Change Your Image
mr_rusk
Reviews
Life: The Business of Miracles (2008)
Insult to intelligence
Although I am a LIFE fan, I must point out that this episode is crowded with absurd facts that insult the viewer's intelligence. For one thing, the writer expects us to believe that a person can freeze to death by inhaling liquid nitrogen. In the first place, oxygen and nitrogen dewars have gas phase outlets; if the mask were to be hooked to a liquid outlet, the liquid squirt would probably produce a frostbite burn before being inhaled. If cryogenic liquid were actually inhaled (in this case, it would be irrelevant if it were oxygen or nitrogen, since their temperatures are similar: there would be no use in changing the dewars) the first breath would seriously burn the airways, but it would never deep-freeze the victim. To deep freeze a person with liquid nitrogen, it would be necessary to immerse it in liquid or very cold gas (as in a freezing tunnel); the result would be that the person would freeze as a frozen steak. In no case would this produce the brittleness that is showed in the episode... can you make a frozen steak crumble by touching it with a pen? It was sad to see Crews and Dani wallowing in such a stupid plot!
Sumas y restas (2004)
Realism partially saves an otherwise wasted cliché
Besides the fact that once more a film about Colombia uses as its only resort the many times told story of Medellin's drug related violence during the 1980's, the film's unfortunate failing is the lack of adequate technical resources. If one can survive the monotony of unintelligible and intense sound, wild camera movements and jumpy edition, it is possible to recognize that Gaviria does succeed in insufflating credibility into the characters represented by natural actors, and does well in grasping the mood of the historic moment in which the plot takes place.
The story specially the first thirty minutes is utterly predictable and unbearably dull. The slang all along is unnecessarily heavy and boring. Despite all this, at the end one can have the vague sensation that, thanks to the interesting touch of realism and to the good job in actors' direction, the time spent in watching the movie was not completely wasted.