antirrana_burgos Reviews

Faerie Tale Theatre: The Little Mermaid (1987) Season 6, Episode 2

Poor adaptation of Andersen´s tale

[12 August 2002]

Some years before Disney made his glorious movie about the little mermaid, a movie appeared with the same title as Disney´s: "The little mermaid". Of course, Disney´s is better than this one, for few reasons:

Special effects: they´re very lame. When you see Pearl the mermaid swimming under the sea you can imagine perfectly the cord that is holding her in the air as she goes through the "sea". I don´t know, it´s not really believable...

The script: the script is pretty lame, too. There´s little time fr character development and one doesn´t feel anything for them, really.

The actors: Pam Dawber is a pathetic actress, I can´t stand her bashful smiles. I haven´t seen her in any movie but this one, and she really demonstrate she is an awful performer. Helen Mirren does not appear too much, but she is OK (who would say that such a brilliant actress would be in this movie???). Treat Williams is correct.

The settings: they´re very unimaginative and vulgar. You can notice they´re not real.

As a conclusion: a pretty bad movie that, anyway, can be kind of entertaining.

RATING: *

Cabaret (1972)

Cabaret, a legend 30 years later

[9/10 · 28 April 2002]

This is one of the best musicals there´s ever been, and certainly one of the best pictures ever.

Let´s analize the movie on it´s whole. Everything is wonderful, there´s nothing bad you can find...

The Music. Very good. Not as brilliant as "The Sound of Music"´s, but comes pretty close. The lyrics are very imaginative and funny, and sad when they have to be. One magnificent thing about some songs is that you can feel different about them (sad, happy...) each time you see the movie. That IS something.

The acting couldn´t be better. Of course, Judy´s daughter steals the show with the breathtaking performance of the funny, crazy and childish Sally Bowes. She was born to play Sally, but she didn´t perform, she BECAME Sally. Joel Grey was also amazing. The rest of the cast is not as brilliant, but it´s quite good, specially Faye Dunaway.

The script. Well, it´s probably the best thing of the picture. It takes you through the life of an ordinary girl living an ordinary life singing at the Kit Kat Club, a Cabaret in the Berlin of 1931. Sally´s character is so familiar and simple that you could expect to find her walking in the street tomorrow. It´s just great. The movie is about everything that might seem love without getting to be love. Sexual affairs (heterosexual and homosexual), sensuality, etc... That´s great about the movie.

Well, what else? The cinematography is very good, it´s dark, and siniester for such a creepy and dangerous world Sally lives in without realizing. GREAT. GREAT.

Directing. Bob Fosse does a great job, even though it was only the second film he directed. Nothing was wrong, there were no mistakes. A masterpiece.

After saying this, the movie would deserve a rate of 9/10. Supposing that this glorious film has touched your heart as it has touched mine, the movie would deserve a 10/10.

RATE: 10/10

Compañeros (1998–2002)

Great TV serie

[13 January 2002]

Drugs, sex and friends are the main worries/problems of teenagers. And this serie reflects them perfectly. It is entertaining, with good actors and it´s set in the Azcona school, where the main characters go. The main characters are Valle, we could say she´s the sex-symbol in the Azcona, and Quimi, a "rebel with a cause". Really good TV serie.

No te fallaré (2001)

The spirit of the TV series, now on the big screen

[8/10 · 12 January 2002]

For those americans that hasn´t seen the TV series, it´s about a group of teenagers and their problems and worries. Now they have grown, three years later, and the accident on the beach in which one of them died when they were celebrating the end of school still tortures them. It´s basically a film about a group of disoriented youngsters, and how they discovered that life was not what they expected it to be.

Eva Santolaria gets the movie with her breathtaking performance of Valle, a 23-year-old go-go. In general, all the actors are quite good, like Sancho Gracia and Fernando Guillén-Cuervo.

The script is very good, and Manuel Ríos San Martín really nows what a director is. Photography is great, too.

This is a wonderful movie for everyone, specially for the fans of the TV series ("Compañeros"-in english "Schoolmates")in which the movie was based. Don´t miss it!

Swan Lake (1981)

A lovely Japanese picture

[7/10 · 6 January 2002]

Although the animation is very poor, the script is quite good and the drawings are very imaginative. It´s a fairy tale like any other; a prince and a cursed princess fall in love, but their love is impossible.

