Change Your Image
hudin
Reviews
Natural Resistance (2014)
Incomplete and without real direction
I saw this at a press screening and have a lengthier article about it in my column, but in brief, it doesn't match with Nossiter's previous Mondovino which took him five years to make. It feels like he sat down with a few Italian wine producers and chatted about the current state of wine over a couple of days--which is what he admitted to in the Q&A after wards. That's fine, but making an 83 minute film about it with oddly interspersed movie clips doesn't really make for enjoyable watching. It's really the last 10 minutes of the film that contain any meat and honestly, it should have started with that and delved in to what's happening to winemaking in the EU and those winemakers who are standing up to it, not just in Italy, but in Spain and France as well, the latter of which has the strongest natural wine movement in all of Europe.
Viva Riva! (2010)
Fine film shot in Kinshasa
I had the privilege to watch this film at a small, private screening and was blown away. It's a tight, well-shot film with a strong narrative and characters that is not only believable, but also realistic. Shot in Kinshasa, I believe that it must be one of if not the only feature-length narrative film to shot in this vibrant and chaotic capital of the Congo. The performances are strong and everything is exceptionally tight. I recommend seeing it if you get a chance, even if you're not in to the "gangster" genre. While previously just a documentary filmmaker, I look forward to future work from the director, Djo Munga.
Spain... on the Road Again (2010)
Needs more Food and Less Paltrow
This entire show premise seemed very promising. Take a world-renown chef in Batali, a food writer in Bittman, a local celebrity in Bassols, and then... for some reason, let's toss in Gwenneth Paltrow. From the first episode it becomes painfully clear that Paltrow is really the flat tire of the group. Anytime she isn't with the other three, there is an ease and flow to the series that is quite enjoyable if only it were cut down a bit more to focus on the food and not so much on their idle banter. Batali is great, as usually. Bittman is tough to like as first, but he really grows on you. Bassols is lovely and if her acting chops can stand up to her looks and flair for life, I'm sure she'll start getting more rolls after this. And that's the real problem in that when you put Bassols next to Paltrow and watch Claudia downing the food and drinking the wine, Gwenneth comes across as even less enjoyable while she pecks at her food and sips her wine, apparently fearing weight gain, as she alludes to in the first 10 minutes of the first episode. It makes one wonder as to why she's even running around Spain in the first place with three people who are thoroughly enjoying it?
Elegy (2008)
A Non-Believable Casting of Leads
Not for one moment in the entire run of this film did I believe that Cruz and Kingsley's characters had any attraction to each other. A great deal of this starts in the fact that, as one friend of mine put it, "Kingsley has all the sex appeal of a pickle." Cruz puts in a rather languid performance which is stronger than most of her acting due to the fact she is working with a Spanish (specifically, Catalan) director. But she falls flat on the screen anytime she's there. She a very pretty woman, but as an actress, she consistently sub-par. The only redeeming scenes of the film are with Dennis Hopper and Kingsley where Cruz isn't present. These two old actors have a wonderful charisma on the screen and I would posit that it is one of Hopper's best performances of his career. It just goes to show that Coixet can indeed get great performances out of actors as long as they're not Penelope Cruz. It was a tricky story to adapt and in general the plot is slow and meandering. The film fails in the end in that it presents characters that 99.9% of us can't relate to and doesn't ever really make us care what happens to them in the end. Undoubtedly this film will be well-received in NYC where these types of films seem to ply well to a sympathetic audience, but for those of us outside the Big Apple, it's just short of being an extremely painful film to watch. I need to add that I first saw this in Madrid when it opened in Spain. There may have been some edits to the film upon US release that made it more tolerable, although I doubt how they would have been achieved.