Friday, November 20, 2015

In the beginning of time, humans been expose to the greatest inventions: the wheel, automobile, celluloid, ink and computer, there is always one person name as the inventor, but the people behind it were never included as the creators or responsible. Perhaps the miss conceptions of true genius lays in the fact that the creator not necessary is the one who have the skills to do it, is the vision to create it, what is recognize by the society.

In the film "Steve Jobs", director Danny Boyle ( Slummdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) presents a very egocentric and arrogant leader of the Apple corporation in 3 major landmarks of his career. The film build as a 3 acts introduce the major characters, develop around the keynotes when a new product is been introduce, but also set the foundation of Steve Jobs persona.

The first act begins with the challenges for Apple presenting the Macintosh computer in 1983. We see a young Steve Jobs (Michael Fasbender) full of arrogance, treating his engineers as puppets forcing them to work as hard as a can to make the computer smile. While all this is happening his marketing executive Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) is dealing the paternity dispute revealed in a Time Magazine, who brought Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterson) to the theater where the keynote is taking place so Steve can meet his allegedly daughter Lisa.

Danny Boyle presents this 3 long scenes with a outstanding film style showing the stages of every character. Jobs personalities develops with the success of Apple Macintosh, the failure of NeXT and the comeback with iMac.

Michael Fasbender is fascinating as Steve Jobs, you care for him for trying to be the father figure, but you also hate him, despise him for the person person that he was, with his colleagues, partners and his workers. But you also admire him for be the center of attention, the visionary who make Apple what it is, a true groundbreaking company that develops good looking products.

Ket Winslet is powerful as Joanna Hoffman, she is the voice of conscience for Steve Jobs. But the person who steal the scenes every time it appears is Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak. Besides of been a pain in the but to Jobs, he is also who is just fighting for the people who build, the Macintosh, the iMac, and other products who make Jobs the star of Apple.

Steve Jobs is a powerful film, that is considered more a failure than a success for Hollywood, but is a great example of how to make a biopic, without telling the whole story all over again.

Fade from black the film start with a legend, the true definition of Sicario.
latin term is a hitman, a person responsible killing by contract. But in Hebrew, Roman kill Zealots.

With this title we been presented a blue print of what about too see. FBI agents Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) and Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) raid the house of a suspected kidnappers. The team finds more than dozen of bodies hidden on the walls of the house.

After this operation Kate’s boos recommend her to Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) a CIA Special Activities Division to join the team. Matt is searching for a cartel boss who presumably was one of the responsible of the murders found by Kate and Reggie.

Kate character is a green agent who still learning the vicious cycle inside FBI and CIA. Throughout the film she start discovering the corruption, manipulation, abuse of power of this federals agencies, but she is unaware of who is the real enemy. Kate is a strong woman on the outside, vulnerable for been alone and also divorced, it’s also supporter of ethics and respect in the force, one of her biggest enemies in this war against corruption.

Arriving to el Paso, Texas in a orchestrated operation lead by Matt Graver, Kate meet with Alejandro Gallic (Benicio del Toro) an advisor who seems to have ties with enemy. Alejandro is very sketchy person, and Kate figure out the first time she see him.

Besides all this red flags Matt use it as his primary connection to get the cartel people capture.

Sicario is a thriller but also a great film about the hard reality of drug traffic in US borders. Masterfully directed by Denis Villeneuve (Enemy, Prisoners) the movie immerse you in a harsh terrain where only the strongest succeed. Villeneuve engage with the audience with a rollercoaster of emotions by manipulating the senses. Sicario have constant moments of silence, also supported by the impactful original score by Jóhann Jóhannsson and the intense sound crafted for this film. The visual style is borrowed from films by Steven Sodergber in Traffic, also Jonathan Demme in Silence of The Lambs. The intense and long aerial shots are powerful and serve as another character for the movie

After carefully you finish the film you came to the conclusion who is the enemy and who are the zealots. You care for Kate’s character but not so much for Matt and Alejandro. The true meaning of sicario is the search for fanatical and uncompromising pursuit of ideas, that could be religious or political, you just need to pick one.

Monday, November 9, 2015

The search for beauty or being recognize as the must beautiful is a social quest that every woman have. Sometimes can be with more intensity in countries devoted to make little girls transcend into beauty contestant.

In the USA are children beauty pageants, in latin america are group dedicated to literally sculpt women to perfection, in order to become potentially contestants beauty pageants

In the film “3 Beauties” - Tres Bellezas Director Carlos Caridad breaks the "status quo” with a dark comedy about a mom, her two daughters and son in the obsession about beauty, perfection and success. Perla (Diana Peñalver) is a ex beauty queen, her plan is make one of the her daughters a beauty queen as well.

Carolina (Fabiola Arace) is her favorite. This is very noticeable from the very beginning of the story. Mom wants Carolina to be the special one, the potential is Venezuela, but on the other side Estefanía is putted away as the less beautiful.

Perla’s son Salvador (Fabían Moreno) is probably the most important in the story, he is the man of the house, but thanks to this chaotic dramatic triangle of beauty queens he is none.

Carlos Caridad directs a story that connects the audience thanks to several cultural nuance of Venezuela, but also with very dry and smart humor, following the footsteps of films like Wild Tales, In Bruges, Bad Santa, Submarine and Art School Confidential. 3 Beauties appeal to this humor to show you how far a mother can go to fulfill her own dreams of to make one of her daughter a beauty contestant.

The film criticize the system of how beauty pageants works, Carlos Carded dare to compare it to an actual cult, but bringing the characters into actual cult when a sudden event in the story brings the family together The Universal Church - Stop Suffering.

The film is fun a pretty entertaining, and sometimes controversial.