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This is an interesting movie that explores that part of our lives that people call "coming of age". It centers on a boy called Charlie (Logan Lerman). He has recently become a freshman  and is feeling anxious because he would like to have friends but no one is interested in becoming Charlie's friend who in turn remains isolated and is being frequently bullied.  There is little happiness in Charlie's life. His best and only friend committed suicide the year before and the aunt he idolized died in a car accident on Christmas' Eve. Besides an unrevealed childhood trauma comes to haunt him whenever he is depressed. Charlie is going downwards in a spiral but then one day he meets and befriends a couple of senior students, Patrick (Ezra Miller) and his stepsister, Sam (Emma Watson).  Patrick has no inhibitions and nor does Sam and they are basically great people. They both get to like Charlie and introduce him to their circle of friends. Charlie finally has someb

After two Hangovers, what else can you do to improve? Really, very little. So then…well, no hangover this time. This seems to have been the approach that the producers and director of The Hangover tried to give this time to the film that completes the craziest but also funniest comedy trilogy ever. This is one of the few times when actually the formula that was used the first time does not lose its power and it actually gets better the second time and it even improves for a third. TH3 is different from the others not only because there  is no hangover situation in the entire film but because it's grittier and darker (at least three characters are shot and die instantly) and there is also a greater does of black humor such as in the scene where Alan (Zack Galifianakis) buys a giraffe and on his way home does not realize that he goes under a low bridge resulting in the giraffe being beheaded; then the head falls on someone's windshield making the driver freak out and ther

This is one movie where everything, every other element, is second to one of them, in this case the visual effects. This is also one movie about a painting where the painting itself is the main protagonist.  It was at some point in 1564 that Flemish artist, Pieter Bruegel The Elder (Rutget Hauer) finished his masterpiece called The Procession to the Calvary . The movie The Mill and The Cross (2011) refers to that event showing the people he used as inspiration for the more than five hundred characters depicted in his painting where a mill represents Heaven and the miller is God. Hauer does not make much of an effort becoming Bruegel whom he seems to have understood perfectly and there is also Michael York as the man who commissioned Bruegel to create such work and also Charlotte Rampling as Bruegel's wife. I don't know much about the director, Lech Majewski, but you can see his hand through the entire work which it is obvious came to be thanks to a personal vision, probabl

I have seen really many but movies but this one rannks among the worst. First of all, it goes for a plot that has been used countless times before. Second the story is really confusing.  Is this the same Richard, the Lionheart) that fought in the Cruzades and is mentioned in the Robin Hood tale? What is the purpose of some characters? There is a Celtic figure and a villain wwho is the bad guy, and is Roman... or not.  Then thsi "predestination" treatment to the figure of Richard who was not truly the magnanimous figure that movies depict and not was he such a brave man (in fact he was captured by the Muslim and held prisoner before a ransom was paid). The visual effects are also a no-no. Sometimes the environment in the movie changes color, perhaps to accompany the sequence of events more closely, but does it really accomplish it? I would say definitely no. Do the music and other sound effects help? Not really and you would expect at least something better since t

Ever wondered what happens after the "And they lived Happily Ever After" ending of most fairy tales? Well, it seems that Hollywood producers, always on the look for material to make movies, have as of late found in fairy tales what they were looking for. Proof of that are the recent reinterpretations of  Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood with a Cinderella film announced for 2014.  This year we had the rebellious kids, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Artenton) who after defeating the Witch of the house made of candies and cake have grown to become...witch hunters!  I know it sounds predictable but the whole story is very predictable with little or no explanation given about some points such as how these siblings have become so exceptionally skilled at fighting or where they got that state-of-the art weaponry they use to hunt witches. Instead we find them at a point where they are already well-known in their "profession" which is rescue those chi

If there is one thing to say about this movie that would be the fact that is a Pedro Almodóvar movie, and that should be enough. Still this is a movie that stands out for many other reasons than that. The first is that is an intelligent movie, not told in your regular linear style. At the beginning we see this patient of sorts named Vera (Elena Anaya) completely isolated in a room of a private clinic. All her needs as food or drinks being met by an employee of the clinic, Marilia (Marissa Paredes) who constantly oversees what Vera does using cameras installed in her room. The clinic is owned by a doctor, Robert Legard (Antonio Banderas). Legard has had a tough life having lost his wife and his daughter in unusual circumstances. His wife for instance suffered a car accident and almost died having suffered burns that compromised all of her body. Legard saved her life and during a long time tried to restore her damaged skin until the day she accidentally saw herself in the crystal

I love the Star Trek universe. I think it is one of the greatest efforts to bring a comprehensive portrait of what mankind can achieve if they do things right because in this future reality man is still on Earth but has managed to make contact with other races and has been able to organize a community of planets and diverse races into an entity called the United Federation of Planets. There is no longer war or avarice, or hunger and poverty. Mankind looks at the stars and sees new places to explore, not to conquer. In order to do that it is that the starship Enterprise was created: to seek out new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. After several movies and five series, nothing was happening with this franchise. With a fanbase that has proved once and again to be the most faithful, you could have expected  some interest to revitalize it but it was until J.J. Abrams came and helmed a new project that the Enterprise would rise again. I must also

