do take some effort to make the views of certain cameras look off, blurry, doubled or staticky…which really makes me wish they had finished with the eye for detail that they started with.

If the aforementioned issue seems a bit nit-picky, the fact that the acting falls sub-par most of the time is not. At the very least, give us subjects that can pretend they are not on video and not reciting off a script, which by the way, needed a few more read-throughs before getting the green light. Because this voyeuristic style of film making requires at the absolute minimum, a cast that can pretend to be real. Not to say the acting is terrible all around, there are a few that pull their weight with little stumbles, but in general, you are always reminded this is only a movie.

Then there is the audio issue, which bothers me a bit. Throughout this film there is near perfect audio, which we all know would be impossible given the way the footage is captured, particularly when most of those cameras used are not necessarily outfitted with microphones. Assuming that they were, the audio would realistically be all over the place. While that might make for a schizophrenic film, I also think it would be more realistic, if it had been tweaked just enough to make it understandable, dirty enough to make it real and toss in some subtitles here and there to help the audience out (as an editor’s note sort of deal). As it is, the audio is fine which does make for an easier viewing, so in a sense we can give them that, but once again it contradicts the essential set up of the movie.

So what you have in one hand is a less than stellar cast paired with too-pointed storytelling and on the other hand a really interesting concept, some powerful moments, and of course given the subject, you know there will also be gratuitous nudity and sex. There is enough thrill, humor, eroticism, and drama to keep your interest, though at time it will feel heavily scripted and formulaic. It might give some fodder for conversation but in the end you must weight the two sides and determine yourself if this is a film worth watching. It is not terrible, it is not great, it is something interesting to watch but it will not likely be that memorable film that will come back to you when recommending films to a friend.

Rating:
Notes: Some strong language, quite a bit of nudity and sexual content, some violence and drug use, but also a fair share of funny moments.

Song of the day: “Ready or Not” by The Fugees

Special

Director: Hal Haberman, Jeremy Passmore
Genre: Drama
Year: 2006

There is nothing wrong with Les (Michael Rapaport; Hitch, 29 Palms). Sure he lives alone well into his thirties and seems to have no real relationships, unless you want to count his friendship with the two brothers at the comic book store. He has a job in parking enforcement – nothing to howl about, but it could be a lot worse. And while he might have a bit of an issue socially, he is not so completely out there that one could label him a freak. All things considered, the guy simply…is.

When Les goes to check out the trials for Special, a new pharmaceutical in the testing stages, he wants to be a part of that trial, not so much out of need but a desire for improvement. This drug, they say, is supposed to elevate your confidence, give you that one boost that you are going to need to succeed, and the drug promises to be a big hit, if it can pass its clinical trial.

The instructions are simple enough: one pill a day. Done.

So Les takes it, initially feeling nothing, and then…he begins to feel Special, the first signs of which making themselves known when he finds himself levitating over his couch. Soon enough, he can also read people’s thoughts and run through walls, he has become a super hero!

Except he hasn’t.

Turns out the drug has had an adverse reaction on him and it has fooled his brain into making him feel super human. The doctor tries to explain this to him but…you try convincing a super hero to give up his powers. Needless to say, Les goes on to make his outfit and save mankind from the clutches of evil, even if half of the evil is really in his head and the way he goes about ‘helping’ is largely a fantasy. Blurring the lines of reality, uncertain of what is and isn’t, Les if suddenly lost in a world where he is no longer exactly sure of what is real and what is not, leading to a story that is both comical and tragic at the same time.

Let it be said that Michael Rapaport is special indeed. He single-handedly carries this film on his back with the best performance I have ever seen him give and when his support cast stumbles or flounders, he is there to more than pick up the slack. Shot in with what seems to be a low budget and with directing that tried to hit the mark and was just a little off, it really comes down to Rapaport and the really intriguing concept to make this film still very likable and thought provoking.

Touching into matters that most superhero films do not get into, this time around we can see the human side to it, the difficult side to it, the painful side to it, even if it is a fantasy for a man that has lost all touch with reality. It also explores relationships, over-medication and the role of pharmaceutical companies in society and the way they operate. Even if a lot of the cast feels like the B-list actors that they are, Rapaport makes this film very much worth your while and you might decide in the end this is not worth the purchase, but I doubt you will decide it was not worth the watch.

