frauna

Better than most American movies about haunted people, lost children and grieving parents, this Spanish thriller really made it. Belen Rueda is a great actress, and nobody could express pain and desperation the way she does it. Geraldine Chaplin and the little and creepy old lady who visits Rueda at the beginning of the story are great performers, too. Not to mention the Mexican paranormal researcher, and old and dear face for Latin American public (Sr. Barriga, in El Chavo del 8).

Don't read the following sentences if you doesn't watch it yet, but despite the good script, a big mistake: could anybody really believes that a corpse could be abandoned in a basement's floor for nine months and nobody noticed the stench...?

After all comments I already read here, I am kind of confused. My opinion? Good script, good casting, beautiful people, carefully made movie, but for some reason, not quite convincing. Binoche and Irons became lovers and they are living a completely forbidden passion, a passion so violent and complete that they risk everything around them (specially Irons). But their performances are so rigid, so empty of life and (precisely) passion...!! I've seen people greeting friends at a birthday party with more enthusiasm and sparks in their eyes that Binoche and Irons meeting to have sex in a secret apartment. They both look like they were in drugs, and the boyfriend/son who does not know anything... well, my cat is a better actor when he wants food. One thing is that some people is not running around crying aloud when they are in love, and another thing is acting a love scene like you are thinking of you are out of milk and have to go to the supermarket.

I guess this movie is specially interesting for people who love music, good acting and intelligent stories. Two women, and old piano teacher and a young prodigy girl (the girl happens to be in prison and she is in a very, very bad mood, as you could expect) got involved in a relationship of teaching and learning. But this is not the typical movie about how music could save souls and make everybody happy and cheerful at the end, against all odds: complicated people and complicated problems remains complicated, of course, and music is a window to our tormented souls, not a sleeping pill or a wonderful happiness-tonic. Highly recommended. Specially the young actress who plays Jenny, a wild beauty with incredible eyes and full of passion.

this is kind of 'european' movie that takes place in Argentina. A group of middle age friends use to meet each other in a café, and the 3 male characters are in love with the only female character, a tango singer. good movie? No. The singer has a good body, yes, and a long perfect neck, but completely empty eyes and no sex appeal or tenderness at all: it is hard to understand why 3 younger (younger than hers, at least) guys are in love with her for years and years. The script is interesting, but the actors (and director) fail: this is the kind of movie where the acting process is essential (the voice, that particular gaze, those fingers moving at the exact moment) because is a common story about common people. They are not awful, but they are not good, neither.

The best way to define this movie is... such a waste. Very good Chilean actors (like the sublime Alfredo Castro) and a bunch of pianos are destroyed in this movie, a stupid and pretentious story about a musician that went mentally insane (the handsome Benjamin Vicuña) and another musician who's trying to find him and steal his music (God knows why, the music is not even that good). Nice idea, but just the idea. Larrain, the director, probably watched too many '90s video clips in his young life: the movie is a poor mix of Madonna and Guns and Roses nineties videos, with yes, the blood, the flying curtains, the pianos, etc. etc. He (the director) just missed the beautiful girl running through dark corridors wearing a long and sexy white gown. But well, Benjamin Vicuna is more feminine and delicate than a lot of girls you see around, so is almost the same.

Given that Chilean movie industry is a small one(no more than 5 or 6 films per year, and in a good year) and most of the movies are completely forgettable, this one shines among the others, of course. It has becomes a 'classic', and probably deserves it. One the few movies (if not the only one) about Chilean way of life in the countryside, with all the prejudices, contradictions and people playing the guitar that everybody could expect. A great movie? No. French cinema, Italian cinema, even American, have hundreds of good movies like this one, showing ordinary people, rich guys ruling, teenagers suffering. Watch it, if you like this kind of cinema. If you are expecting a masterpiece, well...

Was I dreaming, or I watched this movie before? No, I wasn't... in a way. This is the second movie based on this Chilean daily radio show. The first was Chacotero Sentimental, and again, I watched three short stories based on real people who called to the radio. Again, two stories are just fun (the first and the third one) with a strong doze of sex, cartoonist characters and playful plots, and another more sad and serious story (the second one) about a middle age woman who had an affaire with her son's fiancé. The movie is irregular, with great jokes at some point, and kind of an amateur's movie making at another. Claudia di Girolamo and Amparo Noguera are remarkable (the first, as the the middle age mom, the second, as a very ill wife who is dying) but unfortunately the other actors are not that good, or they are not really actors. If you enjoy the first one, who can watch this one, too. And if you did not watch the first one, you don't have to: this is just the same. Light but enjoyable movie, not for art-cinéma lovers, just for fun.

