Chockys Reviews

Momo (1986)

It's not about time

[10/10 · 9 September 2022]

This movie was broadcast in Spain at Saturday May 13, 1989, by TVE-1 (the only TV channel in the country at those time together with TVE-2). I was 10 and a half. I remember the much I enjoyed the fantasy, the adventures of the villagers and the eccentric Momo that she was the center of their lives. Also I remember the fear that the Grey Men made me feel and their obsession to collect time stealing it to the living people (because themselves weren't alive). But if there is something that I remember above all, it's the movie ending.

On 1986 I moved with my parents from a little town to live in the city. Going the distance, when I watched the movie Momo's town seemed to me similar to my own town that I had left behind three years ago. To the people I met there. That ending broke me in tears: Momo saving her town and recovering her friends not as they were after they met the Grey Men, but as they were when she met them by first time. "Return to innocence", as Enigma's song says.

As the Michael Ende's book, Momo is more than a movie. It's not about time: it's about time when innocence and happiness are the same. When days are long, adventures never end and the world is a truly so big place full of wonders to discover. It's about innocence we lose when we grow, about the wish to come back to those time. Because all at some point we wish come back. At the time to write these lines, I am 44. That ending still continues breaking me in tears as those first day. I still continues wishing come back. Few things more powerful than the memories of our childhood. Nothing more powerful than a happy childhood. Please, be happy. Because life is not a movie. There is turning back for no one.

PS: The touching Angelo Branduardi score in the ending scene contributed so much to these tears.

The Way of the Dragon (1972)

From Tang Lung to Bruce Lee and back

[8/10 · 15 July 2016]

It's an unknown fact outside from Spain that in the original Spanish dubbed voice, Tang Lung (Bruce Lee's character) was named simply as Bruce Lee not as the actor, but just like another character more. A strange movement which changed the way to see the movie and to see Bruce Lee, turned unwittingly in a version of himself and foreshadowing completely Tang Lung. If this same Spanish dubbed voice turned "Colt" in "Chuck" or "Norris" (something that never happened), it had been the top of the ridiculous, because the main antagonists have been missed to be themselves. By lucky, re-editions of the movie made in decades later returned Tang Lung to his place, although the voices were too much false by the difference between the visual look of the movie and the sound of the dubbed actors (a terrific thing that remembering when "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979) was re-dubbed for its 25th anniversary in 2004, destroying all the previous quality).

The Way of the Dragon, named in Spain "El Furor del Dragón" (The Fury of the Dragon), still as the movie with the most epic fight seen in the cinema and the only one directed by the own Lee, in an attempt to do a career as director. A movie simply great in much elements, since the performance of Bruce and the visuals of Roman Coliseum during the prosecute between Tang Lung and Ho (Bruce Lee and in those times Paul Wei Ping-Ao), just before of the Fight of the Century. The use of his eternal nunchakus, his training making sound all bones of his thin body and the intensity of his face made Bruce not a hero, but a true superhero capable to defeat a dozen of men without an effort. Filmed so-so a year before of his tragic death, Bruce Lee gave us a gift in shape of his directional debut, intuiting that beyond the actor existed a future filmmaker which mind should promised a very much brilliant place in the world of seventh art.

Bruce Lee passed away. His movies never will pass away. This is the best way to remember of a simple man turned in an extraordinary icon: seeing his work for inspiring us time and time again. Bruce Lee died. His legend never will die.

Contact (1997)

The last great sci-fi's super-production

[10/10 · 31 August 2010]

After the release in 1968 of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey", sci-fi reached his maturity and it lived great moments of triumph and success in the 70's and 80's with movies like "THX 1138", "Logan's Run", "Blade Runner" and "Terminator", among others. In the 90's, nevertheless, sci-fi lived other kind of moment thank to movies like this. Based on the Carl Sagan's novel book of the same name, I think that this movie exceeded the book to be a show of first class: a spectacular cast, good described characters, impressive F/Xs, excellent locations around the world and a well-studied look in every frame filmed by Robert Zemeckis turns this movie in a tour de force for the people who enjoy of one the best movies appeared in 1997. It is a deep reflection about our origin and place in the cosmos so like an emotional travel to answer the eternal question: "is there anybody out there?"

