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San ti (2023)
Faithful to the original and well-intended, the production is below par
I find it surprising that the TV adaptation is being so close to the source material, meticulous up to the point of taking 30 episodes for the first season, which I hope will cover the whole of the the first book in the Trilogy.
With this premise, and having the books as three of my favorite sci-fi books ever, I am enjoying this series very much, although I wish that the direction and production -and maybe the budget- were a bit better.
As a side comment, and a minor spoiler, the part where the series takes a bit of distance from the original book is in the depiction of the Cultural Revolution chaos with which the book starts and that is necessary to fully comprehend the first main character -Ye Wenjie-, and her actions. In the series, this introductory part is distributed all along the first season, and the most violent and demented events are changed, blurred or softened, maybe because of censorship problems. As a result, the deep resentment and alienation that drives Ye's actions might appear as somewhat exaggerated in the series.
Other than that, I find this series highly recommendable.
Dark (2017)
I won't be fooled by another "Lost"
The idea of the show is attractive and it is well presented and performed.
However, already the second season showed clear signs that the script simply goes on and on, without a real purpose or idea about where it is going and why. The third season simply confirmed that.
This is not similar to Starnger Things. It is a German version if Lost.
The Physician (2013)
Why, Mr.Gordon?
Noah Gordon's best selling novel is the tale of the epic quest for knowledge of a man with an open mind, a brave heart and a noble soul. It is also a remarkable depiction of how this man achieves his goals living with distinct societies, the Jews and Muslims, and how to learn from them. This movie, however, spoils every charm, every depth, every enlightening message the book may have. It changes almost every interesting plot and subplot that made you share the story of the book, and turns it into a shallow story in which Isfahan, Ibn Sina, the Jewish community, and every single character are hardly a parody of the original novel. I feel unable to understand why Noah Gordon allowed this twisted, unworthy script to bear the same title than his book, and even make use of his name.
P.s: oh, and excuse me if I leave a little spoiler here, but, was it really necessary that the movie ends in London? Yes, Cole's love affair is completely changed in the story, but even thus... Why, Mr.Gordon? Why did you allow them ruin your work?
The Tree of Life (2011)
When they want you to accept that NOTHING is a great thing
It is always suspicious when a movie tries to present a story about ordinary people living ordinary lives. Most times, it is hardly interesting. Maybe it reminds about something of your own life, but it can teach you nothing. And, if you already know what is happening by own experience, why did you pay your ticket?
Now, this is a step forward: hey, it's a about a family and their troubles, but here you'll also see planets, galaxies, DINOSAURS!! They have no relationship whatsoever with the flat and boring script, but who cares?
Wow, you can even say that Sean Penn acts in this movie!! He does nothing, he says nothing, he adds nothing, but he is there.
Did I mention that you can see dinosaurs in this movie?
J. Edgar (2011)
Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
Well, maybe the real J. Edgar Hoover was a powerful man in his time. Maybe he really had everybody under watch and terrified a couple of Presidents with the knowledge he had about them. It is said that he was a crucial person in the hard decades that followed World War II and put the western democracies under siege. But the character shown in this movie is hardly anything else than a poor old gay man, sexually frustrated, dominated by his mother, who listened to porn tapes. I think it is a failed portrait of the real man, and a deceiving movie. I usually like Clint Eastwood's work, but not this one. I left the movie with the feeling that no one should have been afraid of Hoover, except for those wearing stripped suits and mustaches. And i'm not really sure that was the kind of discipline that the U.S. Would have needed to win the Cold War.
La marche de l'empereur (2005)
Yeah, it's a movie about penguins. And yeah! It's gorgeous!
I had heard many good comments about this movie, so I decided to give it a chance, although I was quite skeptical. But this has been a very touching experience. An extraordinary tale about the survival of a species in a frozen hell. About some amazing behaviors that make it almost impossible not to think that these "stupid birds" have an utter sense of purpose in all what they do: how they march together to their breeding place; how they mate; how they share the burden of keeping their offspring alive. Congratulations to all the crew that made this film possible. Yes, I really enjoyed a documentary about penguins, and even seen it several times.
