diegorodriguez Reviews

A Man Called Otto (2022)

A man named Hanks. Tom Hanks.

[5/10 · 14 August 2023]

If there was ever a movie loaded with clichés, Otto is not far behind. From minute 0 we see good old Hanks wandering around in his role as a grumpy-old-man-with-a-reason whose motivations will later be explained to us with generous flash-backs in brilliant 70's kodachrome.

Throughout the film, and marked by laughable suicide attempts, a list of characters follows one another that allows us to verify that Otto is not racist, not even with Hispanics, and that he is not homophobic or hates social networks.

The only thing Otto truly hates is the superficiality of his Barbie neighbor and of course, the greed of the evil white real estate manager who wants to make a business out of the ignorance of Otto's black neighbor. A greed that will finally allow us to discover why Otto is so grumpy: Allied with negligence, greed is also behind the unfortunate accident that condemned his late wife long ago to childlessness and to live the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

But Otto has a medicine for all this. In the blink of an eye, he solves all the problems in his neighborhood. He saves a cat and then another suicidal man, prevents his black neighbors from being scammed, solves his Hispanic neighbor's housing and transportation problem, and hands over his American-made car to the transgender boy. Finally, he dies in holiness for his long-awaited reunion with his deceased wife.

The film serves as an international launch for the Hanks offspring, despite playing a deadpan and implausible twenty-something version of Otto. One can be a leftist at heart, but family always precedes talent!

It's a shame that Marc Forster got swept up in the Hanks clan to make this predictable and uninspired version of a 2015 Swedish film.

The Outfit (2022)

Everyone knew it

[6/10 · 29 December 2022]

This could be a play. Long dialogues in a closed environment with some gore, but from the beginning everyone knows that the central character hides a secret related to the main plot. So from then on, it's very difficult to weave together a compelling chain of surprises and revelations that could actually work. Instead, you may feel compelled to fast forward and skip all that mob philosophy.

The cutter does his best to embody the cliché of a phlegmatic, elegant English gentleman who sees and hears everything but says nothing more than wise and polite quotes. Mafia papa looks so cute and sweet that you feel sorry for him. The two competing mob boys, including the mafia dad's son, look too theatrical to be convincing tough guys. Finally, the girl only plays a role of gender balance. There should be a girl somewhere!

In general, very well set but a little disappointing in the realization.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Warning: Too long, too shaky, too predictable

[4/10 · 23 December 2022]

I'll admit some CGI improvements over the past decade, but they don't make for a good movie in terms of scripting and acting. For the overall message, Avatar keeps reiterating the same old stereotypes: nature is good, the white man is bad. Blues, greens, and virtually all other colors and species of all sizes are innocent and friendly. What makes white people so ugly? Greed, lack of empathy. So you can follow the rest of the consequences along a flat script with flat characters and some minor parentage issues (x is a child of y, and that creates a conflict. Have you heard of that before?).

The movie is long because CGI costs seem to have come down, so things you could explain most vigorously in 5 minutes run for an hour, iterating over and over again ad nauseam fast camera movements and details that mar any sense of realism and participation.

Warning: If you plan to watch this movie in a 4DX theater, be prepared to sail in a small boat in a heavy storm for three hours. Watching Avatar 2 in a 4DX theater is the worst experience I've ever had in a movie theater. All the problems seen in Top Gun 2 are made worse and multiplied by the continuous and violent movement of the seats, which makes it impossible to maintain an upright position. About halfway through the movie, you'll probably start wishing all the characters (white, blue, and green people alike) were dead and the end credits start rolling. Virtually every person ended up feeling dizzy on their way out. A real torture.

And no. Despite all the CGI improvements, you can still feel yourself watching colorful silly Tom & Jerry cartoons.

13 Assassins (2010)

Seven Samurai? Forty-seven ronin? 13 Assassins?

[5/10 · 10 July 2021]

That's definitely a very good plot that stalls and crashes during the never-ending boring sword battle scene that hijacks so much of the movie. The showdown between loyalty to the Lord and loyalty to conscience in the twilight of the Samurai era is simply spoiled by those confusing and massive scenes that lack choreography and can become terribly boring and forgetable for audiences (in particular, audiences. Feminine). Great actors, great sets, and great photography cannot simply save this surrender to the adolescent taste for blood and unreal violence. I was considering a 4, but eventually gave it a 5 due to some of the dialogue and unfulfilled noble intent of this movie.