Behind of this simple question, it hides an intense look inside us. The movie forces us to look inside our hearts and souls, reviewing our hopes and fears about the possibility not to be the only one living race in the universe. Jodie Foster, turned in the heroine of the show, is a scientist who fights against all odds in her search to find extraterrestrial life in the universe. Her search has success when a message from the stars come to Earth that it suggests that not only there's life but it exists a way to contact it. Through of her eyes we see all the human reactions that the existence of alien life causes, from fear and paranoia to euphoria and hope. Through the characters, we can see all kind of people, from good ones and honest who looking for the common good to bad ones that they are crazy or they want success and power at all costs. Like all good sci-fi's movie, in the end "Contact" talks about humanity, about human condition and about human beings.

After "Contact" there hasn't been other movie like this. No one of the next sci-fi hits (Armageddon, Pitch Black, Alien Vs Predator, Pandorum, etc...) kept the capacity to make a reading of the humanity like the old movies did ("2001", "Blade Runner" or the own "Contact"). I think that this ability, obligatory to make any great sci-fi movie, has been lost. Above his mistakes, "Contact" mixes elements that turns him in an amazing show for all ages: personal dramas, ambition, search of the truth, conspiracy, love, treachery, loss of beloved beings, thriller and includes a little of comedy. The visual force is so big that by it and others reasons I say that "Contact" is the last great sci-fi's super-production: because the search of extraterrestrial life species is essentially the search of our own identity like human species.

Ghost Whisperer (2005–2010)

"You can't choose between life and death when we're dealing with what is in between"

[7/10 · 2 August 2010]

In 1999 the supernatural returned to Hollywood with "The Sixth Sense", the masterpiece directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Thank to it, shows like "Supernatural" and "The Ghost Whisperer" have seen the light and we, the people, know to the Winchester brothers and Melinda Gordon.

In this case, this is one of the best shows of the last years. Following the footsteps of "The Sixth Sense" (with a pinch of "The X Files"), Melinda Gordon is an antique dealer who can to see and listen to the dead. She enters in the horror trying to give peace to the lost souls trapped on Earth by their unfinished business, making that the souls she saves go to the light. Behind of this simple plot, the series hides a deep reflexion about the ways in that we living and the things that we do and that we don't. The relationships between live and dead (friends, familiars,...) and the secrets that them keep are too the reasons that they cause that the dead roam by Earth. At the same time, the series shows the typical paranormal activity when the dead are close to us trying to contact us and how the dead have influence in us and our daily life. Melinda turns so in our guide to explain us that the secrets that we keep and the errors we make can to have unexpected consequences in the people we love.

Along five seasons, Melinda fought against all kind of evil trying to free lost souls, showing an Afterlife never seen before in the screen. Although it is too much dulcify at the beginning, later it turns darker and more interesting. The eternal fight between life and death and light and darkness turns here a battle not only by the salvation of dead, but too for the living. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Melinda, shines like the heroin who faces against evil forces trapped between save to the dead and protect to her family and friends. Not a doubt, a brilliant show for everyone and a call of attention about the danger to play with the dead. Paraphrasing to Tangina Barrows, "You can't play with life and death when we're dealing with what is in between". For me, this is one of the best TV shows of all times. LIVE MELINDA GORDON! LIVE GHOST WHISPERER!!

Powder (1995)

The quintessential of the New Age's movies

[7/10 · 13 May 2010]

Originally a 1995's minor success (and 90's in general) this is the kind of movie that it needs an urgent revision: this is the quintessential of the New Age's movies. Behind the story of Jeremy Reed (nicknamed Powder), a boy with an extraordinary mind but socially unadapted, exists a deep message about compression, love, affection, life, death and the world we living. This movie forces us to look inside ourselves, in our same soul. The innocence of Jeremy, that lives in a world that he don't understands surrounded by people that fear him and hate him could be the story of anyone today. The tour-de-force of the story asks question about our relations and the way that we look and feel to the others (friends, familiars...). Along the film, there is implied an intention to renovate the human genre, the human spirit, to go to the next step of the evolution. Making a comparison, Jeremy perhaps could be a new Jesus, a new prophet that like his predecessor, he comes to Earth to transmit a message to improve to all humanity. We love with Jeremy, fear with him, hate with him and we feel with him his pain, his sadness, his angry and his deception of the people that they can't understand him. In certain way, all we are Jeremy, living in a world that we don't understand with people that don't understand us. Jeremy symbolizes, after all, hope: hope to be better, hope to improve the world, to improve ourselves, to look with new eyes to around us. It's a message for all, for one, for each one of us. If in true we can do it, if it's possible and there is a possibility to get it by little it be, then it will be worthwhile to try it. New Age is coming, and the movies like Powder are the proof of its imminent arrival...

