Reviews

"The man in me will do nearly any task/ And as for compensation, there's a little he would ask"

Bob Dylan's song "The man in me" song resumes some of the great moments of this film about war and justice in a life of a man trapped in the treads of geopolitics.

"But, oh, what a wonderful feeling/ Just to know that you are near"

In the Arab language freedom and forgiveness can be expressed by the same word. This must-see film shows how to make it possible.

A very creative and fresh film made by director Natalie Morales. It reveals that digital communication can definitely communicate. Of course, there is a whole new world with its intricacies and weirdnesses when one has to deal with talking through digital devices that eliminate distance and touch at once. But, two connected human beings can make it real even through artificial and unusual ways of speaking. In fact, if they speak from the heart humans can deliver the message whatever means they need to use. Great filming experience to all.

It is a slow film but well built with an unexpected end that explains the screenplay backward. A creative filming narrative shows a very pressing issue in our society: male violence against women. Humiliation over women has been addressed in other films, but this one brings a glimpse of the pain inflicted on generations of women. It is an unexpected masterpiece.

Few western movies bring the history of pioners in the deepness of the frontiers that separate native people and the Anglo-Saxon populations. Those pioneers have made a work of non-official diplomacy to expand these frontiers a bit further with a price of their own lives. Even though different principles and goals separate these two civilizations in the clash for the same territory, there was common ground on the values of how to deserve the land and its gifts, and how to judge bravery and true spirituality. Jeremiah Johnson mixes it up film and documentary portraying a historical report from the rush to the west. This must-see movie keeps the distance of the easy formulas that split good and bad.

From the nineteenth century when Great Britain built the first soccer fields in Brazil to be utilized by English rail engineers to the 1970's World Cup a 100 years of Brazilian history can be summarized by the life of one soccer player. This man was born in a land that received 4.5 million enslaved people from Africa, and also watched the killing of millions of native people. No one would expect that such a country known as an exporter of natural resources like iron and gold would deliver the best soccer player in the world just as the brand new Bossa Nova Jazz, and nascent aircraft industry. Those surprises were represented by Pelé. The dictatorship aided by the North American government tried to control this wave of art and technology renascence but Brazilian people have been unstoppable since then just like Pelé when the right time comes. Great documentary with amazing footage from world cups and Brazil's reality.

I thought I had watched it years ago when it gets released in 2014. My father had passed away a couple of months before it. I was not in the mood for a very conceptual scientific fiction at that time. So, I dropped it. I remember when I left the hospital aimlessly where he died wanting to travel to space to grab his hand. I knew that for a spirit in another dimension his time would be quite faster than mine based on Einstein's equations. Thus, I calculated roughly how many years he would stay ahead in time from me every single day after his death. Maybe in a couple of weeks, he would have the right to see all his family die too. I now realized 8 years later I dropped Interstellar in the middle of it because I was not prepared to know or maybe just imagine the truth. This film takes advantage of quantum mechanics and relativity theory tied together to cross-pollinate the imagination of all of us, and to ease our longing.

Imagine the justice, in the end, prevails to all human beings because neither skin colors nor race exists. An overarching justice to all needs to be imagined collectively to be materialized. This film takes us through the racial conflict that has plagued the United States and other countries like Brazil. However, this film could be just another one on racial prejudice. It brings us all to the core of this social problem. Who has the right to imagine, and to materialize his own imagination? The director guides us to watch what seems a pattern in films on prejudice against black people. But, at the right end, a scene changes the whole setting. If you a white person, or an almost white, or yet considered not part of black people in your country you need to know this film will get you in your most important mental skill: your imagination. This film deserved to be watched for all those who imagine justice to every single human being.

No one will watch "First Man" expecting a thriller full of computer effects or a compliment to the American awesome victory in the space rush. On the contrary, the film director exposes a drama which the slow development of space exploration technologies with all their flaws, and human losses come together with political interests upfront and behind the scenes. Definitely, this is a film made in honor of human lives that have been thrown into a geopolitics game. Landing on the moon in 1969 has been since then a great theater to highlight how human endurance can take us ahead of ourselves wherever it is. "The first man" opens the backstage of the show to reveal the heavy burden that has taxed the life of the main actors involved in this endeavor. This is a needed masterpiece.

When I country needs to be born the midwives appear to facilitate the process. In the nineteenth century, an ex-captain that served on the side of the Union in the American Civil War became a newsman going from city to city to read the newspapers to audiences willing to pay a couple of dimes to know about the stories from distant states and cities. His way is crossed by a little orphan girl under custody of Union with an order to be placed in an indigenous reserve. She is a white girl that has a double orphan destiny. Her parents were killed by indigenous warriors requesting their land back. Later, her indigenous step-parents would be killed by confederate soldiers from Texas. The captain has a mission: to find a place for this girl whose parents are dead already. As a framework to tell the history of Texas state, this well-designed film brings us to observe how complex and painful was the born of the United States of America. A very interesting storyboard with great actors' performances, this film brings a unique story inside history.

