film critic journal | by ares

42 is a movie, that like all the recent movies about black men, shows the struggle to be treated the same way white people was.  Instead of using a more "common" kind of story based on real life, this film focuses on baseball. One black man has to step out, and be the first one to play baseball. Mr. Rickey, amazingly portrayed by Harrison Ford, decides that Jackie Robinson will be the the man.  The movie, then, shows how Jackie has to shut up when he would like to defend himself and has to deal with the way all white people, not just the supporters, or the other teams, also in his own team.  As he is one of the best ball players Jackie becomes very known and people start to like him...  So this is a very good film, with moments of emotion, very entrataining and the best thing is the message behind the baseball, how the life of black men in America was changing and how it should be.  To end I would like to say that the fact of using sport to portr

Captain Phillips is a film based on a real story, about the pirates in Somalia and what they do to survive. They kidnap ships and want to be payed for abandoning it, but they want a lot of money. In this part the film is a bit long, it shows lots of details and the persecution of the pirates gets a little bit boring. Until the last hour, the action and the good performances by all of the actors, but especially by Tom Hanks, his performance is really remarkable during all the film but especially the last hour or so. So even though it is a bit long, and sometimes a little bit 'to-much detailed Captain Phillips is a good film to see. 

Probably this is one of the darkest movies I've ever seen since Mystic River.  The story is excellent it keeps you on the edge of your seat waiting and waiting nervously the end of a story that when you think you know how it goes, changes...  The fact that the film is located in Pensylvannia, in a place where it is always raining or snowing in the forest makes it better, because we're used to locate this movies in other places like big cities or if it is on a place like this to make it scary. But I think that the main goal with using this location was to be more dark and intrigating. The struggle of a family and what would they do to save their children is perfectly shown. From being violent to try and distance yourself from the tragedy.  It also shows what happens when police does not have enough resources to achieve their goal. I think all parents are going to feel identificated with the characters, and people who are not parents are going to think what

Parkland is a movie about J.F. Kennedy murder in Dallas, TX. The good thing about this movie is, that it combines real images with fiction ones and point of view that the story acquires.  The film is like a documentary of everything that happened when JFK died, from the hospital, to catching the murderer. But it does not have the format of a documentary, Peter Lendesman, the directors, leads the audience to the mixture of feelings that doctors and nurses had at the Parkland Hospital, but also to the Secret Service, Jackie Kennedy or Abraham Zarpurder, the man that filmed the murder of the president.  I must say that even though I've read some positive reviews I've also read some others weren't so positive. What I am trying to say is that, even though this is not a masterpiece or a movie that it's going to become a classic, it is a good movie to see.  In addition to that I must say that Jackie Weaver's performance seemed quite good and that for

I saw this movie at the Sitges Film Festival. When the movie started you could feel Gosling's presence in the film as you do all the time that the movie lasts... but nothing more. Ryan Gosling's carachter 'Julian' seems like a ghost that sometimes can be violent and other times he stands up with everything, that her mother says. The movie stands between the violence and the colors, the feelings that the scenes produce on you. I think that the film is a metaphor of the things that happen in a kind of world that exists and where the only way of surviving is violence, but also your way of dying. Right know I can tell I made a good choice, 'cause this movie is different, it has something special Thanks to the Sitges Festival Organization for bringing this movie to Sitges!

Some time ago I went to see Les Mis, [the theatre play] in London. It was on Monday, the 24th of June, a day that I will remember forever. I remember sitting minutes before the play started and being very nervous, I missed the opportunity to see it in my country but it seems it was for good. The play was amazing, the actors sang and performed very well. There's no words to describe the different feelings you have when you dream a dream and I was totally amazed by everything at the Queen's Theatre. Couldn't have been any better,  I even talked to one of the workers of the theatre that told me that they weren't doing playback, because even though I knew they didn't there's always a doubt, those actors sing at least six or seven times a week... I would highly reccomend to everyone to go and see this musical at the Queen's Theatre, you're not going to regret it. Dream the dream

