5 Flights Up

5 Flights Up

It's hard to let go of something that is wrapped in memories especially if it has reached old age in perfect harmony. But it is also hard to resist when the real estate boom leads to speculation and is perceived to have more past than future more clearly, if possible, to climb five floors without lift. There is nothing in this film that is not real as life itself, hence call it "drama" it seems excessive, is certainly a film about the elderly, on the degradation of life in big cities and the time spent and above all on our historical moment that seems made of equal parts of vulgarity, irrelevance, risks and instability.

We can advise seamless this film to fans of Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton. To them to defend a weak and wasted many times despite the good start script. Despite their long careers (the Freeman goes back to the mid-sixties and his costar started in the theater in 1968 with the performance of the rock opera Hair on Broadway) had never met in the same film. In the seventies both were already sufficiently known (Freeman was one of the unforgettable inmates who accompanied Robert Redford in Brubaker 1980, while Diane Keaton had achieved early fame as a girlfriend of Michael Corleone in The Godfather 1972), but his career they drifted in different directions.

When we commented recently Ricki film, we said that one of the successes of Meryl Streep have known her age with dignity. Far from any cosmetic surgery and even temptation she applied small facial retouching, naive in view of Hollywood habit of trying to keep the same smoothness of the face in the first century of life and a progressively swollen lips that make you forget those eyes every less bright than any surgery can restore. Well, that same can be said of the two protagonists of 5 Flights up, if you have been chosen to star in this film is because they assume their roles autumn quite naturally without trying to deceive the time.

This is a film in which actors interpret the growing problems that appear as maturity is being replaced by the elderly. They embroider interpretations probably because in his career they have played the most unbelievable records because they have always been particularly interested in caring roles they interpret. Undoubtedly, Diane Keaton's career was during a time inseparable Woody Allen, but she was able, in the years lived with him, her being nominated for the award for best actress in Reds 1981 filmed shortly after she starred Interiors 1979, almost a consequence of Annie Hall 1977 filmed when the actress was at the zenith of his relationship with Allen.

As it regards Freeman, who remember it being done roles of old since he starred as Ned Logan, a gunman who had doubled back in Unforgiven 1992 movie in which he even embroiders his role as body exposed in coffin at the entrance of "living" Far West. He had already before us excited about Driving Miss Daisy 1989 and would do as Seven police in 1995 and more recently in Oblivion 2013. If you have chosen these titles it is because no one seems to earlier and they are showing the versatility of this actor who is close to 80, nine more than Diane Keaton.

If this is what can be said of the two pillars of the film should also remember the path of the director Richard Loncraine, a British shaped by the BBC, multifaceted and that lavishes little (just eleven films in forty years and as many television movies). We recall, for example, The Missionary 1982 starring Michael Palin (ex-Monty Python, then still in office) and Richard III 1995 adaptation of the work of Shakeaspeare to the thirties in which fascism was progressing and that deserved to be nominated for several Oscar, received the BAFTA awards and won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival. Loncraine, despite a rather small films, he is no first-and it shows in the field of the camera, interior scenes and flashbacks management.

Thanks to the good offices of Loncraine and the main characters, which should be the only decision-making on the sale of an apartment in Brooklyn, he becomes a review of the state of New York society. Their reactions to the phenomenon of terrorism, the increasing degradation of the living conditions in the Big Apple, poor education of new generations and psychological characteristics of much of the population, their manias, business veterinarians when we are love our pets and, ultimately, the fears surrounding a couple who are hopelessly rights to old age. And all to try to jump on the bandwagon of the real estate boom, that pretend to sell and buy something in a hurry, as if we were across the street on the sidewalk of happiness, as if the meadow us to see the other side, we seem greener that we have inadvertently referred to the freshness and vitality of the grass that we are treading.

The script fails. Written by Charlie Peters Canadian not hurry the possibilities of the subject and even leaves some dark spots. Lacks surprises climax situations, unexpected turns as much as you can spare some metaphors too forced; It would have been appreciated the arrival of the unexpected at any time. The viewer does not notice the duration of the projection because it is fun following the interpretations of the two main characters and only when the room lights are on, he realizes that this tape has lacked something to be a memorable film. Perhaps it was that the writer has found it must respect the general lines of the novel by Jill Clement, Heroic Measures, and did not have enough freedom to evolve the narrative by most striking ways.

At the end of the projection one can not avoid experiencing a bittersweet but the viewer must not leave the screening room or else you will lose the credits accompanied by delicious ballad Have I told you letaly I love you by Van Morrison. Forty years of marriage the couple do react as one person, but they are hesitant to make a decision (the sale of the apartment) and the people around them as well as the context, seems to suggest that the number of morons per square meter is increasing day by day. Well, despite all this, if you decide to live, he has no choice but to do everything possible to be happy. This is the positive message of the film. Be happy you too.

