nicoloved Reviews

The Secret Life of Words (2005)

Outstanding! Isabel has done it again!

[10/10 · 23 October 2005]

What a remarkable film! "The Secret Life of Words" grows on you little by little, at a steady and constant relaxed pace, throwing at you intriguing images and sounds from the very beginning that will get you hooked wondering until the very end.

Isabel has done it again, an emotional "rollercoaster" that gets to you in a devastating way. We needed this movie!

This movie could have been called "The Forgotten". Why we prejudice people we don't know simply because they behave differently, in ways we do not understand? How come we pretend to understand certain things that we cannot even imagine to be happening in the world?

The story of Hannah is the story of the millions that have been forgotten, but that walk with us every day.

Subtle and brilliant. Fine and devastating.

My admiration to Isabel for her bravery and talent. A terrific next film after "My Life Without Me".

The cast is wonderful! Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins are absolutely fantastic. What a performance! Julie Christie is great too (she sure got the great lines!). Thank you, thank you all.

Entertaining in a meaningful way.

Absolutely recommendable!

All the best to your film Isabel!!

Nico

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

What a waste of time! Bad storytelling Mr. Jackson!

[1/10 · 2 February 2002]

I tried to see this movie three times without success (all tickets sold out). I must have been "lucky" as I managed to watch it today.

First of all I must say that it had real good potential, I haven't read the book nor I am a fan of the story, but it look like something worth going to see.

If you could see my face, right now ... 3 hours took Mr. Jackson to tell a story he could have told in 30 minutes ... the worst of all is that when the movie is finally reaching the ending or the conclusion of the story ... he goes and fades out ..(!?) It's a "to be continued ..." movie! Of course we all knew that before entering the theater ... As it is a Trilogy we are going to see. But it seems Mr. Jackson idea of telling a story is more that of a Batman 60's TV Series : freeze frame: "will the main character survive?, will he die? ... tune in next week and you'll see what happens". Although here "next week" is "next year", as we must wait for the second part of the trilogy to discover what is the ending of the story we are just supposed to be told (if we haven't read the book).

Bad storytelling Mr. Jackson, even counting with a marvelous material as the Lord of the Rings is supposed to be.

I want my 3 hours and my money back! Where should I write to received them back??

You should have reviewed the Star Wars Trilogy, and you will see that you may like it or not, but in every part the story told has a resolution, has an ending. You can't annoy your audience by having them for 3 hours standing at your movie and not reward them with a decent resolution of the story. It's like having Indiana Jones (to mention an adventure character) fighting every imaginable obstacle and when he fights the last one, you just fade out and the movie ends. What is that?

To summarize, you should know that visual effects and nice music doesn't make a good movie, that by all means it should tell a good story.

Besides all this, what a waste of talent! You have such great actors and actresses involved, but they don't shine ... oh yes, they shine "literally" on screen because of the visual effects.

Of course, I might understand that it's all about making money ... what wouldn't it be more money efficient that you have the audience leaving the theater without this feeling of deception??

You can count me out for the next couple of ones .. and I must say it's sad that it has to be this way.