film critic journal | by ares

How can you find pure beauty, inspiration, love, pureness itself in a vanish world were everything seems to be filled with something but instead it is void and most of the time non-sense?  Gep Gambardella has been living in Rome - one of the most beautiful cities of the world, with art, love, history - for a long time. He is a writer and has only written one novel in his entire life... he just does not find what he wants to write another one, the great beauty. I don't want to decode all the movie, even though I could be talking about that for hours. I loved the end of the film. Throughout all the film you see great things, beautiful and non beautiful things, everything in Gep's life is like a mirage, it is very superficial it doesn't seem real, you just need to see the first scenes where there's a party that reminds you of the italian leaders (like Berlusconi) and the way they are. Gep realizes que isn't made for this life even though he has been liv...

Before Midnight it's been the only movie that has changed my whole perception on the film on the last twenty minutes. It shows the story of a couple who have been living together for quite a long time and that know each other very well. They've got two daughters and the guy, Jesse has a son from a previous relationship - both, the son and the previous relationship are very present during the feature film.  As for when it starts, you don't know very well what is happening, there's a 10 minute or so scene where the couple and the daughters are driving from the airport, where they've left Henry, Jesse's son, back to the place where they've been spending their holidays. During that drive we can see something is going on with this couple. Everything changes when they get to the house where they during the holidays. There they have lunch and talk about people. love, the gender... something that could be described as "random". It comes out t...

I must say I was expecting something different from this movie. It tells the story of Liberace a piano player who is very famous and gay. When he meets Scott, he immediately starts flirting with him an offers him a contract to live in his house and be his partner in everything even in bed. Scott who is also gay and has never had a "family" accepts and starts living with a man that is like his father and at the same time lover. From this point on the movie is very slow and it shows all the aspects of the life of the star of the stages and his hidden boyfriend. They live like super-stars, have a good life in all aspects and seems like they love each other.  The thing is that Scott had never been comfortable in Liberace's house, everyone looked at him in a weird way. Despite this fact, Scott is so in love in a parent and also romantic love with Lee that he does not care. After an hour or so... the interesting part starts. Lee wants to change a little bit his l...

When the time comes it seems like this thing called death enjoys taking the souls to his own kingdom because it has never had the opportunity to live. With this movie, Liesel - the heroine of the movie - shows to the death how sometimes she can be envious of people's life. As for the story of the movie, it is the childhood journey of Liesel a daughter from a communist woman who is going to be supposedly killed that has a brother who dies in the train journey to a little town where the girl is going to be adopted by a married, german couple. In this little town Liesel is going to find all kinds of love, from parental love to romantic love with a boy of her age, she is also going to have brotherly love with Max, a jewish boy who is hiding from the Nazi troops.  Liesel, who does not know how to read or write at first starts to learn with his father in law and also starts to "borrow" books -  even though she gives them back, anybody knows she takes them - f...

Saving Mr. Banks is a one thrilling movie you because it is showing you a story which isn't new or very original but that instead moves you because you finally understand why the movie has this title and not "Saving Mrs. Travers". It is a story about literature - the creator of Mary Poppins, P.L Travers does not want her book to be a movie but Walt Disney, the genius of the animated cinema wants to make a big  and successful adaptation of the movie including animated figures and lots of music.  Travers a supposedly english lady, has a strong character and is very stubborn as well, even though she is very different from the little, loving and kind girl - which results to be her during her childhood. She is strict and does not tolerate anything different from what she thinks is right. Slowly and gradually she starts to change the way she sees things thanks to - oh, the happiest man on earth, it seems - Walt Disney. And that change is the main goal of this roug...

Her, what a film, what a love story. Wonderful. In the near future, Spike Jonze (director and writer) creates a modern Los Angeles - like Ridley Scott did with Blade Runner, even though it is not that dark - with skyscrapers and an orwellian atmosphere. All the work, ideas, imagination of Scott and Orwell are seen in this movie with the help of Jonze's amazing script and story.  The movie touches so many subjects; from the Blade Runner's humanity or not, to the big brother and technological elements that Orwell created. It narrates the story of Theodore, a letter writer - yes he writes letters for other people -that has just split up with his wife whose he is kind of still in love because they grew up together and he lived nearly all his live with her. Her, the wife - or soon ex-wife - is the cause of the depression of Theodore, but when he discovers a new technological gadget that is programmed to be a kind of "conscience" for the human he buys it. Sama...

Inside Llewyn Davis is not catchy, it does not have any memorable scene or even a song that it is going to remind you to that film, even though Isaac's voice and songs really touch your soul. We could say that this is a 1960's (2013's) version of Charlie Chaplin's The Kid (1921) because it talks about the dark side of the american dream. Between the two movies there are a lot of differences, more than things they could have in common but the american dream is one of those similarities.  Joel and Ethan Coen, take Llewyn Davis, a kind of Ulises (Oscarr Isaac) from the Greek mythology, into a one week journey where he has to face obstacles, is helped by people he knows and other's he does not know, just like Ulises did when he was navigating. Davis is navigating in America, looking for an opportunity to become a successful musician. The poetry of this movie is the atmosphere created by the directors and crew that submerge you into a dark place in the deep...

