A REALLY HAPPY 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

Well, there have been a lot of movies that have visited our screens this year and some of them have been watched by us and we have left our impressions on this blog; we have watche some others too, but our reviews will arrive after this short chritsmas break. But we would not want to leave this year without thanking thos who follow us and wishing you the best for the coming 2011.

A lot of happiness and a good cinema for next year.

From the bottom of the heart,

A CINEPHAGUS.

A DOUBLE FEATURE EVENING

I recalled when I was much younger that I used to go to the movies twice on the same day. I have to say that there were not multiplexes theaters, so we have to run to the other theater to enjoy a differente movie, or on weekends, we could see two or even three different movies in the same place. I did it several times, and then multiplexes came.
But even though we have the advantage of reserving tickets of a particular show of a movie, I have never thought of going to two or even three different movies in the same place. Not until the monday before last, that I made a proposal to my nephews to see the new version of KARATE KID and the adaptation of the well known video game PRINCE OF PERSIA into a motion picture.
I wasn't expecting anything but a normal afternoon of movies with my youngest of nephews with some popcorn and sodas, nothing else was on my mind. And it happened that way with the PRINCE OF PERSIA.

This video game turn into movie happens to be a very nice movie with a story that is attractive and well done stunmanship and special effects which even though are the main attraction of the film, share its attractiveness with the performers. Jake Gyllenhaal is perfect as Dastan, Ben Kingsley is equally perfect as the villain and the story is well written and in a way suitable for the movie. The other performers are as well as the actors mentioned before, but we can highlight the job of Alfred Molina who has the most of the ppunch lines of the humour content in the movie.

It's a great aventure movie with good performances and a good adaptation from the video game, well done and pretty entertaining and enjoyable, a good one for a Sunday afternoon in front of the TV with a bunch of snacks.
But the afternoon (well, it was already evening when we entered into the room) changed a lot when we saw the next flick in the list: THE KARATE KID. I must confess that I didn't have any expectations about this film, even though I heard some good comments about it, and a few bad ones but the first was the common thread about this production. Produced in part by Will Smith and a group of movie producing company of China, this movie has nothing to see with karate (although they are few scenes at the very beginning about this martial art) but kung fu, and the name - we all know - was given just for commercial reasons. My enthusiasm about this movie was the participation of Jackie Chan in the role of the young martial arts student's mentor - a part that made Noriyuki Pat Morita famous.
Jaden Smith is an actor with great charisma, so is Jackie Chan, and when both share the screen is a magical, they have that chemistry of most of the famous comedian couples in cinema, spice with the dramatic situations of each characters. But my surprise is not that Jaden Smith could be as good in the dramatic parts as in the comedic ones, my surprise - I repeat - was to see Jackie Chan performing a dramatic sequence and proving to me that is capable of perform it very well.
The underdog story is well handled here, and the defect it could have is the long shots of the scenery of China - sometimes it seems more like a Travel and Adventure TV special; but the beauty of those places is such that in a few minutes you forget the gratiutious publicity of China and its touristic places. Some critics and people has complained about the length of the film, I went with my nephews and if they could stand the almost two hours and a half of the film so there's nothing wrong with the length, I confess I didn't feel it at all.
So I would recommend that you do not miss the new version of KARATE KID for anything, it's well performed and the story, similar to the original, grabs you from the very beginning. About PRINCE OF PERSIA, well you can take your time, it is not at the same level of the first one, but it would give a piece of escapism that we need to take from time to time.

INCEPTION

It has been a while since the last movie made by Christopher Nolan was in the theaters, and it
has already gone the first impact of this work that had pleased connoisseurs, moviegoers and ocassionally cinema visitors, so it is at this point that I decided to give my opinion about this original and well comented motion picture.
But befroehand I should confess (I have been seriously thinking on changing the name of the blog into CONFESSIONS OF A CINEPHAGUS) that is a well known and notorious defect (or virtue - according to me) that I always go against the common opinion of moviegoers, public in general and, in certain occasions, movie critics about some productions that all these groups of people happen to like. The fact that a movie is well accepted by everyone,it does not mean that I have to kneel in front of it and admit with no reserves the excellency it has. I clearly remembered the cas of BRAVEHEART (which I watched on VHS tape three years after its premiere and I did not like it at all, but it does not mean that it is a bad movie), as well as the case of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT(more advertising than content, althought it certainly renew the way of promoting a film) and, more recently, CLOVERFIELD (too elaborated for my taste). So when I heard all the pariase that INCEPTION was receiving, I told to myself that it woul possibly be something similar to what happened to me with AVATAR; I would possibly admit its visual greatness, but I would end up going against the general feeling.
But I should confess (yes, once again) that this time everyone who commented something positive about this - fourth of fifth - Nolan's movie was not wrong at all; this work impacted me as well as STAR WARS and the first MATRIX (the other two can go into oblivion)did in their times.

