Reviews
Aída (2005)
Insulting
For most people, fiction, in any form, is a way of scaping reality. When doing this we tend to prefer scaping upwards, to the unknown and more 'elevated'. There is, however, a tendency in Spanish cinema and series of portraying the daily routine of the 'popular' class (understanding popular as tacky, loud and uneducated people) and doing it again and again. Thus, Antonio Resines is not unemployed, shows like "Manolo y Benito" exist and "Manolito gafotas" is a film.
Aida is the quintessence of this kind of production. A bunch of stereotypes are clumsily put together and told to act in an histrionic and contrived way. How people find this funny remains a mystery to me. Is the audience laughing at the caricatures of the low-class? Are they better?
The concept and production of this thing annoy me beyond limits. It has already been sued for its degradation of midgets, hopefully more protests will follow. Hopefully, too, the show will be canceled soon.
7 vidas (1999)
Unfunny and eventually tedious
The show clearly started as a vile 'Friends' copy, whoever denies this should pay more attention, some plots and scenes weren't changed at all. But the 'Friends's stage only lasted a couple of years, the post-coma plot disappeared and the series became a standard comedic show. Once there it became repetitive and bland. The kind of humour in this show was formulaic and predictable, just awful. A short conversation always preceded the punchline read by an angry character to the 'dumb' one followed by the canned laughter. Later, they included political jokes, giving a 'political' dimension to some characters, this was, in my view, a mistake.
The cast significantly changed throughout the years, and not for the better. I deeply respect Javier Camera and Amparo Baró's performances but I can't say the same about the rest of the cast. People like Eva Santolaria, Guillermo Toledo or Santi Millán should be kept miles away from a camera.
The success of the show can only be explained with the lack of competition and the abyssal level of Spanish TV.
Angel-A (2005)
Visually impressive but still pretty bad.
This film is basically a bad idea, you keep wondering whether there's some kind of message or anything behind the obvious, but no, there isn't. It's simply the story of a man who is helped by a cheeky angel when he is in plights. He spends most of the time meeting national-stereotype secondary characters all over Paris without doing anything worth telling in a film. American citizen? Quite implausible and the USA embassy passage was probably the most unnecessary part of the film. I have enjoyed other Debbouze's works but here he just isn't the right actor, I disliked him and the character he performs intensely. Avoid.
Caché (2005)
Negative review.
Normally, when a film doesn't offer anything the spectators will leave the cinema after a while. This one should be given an award for being capable of keeping you watching to the end, waiting for something that never happens. I suppose most were scared of seeming ignorant to the eyes of others ("He didn't get it!") and so do a lot of people when rating this film.
The Algerians/suburbs/childhood-trauma guilt topic is not enough to hold this film and the attempt of thrilling atmosphere is a complete failure. The acting is mostly bad and the slowness and length of this film can by no means be justified.
Stoned (2005)
Bland and predictable
After watching the film I really don't think the history told here was worth making a film, very few things happen and all of them can be deduced or were told in the trailer! The only reason of this film seems to be the fact that he once had been a Rolling Stone. It's quite difficult to like the protagonist, in fact I found myself hating him and sympathizing with Frank. The decadence of this character is just predictable and his "phases" shown during the film as scenes are too obvious and predictable from certain point of the film. The montages with the young Rolling Stones, the 60's ambientation and all that is quite well done, although some scenes with the band look so artificial that are impossible to believe. Quite an unnecessary film that can be ignored.
Gonggongui jeog 2 (2005)
Hilarious
This movie is a very stereotypical police-gangster movie ambient ed in South-Korea. The characters act so childishly and everything is so simplistic that you can hardly believe it when you are watching it. When the protagonist is being "funny" he is just painful to watch. The rhythm is very, very slow, almost like a TV series and with few if any ellipsis. That's what makes the movie so incredibly LONG, I spent 2 and a half hours watching Koreans making bad jokes, many people in my screen didn't stand it all. The patriotic part when the protagonist says how proud he is his national team reached the semifinals in the world cup is shameful. I expected to see some martial arts but besides the spectacular beginning there's very little of it. Is not the kind of movie you hate, but, seriously, avoid it.
Broken Flowers (2005)
Enough!
