julioramosest Reviews

Kokomo City (2023)

So much to learn

[9/10 · 20 November 2023]

I just saw this one at Madrid LesGayCine Festival. What a great surprise. This is a beautifully shot documentary that goes from light to deep so seamlesly that you would believe it's only ten minutes long.

Us white cis males (gay or not) have a lot to learn here. The documentary is filled by insightful comentary straight away from the sex workers themselves about sistemic racism, transphobia, class, money, women, men, past, future, happiness and the dangers of just being yourself. Knives fly in all directions and that's the funny part. We all can take our share. We are all safe in our movie seats while them are just up there in the barricades.

Monster (2023)

A journey towards the light

[10/10 · 5 October 2023]

I came to the theater with no expectations nor idea of what the ultimate theme of the movie is. It proved right. I was taken to a mesmerizing journey from "why this teacher / parent meetings feel so weird to my occidental eyes? Not sure this movie is for me" to assisting first row to the triumph of happiness, freedom, bessed innocence of youth and I don't know what else.

Everything that is good about the world was contained in the last minutes of this movie. In San Sebastian this won best script apparently. It's not only the script - is the steady hand of a masterful director that goes like, follow me, pass with me all the nonsense and the tribulations and you'll be up for your reward. It's been a while since the last time I left a movie theater with the heart that full of joice.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

It's clever but it also has a heart

[10/10 · 21 July 2023]

Nolan strangely moves from petentious films, bad ones right away after you take the glitter away, to straight ahead masterworks of movie making. He seams to go 1 good 1 bad each time. Now it was time for a good one after the pretentious, sloppy Tenet. And boy did he deliver. This is a wonderful, challenging, unapologetic, very brave in some political way piece of movie making. Well acted all along, well written, large in scope but fully accomplishing. But it's what lies underneath what I love the most. I'm totally in love with the political subplots: younger generations need to be reminded not only about the dangers of the bomb, but for the equally killing Macarthysms. Call it how you want it, the blind, stupid far righters are a danger to the world.

Marlowe (2022)

Uninteresting

[3/10 · 30 May 2023]

Everything in this movie is failed (well, ok, except Jessica Lange). There is an stiffness to it, a strange feeling of old in the bad way. There's not the charming, the enchant of good old Hollywood. It just feels old. It's not a matter of the story not being predictable, or the dialogues being too theatrical, or the direction being punchless. Or Nesson being as stiff as the rest of it. It's something else, a somber patina of ochre that really keeps the whole thing from shinning all along the way. I was just bored at the theatre. Uninterested. Like watching something I've already seen before a hundred years ago.

Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022)

the 1st one was Citizen Kane compare to this

[1/10 · 16 May 2023]

Yes. That's how bad this one is. Because the first one was pretty much mediocre. In fact, it was bad, but it was saved somehow by a fairly good, suspensful start. But this one... this one feels like a bad joke, one that is crazily bad and also not even self-aware, so the fun is completely absent.

Some of the actors (well, the main male character only, in fact) try to defend this from sinking, but it all goes down mercilessly. I'm in fact mad about Spain distributors, who got this one in theaters this week and I went to see it thinking - well, if it's in the movies I cannot be that bad. Boy, was I wrong...

Cairo Conspiracy (2022)

Medieval beliefs in the XXI Century

[10/10 · 18 April 2023]

Everybody has their own beliefs. Mines, to put them simple, are, one, I've been presented zero evidence of god, therefore I don't believe in any; and two, religions, all of them, are man-made. More on the latter: they are also, positively, instruments of control. Small groups of humans trying and succeeding in controlling larger groups.

From all of them, Islam is the most combative. The most dangerous. And for some reason, here in Europe, Swedish are amongst the few people that have the guts to open real conversations, call it out, speak the truth, make some questions. So watching this, which is also a very decent piece of Noir cinema without stopping being convincing, and also well played, was a real pleasure.

