Reviews

To me, la Madrastra is the best telenovela ever, Spanish or English. It is so entertaining, the conflicts are very well made, the acting is great all around, its cheesiness and over-the-topness is also so much fun. Jacqueline Andere and Sabine Moussier make the show for me, since they are the best actors. They are so fun to watch, so are the rest of the villains, and pretty much the whole cast. This is an example of Spanish TV gone very right. It is so entertaining and you get so hooked into it. The fact that there is a mystery surrounding a woman and her murderer is great. You get really into who is the real killer. There are two versions of the novela, the 2005 one, and the one passed in 2007. Both killers are great, but I prefer the newer 2007 version because it has my favorite character as the villain.

Obsessed was everything I wanted it to be and expected it to be. A sort of campy and cheesy thriller with some very talented stars just having the time of their lives! Beyonce and Ai Larter can really act when hey are given great material, this material is not great, but it is very fun, sort of great Hollywood entertainment. Ali Larter really played the bitch right, and she proves she is a great actress. This was her movie. This movie also knows what it is and is even very funny at times. It is not one of those sophisticated thrillers, not at all, and that is why it works! Go watch it, have some fun, this is truly a popcorn film, Also, who would not want to go see two beautiful women battle it out? In the end, it is actually one of Beyonce;'s best films because it knows what it is and what it's not. Hollywood got it right!

The Return is one of those under-appreciated thrillers that was marketed as 'horror'. For horror fans, beware, The Return does not have gore, it does not have people screaming, or cheesy chase scenes or killers. This is a more sophisticated adult mystery film. The Return is thankfully, different than modern-day thrillers. It has a slow pace, but has very beautiful imagery and cinematography. The acting is solid, and Sarah Michelle Gellar commands the screen with her quiet presence. Many people might feel restless, but at the end, the film's twist relies a lot on character and exposition, and that is why The Return works. It has many themes of life and death, together with some usual scares and some character drama. I was very pleasantly surprised, and I hope The Return gets the recognition it deserves in the future. It is one of the best, and most unique, thrillers of the decade

First off, I have not read the comic book, I was not sucked into the hype, simply because I thought the trailer made the film look so CGI packed and ridiculous. Saying that, maybe that is why I loved it. Just a year after the fan and critically acclaimed The Dark Knight, which really took the superhero and comic book genre to another level, Watchmen achieves great heights as well. It is another Masterpiece of this genre, and to me, it was pretty much perfect. It is not the realistic, gritty drama that The Dark Knight was, and for that reason some will not take it seriously, but I really thought it was just an amazing film. The acting was great, as was the writing I thought. It really should not be compared to Zack Snyder's other films. It puts 300 to shame. The visual style is just as great and surreal as any other epic, and the visual effects are outstanding, flashy, but not too realistic, which is the only way that it could have worked. I find it sad how many critics have dismissed it for being too long, and too much of a mess and dull. I can see why they said that, because this film is sure to dismiss a lot of people off. But I thought it was genius, and this is certainly the best superhero film ever made, next to The Dark Knight.

10/10 Seriously, go watch it!

Boy, it was a tremendous film. It was very gritty, too much at times, but it certainly tackled many aspects that many films have only mentioned. The screenplay and direction were fabulous. Kate Winslet really gave her best performance here. She gives a stunningly powerful performance. She deserves to win the Oscar. Dicaprio was just as powerful. The supporting cast was great, and Michael Shannon was just amazing. Besides Ledger, he gives the best male supporting performance of the year. An important film. Powerful acting and writing makes this film the best of 2008

10/10 Superb

It was a perfect, successful, biographical film about one man and his hopes and accomplishments. Seriously, what a great film. It achieves everything that it should have done, and does it with such great power. The editing of scenes, the writing, the fast pacing, the characters, and all of the amazing performances in the film. Sean Penn gives such a realistic portrayal of Harvey Milk, I will safely bet that he will win the best Actor Oscar. Emile Hirsch, in a second year in a row, is also great, as well as Franco, Brolin, and Luna. They all played their characters very realistically. The film shows all the issues that gays had back then, and it shows us how to live with equal rights, not just for gays, but for everyone different.

So, went to a midnight screening, and I have to tell you, watching The Dark Knight I did not know what to expect because of all the hype. Well, I do not know what expectations people had, but for me, it exceeded what I wanted it to do, and more!

