slowcloud

What a strong debut! Jonas Trueba shows great confidence in handling that tenuous place in loving someone else from a place of ego without making our hero Ramiro (Oriol Vila) obnoxious or completely pathetic. The acting is great all around. There's a nice influence of Francois Truffaut going on with a few, sparse but insightful moments via voice over and an active camera that moves to the great jazzy score by Perico Sambeat. It builds toward a wonderful open- ended finale, following a heartbreaking monologue by Ramiro to his unreachable(?) love Andrea (Bárbara Lennie), which melds nicely with Sambeat's pièce de résistance: a chaotic yet moving instrumental. One of the best endings I've seen in a long time. It also recalls (500) Days of Summer without jumping back and forth through time. There are also jabs at other kinds of relationships -- from the purely superficial to the naive to apathetic-- and, bonus, lots of great jokes about the book store world where Ramiro works. This is a rich, well-drawn out film that hardly ever slacks, as it never compromises what a complex, inner problem it's trying to express. You should come in ready to tune into that wavelength and have some experience behind you to get these moments. Maybe I'm seeing at the right time.

I've heard mixed things about 'American Sniper' directed by manly man director/actor Clint Eastwood, and I never cared much for Bradley Cooper in his first role that got him an Oscar nom (the overrated 'Silver Linings Playbook'), but for this third Oscar nomination, I finally think Cooper has elevated his craft to a genuinely amazing place. He gives real-life Iraq war veteran Chris Kyle wonderful charisma, yet he keeps the portrayal grounded, making for a charming every man.

Narratively, I think Eastwood does a wonderful job of deconstructing a myth about this fellow, who came to be known as the deadliest U.S. sniper in Iraq. The film's pacing is intense, and (after seeing Fury) it cemented for me that war movies are my horror movies (and I saw this film at home via a screener during voting for the Florida Film Critics Circle).

American Sniper just rattled me, and many of the performances are suitably intense, from the villainous bully intimidating the locals called "the Butcher" to an especially heartbreaking Sienna Miller as the wife waiting for Kyle back home. I know Eastwood's a big director with a reputation, but I really connected with this film, and I think it's worth catching at the multiplex.