la_fleur Reviews

The Great Buck Howard (2008)

You think you've failed at life? Buck Howard will show your path

[8/10 · 30 May 2009]

Houdini was once approached by a student who told him, "I know hundreds of card tricks, how many do you know?" Houdini replied, "Five, and I have dedicated my entire life to learning how to entertain an audience with them".

Buck Howard is a dried up celebrity struggling for his last gasp of fame. Almost forty years ago, Johnny Carson gave Buck Howard the title "The Great Buck Howard" and it stuck. Unfortunately, those years have left their mark and Buck is no longer 'Great'. Despite his tired jokes, sappy piano clap-along songs and magic acts he manages to attract small crowds at far-flung venues in the middle of America. The performances are always "One Night Only", as there would never be enough seat-fillers for a second. So what is exactly that keeps him going?

Colin Hanks plays Troy Gable, a law school dropout looking for a detour to finally get the answer to what he is meant to do in life. Will be able to counsel him a unbalanced magician -or mentalist-?

Nicely done, this film is funny and likable. A modern story about life dreams, the fierce entertainment industry, and the sadness that hides behind a bad temperamental person. Every well-known actor that appears in this film,even if they play short cameo roles, plays an important part.

It's quite a gentle, unusual comedy, so morals behind this movie are hard to get. However, this is a good film worth watching and definitely should be shown as an example of outstanding acting from Malkovich to Star Trek actor George Takei.

The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

Sex is everywhere in The Girlfriend Experience, except there's no sex.

[9/10 · 21 May 2009]

First of all, Sasha Grey, queen star of more than 80 porn films, is ironically the only professional actor in the movie, playing a character who is always acting. Grey was contacted through MySpace, but she really pulled her part off, considering she works in adult films, she plays the part really well, her performance is understated and realistic.

Because the movie is set during the financial crisis of October 2008, this film is also about people obsessed with money, the true nature of the crisis, from Sasha to her clients.

Her clients talk about the economy more than just having sex with her. Worried about losing their money, those highly blamed executives that people anger in public life are human and vulnerable in their private life, asking for counselling with an escort girl.

When she's alone in the midst of a relationship crisis just as bad as the economical situation, we see that the economy really doesn't phase her. She's recession proof, paid in cold hard cash and no matter how bad things are, guys have needs. Soderbergh jumps around in the story but ties it all together neatly.

The film looks great too, the cinematography is really modern, realistic and with intimate camera movements. However I felt the script was a bit fluffy in places, many of it was improvisation.

It will certainly be an eye opener for those who are unaware of the daily business of an escort. Would have liked to have seen more in-depth analysis of the character’s history/background. Who is she? Where did she come from? What was her upbringing like? The movie ignores these details which are usually important for a character study.

8.5 out of 10

Battle Royale (2000)

A tribalization of death and youth. What an alternative reality film must not look like.

[4/10 · 10 May 2009]

I have to say that alternative reality films are definitely my favorite film genre. Blindness (2008) and Children of Men (2006) are without any doubt two genre masterpieces, including also elements of science fiction.

The whole idea surrounding the film was arousing: The government has failed to control increasing violence and indiscipline in schools, combined with a growing economic crisis, pretty much like nowadays. Even the idea of making and island (just like "Blindness") to perform this extreme measure of control of adolescents is immoral but told as a story is respectable.

The film starts really good, but the whole thing sadly changed when the first school boy killed one of his classmates.

People tend to show this film as a deformation of Japanese culture, or even a critic of Japanese double moral. Well, I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with Japanese youth, I know for certain this because I traveled several times there.

I have to reject this absurd line of argument showing teens as potential assassins whose biggest problems are crushes and gossips between them, becoming even more unreal when you are facing such a disturbing situation like encountering the death of your fellow classmates.

In every alternative reality film there is a thin line: the plot has to be always plausible. If you cross this line, like happened here the moment the boy killed the other, an alternate reality becomes a comedy, like Monty Python.

But the problem here is that there is no satire or comedy, it's just a bunch of teens killing each other without any logical reason.

I'm pretty annoyed because the idea or the background was great. The only problem was the thing of killing each other. You can explore other possibilities like a group trying to build a boat or a refugee camp (like "Lost"), even if they risk their life's with the collar bomb (like "Saw", a group of teens killing the military and disguising as them; the serial killer / predator idea: you know who has died but you never know the one that is killing each other ("Identity"); a group confident suicide while they discuss a form of protest against this law, fighting the inevitable death ("Cube"). Blindness again is a really good example of how this film should have been. The possibilities are endless.

The extremist idea of killing each other is absolutely surreal. A lot of films explore this idea: when other humans kill other humans the person has to disrupt his own human nature. Specially when these humans are teenagers.

In concussion, the trivialization of death, youth and coming of age that this film does is disgusting.

4 out of 10

El hormiguero (2006– )

Probably... the worst late show in Spain combined with the worst English celebrities interviews

[2/10 · 22 April 2009]

Last Monday I saw the interview that the Spanish comedian Pablo Motos did to Jorge García (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0306201/) well known for playing the character of Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes in the American series Lost.

As a Spaniard I felt pretty ashamed and disrespect the way the interviewer treated García. He mocked him about the poor Spanish he speaks despite his surname, he did bad jokes about lost and what is worse he compared him with an obese local singer we have in Spain.

The rest of the interview García was pretty annoyed, looking forward to finish the sooner the better the interview, and he trying to cut the crap from Motos.

The rest of the program was pure rubbish. An actor-comedian dress as a crazy scientist (a completely nonsense) revealed the audience several spoilers about the current 5th season of lost, which has never been aired in Spain.

What I'm really surprised is that the managers of this television company, called Cuatro, let Motos perform interviews to English and American famous people when he doesn't know to speak a single word in English.

In general this show is not funny, they don't even make good jokes. It's not worth seeing it, unless you are a immature childish kid.