arturmarques.com iLog

I watched Eden Lake on 2009–06–18. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020530/ I was expecting an intense movie and indeed it was. Labelled as of the horror genre, it could be more precisely classified as a torture sick flic, with a twist. The twist is that the torturers are british children and the victims are a young couple, with a life [...]

Last weekend, I watched the Blu-Ray editions of Frozen River (2008) – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978759/ and Flight Plan (2005) – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408790/ I just love sad, white, cold environments, like those on Frozen River: a woman, living alone with her two sons, tries hard to put food on the table and ends up teaming with a Mohawk young mother, also [...]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497465/ I watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) [VCB] on 2009–02–23. Just superb, despite some technical failures on the early minutes: (1) the characters presentation dialogue, when the narrator refers to “Vicky only knowing what she doesn’t want”, when he should be referring to Cristina; and (2) some slightly out-of-focus frames, where the camera gets stuck [...]

I watched Paranoid Park (2007) on 2008–06–15. I was looking for a slow paced movie, and I got it, but it failed my expectations regarding its capability to drag me in, out of Lisbon/Portugal to Portland/Canada, for some 90 minutes . It was boring. Paranoid Park is a skate park, near Portland’s industrial district. The [...]

I watched Dan in real life (2007) on 2008–06–08. These days I tend to prefer movies where guns aren’t fired, where people talk without swearing every other minute (Californication), and where everyone isn’t a billionaire with a private jet… Simply put, it is easier to fictionalize starting from an extraordinary context, than to fictionalize with [...]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427470/ Interesting, different movie, about a man who has memory problems, after a terrible car accident. This man ends up involved in a plot to rob the local bank. The opening sequence, with night music and fireflies on stellar skies, sets the mood for something different, like a teen horror flick, but then the set [...]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/ Not as good as I expected. Bang bang overload, secret informers recycling, infiltrated people all over the place, intel powered by cell phone messaging, and a highly conservative – but effective – cast, at least for the three main roles: DiCaprio as Costigan – the cop who loses his previous identity, in order to [...]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433387/ The movie’s first minutes picture a military night operation, mostly seen from the night-vision goggles of American soldiers. The other battling side is Middle East insurgents. Jim Davis (Christian Bale) is one of the U.S. soldiers – he will find unemployment when back at home. Davis’ unemployment days are “harsh times”. Mike Alonzo (Freddy Rodríguez of [...]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404203/ Captivating story about (regular?) people on a small community. But what is “regular” on a young mother, (nearly) a Ph.D. in English Literature, having a Summer affair with (nearly) a Lawyer? And, not counting the two main characters, what to say about an ex-cop who invests his days and nights on terrorising the life of [...]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417385/ Superb movie! Crash level superb!The main actors and actresses are all minors, but their roles are demanding and very complex: one of the boys has to deal with the death of his twin brother, while other is trying to lose weight, against his own mother’s will… There is a girl, looking for love from [...]