If you like Salma Hayek then you will like this movie. Frida is the story of an intellectual painter, a Mexican woman called Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) who was in many ways a revolutionary herself. Frida was a free spirit who liked to go against the conventionalisms of her time and society (the Mexico of the beginning of XX century) so she dressed up as a man, and danced with other women and had Communist ideas. Two events marked her life: a car accident that forever left her with consequences (walking problems, internal pain, constant medical supervision) and meeting Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist who is played by the always excellent Alfred Molina. Rivera was the man of her life, her husband, her best friend, her lover and her colleague. I must confess that I did not know much aout Kahlo before this movie and the little I knew was only a few references of her work I had when I last visited the States since she is known not only in Mexico but also in the south of the

DC Comics is a publishing company that mainly publishes comic books. Its parent company is the giant Time Warner. DC (short for DC Comics) is the house; so to speak, of characters such as Superman and Batman among many others.  As a subsidiary company of the Warner corporation DC also looks for ways to keep its properties visible, that is constantly in the minds of the public they usually aim at. As part of the aforementioned effort there is a branch of DC devoted only to produce films and TV series in the animated format. One of the earliest works they put out was Superman: Doomsday, the first in a long line of animated films that have had as main protagonists Superman or Batman (sometimes both) and ocassionally other DC characters. These films target a somewhat older audience than just kids though there are productions that mainly aim at young kids and children. Superman: Unbound tells us about the first confrontation between Brainiac and Superman. Brainiac is a superintellig

This is a film that follows the trend of telling the story from the perspective of a camera (or cellphone cameras). It is also a film that tries to answer the question of what really happens when someone (in this case a group of three late teens) acquire powers beyond human standards, the decisions they could really make and their motivations. It also offers insight on family matters and how what happens inside a family shapes forever the minds and spirits of children sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. Three seniors Andrew (Dane Dehaan), an impopular student, Matt (Alex Rusell), his cousin and Steve (Michael B. Jordan) acquire telekinetic powers from an unidentified object plus a special connection which is apparent when one of them overuses the power and the other two feel the surge causing to have nosebleeds. At first they just do not know what to do and keep it a secret but little by little the power grows stronger and they are even able to fly. The ecstasis they fe

Well, if it were not called Oblivion already then calling it True Alien Lies would not be such a bad title, not for this movie at least. The story begins in the year 2077 a future where mankind has mostly abandoned Earth and is moving to Titan, a moon around Jupiter. The reason is that our own Moon had been destroyed by an alien race called The Scavs (Scavengers). such event caused in response a series of catastrophes that decimated Earth poputation drastically. Later on the survivors faced the aliens who in great number descended on the surface. In a desperate attempt not to lose this war Earth remaining forces had fought back and used atomic weapons apparently ending the alien threat but at the cost of destroying most of the planet surface in the process. That had happened sixty years earlier. Now there was only an immense space station orbiting the Earth called the Tet. The station had as sole purpose to coordinate the final efforts to absorb the remaining resources that the p

Rurouni Kenshin is known as Samurai X in Latin America (or at least in Ecuador) and has garnered a respectable amount of fans eventhough Kenshin himself does not really fit the description of your average samurai. I have to confess I do not know much about what makes someone a samurai but Kenshin does not ever reers to himself as a samurai. He is a warrior who in the past was a perfect killing machine.  That is the irony that Kenshin represents: he was trained to kill yet he loves peace and despises killing people. If he did in the past it was only to make sure his country and his people could enter an age of order and peace which apparently happened. But peace and order are hard to gain and easy to lose. There are enemies constantly appearing, people who want go back to the previous system or just become the masters of the present one. Kenshin fights against these new enemies in his own way living in a peaceful village with new friends who are now his family and fighting when

For all those who cannot have enough Iron Man here is one of those Anime-styled productions that Marvel has been releasing in the last few years and that have also received great reviews for both the quality of animation and the story that aims at a somewhat older audience than your regular kid. This production is a follow to the twelve-episode story that finds Stark visiting Japan where he leads a project to help mankind with the help of his Japanese associates; but before he can finish it he faces the fiercest opposition of a criminal and powerful society called The Zodiac.  After his visit to Japan, Stark wants to send to space a satellite called Howard (like his father) that will help control crime all over the world. Supervising that everything is in order along his friend Jim Rhodes a.k.a. The War Machine the launch site of the satellite suffers a terrorist attack and a lot of innocents die. Even the War Machine is presumed dead and his body nowhere to be found after th

What a great movie this is. I saw it and truly before it began my expectations were many. One in particular was if IM3 would be capable to stand out beyond The Avengers. I was also curious about The Mandarin, a character that ever since the beginning, at least in the comics, was Iron Man’s nemesis. He was really powerful but also politically incorrect since it was Chinese and thus considered an expression of racial prejudice. How come were they using it now? Perhaps not the way many, me one of those, expected. In fact this is really not the Mandarin that should be and for those who expect the opposite seeing the truth behind him will be a bit of disappointment. I have to say that at first I felt that way but then it all made sense and for one reason only: this Iron Man is our Iron Man, one that is more realistic, more believable and much more in tune with the realities of our time. After all we cannot forget that having a genius businessman building a fighting techno-armor to defe