I mean besieged in a need for such love performed in this masterpiece movie. A pianist living alone in an old family house, and a medicine student from Africa worried about her husband imprisoned in Africa, as a dissident teacher. She came to work as a janitor to this beautiful Italian house. He realized from the start he was in love with her. An impossible love he decided to put in movement anyways. As love goes love comes miraculously. Give this gift to you: watch this great movie.

When a smart South Korea poor family decides to escalate the social ladder and take advantage of a rich family offering it suited services to their familiar problems firstly they have to displace the former employees. They did not realize nor the family living in the house that in the underground of it there was an atomic bunker. I was built to face any attack from North Korea. The brokers didn't say that to their clients to maintain the market price. Later on, the new employees well established in the house will find out that part of the replaced employees' family lives in this secret basement. The film displays the South Korea class conflicts as a metaphor for growing poverty engulfing the population with rampant disemployment. In this fantastic realism film, all social classes are placed in the same house: poor, middle class and rich. Old resentments and prejudices escalate as time passes. A revolution, interests conciliation or a violent upheaval without winners may develop as those class representatives have to negotiate when and how to enjoy this gorgeous house built by a famous Korean architect. This is a masterpiece.

This is not the first nor it will be the last Argentinian film to play the role of educating people that had been under economic distress. the art of Argentinian cinema consists of telling through filming Argentina's history offering at the same time entertainment, consciousness and fictitious solutions to social dramas. Ricardo Darin is an actor representative of this type of film without losing the art of interpretation. In 2000, the Corallito was a bank determination issued by Argentina's government blocking all accounts to withdraw more than 50 dollars day. It created a havoc on common people savings. The screenplay develops a story where a group of Argentinian workers collects their savings to create a cooperative but the money ended up in the hands of a bank operator. They will organize themselves to get the money back no just for them but to their small town needy people.

When Batman made his debut the year was 1939. In Europe, the nazism was offering a solution to poverty: the chosen and pure ones have to take the lead to organize a better life. This fascist thing was also in the air after the communism had shown its contradictions and violence. With the victory in the II World War liberal democratic countries had to propose a new version of capitalism. This human version, the Welfare State, went through more or less till the 70's when the neoliberalism arrived in the political scene advocating cuts in social expenditures and state shrinking. In a way, Batman and Joker were created from the same ground of despair and hope in the mid of the last century. We are now in 2019. The welfare state capitalism is in the hospital badly wounded. The evil may be explained by a real troubled life of the Joker maybe not. As Joker realizes his potency after every crime perpetrated by him, the young batman must accomplish a double task in the future: to turn Gothan city a livable place for all and to dismantle the joker's way of the necessary use of violence by the dispossessed. If Batman fails in this noble tale, the fascism will come again to organize the jokers promising a better life. Great Film!

Tarantino does a Hollywood industry anthropological research using Los Angeles as a scenario. Any city economical study delves in what makes an industry to set roots in a given geography space. Where did workers come from? How money arrives in? Who bears the majority of hard work? Who enriches? Tarantino does it through the analysis of a western decadent actor trying to survive with the help of his stunt, a retired soldier. The Los Angeles excluded folks are represented by Charles Mason's gang that inhabits an abandoned cinema set. The camera keeps a closing focus on things that are representative to this industry like huge highlights and big cars. Both are shown with details to expose their importance in a city full of highways. Because of those registers beautifully filmed maybe watchers wont fell this almost three hours film. At the end of it the director of "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood" delivers extreme violent scenes then close the film with a dinner among friends. A very interesting film that deserves to be watched.

Most of all, this film brings the freshness and rhythm of New York portraying two individuals leaving their relationships and how they get to know each other. In truth, it is about a New York's friendship "style": how it started, how clumsy were the first steps, how beautiful is to find a friend in a big city when you are trying to prove your point to make a living with what you love most. The main character is a funny and brilliant recent graduated theater playwriter searching for an opportunity. Her partner is a middle age mature man that works with internet apps. Of course, their encounters and misunderstandings happen in many places in New York with a nice soundtrack. It worth to watch for sure. Jump to it and invite your best friend!

This film brings a half-century of Poland history through the eyes of a doctor. The movie timing is not linear whats brings a screenplay freshness through the characters lives. The main one, doctor Michaliny Wislockiej spent her life trying to publish a book on female orgasm. For doing so, she received a lot of support from her female patients to publish it. But, the power relations between the church and the communist regime in Poland prevented the book to be released and the empowering of such a revolutionary doctor. The screenplay shows two separated and interconnected stories. The first one is about how to release a book on female sexual pleasure in the Eastern country communist regime. The second one tells us about the loves stories and sexual adventures where Michaliny was the protagonist. As she said in the book opening: "A blind can´t write about colors". Great film!