INCEPTION has everything that makes a movie unforgettable: to start with, a great story, a fantastic tale that becomes believable thanks to another of the strengths of the film: the performances and to end up special effects at the service of the story - which impact and amaze, but they are part of the tale and do not overwhelmed it and are not the main attractiveness of the picture.
The story written by Nolan himself amazes by its complexity and, at the same time, because it reaches any sort of audience: that which is La historia escrita por el propio Nolan asombra por su complejidad y a su vez por llegar a cualquier tipo de público: that which is pretty intelelctual and look for something more than shootings and persecutions and the other which precisely look for those characteristics in a film. The performances are well done, Di Caprio - although some people said that he is repeating previous characteristics of his last movie - is great as the tormented leading man, complemented by a cast that make its work with greal professionalism tá genial como el atormentado protagonista, complementado por un elenco que realiza su and credibility - I was really surprised to know that on the stars was that young boy from 3rd Rock from the Sun (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).
Beside to be classified as complex and, in some cases, pointed out certain holes in the story - which I did not find, in my opinion the greatness of this story is precisely to make the complexity something attractive to every one in the screening room, no matter how well versed or involved in the subject the audience has to be.
Particularly, I highly recommend this great movie, and thanks to it and his previous one (THE DARK KNIGHT) - without minimizing MEMENTO y his other films - Christopher Nolan is getting a priviliged place in the world of cinema and he would be a part of the list of great movie directors. Definitely he is gainning a place among my favorite directores.
Probably the film is not longer in theaters, but please do not miss it as soon as you have a chance to watch it, you will thank me later.

BOOGIE EL ACEITOSO

When I read the news that BOOGIE EL ACEITOSO (The Oily) was going to have its animated version in the movies, the excitement overpass the expectations; I was deeply excited about this news, but I try to keep my hopes down for the film. I had already seen the work of another argentinian comic book creator translated into the movies, such is the case of the brilliant DANTE QUINTERNO and his creations: PATORUZITO (en dos películas) and ISIDORO; but from the also brilliant ROBERTO FONTANARROSA I just knew - so far - the use of his character design he made for the animated version of MARTIN FIERRO (it was already commented in this blog, and I promised the english version of that comment pretty soon) and the movie version of one of Boogie, one of his most emblamatic characters, makes me really happy.
Although I have to confess that the characters from Quinterno have a access truly familiar and socially adequate and the success of those works gave the resurgence of the animated production in Argentina; but the work of “El Negro” Fontanarrosa is not family oriented at all and this character – born in 1972 – is totally nasty (although Isidoro is not that family oriented characater either, but it is because he is more self involved that anything else), Boogie is racist, homophobic, misogynistic, chain-smoking, violent, inhuman and yet, honestly. So it was pretty hard to translated iinto the movies, but the effort was made and in october 2009 it was released in his natal Argentina.

Likewise the comic book, the movie is the reflection of the modern society (although with a big emphasis in the United States one) promotor of the violence and the war culture as principal values marked by a a totally black humor.
Boogie had its origen inspired in the movies, especially in DIRTY HARRY, but much tougheer and violent thay policeman played by Clint Eastwood; maybe, due to that cinematographic origen, the animated flick draws on various genres of film whose base is - I repeat - explicit violence. Sometimes it is Noir Film, later it becomes a sort of road-movie which leads the film to end up as a jury movie - genres all related to the American cinema; also the aesthetic tha surrounds it is taken form these genres and, in some instances, it borrows from Sin City is shape (which Miller, in turn, took it from the work of Alberto Breccia*). This mixture of genres and aesthetics could have resulted in a real mess, but the heavy,acid and transgessive humor generated in the pages of the squares and almost faithfully taken to the big screen save the movie.
Without being a masterpiece of animation, it perfectly transfers the essence of this character to the movies, making fun of violence as it shows it explicitly. Perhaps at some point it seems to lose the plot and we fade Boogie between the mixture of genres, but it helps the work of voices and the final product is fairly good - of course, personally speaking.

TRAILER DE BOOGIE EL ACEITOSO

*Checking out the work made by ALBERTO BRECCIA in the version of H.G . OESTERHELD's EL ETERNAUTA and specially in his adaption to the comic of THE TELL TALE HEART by Edgar Allan Poe, I noticed the similarities of the uruguayan comic book creator and Frank Miller, so I come to the conclusion that the American illustrator could have been inspired by the work of his southern colleague - once again, personally speaking. (search for it in the Internet and compare, maybe you would end up telling I was right)