Ricki and The Flash

Ricki and the Flash

Suitable only for viewers particularly attracted to the tvmoovies and, incidentally, are unconditional Meryl Streep film. Also for those looking for an innocent entertainment during the 101 minutes it takes the projection in a movie theater. Even for the well-told love, agile cinema, and do not require a great ideological messages tape, perfectly prepared arguments or captivating visual spectacles of intensity. Consuming the rock as the first spiritual food will likely leverage the viewing of this film. Ultimately ¿recommended film? Yes, but only for film buffs profile that we have described.

In principle, anyone is predisposed not to grant credibility to a Meryl Streep turned into rock singer. The years take their toll and one can fear the worst; an actress of 66 years in Hollywood is the closest thing to a retired dinosaur. Yet this initial prevention dissipates shortly after the Streep appear on the first scene. Not only he is cautioned that she has assumed her role perfectly, but that fits her like a glove. In addition, she has had the ability to not be great touches on his face. Unlike other actresses usual operating rooms which, by dint of tweaks, they have come to be hieratic caricatures of themselves, or those others whose lips fall into the category of retreaded sausages, the dignity Streep has stood the test of time .

Perhaps this film being performed by a minor actress, would have been for television broadcast on Saturday afternoons placid. Such is the difference between a great actress and a mediocre actress: the first is capable of lifting light scripts (even excite us hard at times) and make us forget its triviality.

Since the decade began, Meryl Strepp has won as actress and controversial films shot some time ago, and you have been forgiven. We did not like in the distant and Julia (1977), where he was overtaken in his inexperience by Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. Her career was too easily by each more heartbreaking melodramas (in fact, too heartbreaking). For a time, after seeing Holocaust or Sophie's Choice, it could be thought that he had forgotten to smile. Then came the era of Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), with Jack Nicholson, equally high voltage drama. That and some other romantic drama. In the late eighties the Streep was typecast in roles cream suffering.

Movies like The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and Out of Africa (1984), were enough to classify her as a great actress. It was only a matter of knowing what she could play any role it is atribuyese. Fortunately, in 1989 she starred in a comedy film. She Devil (1989) was not a great movie but at least showed that she was more scenic melodrama and records the history of tearful love.

Time does not pass in vain and in 2010, Streep turned sixty. Her career seemed declining and, just then, she filmed a difficult film, The Iron Lady (2011) playing Margaret Thatcher. A remarkable biopic. The following year in The Devil Wears Prada is (2012) she showed good understanding with Tommy Lee Jones, forming with it a twilight couple. And then August: Osage County (2013) returning to the drama drenched in alcohol and drugs which she won a new Oscar nomination. As in Mamma mia where her commitment to music was very well received.

Like it or not their work is bound to recognize that this is a great actress who can fill itself a screen.

Jonathan Demme, director of Ricki and the Flash, it only remember him as author of The Silence of the Lambs (1991). He began his career in 1974 and forty years later left no doubts about his expertise in any field when putting together an entertaining movie. Here he has managed to perfectly lead the main couple, Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep and the rest of the cast.

The features of the protagonists, yet be well described, or be completely convincing, they have a certain charm. She plays a mediocre rock that continues to act at night in a small joint, as she occupies the mornings working in a supermarket. There are several songs performed by Meryl Streep that contribute to lengthen a fairly simple plot and reinforce the idea that this is a rock without much future in this music. She sings because cooing help you forget and leave behind their past (especially about children who, upon them light, excessive case never made them). She refuses to terminate his musical career as problematic if that imply recognition of the failure of his life. Kevin Kline is in his role as man divorced and remarried, hardworking and loving parent, reminiscent of the first marriage with Streep as the great love of his life.

The argument is very powerful especially in the field of American culture where it has a tendency to admire anyone who abandons everything to pursue a dream. This aspect is less present in other anthropological fields, especially in the Latin area, where the idea that parents should sacrifice to the utmost for the welfare of the children, giving up projects and personal adventures that may involve neglect in his still present childhood and adolescence. The film maintains its interest and even almost forces the viewer to undermine the evangelical commandment "Judge not lest ye be judged." Is it fair and acceptable Ricki's attitude to her family? Would we do each and every one of us something? Is it worth the abandonment of the family in view of the mediocrity of her musical career? The verdict is up to each of us.

The film has been categorized as drama and comedy in tandem. But it could also fall within the musical. This is the part that certainly like some more. It is not "musical numbers" but performances of The Flash, the rock band that plays classics of the sixties. An average affair of the heroine with the bassist, is the excuse for Rick Springfield, authentic rock eighties, appears in the film strengthening band The Flash accompanying performances by Ricki-Streep. The best of these musical performances, of course, authenticity and vitality that will be well received by lovers of rock.

An almost typical of outdoor cinema or even the drive-summer film. You do not expect much, you be content to entertain, to see a great actress of film, hear some rock and wait for the next production of the Columbia TriStar somewhat less light. And it is that Ricki has covered the quota of light and love movies this summer 2015

Leviathan

Why you get a mediocre movie awards?

