Garden State

As many of you, the first time I watched the Teaser for Garden State I fell completely in love with it, and immediately played it again, and again, and again. I've seen it so many times it's unbelievable.
Then the Trailer came, with two new awesome songs (more on that later), and this time the characters spoke, and the little they did speak stuck in my head too. Specially Natalie Portman's speech about doing something unique.
Like this movie is.

Zach Braff has created something truly magical, something that lets you shivering, and that put all your feelings in motion. Yes, Garden State is a very special experience.
I had the pleasure of seeing an Advance Screening of the movie back in the first weeks of July, followed by a Q&A with Zach Braff, who not only Directed and Wrote the movie, but he also stars in it, and his performance, as well as his co-stars', is pure. The kind that is making many twenty-somethings say "that's me".

The performances in the movie are all magnificent.
Zach Braff, nothing like his J.D. from Scrubs, is this guy, Andrew Largeman (Large) who has been medicated since a very young age (by his father btw), and slowly starts discovering, while coming home to NJ after 9 years for his mother's funeral, what life is.
His face starts numb and lifeless, but when the movie ends, it's filled with life and love.

I make to make a strong emphasis on Natalie Portman's performance here as Sam. After her much hated by everybody portray of Senator (and before that, Queen) Amidala in the Star Wars prequels, she plays a girl here that is full of weird characteristics that makes her totally lovable. She's a delight to watch and makes you smile every time she talks, and cry every time she cries and wish you could be there for her.

Peter Sarsgaard plays Large's friend Mark. Excellent performance by Peter as a very laid back young man that as he says, "is not a hurry". He works a grave digger but he has plans for the future, which will be very bright thanks to one of his hobbies.

Ian Holm is Large's father Gideon. As mentioned before, he's the one that has kept Large medicated all his life (he's his psychiatrist after all) and he's a very cold man. He blames Large for something that happened long ago, and has never been able to deal with it. His face is troubled and filled with anger.

The movie would really feel different without the Soundtrack, handpicked by Zach from his favorites groups like indies The Shins and Frou Frou, and classics like Simon & Garfunkel.
The music really speaks in these scenes and make for a truly amazing Soundtrack (available here) that makes you really feel what the characters feeling themselves.

This is really amazing movie, one of my favorites of the year and one that I've watched repeated times already, and plan to watch many more in the future. And I'd love to see Zach receive an Oscar nomination for his story, which is truly what this movie is all about, selfdiscovery, and love.

PS: the movie is currently in around 600 theatres (hopefully more soon) nationwide and you can find the list HERE. The movie opens in the UK (and then the rest of Europe) on November 26th.

We Don't Live Here Anymore

We Don't Live Here Anymore is a small, character driven movie, when nothing big never happens and you end up like, yeah, it was very good but meh...

There are big and strong performances with Peter Krause (Six Feet Under) being the one with less to do. Naomi Watts also had little to do though she was supposed to be the co-starring with Ruffalo. Her not being all the time on screen felt weird.
Mark Ruffalo had a very strong performance, he's on a roll this year acting a lot and every time better and better.
The surprise performance was without a doubt Laura Dern. When the movie started I thought: what's she doing here?. But then, she did everything, and perfect. She was happy, drunk, mad, she cried dn she laughed and she danced and she had sex. Really well acted and I wasn't expecting it at all from her.

All the movie fell kind of empty, though I really liked Ruffalo's decision at the end.

[SPOILER]

There were two scenes almost at the end of the movie, with Ruffalo and his kids and they are standing in a cliff throwing rocks at the river, I swear to god I though he was going to kill them.
You'd have to see it to feel it, but with that music that was really creepy and we him grabbing her daughter from the neck and then screen fades to black... and then we see Laura Dern asking him "Did you do it?" oh man, that scene fucking scared me.
The second one was also at the end with Naomi Watts driving her daughter to her mother's house, the scene again goes black and we hear a train passing (the train had been showed a few times already in the movie), another scare.

I don't know what Director John Curran tried to do with these two scenes but they felt out of place cause nothing happened, luckily, in neither of them.

[/SPOILER]

Zatoichi

What this movie excellent or what? I loved it.
I'd actually never seen a true Samurai film (KB vol1 doesn't count) before tonight, and I loved this one.
The story was really good showing the backgrounds of almost all the characters, which were a lot.
The sounds in the movie were also excellent from the sword cutting flesh to the little music numbers of those guys working in the contruction or playing in the mud.
I loved how the blood was really exaggerated like in KB, though the visual effects were not as good. And I really would've liked the final showdown between Zatoichi and Hattori was longer.