Who would expect something interesting happening from the little town of Desiderata (literally desperate)? As a result, Desiderata is desperate for a new event something to shake its slow daily life. Two brothers with a criminal record had planned to give this city a grand robbery. When the first theft went wrong one of them is sent to jail. There, he among other prisioners had a weekly class of literature and poetry with Desiderata's mayor. After being released from jail, he starts his work of spreading poetry and the capacity to fly through words to Desiderata's inhabitants. He changes his brother criminal life inspiring him to praise and sing the beauty of their land and people. "La Vita in comune" brings the best of the atmosphere of Italian movies: a good story, a beautiful place where common people face daily conflicts where one can read words of poetry and humanity.

The screenplay shows a hidden country in Africa where technology is quite more advanced what creates cities of beauty and peace. But, inhabitants argue if they need or not to spread this civilization to other parts of troubled and impoverished planet earth. The secret of so advanced science is a type of metal found in this land with special and unusual features. Of course, criminals and CIA want this metal. The Black Panther is also the king of this country. He has the duty to protect the reign and to regain a piece of metal stolen by a criminal that can also reveal the secrets of Nakanda. He is surrounded by a group of woman warriors that protect him and the country. But, inside the country, several tribes fight for governing it. The fight scenes are extremely violent but movements from capoeira and Brazilian jiu-jitsu bring novelty to the combats. All over the scenarios, a mixture of technology and mythology and symbols from African gods, the Orixas, bring such harmony that one could say technology is a type of magic and Nakanda could be said a land of techno-shamanism. Overall the film creates a sex apple that invites us to dream with a world of beauty and peace without any type of racism.

Common people do things that seem impossible and uncommon. What appears a crazy journey is just an endless meeting. When the leading woman character realizes it, she starts to smile and embrace each problem, tragedy, lack of water crossing the desert as part of her life journey. Every single moment communicates and gives small drops of wisdom. By the way, a proverb say the hardest step in a journey is the first. Tracks are unique and endless. Take your own. In fact, ways chose and draw tracks across our life stories. Wise film!

Let´s think together: to what extent human beings can go to achieve greatness in a craft? I am not talking about a search for happiness, flowing, and connection. Crossing history since Icarus, to be a human being is also dreaming with a power to take things suspended for a moment or to run the show and the attention for while. This film shows what ambition can make to those who want to pay the price of it. The screenplay brings a music student and his terrible mentor, one that is looking for a new Icarus. Humiliating his students taking them to the limits of sanity that's the price his students pay to make him feel great again. Charlie Park, the bird, is used by the teacher as the perfect student, the role model, that could bare everything because a genius never give up this talent. Even with the sun meltings the glue which makes wings attached to his body, Icarus continue to go up. This film is about a musical dream of flying high melting ambitions.

The director Guillermo del Toro delivers a timeless story of love and terror mixing different influences since 60's noir and espionage films passing through Walt Disney's tales until German terror movies from the beginning of 20's century. Actually, he offers well-built scenes showing the little monsters and lovers that inhabit each one of the film's characters when they cross the creature way, an Amazon human form being that embodies nature itself. The main character is a mute janitor working to a military scientific facility where the creature is studied. The screenplay chooses her to bare both the social prejudice of being handicapped and a housecleaning hard worker. In fact, she lives stoically her life while dreaming of a better one in her bathtub of a small apartment over an old cinema theater. Thus, from this little place, she plans how to release the creature and herself. The last scene brings the film's synthesis encapsulated in two sentences: "when you don´t see the form, the form is everywhere". A final message that portrays the possibility of being loved no matter form you and your love have. Great film!

Two actors, a simple story . Two college friends and lovers met 20 years later in the same city. The screenplay is there to be followed but it seems everyone could write it or even the actors during the shot could amend it with the director and screenplay writer approval to changes because of this is a simple story like a children tale that everyone could pass through: a kind of archetypical tale. Back to the film, it is indeed simple, simple scenarios, black and white, good performances. The story drags you into your own story or someone else from your college. The film invites you to listen old love stories in old houses. There you see the characters finding remembrances, old notes, and letters, secrets, grievances buried in a pile of years. A man and woman in a search of life meaning came across each one way a second time to inquire about what the best track from now on. Good cinema, , a never-ending theme to be explored by a sensitive filmmaker. Great film!

This is a very good movie where characters are crossed by different determinations. During the second world war, we used to see some key groups in interaction: Allies countries, Resistance groups and German troops. Most of the second war films present these groups with fixed roles and expected behaviors. This film screenplay keeps us hunting who are the traitor of dutch resistance. At the same time, the main actress plays a resistance's spy who fell in love by a German captain. Beyond that, a German lieutenant is a robbery scheme chief that steals the money and belongings of Jewish upper-class people who pays to leave Netherlands. The main characters are shaped in a complex way grabbing the attention til the end. In short, a clever second world war film.

This is a good film with a good second world war history reconstruction showing the cities of Casablanca and London. The french actress provides us a great interpretation of a double agent working for Germany and ally countries. The problem is with Brad Pitt that seems to perform himself not the British secret agent working to destabilize Germany forces in north Africa. He seems he is not there. Maybe all of us who love his intense actor's performance since the first movies were expecting more empathy with the Allies' main character. In short, this is a very good story that needs a more intense actor to work it to become a romance. A perfect set was created but the actor did not provide us his expected best.