UP (Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, 2009)

Animated movies not necessarily must be seen by children. In fact, this kind of films may be quite emotive and sometimes not really understodd by kids as an adult actually could do.
Up, by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, is a really sad but interesting and beautiful story about two people who meet when they are children and pass the rest of their lives together, trying (more or less) to complete their dreams.



You, I, everybody has their own intentions and aims in life and their own dreams, which, when people are young and have all their life to enjoy it, usually think will be perfectly achieved. But, when we eventually arrive to the end of our days we will probably realize that those dreams we had when we were younger have become just dreams and have not been accomplished. Nevertheless, life is a great adventure (the single one we will really enjoy) where we live new experiences almost everyday so, I do not think it is necessary to create a concrete purpose to fulfill in our lives but to be happy.
Ellie and Carl achieve so. Hence, I think their purpose in life have been accomplished. However, for Carl it is not enough and in my opinion, what he makes is a very pretty gesture which demosntrate how much he is/was in love with his beloved Ellie.

Nice movie and touching as well. I recommend you to see it. In 'Comentario de Textos Audiovisuales en Lengua Inglesa II' teachers showed me the first minutes of the movie which now I am going to show you (more or less)just for you to know whether you would like to watch it or not.
Enjoy it :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_popout&v=UHMD_EqM61I

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER (Marc Webb, 2009)

"This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story."

People are very different between each other. There are people who want to fall in love and live with this person for ever whereas there are people who just want to have experiences without being related to someone all their lives. The problem starts when these two kind of people meet each other and start a relationship. Who is gonna change? Who is gonna lose? Who is gonna achieve its goal: the one who wants to share its life with this person for ever or the one who does not?



She is Summer (Zooey Deschanel), a girl who does not want problems in her life. She thinks life is difficult enough to make it even more difficult falling in love with someone. She thinks love does not exist and she also thinks that she will never be in love with anybody. Destiny is not part of the world for her, and the only thing she wants is to be happy and to make whatever she needs and desires.



This is Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a boy who really believes in destiny and love. He has always been quite sad because he's never found a girl who loves him. When Summer appears everything changes. He tries to deny his feelings but it is impossible. He is totally in love with her.

Is not this really a love story? I do not think so, I actually think this is a fantastic love story different from others. But it is not happy at all. I wonder how I would behave if I were Tom... and I feel quite stressed.
In my opinion Tom is not the only who is in love. He is the one who accepts the reality, although he also creates false expectations which does not help him at all. Anyway, I think Summer, more than Tom or less, has felt love. But all my theories are broken at the end of this romantic but non-romantic movie where some hard words that Sum says sum up what this story has been for Sum. Here I leave you the video which you can watch or not, depending on whether you are going to see the movie or not:



But at the end, not everything is sad; there are also new beginnings, new opportunities, new loves. And the destiny keeps working, as Tom believed.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (Darren Aronotsky, 2000)

... Maybe this is the best way for me to describe my feelings after watching this touching and painful movie. [...]
Because I am still in shock and I don't think I can find the words to define them and definitly, if I had to express my feelings in just one word, it would be: shock.

Drugs can have very hard consequences so we should be careful. However, there are people who everyday take drugs, maybe because they are absolutely obsessed with them, maybe because they don't know. But finally, the result is always the same: problems, more problems and death; and this movie is a clear example of this.

Illness



Dependence



Madness



Death...
Great use of lights and shadows, wonderful employ of make-up and clothes and excellent editing strategies. In general, great movie but quite hard. Anyway, I recommend you to see it because it will probably leave you without words... And that's fantastic if we talk about cinema.

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY (Dennis Dugan, 2007)

What would you do just with the purpose of helping a friend?



What this movie demonstrates is that good friends really exist and may make people think about whether they would do for their friends and what would not. In addition, it may make people think in whay their friends would be capable to do for them.
In my opinion, one of the best things a person might find in the life is the security of having someone next to you that would protect, fight and do whatever for you. That is why I think the friendship is not something important in life but a really necessity for people, and this movie is a sample of this because, although it is a comedy, it also has a strong sentimental component. Not everybody would be determined to pretend homosexuality and marry you just for you to be able to keep your children with you. This is something really beautiful and definitely moving.

BABEL (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006)

How to define this movie? As a weird one, alien, interesting, attractive... It presents different stories of very different people who in fact have different nationalities and languages or even ways of comunication, one of the girls is actually deaf and mute. All of these people are interconnected for one or another reason but at the same time there is a big distance between them, which is the language.

The title Babel is really well selected in my opinion because this movie deals, in a way, with the communication between people of different languages as well as the things people from different races can have in common or in contrast.

I have not found this movie especially easy to understand because it mixs several stories which at the end are parts of the same story but at the beginning is not easy to link the different cuts between one story and the other. Anyway, I consider this movie quite interesting because it shows how difficult the life can be for people and it does not matter whether these people are rich, poor, American, Arabe or Mexican, deaf, mute, both or none.

Here I leave you the trailer for you to enjoy it:

:)

Hello everybody!

I apology for the time I have not visited this web page but I have been quite busy with my exams and assignments so I have not found the time for watching movies and share them with you. Very soon I will re-start with my negative and positive recommendations and I hope you'll like them.

See you very soon :)

MYSTIC RIVER (Clint Eastwood, 2003)

When we lose someone we really love and need in our lives we do not pay attention to reasons, we just desire the guilt to suffer at least the same as you, or the same as tour relative did. However, anything will not give you back this person; neither the prison nor the assassin death.



When we are victims, when children, of any kind of abuse or something, we are likely to commit this kind of things as well when we have grown up. However, as we have been so hurt, we will probably try to avoid others to suffer the same pain. But ours is for life, and if anybody believes us, what can we do? What do we have?



Other people are more fortunate. There are people in the world who fight so others can be quietly and in peace. Their decision for becoming this help for society may have some special reasons or not but, being a good and a noble man has, sooner or later, its advantages.



Excellent element of suspense which keeps the viewer wondering WHO. Those events happened off-screen are more important because they reveil the name of the assassin. Besides, the use of lights and shadows is greatly developed and contribute to the creation of expectancy over the spectator. In some way, it makes me remember Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008) in the excellent use of shadows in order to announce the spectator that something is wrong. Moreover, the use of an exact and similar scene in two occasions provokes a common knowledge that something wrong is going to happen in the sencond time.
-The First time that the car disappears throught the street Dave (Tim Robbins) is going to suffer abuses while the second time he is going to die.

In my opinion, everything is wonderfully linked and the movie is really well thought and represented. Furthermore, the job of actors is fantastic, especially that of Jemmi (Sean Penn).