Update

I haven't updated this blog for a long time it seems. Its mainly due to me being burnt out because of the film festival, going to a lot of unnecessary job related things that have nothing to do with me, and just being lazy.

I'm not going to write anything on the following films. I'm just going to write the title and what I gave them. This is mainly due to me not really wanting to write much about movies right now since I'm in the middle of writing a huge write up for my job.

So, here are the films that I have seen from the past 3 or so weeks . I might do a full write up on them later on, but for now I am just not feeling it.

Chopper (2000, Andrew Dominik) - B+
3:10 to Yuma (2007, James Mangold) - A
Monster Man (2003, Michael Davis) - ahahahahahahahaha
The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Wes Anderson) - A-
Lust, Caution (2007, Ang Lee) - A
Night of the Comet (1984, Thom Eberhardt) - B
Ills aka Them (2006, David Moreau & Xavier Pauld) - B+
The Odd Couple (1968, Gene Saks) - A

Another Longer Day..only just a lot longer.

Im not going to write too much. I will just use this as logline and write a little bit since I am tired and I am too busy with In Rainbows at the moment.

Well, first of all, I arrived to the festival today kind of early since I was expecting to see my most anticipated film of the festival today (La Antena aka The Aerial). I would only end up being disappointed and kind of pissed because they decided to cancel the screening at the last moment (same thing happened yesterday with this film).

So...I could either wait 3 hours to see the next film in the festival or I could find another film to check out instead. I went with the later choice and ended up with a last minute ticket to The Darjiling Limited (Im not going to bother looking on how you spell it right now).

I went into the film not expecting too much. I am a gigantic fan of Wes Anderson but this one had me a little bit worried from the moment it was announced and suddenly came out.

I was very pleased to see Wes Anderson pull a fast one on me and I got one of the best films of the year so far from it. It really is one of the best films from Anderson and shows a completely different side to him and the stories that he can tell. I will be writing a lot more about this one soon but for the time being I will just say that I loved it and that I know that it will only get better with repeat viewings. Thank you Wes Anderson for still being one of the best filmmakers out there. A-

I'm taking too long. I'm just gonna write down the films I saw today.

Retrospective

Vamonos Con Pancho Villa (Mexico, 1935, Fernando de Fuentes) Let’s go with Pancho Villa! is the disenchanting story about the Mexican revolution and a group of ranchers who due to their courage earned the nickname of “los leones de San Pablo” (the Lions of St. Peter). C

Documentaries

Special Circumstances (USA/Chile, ) Special Circumstances follows Chilean exile Héctor Salgado as he returns to Chile from the US to seek and confront the men who imprisoned and tortured him, and killed his friends after the coup of 1973. B+ (On a sidenote: I was really happy to hear that this film got picked up by PBS and that it has been picked up for other festivals as well. It will be shown sometime next year on TV.)

Madres aka Mothers (Argentina, Eduardo Felix Walger) The story of 16 mothers from the group “Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora” (Plaza de Mayo´s Mothers, founding branch) Only 4 mothers from the original group, formed in 1977, were interviewed. This documentary shows the struggle to rescue their children’s memories and uncertainty by demanding answers from the government that made over 2,000 people disappear in the late 70's. A

Feature Films

Una Novia Errante aka A Wandering Bride (Argentina, Ana Katz) Ines and her boyfriend have an agonistic argument while traveling on a long-distance bus. They are going to “Mar de las Pampas” out of season, a holiday resort where they have planned to spend a short holiday. The bus stops. Ines gets off the bus, realizing that her boyfriend has not followed her. Ines wanders through the woods, learns archery and meets kind strangers that become friends. B+

Thats it for now. Tomorrow schedule will be a lot easier and I hope that it will deliver some other great films.

Also...In Rainbows is damn good. Thank you Radiohead for being the best band out there.

The First of Many Long Days to Come

To anyone that doesnt know...this week is my first week covering a film festival as a film journalist. Dont expect reviews for any of the big indie/festival favs since this whole film festival is only focused on films from latin countries or at least films that deal with latin culture.

I will be doing full in detail write ups and some other stuff as well, but for the time being, I am just going to use this post as a log of the films that I saw today. I'm doing it this way because that it way it wont be too hard tracking them all down next week when I do my write ups for each of them.

Plus, it's just impossible to write or do anything because I have no free time at all because of this festival. I am literally watching movies from 12 pm to 1 am for this whole week.

Today however was a long boring day because the first half of the festival was canceled due to some scheduling problems.

Anyways.... here is the log for what I saw today....and I might as well just give them a quick grade....and I might as well write a very,very,very,very brief plot outline for each of them that way I don't get any of them mixed up.

Monday - 10/8

South American Shorts

• Um Ramu (Brazil, Juliana Rojas & Marco Dutra, 15 min.) A woman notices a small green leaf growing out of her arm. B-
• La Escala Benzer (Argentina, Martin Deus, 21 min.) -A man who works testing mints by kissing woman accidently has one of his testing subjects fall in love with him. B
• Catalina (United States, James Katz, 30 min.) - A man falls in love with his maid. He also has a lot of nightmares. Really bad. F
• Juanito Bajo el Naranjo (Columbia, Juan Carlos Villamizer, 9 min.) - A little kid has an orange tree grow out of his head after lying to his parents about eating an orange. D

Feature Films

Caixa Dois aka Money on the Side (Brazil, Bruno Barreto) - A devious businessman deposits some money in his secretary's (and lover) account. But a typing mistake sends the money to an honest woman's account, whose husband had just been fired. B

El Corazon de la Tierra aka The Heart of the Land (Spain/Portugal/UK, Antonio Cuadri) - Tensions mount in an Andalusia mining town between local Spanish workers and their British employers. C-

Thats it for now. Its 3 am, Im dead tired, and I have to be up in a couple of hours. Hopefully tomorrows schedule (which looks a lot better than todays) will have more great films than todays did. Plus, tomorrow will be a full 12 hour day of films with no last minute cancellations (I hope).