Author: Antonio Díaz

Categories
Cinema DVD

El Cantante

{mosimage}Discover the life and overall the great music of a salsa legend, Hector Lavoe. Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez in the main roles.

 

For many readers, especially the ones that lived the salsa boom in the 70s, the name of Hector Lavoe  can be very well known. For many others, especially in Europe, this film is a great opportunity to discover a bit more about latino rythms and salsa. The movie has certainly great moments, especially the ones that happen on stage, with Marc Anthony doing a pretty decent job both in vocal skills and acting as the tormented artist, drug addict and father unable to find a balance between his career and his family. Unfortunately, the film is more focused on Jennifer Lopez as his wife Puchi, and that destroys the movie. I have the impression that the best JL´s movies are those ones where she does not talk much and express herself dancing. Here, unfortunately, she talks too much and the acting is sometimes close to ridiculous, like her boring monologues in front of the camera in the sequences where she is interviewed.

 

Try to focus on the salsa music, and (although not an easy task) forget about the omnipresence of Lopez all over the film.

 

Rating 3/5.

 

{mosimage}The best: Some scenes of Marc Anthony playing with the band are awesome and gives you a really good feeling about how the real life of Lavoe was.

 

The worst: Jennifer Lopez trying to act tormented in front of the camera, but not achieving it.

 

The detail: in USA the title of the film was “Who killed Hector Lavoe?”.

  

Categories
Cinema DVD

Bangkok Dangerous

{mosimage}Nicholas Cage is an experienced hitman who never gets attached to anybody… until he arrives to Bangkok.

 

If you like action movies, maybe you can even find this one a little enjoyable. For the rest, it will be not less than quite disappointing. The plot is not original at all, the experienced lonely assassin that receives a new work that will carry him some headaches when he starts to get attached to a (mute) woman and to his assistant. All the stereotypes are here, the moral internal fight, the bad guys queuing to get killed by Nicholas Cage, the snipers not able to put a bullet in his head no matters how many times they shoot… even the end is a copy of Leon the Professional. One of the few nice features is to enjoy the magic of Thailand, otherwise, the storytelling shrinks like the Titanic.

 

Only for hardcore fans of Nicholas Cage (of course making of himself more than ever) or hitmen movies. If not, better skip it.

 

Rating 2/5

 

{mosimage}The best: the amazing life and magic of Thailand, well captured in the movie.

 

The worst: The script is weak and the stereotypes of the genre are chained one after another.

 

The detail: The film happened by chance to be shot while a real coup d´ete took place in Thailand.

Categories
Features Music

Eesti goes blues

{mosimage}I met the young but experienced components of the Estonian blues band Bullfrog Brown for the first time a couple of summers ago.  We embarked together in a real road trip that summarizes the essence of Blues: a shabby car, a group of young musicians that hardly got money from the gig to pay the gasoline or buy new strings for the guitars, a dangerous and devious road that links Tartu with Tallinn and the final ecstasy of sharing stage with a truly American blues legend from the Mississipi delta: David “Honeyboy” Edwards. Impressed by their skills and guts, Bullfrog Brown is for me the best example to assert that it does not matter your origins or how big is the musical scene in your native country when there is the will to play the real music that comes from the heart. 

 

 

C

ertainly, it is difficult to talk about a native Estonian Blues scene. As Andres Roots, guitarist and founder of Bullfrog Brown, tells me “The blues scene in Estonian is such that the nearest 7 days a week blues club is the Bites Blues Club in Riga, Latvia and we have no blues magazine or even a webzine in Estonia either But there is a Baltic blues scene as far as the musicians are concerned”. Still, although they are not totally focused on blues, you can enjoy the pleasure of listening good blues music from time to time in venues like “Clazz” in the heart of Old Town in Tallinn or “Illegaard” in Tartu. Being the list of top Estonian blues bands far from impressive, there are a few that remain strong: Compromise Blue, Ultima Thule or Kolumbus Kris are still a major attraction with a good bunch of followers. 

 

 

Against the lack of resources, nothing better like imagination, stubbornness and a lot of effort to promote themselves and open their music to new audiences: “Our Estonian audience is not the audience that normally considers itself a blues audience – we have people of all ages, all hairstyles, and all tastes of music, we have played in churches and even headlined the punk-oriented Soodoma Rock festival in Elva, so I'd say we enjoy a rather unique. We prefer honesty to perfection, emotion to glamour, inspiration to entertainment, and as a result, we still see the people at our shows that were coming to see us nine years ago.” explains the leader of Bullfrog Brown.

