Computer Age

The War of the Roses (1989)

Director: Danny DeVito

Cast: Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito, Marianne Sagebrecht, Sean Astin, Heather Fairfield

The 80's were unquestionably the best in the career of the great Danny DeVito. This endearing comedy set a string of successes as an actor and director who managed to place his stocky figure among the elite and popular film scene then, noting especially his association with two other posh actors: Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. With them had participated in the pitch of Romancing the Stone (1984) and the lower, though entertaining, The Jewel of the Nile (1985). But it would be in the War of the Roses, near the end of the decade, where the trio achieved the best results of their peculiar alliance with DeVito run the show this time.

Based on the original text of the novelist Warren Adler, a fully fit DeVito made his mark feature of black humor and nasty in what is undoubtedly his best film as director. Because if there are two things that stand out in this movie those are the black humor and nasty, making an appearance from the very opening credits, seconded to the occasion by a great soundtrack. After that what follows is a story of love and corrosive disdain for wear and passivity, full of misogyny (woman is portrayed here as little more than a heartless bitch) and that pulls up against the topicazos of relationships which often show idyllic out of doors but also usually hide more than a murky reality that is only shown behind closed doors.

The War of the Roses is a very funny movie that at times reminds one of the best episodes of The Simpsons. Not surprisingly the producer is James L. Brooks, the same as the famous cartoon series. Although the second half of the footage is the most entertaining by that of "putadas succession" taking place between the two main characters, perhaps the best is in the first part more slowly but builds some great sequences that illustrate beautifully how a couple distancing can go slowly and inexorably, without the two realize until it's too late to fix anything.

Avatar (2009)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Joel Moore, Giovanni Ribisi

Pocahontas against the Marines. So Iván Reguera rebaptize to Avatar in his extraordinary blog. And he was not alone: from the moment they could be the first scenes of the film in trailers and others, the Internet became a hotbed where anyone who believed he had at least knowledge about cinema began to give birth to the tape. And the easiest way, obvious and clear was to change the name since its resemblance to many previous films it is obvious from the standpoint of plot.

I admit I find it hard to write something that has not been said already about a movie that, today, is on the lips of everyone and everyone has seen. I was tempted to do nothing and wait for few more months, maybe a few years to diminish the enormous buzz created around the Avatar, the same that has prevented me from seeing the movie in its native format (3D) on two occasions Such is the rush of people who still go to theaters, which makes it impossible to attend the screening if not reserved tickets a week before, the same excitement that has forced me to see her in "flat format" to generate an opinion own on the film, apart from the comments of other people and everything I've read about it on the Web something that incidentally is almost impossible in some ways is like being a jury in a case of great impact media and try to render a just verdict, regardless of pressure from the media and society.

Because if there is one word that defines Avatar in its entirety this is "hype" English word whose use and popularity have spread through the Internet, and more since he had heard that James Cameron put up its new project. When you say that something is "hype" is said that something unusual is generating a buzz around him, usually well above the then shows merit. Generate excitement about something then that something is sold like hotcakes regardless of its quality, is a resource as old as man. You know what they say: good seller is able to sell something that does not exist. Examples of this film having Hayles, curiously almost always associated with the genre of horror and science fiction. But Avatar has been palm street.

I admit that I admire greatly to James Cameron. It will be a bastard and bred, or at least that's what he says most people who know him in person and have had the misfortune, according to them, to work with him. There will be a great director, or indeed a good writer, but the guy has shown throughout his career which had all the daring project to raise other directors, supposedly better than him, not even dare to ask. Not only that: the guy is able to carry on their backs with all the work it takes to load, put it to work against all odds, and make the end result pop the box office wherever it is displayed. In contemporary cinema no longer exists and people. There is too much money at stake, too many commercial interests so that nobody dares to take on new challenges, always keeping in mind the limitations of a world, the film, in which all (or most) is already invented since the forties . In the past three decades, only George Lucas of the Star Wars and Spielberg's Jaws could be closer to the figure of James Cameron, an expert in making the finger to the soothsayers of failure in the cinema. Avatar would Another example of this, while recognizing that its production process failed to be as risky and complex as other previous nightmares of the director, such that Abyss and Titanic. The computer makes things much, Titus James has no fool, and before the first take snaps of his latest film had everything well tied and bound, to the point that hard to believe that a film so expensive it could be a box-office failure, which of course has not happened.