The awards harvested by the film are incredible Leviathan: nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars and BAFTA four nominations at the European Film Awards, including Best Picture award at the Cannes Film Festival Best Screenplay (I repeat: "best Screenplay") award for best Cinematography at the Seville Festival, nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards and the Satellite Awards, among the best films of the year list National Board of Review and, finally, the payroll Critics Choice Awards as best foreign language film. And yet ... it is a mediocre film in which the worst is the script.

Poor performance can jeopardize a great script, but a mediocre script will always result in a bad movie, despite the interpretive qualities of his players box. The script is the most important of a film. Unscripted nothing that could resemble a product of "cinema". Perhaps a bad joke or a cinematic abortion, never a worthy film. And Leviathan the script fails from the outset and becomes disjointed in the second half of the tape.

It is no longer a question of the character traits are painted superficially, but that many of the themes of the film remain as loose ends, as the film progresses towards its resolution. Characters who seem protagonists in the first part (the lawyer or the same protagonist child marriage) disappear simply in the second half. Many twists are completely inconsistent and the same scenarios in which the plot unfolds, despite receiving a nomination no matter what international award, are equally mediocre, lacking in grandeur and even something that deserves a grade above vulgarity.

What did he say director Andrei Zvyagintsev us? Russia is a corrupt country where any mob of three to the room, protected by a public office and blessed by the bishop of the local Orthodox Church, and with the acquiescence of the justice system and police, can do whatever he They wants ... For that trip did not lack saddlebags. After all the plot is a simple property mobbing as we see day after day in Barcelona, ​​without so many complicities or complications. I doubt that the circumstances Andrei Zvyagintsev account in his film are given. For mobbing, which have to suffer the inhabitants of Barcelona (Spain), abandoned by the City Council. A real estate that acquired their flats and tourism accommodate the worst imaginable to force the rest of their neighbors to accept bids at low prices. Needless to imagine anything in Russia, as in this our swindled Spain, without so many complicities or real or supposed mafia networks, a property can do, more or less, what we see in Leviathan.

The film has been accused Russia of not giving a true picture of the country. I believe it. Some people want to give a pre-Soviet vision of the country's reality, here and now. There are terminals communist times where you could tell that inevitably sank and everyone did assert their interests in the most dramatic way possible. Nor are the days when Boris Yeltsin came to power with a bottle of cheap vodka under his arm and the blessing of the US State Department. In the film we are in 2014. The oligarchs are imprisoned, exiled or praying that no one will remember them. Russia, the feeling you have regained confidence in itself. And his strength as a state.

This film would have us believe that the holy alliance between politics, justice, police and religion, are able to join forces to exercise real estate mobbing. It's a movie, not a documentary. Louis Buñuel and misrepresented some scenes in his docudrama about Las Hurdes (the goat did not fall, the shot; the donkey tour of ants was an obsession that the director shared with Lorca and Dalí) and as false as the funeral scene. With Leviathan happens much: as we leave the film in honest mediocrity; as a complaint is nothing more than a bad joke.

The film is Russian bill, but has not been made to be screened in Russia (too close to that would be credible), but to give a tarnished image of the country abroad. Even the title has been used to draw attention, not Russian, but the Western. Leviathan is especially remembered in the US as a novel by Paul Auster, fashion writer in the country. Much of the American public, including the Oscar jury believed, visionary it before, it was simply an adaptation of the story of Auster. Obviously a deliberate ambiguity.

Another element which confirms that there is "Russian cinema" is that no reflections and certain intellectual level as themselves, not only film but literature, theater, even Russian music. The film is flat. It meant that, despotism and injustice are the heritage of Russia as always: they existed under the tsars, existed with Stalin, did not disappear with the "perestroika" and "glasnost" and reappeared in all its brutality with the pirate who is Vladimir Putin ... The proof that this is false is given by the fact that the film was shot in Russia and became eligible for government grants. If there is anything left of dictatorship in that country, the director right now would be in a common grave.

If you have not received awards in his homeland it is because there is hardly digestible a story like this, as Zvyagintsev has told. Conversely, if the US media and Hollywood distributors have embraced with such benevolence is precisely due to its deliberate intention to undermine the image of the Russian state. Or does anyone believe that the "Star Wars" and the deployment of missiles and military bases are the only resource used by the US to corner Russia? This film, mediocre and poorly tied as they come, is part of the arsenal of psychological operations that tends to show the West that Russia is a virus that must be prevented.

The 140-minute film made eternal from the first hour; It not even clears what happened to the wife of the protagonist: murdered? ¿Suicided ?, much less with the combative lawyer who is his lover and that despite propose flee with him to Moscow, disappears without a mention in the second half. The secondary characters, including child marriage, fade to fade completely. When the credits roll and the projection ends, you wake up with the feeling that the punishment is over and that critics who have glossed as "Bergman inspiration", "a product worthy heir of Tarkovsky", "sympathetic film and biting "or" cinema truth "or not have seen, or is that mercenaries have gained by writing a favorable review.