White Noise 2: The Light (2007)

Real scene in fiction movie

[6/10 · 6 July 2008]

In 2005 Geoffrey Sax gave to the world a fiction plot about a true fact: Electric Voice Phenomena. Although "White Noise" wasn't authentic, EVP is a thing that it exists really. Of the same way, in 2007 Patrick Lussier spoke about a real phenomenon inside the fiction: Near-Death Experience. The movie has interesting elements, casting make best they can, the plot has details I never saw, and the F/X are efficient. It isn't a classic, and probably it never be, but it's a good movie.

Nevertheless, there's one scene in the movie what it does worth seeing it, at the 10 minutes to start it: the Abe's NDE. It's the only one moment real, inside its limits: people declared dead floating over the own body feeling peace, calm and serenity, flying more later by a tunnel with a light at the end of it, reviewing all their life from the birth to death (the only one part left out the scene) and the vision of dead friends and familiars in the light to receive them. Finally doctors get to back to life to the patient, and this one lives again. Not counting own Abe, this scene is a pure NDE at 100%. In fact, it almost would have the label of "based on true events" perfectly. I love this scene, is the best of the movie and the reason for the ten stars (I rate the complete movie with 6/10). I hope NDE and Afterlife be real. I wish it. I want it. If it was real, then death wouldn't be the end of life, just one step to other different.

NOBODY WOULD FEAR DEATH.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

As good as bad

[4/10 · 11 August 2007]

The movie has good moments (the apparition of Silver Surfer, the chase by the air between Human Torch and S.S.), including Victor Von Doom ups the level with his single presence. Until here, all right. But, we be serious...GALACTUS A GIANT CLOUD!?, AND SILVER SURFER DESTROYING IT WITH HIS POWERS!?. Nobody can believe resemblance stupidity. All comic book fans, and specially Galactus' fans (as me) we will feel very disappointed with it. It's too silly that costs to believe it. Simply, it's impossible. I am absolutely disappointed with the movie. I saw the movie just by Galactus, no more, and exactly it's the only one not appears. Awful anyway. By the rest, perfect. Norrin Radd rules!! Galactus' cinematographic version stinks!!

PD: The final scene (in the ending credits) is very interesting. IT ASKS FOR SHOUTS A THIRD SEQUEL WITH THE TRUE GALACTUS ALREADY NOW!!

Steel Riders (1987– )

It's like the other side of the "Street Hawk"

[7/10 · 17 February 2004]

I watched this TV series when I was a kid and it was simply wonderful. The best part of the series was the bad guy, a biker riding on a black motorcycle, dressed in black from head to toe. In a certain way, the biker was like the other side of "Street Hawk", where the motorbiker, instead to be the hero, he is the villain (without the special featurings in the moto) who time and time again prosecutes the main characters to recover the emeralds and diamonds that previously he had stolen and that the Mitchell brothers had taken from him. The biker was like a ghost, because he always managed to find the guys at any coast. An exceptional series of my childhood, an unforgettable villain and an unique time (the 80s) where the TV shows like this, plus others like Chocky (1984) and his sequels Chocky's Challenge (1986) and Chocky's Children (1985), The Gemini Factor (1987), The Box of Delights (1984), Moondial (1988), Super Gran (1985), Otherworld (1985) and Návstevníci (1983), etc., are little gems by their own right.

Chocky (1984)

The best TV show of my childhood

[10/10 · 15 December 2003]

I have not read the book, and I took much years in knowledge that existed, but the TV series is simply a masterpiece. The idea that the alien at issue projects her mind to travel by the universe (It seems to me that thus it traveled to the Earth) is innovator, and years later, It conserves Its enchantment. The cast of actors is skillful (in special the child and starring Andrew Ellams). I've got much TV series what love in my life, but this is for me the number one of the number one. I saw It when I was 7 years old, and I couldn't never forget It. "Chocky", the series, would have to show It in TV during years and years. Nothing equal exist.