My Review: Midnight in Paris (9/10)

¨That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me.¨

Woody Allen has directed more than 40 films in over four decades and I can honestly say that his last film is one of my favorites. If you think otherwise then you are just probably living in nostalgia and trying to remember the past as being much better than the present. Like Micheal Sheen`s character would say: ¨Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present…the name for this denial is Golden Age thinking – the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in.¨ Woody Allen has directed numerous great films and this is one of them that will be remembered nostalgically in years to come. It is not a romantic film as we are used to seeing, it is more of a nostalgic film; the true romance isn`t between Wilson and McAdams, but between Wilson and Paris, between Wilson and art. The romance is in the city, in the art, in the past. The central theme of this film is clear: nostalgia. Woody Allen manages to deal with these issues in a very comedic way and the dialogue and story is just great. Midnight in Paris is a very funny and nostalgic film. The city of Paris may have never looked as great as it does in this movie. The characters are memorable and it is interesting how Allen intertwines the present with the past and makes fun of some of the stereotypes these artists have. I had a great time with Midnight in Paris; Woody Allen has done it again!

Gil (Owen Wilson) and Inez (Rachel McAdams) are an American engaged couple who are visiting Paris with Inez`s parents, John (Kurt Fuller) and Helen (Mimi Kennedy). Gil instantly falls in love with the city and the rich story it has to tell, while Inez on the other hand doesn’t like Paris that much. Gil insists they should move to Paris once they get married, but Inez would rather stay in Beverly Hills where Gil has had success writing scripts for Hollywood films. Gil is unhappy with his Hollywood life and has decided to try his luck on writing a novel. Inez insists he should stick to what he does best. In Paris, Inez runs into some friends: Paul (Michael Sheen) and Carol (Nina Arianda). Paul is a very pedantic sort of guy who always has an opinion on everything and is showing off his great knowledge. Gil can`t stand him, but Inez insists on hanging out with him and his wife Carol, and asks Paul to critique Gil`s novel for him. One night the couples decide to go out and dance, but Gil says he`s too tired and decides to head back to the hotel on his own. While wondering the streets of Paris the clock strikes midnight and a group of French partygoers invite Gil to a party. In this party, Gil runs into Zelda (Alison Pill) and Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), and Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll). Gil realizes that somehow he has travelled to 1920 and is meeting all these artists who he`s admired all his life; he`s in the decade he considers as being the Golden Age. Ernest tells Gil that he can get Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) to proofread his novel for him; but when Gil goes to get his novel he is back in 2010. Gil realizes that he can only travel back in time when the clock strikes midnight, so the adventure begins every night where he meets interesting people like Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo) and his mistress Adriana (Marion Cotillard) who he falls for, and other great artists such as Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody) and Luis Buñuel (Adrien de Van), among others.

The true heart of the film relies on Owen Wilson`s performance. He is great in this movie and reminded me a lot of the younger Woody Allen who used to star in his own movies. The funniest moments of the film have to do with these stereotypes that these great artists of the past have been given. Adrien Brody is great as Salvador Dali, and the rhinoceros scene is extremely funny; Corey Stoll is equally great playing the courageous Ernest Hemingway. His dialogue with Wilson`s character about love and death is powerful and funny at the same time. Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson also had great chemistry together and it was fun to watch them on screen. McAdams is one of my favorite actresses, and this time she plays sort of the villain, instead of the sweet role she is used to playing. This is a much different role from the one Wilson and McAdams played in Wedding Crashers. Midnight in Paris is just a terrific movie, with a lot of heart, and Woody Allen proves once again that he is a great director and writer. I absolutely recommend this movie as one of the best the year has had to offer.

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My Review: Splice (3/10)

¨Science's Newest Miracle ... Is A Mistake¨

I really wanted to like this movie more than what I did because it began with such promise and the concept was very interesting, but as the film developed it just got predictable and the ending could be seen coming miles away. I was disappointed at how this sci-fi film became so predictable after the first half. At first it seems to be a film paying tribute to ¨The Bride of Frankenstein¨ with a very similar premise, but more believable now considering the modern scientific advancements in genetics to create a clone combining animal and human DNA. Even the main characters names, Colin and Elsa, were chosen to honor the actors who played Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and the bride (Elsa Lanchester). I wasn`t too happy about Splice and can`t compare it to that classic because it just doesn`t resolve the way an original sci-fi film should. Splice seemed to take all the modern day conventions of movies near the end and lose all its originality in the process. Director Vincenzo Natali, mostly known for his 1997 film Cube, has an interesting idea but can`t find a decent way to resolve the movie. He wrote the screenplay along with Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor and at first they focused on the ethical dilemma of cloning this being, the psychological elements of parenthood and family, but later focused more on Colin and Elsa then on their creation itself. I really hated the ending and the movie felt so long even though it only lasts an hour and forty minutes. I was disappointed with Splice.

Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) works as a scientist in N.E.R.D., a corporation that specializes in genetic research, along with his partner Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley). They work in a genetic lab where they splice several animal genes in order to create a protein that can be sold in the market. The experiment goes well so Clive and Elsa want to further their research, but the leaders at NERD want them to stick to this experiment and sell the protein because they can`t have any more expenses. Elsa ignores her bosses and along with Clive continue to experiment on several animal genes. They add a human gene as well in order to speed up the process and the result is a new living organism that develops at an amazing rate. At first Clive wants to destroy the creature, but Elsa protects it and convinces him to let it grow since it will die soon anyway because of the speed with which it develops. The creature takes the shape of a little girl mixed with some animal parts, and Elsa treats her as a kid more than an actual experiment and even names her Dren (Nerd spelled backwards). As she grows, Elsa and Clive have to take her to a barn where they keep her locked out from the world. Dren (Delphine Chaneac) has human needs, such as need for affection, love and being cared for, but at the same time she has some violent reactions and she gets harder to control. Clive and Elsa will soon discover that it wasn`t right for them to mess with mother nature.

There are some interesting elements that Vicenzo plays along with here, such is the case with how life changes with parenting. First Dren finds love and nurturing from her mother, but as she grows older she becomes more fond of her father, but the film decides to abandon these psychological and moral issues and tries to have a more Hollywood friendly ending. Don`t go into Splice expecting a Horror film, because it doesn`t have any scares, the central theme of the film is this sci-fi and psychological study. Delphine Chaneac does a decent job playing this creature, but the rest of the cast I wasn`t too excited about. Adrien Brody is far from his Pianist days and Sarah Polley was very weak as well. Splice had tremendous potential, but it really lost my interest and it is not a film I would want to watch ever again. I can see how many critics enjoyed this film because it pays tribute to some classic Lynch (Eraserhead), Polanski (Rosemary`s Baby) and Cronenberg (The Fly) films. The film actually focused more on Elsa, then on Dren and I think we all wished it developed Dren`s character a little more instead of Elsa. Anyways this is a film I won`t be recommending or ever watching again for that matter despite the decent reviews it has been given from the critics.

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My Review: Predators (6/10)

¨They can hear you. Smell you. They see you.¨

One of the reasons Predators stands out from it`s predecessors is because Robert Rodriguez was behind this project. His studio, Troublemaker Films, produced this movie in order for him to have controlling rights over it. His first decision was to sign Nimrod Antal as the director. Antal had directed Vacancy, Armored, and the movie that opened the doors for him in Hollywood: Hungarian film Control. Armored was a huge disapointment for me last year and a movie I really disliked, but Predators was an improvement considering I went into it with very low expectations. Predators is much better than the AVP sequels or even the second predator film and it does the original 1987 movie justice. Of course it is not as good as the original movie because, well that one was original and we had never seen the predators before, but now we have been bombarded with them in four other movies and finally in this sequel the suspense is back and so is the fear of the unseen. The movie builds off very nicely from the begginning introducing each character and setting the mood of the film. The location chosen for filming was excellent and contributed to set the atmosphere. The screenplay for this movie was written by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch, but it was one of the weakest things about this movie which was full of cheesy dialogs and copied phrases from the original.

The movie begins with Royce (Adrien Brody) falling from the sky into a jungle. His parachute opens up just in time, but he can`t quite remember how he got to this place. He runs into another man who seems to have got there in the same conditions, Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), a member of a Mexican drug cartel. All of a sudden they begin to be shot at by a Russian Sptesnaz soldier named Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), but Royce evades him and ends up pointing a gun at his face and letting him know that they are not the enemy. The three men run into an Israeli sniper named Isabelle (Alice Braga) who claims she has never been in a jungle like this one. They have all been parachuted from the sky and the last thing they remember is seeing a white light and then waking falling in the air into this mysterious place. Isabelle claims to have seen more parachutes fall near her so they continue to search for answers and run into two men fighting: Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a revolutionary african fighter, and Stans (Walton Goggins), an inmate who was going to be sentenced to death in two days and a former FBI most wanted criminal. The six run into a Predator camp where they find all sort of dead body`s which are kept as trophies and here they run into Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien) a Yakuza enforcer, and Edwin (Topher Grace), a doctor and the only one who doesn`t seem to fit the profile of the group. They soon discover that they`re not on their planet and that they have been brought here as game for hunters.

The major difference this film has with the original is that no Arnold Schwarzenegger look a like is cast. Instead, Oscar award winner Adrien Brody was chosen for the lead and he did a pretty good job. Alicia Braga is also good in this film and is perhaps the most likeable character. She makes a reference to the 87 movie mentioning how an elite military group was killed in the jungles of Guatemala by a creature similar to this. My favorite character however was the quiet and reserved Hanzo. The first half of this movie was excellent and did a great job of creating suspense, but the last half really let me down once Laurence Fishburne`s character came into play. I really thought that his appearance was going to improve the movie, but the screenwriters really messed up from this point on. Once the predators are no longer hidden the movie losses that mystery, although the action is pretty entertaining. The major problem I found with the second part of the movie however was that several of the characters changed personalities from one moment to the next only to give the film a more dramatic effect. The first part of the film is worth 4 stars, while the second only 2 out of 5. Predators is a far better sequel than the other movies and can be enjoyed if taken lightly.