Another movie with Bill Murray, very few dialogs and visual and simple humor. I really liked "Rushmore" and "Lost in translation" but this time it's too obvious, they just applied the old formula to get an easy success. There's a total lack of freshness in the jokes, everything's too contrived, not as in the previously mentioned two films. You can almost predict the jokes and, really, they are not so funny. Anyway the movie has more than just humor, some characters and situations are quite good. The idea of revisiting the past of this "Don Juan"(!?!) is interesting and even if the ending leaves you a little confused the final sensation is not bad. The movie keeps the interest and is quite regular along its 106 minutes.
Elizabethtown (2005)
Watchable first 1/3 and painful rest.
I really don't know why they decided to make this a 2 hours movie, some LONG scenes are totally unnecessary. But the terrible part of this movie was without a doubt the final ceremony ... Any movie with that part in it would be awful and the rest of this movie is not much better, Susan Sarandon killed her career there. The beginning of the movie has a few entertaining moments but it soon becomes hell. The Dunst/Bloom couple is not as bad as it could probably be, even if the dialogs are quite unreal and not too witty. Bloom is not very good, when he loses trying to find Elizabethtown and freaks out in his car or when he cries in his "spiritual journey" clearly reveals his bad acting skills. And, well, not being citizen of the USA is quite difficult to appreciate many of the references contained in the movie.. Better avoided.
Los Serrano (2003)
Am I the only sane person remaining?
When this show started it had quite a simple idea: the possible love story between a boy and girl who become brother and sister after their parents get married. Once the first season was over they were completely out of ideas and they just kept making chapters with the minimum effort required and putting whatever was necessary to keep up the share rate, usually sexual topics. The female main character's (eva) quasy-nudity became common and every possible morbid issue was treated in the worst way possible. They also simplified the plot making all the chapters almost identical: There's some kind of misunderstanding (usually the men are the ones who are wrong, because in this show heterosexual men are just totally irrational and simple beings who are always horny) where something terrible is suspected, finally women show them how things really are. Fran Perea's contribution is hard to forget: he can't sing nor act and he's not attractive but somehow he managed to make people forget those facts. Antonio Resines' performance is exactly the same that he always does in every show. This show has been used to launch Perea's and the children's musical career, being both suffered nowadays. 0 out of 1348
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Very entertaining
This movie manages to keep the wonderful charm of these two lovely characters while developing a entertaining and funny story. However the last 15/10 minutes almost spoil the whole movie, those frantic chasings with fast movements and succession of gags one after another to give that "final fireworks" impression is commonly used in other animation movies but it doesn't fit in this one. The plot keeps you really interested during all the movie and the output is quite unexpected. The effects are amazing, it's hard to believe they made it all with their hands (in some parts you can see the fingerprints in Wallace's mouth!). A shorter length would have benefited this film, specially cutting some of the final parts.
Corpse Bride (2005)
What is this movie exactly?
First of all I have to say I didn't dislike this movie, it just left me with a strange sensation of not knowing what I had seen and that I didn't find it funny in any way. It's not a movie for children at all, some parts are quite scary and in most parts it is rather sad. Yet it's not a movie for adults either, the "humour" is too naive and simplistic and the plot does seem like the one in a children movie. I think that most people who enjoyed this movie are adults that 'prepared' themselves, putting themselves in the proper mood to watch this, wishing to like it. Even though the esthetics are very impressive and the sung parts are great I don't think this movie is as good as it's been said.
Ninette (2005)
A disappointment
When trying to find what doesn't work in Ninette many things come to my mind. They are not the predictable ones though: The unusual scenarios (all interiors!) or the choice of an actress like Elsa Pataky (imitating a French accent) work incredibly well, and the start is the best part of the movie. As the movie goes on the only flaws are probably the hyper-naive script where characters seem very artificial and implausible, especially Carlos Hipolito who disappoints a little whereas Pataky does a quite a goo job. I haven't read Mihura's works and I suppose they worked well in theatres but it don't translate very well to cinema. The way Ninette acts, the parent's ideology's caricature and the protagonist's friend (the kind of gags) are the things I reckon less attractive of this film.
But the film doesn't crash until the family moves to Murcia and an absurd and unnecessary part is added to the film. Well, I know that everything is Mihura's two work's adaptation but it doesn't justify what starts there. They appear in Murcia (where no one has a Murcian accent and they are even laistas) and the protagonist has an attempt of affair with Mar Regueras (who wouldn't, being married to Elsa Pataky) but it doesn't go on, ending with a sudden and strange outcome. The last part back in Paris is even more strange and confusing.
So I found the first part in Paris acceptable and the rest just awful. The film seems to rely on Pataky's body to succeed and that's why they released it in august, I suppose.