I especially liked that wonderful soundtrack from Piotr Tchaickovsky´s "Swan Lake", an extraordinary waltz that provides the perfect mood for the movie. The screenplay is better than in most Japaneese animated features, and you´ll think it´s one of the movies your children should see. Very good film.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

One movie to bore them all

[8/10 · 30 December 2001]

First of all, as I´m from Spain, hope you´ll forgive me if I make some mistakes with your language.

I´ve been looking forward to read the book for years, and I haven´t done it yet. Maybe next summer.

As I haven´t read the book, I´m not sure what should I expect from the movie. An epic history like "Cleopatra" or "The Ten Commandments"? Or merely a thrilling film like "Mission:Impossible 2"?

Despite what I expected, I have to say that this film really bored me to death. It´s too long for the little it has to tell (well, three hundred pages -I think so- are one hour and a half movie, not three!!!). The acting is horrible: Elijah Wood thinks he´ll get somewhere acting with his two unique facial expressions (smile and fear), and Liv Tyler, though she doesn´t appear much in the movie, tries to fill all of us with her sex appeal and hermetism that so well did Liz Taylor in "Cleopatra". But Liv is not Liz. Disgusting, really.

It seems to be a videogame. Really, it seems so. They find a problem: they solve it; they find a problem: they solve it, and so on.

Peter Jackson has made the same as many other bad Hollywood directors: to try in a film the ecuation: "violence + special effects = people looking". This is very insulting for the seventh art, the only ecuation that there´ll ever be when making a movie is "good actors + good script + good direction + good soundtrack + good photography = good movie". But, painfully, "The Lord of the Rings" had none of those elements.

On the other hand, it does have great special effects and great sceneries. God, they´re really wonderful!

The soundtrack is not memorable, sure it´s not. It´s not even good. It doesn´t create the mood it has to create many times.

Since I saw this movie, I can say wonders about how in Hollywood they shoot from helicopters. But shooting so much from helicopters won´t make it a good movie. And it won´t make it more spectacular, either.

At the beginning of the movie, we can see thousands of creatures fighting among them. That is very spectacular. Yet I can´t stop thinking that the scene of "Gone With The Wind"(1939) where Scarlett walked over all those soldiers, though technically was worse, it was more dramatic.

In conclusion, it bore me to death. I hated the movie, I really did.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

The best psycological thriller of the 90´s

[8/10 · 30 December 2001]

Oh, it´s you, Clarice. I was waiting for you...

It´s wonderful to see how a movie can determinate a style, and change the perception of horror films in so many ways.

Clarice Starling, FBI student, is told to have some interviews with a cannibal psycopath called Hannibal, in order to find about psycophaths´s psycology so they could find a serial killer called "Buffalo Bill". But Hannibal will talk to Clarice only if she feeds his sick curiosity. Clarice will face her fears, and will also face an intelligence and evilness that don´t seem to be human.

It has been the third film that has got the five most important Oscars: Best picture, director, actor, actress and script.

One of the best things of the movie is the constant feeling of danger until the end titles. That´s mainly because of Anthony Hopkins, as Hannibal: he IS Hannibal. When you look at his eyes, you can see nothing but an intelligent killing machine. And that´s scary, boy. The sensation of facing someone evil and so intelligent that he could be "God" is one of the scariest feelings anyone could ever have (although it has never happen to me, thank God). But that´s too because of Jodie Foster, as Clarice. She IS scared. She really is. She is scared because Lecter sees through her head like he could see though a window. She is scared because a person´s life depends on her (the woman "Buffalo Bill" kidnapped). She is simply scared of looking him at the eyes.

The mood is wonderful and creepy, even sick and macabre, it´s perfect for the film.

Demme did a marvellous job directing the actors. The script has absolutely no line you can dislike.

¿The best of the movie? Well, the dialogues between Hannibal and Clarice. They´re full of energy, of power, spinning inside a countdown. He enjoys the power he helds on Clarice, mental power, he likes humilliating her, because the recognizes every one´s weak point.

¿The worst? Nothing, of course!!!

Now, please, switch off the computer, go to the nearby shop, and get "The silence of the lambs". You won´t be disappointed. But you´ll be frightened!!!!

"I saw... lambs... they were screaming"