To call this a superhero film only is a bit of an understatement, actually, it is a lot. It plays out like a crime film. More than i thought it would too. Without knowing it was rated PG-13, I wouldn't know it was. It has the tone and feel of a Rated R film, films like The Departed, No country for Old Men, and Seven. After watching Batman Begins about a year ago, it really is different. The Dark Knight doesn't feel like the first, nor does it feel like any other superhero film ever made. I will say this, though, do not worry about expectations when you watch it. You really do not have time to be thinking about it, and if you are, it means the film is not keeping your interest. Well, watching The Dark knight was probably the most thrilling, enjoyable, and amazing experience I have ever had in a theater. The fans all in line, and also when the film started, all throughout, we were all blown away. There were claps and cheers, there were whistling( a bit annoying) but it was all root for the film. The film entertained, not just with some of the best action sequences ever, but with it's amazing script. It is very powerful, more powerful than some of the Oscar films last year. I think the Academy should take this amazing script into consideration. The acting by everyone was top-notch. But of course, the one that steals the show is Heath Ledger. Does Ledger deserve all the Oscar buzz? All the hype? With a very 'un-fanboyish' answer, freakin yes!!! Heath Ledger accomplished something amazing. I cannot really compare his acting, character he created, with any I have ever seen(unlike many critics). Yes, he has a bit of Hannibal Lector, but with all respect, what he did in this film is beyond what Anthony Hopkins accomplished in The Silence of the Lambs. He goes really deep into the character, so deep that in ever scene he is in, you cannot help but imagine what the actor was thinking, how he was reacting, to all his lines and scenes. I think Ledger, even if he was alive, would have received this buzz. Surprisingly, it was not over-the-top like I thought it would be. He doesn't overreact, he just 'is'. The action in this film, unlike the first one, is literally amazing! It is very much stunts, and the reason the action works is because of how the script builds it up.

Overall, I cannot say if this film will exceed all expectations. Many fans have a lot of anticipation, and expect a full-blown masterpiece. I have seen amazing, great, even perfect films, but only a few can be called masterpieces. Is this a masterpiece? Well, not really, at least not by everyone. Some will say it missed that mark, some will say it is... The thing with this film is that it's trying to be an amazing, flawless deep superhero film. It is very ambitious(yes, overused word, but its the truth) and it aims for that goal, and in a lot of stages, like writing, direction, entertainment, complexity, darkness, it is somewhere a hidden masterpiece. It is not the second-coming like fanboys call it, but it is near one in a way. Never has a blockbuster achieved so many things at once, and never has it reached this lever of deepness(that Batman Begins TRIED to reach) and in that way, yes, maybe it is a masterpiece, only time will tell though. But, even though it is not flawless, it really is an amazing film, by any means, and not just the best superhero film ever made by far, but also the most thought-provoking film in years that I have seen, and will stand among some of the best 'epic, big blockbusters' of all time. It certainly deserves too. Now, on to the Oscars, The Academy should not snub this film in a lot of categories.... Best Director for Christopher Nolan is deserved...

After about 5 years since seeing The Return of the King, I finally saw it again, and I saw it like I had never seen it before. I had never been a big fan of the trilogy, basically because I was young, and I had never really gotten 'into' them, but now, I was able to see it in a whole different light. First off, I will start with it's visuals. They were just amazing, and based on how many visuals it had, it is probably the most visually stunning film I have ever seen. Sure, there were just little flaws in them, only like when the hobbits had to be reduced to size, but other than that, the visual effects is flawless. The tone of the film really lets us experience a whole new world, so it's Art Direction Oscar win is of course, very well deserved. It's costumes and make-up are simply amazing. This is a top-notch film for anything possible. What I also really liked, that it has garnered much fan and critical acclaim, is that, it is a fantasy,action,epic war film. The Fellowship of the Ring was more fantasy, and The Two Towers was more war/epic, and this 3rd one has all those elements put together. The weakness of The Two Towers was that it had too much lingering in dialogues with characters we hardly knew, and were hardly given development to, and the editing in the 2nd I thought was very choppy. Well, the editing is this film, has improved about 100%. It is edited in the right moments. What is amazing, is that we are able to go from scenes with Frode,Sam, and Gollum, and then to scenes in Minas Tirith, to Aragorn and Gandalf. The acting from all of these actors is well-suited for a 'big' film like this. Even the acting from the Hobbits(which is sometimes over done) seems like for this film it needs to be done. Andy Serkis, who plays Gollum's voice and movements, should have gotten an Oscar nomination, for he created probably the most memorable creature of the last decade. Overall, the 11 Oscars this film won were all very well deserved. It is not overrated in any way, because the amount of work and the amount of risks that had to be taken to do this film is incredible, and I believe this film will always be remembered as the mother of all epic films.