Taxi Driver (1976)
Bronson, Eastwood, Seagal, Norris... Showed the same in a far most believable way
I was really disappointed with this movie. The incredible recognition that it always gets moved me to give it a chance, even if I knew that the plot was quite depressing and has been showed in similar ways by many other movies. And this is by far one of the worst of the type. It is so badly presented, and so poorly finished, that it makes Bronson's plain urban avengers and Eastwood's lust for violence real masterpieces. De Niro's acting is the only part that can be saved. Even Cybill Shepherd is unable to raise the overall bitter taste of this ultra-hyped movie
If you haven't seen this yet, save yourself some time for something useful
La pasión turca (1994)
Unbelievable and grotesque
The plot of this book taken to the screen could have just been shallow and slightly offensive for a woman's dignity: a bored Spanish housewife finds relief to her boredom while in a tourist trip to Istanbul, when he finds a Turkish tourist guide that satisfies her sexually. Cliché, a bit stupid, but nothing serious First problem: After getting pregnant from her Turkish lover and losing the baby shortly after birth, she becomes crazy and can only think about meeting her lover again Second and HUGE problem: when she is back to Istanbul, the tourist guide is no longer a tourist guide, but some kind of trafficker. The nonsense grows more and more until the guy turns out to be some important local gangster or mobster, that uses her as a sexual toy and then even prostitutes her for his own purposes.
All of this, together with the usual terrible performance of Ana Belén and the usual dreadful level of Spanish movies, makes of this movie a terrible option to spend your hard-won free time.
Fortress (1992)
Awful! Horrible! Did they mean to do THIS seriously?
Angry spoilers ahead After what seems an eternity, finally this movie was apparently coming to an end, but the worst was yet to come: Lambert's wife, who is also imprisoned, is about to give birth to her child. As if in a parody of the Argentina of the 80's, the Government wants to steal the children from her for some hideous purpose. The funny thing is that they don't wait until the woman brings her baby in the world naturally. Oh, no: they're going to use a saw to open her womb and take out the baby while killing her. When she realizes what's happening, the woman starts shouting and calling for her husband, who was precisely running along the prison two corridors away, hears hem and says something like "I'm coming, honey!!" This movie is THIS sophisticated, from the beginning and until the very end. If you find it on TV, DVD, or whatever... Please don't waste part of your precious lifetime in this
Beyond Rangoon (1995)
A powerful story. Will anyone help Burma, ever?
A powerful movie that has recovered much of its meaning in this second half of 2007 after the new desperate movements of the Burmese people against their tyrants. I felt a complex mix of feelings about the people there, something like compassion and admiration at the same time, together with a bit of rage because I feel that no one, neither the countries of the world, nor themselves, is doing anything effective to end this shame. I think these feelings became directly from the movie, and that they were intended when it was made, so it is a successful movie. The desire for peace, the quest for enlightenment, the respect for life sometimes leads to subjugation. In fact it is the Buddhist Burmese culture who has left the doors wide opens to their dictators. But, how can you feel angry about these poor people?
Orlando (1992)
Could have been great, but you simply can't believe what you're seeing
Interesting film. Weird story, indeed, that makes you think a bit. But I found it quite unforgivable that you simply can't believe in the first part of the movie the main character is a man. Filmed already in these times of CGI and make up professionals, I can't understand why the filmmakers didn't make the actress look more like a man. Or, if this was too much a hard thing to do, why they didn't choose a real man to act in the first minutes. This is too obvious and too much disturbing not to rate the movie as high as it could have been. It leaves you with the feeling that the people who made this really didn't care enough about their work, or didn't think we deserved a clean job.