What really surprised me was the comedy in the movie. There were more comedic scenes that fights I think. And they were hilarious.
Finally, the ending was awesome with that tap-dance number.
Can't wait to see Takeshi Kitano continue the The Blind Swordman's series.

Alien vs Predator ***Spoilers***

Ok, it's not the shit everybody is expecting. But still is not a good movie. It's just ok.

There's a lot of bad stuff in it, and I'll talk about it first cause I didn't dislike the movie so I'll finish with the stupid but fun stuff which is almost the entire ending.

The Bad:
- The leading girl is not likeable at all. I didn't hate her, but for being the lead in the movie they should've get someone better and write the character better.
- The supporting characters are worse. I remember loving (or at least getting to know) all the characters in the Alien and Predator movies. Here? There are around 15 characters and not counting the lead, the rich old guy (Lance Henriksen- 'Bishop' in Aliens) and the architect guy (who can read the hieroglyphics and it's the one from who we learn what the hell were doing the Aliens and Predators there), all of them suck. They are not part of the story at all. Also, half of them die halfway into the film when they stay in an upper level of the pyramid (yes, a pyramid in the Antarctic) surrounded by Alien's eggs and suddenly all the little Aliens start popping out and we see just a few getting killed and all the rest dies off camera.
- Besides all of those secondary characters dying off camera, there's the problem of the PG13 rating. Lots of the others deaths are not shown either. We just see the Aliens or the Predators attacking the humans and then some blood and the screams.
- In the final part of the movie, the girl gets some of the Alien's acid on her coat so she takes it off and stays with a long sleeved shirt... in the Antarctic... and she doesn't even shows signs of being cold.


The last 30 minutes of the movie are full of stupid stuff, but it's when it's also fun:

The Stupid & Fun:
- The final section starts with the girl saving the Predator's life a few times, and then giving him his weapon, to what the Predator responds by making her a SHIELD WITH THE ALIEN'S HEAD and a SPEAR WITH THE ALIEN'S TAIL!!!
- Of course, they became friends, so we see them walk around searching for Aliens for a while.
- The Slow Motion scene with the Predator and the girl running with the fire coming towards them in the background was incredibly stupid.
- Oh, and the girl actually OUTRUNS THE PREDATOR!!! Fucking hilarious.
- The Alien Queen going full speed chasing the girl was weird. The Alien Queen's size changed a lot comparing it to other scenes plus it ran a lot like the T-Rex from JP.


The Cool:
- The first time the Predator kills Aliens is pretty good. Cutting their heads with his blades.
- The Alien Queen is pretty cool when she's in chains at first when she's introduced.
- The Predator Mothership is real Eye Candy too. Well done, though we don't see it in fight or anything like that.
- The whole ending has some good action scenes. Specially when the Predator makes a big jump from off screen and cuts the Alien Queen's face. That was the big cheer of the movie.


The Ending:
Alien's fans aren't probably going to be happy as the Predator pretty much kicks serious Alien ass all along the movie and ends up winning though he's also killed by the Alien Queen.
The movie ends with the General Predator (he had a red cape and everything) taking the dead Predator back to the MotherShip but before that, he accepts the girl (who was the only survivor) and gives her the dead Predator's spear.
Oh, and copying Freddy vs Jason, the last scene of the movie is an Alien popping out of the dead Predator's stomach letting everything prepared for AvP2 (PLEASE DON'T)

So all in all the movie is ok. It has lots of bad stuff but the last 30 minutes are fun and make the movie worth the money, IMO.

Lost in Translation

I first saw Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola's masterpiece, last October 2003, the weekend it came out here in Atlanta. I just saw it again as it premiered on cable last Saturday.

Lost in Translation is a movie I separate it in the 3 beautiful and perfect performances. 2 on-screen, and Sofia's writing and direction behind the camera:

I'll start with Scarlett Johansson, who I fell completely in love with. Her pink panties scene at the very beginning of the movie is classic, her beauty is captivating. She's not this thin model-like woman. She's a normal beautiful person. Her acting is so perfect and flawless you don't even notice she's acting.
She's Charlotte, a young woman that's married to this photographer she says "doesn't know anymore". She's graduate from college, Yale, but she wasn't doing anything, so she ended up traveling to this Japan she's now bored by with her husband. Plus she doesn't know what to do with her life and all her free time.

