josean_xx Reviews

Torrente 5 (2014)

Same casposo humor, the specialty of the house.

[3/10 · 10 October 2014]

Casposo (dandruffy) is used in Spain to describe poor concoctions, endeavors that lack ambition, half hearted efforts that exploit the simplest forms of entertainment. Torrente, Santiago Seguraś character returns for a 5th outing and the results are what you can expect when a franchise has been eploited for so long, specially if its core elements are bad taste humor, fecal jokes, and continuous demonstrations of bad manners. As usual, Torrente, mean spirited, shitty, bad mouthed, etc. has a grandiose plan for which he is forced to recruit the dumbest, most ridiculous and unoperative collection of crooks, embodied by an eccentric selection of real life has beens, freaky stand up comedians with no acting experience, a matador and some TV stars, with the added presence of A. Baldwin that seems to have had a good time entertaining those types, so far away from his world. The result is the one you would expect: hilarious for the addicts, so so for discriminating audiences.

Santiago Segura proves again he is a pretty good director, although devoured by his creation. Ford Coppola famously said once that Star Wars had ended the career of the most talented director of its generation. Something similar can be said about Segura: He seems to be a slave of his character, obsessed with serving yet another dose of its antics, each time with less success, but even so a success so big, in Spanish terms, at least, that keeps him entangled with his creation, unable to break away to other stories I'm sure he'll do as well or even better.

Old Man Bebo (2008)

Genius at play

[7/10 · 12 January 2009]

A do-cu on legendary and still active Cuban pianist Bebo Valdes. A labor of love for all involved, judging from the footage, and specially for it's director, that followed him for seven years, the film provides an entertaining look at a master musician doing his thing. And his thing certainly goes well beyond playing his instrument. He is as brilliant scoring and directing for small groups as for large dance orchestras and was a pillar of the golden age of Cuban music. It's also a bit a Cinderella story, as Bebo was playing piano on a Swedish hotel when he regained fame in 2000, thanks to Spanish film director Fernando Trueba. As a plus, his life his full of colorful adventures and he is also brilliant with his tales. An engaging experience.

The Hanged Man (2008)

Strange choice for a comedy director

[7/10 · 12 January 2009]

The story revolves around some sort of teenage crazy love, and a very dramatic one. Sandra and David meet as kids and grow up together. While Sandra develops as a nice girl, David behavior is always at odds with the world, his unfriendly father, family, school, etc. They stay as friends until one day the affair takes a different dimension. Sandra soon discovers she is not exactly safe with David and, accepting his father suggestion, leaves for Dublin, where she intends to learn English. David follows her and, rebutted, is lost forever. It's a strange choice of film for a director who built a successful career doing some of the best Spanish comedies ever and has remained silent for a number of years. The script, based on a novel, never really gets as gutsy as it should considering the story. Clara Lago is really beautiful and sexy, but her counterpart, Alvaro Cervantes isn't as ominous and dangerous as the role would request. It's entertaining but never really goes as far as it should. As you would expect from a director as proficient as Gomez Pereira, all tech work is excellent.

Camino (2008)

Portrait of a taliban

[7/10 · 20 November 2008]

Fesser draws what must be the most precise and accurate portrait of the behavior and social system of the members of one of the most dangerous among Catholic sect:The Opus Dei. It's a faithful, understated portrait, one that doesn't resort to easy caricaturization, only delivers the facts in a honest way. What comes out however is terrifying: A destructive sect manipulates and destroys the lives of all those that come in contact with them. For audiences that are not familiar with the workings of this religious sect, it may be revealing. Some of its scenes will stay firmly etched in those that watch them: The way the elder sister is manipulated into submission, alienated from family and reduced to a emotionless figure robbed of her freedom, self esteem and joy, the way the mother -the taliban- denies her husband and daughters any happy moments, torturing them with her self imposed beliefs and prohibitions, reducing them to puppets manipulated by her monstrous beliefs, or the scene when Camino, the dying child asks her sane sister, Nuria, who has just told her how envious she is of her because she will be going to heaven soon, whether she wants her to ask for Nuria's prompt death in her prayers. The film loses part of it's strenght when the director decides to film the dreams of the main character, colorful fantasies that do not match the mood and energy of the main plot. Tech work is superb, specially lensing, by Alex Catalán. Actors do a superb job at interpreting those deranged people. In all a powerful movie with some very minor flaws.

