Running Out of Time (1999) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a great film. The writing is very clever and the production is outstanding. This simply shows how beautiful Spain is and that it also (like the rest of the world) has its darkness. The situations with drug addicts and prostitutes are a tragedy no matter where you go but this is actually very well done. It also shows how absolutely no one can be trusted in that kind of world. The sex is beautiful but the it is not the focus of the film. It seems there are three different stories going on at once and they connect very well. Spanish cinema is by far better than what is produced anywhere else. Also, you get to see a great shot of Candela Peña in the tub topless. She is a hottie as well as Charo (not the cookie blonde from the seventies)who has an affair with Carmelo Gomez's character who is a terrorist in this story. This was very enjoyable and definately a film that can be seen over and over.

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The Sea Inside Review

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(More customer reviews)The rule of thumb is that Life is preferable to Death. But, on your mental scale, what value judgement would tip the balance towards the latter? THE SEA INSIDE is a forceful, emotive and sympathetic examination of assisted suicide. It's not a film for those seeking the usual Saturday afternoon pabulum of Hollywood escapism. And for those that believe that opting out of Life is never an option, it will likely be infuriating.
In a Oscar-worthy performance, Javier Bardem plays Ramón Sampedro, the Spanish poet who became a quadriplegic at age 26 when he dove into shallow waters and broke his cervical spine. In THE SEA INSIDE, it's now almost three decades later, and Sampedro is spending the last two years of his life petitioning the conservative Spanish government for the right to die with dignity via an assisted suicide. The film is an extraordinarily well acted piece by all members of the cast.
The family that cares for Ramón 24/7 includes his older brother José (Celso Bugallo), his brother's wife Manuela (Mabel Rivera), his father Germán (Alberto Jimenéz), and his nephew Javi (Tamar Novas). Besides the dedicated Manuela, who loves Ramón like a son, there are three other extraordinary women in his life: Julia (Belén Rueda, in her acting debut), the lawyer who handles Sampedro's legal case and who has a secret of her own, Gené (Clara Segura), the representative of a national right-to-die organization, and Rosa (Lola Dueñas), the single, working mother of two that just stopped in to say hello to the invalid and ends up adoring him. Indeed, the large number of caring females in Sampedro's stunted life yields perhaps the film's only trace of humor. When jealousies simmer among the gentler sex, Ramón discovers that he has women problems.
In emotional intensity, THE SEA INSIDE transcends that other recent award-winning film about assisted suicide, THE BARBARIAN INVASION (2003). At mid-point, in a sequence of devastating power, the camera becomes a window on Sampedro's fantasy that he can leave his bed. At another time, Ramón's bedridden helplessness is contrasted to the virile, active young man he once was through a series of old photographs examined by Julia. And the visual presentation throughout is mated to a dynamite soundtrack (that I'll definitely purchase!).
This production is Spain's entry into the 2004 Academy Award competition for Best Foreign Film. If it doesn't walk away with that golden statue, then I certainly want to see the film that does.
THE SEA INSIDE makes a strong case for voluntary Death with Dignity for those wishing that escape. It's certainly controversial, as evidenced by the Web sites attacking its stance. If you're looking for an intelligent, thought-provoking, sobering experience - I hesitate to use the word "entertainment" - see it as soon as it's released. It will likely remain in the artsy theaters and not go into wide distribution.

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Academy Award nominee Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls) delivers a powerful and sensitive portrayal of a quadriplegic who fights to win the right to end his life with dignity. Based on a true story. DVD Features:Audio Commentary:Director CommentaryDeleted Scenes:Documentaries:"A trip to The Sea Inside" Making-ofStoryboards:Theatrical Trailer:

