The Village *Spoilers*

I just got back from the movie and the only word coming out of my mouth is disappointment. I don't know what M. Night Shyamalan tried to do, but I expected more.

The idea is good. A Village in the middle of the woods that have lived isolated from society (they don't have electricity or money for example) for years, and generations have passed without nobody going out.
The elders have created this story which says that creatures have a truce with them, and if the villagers don't go into the woods, then the creatures won't come to the village.
Every once in a while the elders dress as creatures (in very good costumes) and scare the young villagers creating chaos in the village, which keeps everyone afraid to go into the woods and so it never happens. The Elders are 8, featuring the likes of William Hurt, Brendan Gleeson and Sigourney Weaver.

Then we have the love story. Adrien Brody plays what looks like a person with mental problems, though it's never explained. He's in love with Bryce Dallas Howard (Director Ron Howard's daughter in her debut film) who is blind and is in love with Joaquin Phoenix who is in love with her too.
We also have Judy Greer and Michael Pitt but they're not very important in the story.

What happens is that the morning that Howard and Phoenix decide to get married, Adrien Brody decides to repeatedly stab Phoenix to death in an act of jealousy. Too bad M. Night Shyamalan didn't spent a few minutes explaining Howard's and Brody's relation cause he didn't seem to love her, they seemed just friends.
He doesn't kill Phoenix though, but he ends up pretty bad and since they don't have medicine, Howard decides to go into the woods to go to "the towns" to get medicine.
Her father (William Hurt, who is the leader of the Elders), tells her the story and sends her into the woods to the towns. There, she's attacked by Brody in creature costume, but since she's blind she doesn't know. She uses a technique which is a game the children of the village play and dodges Brody's attack and he falls into a deep well and dies.
She finally ends up getting pass the woods and into the town, where a very nice police, after somehow understanding where she came from, helps her get the medicine and sends her back. And he doesn't tell anyone, including his boss, Shyamalan himself, in a little appearance like he always makes in his movies.
She gets back, the Elders learn that Brody is dead, but decide to keep it a secret and say to the rest of the villagers that the creatures killed him, and so keeping their story alive.
Howard gives Phoenix the medicine and the movie ends.

The performances are all good. Great I'd say. And I have to emphasize the greatness of Bryce Dallas Howard debut. She's blind, frightened and beautiful. I loved her.

The scares are good, there are just a few but are good. And the creatures looks very well done.

So that was The Village. I don't know what, but something was missing. Shyamalan reshot the ending last month so I don't know what the original one was but this one I didn't like and all in all is a very disappointing movie.

UPDATE: I've been thinking about the movie a lot, because the way it ended really disappointed me. It ended in nothing that made me say "wow". But looking at the movie now, I have to change my view of it, and give it more points. I'd like to add that the story is an original one, which is very good. So even if the movie disappoints in the twists for me, maybe it was cause I love Shyamalan's movies and I wanted it to be much better.
I'd like to repeat that the performances are excellent, though some are wasted (Greer and Pitt), and those 2 things, performances and story, makes it a good movie after all.
Shyamalan's fans are going to be disappointed, but those who just want an original movie will love it.

The Chronicles of Riddick

I saw the previews of this movie a long time ago. Then it came out at the beggining of the summer, and since I've never seen Pitch Black, to which Riddick is the sequel to, I wasn't too excited to see it. It kind of flopped in the Box Office, and reports said it wasn't as good as Pitch Black, and that it wasn't worth seeing. Specially cause of the horrible acting by Thandy Newton.
Anyway, I didn't see it.

Now they opened it in the Venture Cinemas here a few blocks away from home, and they have the movies at $1 so I decided to check it out even though I still haven't seen Pitch Black.

I haven't mentioned that Vin Diesel is the star of the movie, basically cause he's good in it. the rest is the bad. Specially Thandy Newton. She's really bad.
The rest of the cast is ok. Dame Judy Dench and Karl Urban are very good. Specially Urban who has lots more to do than Dench.

My other problem was the story. It was very confusing at parts. And the way it finished didn't make sense for the future.
I don't know. Maybe is cause I haven't seen Pitch Black, but after seen Riddick, I don't care.