65 (2023)

This is one of the most conventional movies I've seen in a while

[3/10 · 28 March 2023]

This movie is predictable. Like very predictable. But that's not the best one-word depiction you can come up with. I would stick to "conventional" - since there are predictable movies (any of the middle and final Jurassic delivers are predictable, but you can find some 20 minutes of excitement here and there), but this one is conventional. The story is there but it's conventional, the action is there but it's conventional... take the cave scene for example. The set up is somehow promising - that thing in the shadows. But then... just 15 minutes of... boooring. Not sure if it's about the story, the script, the direction, the acting... I just didn't care, didn't engaged, didn't guessed.

Only thing I liked a bit was the score. Like an OST that could stand on it's own. But I'm not even sure about this at this point.

The Kings of the World (2022)

now it ain't time for your tears

[10/10 · 24 March 2023]

Bob Dylan had that song that enumerated several injustices, each one more disheartening than the previous, and it sang sort of "it still ain't time for your tears" until the very end. Something along those lines happens here. Because I loved this from the minute one. I cried several times. It moved me. I loved this raw, beautiful, striking portrait of having nothing, and nothing is everything you will ever have. I loved the social commentary at various levels. I loved the cast performances, so real, so powerful. The movie rests on them and they just jump out of the screen to give you pure, new cinema. But it's a couple of hours later, when, still digesting the movie, still wondering, when I read this article in which I learn that the main protagonist is making his living, a year after production, months after travelling to San Sebastián to collect the main prize, out of selling sweets in the streets of Medellin. Now it's the time for your tears.

Plane (2023)

I've remembered why they stopped doing movies like these: because they are boring

[4/10 · 12 February 2023]

Plain and simple. I'm up for the action, the good vs. The bad guys, the chasings, the shootings. Like I love me some action in the theater. But when the set up is so ad-hoc, the suspension of belief so unbelievable, the story so weak and, worst of it, so predictable, in the sense that everything there screems that good old "no matter the tribulations, the hero is going to overcome them all", that you just stop caring. You get bored. You grab the phone. No suspense for you anymore. We saw this movie in the 80s, in the 90s, in the early 2000. There was a reason for stopping. We just know what's going to happen. And that's the worst desease a movie can suffer.

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Americans are obsessed with religion and movimakers can't scape that

[6/10 · 6 February 2023]

Unless his previous work, where you loose interest 30min in, this one by Night S. Keeps you hooked until the very end. It's somehow entertaining despite the usual cheesy dialogue and the flawed decisions by the protagonists (I'm talking here purely action-wise).

My issue is with the theme. American filmakers keep on doing movies so rooted in chistianity, in messiah themes, in what I personally believe to be just medieval myths, that I just stop caring. I don't care. It's not interesting to me anymore, regardless of the thesis going one way or another. Throwing a gay couple in the mix, and making that somehow the center of the knot, you don't know if your are seeing the coolest thing ever or just second degree homophobia. I don't know, and the bad news is, as said, I don't care.

Decision to Leave (2022)

Romantic? Maybe in a sexist, old kind of way

[5/10 · 23 January 2023]

I'm sorry but no.

The visuals are outstanding. The craftmanship is out of discussion. It's a well told story. Joyful to watch but that's it. I was bored. I tried to know why. It was easy to find out though.

It's the femme fatale story to exhaustion. It would have been ok for a 40s Hollywood movie, but we are now in the second decade of the XXI Century. So the main male character your typical likable, innocent, handsome, immaculate fella. The "I'm so good why everything happens to me" type. And then the 2 female main characters. A crazy, controlling toxic wife and then the crazier even, killer one. OMG. This is not romatic, not interesting, seen before, oldie movie. Not for me.

From (2022– )

This show will only have a couple of seasons or so. Here is why

[5/10 · 27 December 2022]

The reason is very simple. Skillful writers like these are only interested in play their learned tricks safely. They open the stories like a fan, a hundred lifelines, situations and possible fixes with zero interest of what is honest, consistent or even exciting. So once you learn that anything is possible, than anything can happen in the lest lazy script twist, you just stop being invested.

They built likeable caracters for this. End of story. The storyline is so cheap, so broad, so incosistent that you know you are going to be played like a flute. We, audiences, are not stupid at the end of the day. We buy it for 1 season, 2 at most, and we just unplug.

