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aelursadgod
Reviews
John Dies at the End (2012)
Brilliant
I was expecting to suffer fully from ye ole curse of You Read The Book Before The Movie Came Out, but as it turned out, I was spared from that fate. I laughed, I was weirded out, I was mindf****. Just like when I read the book. Understandably, for a book that has more plot twists than Lost as seen on LSD, I wasn't expecting a full word-to-word rendition of the original plot. Lots of cropping, lots of mixing, and what we've got is a tale that stays true to the main aspects of the book while keeping the movie under 2 hours. What I'd loved about the book - that weird combination of horror, comedy and philosophical wanderings- is also present here, amazingly delivered by both Mayer and Williamson.
La noche de los lápices (1986)
A taste of reality
I first watched this movie when I was 12 years old. Our primary school teachers wanted us to learn the depth of what had transpired in Argentina's darkest times. It goes without saying that my mind became haunted by what I saw - a couple of kids just a few years older than I, protesting for rights that I was enjoying then (a special bus fee for public school students), and who paid a terrible price for it. Since then I've had the opportunity to watch several flicks focused on showing torture and the darker side of human nature - and mostly they've come off as an angst-ridden teenager's sick and cartoon-like fantasies of what real horror is. There's no romancing the captivity they went through, there's certainly no sugar-coating; the subject matter is treated with solemnity and with a care that not even Saló could ever hope to achieve. That is why, ultimately, the movie truly makes an impact on the viewer; you never can quite forget that everything shown there happened to men, children and women alike.
La sonámbula (1998)
Hauntingly beautiful
Argentina's cinema is sadly lacking in sci-fi, so I was surprised when I came across this little gem. La Sonámbula (Sleepwalker for foreign audiences) is a showcase of everything good within the genre: political commentary, dystopia landscapes, a complex plot. The subtle nods to giants in the genre are here and there - from technology similar to that seen in Blade Runner to the Orwellian government that the protagonists are intent to escape. Perhaps the weakest points of the movie are the one- dimensional female lead, accentuated by Viruboff's stiff, mechanical performance, and the script, with lines that for an Argentine would seem forced, if a bit outdated.