A Home at the End of the World

Hey guys, I just got back from a screening of the indie A Home at the End of the World, the new Collin Farrell movie with Dallas Roberts, Robin Wright Penn and Sissy Spacek.
The Movie is really good. Really good.

Before going on commenting the performances, I'd like to point out that this is the movie in which they cut the scene where Collin's penis was shown in one scene. I don't think that leaving that scene would get them a N-17 rating so they should've let it in. Women would like it and it wasn't in a sex scene or anything like that.

Collin Farrell is very good in the movie. The actor portraying his character in his teens is very good too. And yeah, the kid too.

Dallas Roberts, I didn't know him before this movie, and he's very good here.

Sissy Spacek is very good, she has just a few scenes but she's great. Specially in her first scene when she is with the boys smoking. It's a very funny and uncomfortable scene. Very nice done.
I'd say her performance is worthy of an Oscar nomination, if it wasn't for the other supporting actress in the movie.

Yes, Robin Wright Penn has the best performance in the movie. I loved her.
She reminded me of an older version (if she wouldn't have died) of her excellent Jenny in Forrest Gump.
I would love to see her nominated now since she wasn't for Forrest.

I haven't mentioned yet that Collin's and Dallas' characters are gay. And there are more than a few gay scenes which only add to their excellent performances though there's one in special that is a bit uncomfortable to watch but I can live with it.

See it if you like small movies with great performances. I really liked it.

Fight Club

I know the first and second rules of Fight Club (Edward Norton, Brad Pitt) say I can't talk about it, but it's so a fucking awesome movie that I can't stop now :)

I'd never seen Fight Club in the big screen before today and a few weeks ago when I learned that Landmark's Midtown Art Cinema was starting a series of midnight cult classics, and that Fight Club was one of them, I immediately said, "I'm fucking there!".

And so I went, and it was awesome. Not much I can say about the movie other than it was original (except for the book :p ) when it got released and it's one of those Cult Classics we all love.
Brad Pitt is at his best here and Edward Norton is the genius he always is.
I've never liked Helena Bonham-Carter and still don't like her much but she plays her part really well here.

The whole movie is an awesome ride with a shocking ending that by now pretty much everybody knows about but you still're going to check every scene to detail to see if they played it right.

 
Landmark is also showing Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Office Space, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas so I hope I'll check some of those too in the upcoming weeks.

Next week I already got advance screenings for 'Without a Paddle' on Tuesday (though it's supposed to be bad and I'm sure if I'm going), 'Metallica: Some Kind of Monster' on Wednesday (yeah I'm going) and the I have 'The Village' and 'A Home at the End of the World' both on Thursday and I think I'm going to the Home screening cause I probably won't pay to see it normally and there's no way I'm missing 'The Village' so no problem in paying for that one :)

Tomorrow I have a wedding to go to late at night and I think I'm going to spend the afternoon watching my recently purchased Complete Season of Freaks & Geeks on DVD :)

1954's Godzilla

Went to Landmark's Art Cinema tonight and watched two movie, the first one being the American Premiere of the Original Godzilla (Black & White, in Japanese with subtitles) from 1954. Yes, it's hard to believe but the movie had never been shown before in the big screen before this past May when it opened in LA and NY.

Anyway, I remember that I saw it a child but I didn't remember it at all. It's one of those movie I know I've seen of course, but I don't remember it.

The movie is not the bad I expected it to be. Godzilla itself is well done, and the only stuff that looked really bad were the vehicles. Cars and Planes and specially the Trains you could easily see that were toys.

The houses and buildings looked ok, but when Godzilla was destroying them you would see some instants when you would say, "yeah, those where shoe boxes".

The actors are the worse of the movie, specially the girl. But hey, it was 1954, and this was one of the first big productions from Japan so I guess it's ok.

definitely worth seeing for movie lovers that haven't seen it on the big screen and want to :)

Swimming Pool

Has anybody seen this movie? I read something about it last year but never got the chance to see it, the only thing I remembered was that the protagonist was naked half the movie.

