And the Oscar goes to...

Here is an informative post just to sum up the events of yesterday night at the Oscars. The winner for each categorie is in blue.

Man on a Ledge

A man called Walter enters the Roosevelt Hotel, located in the center of the city of New York. After settling himself in the room, he decides to go out through the window and stand on the ledge of the building with the intention of committing suicide. As you can imagine, there is more behind this simple maneuver and somehow worth exploring for the rapid pace at which events are unmasked.

Oscar 2012 “Best Movies”: An Overview

The Artist (M. Hazanavicius). I am no lover of silent movies. The fact that not only I stayed awake but that I deeply enjoyed two hours of complete silence is enough to make me say that this movie is truly amazing. A film that makes you laugh (literally, a lot of people in the theater were laughing) and cry (figuratively, although the projection of Valentine (Jean Dujardin)’s last movie was quite “eyes-watering”) without saying a word makes you rethink all you thought you know about movies and the importance of dialogues. This is not one of those times when one pretends to like an artistic movie to look intellectual: the simplicity and universality of the story, the masterly executed direction, the games of dark and light, the talent of the actors…all these elements make this movie talk without words.

Liking the Unlikable

Everybody has one or more movies that they love and watch every time even if they are aware that they are very far away from being masterpieces. At least, I like to think that everyone is like me because I do not want to be the only one watching “embarrassing” movies over and over again. The term embarrassing may be a little harsh: it is more appropriate to say that, if we have time to watch a movie, it would logically be more productive to watch something new or already seen but good, correct? However, logic sometimes loses and I often sacrifice it to tradition and familiarity: a handful of objectively bad movies are very dear to me and I have watched them hundreds of times…shameless! Here is a few of them.

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980). First of all, I want to explain why I think it is not the greatest movie of all times. It is the adaptation of a XIX centuries novel, of that literary age where predominant themes were the good values of Christianity. The movie is no different: it is literally flooded with good feelings. Way too much: little Ceddy is so sweet he is annoying. Also, the dialogues are so punctuated that they end up being mechanic and fake. Yet, I watch it at least twice every Christmas and it really moves me every time. I like watching the cold hearted Earl being won by his nephew’s affection and also I really love watching the scenes where Mrs Errol builds up her speeches with incredible wits. Very similar to Mrs March from Little Women, she is smart and good through and through: she goes on giving to poor people the little she has and helping who is sick, even if she risks getting tuberculosis…and passing it on to her son! The out of the world level of goodness is what I love more about this movie, because it makes me feel better and worst about myself at the same time.

The Man without a Head (L'homme sans tête)

In a penthouse overlooking a large industrial area and the sea at the horizon, is a man who is fixing his tie while in a frame it appears the bright eyes of his beloved one. The headless man is getting dressed, and tonight he is going to declare his love to her. For this reason he has decided to buy a head first.

Director: Juan Diego Solanas

Writer: Juan Diego Solanas

Stars: Laurent Bert, Yannick Blivet and Christophe Botti

La Piel que habito (The Skin I Live In)

I can say that a good director is one who makes everything work on the screen, look pretty and so on. A good director knows how to bring the audience, guide them where they want and then move the floor you’re standing in.

Let the right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)

Ask me to talk about love, misplaced infant hearts, full of snow and sorrow, about that first kiss and loneliness. Ask me tell you about the suffering of children in broken families, those who do not find their place in the world and that are despised and harassed every day by some that surrounds them. About those days of light and ingenuity, of labor, of parks and go out for a walk, when the heart looked like it would break your chest and the name of the person that you loved was trapped between your lips. Ask me to tell you about impossible loves for the ones that you would do the unthinkable.

La contadora de películas: reading movies

La contadora de películas is a book by a writer from Chile who goes by the name of Hernán Rivera Letelier. More than a novel, it is a short story: roughly 100 pages to tell about the magic surrounding movies. Very briefly, it is the engaging story of María Margarita, a little girl who lives with her invalid dad and four older brothers in a poor mining village and who helps her family’s living by going to the movies and then arranging a show to repeat the movie for a growing audience. We look at her life while the movie give rhythm to the story: her life has ups and downs, mostly downs, but the movies in her head and in her shows make her feel special, important; because she is: she has a gift, a connection with movies.

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin)

Again, in the words of the Empire!

The contrast of a grim West Berlin setting and the magical images of overcoat-clad angels among us is what lingers longest in the mind after watching this Wim Wenders effort - that, and maybe Bruno Ganz' beatific smile. As the angel who falls in love with a trapeze artist and starts to long for mortality, Ganz is a literally otherworldly observer, but it's only when he abandons his wings that the film leaps into colour and life, like a reverse Wizard of Oz. And any film that casts Peter Falk as a formerly divine being gets our vote.

Director: Wim Wenders

Writers: Wim Wenders, Peter Handke

Stars: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin and Otto Sander

Night Watch

Here is what the Empire thinks about this movie: and I agree!


It's Buffy meets The Matrix meets Blade! In Moscow! Russian madman / genius Timur Bekmambetov arrived on our screens with a bang thanks to this demented, dizzily dark twist on the action movie. It seems that the world is still peopled with witches, werewolves, vampires and the rest - but they are divided into Light and Dark Others, battling it out for supremacy, and the souls of new, emerging Others, on the streets of Russia's capital. Extraordinary visuals on a shoestring budget, bravura subtitle design (it matters) and a plot that just makes sense (unlike its "Chalk of Destiny" powered sequel), this is the most visually imaginative superhero movie of the last decade.

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Writers: Timur Bekmambetov (screenplay), Laeta Kalogridis(screenplay)

Stars: Konstantin Khabenskiy, Vladimir Menshov and Mariya Poroshina

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

When was the last time that you eat? Because David Fincher has prepared something that might not be for sensitive stomachs. Let’s talk about the awesome thriller that Niels Arden Oplev manufactured for the movie screens based on the novel by Stieg Larsson and let’s recall the unpleasant sensations that led Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) to collaborate with the journalist in disgrace Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). She, an abused woman, beaten and taken to the limits, knew she had the power, intelligence and strength to counter attack situations like the ones that had happened to her. The film states Lisabeth’s strenghts clearly through the manipulation of the action; but also we see that the feature more than just them.

The Artist

“I won’t talk, I won’t say a Word”. Those, paradoxically and silently, are the inaugurating words of The Artist, the silent film by Michel Hazanavicious. Without Words is the promise. “You’re not going to listen anything” is what Hazanavicious himself clearly stated. If somehow we were able to describe this movie as it deserves, we would say that it is THE silent film of the XXI century.

The silence is a symbol of feelings and situations a lot more profound, all of them having as a starting point the silence itself, like for example the hardships of change and communication. I would say that there are many movies that affect the public and distributors, films with complex special effects, digital animations, noisy sound designs, but all of these movies simply do not say a thing compared to this one.

Take 1!

Hi everyone...if there is ANYone eheh! We are just starting up with this blog. We decided to do it just for fun, you know, just to share our infinite talking about movies. We don't know where it is gonna go: we don't even know what to write about first! As soon as we come up with something, you (who?!) will be the first ones to know. ciao!