It is truly appalling to witness how many abysmal movies are brought to DVD year after year, and some good films like this one are not. I can imagine that "Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo" or "Freddy Got Fingered" might find a bigger following than a thoughtful anti war movie, especially nowadays, when to oppose a war means to be an enemy of the State and a fatherland's hater, but for the intellectual health of a nation would be advisable to repair the wrong and bring this movie to the place it deserves. I can't imagine there is a secret political reason for ignoring an all-star cast movie of this dimensions, especially when, on the other hand, that obscene mockery of history of the Vietnam War called "The Green Berets", by John Wayne, is free to buy at Amazon.com, but it's suspicious that exactly this movie has been ignored by the distributors. Now a DVD would be a blessing, especially if it came with the alternative versions, the censored, for Americans, and the European, for grownups, with Ms. Sommer in all her splendorous beauty to see. Nothing against America, don't get me wrong, just against the censors that, in those times, denied their own population the right to think and to decide for themselves.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Julia
(II) (1999)
A waste and a gem
16 July 2006
This will be a weird review. The movie we are discussing is not too many words worth but the one that came in the same bundle with it certainly is. To begin with, Giulia is a missed opportunity; a waste of great possibilities. Besides, Anna Biella seem to have shot herself in the foot taking part in this mess since her acting credits didn't improve very much after that, and that is a real pity. She is gorgeous to look at and seem to be a very talented actress. In addition to that, she's a real trooper accepting to participate in this short. All that opened a world of possibilities for a minimally talented director to make a hell of an erotic movie. Not so. In this case the movie is not only bad, it's incompetent, and that's worse than bad. The camera work and the editing are so abysmal that it's distracting. The sound stops arbitrarily in the middle of the scenes and the camera turns away suddenly as if we were looking at the unedited dailies. Not that there is too much to follow of the non-existent plot but at least they could have shown us what happens. I am a fierce advocate of crossover experiments with mainstream movies showing explicit sex, but the minimum requirement for that is that the experiment wouldn't be an embarrassment for any porn producer, as is the case here. A true waste.
But the blow came later. Together with Giulia there was a short film called "Sono Come Tu Mi Vuoi". "I am like you want me". My main curiosity was for Giulia and I begun to see the next thing with some skeptic disinterest. Little I knew. My greatest surprise was the performer. After a few sentences, I kind of notice that we were here not only dealing with a professional actress but an awesome one. I started to try to explain myself what was going on. Was the director a genius capable to stage the scene and write the text so good that anyone would look good in it? Probably, and this woman wouldn't be able to play anything else other that what was specially tailored for her Was she lip synced by a great professional actress that gave her the powerful tones with which she was carrying a 25 minutes monologue with all of us glued to the screen? Sure, that must be. I tried to imagine what her real voice was and what kind of performance she would give without all that help. But I couldn't stay too long in those digressions because the lady brought me back again and again with her magic erotic spell. Well, I was dead wrong. The lady's name is Fiorella Rubino and she's a stage actress that has made her way from Richard III to Otello and tried this erotic experiment at the beginning of her career.
There was some controversy around this film. The movie was produced by Tinto Brass, the famous Italian erotic director, and Ms. Rubino, who is pursuing a political career, has vehemently denied to have worked under his direction. She is correct. The movie was directed by Francesco Dominedò and Brass just produced it and said two words in it. It would have been disappointing if she had repudiated her work because it is an impeccable example of a theater improvisation exercise, something that Lee Strassberg would have been proud to see in any of his seminars but, fortunately, it is not the case. The short film is mentioned in the actress website as part of her impressive CV and she seem to be comfortable with it, like it should be.
I honestly don't know where you can find this gem but, please, look for it.