The New World (2005)
Pretentious but hollow movie. Really disappointing
After seeing this movie yesterday, I can't describe it but as deceiving. Supposedly, it is a story about how the clash between cultures changed the style of life known in the Americas, through the eyes of an Indian "princess", as well as a story of love and resignation. Hardly any of these objectives is reached. The movie is incredibly slow. The pretentious monologues, the apparently "espiritual" voices in off, are pretentious and at times laughable. The key moment in the film, when Smith leaves, is so quick that it calls to no emotion. Q'Orianka Kilcher may seem a good choice in the first minutes, but soon you realize that this girl has only two expressions to show to the camera: her lovely smile that she shows a few times, and all the rest a boring mask that is supposed to reflect serenity, but fails completely in its purpose. When the film ended, all the people seemed awed. No one talked! I don't remember having seen the people so silent after a movie, without a comment. It seemed all of us were waking up from an uncomfortable sleep. A bad choice for a Friday night
Æon Flux (2005)
It must be a great effort to make such a bad movie
Three minutes into the movie, and you get a serious advice of what is to be expected from this: Charlize kisses a resistance mate so he can transfer her a pill containing some kind of information, and then we see her in a ridiculous atmosphere and in front of some kind of red haired witch. There you start to realize that the prize for your ticket has not been a good investment. But the worst is to come: almost the whole of the movie is even at a lower level than these first scenes. With all the money wasted in FX for this movie, I can't consider it better than many low-budget TV series of the 70's, but what can't really be forgiven of this mess is that the plot is not so bad. It could have led, not, it SHOULD have led to a far batter entertainment than this waste of time only intended to dead-brained, MTV addicted, audience.
Brainstorm (1983)
A great idea, a good start, an even knot and a bad ending
Yes, this movie is a continuous way down. When it starts, you meet a group of scientists in their moment of greatest success. After years of hard work., they come out with a revolutionary device that can record what people see, hear, smell, taste... and apparently their feelings and emotions, too But this atmosphere of excitement and discovery soon fades when the plot turns into the usual bad-military-guys-who-want-to-steal-the-idea-for-dirty-plans. The main problem with this is that those evil plans are hardly scary: they investigate extreme situations of the mind, such as severe mental diseases, and this makes the scientist to rebel, when the medical use of this is clear. And then it all comes to absurd when the leader of the group dies and records her own death. When the record is played, we see that the good lady has been flying into space, watching our galaxy from outer space, and finally joining a parade of butterfly-like spirits who are flying -of course- to THE light. Overall, quite a great disappointment. I usually like Christopher Walken, but not here. I rated it a 3
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
You'll have the chance to imagine your own fears
Boosted by a magnificent marketing campaign, this movie is still a really good work. This time you see nothing, no ugly faces, no bad guy seen, no river of blood filling the screen. It's your task to put a face to the danger the kids are facing... and if you come into the plot, they will be your own fears who will appear. This is what I like of this movie: it is your mind who frightens yourself.
I understand why some people did not like this movie when they saw it, but for me it was really scary. Frightening enough to look for that little pile of stones in front of my bedroom when I woke up next morning :-) In short, a good movie, and people intelligent enough to raise the interest about it. They deserved the money they earned
The Matrix (1999)
Absolutely overrated. And please, don't call it a sci-fi film!