Eight Hundred Bullets (2002)

typical De La Iglesia

[6/10 · 19 July 2008]

Alex de la Iglesia is probably one of SPain's finest filmmakers. An artist that can deliver such masterpieces as El dia de la bestia is really worth following. Here he derails with a tale the takes too long to unfold nd takes the spectator nowhere. Alex major problem lies always with the scripting of his films. Hs first film spent half of its footage presenting us a group of characters that were then killed so that the story could go in a different different direction. Same mistake here. The story starts and evolves then stops and then starts again in a different direction, etc. We are never heading in a concrete direction. The filmmaker gets lost among all the characters and their troubles never deciding which route to take. He is a good craftsman, and the film is above average in the technical department, still it's pretty boring, unusually so for a De La Iglesia comedy.

Isi/Disi: Amor a lo bestia (2004)

a crazy idea sustained becomes an acceptable yarn...

[7/10 · 19 July 2008]

Film tells the story of two brothers over thirty, addicted to heavy metal, that live a prolonged teenage life, clad in standard heavy clothing gear including tattoos and piercings and metallic accessories, working as delivery boys for their father fish shop. One of their stops is the local university, where the youngest bro falls for an upper class, pretty, posh student. His efforts to woo her are the source for most of the film's comic effect. The idea is on paper difficult to believe but Santiago Segura and Florentino Fernandez's charisma holds the nonsense together for most of the movie. The story is kept rolling at a good pace by the director, Chema de la Peña, and the rest of the actors shuffle along without much of a role, although a few of them are allowed their moment of comic glory. Entertaining, if not too original.

Dialogue avec mon jardinier (2007)

Sentimental comedy, mainstream with a twist

[19 July 2008]

Jean Becker makes extremely typical french films, with lots of dialog, and masterful mise en scene. This film plays again with one of his favorite subjects, the wisdom of the uncultivated, working class simpletons, as opposed to the stiff way of life of the cultivated bourgeoisie. More or less. The story, a painter who goes back to the village of his childhood and befriends a retired railroad worker he hires as gardener ad happens to be an old childhood friend, serves well as an excuse for a series of enlightening dialogs and thoughts over class, life, struggle, love, etc. When it ends you have been entertained brilliantly for 90 minutes, and you are also left with something to think about.

Time for Revenge (1981)

Still holds well after all these years

[9/10 · 19 July 2008]

It's always a risk reviewing films you enjoyed very much years ago. Sometimes you are left wondering how could you enjoy so much such a terrible picture. This is not one of those. Reviewed recently, it still holds very well. Aristarain films a loser, an extremely clever man forced to flee his city and take a job far away for his union activism who challenges the system and gets away with it facing very powerful people. The scam, devised by a fellow worker, involves getting a compensation for the injuries caused by a labour accident, faked. The main character faces a corrupt system, very powerful enemies and yet wins. One of those inspiring "victory of the underdog" stories. Luppi excels at his role, a man challenged who puts on the table everything he is, his family, his life, without even blinking, and triumphs. Shot in an efficient and expressive way by master Aristarain, it really delivers a morale. I wonder why the Argentinian filmmakers are so good at portraying their country within the conventions of genre films.

Días de fútbol (2003)

Return of the Spanish comedy

[8/10 · 9 March 2008]

A well acted, so so crafted, movie that should be considered as a return in form to the typical Spanish comedy of yesteryear. Its plot, a straightforward story about a group of friends that play soccer together, echoes the genre comedies of Pedro Lazaga, Tony Leblanc, Maso, etc. As those films it may not be too original, but it gets quite well the spirit of its time. The characters are true to its time and place and you can imagine them as real persons. As in those films also, acting is brilliant, even bit players shine, dialogs are funny. Specially moving are Natalia Verbeke (I must confess I'm a fan) and Ernesto ALterio, that carries most of the film on his ex-convict role.

El asombroso mundo de Borjamari y Pocholo (2004)

¿What is this all about?