But the blow came later. Together with Giulia there was a short film called "Sono Come Tu Mi Vuoi". "I am like you want me". My main curiosity was for Giulia and I begun to see the next thing with some skeptic disinterest. Little I knew. My greatest surprise was the performer. After a few sentences, I kind of notice that we were here not only dealing with a professional actress but an awesome one. I started to try to explain myself what was going on. Was the director a genius capable to stage the scene and write the text so good that anyone would look good in it? Probably, and this woman wouldn't be able to play anything else other that what was specially tailored for her Was she lip synced by a great professional actress that gave her the powerful tones with which she was carrying a 25 minutes monologue with all of us glued to the screen? Sure, that must be. I tried to imagine what her real voice was and what kind of performance she would give without all that help. But I couldn't stay too long in those digressions because the lady brought me back again and again with her magic erotic spell. Well, I was dead wrong. The lady's name is Fiorella Rubino and she's a stage actress that has made her way from Richard III to Otello and tried this erotic experiment at the beginning of her career.
There was some controversy around this film. The movie was produced by Tinto Brass, the famous Italian erotic director, and Ms. Rubino, who is pursuing a political career, has vehemently denied to have worked under his direction. She is correct. The movie was directed by Francesco Dominedò and Brass just produced it and said two words in it. It would have been disappointing if she had repudiated her work because it is an impeccable example of a theater improvisation exercise, something that Lee Strassberg would have been proud to see in any of his seminars but, fortunately, it is not the case. The short film is mentioned in the actress website as part of her impressive CV and she seem to be comfortable with it, like it should be.
I honestly don't know where you can find this gem but, please, look for it.
Carmen
(2003)
Paz Vega shines as a beautiful and strong Carmen
14 March 2006
There are several ways to misunderstand this movie and a couple of them have been shown in some of the past comments. This is a movie to be analyzed as a free recreation of a known subject and therefore not to be compared with the opera, the book or other Carmen movies seen before. It just stands for itself and I must say that this Carmen does it very well. It is a mistake to compare because that is the first step to deny movies the chance to be autonomous creative works of art. Vicente Aranda is a master of atmosphere and the art direction, the costumes and the photography are extremely well put together to achieve a pleasing aesthetic experience. Let's take it as it is.
And that brings us to the next misunderstanding. Someone complains about the typical Spanish clichés in the movie. Well, historically the movie is extremely well researched and you can see the results of that very serious work in every scene. It is not only an accurate portrait of the "black Spain" of knife and espadrille that Goya portrayed so vividly, but it's also of that part of history as seen by a foreigner fascinated with the folkloric side of that society. Honestly, anyone who doesn't want to see any cliché about Spain shouldn't buy a ticket to see Carmen, but in this case those clichés are presented before they became one and the way to see them is getting rid of our own prejudices.
Another important requirement to understand this movie properly is to speak the language. It is not acceptable to criticize any actor performance for not having understood his or her lines. If all the rest of the audience did, the problem most likely lies somewhere else. Paz Vega has an immaculate diction with her Andalusian accent and all she says is understandable and credible. Her Argentinian partner, Leonardo Sbaraglia, gives also a convincing portrait of the Basque officer that became a "bandolero", and her accent is very well learned.
No less important is to have a minimally open approach to the material. To say that Paz Vega is "horrible" suggests that the author of the phrase entered the theater for the wrong reasons. We already had in Spain a critic in one of the most prestigious papers that used to recommend us pictures he found homosexually arousing, without mentioning it explicitly. And that was not totally fair for the rest of us, especially for the ones that hadn't detected that the man was writing with parts of his anatomy that many readers didn't necessarily had to care for. I'm not suggesting at all that the reviewer had the same motivation, but the expectations must have been different as the ones of those among us that went to see a talented and beautiful actress play an almost classic role, because that's what we got. Paz Vega IS Carmen, and an excellent one, in Vicente Aranda's movie.
And that brings us to the next misunderstanding. Someone complains about the typical Spanish clichés in the movie. Well, historically the movie is extremely well researched and you can see the results of that very serious work in every scene. It is not only an accurate portrait of the "black Spain" of knife and espadrille that Goya portrayed so vividly, but it's also of that part of history as seen by a foreigner fascinated with the folkloric side of that society. Honestly, anyone who doesn't want to see any cliché about Spain shouldn't buy a ticket to see Carmen, but in this case those clichés are presented before they became one and the way to see them is getting rid of our own prejudices.