Lee Daniels' The Butler talks about a world that sometimes seems to be different when you're working and we're you're not and between a father and a son A moving story of Cecil Gaines a sharecropper that worked as a domestic "negro" for the white family that killed her father and that made her mother go crazy. The boy leaves the south of the USA to live as a servant in the north and ends up working in the White House. He has two sons, one of them begins to defend the civil rights and the equality of the negros, and the other keeps a low profile. Louis, the revolutionary son, leaves University and Cecil is convinced that the life as a servant has been the best thing he has ever done. What the movies shows is the confrontation of two worlds in one person, work for the presidents that barely do anything to change the situation of the colored people, or change this. Cecil has to choose, what did he chose... you'll see. This is a movi

A great movie that counted with some amazing performances by Octavia Spencer, that won the Academy Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Viola Davis or Jessica Chastain. In the sixties, one century after Abraham Lincoln's law to abolish slavery, negros are still treated as downgraded people. All what they can do in life is make white people's lives easier without having even a thankful word for them. The movie was and it is a success because it treats a real fact not like a documentary but in a process of making a book. The help is based on the book with the same name and uses, as said before the creation of the book to show us how did those women live during this years, which were their fears and how mistreated they were just for having a skin of a different color. It ends up being an original film about one point of view that we're not used to see on movies but in documentaries, history and other subject and kind of way. For me, this is a mov

This is a book I highly reccomend to everyone that is interested in cinema and wants to know a little bit more about films. It is a very short book that illustrates every 'thing that learned' with drawings inspired on real films or invented. Just to see the huge amount of work that a film needs to be done. From writing to cut it and finish the work to screen it.

Gravity. A masterpiece. An ode to the world, to life. The protagonist (S.Bullock) has nothing to lose, her daughter died in an accident so she went to the space. There, she strives for her survival during the whole film and demonstrates herself the value that life has and how beautiful the world is, even if it's not perfect.  A movie with a title that explains everything. At the end of the day what the person just needs is gravity to stand up on the earth and live. A part from that, the movie becomes a masterpiece because it's pure cinema. The photography and everything conjured to end up with a film that has been qualified as a 'classic' of cience-fiction. Sandra Bullock's perfomance was amazing, probably the best of her career Must see in 3D, you enter to the word that the director, A. Cuarón, made for us.

Mystic River. A story that starts with a friendship that ends being a trap for three guys. One cannot live because of his trauma. The other has a criminal mind that does not let him think properly and finally another that wants to solve problems but that cannot face his own. A story not only about friendship but also about relations with criminals, family... A hard film, amazingly directed by C. Eastwood that evokes with his way of treating the camera, light and script the darkness and hardness of different lifes that have something in common, they've lost something. Great performances by all three actors. Some may say, the film is just another police story but in the end Eastwood knows how to surprise us.

N.Lauda and J.Hunt fight to be the world champions. But what would the risk to win it. A movie about F1, that could be a movie about life. Two ways of living a life and two ways of seeing who's ambitious and who's ambitious and passionate. Passion does not always mean risking your life. Sometimes we should look at life and realize what she gives us... With and amazing performance by Daniel Brhül Rush bacomes a candidate for the 2013 The Academy Oscars. A film that keeps you on the edge of your seat for two reasons. The fisrt one, the amazing work done by Ron Howard and it's team with the film. The second one, the story behind the races and the cars. Life. Gas! Rush.

Glee is a tv series that started on 2009. What I want to express with this post is not the magnificence of the tv series but the reccomendation to all those people that like musicals, especially youngsters, to see it, even if it's from time to time. The plot is not original at all, boy falls in love with two girls, they fight and many things more but if the person that watches it likes musicals, as me, the fact that suddenly people start siging in the middle of a room to express their feelings is amazing. Season 5 has already started, and they are singing The Beatles let's see how it ends!  One of the actors of this tv series, Cory Monteith died this summer. This post remembers him more than any other actor of the tv series, he was great as Finn Hudson.

Good bye Lenin! is a movie I liked a lot because it was related to history and in a certain way to philosophy. It is about a boy, Alexander 'Alex' (D.Brhül) that has to convince her mother, that has been in coma during 8 months that Germany still is separated into two and that the Berlin wall still divides the city.  Alex doesn't want her mother to die as a result of the 'shock' that the new politic situation in their country so he lies and creates a fake world where everything is as if Germany hadn't changed at all.  The thing is that Alex ends up believing that the previous Germany was better because he is so much into the creation of the world that he doesn't live the new life that the unification of Germany has given to him. So in his final words he says that the comunist Berlin part of Germany was better and that for him this would always be the place that reminds him of his mother. Instead he still doesn't know how does the new '