What the movie? For quite flojita, really. Perhaps the weakest Cameron's repertoire, except for Piranha 2. Rather than a full-fledged movie, Avatar is a demo of new technologies applied to film, and the clear demonstration of the current trend of cinema to put the continent well above the content. Because Avatar is like you give away an empty box with a precious bundle. We must recognize that from that point of view is acojonante even in its "flat version, although their aesthetic Ultracolor may be deemed" kitsch "in more than one occasion. But no more. If we disconnect the brain before her, Avatar can fulfill its objective of entertaining. In fact entertaining, if only for the technical bravado of those boasts. But a few days, and without going any further, I turned to see me Dances With Wolves in its original and extended (almost four hours of fleece, hear) and I daresay a lot more cool, even without much pijada made by computer .

However, make broth Avatar accusing her of being a "rehash" it is still a bit simplistic in my opinion, as the current movie (from the sixties to this part, more or less) is itself a constant rehash. It happens regularly, always, some wise guy borrows elements from here and there, the "rehash" with some success and brand to a generation as marking the cattle. Without going any further, when The Star Wars began to exhibit in theaters was showered hollows of wafers through the same thing now it rain on Avatar. Curiously, many people now put Cameron and his film to fall from a donkey, they masturbate while imagining the Jawas naked. And now you should know that La Guera of Galaxies Avatar is only with models.

Anyway I would be reasonably optimistic, because history has taught us what could be the next step. The cinema has fought its various crises technological explosions in the course of time. These explosions have finished going out of fashion, leading to a renewed interest in reconciliation with the viewer based on good stories, that's what should be the essence of this business. It happened in the sixties, after the fashion of the widescreen format and other similar nonsense; occurred in the nineties, after exhausting a vein popping film during the previous decade. Now I am waiting for what may happen today, when deflated the "hype" of 3D. Hopefully roost owners realize again that the movie business is somewhat different from an amusement park, probably either I was too late to remedy anything.

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Director: Edmund Elias Merhige

Cast: John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Udo Krier, Cary Elwess, Catherine McCormack

How would a filmmaker willing to risk anything to film a masterpiece? To what extent would be capable of risking his neck, literally, to turn the arid phrases from a script into poetry in motion?

The year is 1921. Amid the delicate political and economic situation in Germany immediately following World War I, there is nevertheless a man who does not think either politics or economics. This is Friedrich Wilhelm Plump, known as FW Murnau, one of the best German filmmakers of the time. Deep in the middle of filming his latest project, Nosferatu, an unlicensed version of the classic Bram Stoker's Dracula, Murnau looking to get the best and most realistic horror film of all time. So do not hesitate to engage the services of an enigmatic man named Max Schreck to interpret the Count Orlock (Dracula). Schreck comes from the theater and is shaped as an actor under the auspices of Stanivslawski method, which encourages players to live their characters beyond the stage. So nobody was surprised too to see him walking around and acting characterized as the villain Orlock. However, this shadowy figure hides a terrible secret: Schreck is a real vampire, ready to be charged the price of his extraordinary and realistic interpretation in the blood of the team members and especially Greta Murnau, the beautiful female protagonist repellent of the tape.