Another important requirement to understand this movie properly is to speak the language. It is not acceptable to criticize any actor performance for not having understood his or her lines. If all the rest of the audience did, the problem most likely lies somewhere else. Paz Vega has an immaculate diction with her Andalusian accent and all she says is understandable and credible. Her Argentinian partner, Leonardo Sbaraglia, gives also a convincing portrait of the Basque officer that became a "bandolero", and her accent is very well learned.
No less important is to have a minimally open approach to the material. To say that Paz Vega is "horrible" suggests that the author of the phrase entered the theater for the wrong reasons. We already had in Spain a critic in one of the most prestigious papers that used to recommend us pictures he found homosexually arousing, without mentioning it explicitly. And that was not totally fair for the rest of us, especially for the ones that hadn't detected that the man was writing with parts of his anatomy that many readers didn't necessarily had to care for. I'm not suggesting at all that the reviewer had the same motivation, but the expectations must have been different as the ones of those among us that went to see a talented and beautiful actress play an almost classic role, because that's what we got. Paz Vega IS Carmen, and an excellent one, in Vicente Aranda's movie.
Di que sí
(2004)
Paz Vega fans can even enjoy this turkey
8 February 2006
Nobody is expecting a masterpiece of a silly comedy and that's exactly what "Di Que Sí" aims to be. Nothing wrong with that. It's just dumb entertainment and it has to be taken as such. That doesn't mean, of course, that we should swallow everything without criticism. And there are quite a few regarding this movie. The idea of the plot opens some possibilities but I have to say that the makers didn't work them out properly, especially because they didn't seem to have thought out any kind of defined personality for some characters or any form of logic for the plot. It might sound like I would be expecting too much of a silly comedy but it's not so much to ask for a minimal portion of common sense if you are suppose to relate to any of the characters. They just seem to have relayed on the type of traditional dimwitted clichés that would be too old for an Ozores comedy. And, maybe worst of all, Spanish filmmakers seem to be looking too much to Hollywood instead of developing their much better qualities. Such a marvelous actress like Paz Vega made the best out of her part and achieved the most enjoyable moments of the movie, even though she was forced to act like she was from Mars. And poor Santi Millán, also a talented actor, had to cope with a typical nobody-can-be-that-stupid kind of stuff to a point that is really hard to endure. I mean, come on, I know more than one guy, including myself, that would agree to be shot, let alone get money, after having the chance to spend a couple of days with Paz Vega in a beach resort and there is no discernible reason for anybody to act otherwise, unless you are making a silly comedy. The plot twists in this movie are presided by idiocy and at a certain point you don't care anymore. The only one I wanted to survive was Paz Vega, but just to have the chance to see her again. In a better movie.
For Better or Worse
(1995)
See what happens when you take out the laugh track from Seinfeld?
20 June 2005
Nobody is comparing but any movie in which we are damned to endure the presence of Jason Alexander necessarily has to remind us of the most inane and overrated TV show in history. I know, I'm one of the few misguided souls that think like that but this is a free country, or so they say. However, I think For Better Or Worst is a good example of what always has been my theory about Seinfeld. They just abuse the gullibility of their faithful audience by inserting recorded laughs through unfunny dialog and hoping the TV viewers tag along. They actually do and that has made a mediocre stand-up comedian one of the wealthiest and most famous of American entertainers. Don't take my word for it. Just watch Jason Alexander repeat his hysterical antics and see if you can laugh. Put a laugh machine under and tell me if it's not as funny as The Seinfeld Show. The movie has a good cast but nothing helps. The only one that manages to do something with his role, as usual, is James Woods. Marvelous Lolita Davidovich is forced to play some sentimental hybrid and she copes with it with great dignity but can't really shine. By the way, I don't want to sound too trivial but I sincerely can't imagine such a woman having any kind of affair with such a guy unless he's directing the movie. Joe Mantegna is totally wasted and the rest, including Bea Arthur, has really nothing to work on. One of the many uninspired lines in the movie says: "This is better than my soap!." No, it's not. Not even that.
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