As mentioned, the film is financed by the Russian state. Once the censorship imposed only where swear words are changed. The director chose to eliminate such words without change, so that the lips of the actors move but the tacos are heard. That was all the "censorship". The Western press has boasted that the "full" version (ie with plugs loudly) circulates from hand to hand especially among young people. I do not think that any Russian hear something tacos, frankly, but the truth is that the film has sparked some controversy in the country. Vladimir Medinski, Minister of Culture accused the director of search only "the golden statuettes and red carpets" and to present a distorted image of Russia that fit perfectly with the design of this country by European and US authorities. In the city of Samara, political and religious representatives called for the dismissal Valeri Grishko, director of the local theater who played the role of the Orthodox bishop in the movie.

Not only is there a film that deserves no award, supremely bored but the brave who dare to pay for her. Some should remember that the Cold War ended in 1989.

Another element which confirms that there is "Russian cinema" is that no reflections and certain intellectual level as themselves, not only film but literature, theater, even Russian music. The film is flat. It meant that, despotism and injustice are the heritage of Russia as always: they existed under the tsars, existed with Stalin, did not disappear with the "perestroika" and "glasnost" and reappeared in all its brutality with the pirate who is Vladimir Putin ... The proof that this is false is given by the fact that the film was shot in Russia and became eligible for government grants. If there is anything left of dictatorship in that country, the director right now would be in a common grave.

If you have not received awards in his homeland it is because there is hardly digestible a story like this, as Zvyagintsev has told. Conversely, if the US media and Hollywood distributors have embraced with such benevolence is precisely due to its deliberate intention to undermine the image of the Russian state. Or does anyone believe that the "Star Wars" and the deployment of missiles and military bases are the only resource used by the US to corner Russia? This film, mediocre and poorly tied as they come, is part of the arsenal of psychological operations that tends to show the West that Russia is a virus that must be prevented.

The 140-minute film made eternal from the first hour; It not even clears what happened to the wife of the protagonist: murdered? ¿Suicided ?, much less with the combative lawyer who is his lover and that despite propose flee with him to Moscow, disappears without a mention in the second half. The secondary characters, including child marriage, fade to fade completely. When the credits roll and the projection ends, you wake up with the feeling that the punishment is over and that critics who have glossed as "Bergman inspiration", "a product worthy heir of Tarkovsky", "sympathetic film and biting "or" cinema truth "or not have seen, or is that mercenaries have gained by writing a favorable review.

As mentioned, the film is financed by the Russian state. Once the censorship imposed only where swear words are changed. The director chose to eliminate such words without change, so that the lips of the actors move but the tacos are heard. That was all the "censorship". The Western press has boasted that the "full" version (ie with plugs loudly) circulates from hand to hand especially among young people. I do not think that any Russian hear something tacos, frankly, but the truth is that the film has sparked some controversy in the country. Vladimir Medinski, Minister of Culture accused the director of search only "the golden statuettes and red carpets" and to present a distorted image of Russia that fit perfectly with the design of this country by European and US authorities. In the city of Samara, political and religious representatives called for the dismissal Valeri Grishko, director of the local theater who played the role of the Orthodox bishop in the movie.

Not only is there a film that deserves no award, supremely bored but the brave who dare to pay for her. Some should remember that the Cold War ended in 1989.

Het Vonnis. The Verdict

Het Vonnis

Being boring is underrated... Luc Segers a brilliant executive, is expected, decent and dull. A person who at any time has been conducted in society doing and being "right." Your profile is the perfect example. The "cement" the rule of law.

"I've been ignored by (a powerful company) and when they are in the shit, suddenly, love me and show me the money". Are small strokes in the drawing of the protagonist tells the director.

Refuel at a gas station while ignoring his wife is terribly beaten in a service area ... is start the stopwatch of the most tragic events to Luc.

Luc tries to stop the robber-murderer and brutally attacked him unconscious. His little girl who witnesses the scene, leaving the car and is killed in an accident.

At this moment we have a man defeated by the physical and emotional pain. The director Jan Verheyen, music and photography Steve Willaert Frank van Eeden lead us in the emotions of frustration and grief. The resources to tell the film are impeccable.

What I never imagined is that the murderer is released by an administrative error. So it is not punished by the rule of law. Luc, who was exposed to acts of extreme violence, it is told that those facts "did not happen".

In Belgium, every year dozens of people are released or not processed due to procedural errors. Including traffickers, drug, violent crime, sexual offenses ... The problem of "procedural error" was treated by the Franchimont Commision in its proposal for a new Code of Criminal Procedure Law. 2002 This proposal has not yet been debated in Parliament

Obviously any citizen to the pain of such a grave injustice as murder, are "reassuring" knowing that is in a state of law whose aim is to fight crime and punish him. It is essential to understand that the purpose of our taxes serve to protect us.