Warsaw '44 (2014)

Another WW2 bloody show

[6/10 · 8 December 2019]

Yes, seems like new CGI is allowing many non Hollywood productions to flood the market with bloody war tales with unprecedent realism. Add to this some historic facts, a love triangle and that is. You can forget the story as soon as you get up from the armchair. The only curiosity here are those slow motion pop music scenes seem taylored to please younger audiences that completely make everyone else to lose focus. The script is virtually introducing every possible resource to impress the viewer, to a point seems about to repar itself. Why is The Pianist so superior to his one? Being equally brutal, maybe the difference is the pace, where you can actually reflect on the events around you. Anyway, an interesting worthy movie. Just don't watch it during dinner!

Ryan's Daughter (1970)

Jarre against Lean

[8/10 · 22 June 2019]

It's like the score in this and other memorable join Lean and Jarre films seems designed to annoy, confuse, distract and upset viewers, apart from some fortunate themes that will last forever. I would pay for this movie to try another soundtrack, or at least to silence its terrible score. The photography and acting is superb.

What a Wonderful Family! (2016)

A Japanese fascination for simple tales

[7/10 · 3 October 2017]

This is just the last of a bunch of Japanese movies recently hitting the western audiences with a common denominator: trying to inherit the essence of the Yasujirô Ozu cult movie Tokio Story (1953). And in more than a sense (not only displaying a chunk of it in one of the final scenes), Yôji Yamada makes a wonderful tribute in his last works: A Tokio Family (2013), Nagasaki: Memories of my son (2015) and What a Wonderful Family (2016). In all them, he uses once and again the contrite power of Kazuko Yoshiyuki as an axis to move around all the other usual suspects. The beauty of Yû Aoi as the shy newcomer with the rare skill to smile so sadly that you feel her emotions grasping your throat, the always discreet wife Yui Natsukawa, the appeal of Tomoko Nakajima as the busy businesswoman, the charming simplicity of Shôzô Hayashiya as the dumb husband, Masahiko Nishimura as the serious older son, etc etc and above all, Isao Hashizume as the grumpy grandfather. With those bricks, Yamada essentially builds a micro cosmos of lashed emotions and humoresque situations in which we can see ourselves reflected. And that's, nothing else, the definition of a universal story.

Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Find a culprit

[7/10 · 26 March 2017]

The picture is startling and seems to depict well what life in an oil rig is, but was it needed to spend so much time blaming the aliens for every evil? American guys appear charming and almost submissive towards greedy, coward, anxious, ass-licker BP personnel, and the stars and stripes flag cannot miss waving in the final shots as an echo of someone else's political statement: "Look what they did to our great, great land!".

The Great Beauty (2013)

Do not pay too much attention to the synopsis

[9/10 · 19 March 2017]

Theoretically, this could be just a naive story about the high posh Roman classes through the eyes of a lazy journalist. But it turns to be a wonderful discovery voyage to a number of incredibly interesting and humane characters with some surrealistic touch, just like one may expect from an old classical 50's Italian movie transported to modern times. But there is a difference. The photography is superb, the scenarios are superb, every performance is superb, the script is superb, but what puts this movie above average is its beautiful, terrible, sweet end. Don't miss it! You will probably find yourself reflecting on your own life.

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Nature is unjust

[6/10 · 19 March 2017]

If you are young, rich, run a successful world-class fashion brand with your name and in your spare time can produce such a convincing drama, then one can only wonder what is left for the rest of us. Yet I have rated low the movie because of its violence and gore touch, but I am ready to give a higher mark when Tom Ford decides to give up on his chase of handsome-looking wannabe actors and focus on telling stories the way he knows. With no artifacts or thick frame eyeglasses. By the way, memorable Michael Shannon on his detective role.