Then last night, I was going through all the channels before going to sleep and I saw this naked beauty walking around a pool and then she started swimming. The rating said Rated R so it wasn't porn, and that's when I remembered that I knew this movie, it was Swimming Pool (Written & Directed by François Ozon), and even though she got on a bikini, I kept watching.

The movie is really good and simple, and Ludivine Sagnier's Julie is a beautiful young french girl and her acting is great. I didn't like Charlotte Rampling's Sarah much (though she's naked too in the movie) but that it's possible cause Julie was adorable.

So the movie was great, I liked it a lot, BUT, I didn't get the ending I think. It was kind of confusing. I mean, I have a few ideas of what it was but none sound completely clear to me.
I'm going to ask some people that have seen it already and then I'll be back with an update. Or better, if you've seen it, post a comment and explain it to me :)


UPDATE @ 3:40pm: after talking to some people, I thought about some explanations for the ending, though no one knows for sure which one is it.

I thought that the writer made the hot girl's story up for her book. But I dont understand why, cause she was writing a story and everything before the hot girl came to the house, and she even continued writing a few days with the hot girl living there. She seemed to have changed stories and started writing about the hot girl when she saw her having sex with everybody.

So my question is, if she was in fact alone and imagined the story, what made her change the story of her book? cause she sure wasn't writing about the hot girl from the begginning.
And, if it was all her imagination, why would she go against her publisher? (who was supossedly the father of the hot girl) and why would her leave a signed copy of the book for her?

Now, my other idea came from the final scenes of the writer waving to the little girl (who looked like a 12 or 13 years old) from the balcony. Cause then I thought that maybe what happened was that THAT little girl came to the house, and she used her as a character for the book, and imagined everything else. But if you think about it and you see the little girl, she looked too young to go and live by herself in a big house in the middle of nowhere in France.

Again, pretty confusing.

Kill Bill volume 2 (2nd Time)

Yep. Tonight I decided to go see Kill Bill 2 again. The Best Movie of the Year so far, tied with Eternal Sunshine IMO.
 
Anyway, I reviewed the movie when I watched it the first time so here goes my review again. I'm also posting my Kill Bill vol1 review before vol2's review so you guys know how I feel about the whole masterpiece by QT.
 
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Kill Bill Volume 1 Review:
 
Before December, and the final chapter of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, KB vol1 was the Best Movie of the Year. A Masterpiece that Quentin Tarantino had put together based on "The Bride", a character he and Uma Thurman created.
 
The Fights: awesome, blood everywhere. Arms, legs and heads cut off like that. There's an EYE taken off from a dude's face. There are body parts getting crushed. And more blood, more blood and more blood.
 
The Music: classic. There are songs from totally different cultures. There's the classic horn from the Clint Eastwood westerns when he was facing the top bad guys. Extensive and incredibly loud.
 
The Cinematography: there's normal filming, then you have black and white, and you also have a manga story in there. Excellent.
 
The Acting/Characters: this is total class. Everybody is amazing in the acting department, and the characters are totally great. My favs that I love are The Bride, "Go Go" the Japanese School Girl, and Sonny Chiba (The Legend) that's the guy that makes The Bride's sword. The one eyed girl (Darryl Hannah) looks like an awesome character that's gonna be more active in Vol 2, Lucy Liu's is also great but I preffered her bodyguard over her, and Bill, the title guy, he doesn't even appear in this one, and well, its not surprise cause he's also not "killed" now cause he has to be in the next movie. The knife fight we see in the trailer between Uma and Vivica A. Fox is excellent. To death. There's one more guy from the 4 Deadly Vipers thats Michael Madsen, but he's just a few minutes in the movie and just 1 line. We'll see him and Darryll Hannah in vol2.
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Kill Bill Volume 2 Review:
 
Music and Sound: awesome again. One of the best you'll here ever in a movie. Tarantino obviously knows what he's doing. What a genius.
 
The Fights: tremendous. No all the blood shown in volume 1, but this time they're classier. And without spoiling anything, I have to say that I still can't decide which kill was better, Elle Driver's or Bill's. Both were FUCKING AMAZING!
 