The film tells us that Europe and its "guarantor justice" in relation to crime is to take the initiative and courage of awakening.

In the judiciary it is part of the prejudice that the law, the prosecution and the victim tend to "abuse" of the defendant. Therefore the offender has such a powerful shield that if you have many resources, including economic, is able to stop and evade justice, giving rise to the worst corruption and judicial adulteration. In short, the judicial guarantor is to provide the "suspect" all kinds of resources and subterfuge to evade justice.

Luc Segers sees that he has been let down by the judicial system, not to punish the offender and not fight crime. Our citizen loses confidence in the contract signed with the State has not been met by being terminated unilaterally.

Luc shoots the murderer, he dies and is stopped. He wants to go all out against the system. Manages to expose weaknesses. An anachronistic situation. "Someone asks you money (State) to take care of you, applying punishment to criminals you'll never run, always you have clean hands asks you to be" good citizen "and do not you dare "take justice into your own hands" ... but if the State fails to ask you for money, good citizenship and "do not take the law into your hand."

The Theory of Everything

The Theory of Everything

‘While there is life there is hope’ is one of the axial phrases around which has been built this film about the life of the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, a phrase that says a lot about the direction of the script. The interest Hawking derives not so much physical and cosmological theories, and their disease. Paradoxically, the most appropriate to appreciate this film are the same people who applauded her time in ‘The Sea Inside’. Remember, that we recounting the process that led to Ramón Sampedro (Javier Bardem) to opt for euthanasia. Hawking is at odds with Sampedro. Where one has lost hope, the other clings to life. The difference between the two is that Hawking had a passion, science, while Sampedro showed passionate about a life that he could no longer live fully.

‘The Theory of Everything’ is to some extent a biopic. Based on the book by Hawking's first wife, she has especially the love story of the couple. Boy seeking girl, boy meets girl, disease joins boy and girl, prolonging it separates boys and girls. She was worried that the script was also and above all a justification for the link with Hawking.

The characteristics of the disease causes the background of the film is a real drama. You can understand the reactions when the first wife agrees to marry an already diagnosed ‘terminally ill’, considering that ‘till death do us part’ has for him expiration date: two years. However, various circumstances contribute to prolonging until Hawking's life today, something for which she seemed unprepared. So, rather than a biographical account of Hawking or about their life together, the film is shifting the focus of the narrative to the first woman.

But why should we be interested in Hawking's life? I'm not sure that's because he decided to survive where Ramon Sampedro said enough. Einstein is interesting not because of its relationship with Mileva Marić or Loewhental Elsa, but for his contribution to theoretical physics. Bad business if we more interested womanizing what scientists that their contributions to the advancement of science.

That said, I recommend watching this neat, nice, linear movie and that is a real psychological study of the characters. James Marsh is a seasoned filmmaker, with a dozen titles, all of acceptable quality and well received by critics. There is in him a sober director who knows how to tell stories and keep the viewer's attention. We we threw at fault after his last tape, which came to us in 2011 ('Project Nim', prepared as documentary about a chimpanzee raised as a human being, against the background of animal abuse) and 2012 ('double agent' with Clive Owen and Gillian Anderson, the Scullyde X-Files) agent who had left us a good taste. The film about marriage Hawking shows his mastery of many different genres.

At the moment, ‘The Theory of Everything' has been collecting awards and nominations, including several for "best film" (BAFTA Awards, Awards Critics Choice Awards). Eddie Redmayne is probably the best actor who could embody the anterior and posterior Hawking to his illness. Embroiders a role and not particularly easy at the time of writing, his work has already been rewarded with a Golden Globe, a prelude to what may be his big Oscar night. Eddie Redmayne Oscar for Best Actor in 2015 for ‘The Theory of Everything’.   

The main problem with the film is some abuse of the naive-happy candy covering the biography of one of the sharpest minds of our time with a pinkish patina not please everyone. After all, the importance and impact of Hawking's theories (an attempt to establish the origin of the Cosmos) exceeds the interest you may have your personal life, let alone the psychological reactions of his wife.

Marsh spent several years working in the film and was aware of the problem so he chose to enter into the dialogue some ideas developed by the theoretical physicist. In recent times, this kind of thinking has become the source of a film with pretensions. We have seen recently in the theoretical speculations of 'Interstellar' (2014), the also heard in small pills during episodes of 'True Detective' (2014), as we saw in the field of mathematics 'Fermat's Room' (2007), try also reappears in 'The Imitation Game' (2014), another biopic Oscar winner Alan Turing, the genius of the exact sciences.

It seems as if certain films that were not in the mood, for mere amusement, or festival of special effects, tended to resort to sophisticated messages and higher soliloquies flights to assert their ambitions. It not always as happens with the movie we occupied the public can follow the presentation of complex doctrines, nor understand what the hell speak on the screen. Try disseminate modern physics is no bargain. But it is possible that these dialogues, sometimes difficult to understand, in some young awaken interest in these issues and desire to deepen. And this is a lot.