Bill Murray, unlike Johansson, you notice he's acting, but he does play an actor, so these scenes in which he acts look funny but are also extremely well portrayed. His insomniac bored face is perfection.
His Bob Harris is an actor, who's now in Japan filming whisky commercials for huge sums of money just because he was a famous movie star in the past (70s and 80s). His life is not so great either. He forgot his son's birthday when he left for Japan and his wife calls every once in a while just to remind him his mistakes. She also doesn't even acts like his wife if it weren't for the complains. They say just "good bye" without any "I love you"s or any other sign of affection when they hang up the phone.
He's also bored in Japan. Drinking alone in the bar having to say hello to those fellow countrymen who recognize him when he only wants to be alone and have a drink.

Both of them can't sleep. They spend the night watching TV by themselves or drinking down in the hotel bar.
She's a young woman in her early 20s, He's in his late 40s, early 50s I guess, and they have one thing in common, they can't sleep.

Sofia Coppola wrote this beautiful story about finding a friend in an unexpected place. The movie is also perfectly shot with an amazing cinematography.
The characters go out and enjoy Japan's life together. Always in a very playful theme.
I particularly loved the karaoke scene, after which they both go to the hotel, and in a scene that at first horrifies you for the possibility of something happening (she's sleepy, he's taking her to her bed, and we don't want anything to happen between them, and nothing does), he leaves her in her bed, he goes back to his room, and they sleep the entire night for the first time.
The story is beautifully written, and that Oscar Sofia won is well deserved.

I remember I had been waiting for the movie since a few years ago when I first read that Sofia was writing and directing her second movie, and that the movie would star Bill Murray.
Sofia Coppola's first movie, 1999's The Virgin Suicides (starring a young Kirsten Dunst) is one of my favorites movies of all time. It's perfect.

I ranked the Lost in Translation 9th Best of 2003, for many it was Number 1, but for me last year was all about Return of the King and Kill Bill. And I was very in love with The Last Samurai and also Matchstick Men, to name a few movies that people didn't include in their top 10, but I absolutely loved.

Lost in Translation also lost some points for me last year for a problem I have with slow paced movies watching them for the first time in a theatre after a long day of work (like Collateral), some scenes kind of bore me, but when I think about them afterwards, and specially when I watch them a second time in a theatre or on DVD, my love for them grows.
Lost in Translation is a perfect movie, and I love it more than before now. My love for Sofia Coppola's writing and direction is as big as possible, as it is my love for Scarlett Johansson (though I haven't seen Girl with a Pearl Earring and for some reason I'm not dying to see), and Bill Murray, too. He's doing Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic which comes out next Christmas, a movie I cannot wait to see, as I cannot wait to see whatever Sofia Coppola is doing next.
Peter Jackson took a very well deserved Oscar for Direction this year, but Sofia will get hers in the near future, and I'm going to love it.

Open Water

Have you seen all the great reviews this movie's been getting? All those one line praises from the most famous movie critics? Well, they're crap. This movie is a total disappointment.

I've been waiting for it since I first heard about it and then the "It's like Blair Witch Project in the water!" comments made me naming it a 'Must See Movie' this summer. Now that I've seen it, I'll probably wont see it again.
There are strong Spoilers so don't read if you plan to see it. You shouldn't run to see it though.

The movie starts with a camera that makes the film look like a cheap porn, and the dialogue between the couple (Blanchard Ryan & Daniel Travis) is taken out of a porn movie too. It's bad.
They decide to go on vacation cause they haven't had one in a long time, specially with all the work that Blanchard's character Susan has. And so they go, where? Who knows.

When they first got there, one of the high points of the movie happens, Susan is completely naked in bed. We see her naked from head to toes, so now at this point I thought this was going to be better than I expected: Sharks eating divers AND full nudity? Awesome. Too bad there aren't any sharks eating divers.

Yep, it sucks, all we see are sharks swimming around them, and there's only one bite, but we don't even get to see it. We just see a very good shot at the leg after it happens.

Ok, so no sharks eating divers, at least there are some pretty good scares right? Nope, there aren't any of those either. Again, just shots of sharks swimming around them and that's it.

But since they're in the water alone for a long time, the conversations must've result in good dialogue. Nah, no good talk. All they do is fight and blame each other for being there.

SUPER SPOILER

So the movie really sucked for me. It was really boring at times, and the ending sucked too.
This movie is supposed to be based on a true story. And I read an interview where the filmmakers say they changed the place (though they just don't name it) and the names.
At the end of the movie, Daniel Travis' Daniel dies because of that shark bite, and Susan drowns herself in the water after seeing a big bunch of sharks around her and seeing as she's been there for 24 hours, and nobody rescued her, she just lets herself die.
Too bad, cause just a few minutes before that we see the coast guard starting a huge search for them. She should've wait.

While the credits roll, we see fishers cutting sharks open, It's a normal thing for us, but it really shows us see that we are the real monsters, not them.