[2/10 · 9 March 2008]

I know you are supposed to abandon rationality an the entrance of the cinema, and suspend your disbelief, but no matter how hard you try it's absolutely impossible to take this film seriously. A failure as a comedy, surprising at that, since some of the very best Spanish talents of the genre make a contribution. Difficult to judge or qualify its composing elements. Let's say there is not a single film I can think of that defeats so much its purpose. The characters are incongruous, the acting inconsistent, the story line unbelievable, etc. Probable it will get some laughs from some well intentioned spectators trying very hard to have fun, but most people will laugh at it rather than with it.

El atraco (2004)

Great genre piece from a country rarely filmed.

[9/10 · 15 January 2008]

Based on a real story, the film is set in Bolivia, on the early sixties, when a band of thieves succeeds in stealing a large sum of money, by stopping the van that transports the payroll of a mining company and killing the it's employees. It's the biggest ransom ever collected in a robbery in Bolivia's history.

Two policemen are appointed to conduct the investigation: One, Adolfo, is brilliant, young, educated and a little bit naive. The other, Raul, is tough, experienced and crooked. Adolfo is a university student, Raul has learned everything he knows on the streets. The couple works hard but arrive at nothing. Soon Adolfo begins suspecting his comrade of involvement in the hold-up. A very tough battle develops between the two, and finally Adolfo, who keeps working on the case on his own for years, after being transferred to a different department, discovers the truth, but in the process, faced with the dangers of his trade and the harsh reality he is supposed to deal with (violence, torture, deceit, corruption and a dangerous woman) loses all his ideals and is left alone and with very little to console himself with.

The writers have translated the facts into a story with solid characters, and a plot that veers away only occasionally from the conventions of the genre. Still the background and the detailed plot keeps it very alive. The actors are all up to the task, specially Salvador del Solar, who proves once again that in these type of films, the baddie usually steals the show. Lucía Jiménez proves that, in addition to being a beautiful woman and an accomplished actress, she really can sing. I did enjoy particularly the moody soundtrack and the local atmosphere, so well portrayed.

A thriller, a film noir, in the same spirit as the classics, who takes place in a country and a time very far away from those depicted in them. As in Hammet's or Ellroy's tales, the story of a crime and the subsequent investigation serves to diagnose the deeper problems of a country and its people. In this case, the core of the story is the dilemmas that an honest man is bound to face in his life. In a corrupt world, a honest man s more dangerous to everybody, specially to himself, than a crook.

Vampires (1998)

Classic

[9/10 · 31 October 2007]

John Carpenter flicks always face their story in a tongue in cheek way, so to speak. He is somehow preaching to the already converted, playing with well known and accepted stereotypes. Not that I dislike that, but usually I tend to prefer more "authentic" fare. This film surprised me. I found it true to its aim. The story unfolds at a fast pace, the carachterisation is great, believe it or not James Woods makes a convincing action hero, and the story is as original as it's needed. It plays as a western where the Indians would have been substituted by vampires and the cavalry is in the payroll of the catholic church, an institution that is portrayed as withholding terrible secrets and involved in a war with evil that has been going on for centuries and will never finish. Woods and his men are just pawns in the game, in a difficult position, since they are facing terrible enemies with limited means.

Carretera y manta (2000)

Funny film, great performance by Carmen Maura

[9/10 · 31 October 2007]

Crossed this film unexpectedly on TV, and was nicely surprised. On his theatrical release, reviews were very poor, and, I feel, totally unmerited. It's a comedy with a couple of very original turning points, and Carmen Maura does a superb job as the energetic cook that wants to force her man, on a weekend leave from jail, to flee to Brazil with her. He wants to return to jail but she has a thorough plan...that backfires completely in a few minutes. They are forced to improvise. They hijack a rich young couple of a doctor (Eduardo Noriega) and spouse (Natalia Verbecke) and take them in a road trip that begins with hostility and finalizes with a strong understanding among them. Entertaining and well worth watching, Carmen Maura and Natalia Verbeke are in good form, Noriega does a good Job, specially considering he is not too often seen playing comedy, and Jordi Bosch as, Maura's husband is also correct.The production is over the average Spanish stuff, and although the direction is not brilliant, the results are entertaining.