Some viewers undoubtedly would have preferred a film about the mental and imaginative Hawking process followed to develop his theories. But we must recognize that the language of film, except in the documentary genre, lends little to the theoretical exposure. If it was facing a biopic about the approach chosen by Hawking Marsh it was the only possible.

Hawking has not only appeared in several documentaries about his work, but also accepted a great and hilarious cameo in the fifth season of 'The Big Bang Theory', playing himself and giving opposite Sheldon Cooper, star of the series, he seems to have a healthy sense of humor and keeps his will to live. So, welcome is this film that shows us that the great scientists have their human side. The emotional and sentimental, the pink and soft that at times distilled tape, are nothing more than the vaseline that aids digestion of the film. We would not have been surprised if the producer had been Disney.

The Postman's White Nights

The Postman's White Nights

There are films that will be a marvel worth seeing because it contrasts with the overall mediocrity of the film is being done right now. Ten films that are released, there are probably one or at most two, worth seeing by certain concepts. This is one of them. There will be something on it that will be familiar. It is even possible that you tend to identify with the protagonist. And that just happens much in 100 minutes of projection. Almost as if we were still in our mouse cursor on the computer screen. But there is something charming in this film.

Everything that comes from Russia is very particular. The Russians have always been taken seriously everything they do, from a game of chess, to read a book, through the launch of a cosmonaut and the making of a film that simply tells the life in a small community northern Russia. The film, which has been described as "drama" has much contemplation of the natural environment and deep sociological point about Russia. It actually has more documentary than drama.

We say something narration of the environment because it is perhaps the most surprising at first sight with this tape. The film has been shot in the Kenozersky National Park, located in northern Russia, not far (although all distances in Russia are spectacular) of St. Petersburg and Karelia ism. Since 2004, UNESCO considers "Biosphere Reserve" and the rating is not absolutely free. In the northern part of this reserve existed Lake Kenozero that you will see in the film and is the leit-motif of it. The whole plot revolves around a postman who daily cross the lake with his boat.

If we translate the English title of the film (do not get tired trying to translate from Russian by Google Translate) gives The White Nights Postman (The postman's White Nights), but for some unfathomable mystery someone has thought it best to title in Spanish postman White Nights ... It's the only mystery of the film, because everything else in it is linear, pleasant, right, well done, well mounted, wanting to convey clear messages about not overlook the public warned.

The film can only be understood by anyone who has lived and worked in the vicinity of large cities and, for years, have made the repetitive daily transit from home to work and an office building to another bedroom, and suddenly decided to go there to live in the country. From that moment, the everyday is perceived differently. One senses that trees make noise, the sun rises and declines, storm clouds announce the warm breeze and indicates a change of season. The person abruptly changes from "live" to "contemplate". To live is to experience the inability to stop time. To contemplate is recreated in the “here and now”. In Konchalovsky, director of the film, has said that "he has begun to understand the essence of contemplative cinema". In this film examines the life, just life, without rushing.

The landscapes Konchalovsky shows suggest that the time has stopped. The placidity of the lake increases that feeling. The actors are part of that landscape. They are not professionals, it is the inhabitants of that region they are telling their personal stories (at times, the director hid cameras for characters wandered off freely about their lives and acquire a greater authenticity tape). The film has, in this sense, much more documentary than drama. They are lives that "are" in the XXI century, but "are not" the century. Lives of a time that was and is no more. It is not unusual that such people go emptied of young and seems to have many prospects. Nothing that does not happen in any other country.

Human relationships are an important part of their daily lives. Vodka is an important part in the life of every community. The vodka and love. There is also a little story of unrequited love in this film. And horror stories of magic or the mailman explains to a child on the lake. Some touches of irony paradoxical taste the viewer as the scene that takes place in the near Plesetsk Cosmodrome when a rocket rises dramatically skyward.

The author of this film, Andrey Konchalovksy, is a veteran of film, brings shooting since the mid-60s, while his great films have been produced in the United States where he settled in 1980. His best known work is The Train Hell (1985) and, of course Tango and Cash (1989). Armed with these successes returned to his native Russia the following year. In 2003 it reached a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his movie Dom Durakov, set in a psychiatric in Chechnya. The Postman's White Nights has earned him the Silver Lion for Best Director at the 2014 Venice Film Festival.

The film could be described as an example of "social realism". There is almost nothing spectacular happening is that we are seeing the simplicity of rural life, it is becoming harder to find. And following the withdrawal of the simple life, the individual shows helpless. We have recently seen as another Russian film, Leviathan (2014) by Andrei Zvyagintsev, he showed us aspects of bureaucratic corruption in the country. Konchalovksy not opt ​​for the path of the complaint. He's not telling us that the dangers to rural men are in the political structures of the current regime, but living in the fear of change that grips all the inhabitants of the shores of Lake Kenozero. The postman, the man who needs professional and is closer to modernity, is perhaps the closest to each of us, sad urbanites. And maybe that's why it moves us more than any other inhabitant of a contemplative environment to disappear.