Allied (2016)

Squeeze the Nazi plot yet another bit

[6/10 · 19 March 2017]

Zemeckis knows how to tell stories, and how to keep focus and all that. Yes, the cinematography is perfect, the rhythm is perfect and even there is chemistry between Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. But Pitt seems to be specializing himself in Nazi-killer roles, where he can shoot around just anyone with no moral implications, making the plot to lose most of its human dimension. I have no problem with going once and again to those old good days where Britons win, so they can keep their heads up against evil Germans at least in the dark of a movie theater, but I am personally growing sick of those trigger-happy macho-type die-hard and would welcome some deeper plot where human lives count. All.

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

Another smashed classic

[4/10 · 10 September 2016]

If you really cannot find any original story to tell, if you really want to homage the classics, do it at least with some class. Do not even think on impressing people with dazzling images. Today's CG provided by commercial 3rd parties are achieving that all movies look the same, so you cannot rely any more on special effects. You can only rely on a good story. So just try to follow the lines. But in this movie they just want to reach the teenager market, the same that would love The Hunger Games or any Marvel franchise: a good looking but absolutely inexpressive main character, a beautiful girl and a funny black man. The plot is laughable, with more holes on it than a Swiss cheese, and the only known name, Samuel L. Jackson, looks here even more out of context and more fictitious than Morgan Freeman in Prince of Thieves. Is it really needed to include a black US actor in order to gain access to the thousands of US theaters in no matter what story? Is it really needed to be so much Anglocentric as to make the US/GB team a supreme moral reference against slavery? US abolished slavery in 1865, and deep into the XX Century segregation existed! Besides, why all bad guys have a German accent?? Tarzan is rubbish shot against a green screen.

Faith Like Potatoes (2006)

Evangelistic movie disguised as a drama

[5/10 · 29 December 2009]

I had the impression the footage was too short for this movie. Several scenes look just like missing extra minutes (e.g. the move between countries at the very beginning, or sudden appearance of the children house). Also, a lot of false clues, absurd scenes which seem to mean something, build something, but at the end yield nothing (the apparently drunk black servant who may look so threatening to a painter household in the middle of the night).

The acting is good, once you take into account the poor script. The three main supporting characters appear lazy or jobless (a policeman, a preacher, a full time housewife), while the starring role looks sort of hyperactive. The black men around seem good people, but completely irrelevant to the story. This is a white plot for white men.

But the most annoying thing of the movie is that there's no warning message at its cover stating that the plot includes miracles, bible lessons and resurrections from a white man in a negros country.

Technically is a good movie, though. So good it could have taken some of the many false clues that otherwise may have made a good film of it.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Klaatu joins the X Men

[4/10 · 9 April 2009]

When I first saw the 1952 version of the tale, I felt impressed. In the past, I have been successful avoiding updated versions of classic movies, just to save me from disappointments, but this time I felt like falling in.

I was prepared to see much more spectacularity in this 2008 version, the regular special effects, and maybe something new in the script.

And yes, there was some new things in the script. A rather inconsistent start, The Cold War is still there, plus the global warning, and maybe the toxic assets. There's also a reference to the altruism enigma.

The rest is purely crap.

We miss the evangelistic references of the 1952 version. There's no Jude and there's no mortality in Klaatu's enigmatic persona. Instead, he's a rather flat and expressionless superhero, able to control people's mind remotely or bring down helicopters with his hands. No thrill.

The rest of the cast ranges from stupid to useless characters. The kid is really hard to stand, and the Secretary Defense is unbelievable. Even the heroin looks little smart despite her academic titles, and there's this pain of watching John Cleese trying to act seriously.

But, over all, there you have this gigantic hole in the script. After almost destroying New York (yes, just recovered from the recent havoc of Watchmen!) and lots of stadiums, trucks and the like, Klattu surrenders to rather poor mortal mercy demands, and leaves the planet.

Probably then, Klaatu just forgot the movie's name, and sends a command to freeze the whole Earth machinery pool. But... Why does he need to demonstrate his strength with a global warning when he just almost destroyed the planet? Is like sending a newsreel with Los Alamos footage to Hiroshima the 9th of August, 1945. Purely crap. Nonsense crap.

Luckily, we still have the 1952 version.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Another ultra violent video game

[3/10 · 16 August 2008]

I believe in democracy. Sometimes, I get scared of it. For so many people believing this is the best movie ever, I can only fear something must be wrong.