Speak No Evil (2022)

I don't want to give it a 10 bu I have to

[10/10 · 14 December 2022]

Yes, because, contrary to other users stating that this has plot holes, the sad, dark truth is that it does not have any. The social commentary is so depressing but at the end fair that you can't oppose to this movie thesis. Yes, in this world some people (or organizations) get others subdue to them so organically, so easily, that is hard to believe. And also the fact that, because of that, we actually forget that is possible to fight back until the very end. We are just convinced that we can't. We just didn't knew it was an option. Clever, brutal (because it's honest) movie that some here hate just because it says unpleasant truths about them and all of us.

Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi (2022)

Seeing Catholics voting down this is my new favorite thing

[10/10 · 26 October 2022]

The documentary is compelling, comprehensive and pretty honest: it's easy to get what is a theory vs what's a fact. Issues are exposed chronologically as soon as new clues were discovered and the exposition is transparent, whereas it's news at the time or pieces of a tv show. There's heresay, but everybody is entitled to their own opinions and you take them as they are. It's said at some point that the passing of time is the enemy of the truth. That feels correct. But understanding that the Vatican is a place darker than the bottom of a well is not rocket science. And we all know not everybody is yet ready to assume that.

Shut In (I) (2022)

This is how a thriller is made

[10/10 · 13 February 2022]

Well done, unpretentious, believable, masterfully directed, the protagonist and all characters are on point, children included. You just can't look away.

Moonfall (2022)

Bad even for Emmerich standards

[1/10 · 5 February 2022]

Science Fiction is about setting some unbelievable rules but then you stick to them. You set up some consistency. Here nothing is consistent. Including the screenplay. Just boring.

West Side Story (2021)

This is breathtaking until the very end

[10/10 · 26 January 2022]

Although you know what's going to happen, Spielberg keeps this exciting until the very end. A perfect, moving, respectful though fresh take on one of the best pieces of music from last century. And the story smartly depicts a big truth: the clash is not between locals and foreigners, but between the ones that have it all and the ones that will never have anything.

A House on the Bayou (2021)

I guess the writer of this was cheated

[4/10 · 9 January 2022]

The writer of this was cheated. They need to just get over it. I give it a 4 because somehow you keep on watching, but this one's pretty silly. You can skip it.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Charming but disappointing

[6/10 · 21 December 2021]

Producers should know that the original one was a rare miracle of movie equilibrium. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. It only happened once. The sequels... None of them were very good.

Spencer (2021)

postmodern, sophisticated and strangely charming

[10/10 · 30 November 2021]

Movies are about exploring new ways, and following this Diana while a Miles Davis-like piece plays is a welcoming one. The scene with her and the kids playing soldiers is the best piece of cinema in recent history. Spencer is cold and deelply charming at the same time. A 10 out of 10 movie.

tick, tick... BOOM! (2021)

Brings Rent nostalgia and I'm here for it

[10/10 · 29 November 2021]

I saw Rent in 2008 in the original Nederlander run, shortly before it ended. First time in New York also... Some years before that I had became obsessed with the double CD of that musical that I randomly got from a store in hometown Madrid... This movie brings back those emotional memories. Just loved it.

Break (2019)

Guess anti-gay propaganda laws are not preventing Russia from making bad movies

[2/10 · 28 September 2021]

Making one-room thrillers requires more talent than shown here. This all have been already made. And better.

Fallen Angels (1995)

Resonates in the hearts of the night owls

[10/10 · 19 January 2021]

A beautiful, mesmerizing, weird, delicate, funny move that will get into your heart if you are a lonely night owl. And also if you are not.

Saint Maud (2019)

A mixed bag

[6/10 · 23 December 2020]

It's great to see movies made by women with real women in there, far from masculine movie-making stereotypes. Kudos on that. The rest... Meh. it's sold as modern horror and it's not and the big numbers drama just fails for me. I've thought about big numbers. Nothing new or groundbreaking here. And I also find this movie so religion-centered, even if it's for criticize it, that it annoys me just as a Christian-propaganda movie would.

The Prom (2020)

Good news, I guess

[6/10 · 22 December 2020]

We gay people have been normalised (and that's a very good thing) to the point we can make movies just as bland as straight ones. I guess that's good news.