Good management. Good assembly. The good scripting (by Konchalovsky ex aequo with Elena Kiseleva). Great photography (Aleksandr Simonov). And correct the soundtrack. As for the actors, they lack stage experience. They merely tell their life. And it has merit because there are all expressing our good day.

You'll like it if at the time liked Dersu Uzala (1975) by Kurosawa or vibrated with Calabuch (1956) by Berlanga. Movies simple, uncomplicated. Movies filmed in communities outside of time. If you identified with the frameworks in which these films were shot postman White Nights will like. Go see it, he shall pay. If, on the other hand these two titles mentioned bored him, think before you pay your entrance.

Rating: 6,5

The Theory of Everything... My life with Stephen por Jane Hawking,

Oscar Wilde ... "Give a man a mask and he will tell the truth"

The psychological profile of S. Hawking's first wife in the movie "The Theory of Everything”: Boy looking girl and girl looking at boy. During the first months of a relationship a pathological amnesia, prerequisite is experienced from the Stone Age to the rapid procreation ... dinosaurs to shake floor to cerebral stroke, with his steps and the man and woman had to start dancing dancing rabbit in a pis..pas. Such is the chute that the brain has to create fantastic images by showing the other person qualities that do not exist and hide obvious defects. Should there be off work ?.

What she thought, what she felt, Mrs. Jean Wilde when S.Hawking him that he was sick and had to 2 years of life ?... I install in my life crusade against an atheist scientist. Love conquers all and I am so strong that I will for all. At the end of the day that is 2 years: 24 months. Getting married yes or yes ... as if setting in your life recipe his Anglican religion, life expectancy. Meet what is expected of an English pro. Besides the weather was in their favor, it would be only a commitment of 24 months.

Is there mental connection with S.H.? She is always an interpreter, a translator of what SH means, thoughts you disagree. In the movie you see that always has an expression of "poor aihnss!!, wrong is thinking that the nonexistence of God."

Scenes are S.H. playing with her children and her in an angry, contrary and regardless of the happiness of the game attitude. It seems a toxic woman.

What happen? Following the end of the film the story arrives a nurse who can play, laugh, to pass even leaves bare, evocative and exciting Penthouse girls appears. Finally a woman who seems ready to have fun. That then the real story was expanded and disintegrated, that right now I do not do well and I do not seem relevant.

Mrs. Jean, when he can not speak it becomes his interpreter, is his voice, but a voice with music that oozed disbelief, annoyance, resentment and breathe the scent was what I was thinking ... "that heaviness theories have to explain to other people that I have this crazy by her husband. "

One can read a speech, a poem, speaking on behalf of another, but the words have life, create life and that we give life to think they mean. Everything is energy that is embedded or colonized in our hearts as if they were the barnacles Balanus or appearing on the shells of mussels. When you try to cook a good and delicious mussels to clean no way to get those tenants or parasites off. We put on our skin coats, metals, glass, plastics, silks even scars, but we do not see is all the love and pain that has penetrated by innumerable pores of our skin, opening or sealing it to life. The characters in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" The Flying Dutchman, visually explain my theory.

Wife: advancing years and her life is slowing down like a plane landing at an airport with high winds. Suddenly you can not live with S. H. Love has disappeared into the black hole of the eye, the pupil. What is curious is that her drowning in the ocean of His divine vote ... "till death do us part", choose another man who is her mirror. A man broken by the pain of losing his wife, which "took care" to the end of his life. Once a friend told me that couples united by the pain and not for love. It is as if passed between us broken parts of our DNA to form a unit. Therefore, this theory could be part of the mystery of changing partners heal or lead to tragedies no return.

It is curious that the encounter is women seeking men in an atmosphere of scientific students and she's letter. Yes! She remains hopeful that God has a scientific basis to provide the joy of being in the path of the elect ... who believe that God exists. Even dreams that her husband change and scientific confirmation that it has discovered the true theory that God exists. His talks with S. H. is to bring the issue to see how anything in the sea of ​​existentialist theories.

Mrs. Jean and 2nd. Man in your life ... not death knocked on the door.

It is true that the choice is a man who goes to church, her and like her, believe in God and as sad as her. Finally a couple of boring to get into trouble and do not know out of them.

Mrs. Jean was exhausted his titanic work that had no expiry date, so that as he was convinced that SH I was going to die soon proposed to the two men live in the same house for one to take care of the other. S. H. He accepted in principle but in 1990 left with her nurse Elaine Mason, which was discovered as a real controlling, manipulative to the extent that he physically abused, although in the movie appears as refreshing and fun. The truth is we do not know if the shadows of S.Hawking excited him being mistreated in body and soul. It is a secret not revealed to date.