In a time when vampires and werewolves have turned into romantic icons it should come as no surprise that zombies can...feel love and also be loved back.  At least that is the premise of  Warm Bodies,  a 2013 film based on the novel by Isaac Marion. Apparently, the zombie state caused by the virus  is basically a new stage in life one that can allow human beings to endure beyond the traumatic event we call Death, but because it is a relatively new condition little is known about what to do to those who are infected with the virus and the only way to deal with a zombie is then to put a bullet in his or her head. The very few living humans have built a fortress and live in a city inside. They are heavily armed and always on the look to eliminate all zombies. One day, a girl called Julie (Teresa Palmer) accidentally meets and befriends a young zombie who calls himself R (Nicholas Hoult). This relationship triggers in R the transformation back to being human, a process that promptl

This is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk reimagined to make it a motion picture, with a lot more details than the original tale of course. Jack (Nicholas Hoult) is a young farmer who is down on his luck. One day a handful of magical beans come into his possesssion, but he doesn't know how to use them. At the same time the princess of the kingdom (Eleanor Tomlinson) takes pleasure in wandering away from the formalities of her position . During a rainy night she has no other choice but to seek refuge in Jack´s house. Both like each other and both know the old story of a legendary land of giants that can be accessed only thanks to the awesome appearance of a gigantic plant sprouted from  magical beans. Little does Jack realize that his beans are those beans mentioned in the legend and accidentally he has dropped one that soon,|thanks to the rain, begins growing in a way that cannot be stopped. Due to that extraordinary event Jack loses his house and the girl he feels in love

This is another one of those personal sports-centered movies where aging but experienced actors, such as Clint Eastwood, fit perfectly well. The story is about a baseball scout called Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood) who still has great skills to discover talent when he sees him and that is the problem: his eyesight is failing and he does not want anyone to know since he still canuse his other senses to help him out. Eventually his frind and boss (John Goodman) and his daughter, Mickey, (Amy Adams) find out about his problem so  Mickey decides to aid her father in his job and find a new baseball star together.  Ever since her mother´s death, Mickey has had a strained relationship with Gus because she felt he wanted her away from him. Still she loves her father and also loves baseball though she is pursuing a career as a lawyer. Gus has a secret that won´t reveal to his daughter until later on  in the movie. The experience of helping Gus will also help Mickey to put her own life in pe

This is a sequel to the 2009 film G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Some of the  actors returned but not all the characters did. It begins with Zartan (Arnold Vosloo)  who is now impersonating the president of the United States (Jonathan Pryce). In that position he first sends Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) to disguise as Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and kill the president of Pakistan. Then Zartan accusses the Joes to have an agenda of their own and sends a surprise attack on the G.I. Joes killing most of them including their commander, Duke (Channing Tatum). The only survivors, Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) plus Snake Eyes who has been joined by Jinx (Elodie Yung) decide to take revenge and for this they seek the help of the original Joe, Joseph Colton (Bruce Willis). In the meantime, Zartan manages to release Cobra Commander and with him they finish Zeus, a satellite system that is capable of destroying any point of the planet surface. Zeus is

I'm not a fan of Jack Black´s movies. There are better things to do in life than sitting down and watch one of his movies, but a couple of them are not so bad.  In 2001 there was this movie called Shallow Hal about an extremealy superficial person, Hal (Jack Black) and his friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander)  who spend their free time hitting on only pretty girls. One day Hal is hypnotized so he can see people's inner beauty (or ugliness). It is under this spell that he meets a very large girl called Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow). Hal sees her as a slim sexy girl because Rosemary is kind and generous by nature. They fall in love with each other but their romance will face serious jeopardy when Mauricio finds a way to undo Hal's spell and brings him back to his senses.  It is a comedy and it doesn't really go beyond that though it is true that it makes you laugh and that it delivers a timeless message: there is an inner beauty in each person and that is what counts. T

This is a nice family movie. It's not great but for those who want to see a film with no violence or sex, well... this is it. It is a 2012 Walt Disney production starred by Jennifer Garner (Cindy Green) and Joel Edgerton (Jim Green). In the movie they are a couple who has tried everything to have a child of their own and every attempt has been fruitless. who live in Stanleyville where they lead petty routinary lives. They do so much want to have a child that they write everything they wish for a  child in some papers and put them inside a box which in turn they bury in their front yard. Some time later their wish is magically (no explanation given) granted and a boy (Cameron Adams), a pre-teen, appears inside their house covered by mud. As they wash him they discover the boy is not entirely normal for he has a few leaves growing from his legs which cannot be cut off. The boy says his name is Timothy and calls Cindy his Mom, and Jim, his Dad. The boy is a unique and wonderful