Avaliações de Fmartiterron

Ah, the haunted house sub-genre... there are quite a number of movies in it, but I can't think of any memorable or definitive one. Maybe that's why "Hell House" is more or less considered the best of the lot. Now, I don't want to attack the film gratuitously, but I have some problems with it. Generally speaking, "Hell house" is a creepy, well made little film, but the script by Richard Matheson -and his novel, which shares the same problems- is just smoke and mirrors.

My main issue with the film is that it seems to promise a scientific approach to the "haunted house" cliché. After all, the main character is a physicist, and there's a lot of dialogue about his theories and the inner workings of a machine of his invention he plans to use to "de-haunt" the mansion. However, when the supernatural phenomena start to appear, they seem practically to occur at random, and he barely investigates them. The whole thing then seems to take a different path, only to deliver an explanation of sorts at the very end, one that nobody could have guessed, although it is true that there are clues here and there. But come on, how are we supposed to connect the final explanation with stuff like a character being attacked by a black cat, or the increased sexual drive of others? It makes zero sense.

On the other hand, as I said, there are many things to like about "Hell house": it's never boring, the acting all around is competent -although I kept asking myself if Roddy McDowall was wearing a bad wig or not- and, specially, British director John Hough managed to infuse it with a great deal of atmosphere. Part of it is due to the electronic score and the immaculate set design, true, but now and then Hough manages to create a pervasive sense of unease only through his eccentric directing choices. For instance, he makes a very creative use of unusual techniques like low angles or deformant lenses, and he often frames faces in extreme close ups while keeping the background out of focus, which makes a very effective way of letting us now of the malignant influence of the house on its inhabitants.

With time, I've learned to avoid any film directed by Kathryn Bigelow. These days they often come as half-baked, pretentious or just bad affairs. But there was a time when she used to be an interesting filmmaker, and "Blue Steel" is perhaps her best film. Starting with close-ups of a revolver and partial shots of Jamie Lee Curtis playing to the electronic gasps of Brad Fiedel, it shouldn't come up as a surprise that this is a film about guns, violence and the almost sexual thrills they both can produce.

During the film both Jamie Lee Curtis and Ron Silver's characters try to channel those compulsions in different ways. Megan (Jamie Lee Curtis) comes from a dysfunctional family and a violent background. She chooses the way of repression, becoming a policewoman, a job were violence is legal, but only under the right circumstances. Eugene (Ron Silver) also lives in an ambiance of implied violence: his scenes at work always show him shouting and holding papers in the air, surrounded by other brokers in similar attitudes. He instead chooses the way of exteriorizing violence, going in a killing spree with a gun that accidentally falls in his hands.

Kathryn Bigelow shots both actors accordingly. Jamie Lee Curtis often appears tight-lipped, her hair restrained in a ponytail and her sexuality contained, if not entirely hidden under a police uniform or male clothes. in the occasional moments when she loosens up a little she still can't help to act somehow aggressively would-be suitors or co-workers. Ron Silver, on the other hand, often appears acting maniacally, letting whatever emotions run through his mind take reign of him.

"Blue Steel" is, for the most part, a great film. Co-writer Erid Red has a knack for tying together opposite characters and exploring madness, the same way he did in "The Hitcher".

***SPOILERS FOLLOW*** Regrettably, there's only one way the film can end, with a showdown where one of the character has to end up consumed by his compulsions, so it's no surprise that the film ends just like that.

***END SPOILERS*** On its way to said denouement, the film also often gets too close to offering generic psycho-thriller moments, and Kathryn Bigelow's stylish, detached camera-work can only hide that for a while.

But know what? I still like it more than I should.

I have just seen this movie. It just opened today (November 9th 2007) in Spain. Let me say that I understand the bad word of mouth the movie is having, it deals with a difficult subject (sexual abusers) and its tone is as dark as say "9 MM", if not darker.

But all things considered it's a pretty good film. The investigation angle makes for a very tense thriller, but where the film really shines is in the depiction of Richard Gere's characters, as well as the villain's, which I won't reveal.

Gere is really all stops go here, it's easily his most intense role since "Internal Affairs". Even if you are not Gere fans, you're gonna love him in this.

On the minus side, I didn't like the way the film is edited. It's full of flashes, freeze frames and all those "arty" stuff they cram into your TV series and direct-to-DVD movies. I understand they wanted to give the movie a hard edge, but it's often too distracting. The film is already dark and gritty enough as it is, and this bells and whistles don't add a damn thing.

And then there's Claire Danes. look, she's an OK actress, but she was like a fish out of water here. They give her character some interesting background, but she's constantly out off key. She looks like a raving lunatic when she tries to act quirky or vulnerable, and not very convincing when the script calls for her character to toughen up a little.

So, it's an interesting movie if you can go beyond the surface of its visual trickery, but not as good as it could be. I would say it earns a 6'5 - 7 in my scale.

This is a TV broadcast of a theatrical play by the Catalan company Krampack. Krampack is well known to all Catlan audiences thanks to their TV series "Plats bruts".

This play, however, is a rather different animal. Whereas "Plats bruts" used (mostly) white humor and surrealism to satirize young adults in Spain, "Excuses!" is a rather adult take on a similar situation. Two young couples meet several times over the years, and we see in perfect detail how they fail to achieve anything resembling happiness or fulfillment, the major causes being mismatched couples and lack of maturity (specially evident in the case of Joel Joan's character).

Is it good? Yes, of course. The members of the company are very skilled actors (a special mentions should go to Monica Glaentzel's performance as a young mother), and the text is both agile and precise in its satire.