"You never know where the next leap forward ... or who will come"

Paper Towns

Paper Towns

Paper Towns is the second feature by Jake Schreier. A year before I got the movie -entretenida and well told, go for front of him that he had already drawn the attention of literary criticism the novel of the same title by John Green signed published in English in 2008. The title? Paper Towns refers to nonexistent cities invented by cartographers to preserve the copyright for possible copies of their work and facing potential lawsuits. Schreier read the novel, liked it and commissioned Fox to direct the film adaptation (with some surprises on the original text).

Until then, Schreier, a young director who had left good memories with his fable A friend Frank (2012), perhaps one of the best performances you've starred Frank Langella in his long film career. Since then Schreier, accustomed to directing short films, music videos and commercials, he had not repeated a feature film and there remained the question of whether that lovely film was an accidental success or if the manager had "wood" to revalidate. And he has it. Paper Towns has made clear. Both films are comedies with drama and a sediment is at least curious that the main characters of the first film was an old man and his robot and this comes to us now, a young couple. In both cases, poignant and vital Schreier braid ribbons.

To understand the scenario that develops paper cities would be desirable to see before the documentary The End of Suburbia (2004) filmed by Gregory Greene and produced in Canada. In American slang expression "suburbia" the whole swarm of developments, far from the center of large cities, which were built after World War II and whose houses veterans returning from conflict surrendered. Thereafter they proliferated such developments to be inherent to the American dream ... until gasoline prices soared. The central theme of the film is precisely that of a young inhabitant of "suburbia", son of the city design that embodies the American dream.

Not the first time that American cinema is the subject of "suburbia". A part of that documentary films like Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) and Two Jackes (1990) that counted respectively starring Jack Lemon and Jack Nicholson, recorded a plot against the background of "suburbia". Similarly, The Goonies (1995) would be the translation in youth version. Even the punk cinema (or presumed such) offered us a film that is beginning to sense the degradation of life in these areas (Suburbia, 1984).

These comfort zones singularly allow the adventures and love. There is some inability of parents to control and maintain tied to their children; its relations with them just limited to breakfast cereals and taking them to school. Beyond this, parents ignore all of their children, are safe in the environment of "suburbia"; are there free from all evil. The film tells the story of a young man attracted to another girl her age; she is brilliant, captivating, exercises for him the role of "initiatory lady" that drives him to leave his area and and comfort discover him, he's a Ninja ... so hard to life as the steel of a sword, even when surrounded persons resident in the chaos. The role is played by Cara Delevingne, whose face we will have to get used to seeing in the coming years as "fashion girl". In the film, the Delevingne is a true "queen bee" from his high school.

His masculine replica assumes Nat Wolff whose films so far, covering a dozen titles in supporting roles (the first when still had not fulfilled the ten years). This is his first film as a protagonist. Like his co-star, just choose the titles they know and who do not pass the "dark side" that has frustrated so many careers in Hollywood, actors are called to emphasize in the coming years, especially her.

The writer John Green tried to convey something Schreier has managed to prevail in the screenplay: the feeling that, contrary to what tends to think, the inhabitants of "suburbia", far from being simple, simple, natural and comfortable, as the landscapes in which they live, are, however, unusually complicated and twisted. The male protagonist is obsessed with finding the woman; is abandoned by the five friends (the number five seems a number that recurs repeatedly in novels and movies of this kind: see The Adventures of The Five (2013), not forgetting that five are also the Goonies that count), it is misunderstood by those who were part of their environment. What happens when the woman is (and how is) belongs to the secret of this film that this review is obliged not to reveal.

The transition from adolescence to maturity always leaves a bittersweet. We've all experienced this feeling in the first part of our life. Any change of state, as spending butterfly worm, can not be done without a strong emotional shock, a crisis. Such is the path that we all must bear. So, surely, this movie seems so close and generates an echo within us that many viewers will be able to perceive.

The film is not recommended for lovers of strong emotions and special effects. It is quiet, relaxed, with blows of humor, leisurely flowing at a rate that makes it extremely enjoyable to watch. Photography by David Good Lanzenberg. The perfect casting (we have said that both major players will talk about for years to come). Music, correct, but without getting any chorus reminding us out.

I know that some viewers are reluctant to see a film that comes from the United States and try to adolescents. Too many films of young people in high-schools to graduate or university desmadrados plated vulgarity, too young and too many vampire movies teen movies that are limited to four hooligans acts five apricots jokes, and some clones arguments, true incentives to defect of the cinemas ... at least as regards demanding public.

This film is different: it draws the viewer lessons and conclusions (as control obsessions and sometimes need to take a step back to see new possibilities). The argument does not place its axis in the rough, pedestrian or rude, but in the power of friendship and understanding how to deal with change of state of adolescence to maturity. Graduation and prom is this existential cut that marks a before and after in the life of a young man.

Rating: 7