I decided to become my own movie critic not because I don't trust the ones that are paid to promote films but because a very good movie will not always be a blockbuster...
Please send your comments on movies you like and I'll definitely watch them and promote them as much as I can
Monday, December 31, 2007
Have you ever relied on the opinion of a friend better that the opinion of the guy on TV advising to go to the cinema to watch so-and-so movie? Have you ever been in absolute disagreement with the movie critics? I have felt like that mostly very time I watch a movie.... so I decided to post about my favourite movies … some of the very hard to find 'cause the critics didn't like them that much and they were not blockbusters....
ADVERTENCIA ESTE VIDEO NO ES UNA PELICULA, ES UNA CLASE. NO PUDE DEJAR DE COMPARTIRLA CON USTEDES
CLASE MAGISTRAR DADA POR EL JUEZ BALTAZAR GARZON EN LA UNIVERSIDAD ARCIS EDITADO POR: Universidad Arcis
REFERENCIA: Esta vez me alejé de la linea de este blog ...como ya dije no pude evitar compartirlo con ustedes pues aqui se habla de verdades universales, verdades que traspasan fronteras, credos, culturas...es qplicable a lo que ocurrio hace mas de treinta años ... en cualquier parte del mundo, es aplicable a lo que sucedio durante el holocausto, a lo que sucede hoy en medio oriente y quizas a la vuelta de la esquina sin que nos demos cuenta o no nos importe.
Capto mi atención como una persona es capaz de olvidarse de si mismo dejar su ego de lado y preocuparse por una mujer anomina... eso es a mi modo de ver , una persona que le importa el resto, le impoerta la humanidad.
TITTLE: The Great Dictator DIRECTOR: Charles Chaplin PRODUCER: Charles Chaplin MAIN CAST: Charles Chaplin Paulette Goddard Jack Oakie LANGUAGE English YEAR 1940
REFERENCE The Great Dictator is a film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. First released on October 15, 1940, it is a satire of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Chaplin's film is highly exceptional for this period (1940), when the United States was still at peace with Nazi Germany, for its fearless satire and condemnation of Hitler and Nazism, and for its vivid portrayal of the plight of Jews in Europe. It holds the distinction of being both Chaplin's first "talkie", and his most commercially successful film.
MY REVIEW
A real masterpiece.. I have seen it since a child and it can always move me. As a review I'll just quote The Barber's speech also known as "Look up Hannah".
Hope... I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The Great Dictator Buy From Art.com The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish...
Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.
You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are ...Look up Hannah! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.
Look up Hannah! The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."
TITLE: Thanks for smoking YEAR: 2005 DIRECTOR: Jason Reitman PRODUCER: David O. Sacks MAIN CAST:Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, Adam Brody, Sam Elliott LANGUAGE: English GENRE(s): Comedy, Satire THEMES: Work Ethics, Boardroom Jungle, Members of the Press REFERENCES: Jason Reitman's adaptation of Thank You for Smoking aims its satirical slings at something much bigger than the smoking lobby. Aaron Eckhart's Nick Naylor gleefully manipulates everyone and everything in his path. While the film gets huge laughs from the audacious (though not quite totally unbelievable) sentiments Naylor expresses on behalf of the tobacco industry, it also gives this media Machiavelli a heart simply by showing that his ability to shape an argument isn't something he has to work on or think about -- it comes to him naturally. Some might think he is soulless, but it would be more accurate to say that spinning is his soul. (from answers.com)
MY REVIEW
Puzzling the way the play with the satire... it makes you really think this is not far from the truth... just see this movie and comment
Muy poca informacion se puede encontrar en la internet sobre esta obra. La vi ayer en el festival de teatro "Zicosur" que se realiza en la ciudad de Antofagasta todo los años y fué presentada por el grupo de teatro Arlequin (Paraguay). Excelentes actuaciones y excelente mensaje. Despues de recorrer un buen rato la internet me enteré que es una pelicula dirigida por Hal Ashby y el guion es de Colin Higgins.
Pese a esta lo que mas se ve en la obra son intentos de suicidio, suicidios falsos, funerales y la obsecion con la muerte del protagonista, es una obra llena de vida, una obra sobre la vida y sobre el amor.
Hay tres versiones de la pelicula (segun IMDB)Harold and Maude (1971) version Estadounidence, Harold et Maud (1978) version francesa para la television y Harold i Mod (2001) (TV) Version Yugoslava
La primera version pese a la critica positiva fue un fracaso en ventas, pero generó (según wikipedia) nuevas terminologias como "Harolding" (andar por los cemeterios) y "Maudism" o "Maudianism (vivir cada dia al maximo)
Domestic tregedy describes a drama in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle class or lower class individuals, in contrast to classical and Neoclassical tragedy, in which the protagonists are of kingly or aristocratic rank and their downfall is an affair of state as well as a personal matter.
TITLE: Othello AUTOR: William Shakespeare LANGUAGE: English GENRE(s): Play, (domestic) Tragedy RELEASED: Around 1603
REFERENCE
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare written around 1603. The play is a concentrated, tightly-constructed domestic tragedy with almost no subplot relief, revolving around five or six central characters. Othello's ill-placed trust in the villain Iago, resulting in his growing suspicion in his wife Desdemona's infidelity with his lieutenant Cassio, led to the ultimate tragedy. Othello is commonly considered one of Shakespeare's great tragedies, and one of his finest works.
