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Priscilla (2023)
Not Sofía's best
I'm not a Sofía hardcore fan, but I do appreciate her movies, her style and mainly her approach to girlhood. Having been a young girl myself, I think she understands what young girls feel. In that sense, Priscilla hits the mark. We can relate to her desires, her insecurities, her needs, her urge to please and accommodate to the guy she likes. There's a very brief scene with matching dresses and handguns that I thought was an *exquisite* depiction of the power dynamics between her and Elvis. However, Priscilla is not a movie about any girl, so as a movie based on a book written by Priscilla herself, it kind of feels a bit too shallow and lacking emotional depth. We see so little of her being a woman of her own that, for a movie that doesn't put primary emphasis on Elvis, feels like a wasted opportunity. Although I'm sure it must not have been like this in real life, Priscilla's resolution at the end feels rushed somehow, and anti-climactic. There wasn't enough dramatic build-up for us to feel happy for her. It was almost as if the movie represented the actual wearing off that occurs in many relationships: no big argument, no big fight, just little moments adding up that make you say "OK, this is it". But again, to make a whole movie out of a such a famous couple and do it in a visually-stunning, yet superficial way feels off. Perhaps Sofía Coppola was not the right director to tell this story.
I do think that by making a movie about her in relation to him serves the purpose of telling a cautionary tale for girls and women in similar situations. Elvis was Elvis, but he behaves in textbook ways we've seen other predatory and abusive men behave.
5/10.
Barbarian (2022)
A great mixture of things
I know I enjoyed a movie if it leaves me thinking about it hours and days after it ended. That already happens in the end of Act 1 when there was still an hour left and I had no idea what direction the movie was taking. It gives the audience a few surprises -it plays with people's expectations of horror films and people- and you just need to let go and entertain these ideas, which to me totally pay off.
Along the ride, the tension, direction, camera work and acting are excellent. We're introduced to a not-so-smart female lead and a couple of really afwul male characters (in case you're wondering who the barbarian is) and there are a couple of dialogues that are triggering if you've ever been gaslighted, manipulated or downright abused -so consider yourself warned. And btw Justin Long's character is the absolute worst but he's great at it.
The film did remind me of Red State by Kevin Smith in the sense that it seems like many stories in one, but here I think the director doesn't experiment with the storylines so the end result is believable for a horror movie.
Argentina, 1985 (2022)
Doesn't live up to the hype
I'm Argentinian living in Buenos Aires so you might imagine the effect this movie has had on people. It is a good story, but definitely flawed. Some key actors, like the president at that time, Alfonsin, were left out. For me it failed to gain momentum, even though we see how the prosecuting team works against all odds to gather evidence for the trial. The final accusation was verbatim from the real accusation, so props to the acting and camera work I guess. And as to acting, it was not outstanding. Darin is a big actor here and he sure can act but it felt like another of his movies. Lanzani was OK.
Maid (2021)
Overdrawn and boring pity party
I kept watching the series based on the high ratings but I had to quit on episode 7, so you could say I gave it a very generous shot.
I really don't understand the point of this show, neither its tone. It seems very juvenile -the whole "legal, legal, legal" thing in Ep 2 really threw me off- for such a serious subject matter. The main character is flawed and I'm OK with that, but her decision making makes absolutely no sense. She keeps taking her mother's word in spite of knowing she's unreliable. She takes her daughter out of her house in the middle of the night after a violent episode with her daughter's father, but she doesn't prove much more fit as a parent afterwards. And she wants to be an English major and ends up writing her memoir but in the show she just seems so immature and someone who has very little knowledge about things. It's really messy.
I do like the fact that there's a show that depicts the (overdramatic) aspects of single motherhood, but that's just what it is -a show, albeit a mediocre one, about a single mother who was to become a maid to take care of her baby.
Jonas Brothers Family Roast (2021)
Some funny parts amongst the cringe
American comedy shows feel the need to make a sketch out of everything so there are many cringey moments, and some guests who add nothing to the roast formula, but the roasts are good, especially Joe's.
Hush (2016)
The girl must be a really bad writer
I was on the edge of my seat up until the 50-minute mark. The tension builds up really fast and you root for the protagonist. But the remaining 30 minutes were downright frustrating. The girl -a writer fyi- starts off as a resourceful and clever survivor that outsmarts the intruder in more than one occassion, but then she wastes many good opportunities to do in the killer once and for all. The killer's a random dude that shows up at the girl's house determined to kill her just for the kick of it. If he's so clearly a psycho, why waste time on learning how to use a crossbow when you're at your own house? Grab a knife and stab the guy. They're face to face many times. The chase is part of the movie, I get it. But she'a a writer. She's supposedly creative. And she's deaf and mute and lives out in the woods. How can she go out to live in the middle of nowhere with such a lousy surviving instinct and kit? It makes no sense.
Poltergeist (1982)
I thought this was a horror movie?
I watched Poltergeist for the first time a few days ago as an adult expecting a horror movie. I blame the eerie official movie poster. But when the movie started to roll and that awful, fantasy-like music started to play, I realized how wrong I was. I know this must've been fun to watch in the 1980s, but it's hardly scary. The acting is bad and cheesy, the effects are good, but inconsistent, and I think it was supposed to be a depiction of the American way of life during Reaganism but the story drags for so long that the political commentary gets lost along the way.
I struggled to finish the movie and I was extremely let down when I did. It did not make sense how this could've garnered horror classic status. Then I learned this was "Steven Spielberg's ghost story" and everything made sense. It is actually rumored that he did in fact direct the movie, but is not credited as such due to contractual obligations because he was directing E.T. and it all fell into place. Poltergeist is a "horror" story fabricated by Spielberg for the masses. Poltergeist is closer in tone and genre to E.T. than it is to The Exorcist or The Omen, two great horror pieces that still stand the test of time and hold their place as horror classics.
If you're a die-hard horror fan wanting to catch up on your horror classics list, you better skip this one.