arnis12

Alejandro Iñårritu seems to have a bit of influence over Mexican cinema the last few years which is a shame since he's only made one great film, Amores Perros. For every brilliant young director like Fernando Eimbcke and his masterful, Temporada de Patos, which gives us a wonderful cinematic experience, and a unique perspective of Mexico, we get a dozen directors following Iñårritu and trying to outdo his "cinema of the unpleasant". It's all here, no color, the use of cold blues and greens, ridiculous use of telephoto lenses which scream art! You know your in trouble when the over stylized cinematography has bullied the thin story out of the way. And what little story is here, focuses on the unpleasantness of the human condition, see Iñårritu's 21 Grams or Babel. Highly recommended if you're a sadist. But if you want a pleasant cinematic perspective of Mexico, rent Temporada de Patos or heck, even Zurdo.

Piece of crap, really. I thought I was getting the definitive account of The Smiths, but as the film began, I began to get a bad feeling right away with the bad morph-dissolve edits in the intro. If there's any band where there's little interest in "the other two", this is it. Most Smiths fans want to see, and hear Morrissey/Marr. (Sorry Andy, and Mike) But Morrissey /Marr aren't in this film. There's no archival footage, no interviews, no concert footage. The photos they do show are the ones we've seen before, and perhaps the biggest crime of all, NO SMITHS MUSIC! Probably because the filmmakers couldn't obtain the rights, among many other things. For a die hard SMITH fan, you could probably get all the info you want on the band from YouTube. It's got all the videos, old live performances, and interviews, making this documentary pointless and a time waster.

Unwatchable for one reason; Terrible audio. I had to turn it off midway through for this reason. When two people are in a room speaking, and you can only hear one person clearly, but not the other, that's bad. I respect the "independent spirit" and all, but when you can't buy a couple of cheap microphones at Radioshack, you're doing your craft a disservice. That's not being an independent filmmaker with a low budget, that's just being a cheap ass filmmaker. It's a shame because the camera-work was interesting and the actors look like they put up their ends of the bargain. Being able to hear a good quality film is just as important as fancy camera work.