Rating:
Comments: Strong language and brief violence, mostly kept light save for a final confrontational scene which does have a number of ‘wince’ moments.
Quote: Les: The truth is, with so many billions and billions of people on the planet, most of us can’t be unique or important in any meaningful way.

Song of the Day: “blood red blood” by Good Luck at the Gunfight

Goya’s Ghosts

Director: Milos Forman
Genre: Drama
Year: 2006

The movie is called, Goya’s Ghosts….not Francisco Goya. This is important because you do not want to walk into this movie like I did, expecting the story about Francisco Goya and instead getting the story of other people who are unfortunately less interesting and incredibly tormented. Perspective, in this matter, can make a big difference on your view of this movie.

Set in 1792, during the years of the Spanish inquisition, we are introduced to young Ines (Natalie Portman; V for Vendetta, The Other Boleyn Girl), Francisco Goya’s (Stellan Skarsgård; Angels & Demons, Mama Mia!) muse and friend, who is erroneously labeled by the Church’s watchdogs as a heretic. Their proof? She failed to eat pork, which ‘clearly’ signified that she was practicing the Jewish ways of her ancestors. In speedy fury, the church summons the girl to the Holy Office and has her arrested and put to “the question”.

“The question” – in the context of this movie – is the stripping and cuffing of your hands behind your back, then your bindings are attached to a rope overhead and your are lifted in that fashion while you are questioned about your heretic ways, to which of course any person will confess in order to avoid the pain. For this reason, Ines confesses to being that which she is accused of, a move that prompts her father to take action in order to rescue her.

Pessimism is the cloud that lingers over this film from beginning to end. The Church is depicted for the worst of its actions, painted in extremely cruel, hypocritical and radically extremist in its conservative values. The Spanish nation as a whole is shown as power hungry and arrogant, on the part of the bourgeois and mindless on the part of the commoners that buy into the mass mentality. The French as shown as liberators that topple one evil and bring their own, in the form of pillage, rape and unrestrained authority in the name of liberty. The British as shown as rescuers from the French but no better than their predecessors, claiming women like property and taking over the land like any imperialist nation. All of this has an element of truth in it, no doubt, but it has been done so thoroughly and without balance that it almost seems shocking for the sake of being shocking. Aside from Goya and Ines, there is not a single likable character here, even those whose actions we can understand opt to use questionable measures of vengeance (however clever it might have been) and Goya himself is not always shown in the best of light either.

That there is not a single merciful priest, or intelligent Spanish aristocrat, or a truly logical Frenchman, or a righteous Englishman begins to show the level of one-sidedness that this film took. This, however, brings us back to the issue of the title, which is, once again, Goya’s Ghosts. Further consideration of this two words utilized, beg for the opportunity to further examine what the director might have had in mind. Anybody who is familiar with Goya’s prints is likely aware of the romantic, tragic, often disturbing works the artist created. Pain, anguish and human discord are topics that are shown throughout his works, etched darkly on the suffering faces of his subjects. If the artist saw his world for the pain that surrounded him, for the atrocities committed around him, for the injustices that seemed to prevail society…then we have some sort of justification for a film that is this extreme in its content. Given that argument, I am more willing to accept it for what it is.

Tragic to the very end, this film is interesting in the way it collects the worst of people and puts them all together in a semi-jumbled manner which is not great, but not horrible either. There is – it must be said – a powerful set of performances by both Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem as Father Lorenzo to give this film a bit of artistic leverage that can definitely be appreciated. A viewer that goes in knowing they are watching a skewed work of fiction can appreciate the message for what it is and learn to balance it with reality on their own. Those who do not, might end up being somewhat misguided in the information they take out of this.

Rating:
Comment: Brief nudity, mild language, torture scenes and graphic imagery. Adult content, for sure.
Quote: Goya: I am painter to the king!
Asylum Director: So what, I have three Napoleon Bonapartes in here, and two of them are Arabs.