 

 

 

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Another person who knows well the Baltic blues scene is journalist Edgars Galzons, who also plays the bass in the Latvian blues band D11 Blues Band. His answer for those who think that blues scene is not in healthy shape or young people do not want to listen to blues anymore is this: “It’s always easy to say that nobody is listening to the Blues nowadays and there are not enough clubs for the Blues music in the Baltic States. Partly I can agree with this statement. But from the other hand what we (the Blues musicians) have done to popularize the Blues music? And how ready we are to accept the laws of the era of marketing and competition, including in the music? We have to find out the way,  maybe sometimes using the same means as the pop music uses, to break the stereotypes and keep the Blues alive as equal style of music in nowadays and not only the antique reptile from ages ago”. 

 

All in all, the blues scene in Estonia is far from dead. A good example is “Augustibluus”, an annual blues festival started and run by Rommy Sultangirejev in Haapsalu since 1993. As Raul Ukareda, member of Compromise Blue and considered by many as the best blues guitarist in the country plainly affirms “Augustibluus is the thing that keeps Estonian blues alive. Even though it is a very low budget festival, it always has some good foreign performers and of course is a great opportunity for local bands; on top of that it is held in a spectacular ancient castle ruins”. Although the blues scene suffered a lot at the end of the 90s with the change of many clubs into discotheques, it seems that things are a bit positive in the last 3-4 years “For about ten years, let's say from 1995 to 2005, the profession of musician was considered as a waste of time and no particularly talented young blues musicians or bands came from that period. Somehow it is getting better though. There are for example two very promising young blues guitar players from Tartu: Laur Joamets and Vilho Meier” explains Ukareda. 

 

Finland has been for decades the logic destination of many of the Estonian bands that want to expand their horizons. “I would say we are by now better integrated into the Finnish blues scene than into the Estonian one” jokes Andres Roots, an usual visitor of the Nordic neighboring country where Bullfrog Brown has an extensive list of friends The geographical distance is short and it is pretty accessible, the blues circuit is bigger, there are more blues fans and the wages are usually pretty much higher.  

 

Aivar Oja, another veteran Estonian musician from the band Kolumbus Kris, remembers how was to tour there during the 90s, but has a more critical vision of the Estonian audience feeling identified with the blues: “In the 90s we toured a lot in Scandinavia, mostly in Finland and Sweden and a couple of times in Denmark. The biggest inspiration to play blues we got in Austin, Texas, the hometown of S.R.Vaughan and Fabulous Thundebirds, where we had a chance to live and play in 1991.I think blues is very popular in Finland, less in Sweden and Denmark. People in Estonia don`t know much about the blues-music, probably because of the Soviet times. That`s why we don`t play much blues nowadays”. 

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For most of these bands, playing is their passion, but not always the main activity that puts bread on the table: “Yeah, we have other jobs, some might even consider them “real jobs”, but looking at our 2009 concert schedule, I’ve been wondering how long we’ll be able to hang on to them…” reflects Andres from “Bullfrog Brown”, and certainly the band will be wandering around Europe extensively during the next few months: They will be releasing a new album together with English musician Steve Lury on February 13th, then they will tour in Finland, Estonia and Latvia, and on March they will visit France to play at the Festival Le Blues Autour du Zinc, apart from having scheduled concerts in Scotland with Dave Arcari and also being paying their first visit to Poland to play at the Suwalki Blues Festival.

 

No pain no gain. Even when more than once, blues musicians end up playing just on exchange of some free food and beers at the venues after extenuating trips, there is a feeling that goes far beyond the money or the recognition. Andres could not have resumed it better:  “I cannot imagine myself not playing music, even if I live to be 102 years old. Performing in public may be another matter, but making music is not just a joy, it’s an addiction, and I’m too far gone…” 

Categories
Misc News

Jussi Awards Announced

Categories
Interviews Misc

Interview with Finnish driver Emma Kimiläinen

Finnish race driver Emma Kimiläinen is one of the most promising young car racers in Europe. In a sport ruled by men, Emma finds that there is no better way to demonstrate her quality than beating the guys on the track. Emma is also involved in politics, interested in theatre and playing piano, and always eager to give you a ride home. And on top of that, she does not lack of physical attractiveness… Who would not fall in love with this girl?