Pai Mei: the whole training with Pai Mei was excellent, and hillarious. Everytime he grabbed his beard I couldn't stop laughing. Excellent.
 
The Hidden Gem: watch (or listen carefully) for someone very special in the wedding massacre scene. Just 2 words: BAD MOTHERFUCKER.
 
So yeah, this movie is so good it hurts. My Rating: 10 out of 10.
Tarantino is a GOD.
 
Notes after second viewing [Contains SPOILERS]:
Bill's death is way better than Elle's now. The five-point palm exploding heart technique is excellent. I wasn't it expecting it the first time I saw the movie I have to say and it's great. I want to learn it!. Elle's eye being crushed by The Bride's foot is great too but I didn't care as much for Elle as I did for Bill. For a second there I wished he wouldn't die, but I wanted The Bride to kill him too. I loved both of them.
 
Bill is an awesome character. As I watched him talk, first while out next to the fire with The Bride, then with his (and The Bride's) daughter, and finally fith Uma's The Bride, I was happy. His way of talk is awesome and all his says was captivating. His Superman speech is excellent.
 
I felt that final chapter in the movie, being since The Bride arrives to the house until the credits (included) roll, is the best of the best. Those scenes are what makes this movie so good.

What up

Hey guys. Opening the Blog with some general comments from my today and the past days. Ill mostly review and talk about movies (I get to see lots of movies in advance) and also about some videogames and the NBA.
 
Anyway, Shaq went to Miami today. Good for him and for Miami. MJ wants to buy some part of the franchise now that Shaq is there.
Last month Tmac and Francis got traded. Im a huge Rockets fan so getting Tmac is awesome though Im not so thrilled about losing Cuttino .
 
Onto movies, I've seen lots lately. I saw 10 movies on June and I've seen also 10 mut in these first 15 days of July :p
These are the 15 as of today this month:

• Spiderman 2: awesome. Liked X2 better. This one is second in the all time superhero movies list.
• Fahrenheit 9/11: a lot of fun. just go see to see Bush's face when they tell him about the second plane crashing the WTC :p
• King Arthur: disaster.
• Harold and Kumar go to White Castle: funny enough. not as good as Dude, Where's my Car?. Excellent cameo by Neil Patrick Houser.
• Before Sunset: slow but lovely. Excellent movie.
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: FUNNIEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR AND ONE OF THE FUNNIEST EVER!
• Mean Girls: went to see it cause everybody has seen it already and it was just 1 dollar in the theater I went. It was a fun movie.
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Second Time): I continued laughing all along this second time. The Battle of the Networks scene is awesome. The best cameos scene ever. Oh, and Steve Carrell as Brick is excellent. Ron: Hey Brick, where did you get that hand granade? Brick: I don't know.
• Garden State: Zach Braff's directorial debut is awesome. There was a Q&A after the movie and he sign a picture for me. The movie is one of the best of the year. I could see it getting an Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay. Here's a link to the signed pic: http://www.fifauruguay.com/ss/sigs/GardenState_PosterSigned_byZach.jpg
• I, Robot: just got back from the movie a few minutes ago and here's the review.

I, Robot Review /Comments:

The movie is good. Really good. Specially the robots.

"Sonny", the robot acussed of murder is awesome (Steve The Pirate from Dodgeball is the voice and the movements like Gollum). This robot will be right up there in history as one of the collest robotsm ever with R2D2 and C3PO.

Will Smith is ok, though we see him naked like 3 or 4 times. They even show us his ass when he's taking a shower.

Now the bad: its not an adaptation of Asimov's book. The credits say "Suggested by Isaac Asimov", and that's all it is from Asivov. The Robots and 3 Laws. But then its all really different and new stuff.

The worse thing of the movie is Bridget Moynahan. She's such a bad actress here. Really bad. And I loved her in The Recruit. But here she's so cold.

Oh, and when SHE has shower scene, suddenly the bath has all this steam and we don't even see her legs.

Anyway, it's worth seeing I think. Specially if you like robots.

You'll love Sonny :)