marianaruiz1982 Reviews

I Dreamed of Africa (2000)

Not too well developed but beautiful

[6/10 · 22 December 2006]

I bumped into this film on television rather unexpectedly. I've never seen L.A. Confidential so I can't say I'm a fan of Kim Basinger. But as soon as I saw the photography I just couldn't take my eyes off the TV. This is a beautiful film about a farm in Kenya where there are no mosquitoes or infectious deceases. It's about a woman in her forties trying not to get her second husband killed every time he goes away hunting or her teenager son poisoned by one of his pet snakes. So as far as I'm concerned about the characters there's not much to say but it's still a visually stunning film with some rain and maybe a storm or two throughout the whole film. Althougt, I have to admit that the actors did their best with what they had and made me cry one too many times. The children gave a spark of happiness to the feeling that you know terrible things are about to happen to the main characters. In the end, it's a sad film with a message of love of nature in savage Africa brought to us by superb Basinger and Vincent Perez, who by the way I just love since "La Reine Margot".

Miami Vice (2006)

Lousy movie in beautiful Miami

[4/10 · 14 August 2006]

I went to the movies last night expecting so much from Mann. After such masterpieces as Heat and Collateral, I was so disappointed, you just can't imagine. The film starts in 2006 with two cops in tieless suits chasing the bosses of a prostitution business. Or so I understood because from the first moment you just hear some loud music and two actors mumbling. Then comes some police informant fearing he's going to be killed, whose wife has been killed and says he gave up a pair of FBI agents to some drug dealers and then he throws himself in front of a truck and dies. At this point, we see some FBI boss asking for help to the two tieless cops because the ongoing operation to stop this really mean drug czars went out of control. From this moment on, we see a couple of actors (Foxx and Farrel, fine actors I might add) just riding fast boats, having sex, flying jets, coming and going from and to South America and displaying the most macho attitudes I have ever seen. As under covers, they get into the drug business masquerading as transport agents for drug cartels. The plot just gets dumber as Foxx's girlfriend is kidnapped, Farrel REALLY falls in love with the drug traffic bad girl Isabella and the movie ends with a gunfight in which you better just pay attention to the music because sadly, Mann doesn't even allow you to see who's shooting at who. From a creator such as Mann, I'm sorry to say, I never expected such a lousy movie. The beautiful scenes of Miami just can't compensate for the lack of chemistry between the actors and the poor dialogues in which you see how expendable the so-called partners are from each other. Let me make myself clear, I LOVE music, and this movie's soundtrack is as good as it gets but I definitely can't appreciate the fact that the spectator doesn't even get to listen to the actors' mumbling as they try to communicate. Mann loses in this movie the essence of the Miami vice series: the tight friendship between the two main characters and the humanity that made them everybody's favorite for over four years and still does. It doesn't matter whether you are 20 or 50, the original series where something special, something that Mann was not able to recreate in this multi-million dollar Hollywood production.

Queen Margot (1994)

not historically accurate but really worth seeing

[8/10 · 8 June 2006]

For the American people that have seen this excellent French movie, I will say just one thing: in many countries around the world we get to see movies from abroad with subtitles. Most of the movies that we see in South American countries come either from North America or Europe and we don't usually complain about the subtitles. Only kids movies are dubbed in Spanish. A great part of the romance or charm about French movies comes from the fact that they are actually spoken in French. Nobody in these films expects the rest of the world to understand as they speak but to make a little effort and appreciate the beauty in each language is something I think is missing in American culture. I've seen nothing but comments on how difficult it was for some members of the American public to understand this film. I only ask myself: in times of globalization, isn't it interesting to learn from people from other parts of the world in their own language, specially a French film based on a French novel by the French Alexandre Dumas, placed in the 16th century, directed by one of France's best directors and acted by some of the most wonderful French actors and actresses of the last decades? Would you want to see this film in English? Sorry, but I think you would be missing a great deal of the depth and emotion of this unique film!!!