After almost two years of feeling almost guilty for not having seen this movie, and under the advice of many friends of mine, I finally took a look on The Matrix. What a waste of time! How deceiving! It seems it is enough with having a noisy soundtrack, a bit of misled oriental philosophy and some weird looking guys acting (?) to have people mouthwatering. Oh, yes, the visuals are great. Maybe the only contribution of this movie is the release of more or less new FX that could be used in further, more intelligent movies. It is incredible how so many inconsistencies can be found in the plot without making this movie lose a bit of its undeserved legend. Here are a few of the details that made this film unbearable to me:
- Machines are obtaining energy from biological sources. And from all the living creatures populating this world, it is the human race that is being used, when hundreds of species would have been much more efficient "batteries", without having to create a Matrix to have them comfortable in their sleep - The Matrix is a virtual world designed to keep battery-people happy in their dreams. However, the battle happens precisely in this imaginary world, which has no sense. You can even diein this electronic world and your real body dies, too!!! - After being flushed away when he wakes up, Neo is rescued with an enormous device that was ready to act under the very nose of the machines
Beyond FX, the movie is absolutely boring. You could always disconnect your brain and simply watch at the action, and rate this movie more or less high as an inoffensive entertainment. But then you must face all that incredible mythology built up around this movie, as if it showed a new philosophy or some scientific value! The worst thing of it, is that it is seen by many people as a sci-fi movie. Well, Star Wars deserve being called "sci-fi" a thousand times more. Call this a fantasy movie, an action tale... whatever. But please not a sci-fi picture
28 Days Later... (2002)
Starts fine, but goes really down
Overall, I left the movie room quite disappointed with this picture. The idea is good, the awakening of the good guy in a desert London is breathtaking... But the problem is that I simply can't believe the disease. I mean, it is not any effort to imagine a tragic illness that can drive the people crazy and spreads so fast that it results in chaos and death. But the attitude and behavior of the infected people is ridiculous. They're supposed not to be able to do almost anything, but they coordinate themselves to attack. Also, they are TRIBAL. Infected people live, sleep and act together, so they can attack the normal ones more easily... this is quite absurd. I couldn't understand why the father and daughter insist on announcing their presence to everyone, infected or not, by lighting on all those Christmas lights... My feelings went from the initial excitement to the final boredom.
War of the Worlds (2005)
Horrible when it tries to be original. Needless when it doesn't
Certainly, there is a lot of noise and shocking scenes in this movie. It is a generous display of FX and bangs and so on... But it is a complete failure. *Angry spoiler* The first horrible mistake in the script is why the hell those tripods were buried in ancient times. Ridiculous and completely unnecessary. Then that stupid story about the blood they take -and, apparently they swim in- from human corpses. It would be laughable, wasn't it because you have paid to see a good story, not this. With all the amounts of money that have been wasted in this poor work, I think Spielberg must not be satisfied with the final result. When I was watching this movie, I remembered the modern remake of "Planet of the Apes" a few years ago. This was another insult to the original movie, exactly like this one. This story must have been absolutely awesome when Orson Welles drove the US to panic in the 30's. It was a nice and well looking movie in the 50's, although a bit outdated even then... and a complete bluff in the 2000's. Spend your money in something better
Contact (1997)
Some movies teach you something
This is one of that kind of movies that leave you with the feeling that you have learned something by watching at it. I have always respected Carl Sagan since I saw the Cosmos TV series when I was just a boy. It's not only that he shows how science is, but puts so much heart on it, so much illusion that eventually you have to say "thank you, Mr. Sagan", because you have really been "infected" by his "disease": the quest for knowledge and the joy of knowing. The same spirit lies on this film: we've been told many things that science knows nowadays, the script lefts the door open to develop our fantasies and illusions... but stops on time before figuring out too many things that could mislead us because we really don't know them yet. I also want to thank Sagan, Foster and all the people responsible of the script for showing the due respect to the religious feeling of most people, although pointing out the problems and paradoxes that the events of this film would cause if they really happen. I learned very much with this story about the wonder of being, the marvels of Universe, about respect and prudence. Again, thank you, Mr. Sagan
Ice (1998)
Before the Day After Tomorrow