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Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)"In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now. The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films."--Woody Allen.
Woody Allen has said that European audiences are more receptive to his films these days than American audiences. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) is his fourth European movie, and in many ways his most French film yet. Set in Avilés, Barcelona, and Oviedo, Vicky Cristina Barcelona follows Allen's London films, Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006), and Cassandra's Dream (2007). It stars Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Patricia Clarkson, and Penélope Cruz (Volver), and tells the story of a lovers' threesome. Shortly after arriving in Barcelona on vacation, two young American women in their 20s, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Johansson), are invited by a smooth-talking artist, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) to spend a weekend in Oviedo, drinking wine and making love with him. Because she is engaged to be married, pragmatic Vicky is reluctant at first. Cristina, however, is open to the seduction. The two women accept Juan Antonio's proposal, and accompany him to Oviedo, where they soon discover the painter has a thing for his beautiful, but emotionally unstable estranged-wife, María Elena (Cruz). After Juan and Vicky drink wine and make love, Cristina, Juan, and María Elena soon find themselves living together. It becomes evident to Cristina that Juan Antonio and María Elena are still madly in love with each other. Bardem and Cruz bring a chemistry to the screen that sizzles. Ultimately, the film then becomes a fascinating Woody Allen meets Éric Rohmer (Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales - Criterion Collection) meets Pedro Almodóvar (Volver) exploration of the dynamics of this sexually free-spirited lovers' threesome, contrasted by Vicky's more conventional relationship with her dull, New York buttoned-down love interest, Doug (Chris Messina). Just as Manhattan was central to Manhattan, Barcelona features prominantly in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, especially Gaudí's Park Guell. Much like a good French film, this brilliant movie ends on a note that is both poignant and sad, with everyone a little wiser in the end. Once the celluloid love poet of Manhattan, with Vicky Cristina Barcelona Allen reveals he is much wiser now when it comes to the ways of the heart. It is "a very sad film" (as Allen calls it) only because of the message it sends about relationships. Some couples settle for convention rather than the madness of real love. Others, like Juan Antonio and Maria Elena, experience real love with the level of chemistry we might call "soulmates," only to find they cannot live together. To use an old cliche, Juan Antonio can't live with Maria Elena, but can't live without her. Allen seems to suggest that all we can really hope for in the end, after stumbling around in any relationship, is a little wisdom. Dare I say that this is Woody Allen's best work since Hannah and Her Sisters? Unlike that film, however, this is a really good film Allen could have never made in Hollywood, which generally prefers feel-good love stories with happily-ever-after endings.
12/05/08 Update: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Jarvier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, and Penélope Cruz all received nods for Golden Globe Awards this week.
G. Merritt

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Oscar winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Oscar nominee Penelope Cruz (Volver) and Golden Globe nominee Scarlett Johansson (The Nanny Diaries) light up the stunning city of Barcelona in this sexy romantic comedy. Vicky and Cristina are two young Americans spending a summer in Spain, who meet a charming Casanova and his beautiful but volatile ex-wife. When they all become romantically entangled, the smoldering sparks begin to fly in hilarious fashion. Critics rave, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of Woody Allen s finest films, with bravura performances from its incredible cast (Jeffrey Lyons, Reel Talk/NBC).

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No Country for Old Men (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)Cormac McCarthy's novel NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN has been successfully transformed into a film in the skilled hands of Ethan and Joel Coen. The story is intact, the characters are given the dialog so uniquely McCarthy's invention, and the horror of the message of the book - that we have come to a point in time when crime, especially random murder, surrounds our lives - is, if anything, even more pungent than on the pages of the book. It is an amazing, and a highly disturbing movie, and while this viewer is one of the few who does not believe it deserved the Oscar for Best Picture, there is little doubt that it is a brilliant piece of cinema.
The story is fairly simple: on the raw plains of Texas a slaughter of men and dogs engaged in a drug deal is discovered by a simple guy Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin). Moss observes the mayhem, sees the drugs, finds the 2 million dollar payoff money, takes the money, and embarks on an escape, leaving his wife Carla (Kelly Macdonald) to escape the pursuit of a mad killer Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who in turn is being pursued by the local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) and a hired hitman (Woody Harrelson). The satchel of money contains a tracking device and Chigurh has the instrument necessary to follow the trail the device leads. The remainder of the film is the pursuit both in Texas and in Mexico, accompanied by countless brutal murders of all sorts by the crazed Chigurh, until a surprise ending.
But the toughest part of this violent film is more in the discussion of shared philosophies between the sheriff and his old cronies: they reflect on the sad state of universal crime that is so different and more malevolent than in the 'old days'. The conversations, in the superb dialog of these old men, bring our attention to some realities we would rather not confront, and those realities are even more disturbing than the repeated images of bloated bodies and senseless murders that fill the screen. Jones, Brolin, and Bardem are indeed superb in their roles, but the small cameos of the townsfolk of Texas are little gems of acting and direction. This is a difficult film to watch because of all of the violence, but the message is one we must heed. We may be allowing the creation of 'no country for any men'. Grady Harp, March 08

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UPC:786936746754DESCRIPTION: Acclaimed filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen deliver their most gripping and ambitious film yet in this sizzling and supercharged action-thriller. When a man stumbles on a bloody crime scene, a pickup truck loaded with heroin, and two million dollars in irresistible cash, his decision to take the money sets off an unstoppable chain reaction of violence. Not even west Texas law can contain it. Based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy, and featuring an acclaimed cast led by Tommy Lee Jones, this gritty game of cat and mouse will take you to the edge of your seat and beyond right up to its heart-stopping final act.

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