Reviews

Amazon Prime recommended this "documentary" to me. And it does not talk about science. Not even about philosophy or antropology... It seems that somebody that hated Science when he/she was in the highschool , now realized that all he/she really wanted to do was to write documentaries. But he never have read anything about science ever... So he/she writes just common places and dumb things... Yeah, never mind if The Origin of Species is a very large book, and it takes many weeks to read it, the best thing you can do to write a documentary is not having read some books and knowing what you are talking about... You just have to smoke some weed and write the first thing that pass through your mind... Yes, this is the best way, and how this "documentary" and the rest of New Atlantis ones was made.

well, this is the last time i believe the IMDb rating before go to the theater. if i do not know the director or have other sources that tell me the movie is good, i cannot trust in IMDb. for i cannot understand this overrating (more than Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds or joe johnston's The Rocketeer, for say just two examples of films MUCH BETTER than this).

in HTTM they wanted to to a hooligan comedy twisting with the masterpiece BACK TO THE FUTURE, but with no humor at all, just having bad taste in all they do. there are not plot. no sense in what the characters do. and they not follow any rule of a sci-fi movie.

sorry , if you watch the IMDb rate , you may think: "eh, it must be a GROUNDHOG DAY-alike" movie, an excellent sci-fi comedy, and role in it Crispin Glover, its a warranty and a winkle to the old classic", but you find more a stupid teen comedy much worst than UP THE CREEK.

would be great an IMDb rates made for people who really really love the movies (i don't counting in them), a kind of critics/film-journalists/script-writers/directors rating, perhaps this way it wouldn't happen that a garbage-film has a 7.2, much more rating than other movies that are completely CLASSICS.

I rented the movie in DVD cause i watched the very high IMDb rating (7,5 when im writing this), but i had a great disillusion watching it.

First, I do not like the religious-mystic way of the approach to death that movie shows, it is vain and futile. perhaps its cause i am not religious at all, i prefer other movies that talk about death taking other philosophic ways, not with mysticism or idea of eternity (Blade Runner, The Sea Inside, Beguin the Beguine, Hannah and her Sisters...).

And i see that people tend to talk this film as "sci-fi"... well i think its more a fantasy movie. (if you accept this is part of sci-fi genre, then you would have to call sci-fi Harry Potter films too...) But the film has good things too: for example, acting of Huhg Jackman and Rachel Weisz (i can say she is the Queen Isabel more beautiful that the movies showed us ever).

And there is a very irritating thing that some films as this one tend to do nowdays: the fact of show you, many times during the movie, little "flashbacks" of things that have happened or still not happen in the plot... but Don't MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL... i am talking about the fact of repeat the phrase "finish it" and mix images of the "past"(you know, the novel she wrote) and the present. well, it can be a good exercise of screenplay in a videoclip-way, but it don't contribute to the movie plot and say not anything to the audience at all... just shows to you , when you finish the watching, that those pieces didn't mean anything at all... the director was fooling you, and were, as the 80% of the film, completely vain and futile.

P.S.- a film that do not deserves to be watched several times, do not deserves to be watched any time.

I don't know why this film is called "El Crack" ("the Crack"). i searched in my English dictionary, and i found that "to crack" is to solve a mystery. probably it refers to that.

the film is dedicated to north-American crime-novel writer Dashiell Hammet. i haven't read any novel of Sam Spade... but i have watched The Maltese Falcon, and i found a subtle wink to Bogart character in Garci's movie. i remember that Bogart-Spade had a particular gesture when he was thinking: he scratched his ear. Landa-Areta scratches his mustache.

But don't think that El Crack is a film where you cant follow the plot, as in the old Bogart detectives movies... (is a famous anecdote that even Howard Hawks and Raymond Chandler -director and writer respectively- had serious doubts during the filming of THE BIG SLEEP to explain themselves some scenes of the complicated puzzle of its plot). No, the plot is easy to follow in El Crack.

José Luis Garci is one of the best directors of the Spanish film industry with no doubt. his films can be easily identified: they are perfectly written (this one was co-written by one of his collaborators, Horacio Varcárcel), with a lot of winks to Hollywood classics and to literature; the rhythm of his films use to be slow (that doesn't mean boring, cause his stories has so much substance that the slow rhythm is necessary to assimilate it); each secondary character of a Garci's film is very detailed and defined.

Garci makes in this film a great thing: he saves Landa from the bad movies and bad critics. Alfredo Landa was then, in 1981, a veteran actor that made a lot of stupid comedies during 60's and 70's. apart dubbing some American films and little interventions in some classics as Forqué's ATRACO A LAS TRES, the rest were that stupid comedies... then Garci appears to give him the best part of his career till then. Garci trusted in Landa... and Landa didn't disappointed him. Since then Landa is considered in Spain a great actor (LOS SANTOS INOCENTES, CANCIÓN DE CUNA, LA VAQUILLA...). was definitely forgotten to Spanish film-lovers that epoch of stupid comedy films that one critic called "Landism" El Crack is an notable movie. is entertaining and haven't got old. i think that Garci proposed himself with his movies of then to describe an epoch, the Spanish Transition to democracy. In this particular case he captures Madrid 1981. and he achieved his purpose.

Besides he shoots some minutes in New York too. The city of his dreams; he do that with real passion to that city, indeed; but perhaps too with a little message to American Academy members...: "eh, look, here is a young Spanish director, talented, that loves cinema and Hollywood movies as just a few persons in the world". He did the same next year (shoot a part of his film BEGUIN THE BEGUINE in USA; winks to the old Hollywood flavour) and then he got the Oscar.

This film is important not only as cinematographic. It has an important sociological and historical...: it captures the Spain of early 80's: costumes, fashions, dresses, cars, radio and TV programs, streets of Madrid...

Haven't seen the movie? watch it! :)

the audience is accustomed to a very much higher quality in the animation contemporary movies (an episode of digital animation series Jimmy Newtron is much better of that Spanish animation movie); but lack of good animation is just a little defect that could be forgiven by an intelligent film-lover IF it is held by a good story correctly told... and that is what fails here: topics took from another movies, bad characters, not a good story behind it...

is a pity... the before film of that author, "EL BOSQUE ANIMADO", an adaptation of a classic of the Spanish literature, were a average movie that deserves to be watched... this time, that director failed indeed.

a good thing in the movie? the voices of the characters: are excellent actors... they are the persons that usually dub The Simpsons into Spanish: Juan Perucho, Sara Vivas, Carlos Ysbert...

a pity. i expected a lot of more of that Spanish film...

PS.- I cant understand that high rating of IMDb members to that movie... (5.7 when I'm writing this!) perhaps many people that made the movie registered here and voted "10" ... is the only explanation i have for that. :P

I've never seen a movie where literature and love by books were so present as in STORY OF A KISS. I cant understand the myriad of bad critics that this film received: its beautiful, and talk about the important things of life.

well, is true that the rhythm of the film is not as the usual films...: is slow, too classic. but this doesn't mean boring. and the dialogs and phrases are so intelligent and have so substance, that you thank that little time to think about them.

if you are romantic, and you like good stories good told, watch HISTORIA DE UN BESO.