Hello Emma and thanks for attending the questions of FREE! Magazine. How did you start to compete in car races?

Well I already started the racing career at the age of 3 when I was big enough to drive a little go-kart. It was a family hobby for really long time. However, I drove my first race when I was 5 years old.

What have been your biggest achievements as a racer through last years?

I was 3rd in the Formula Radical Elite championship in 2007. I won the Formula Ford Cup in 2006, got silver in the NEZ (Nordic European Zone), that I lost with only one point and Finnish Formula Ford championship in 2006 and 2005. I’ve been elected as the best female driver in Finland in the years 2007 and 2005. I have also been elected as the best racing driver in Finland in 2005. And Motorsport Aktuellet (The most read motorsport magazine in Germany) readers voted me the second best junior driver in the whole world after Nico Hülkenberg, who won the Formula 3 Euro cup championship

Jani Penttinen

What are your plans for 2009?

The plans for 2009 aren’t quite clear yet. So I can’t say so much about them at the moment. But I can tell it will be something interesting.

Which is your favorite track around the world to compete?

Good question. There are many nice tracks in the world and the opinion of the coolest track changes all the time because I’m visiting new tracks all the time but I like fast tracks a lot, so at the moment I have to say Assen, NL.

Why there are not more women competing at top motorsports at the same level than men? Is it impossible due to physical features to be at the same level?

No. it’s definitely not impossible. If people say that women can’t drive F1 because it’s too hard due to physical features, why can there female astronauts or fighter pilots? There is lot more G-forces than in F1 car. The cars are more developed nowadays and it isn’t hard to drive one.I think the problem is that there are not so many woman drivers in the world. I claim that if you put as many girls as guys in a go kart at the age of 3, for example, later on there will be as many talented girls as guys. Everybody has to remember that there are also a lot of “bad” guys. Only few of them all are talented. So it makes quite difficult to find many talented girls because there aren’t many in this sports in the first place.

“Other pilots try sometimes to hit on me, but I try to keep it professional”

Have you found that people treat you differently at the tracks for being a girl (when competing against boys)?

Of course I have. It’s quite funny that I’m always the target to push off at the track. Most of the guys can’t handle the fact that a girl can be a faster driver. But it only gives me more strength. Unfortunately no matter if I have had good results in past years, when I go to a new series and team nobody believes I can go fast. There are always people saying “well she had some luck last year, there is no way she can do it again”. So year after year, I always need to prove myself as a racing driver to the new team, drivers and public. It’s hard work, no chances for mistakes.

Emma

You are quite a pretty girl. Do the other pilots try to hit on you (outside the track)?

Hehehe, well yes they do try sometimes. But I keep it professional.

What is usually the boys’ reaction when you first tell them you are a car racer?

“NO WAYYY, really?? How cool is that!” Then they start to ask more and most of them are really happy for me and thinks it’s great that I beat the guys.

When you go out at night with friends, are you always the one on charge to drive?

Well actually, I am. But because I want to. Nowadays everybody knows I’m always by car so then they want to have a lift home….

Emma

Are you planning to continue your career as professional racer, or do you have other goals in your life?

My priority in life is racing, so of course I’ll do whatever it takes to be a professional racing driver, remain one and to develop all the time as a driver and person. But of course I have other things in my life as well, which I think is really important. I’m into politics. I’m part of the Sports Board of Helsinki and I belong to the biggest party in Finland called Kokoomus. But I’d love to study acting in the theatre academy of Helsinki. But I need to find out if I have the time for it.

What have been the best and the worst moment of your racing life so far?

The best moment was when I got invited to an Audi DTM- test in December 2007. I had the chance of my lifetime to show that I’m talented driver, and I did it! The worst moment must have been the whole last year because of the difficulties I had with my team and all the bad luck, including really heavy crash.

What does Emma enjoy doing when she is not competing?

I enjoy especially singing, but also dancing and playing piano.

If you would have to choose one: Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton or Kimi Raikkonen?