This is just another ultra violent mix of action movies, with all the typical ingredients. You can even watch the hero save his love using his wings! Love triangles, car persecutions, explosions everywhere, and... not to lose its target audience, youth... not a drop of blood can be seen around. Hypocrital enough.

So much lack of originality makes the movie so boring that many parents will take a chance on the intermission (maybe the best movie feature) to flee away from the theater. I confess I did.

If this is the way things will look in the future for IMDb ratings, pested with promo infected young males looking for the next level in shootings and video game movies, the ratings system will render useless.

The Last Bomb (1945)

It was not the last bomb, after all

[28 July 2008]

The documentary is technically superb, apart from some rather boring repetitive air combat scenes (irrespective real people was being shot in the making), for everyone in the right side, from General LeMay to the least Chamorro folk strolling down some Guam street appears acting. The funny thing is that there is no face for the enemy.

We never see what happens when the napalm hits the wooden houses many feet below. We don't see the face of the victims.

One can naturally argue 'The Last Bomb' is a paradigmatic WWII propaganda movie, aimed to insufflate enthusiasm into every American heart. But even then, it's hard to believe the average spectator not having the least curiosity on the fate of the people in the wrong side of the film.

'The Last Bomb' is an interesting product, not only showing the massive destruction chain production American approach, but the sociology (maybe pathology) of a crazy age.

But... what was happening in the wrong side of this documentary, under the shinny armored bellies of the B-17 bombers? Take a look at 火垂るの墓, Hotaru no Haka, Grave of the fireflies, and find out.

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

The History of World War II begins

[8/10 · 2 July 2007]

It's said that history can only commence when all the characters involved have passed away. It's been 60 years since Iwo Jima events marked the start of the end of the WWII Pacific War, so it may sound good to revisit this turning point from our modern perspective.

Modern perspective means Japan has become a world economic power. Japanese mega corporations owns much of the American entertainment industry and they slowly seem more open to discuss their recent history. So it took Clint Eastwood to dare to take this project along an extreme thin wire hanging high over hate and revenge, pain and honor, sentiments and memories. For Hollywood has stuck to patriotic propaganda as long as the American message was the only thing needed to market films worldwide. Growing Anti-Americanism has forced not just a more critical approach, already present in so many films, but also a less American-centered vision.

Keeping this in mind, 'Letters from Iwo Jima' succeeded in getting me involved into the doomed fate of thousands of Japanese soldiers, mostly recruited by force to die for his Emperor defending a small volcanic island thought to be the most distant part of the 'sacred land of Japan', as one of its most irreverent fellow soldiers buries all their comrades unsent letters for their beloved ones to get them sometime in the future.

The message behind is not that war is bad, yet it can be understood. The message behind this movie is that war is fought between sons of the same mother. Honor, patriotism, blinded those men into killing and making themselves to be killed by a piece of volcanic rock lost in the ocean, defending a war already lost.

To explain that, Eastwood could get an impressive script, acting, a dim cinematography that remarks the sense of anticipating tragedy, and a hypnotic piano tune that slowly runs into climax with the school Japanese song that plays in the radio for the final farewell.

A bit of flash back, lots of the usual brutality, boring crossfire battlefield scenes, and very emotional, very intense depictions of human beings trapped in the nonsense web of war that help the viewer to endure the toughness of many scenes, the deafening gunshots and explosions, the yelling language of the Japanese military and over all, the anguish of knowing each wound is cut twice in a war: once in your own flesh, another in your beloved ones heart, and the opposite. We see a 'home front' devised to keep the men supply for war going, even if they start to get too young or too old to serve, using everything from propaganda, threatening families, children praising, extortion and all kind of brutal methods.

I liked very much each of the characterizations, and never fell back because of a verbose all-Japanese script because its easy flow. Regarding connection with its companion movie, 'Flags of Our Fathers', we can link a couple of specific events in both films, enough to create a sense of parallel worlds that even clashing one into another are still universes apart.

Technically humble, yet taking advantage of some of the more ambitious 'Flags of Our Fathers' footage and scenery, 'Letters from Iwo Jima' has been devised as a serious, successful effort to create a masterwork that I would recommend to view.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

A sadistic orgy that may lure the children: watch out

[3/10 · 19 February 2007]

WARNING: Do not take your kids to watch this movie.

