The Orphanage

2007 horror drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A woman moves back to the orphanage she grew up in order to re-open the place. Her son starts talking and playing games with invisible people and then goes missing. Oh, snap!

This reminded me of The Others, probably because of the children and the ghosts. This is a genuinely creepy movie. Even the opening credits with this neat torn wallpaper effect are creepy. So are some creepy dolls. Sound effects and a really good use of quiet succeeded in making me feel uneasy. Now, I'm not sure if I would have felt that uneasy if I popped this in without knowing it was a horror movie. I just expected a dead orphan to pop out and giggle at me or something, but it's not that type of movie. This one gets under your skin. There are a few memorable scenes including one where the mother plays a game, shot with a lone camera that pans across a room several times, that make this almost special. It's an interesting little story with a poignant but maybe sappy ending, and with the manufactured creepiness, it's worth watching for fans of the psychological horror genre. Or for people who like orphans maybe. This is the second kind-of horror movie from Spain where one of the most memorable images involves a character in a shoddily-created creepy mask. Timecrimes is the other.

[Rec]

2007 found footage zombie movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A news reporter and cameraman doing a piece on the lives of firemen get trapped with a bunch of people in a quarantined apartment building. It's zombilarious!

First, there's nothing too intelligent or original about this. I want to get that out of the way right off the bat. Also, I want to throw my main gripe out there--the found footage realism is screwed up with this little what-where-they-thinking? camera trick in the middle of this. But if you're just wanting something scary in that things-jumping-out-and-scaring-you kind of way, this Blair-clone delivers pretty hard. Don't misunderstand. It's not The Blair Witch Project exactly. Here, the filmmakers don't depend solely on mood, ambiance, subtle creeps, and mere suggestions of the evil that is lurking about. No, with [Rec] (dumb title, by the way), you have a lot of the violence and mayhem take place right in front of the lone camera. I was impressed with the set-ups, almost a choreography, and the apartment building's winding stairwell and long hallways gave a lot of opportunities for some creative horror shots. The final scenes take place in a room packed with details. So there's creepiness in this movie, but there are also those Rarr! Creepy thing! scenes that made me pee a little bit. And there are a lot of those. If you're into that sort of thing, I'm sure you'll like this. That this found footage genre hasn't gotten old yet, at least for me, is pretty amazing. I think I like that this genre's got legs.

Planet 51

2009 pedestrian cartoon

Rating: 9/20 (Dylan: 6/20; Emma: 8/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: It's an alien invasion! Only instead of the little green guys invading our world, it's Earthlings doing the invading. American Chuck Baker, a less-than-heroic astronaut hero, comes in peace, but he isn't exactly given a welcoming reception and has to find a way to retrieve his confiscated space ship and escape the titular planet.

OK, I'm officially tired of these CGI things that try to appeal to both children and adults and end up failing to appeal to either. The forced pop culture references in this (Thanks, Shrek) are cringe worthy, and the characters are as flat or personality-free as characters can get. The aliens, not helped by the fact that they all looked the same (apologies if that sounds racist), were indistinguishable, and the 1950's Americana influence for the setting was an idea that probably worked on paper a lot better than it ended up on the screen. It didn't take very long at all for me to completely lose interest in everything that was going on here. But my biggest problem, something that bothered me on multiple levels--a penis joke. "That's a funny place for an antenna." C'mon, Ilion Animation Studios. That's not necessary and unfunny on any planet.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

1988 comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: An actress attempts to confront her actor boyfriend who has decided to leave her. She's got a suitcase full of his things and wants to talk to him before he leaves on a trip. His wife, his son, his son's girlfriend, the actresses friend who happens to be dating a terrorist, and the actor's new mistress all get involved. It's madness!

My favorite character in this is the blond mambo cab driver who has a mini-convenience store in his taxi. Like the rest of the movie, he's like a gaudy cartoon, his hair clashing with everything else on the screen. At one point, he's told to "follow that cab," and he replies, "I thought this only happened in the movies." His experience was just like mine. Most of what happens in this farcical black comedy would only happen in a movie. And there's not much you see in this film that looks like anything in real life. Almodovar uses color here as well as any director I've ever seen. In fact, this movie is really more about colors and shapes than it is about the characters and what they're doing. There are so many scenes that showcase Almodovar's visual creativity, his unique vision. The wife's profile as she rides on a motorcycle. Projected light cutting the screen in half horizontally. Two policemen simultaneous sipping gazpacho. A shot of a character in a telephone booth with another character obliviously storming past while, in the background, a third character ominously approaches. And my favorite--the shot of the mambo cab driver crying. As my regular four-and-a-half readers know, I'm a sucker for visuals, and this is a feast for the eyes from beginning to end. The story started difficult and at first, I thought I was going to have difficulties connecting with so many women characters, but their story bounces around wonderfully and is consistently surprising and very very funny.