Lewis Hamilton, no doubt! ;)

For more information, visit:

http://www.emmakimilainen.com

Categories
Cinema DVD

Elämän Lahja (The Ultimate Gift)

{mosimage}Jason Stevens is about to discover after the death of his grandfather that there are more important things in life than just the money…

 

This is a movie that will reach equally children and adults. The message is simple to catch: forget about being greedy and materials values, and concentrate on the most important things in life: the love, the family values, and the spirit of helping the needed ones.

 

Although the script is not flawless and the quality goes up and down through the movie, it gets balanced pretty well by the good acting skills of the cast. Drew Fuller is credible as the posh young guy with easy life who will turn 180 degrees his life due to the legacy of his grandfather, but I would say that the little Abigail Breslin (the girl of Little Miss Sunshine) and Bill Cobbs as Mr. Hamilton are the best of the film.

 

Although the storyline does not provide with big surprises, there are some excellent moments like the family dinner for Thanksgiving or the “battles” between Jason and the homeless for the park bench. So remember, money does not provide you with happiness… but it can always help a bit, overall on times of worldwide crisis.

 

Rating 3/5

 

{mosimage}The best: Abigail Breslin, who literally steals the scenes where she appears from the rest of the cast.

 

The worst: the script has some flaws

  

The detail: The car driven by Jason in some scenes is a '70 Dodge Coronet R/T

 

Categories
Albums Music

Eagles of Death Metal – Heart on

{mosimage}The alternative project from Josh Homme, vocalist of Queens of the Stone Age is back, featuring a third rude album of good rock & roll.

 

With Homme sitting on the drums and the collaboration of his pal Jesse Hughes, Eagles of Death Metal are back with new doses of humor and good rock & roll. You can notice that there is no pressure here to sell millions of albums around the world, and the relaxation of the project maybe is their best weapon to turn it into one of the most exciting ones of the actual rock scene. The sleazy lyrics and titles just speak by themselves: Wannabe in L.A., Now I´m a Fool or I´m Your Torpedo gives you an idea that these guys are not really talking about philosophy or politics here, going just straighter to the essence of rock.

 

Heart on is just resuming a tasty freaky delicatessen that exudes great rock and mornings of tough hangovers.

 

Rating 4/5.

 

Categories
Albums Music

Nickelback – Dark Horse

{mosimage}After having sold 8 million copies of their previous albums, it is about time to see if the Canadians can keep up with the expectations.

 

For the sixth studio album of one of the most successful rock bands of the last decade, nothing better than investing on a sure value like producer Mutt Lange, who has worked among others with a “little” band called ACDC, to achieve a clean and quality sound.

 

What you have here is pretty simple: if you are a follower of Nickelback, you still will love this. If you hate them, this album is not going to change your mind. But certainly there are differences between Dark Horse and its predecessors.

 

The band has adopted a tougher and more “sleazy tone”, with lyrics more focused on one night stands and sex, like in the introductory Something in Your Mouth or in (the title says everything) S.E.X. There are still pretty nice mid-tempo ballads like the excellent Gotta Be Somebody or I´d Come For You, so the female audience can still count with Nickelback as one of their favorite ones, but certainly the band can find new followers among fans of bands like Deff Leppard, Mötley Crue or Aerosmith with the more mischievous tone of the new album.

 

I like this taste from the 80s that the album exhales, although the lyrics composition has decreased in quality from their previous work All The Right Reasons and sometimes they are plainly too simple, like aimed at 15 years old kids. But still, the album is catchy and Chad Kroeger is brilliant in the vocals, so I must not less than giving them a good rate.

 

Rating 4/5.

    

Categories
Cover story Misc

Finland is in the game!

Not many years ago, videogames were still seen as children’s play, with the media usually more focused on polemical issues like the impact of violent content on youngster’s behaviours. Luckily, nowadays the trend seems to be reverted, with more adults watching the videogames market not only as an entertaining, but also as a nice way of making a profitable business. Obviously Finland, a country that boasts its love for new technologies as a national trademark, could not get impartial to the juicy fruit that videogames industry represent nowadays. Finnish game industry is doubling the average growth of its international counterparts, a situation that continues evolving. The industry doubled its turnover in 2007 and places itself firmly in a steep growth curve. The country counts with around 60 companies listed as developers or content providers, adding a similar figure for companies focused on consulting, content creation and other tasks related to videogames. Games in Finland are not only developed for well-established platforms like video consoles or personal computers, but also for arising markets like mobile phones or online social networks.