Sex, drugs, alcohol, girls, money.... everything associated with rich people turns out to be the principal elements of this movie, that it is not exactly a comedy nor a drama, it is just a story about rich people, how they live and how do they solve their problems. It is focused on the story of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) a mid-class man that becomes very rich training a band of workers to manipulate, cheat and turning them to ambitious wolfs as he is. A wolf that looks for his victims and destroys them, in all the aspects of his life.  Belfort starts in the Wall Street Scene being married and drinking water but ends up being divorced, rotten by the drugs and alcohol and crazy for money and anything else. The thing is that with money, unfortunately, you can do anything you want in this world and "the main wolf" of herd proves it.  The wolf builds a world for him and his friends that is like cocaine it has moments of exaltation, of sadness and moments where t...

Dallas Buyers Club is a tough movie, in all the senses, meaning it is dramatic, rough and sometimes can seem that it does not advance, a bit slow. Mathew McConaughey leads,  with an outstanding performance, - that lead him to the Golden Globe award for best actor- this film about him and about people that suffered from aids. The texan is a VIH positive and when he discovers it, he starts a research that is going to make him realize that the drugs he is taking to survive, at least, for more than a month, aren't working.  Up to here the film could seem and in fact it is a bit slow because they want to show all the aspects of this skinny man, with aids, who is a drug addict and that does not want to work and that likes girls. The movie changes when Jared Leto, with also an amazing performance as a supporting actor, comes up and starts a drug business with Woodrof to prevent and help all the people who are VIH positive of have sida to survive by providing them a usefu...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to the theatre to see The Sound of Music (Sonrisas y lágrimas, el musical).  I was looking forward to see it since it came to Barcelona and yesterday I could finally see this amazing musical starring Silvia Luchetti which amazed me with her performance, the kids also were amazing and the rest of the cast too, especially Noemí Mazoy. It was at the Tivolí Theatre and even though it is not very big it was quite crowded. The love story was amazingly told by all the actors that danced and sang live and brought their best. The coreography was very remarkable and the feelings went out very soon. I would strongly reccomend seeing this musical because it is a story that never fails to disappoint you and in which you see the kindness and tenderness of its protagonist Maria and the transformation of Captain Von Trapp, who first is kind of insensible with his kids and finally becomes a loving and caring father. A play for all the families, bot...

Crazy. The movie can be defined as a paranoia of a real-life family that happens to be reunited for the patriarch's death, Beverly, that happened to be an alcoholic - and that has an amazing presence even though he only appears for five minutes.  Meryl Streep, with a magnificent performance, guides the audience into a story about a family that is full of grudges, traumas and sadness or depression that when it gets reunited explodes and it starts to be very interesting. You see the strong points and the weaknesses of all the characters and how they deal with their problems.  Amazingly performed, specially from Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, this is a great story of the consequences of non-solved problems of the past that return very hardly, and in some cases kind of poisoned to the life of all the characters. In that time, wee see how does every character react and what does he do to solve the conflict.  Probably, the only thing that could be objecte...

The first part of this movie may seem boring and you may think it non sense. It shows the life of a woman, Eva (Julia-Louis Dreyfus) who is divorced and hasn't had an opportunity to marry again, she hasn't found anyone. She is a massagist, that has to listen all day to stories of others. She also has a great friend and a daughter that is going soon to college.  Everything changes when she meets a woman, who is going to become a client, at a party, and also a non-attractive guy, Albert (James Gandolfini) that is going to change her life. The thing about the film is that there's not an explanation, like other romantic comedies of the relationship between Eva and Albert, it's more like anything happens and everything seems like a couple who old-dating (going out to a Restaurant or to the cinema). A sudden thing changes the movie. Eva realizes, by a guacamole plate, she is dating the ex from the woman she met at the party and is massaging and this one talks no...

Sometimes we go to the cinema and watch a romantic comedy. We either like it or not, but there's not much to say, it is a story full of stereotypes that we've seen in many other movies. The Spectacular Now changes this. It is not a romantic comedy, even if it can seem it is. It is a reflexion about childhood and adulthood. The film brakes all the things we thought we were going to see and lets us explore in the teen years of many people - like he insecurities about the future, facing your fears. Sutter (Miles Teller) is a popular guy that has a job in a men's clothing shop and a popular girlfriend. Instead of being a super attractive guy, Sutter is a normal guy that preaching the carpe diem topic and being humorous nearly all the time and trying no to think about the future. When he meets Aimee (Shailene Woodley), a girl that goes to the same school that him he starts a journey that is going to change everything he thought that was alright. This is the main ...