Well, after the relative fail of a marketing bluff such as The Day After Tomorrow, I think it is time to concede some merit to this cheap, earlier movie that, in my humble opinion, developed a much more convincing story about a new Ice Age. Just wonder what could have be done with THIS script and The Day After Tomorrow resources? I simply must say that I felt much colder watching at this movie. The loneliness of the characters, some believable fights for the survival... all of this made the characters convincing and the whole story acceptable. Besides, this movie just was interested in COLD, and not in POLITICS. Quite entertaining. I rated it a 7
The Green Mile (1999)
Fantastic. Unexpected masterpiece
A really heart-touching movie. I couldn't expect it, but as soon as the plot was presented, I was absolutely delighted for all the emotions that came from the screen. How a message of hope, honesty and comradeship could be sent from such a dreadful scenario? I'm sure some people will be outraged about a bunch of criminals sentenced to death showing their fully human side, but this is the most emotive part, especially when it usually takes so long since the harm was inflicted and the "justice" finally made. *spoiler* I have met some people that might compare with the black giant of this movie. People whose greatest desire is to offer Good expecting nothing in return, that finally become conscious about how rare they are in this world and how strange they look to other people. And there is no need of psychic powers for this. I only felt a bit disgusted because it is this pessimistic message that finally wins in the movie. Both Edgecomb and Coffey characters end up thinking life is either too miserable or too long to be lived. It makes you think about human nature and how good people must feel in this crazy world of us
The Last Samurai (2003)
A good movie, especially because I didn't really expect great things
I had really not great expectations when I saw this movie. I was just waiting to see another Hollywood smoothed show about exotic cultures, without any real compromise, historic accuracy or deep characters -especially when it was Tom Cruise who appeared as main character. I was gratefully surprised when I saw the story showed the least due respect to History, and towards the social and personal conflicts it depicts. Whether it is arguable that the Samurai philosophy is worth defending it, as a war-based style of living, anchored in a dark past disguised in tradition, the plot focus on the positive aspects that were perceived as endangered along the modernization of Japan. Of course, there is room for Western "endophobia", since the bad guy is a Japanese Judas eager to earn money western-style, and as I explained before, it seems that the only way to express Honor and the quest for perfection is a fascist or maoist-like, isolated society. Yet the movie is fair enough to watch at it a second or even a third time. It is entertaining and well made, and it is easy to sympathize with the ideals of the Samurais.
Scream (1996)
I really laughed when I saw this movie
It's a shame that THIS was supposed to be an horror picture. The plot is so unoriginal, the performances so utterly exaggerated, and the bad guy... well, let's say it would perfectly fit in any Scooby Doo chapter. Really, many people said I should see this movie. I went to see it with a friend, and soon started laughing because the movie was plainly absurd. Fear? I would really appreciate if someone can tell me in which moment exactly I was supposed to feel scared. A few years later, it came "Scary Movie". Who needed to see that one? I had already spent a good time with this brilliant COMEDY. In short: what a waste of time and money!
El día de la bestia (1995)
Could and should have been better. It may contain spoiler
This is a perfect show of the Spanish movie industry's way: take a good idea, add some ironic and surreal sketches... but don't take it too seriously, NEVER finish it by doing a good, clean job. The exaltation of mediocrity has been a common place for European movies in general, and Spanish ones in particular. This would have been a mythical movie just with a little more professional spirit and a higher level of self-esteem. The story itself has a deceiving end, because, after all, the Beast is coming as an "adult", and not as a newly born child. It's a shame that a good movie ends as a perfectly forgettable one. I won't be able to consider Álex de la Iglesia as a true director as long as he feels satisfied with poor outcomes like this
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Great. It even follows the book too closely
I first read 1984's book when I was 15, and since then I'm caught by the warning against dictatorships that lies in this story. About the movie, it follows the book so literally, that someone who hasn't read the book probably feels lost very soon. It is hard to understand, just seeing the film, the real situation of fear, misery and total mind control that the characters are suffering. I must say that all the atmosphere, and even the actors, are very similar to what I imagined when I read the book. Just Julia is a bit tasteless, you simply can't see her as the fierce but ice-cold resistant against brain washing. I have read the book four times, and probably seen the movie three or four times, too, and I still feel the anxiety and agony of Orwell's world. Nevertheless, a previous knowledge of the book is recommended