Yes, I know it's properly rated. But there are certain pans around that may look appealing enough for you to take your children, in laws and grandparents to the cinema for a 'different fairy tale': watch out.

For in previous works from Mr. Del Toro, as in Hellboy, you may be pleased by his clean, dynamic action.

This is a totally different story. Plainly put, that's a sadistic fantasy with some fairy elements inside.

From the first take, we all know that the magic underworld is nothing but a second-before-death thought of the main character, Ofelia, but the real appeal for most people seems to be the unexplainable gore violence doses that run through the whole movie.

For the rest, the special effects are boring, the music is unable to highlight the action, and the acting is constrained to the extreme models that Mr. Del Toro has drawn in this blood orgy that deserves nothing but oblivion. Unless the box office says the opposite...!

Captain Alatriste: The Spanish Musketeer (2006)

Where does the plot go?

[4/10 · 16 January 2007]

As too often seen in Spanish productions, there's a quest in this movie for hyper realism that ends in vulgarity and obscenity.

As a consequence, the approach to the plot is rude and completely short of human motivations. We do not know, and we do not care why the characters move around. Some of them have been drawn too close to caricatures (Quevedo), some others have been 'modernised' so they seem nailed to the stage, so artificial, so unnecessary (Maria de Castro), some others have been ridiculized, using a woman to play a monk (Fray Emilio Bocanegra).

The script is plenty of dirty words, making it an impossible entertainment for all audiences, and certainly not advisable for family fun.

If all this was not enough, we see excessive violence in some takes, with blood and gore details lowering more and more the level and worthiness of the film, and we learn little on the time and its characters.

I got so disappointed with this movie that I rented 'The Mission', also based in Spanish characters from 1750's, but belonging to a totally different galaxy, to save the day.

The book the movie is based upon may deserve a better treatment, and not everything is to be based on the international flavors of a good supporting actor for action films as Viggo is. His voice intonation, remembering 'The Godfather', adds the final exhausting, disgusting tone I remember from the film.

Lord of War (2005)

Tell me something new

[5/10 · 23 November 2006]

Arms trade is obviously nothing surprising for Americans. Wholesaling them abroad is neither. Its moral implications are completely clear.

So this movie was supposed to tell us something new about it. But it falls short in most respects by several reasons.

First, it simplifies all characters to the rule...'one of each'. For instance, all world dictators are incarnated by the fictitious Colonel Oliver Southern. All other arm dealers, the 'ones with principles', are incarnated by Simeon Weisz. The military corruption is simplified to one of each side, Ukranian and American top officials... All good men are represented by an ubiquous incredible cop, Jack Valentine. Finally, most of the women depicted in the movie are faceless prostitutes, besides Orlov's wife, an ex-top model. So, in the big picture, we have a frustratingly simple scene. The usual salt and pepper of violence and sex completes this moral 'fast food' product, that never goes deep into any character background or motivation.

Second, the whole movie turns around Mr. Cage's performance, who stays in the screen since the very beginning to the last shot, with the only exception of a notable trailer introduction that may summarize the whole thing probably better than the 120 minutes lenght of the movie that comes next. Is it hard to tell apart the many truculent parts Mr. Cage has played in the past from this new character. Only brief appearances of Ian Holm, as sole competitor of Orlov, dignify the poor acting of the rest of the crew, never seeming to believe their own parts.

Finally, the movie fails to dare going further in revealing the intrincated associations of the industry military complex. The only mention to US military, the world's number 1 arms exporter, is a top rank US General with no face that appears briefly a couple of times.

Maybe, Andrew Niccol faded before this dangerous subject when compared with his previous very interesting films, as GATTACA or The Truman Show, or maybe he had to surrender for the sake of average US people's understanding, but a lost chance, in the very bottom line, to tell us something new, something powerful enough to recommend this movie to be watched.

Pharaoh (1966)

Cult movie

[8/10 · 22 October 2006]

This is the kind of movies which impression lasts more than you may expect. That is because FARAON throws fundamental questions about power, religion and a not so usual element in the movies, economy. And from a very realistic approach, surrounded by intrigues and superstition. That was, probably, the world in Ancient Egypt.