MY REVIEW
Othello is one of my favourites plays. Shakespeare again is ahead of his time, here he deals with racism, male chauvinism, low self esteem due to a life of being viewed as a member of an inferior race, rights of women. Whenever you read – or watch – this play keep in mind some very important questions…
What’s love really? I mean when you love you trust and if you are jealous you are not only not trusting but you are killing love, aren’t you?
What are the consequences of backbiting? Backbiting is almost another character in the play, and very much a central figure. Think about how backbiting can get into your brain and heart and destroy your love or trust for someone – no matter if what was said to you was true or not.
Why can Iago manipulate all the main characters around him? What is in him that make s everyone to feel attracted to him?
Why does Othello fall into the trap Iago set for him?
There’s also a lot of irony in the play, we see as Iago is called “honest Iago”.
Another very interesting fact in the play is the way Iago gives solid proves to Othello… a handkerchief; his version of someone else’s talking while sleeping.
The language used by the villain in something you should pay attention to… I mean, where does he give a reason for his actions? Remember during the whole play he is honest only to the audience.
TITLE: Great Expectations AUTOR: Charles Dickens LANGUAGE: English GENRE(s): Bildungsroman, Novel PUBLISHER: Hall RELEASED: 1860 – 1861 (in serial form) & 1861 (in 3 volumes)
REFERENCES
Great Expectations is the story of the orphan Pip told by the protagonist in semi-autobiographical style as a remembrance of his life from the early days of his childhood until years after the main conflicts of the story have been resolved in adulthood. The story is also semi-autobiographical to the author Dickens, as are some other of his stories, drawing on his experiences of life and people
MY REVIEW
I read this book about twelve years ago and I would say it’s an interesting book. Some might tell you it's just a book about a guy trying to woo the girl he is in love with since he is a child but I think it is a book about wanting too much, staying attached to false expectation of growth -a growth in the sense of social status, money and power and not as a matter of inner, psychological or spiritual growth. Pip in his quest for social status hurts and ends up loosing all that really matters. Another thing that is really interesting is the fact that Charles Dickens wrote another ending for this book before he decided to change it.
This is the one that end up being in the book , pretty clichéd and corny I might say
“I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.“
The original one I perceive it more realistic. And i think it shows a change in the main character (Pip) now, he's been able to grow and has become wiser.
"It was two years more, before I saw herself. I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from her husband who had used her with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, brutality and meanness. I had heard of the death of her husband (from an accident consequent of ill-treating a horse), and of her being again the Shropshire doctor, who, against her interest had once very manfully interposed, on an occasion when he was in professional attendance on Mr. Drummle, and had witnessed some outrageous treatment of her. I had heard that the Shropshire doctor was not rich, and they lived on her own personal fortune. I was in England again- in London, and walking along Piccadilly with little Pip- when a servant came running after me to ask would I step back to a lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me. It was a little pony carriage, which the lady was driving; and the lady and I looked sadly enough on one another. "I am greatly changed, I know; but I thought you would like to shake hands with Estella too, Pip. Lift up that pretty child and let me kiss it!" (She supposed the child, I think, to be my child). I was very glad afterwards to have such an interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be."
Don't you think, please, I ruined all the fun by telling you the end of the story all the contrary I think you will enjoy it even more .
TITLE: The Power of one AUTOR: Bryce Courtenay LANGUAGE: English GENRE(s): Bildungsroman, Historical, Novel PUBLISHER: William Heinemann RELEASED: February 1989
REFERENCES
The Power of One is a bildungsroman written by Bryce Courtenay, first published in 1989. Set in 1930s and 1940s South Africa and later on in the story, Northern Rhodesia, it tells the story of an English boy who, through the course of the story, acquires the nickname of P.K. The protagonist's true first name is never revealed. (wikipedia)
This riveting novel tells of the coming-of-age of a six-year-old English boy in South Africa during the darkest days of largely pro-Nazi South Africa. It's an inspirational story with a great sense of time and place, combining strong characters, stunning locales and serious social issues. Based on the author's own experiences as a child. (longitudebooks)
MY REVIEW
I first saw the movie and I loved it. The book came to my hands long years after watching the movie for the first time , and I have to say it was very difficult to read, too painful actually. The way Courtenay descrives things happen to PK, how he is beaten in school even by teacher was to painful form me and I drop it. I just read it last week and I have to say I just loved it. Courtenay is like a skilled painter that depicts a very realistic picture of the world he saw in his former land. It is interesting how he is able to show a wolrd through the eyes of a 5 -6 years old boy, and describe situations not only by facts but mainly by feelings. I love how the characters grow ( not only PK but other too as his friend Morrie Levi ) and the suffer an evolition process. I also the clear language he uses not only the way it changes trhout out the novel but also when he wants to state facts, some times he uses a language when he invloves feelings and sensations in other ocations he just say it , right to the point I quote “...racism is a primary force of evil designed to destroy good men.” . There are also some symbols in the novel that are very interesting to look at … such as the snake. It is there not only as an obvious phallic symbol (in the first part of the novel) and something that embarrasses PK almost to a traumatic point but also later on as the story goes on you can see the serpent not only as a symbol of death but mainly as a psychopomp character. You might take a glance at http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/animals2.htm a site about animal symbolism in different cultures or take a look at The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, and other dictionaries of symbols.
Well I don’t know if I want to tell you more about the book and ruining you all the fun … if you saw the movie and liked it surely you will love the book
