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Yes, I'm back! Problems with my server and my job kept me away from the site for about a week, but I doubt that I missed anything, or that anyone missed me... Anyway, here goes what promised, in chronological order:
"Dark City": ***1/2 out of ****. Excellent direction by Alex Proyas and the Batmanish look, plus an interesting storyline borrowed from a few well known sci-fi short stories, make this a constantly intriguing film, and a visual spectacale.
"Truman Show": ***. Way overrated (and I watched this before the hype, by the way), but somewhat entertaining film with several interesting ideas. Great performance by Ed Harris, and Carey is okay. But I think Peter Weir screwed up by making the outside world as cartoonish as the TV world (although I hate making comparisons, I think "EdTV" nailed that aspect slightly better). Anyway...
"Pleasantville": ***. Story completely in the tradition of Gary Ross, that is, ordinary characters somehow get in control of a world due to extraordinary circumstances, and proceed to make changes for the good. In the third quarter of the film it gets great, as it tackles the social problems of the 50s and 60s through literally colorful metaphors. But somehow I felt that something somewhere was missing or was overdone, but I can't pin it down...
"The Matrix": ***1/2. Cool, excelent visuals make this great fun, and the likeable characters don't hurt. Good direction in the changes in moments of suspense, action, and horror, as well...
"eXistenZ": ***1/2. Cronenberg rules! Very nice game, with an excelent ending that fuses the now clasics ending of "The Usual Suspects" and "Total Recall". Cronenberg's touches of horror, dark humour, gore, social observations, and all the bizarre objects built by organs make this very enjoyable, as Cronenberg fucks with your mind. In fact, you could make a commercial like those where a person smashes an egg saying "this is your brain on drugs", only that you would have a naked Canadian weirdo inserting his penis into an egg and say "this is your brain on Cronenberg".
"Open Your Eyes": ***. Technically, this film came out before any of the others, as it hit the screens in Spain in 1997, getting 11 Goya ("the spanish Oscar") nominations, although no wins. However, the movie world is counted by the US view. Anyway, it hardly is a "what is reality" film until near the end, but it is an interesting story, where you get to like even the snobbiest characters. Then again, I may have understood some of the characters' behavior better than most people as I am acquianted with the upper middle class/upper class Hispanic and Criollo mindframe and social environment... Whatever... It IS a very interesting film, that always makes you keep on guessing and wanting to know what happened, what's going on...
"The 13th Floor": ***. Yet another take on the concept. I love it that you get to actually appreciate the dilema of a virtual reality character that discovers that he/she is not real from a more personal view, after seeing the same problem going on but from a more detached view where you don't really care for the VR characters... Nice twists... Could have used a less cheesy ending though, although it was easy to figure out what happened, unlike what IQ defficient critics like Chris Garcia said...
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