After a long hiatus, due to a lot of projects and a job that steals all my free time, I’m back!
The movie that made me want to write again, even with a job that leaves me with few spare time, was ‘I Melt With You’, one of the most underrated movie of 2011.
But shortly I’ll leave a review here.
Plot: Frank (Bruce Willis), Joe (Morgan Freeman), Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) used to be the CIAs top agents but the secrets they know just made them the Agencys top targets. Now framed for assassination, they must use all of their collective cunning, experience and teamwork to stay one step ahead of their deadly pursuers and stay alive. To stop the operation, the team embarks on an impossible, cross-country mission to break into the top-secret CIA headquarters, where they will uncover one of the biggest conspiracies and cover-ups in government history.
Opinion: Red is based on the comic book created by Warren Ellis e Cully Hamner for DC Comics, where we follow the story of a retired secret agent, that tries to find answers, after suffering an assassination attempt.
The resemblances with the comic book end here, in this free adaptation by Jon e Erich Hoeber to the big screen.
This action comedy works essentially because of his amazing cast, where we have a quartet of retired agents that are forced to come back, due to a conspiracy.
Plot: On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history… but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.
Opinion: This was one of the movies that I was dying to see, because it’s not easy to create a compelling story about the creation of a website, in a biopic about someone still alive and in his mid twenties.
This (allegedly) true story about the creation of Facebook is basically a legal drama, mostly focusing on the dispute between Mark Zuckerberg and the other Harvard University students who claimed that they have also influenced the social networking website’s creation.
Plot: Ondine is the enchanting story of Syracuse (Farrell), a lonely fisherman who one day pulls a beautiful woman named Ondine (Bachleda) out of the sea in his nets. His young daughter Annie is convinced that she is a “selkie” —a creature from Irish folklore much like a mermaid. Syracuse has his doubts, but as Ondine brings some luck and joy to his otherwise downcast life, he starts to come around as well. “Ondine” deftly blends romance and fantasy with the realism of modern life in an Irish seaside town.
Opinion: Neil Jordan returns with a modern fairy tale about hope, happiness, destiny and curse, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.
With a cinematography that creates a wonderful lyrical mood, supported by beautiful landscapes, the special effects are replaced for characters, drama and enchantment.
Plot: Holly and Eric were set up on a blind date by their friends, Peter and Allison who are married. A few years later after Peter and Allison were killed in an accident, they learn that Peter and Allison have named them as the guardians to their daughter, Sophie. So they move into their house and try their best to honor their friends’ wishes. But raising a child puts a crimp on their style and they don’t exactly get along.
Opinion: I had the chance to watch this movie in a national premiere. Like I said before in another review, I’m not very fond of romantic comedies, but if it’s a premiere…why not give it a try. And I must admit that I really enjoyed it, turning out to be a good popcorn story.
With plenty of the usual romantic comedy formula to go around, death is usually the last reason to create a new love between unlikely partners. In this movie, tragedy creates a series of events that set a new standard for both romance and comedy.
Plot: Terry Hoitz’s past mistakes in the line of duty and Allen Gamble’s reluctance to take risks have landed them the roles of the “Other Guys”, disgraced New York City police detectives relegated to filling out paperwork for cocky hero cops Danson and Highsmith. The mismatched duo must look past their differences when they take on a high-profile investigation of shady capitalist David Ershon and attempt to fill the shoes of the notoriously reckless officers they idolize.
Opinion: Will Ferrell reteams with director Adam McKay for the fourth time, after Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers.
The first half hour promises a lot, where we follow the two hot-shot cops (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson) in a priceless parody of the excesses of Hollywood supercops. After that nice start with some good and funny moments the plot thickens, and that’s when the movie gets really boring.
Plot: Machete is a renegade former “Mexican Federale”. He roams the streets of Texas after a shakedown from drug lord Torrez. Benz, a spin doctor, tells Machete that McLaughlin, a corrupt senator, is sending hundreds of illegal immigrants out of the country and that he must be killed.
