Imitation of Life

Review: 'Take Shelter', a film by Jeff Nichols (****)

2012-02-23T19:04:08Z

There is a key scene somewhere in the middle of Take Shelter, Jeff Nichol's impressive sophomore film, in which the premonitory dreams and apocalyptic visions which plague Curtis, the character played otherwise with arresting constraint by Michael Shannon, materialize in a full-fledged explosion. The paroxysm of the scene is all the more powerful because of the humble cosiness of the rural community dinner in which it takes place. When the storm of this truly disturbing sequence is over, there is no chance left for any calm. The director abruptly cuts to a close-up of Jessica Chastain's face, a shot which justifies on its own the award attention that this wonderful young actress has been gathering for the trillion films she was in last year. Her expression is revelatory of what words could never convey: the horrific realization of what really is going on there.

Review: 'The Iron Lady', a film by Phyllida Lloyd (*1/2)

2012-02-21T17:43:37Z

It is indicative of the The Iron Lady's own weaknesses and of the self-consciousness with which the film's creators approach its subject-matter that director Phyllida Lloyd and leading lady Meryl Streep have been announcing to all and sundry that their film is not a biopic of Margaret Thatcher. The statement is in itself highly questionable, for a film that revisits the life of a public person from their youth to old age must necessarily be a biopic, just as a film where the characters momentarily abandon the storyline to sing songs is a musical or an account of a young man's day on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 is a war drama.

Review: Voice Over, a short film by Martín Rosete

2012-02-19T17:49:32Z

It is hard to predict at the beginning of Voice Over that the narrative of this formally exciting 10-minute film will take us from an unknown planet where an astronaut has crash landed his ship to a peacefully idyllic scene of first love with a French Eurovision Song Contest entry as background music, with intermediate stops in a WWI battle field and an undefined subaquatic landscape. Or maybe not, since the man at the helm of this project is the filmmaker that, for his award-winning 2002 film debut Revolución, chose to adapt a text by Sławomir Mrożek, the Polish author famous for the use of distortion, historical references and non-realistic elements in his work.

2012 Golden Globe Predictions

2012-01-15T16:04:54Z

A year older (literally, as of yesterday), but none the wiser, for here I am once again predicting those awards that are handed out in a ceremony that has (luckily) become a notorious one-man show courtesy of that comic genius called Ricky Gervais. Admittedly, the list of films in this year's selection does not include, for all its dull predictability, anything to make us throw up our hands in horror...or joy, depending on how seriously one takes these things. In other words, there's no The Tourist this year, although Angelina is back in the line-up at her most cosmopolitan: in the Foreign Language Film category, no less. I haven't seen In the Land of Blood of Honey yet, but rumour has it it might beat the Iranian masterpiece A Separation. After watching the trailer, I must confess Angelina's commendable effort looks like a heavily Balkan accented (if, unlike me, you have the time, please check out the language eligibility rules of this category in the Globes) war drama with a storyline that is cheaper than Jennifer Lopez's latest perfume. I might be wrong, though, and this is the Globes, so anything can happen.

San Sebastian 2011 review: 'Le Skylab' by Julie Delpy (***1/2) and 'Take This Waltz' by Sarah Polley (*1/2)

2011-09-20T13:11:27Z

It is hard not to draw comparisons between Julie Delpy and Sarah Polley, who have presented in consecutive days their latest films Le Skylab and Take This Waltz here at the San Sebastian Film Festival's competition strand.

Born to show business families, they both enjoyed successful careers as child actresses, then went on to work with some of the world's most acclaimed filmmakers (Delpy with Bernard Tavernier, Agnieszka Holland or Krzysztof Kieslowski; Polley, with Atom Egoyan or David Cronenberg) before making up their minds to write and direct their own movies and gaining international recognition for that work, including Oscar nominations in a discipline, writing, nobody would have predicted when Oscar buzz first started to purr around their names for their performances in Kieslowski's White and Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. (Julie Delpy shared a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nod with Before Sunset director Richard Linklater and co-star Ethan Hawke in 2005, while Sarah Polley was nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for her film debut Away From Her in 2007).

San Sebastian 2011 review: 'Albert Nobbs', a film by Rodrigo García (**)

2011-09-19T12:43:05Z

The key to the success of any film ascribed to the cross-dressing subgenre is whether the central performance is able to create an autonomous character who can live beyond the limitations of the gender gimmick. Sadly, Glenn Close's commendable effort to inhabit the character of Albert Nobbs, a woman dressed as a man to make a living as a waiter in 19th Century Ireland, completely fails to do so, for it has nothing more going for it than its gimmick. Not once during the almost two hours of this overlong, stagy rendering of George Moore's short story does the viewer (at least the one writing this review) have the impression to be watching anything else than a hugely popular actress, with coincidentally androgynous looks, dressed in drag for the sake of self-important farce.

2011 Emmy Predictions

2011-09-18T23:34:01Z

I'm a little tied up here in the middle of a major film festival, but in less than one hour Emmys are gonna start to be handed out and I can't miss my annual chance to go out on a limb with my predictions, get everything wrong and don't give a damn about it.

Actually, my interest in this year's Emmy race died out on September 10 when the Creative Arts Section of the awards was officially presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. That section includes the Guest Performance by an Actress in a Drama Series, where Randee Heller was up for an award for her memorable role of Mrs. Blankenship in the fourth season of Mad Men, but she lost out to Loreta Devine of Grey's Anatomy.

San Sebastian 2011: Day 1

2011-09-17T23:28:50Z

I've been merely 24 hours in San Sebastian but I'd swear I've spent here all my life. I arrived yesterday too late for the morning press screening of Intruders, opening film of the Official Selection, but just in time for the press conference, in which a self-assured Juan Carlos Fresnadillo defended his film surrounded by his cast, led by an irresistibly charming Clive Owen. There's no much to say here. Rumour quickly spread that Intruders is a disappointment, and judging by the banalities we heard during the press conference, it's probably true.

San Sebastian 2011 interview: 'Amen' director Kim Ki-duk

2011-09-17T10:46:02Z

Kim Ki-duk is South Korea's best-known filmmaker and one of the most celebrated directors in the international film circuit. In 2004 he won the Best Director award for two different films in two of the major film festivals: for Samaritan Girl at the Berlinale and for 3-Iron at the Venice Film Festival. 3-Iron also earned him the FIPRESCI award as best film of the year. His divisive documentary Arirang bagged the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

His latest narrative film Amen has had its world premiere this morning here in San Sebastian. I've met with the director just one hour after the screening. Here is an extract of the interview.

San Sebastian 2011 review: 'No habrá paz para los malvados', a film by Enrique Urbizu (***)

2011-09-16T21:07:05Z

Enrique Urbizu's career is a curious anomaly in Spanish filmmaking. Spanish genre filmmakers usually score a couple of box office gongs and go on to collaborate with renowned international actors, screenwriters or directors, then feel disappointed or frustrated with the experience and go back home where their creative freedom is less restricted. (After directing Nicole Kidman in The Others, produced by Tom Cruise, Alejandro Amenábar shot The Sea Inside with an all-Spanish cast, while Jaume Balagueró chose Manuela Velasco for the lead of his hit Rec after unsuccessful collaborations with Anna Paquin and Calista Flockhart).