Timecrimes

2007 Spanish time travel movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Hector, a really dumb middle-aged gentleman, doesn't seem to do much. He makes a mess in his driveway, tries to take a nap, and lounges in a lawn chair in his backyard. It's while engaging in the latter that he spots a woman stripping in the woods. After his wife takes off, he decides to investigate further. When he finds her, a man with pink bandages attacks him with a pair of scissors and he flees, eventually arriving at some kind of research laboratory and getting in a time machine. Things get confusing.

This, an enjoyable if flawed puzzling mindbender here, one of those time travel yarns where the story loops on itself a few times, will likely be the best movie I see all year directed by a guy named Nacho. The main flaw is with our protagonist Hector. Very few decisions he makes in this story make sense. The movie sets up this paradox, fiddling with the old noggin, and is entertaining even when you know what's going to happen. There just has to be plot holes, but I don't want to think about it that closely. It's a concise and dense little psychological thriller, working almost as a modern sci-fi parable, but it doesn't have a lot of depth and has a maleficent punchline. Despite playing a dumb character, I thought Karra Elejalde did a good job with an at-times physical role, and I really like Barbara Goenaga as "La Chica en el Bosque" and wouldn't mind seeing her breasts in more movies. Nacho himself plays El Joven, but he probably should have found somebody else to take the part. I imagine somebody could watch this and pick it to pieces, but if you like time travel movies and don't mind turning your brain off for an hour and a half while watching one with an especially stupid title, you might like this.

It appears that there will be an American remake of this, probably because people in America don't like to read.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeouisie

1972 Bunuel comedy

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: Six snooty friends try unsuccessfully to have dinner together.

This isn't a hilarious comedy. It's sort of a comedy for people who think the typical Frasier episode is way too wild. It's more funny on an intellectual level, probably funnier for Bunuel himself than anybody else. Well, not anymore since Bunuel is dead. The surreal elements are subdued; there's nothing too goofy here, but characters wander in and out of dreams. I think some of them might even have dreams within other characters' dreams. Puzzling stuff, definitely puzzling enough to frustrate probably anybody who watches this. I really enjoy scratching my head though.

The Spirit of the Beehive

1973 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A family in post-war Spain struggles with identity. The beekeeper father is withdrawn and depressed. The mother is having an affair. Isabelle, the malicious older sister, mistreats the gullible younger sister Anna. After the two children watch Frankenstein, Anna's sister convinces her that the monster lives nearby. A fugitive drifts in, setting off a series of events that causes Anna to withdraw into a fantasy world of poisonous mushrooms and Frankenstein monsters.

Funnily, I didn't really think I was liking this one while watching it. It's that typical "Shane movie," slowly-evolving with a dependence on visuals more than on dialogue and story. The acting is good, an emphasis on body language and very little dialogue. Child actors are never supposed to be this good. Words are scarce, and none are wasted. There's something really depressing about the way the family members are filmed; they're alienated, lonely, broken. And that's shown artfully not just with the lack of communication but also in the way they don't share camera time. The girls are on the screen together at times, but the husband and wife never are. That's most striking in a scene where the husband is coming to bed late after obsessing over bees he has in a glass hive, and his wife pretends to be sleeping. The camera never drifts from her while we see the sheet tugged and a slouched shadow on the wall and hear his getting-into-bed sounds. Lots of people will find this all boring, but I thought it was a mesmerizingly realistic glimpse at troubled people. Poetic and moving, this has to be one of the most quiet movies I've ever seen. I wonder what I'm missing politically or historically, but a knowledge of Spanish history wasn't necessary for me to enjoy this one. I think this has a lot in common with Days of Heaven (visually) and that strange Terry Gilliam movie Tideland (narrative and thematically).