The cinematography goes flawless, with powerful visuals, and slow pace. Performance conveys audience to states of anguish, uncertainty, fear, rage, and often sensuality, with a perfect theatrical top class acting, and economy of means.

Only the music from Adam Walacinski lags a bit behind, and would benefit from some more ambition.

A classic from 1966 which track no other movie has followed.

At Five in the Afternoon (2003)

From Fuente Grande to Kabul

[7/10 · 19 February 2006]

The movie title, and one of its main axis, comes after a fragment of a poem written by Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, called 'Llanto por la muerte de Ignacio Sánchez Mejías', dedicated to the death in 1934 of a Spanish Torero.

This poem is often seen as a premonition of Garcia Lorca's own dead, near Fuente Grande, and of the Civil War that was soon to desolate Spain.

Samira Makhmalbaf comes again with an anguishing tale of a woman that wants to believe in the role of women in a modern society while her own family is disintegrating around her.

A Touch of Spice (2003)

A touch of Constantinopolitan taste...

[8/10 · 17 September 2005]

The tale of a Greek family living between Istambul and Athens since mid 1950's to present through the eyes of the son, beautifully crafted with well balanced acting, superb photography and spectacular music.

The tender, innocent sensuality that a dancing child love cast over the boy will make the ever lasting impression of Istambul.

The special effects help making the scenarios not only believable, but romantically described, and contains a couple of sequences absolutely impressive presenting Istambul in 1959 and Athenas, in 1964, through long trailers resembling some of the Paris sequences in Moulin Rouge (2001), for instance.

A piece of history, wrapped in the tastes, flavors and smells of spices.

Ancient Egyptians (2003– )

DOCUMENTARIES TAKEN TO THE NEXT STEP

[17 June 2004]

We have seen in the past a growing convergence between movies on history and documentaries trying to look like movies.

"Ancient Egyptians" takes a step forward, bringing together a scrupulous attention to facts (from language to scenarios) and super production features (careful casting and acting, special effects, musical score, dramatic plot,...) in a way one can hardly argue against.

Maybe the only 'drawback' could be a false assimilation between modern Egyptian actors and ancient Egyptians that producers decided to exploit. Even after the carefully restored ancient language and superb acting, the Arab look and gestures does bias character performance.

Nevertheless, the outcome is a must see. Take every one of the four different tales with time enough to enjoy its delicate features and powerful story telling resources. A more vivid and brighter Egypt will be brought to life for you.

The Four Feathers (2002)

A tale of British heroism carefully seasoned with multinational flavours

[7/10 · 14 May 2003]

In this new version of the novel from A. E. W. Mason from Indian director Shekhar Kapur, the audience is deprived from any moral compromise with the subject of war, let it alone be an imperialist one. Its hero is simply not keen on going to a distant wild land to fight on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen. Later on, once his comrades are already fighting and his distinguished daddy and girlfriend have abandoned him, he feels the necessity of proving them his lack of keen could be reversed, returning politely the feather each one of them gifted him in signal of his cowardice, by proving his endurance and bravery.

We will learn ending the movie the supreme reason for fighting, provided that empires and states fall. We do fight to defend the man next to us. In other words, we fight because they fight.

Let apart that circular reasoning, in too many sequences audience may actually line up with the rebels against the British soldiers, proving how weak the motivation of that Pax Britannica is described in the script.

Technically, the movie is ok. Just ok. The colours are too saturated, and fail to capture the delicate essence of the desert light. Music is ok, and one can not remember a note five minutes after the movie is finished. And the acting is just ok, with Aussie Heath Ledger playing to be Brat Pitt, while Wes Bentley, from Arkansas, incarnates an unbelievable stiff and rather unconscious heroic officer. The usual love triangle closes with Californian Kate Hudson walking on a thin edge between loyalty and convenience.

Surprisingly, there is a resemblance on some scenes from Ridley Scott's Gladiator, as the help of a black assassin who becomes the only character spectator may feel sympathy for, but lacking its motivation. A movie to carefully store somewhere in the adventure section of our video library.