Espoo, Pasila and Mark Wahlberg

Espoo is a city located just close to the capital Helsinki. And no, it is not that the American actor has not bought a house there (yet). Espoo is the location for the headquarters of Remedy Entertainment, the “fathers” of Max Payne character. Probably some of you have watched in the cinemas this year the last successful Wahlberg’s performance in the role of Max Payne but maybe you did not know that the character was born in Finland, with a videogame released in 2001 that quickly caught the attention of millions of fans, and developed into a sequel: “Max Payne: The Fall of Max Payne”. The saga is the most successful one in Finnish game industry, having sold so far more than 8 million copies for Pc, PS2 and Xbox. “We are thrilled with how well Max Payne has done; a number one game and now a number one movie! The commercial and critical success of Max Payne is a sum of many factors. In the end, it comes down to entertaining a lot of people really well” says Matias Myllyrinne, business director at Remedy Entertainment.

Finland videogames

The company is currently developing a new title: “Alan Wake”, a psychological action thriller that will try to continue the path of success of the company dealing with the new generation of consoles and PC, whose release in partnership with the giant Microsoft games supposes another milestone in the history of the company: “There is no room for complacency and we remain hungry to outdo our past achievements; “Alan Wake” must define and establish the thriller genre in games. With Microsoft there is a great fit of complementary talents and a shared passion to create something awesome. Their wide resources and strong and dedicated team allow us to focus on the making Alan Wake the game it deserves to be and to continue our track record of success.

The surroundings of Pasila station, a district near Helsinki centre, do not look exactly flamboyant. Students’ dorms and ugly brick buildings shape this surrealistic landscape. Hidden in one of the buildings are the offices of RedLynx, another top Finnish games developer, creators of the popular saga “Pathway to Glory” and also with a broad expertise developing products for handheld consoles, mobile phones and cross-media entertainment.  I even had a job interview them some time ago; I remember that while I was worried removing my earring and my tongue piercing to look more “professional”, I discovered when arriving to their premises  that my interviewer had not one but several earrings in his ears. That gives you an idea about the lack of importance that appearances have for games developers and testers. Usually the atmosphere is young and cheerful, posters decorate the walls here and there and the dress code is totally casual, jeans and the t-shirt of your favourite rock band does perfectly the trick. Finnish Game industry is a relatively very young industry in Finland, with the first companies being born in 1994-1995, and most of the employees have not even turned 30. The message seems clear, what the game industry wants is freshness of ideas, not expensive suits at the office.

And luckily, these companies are just the top of the iceberg when accounting successful stories in Finnish game industry. Many others have been able to achieve considerable success publishing games for video consoles and PC like Bugbear, a company mainly focused on driving games, and their splendid “FlatOut” saga, Housemarque with their “Super Stardust”, Recoil and their emotional drama “Earth no More” or Frozenbyte with the revolutionary shooter saga “Shadowgrounds”.

Finland videogames

The good thing of creating videogames is that you do not even need a fancy office to put the idea together. Kimmo Vihola is one of the founders of MountainSheep, one small but ambitious Finnish company that recently released the title Super Hind for the portable video console Sony PSP. Just in his mid twenties, Kimmo looks like any other young Finnish “nerdy” student with passion for computers and videogames. Together with some other young partners, he was able to set a game developing company without the need to rent an own office space “We can work from home and thanks to Internet we can have the best collaborators in different fields from wherever country they are; for being in contact they just need a fast Internet connection. Outsourcing is great to reduce expenses, although our business is not so profitable yet” says Kimmo.

The size does not (always) matters

Thanks to the advance of new technologies, nowadays you do not need to carry 5 kilograms of gadgets in order to play your favourite games. A mobile phone in your pocket is all you need for enjoying your favourite titles. Game industry has evolved trying to find new platforms, and currently, with mobile phones that look more like mini-computers, you have no excuse to enjoy playing videogames whenever wherever.

One of the top developers of games for mobile phones is Digital Chocolate, a Californian based company that bought the Finnish Sumea a few years ago. Behind such a sweet name, it is hidden one little colossus of the Finnish videogames scene, with headquarters at Ruoholahti in Helsinki, few steps away from the Old Factory Cable. The atmosphere there is all what you could expect, posters hanging on every wall, a relaxing room where to play “Guitar Hero”, coffee machines prominently placed here and there, and a youthful and healthy international environment. In fact, game industry is one of the most open-minded to hire foreign workers in Finland. Arja Martikainen explains a bit more about the company´s features: “Digital Chocolate has a portfolio of approximately 120 titles. Each month the studios are producing approximately four completely new title or sequel versions of an old title and at the moment there are 23 nationalities working at the Helsinki office.