Of course is a sitcom, so, don't ask for too much 'art'. Very different from the original Colombian production, this version introduces interesting changes. The most important and remarkable is that Betty is just a regular girl, a little over weighted and non-perfect woman; I mean, not the actually-beautiful-but-disguised-as-ugly actress that we usually see in this kind of plot. So, we are not waiting for the moment when they remove the ridiculous make up and show us that she is (an always was, actually) a stunning Latin beauty. Second, the Prince Charming is kind of a average guy, too: cute, but not perfect. The bad part is all these clichés about Latin people: most of them are always yelling, they have no idea of fashion or good taste and they are constantly comparing themselves with the completely elegant, smart, educated and 'normal' white people. And, of course, Betty is the only latina who is not walking around dressed as Carmen Miranda or a Cuban vampire, more or less. But, well, it is a sitcom...

After seeing dozens of movies in my life where the main characters started being ordinary people and suddenly become trained US marines or 007 secret agents, this movie was really good news. Normal people abandoned by mistake, in open water. And what do they do about it? Nothing, really. They talk. They wait. They fight with each other a little, they cry. Finally, they die.

In other words, they act like any normal and non-military trained people could act in such a terrible situation. And given that nobody notice they were lost for a long time, they perished there.

So? Just life, just cinema, with no stupid stuff about miracles, superpowers or anything like that. Just perfect.

I've seen stupid endings in my life, yes, but this is too much. In this movie, after everybody discovered that Joan Allen's husband was actually dead in a well in the backyard of their lovely house for years (so, he never abandoned her or their daughters, friends and job, as she thought and she told to everybody)... what happened? Nothing. This crazy woman assumed that he left her and run away with another woman and never looked back, that he was a cheater and an evil man. She made everybody believed that, made his daughters suffer a lot and hate him, too, she was completely wrong, and you know, it's OK.

They put the poor guy in a coffin, then they sat together feeling finally in peace. So,according to this movie, if your husband vanishes suddenly and with no explanation or further phone calls, you could easily assume that he escaped with a younger woman and tell everybody that he is a complete monster.

If someone, just by accident, discover later that he actually had a terrible accident and he's dead, well, it's just the way it is. No remorse, no recriminations, no guilt. All your family is going to be perfectly well with your little mistake. Isn't that lovely?

Like many movies which had been qualified as masterpieces at some point, Last Tango did not pass the trial of time. It is a good movie, but.. is it a masterpiece? Hardly. The story it isn't that great, Maria Schneider is a lousy actress and Brando... well, he has style, of course, but that's all. I understand it was a shocking movie at the '70s, so, I understand why everybody was talking about it, but when you see it 30 years later (or more) there is a little left. Yes, a non traditional sex or love story, but that's all. I read here that in the original script Maria Schneider's character was a boy, and yes, the story makes much more sense that way. All that secrecy and hiding and conflicts seems more real if a middle age man meets a younger man and becomes his lover. Like the other comment says, why you need to hide yourself in such a dramatical way if you are a widower, and she is a single woman? Bertolucci was (and maybe still is) highly overrated.

well, my advice is just enjoy how beautiful and sexy Arquette looks at this movie, enjoy the music, the art direction and yes, enjoy the violence and sex scenes, why not, if you like to watch heads smashed and sexy chicks wearing black lingerie. There is nothing more.David Linch is another smart guy from Hollywood who knows how to make a sexy, appealing and very commercial movie with a touch of art. And (why not, again) if you want to spend sometimes talking with your friends about what's going on in the movie, OK, have fun doing that, too. Who cares, anyways? My only real complaint is Lynch never pick a really handsome man as a main character. Only women. Hey, Dave, get us something to watch, too.

OK, here is the situation: you are a producer and you know that sometimes parents leave the children with a careless nanny, children escape and go to the movies without permission, and there are 13 years old kids that look older... and there are people who is 13 years old forever, of course. What do you do? you get the money and make Sin City. An endless and boring film with tons of fake blood, pretty chicks showing her breasts, lot of people jumping and killing each other for no good reason and darkness all over. Kids gonna be happy; they watched a 'adult movie', wow. Incredible!! and you, the smart producer, gonna be rich. great, huh?