He offers him $150,000 to kill McLaughlin. Attempting to assassinate the senator, Machete is double-crossed and is shot in the neck. Now on the run and being tracked by Sartana, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent with a special interest in the blade slinger, Machete goes after Benz and his men with the help of his “holy” brother Padre, a saucy meat cleaver-wielding taco slinger named Luz, and April, a socialite with a penchant for guns.
Opinion: After Death Proof and Planet Terror in 2007, the homage to ’70s exploitation flicks continues with Machete, which was inspired by a phony trailer in Grindhouse.
Robert Rodriguez exploits some timely issues, like anti-immigrant xenophobia and Hispanic stereotyping, like a low-budget genre filmmaker from the 70s. Of course that this subject will annoy some Republicans, but I think that’s intentional.
Plot: When he arrives on the rural Louisiana farm of Louis Sweetzer, the Reverend Cotton Marcus expects to perform just another routine “exorcism” on a disturbed religious fanatic. An earnest fundamentalist, Sweetzer has contacted the preacher as a last resort, certain his teenage daughter Nell is possessed by a demon.
Buckling under the weight of his conscience after years of parting desperate believers with their money, Cotton and his crew plan to film a confessionary documentary of this, his last exorcism. But upon arriving at the already blood drenched family farm, it is soon clear that nothing could have prepared him for the true evil he encounters there.
Opinion: The Last Exorcism is a mock documentary who is more concerned with psychological chills than flashy special effects, which is really appreciated (by me).
After the incredible success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999, this format has been overused by low-budget filmmakers, but it still works really well in The Last Exorcism, by showing the events through a single perspective, revealing or withholding information as they (filmmakers) please. And it’s because of the withholded information that this movie divided opinions so much.
Plot: Charming, funny and effortlessly cool, Alex (Duris) is a professional heartbreaker who for a fee can turn any husband, fiancé or boyfriend into an ex. Alex has one ironclad rule: He only breaks up couples where the woman is unhappy. His latest job will put that rule to the test. The target is Juliette, a beautiful heiress who is set to marry the man of her dreams. With ten days until the wedding, Alex has been hired by her father to carry out his most daring seduction yet that risks him being caught by his ruthless personal creditors, angry exes, and the beautiful and independent Juliette herself. But worst of all, will he discover to his own cost that when it comes to love, the perfect plan doesn’t exist?
Opinion: Romantic comedies are a difficult genre for me, because most of the movies that I see have the same clichés, the same sappy happy endings, and little substance. For me, it needs some depth and/or underlying message to really move me.
This delightful romantic comedy is a breath of fresh air to this genre. With a premise that it’s the opposite of Hitch, we follow Alex as a professional heartbreaker who for a fee can turn any husband, fiancé or boyfriend into an ex. Until he finds Juliette, that is immune to his charms.
Plot: Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) is an unrepentant criminal, the de facto leader of a group of ruthless bank robbers who pride themselves in stealing what they want and getting out clean. With no real attachments, Doug never has to fear losing anyone close to him. But that all changed on the gang’s latest job, when they briefly took a hostage–bank manager, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). Though they let her go unharmed, Claire is nervously aware that the robbers know her name…and where she lives. But she lets her guard down when she meets an unassuming and rather charming man named Doug…not realizing that he is the same man who only days earlier had terrorized her. The instant attraction between them gradually turns into a passionate romance that threatens to take them both down a dangerous, and potentially deadly, path.
Opinion: I must admit that I’ve never liked Ben Affleck as an actor, but I was curious to see his second work as a director, and I must say that he’s done a great job.
This follow-up to his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, represents a big step forward in his work behind the cameras.
Like Heat or Inside Man, two of the greatest crime sagas of the last 15 years, The Town brings us a realistic look at violence, in an intense and emotionally gripping story set in Boston.
Diaries of a Flick Freak 