But to be honest I didn't enjoy the play as much as I expected. Part of the blame should be put on myself, because I was expecting something similar to "Plats bruts", but I should also mention that the mixture of humor and extremely adult situations, such as spousal or child abuse, was rather difficult to stomach. It is something the authors intended, I'm sure, but it still makes for difficult watching in some key scenes.

WARNING: Contains spoilers.

This film must be one of my favorite westerns of all time, and I just watched it again on my brand new DVD player.

I also find it is one of the most strange westerns ever, something I'm not sure it is deliverate or it comes from the different personalities involved in the project. For starters, the film is based on a novel, and it is also known that Eastwood fired the man who was going to direct it (Philip Kaufman, also the screenwriter) when the project was already in an advanced stage.

Clint Eastwood stars as Josie Whales, a pacific farmer who sees his family killed during the American Civil war, and who, not having any good reason to live but to achieve revenge, joins the suddist irregulars. And here the strange things start to ocurr, because after the beginning credits the war is over and Whales is in more or less the same state where we left him. A series of events turn him into a fugitive, with literally every bounty hunter in the territory after him, and his dry, sullen persona starts to evolve as his journey towards Kansas progresses and he joins some of the most peculiar travel partners ever to grace a western: a young kid (Sam Bottons), a disenchanted Indian chief (Chief Dan George), an Indian woman who speaks in an unintelligible tongue, a dog, a puritan woman and her aloof young daughter (played by Sondra Locke, future companion and regular screen partner of Eastwood).

It is a wonderful film, really, but as I said it is VERY strange. It starts as your usual Eastwood vehicle, although Eastwood's tone as a director is even more laconic and dryly humorous than usual, but as the journey progresses new characters are introduced and Wales himself starts to change, developing, just like the film itself, and underlying schizophrenia. Wales is teared apart, as the film goes, between his desire for revenge and thus ending with his inner torment, and the newly found desire to reintegrate to society (he's been a loner for years as the film starts), as he founds himself as the leader of some sort of dysfunctional, even interracial, family.

This inner conflict is also transferred to the film itself, which seems to eternally debate between historical (and genre) accuracy (this must be the most "historical" of all Eastwood films, as it is based on historical events and several real figures like Quantril are mentioned) and Eastwood's desire to short-circuit it with dry humour and anti-archeotypical character allegiances.

This alone should make it a must see for all westerns aficionados, but it should also be noted that this is one of Eastwood's finest directing efforts. Attention to detail is overwhelming (notice for instance the use of period songs), and the cinematography is absolutely riveting, coating the interiors with persistent shadows, and washing out the familiar landscapes with invernal light. Kudos for the supporting cast, specially Chief Dan George, are also obligatory.

When I learned of this series, I was thrilled. I'm a big follower of some of the directors involved, such as Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter or Dario Argento, and the idea that they would be given freedom and resources to direct one-hour self-contained horror stories made me shiver with anticipation.

The results, however, are a mixed bag. Don't take me wrong, most of the directors involved seem to be in good shape, and the stories have potential, but the writing and the acting are, with some notable exceptions, just by the numbers.

Anyway, if you like horror you won't mind spending a few hours with the lesser episodes. They're still above average, and the series has enough hidden gems to keep you wanting more.

My favorite episodes were, in no particular order: "Incident on and off a road mountain" (Don Coscarelli), "Cigarette Burns" (John Carpenter), "Deer Woman" (John Landis)and "Sick Girl", directed by Lucky McKee.

I just heard the series has been renewed for another season. All I can say is that I will keep watching it.

Josema Yuste y Millan Salcedo are part of the History of recent Spanish comedy. They formed the comic duo "Martes y trece" (dissolved some years ago) and during ther 80s and early 90s revolutioned Spanish TV with their various TV shows and occasional performances. Their humour is very particular, often relying in absurd (think of an impossible mix of The Monty Python and Jerry Lewis), and it certainly works better in small doses.

This movie is one of the several cinema vehicles they starred in, and it is a pretty wretched effort. As I said, Martes y trece work better in small doses, such as their TV shows, where they could abandon any idea of narration and just focus on the absurd. Here, embedded in a caper / prison film parody they end up being quite annoying. The flat direction by veteran Álvaro Sáenz de Heredia and the inane supporting cast certainly don't help.

If you want to see Martes y trece at their best, get any of the TV specials they starred in, most of them have just been released in DVD.

Why making a bad movie out of a bad TV series when most of our cinema is crying for funds? The original TV series were bad enough, mistaking realism with exploitation an sensationalism. It wasn't a series about how our young people are, but as our elders believe we are. It was bad enough, with bad acting, clichés every minute and silly dialogue, but it turned out worse every year, with every episode becoming an excuse to show the girls in underwear and the boys doing stunts as more and more action elements were introduced.

This film, made out quickly to cash in money from the youngsters who liked the series, is as bad as that, but has a bigger budget. It shows the two main characters from the TV series several years later. He, the former rebel, is a waiter in a restaurant. The stupid girl with modeling ambitions has become a dancer and the lover of a small time mafioso. You see where the plot goes, don't you? Indeed. Because she's the girl, she'll get into trouble, and, because he is the boy, he will save her, f*ck her and, after a couple of shootouts and car stunts, return her to safety.

This is shameless exploitation, pure and simple. Occasional sex and violence obey to the rules of the genre, but are offered in small doses only. The rest of it is just sensationalism, sexism (see, dancers and prostitutes are the same, and girls, when they don't have men around to tie them become whores) and low-level drama. Stay away from here unless you enjoy bad movies. Even them, chances are that you will become more bored and angered than entertained.