Shadow of the Vampire is a mixture of "biopic" and fiction, meandering in the events surrounding the tortuous genesis of Nosferatu, a film that was about to disappear under the finger of the angry widow of Bram Stoker, which sought, through a court order that all copies were destroyed in the film have been run without acquiring the rights to the novel that inspired it. Fortunately, the order was not respected and survived Nosferatu, Murnau hovers and becoming a cinematic masterpiece. The Shadow of the Vampire makes a portrait of the tormented personality of a genius like Murnau, can also reflect on the madness of creation film and the pursuit of perfection. It poses an interesting question step: What if Max Schreck had been really a vampire? German actor was in fact a rather mysterious and be complete in itself, and would not be surprising that more than one occasion someone from the crew was seriously considering that possibility, given its peculiar way of being.

The idea for Shadow of the Vampire left the screenwriter Steven Katz, who until then had only their claims in the script for an episode of the television series From the Earth to the Moon. Submit the above script to the popular Nicholas Cage, big classic movie buff, it was decided to produce it. The film was shot on locations in Luxembourg and has a budget of a mere eight million dollars. This was not difficult for a number of major Hollywood stars like Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich agreed to participate in the filming.

The tape in question is based on four pillars. The first two performances of the two main protagonists. Malkovich, excellent as always, plays a mad rage and Murnau film, a drug addict and sexually ambiguous. Willem Dafoe is almost brilliant in the skin of Schreck / Orlock, unrecognizable because of the excellent work of the team of makeup, which is the third pillar. The remaining part of the great photography work of rookie Lou Bogue. Dark and sinister, the near-perfect for scenes filmed in black and white.

However, Shadow of the Vampire has its ifs and buts, and the greatest of all is the end. Alocadísimo and threaded past, almost inevitably ruin the movie. Until then, the invention holds well, is nice and has a remarkable moment. But that is not where to end it up, hear. If we add to that the dangerous tendency to overact the good of Willem Dafoe, the result may be a joke. The afternoon I went to see the film, newly released then, the comment almost unanimous among us in the room (all this with a laugh) was "seems Chiquito de la Calzada, jarl. A few wise words suffice.

Anyway, this does not consider the shadow of the vampire as an interesting film. A tribute to a moment in history in which the film was a work of pioneers, most of the titans, a mixture of white-coat science and art. A task far from the nature of business that now has almost always our beloved cinema.

Making a film is like trying to write "War and Peace" in the car crash of an amusement park (Stanley Kubrick).

Green Street Hooligans (2005)

Director: Lexi Alexander

Cast: Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam, David Alexander, Geoff Bell, Claire Forlani

It is curious the effect that violence has on people. The vast majority are frightened, but can not avoid a certain fascination for her. Violence creates fear towards those who exercise vigorously confronted. Not infrequently, and although we do not want to admit it, the fear generated respect. And respect is power. Earn the respect of others using a resource as primary and violence may be reprehensible, but because we are animals after all, if we want to draw attention is often accomplished best if we use a mallet to iron Instead of a pat on the back. That's why people are so fascinated by groups of soccer hooligans. So the films and reports based on these groups, so visible yet so hidden, draw much attention. And if it happens that they are well made as milk and honey, listen.

Hooligans tells the story of an American kid from a good family expelled from Harvard, during a trip to London to visit her sister the Jephunneh befriends a group of radical supporters of West Ham United, plunge into an adventure that will change your life but with unforeseeable consequences.

Contrary to what one might expect in light of its limited distribution (in most countries where it was released straight to DVD, and in those where it did on the big screen showed only a handful of rooms) the film that we occupies is good. It is a work of art, of course, but has sufficient qualities to please, entertains and leaves room for reflection, something that can not be said of most of today's cinema. What is more surprising is to assist the Digivolution of Elijah Wood, that timid and shy young man (his role as always, go) becomes progressively become one of the more radical and violent of the Hammers, distributing blankets Hosts propaganda as the dealer down the street. Just for that, and worth taking a look at this racket. Although personally I'm with Charlie Hunndam in a radikal mamonazo role, but so charismatic that eventually all be adorable. Will that thing because of the attraction to violence that we all have in varying degrees ...