Oh, one thing, since they both died, who the fuck told the story??? I guess it's just another case of The Perfect Storm.

Collateral

Oh, Michael Mann. I had a one big problem with Ali, its pacing. I found the middle part of that movie completely boring. Those parts consisted of Will Smith's Ali running on the streets of South Africa.
This time around, it's the same, only that instead of Will Smith running, Michael Mann gives us grey haired Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx driving a cab around L.A.. And again the whole hour after the first 20 minutes I found really boring.

I separate the movie in 3 parts:

1- The first 20 minutes. This is the part they showed us in the trailer. Foxx is a taxi driver and Jada Pinkett Smith gets in his car. He drives her to her destination, they flirt, and she gives him her number.
Now, we all know Jada, she's a pretty known actress, so It's obvious that her part is not done here, and that she's coming back at some point in the movie. And now is when Michael Mann makes his first mistake: he shows us Tom Cruise leaving the same building Jada is entering. We know they'll be back there and we know how the movie will end.
Cruise enters Foxx's cab and the night begins.
I found these first 20 minutes excellent. Jada and Jamie had this great chemistry and then Tom and Jamie start really good too. The music in the background was very nice as well.

2- Now the problems start for me, the next 60 minutes are the boring ones. And are the ones showcasing Tom Cruise bossing Jamie Foxx around. They drove and drove and drove and the really slow music (same as in Ali) killed me. I almost fell asleep.

[SPOILER]

3- The last 40 minutes of the movie woke me up and kept me on the edge. I loved it. Jada came back to the movie, or not, Cruise went back to the building to kill Jada.
The scene in the building was really good. And the train scene was better. I loved how it ended, and I appreciated that they didn't finished the movie with Jamie and Jada together.

[/SPOILER]

All in the all the movie is very good. Jamie Foxx is the star here and he's going to get a lot of recognition this year. I saw the trailer for his Ray Charles biopic 'Ray' yesterday and I'm giving him at least a Golden Globe nomination.

The Bourne Supremacy

I loved this movie. Maybe it was cause it happened all in Europe which is always great. Maybe it was cause of the great characters. But it was indeed awesome. A great action flick that'll make tons of money and they'll make the third in a few years to complete the trilogy like in the books in which this is based.

And about the books, I haven't read them so I don't know how Marie's character is there, but here in The Bourne Supremacy, when they were showing Franka Potente's Marie, I was thinking: what are they going to do with her now? Thing is, the first movie was small, and it was in Europe too, so they got German little-known-over-here actress Franka Potente to play the European girl. Now, I love Franka Potente. She's awesome in Run Lola Run. But in the first movie, she was just the girl in danger that rides along Matt Damon's Bourne. And looking at her now, she's not super attractive, and I was thinking that she looked wrong in this sequel, she looked liked she would just drag Bourne a lot, so It was no surprise that they killed her 15 minutes into the movie. Maybe it happened like that in the books too, probably.

The story is very good again. Still playing with Bourne's amnesia which causes us to keep trying to follow the hard story, since not even Bourne knows what happened, so none of the stuff villain Brian Cox does seems normal. A very good performance by Brian Cox here.

Also very good is Joan Allen as Pam Landy. She's the head of the mission now though she doesn't know Cox's story either. And she's got it all wrong about Bourne.

Julia Stiles is back. And before the movie came out I saw a lot of interviews with her, and she always said her part was bigger in this movie, but it wasn't. Looked kind of weird having her for just a couple of scenes in the middle of the movie and that was it.

Karl Urban as the Russian assassin Kirill was awesome too. He's been in great all I've seen him since his Eomer in LotR. I think I said he was the only good thing in The Chronicles of Riddick.

Matt Damon was again excellent as Bourne. And I love that he's getting a big recognition for this. And that the movie opened so big (it made more money than Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing, Vin Diesel's Riddick and even Will Smith's I, Robot) is great, cause now he'll get more shots at blockbusters though I hope he keeps making smaller movies too.

So to finish this, the movie is great, excellent shots of all the European cities featured in the movie, and let's hope they get the third one (no idea about the book's name though) done in a few years.

The Manchurian Candidate

This movie was a mess.

I love that the commercials say: "You wont be able to breathe in the last 30 minutes!" or something like that, and yeah, they were right, I spent all that time trying to understand what the fuck was going on.

I'm really disappointed with the movie, and the only good thing about it was Liev Schreiber who I hope gets more and more big roles. The rest of the cast (Denzel and Meryll) was good as always, with Jon Voight being totally wasted.

I haven't seen the original so I can't compare but after this one, I'm in no hurry to see it.