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jpinto
Reviews
Charlie's Angels (2000)
Stay at home, water the plants, walk the dog
By the time the initial credits were finishing, I was already thinking "what am I doing here?". It's sad to see so much production money spent in a movie that doesn't have a single positive feature.
Go and see it only if you are a fan of the girls and don't mind what's coming out of their mouths...
The Cell (2000)
A nice surprise
In spite of coming out a little thin in the screenplay, I was pleasantly surprised by the visual power show by this movie. Personally not being a "special effects movie" fan, I enjoyed the dreamlike-S&M portrait of the subjects minds, and two or three scenes really caught my attention (and my memory). The actors work is regular to say the most, specially because the screenplay doesn't work very ward on building the characters individualities. The bottom line is that, although it's not a fabulous movie, it does show some originality in theme and specially in visual.
Metropolis (1927)
Porto, Portugal
Simply one of the best films ever.
Is there more to say of a film that 73 years after its production is still up-to-date, imitated and source of inspiration to the film industry and sci-fi community worldwide?
Romance (1999)
How disappointing...
Anticipated as being provoking and daunting, I went to the cinema hoping Romance would cut with the stereotypes of French movies. Also, the fact that the director was a woman, made me at least expect a breath of fresh air in the more-than-stressed subject of the attitude of women towards sex and relations.
But no... all I got was the (weak) portrait of a nymphomaniac trying to make a very boring and uninteresting to follow 'metaphysical' speech of 'we girls are also supposed to have fun' and 'women can also be sex predators'. All of this is wrapped with some very unconvincing sex scenes (the oral sex scenes are absolutely ludicrous), and with the feeling that the directors desire to pass on a message was transvestite by the temptation to shock easy, show 'some penises and oral sex' and make a lot at the box office.
This is not the way French films are going to regain their long lost brilliance...
Tuvalu (1999)
Not entirely original, but yet a good movie
I had the chance to see this movie in the Porto, Portugal film festival Fantasporto 2000. The story revolves around a decadent public swimming pool, run by a blind old man who's mind still lives in the building's days of glory. It focuses on the people still using it, and on the persons still working there: a woman with a fixation on buttons and one of the old man's sons, who struggles to keep the building alive. The antagonist is the old man's other son who eagerly waits for the destruction of the building so he can build condo's.
I found the concept of making a film without dialogs very interesting. Although people might think this could make the film boring and hard to follow, this doesn't happen at all. Merit goes to the actors, who deliver a very expressive and quality performance, without falling into ridicule, and to the rhythm given to the plot.
Regarding directing and photography, all is presented neatly, but I can't help mentioning the similarities to Emir Kusturica's (namely in the portraying of the 'post-apocalyptic' universe and the nonsense touch of the plot) and to Jeunet & Caro's work (the building and the 'impossible romance' between the main characters is shown very similarly to Delicatessen). Although this impairs a bit the final result, I believe that in the end it is a nice movie which most people will enjoy and be surprised with (specially if they haven't seen any Kusturica or Jeunet & Caro movie).