Official working languages are usually both Finnish and English, or even only English; as well, localization of videogames in the most important targeted languages for release takes place inside the Finnish office, reducing outsourcing expenses and turning gaming industry into a very international environment where foreign and native brains can exchange ideas and work in harmony on the pursue of common goals.

Although many of the most important developers are located in the big capital area of Finland, some other cities have also an important role in the native game industry, especially the ones that count with universities, an excellent source to feed the firms with new young talented employees. For example, in the heart of Tampere you can find the main and trendily decorated office of Universomo, another developer for mobile phones that is living a golden era after its acquisition by the American giant THQ Wireless. This subsidiary relation has opened the doors to mainstream Hollywood adaptations into mobile phone games with titles such as 300 or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Online fun

Another big success in the recent history of Finnish gaming and entertainment is the one achieved by Sulake Corporation Inc, founded by Aapo Kyrölä and Sampo Karjalainen, and well known overall due to “Habbo Hotel”, a virtual world and online community that instantly gained the hearts of the young users, with more than 100 million registered since their creation in 2000 and 10 million unique visitors every month.

Finlandvideogames

Following the trend, another virtual community that is gaining popularity step by step is XIHA Life; co-founded by Jani Penttinen, former game developer for the American giant Electronic Arts, together with his Chinese wife.  XIHA offers the chance to meet people from all over the world and much more; users can upload unlimited amount of pictures, discover new music, and of course games are an important part of the fun; as Jani explains: “In fact the idea came mostly from my wife, Wen. The biggest reason for starting XIHA Life was the fact that we had a multilingual circle of friends where people were speaking Chinese, English and even Finnish, but not everyone could communicate with each other. I worked in Las Vegas for Westwood Studios for a few years, until EA closed the studio. After that I still continued to work as a consultant for EA for many of their top projects, while working on my own casual games company, Jollygood Games. I have good connections to the casual games industry from those days, and for that reason games are indeed the main source of income for XIHA”.

Finnish game industry’s key to success has also something to do with the economical support of the government, making things easier when affording the cost of the projects. Opposite to other European countries, Finnish public institutions strongly support the native game industry. Funding per capita in 2007 was 1.20 EUR in Finland, sixty times higher than the average in other EU countries that was just 0.02 EUR. Finnish government has learnt well the lesson, giving value to the expertise of their native companies and realizing that videogames are just much more than a thing to play with.

Alan Wake Videogame Trailer

Categories
Cinema DVD

Smart People

{mosimage}Dennis Quaid is a University professor with a mess of a life, though brilliant, unable to connect with the students, and unable to communicate with his family.

 

Smart acting for a smart movie. I had no idea about what I could expect with this one, and I had a good time watching it. The strongest point is the acting of the main cast: we have a re-born Dennis Quaid better than ever as a grumpy University professor stuck in the past after widowing; we even have a decent Sarah Jessica Parker as a physician who will bring some light into Professor Wherterhold´s life, but overall we have a collection of great scenes by Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church; their twisted relation and their sharp and sarcastic comments are kind of the best of the whole movie.

 

Digging up the family relations of a family full of talented members, director Noam Murro makes a very decent debut with a story that, although a bit predictable at some moments, will leave a good taste in your mouth.

 

Rating 4/5

 

{mosimage}The best: Page and Haden Church getting drunk together at a bar

 

The worst: Ashton Homes character is wasted and could have added much more to the movie.

 

The detail: The character of Ellen Page is 17 in the film. Although looking pretty young, her real age is almost 22.

Categories
Cinema DVD

Tropa de Elite

{mosimage}After the success of City of God, it is again time to discover the intrinsic situation in the favelas of Brazil

  

I certainly loved City of God and I was again able to enjoy a good piece of cinema with this movie directed by Jose Padilha.

 

Shot in Rio de Janeiro, Tropa de Elite portrays very well the real situation suffered in any favela of Brazil day after day. The differences between the educated class and the poor class, the corruption in the police department led by the low wages, and the silliness of responding violence with more violence by BOPE, the elite police group depicted here.

 

Wagner Moura is just simply superb as Captain Nascimento, he is able to build up a really plausible character, strong, fierce but weak and tormented at the same time. But the rest of the cast does not disappoint either. The script is intelligent, the rhythm keeps on going, the production is clever and the feeling of realism is always present.

 

A very entertaining movie with also a good deal of stuff to analyze for the viewers about morality and discrimination of social classes. Let’s hope that in the future Brazil continues giving us excellent movies, but with a more positive message extrapolated to a change in the harsh reality suffered there.

 

Rating 5/5

 

{mosimage}The best: Wagner Moura as Captain Nascimento gives an astonishing performance.

 

The worst: that sadly, most of what is portrayed in the movie really happens in the streets of Brazil every day.

 

The detail: Many pirate copies of the movie were leaked before its theatrical release, even though, it was the most watched Brazilian movie during the last year.

Categories
Cinema DVD

Just Buried

{mosimage}A dark comedy full of corpses, lust, jealousy and tones of humor! Follow Oliver in his new bussiness with the dead ones.

 

 

I had read some not so positive reviews before watching this DVD, so actually my expectations were gladly more than fulfilled at the end of the movie. Maybe Just Buried does not have the more original plot you can find in a comedy, but the movie gets increasing in quality the more you watch it, mainly due to the good chemistry and performances of the main characters, Rose Byrne as the lascivious and greedy Roberta and Jay Baruchel as the timid Oliver.

 

The location of the small community where the story takes place is perfectly suitable, the (non always so) accidental murderers  are plausible, and the evolution of Oliver’s character is really funny and evolves the whole essence of the movie, Maybe the end happens to be a bit too “in a rush” in comparison with the general rhythm of the film, but the final twist is certainly a good one, and you will feel like having been entertained when you reach the final credits, something that not all the comedies happen to achieve nowadays.

 

Rating 3/5

 

{mosimage}The best: It gets better after the first half an hour

 

The worst: not apt for people who cannot stand corpses

 

The detail: it has a strong inspiration from the movie Comedy of Terrors, where the main plot is basically the same.

Categories
Albums Music

Pintandwefall – Hong Kong, Baby

{mosimage}The follow up album to Wow, what was that, baby? just hit the streets the 21st of January

 

The followers of these young four energetic girls have not had to wait for long, after their debut work in 2007, for the release of the second studio album. The girls from Helsinki offer a collection of 11 tracks full of mischief, light lyrics, fun and garage rock riffs. The beginning of the album caught me a bit cold, but soon the music warmed me up with the second splendid Beef Rice or the enjoyable Angus.

 

Pintandwefall brings you all what you can expect from a young band, some fun and tracks that can be easily listened at whatever party with your friends. For those who are expecting a deeper and more philosophical work here, this is probably not your album.

 

Not a bad effort, but I would like to see how their style develops in a few years when the label of “young promising female rock band” does not work the same to attract listeners.

 

Rating 3/5.

Categories
Cinema DVD

Tropic Thunder

{mosimage}One of the funniest army squads you have ever seen in front of the screen is going to learn a couple of things about war and the jungle.

 

Tropic Thunder is an intelligent comedy. It has a great cast full of stars that can also superbly act, like Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. or Tom Cruise, although I feel that Nick Nolte and Jack Black are a bit wasted and could have offered much more to the spectators. But the main idea of making fun of the cinema industry, coming from a bunch of guys who are some of the most powerful cinema industry characters nowadays, is certainly refreshing.

 

The plot is good, and it will entertain you, but maybe the second time you watch it, you will not find it as funny as the first one. All in all, it counts with some glorious moments like the fake sketches to introduce every actor at the beginning, the dialectic confrontation between Stiller and Downey Jr. or the exhilarating Tom Cruise, far from his usual image of perfect “super-hero”.

 

Rating 3/5.

 

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The best: Tom Cruise as Hollywood producer with no scruples and Robert Downey Jr. taking the acting method too far. And the fake trailer with Tobey Maguire “Devil’s alley”.

 

The worst: Killing a cute panda is not funny.

 

The detail: “Simple Jack” character and the discussions in the film about acting as a total “retard” drew some big polemic with criticism by different associations.