DARRYL DE CINE

  VERTIGO (Xavier SiS)  (THE ORIGINAL TEXT BELOW)  My Word, Darryl, you squeezed a lot of juice out of that movie!  I have enjoyed the way you develop the different subjects that appear in that film. Needless to say, Hitch was at the same time both a genius  and a cheater as a director. It`s known  his misogyny and his obsession for blond actresses, even though you say  he was not too keen on Kim Novak…  I am not so sure J. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Kfyh52UiqbQ In contrast to what you think, perhaps Vera Miles would have given a good performance and would have helped to focus the plot on its psychological issues. Novak portrayed a rather sophisticated woman and she literally “devoured” the first half of the movie. Miles ( “The Wrong Man”, “Psycho”…), on the other side,  was pretty enough but perhaps she acted more like an ordinary woman. https://www.fotogramas.es/ noticias-cine/a22807400/vera- miles-hitchcock-psicosis/ Hitch’s Muses: I...

  (EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) To all of us who are mourning the loss of Cullen McCullough and her Roman series about Caesar, there ‘s some consolation after all. Robert Harris, a bestselling author of commercial streak (can´t say I liked very much what I have read from him), has sort of excelled himself at a fictional account (perhaps “recreation” would be a better word) of Cicero, a contemporary of Caesar as well as a political rival, which covers the republic period of McCullough’s series. What makes Robert Harris’s Cicero so interesting is that his is a completely different point of view from McCullough. In McCullough’s series, the story evolved around Julius Caesar, whether as the leading actor or as a mere witness of the events. Nonetheless, as I read her series, I  was left with the impression that McCullough loved the character of Julius Caesar (nothing wrong with that as usually writers write about characters they like) and she sort of glorified Caesar’s character. While Ci...

  (EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) Recently I went to see, at Phenomena cinema in Barcelona, “Two Mules for Sister Sarah” (1969), directed by Don Siegel,  with Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. As I was a young kid  when it was released back in 1969 and this was “an adult film” (though, seeing it nowadays, it’s as erotic as a chicken leg…), I didn´t get  to see it until 1979 or 1980, when I was at University. I remember seeing it at the cinema, dubbed into Spanish. So I was curious to see it the other day in its original English version. Besides, the huge screen at Phenomena cinema made all the difference. Well, I think, this was the only occasion in an Eastwood film (as most of his films revolve around his character on the screen) where his partenaire, a superb Shirley MacLaine, really “countermanded” him at every moment. By this I mean, that usually in Eastwood´s films his female “partenaires” were more like playthings or  just "objects of desire" for his on-screen c...

  (EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) This is a film I haven't seen yet. Well, in fact it has not been released yet in Spain.   Looks as if Clint Eastwood is back at the top of his form, which is not a small feat considering that he’s around ninety years old.  After three propaganda movies praising American values, Eastwood has gone again into the losers’ world. Those so called “propaganda movies” were “American Sniper”(2014): an intelligent, well finished movie set in the Iraq War,” Sully” (2016), a very well finished movie though completely hollow, and  “The 15:17 to Paris” (2018), which I flatly refused to see after reading its plot outline. Instead “The Mule” –which Eastwood stars in and directs- seems related to his losers’ films like “Honkytonk Man” (1982), “Bird” (1988) or “‎Million Dollar Baby” (2004), to quote some. What I have read about “The Mule” is in the attached review, in Spanish, published in the Argentinean daily “Clarín” (see below the link),though I recom...

(EN CASTELLANO DEBAJO) Last night I managed to “run away” to the movies with a friend and see the above movie.  It’s quite a big production, very well made. Eastwood knows his stuff and is quite surprising to see somebody who, at 81 years old, is at the helm of such a huge project because, indeed, it looks as if the making of this movie, set in the Iraq War (the second one, led by George W. Bush), was like being in real war. It reminded me of  “The Hurt Locker” and the hunt for Bin Laden (“Zero Dark Thirty”). It’s worth mentioning the role of the wife, Sienna Miller (who in real life is blond), in a rather convincing performance as the wife’s soldier (in my opinion these roles are difficult because either they are played as the very obedient, passive and servile wife or as the rather rebellious and non-conformist one.  Instead, in “American Sniper”, the wife seemed quite a real character. Indeed, you may even take your wife to see her performance). On the other hand, I th...

SAMBA: se trata de una comedia de denuncia o realismo social, con algunas escenas de humor muy logradas. A priori parece una película pensada –un vehículo, en terminología de Hollywood- para el lucimiento del actor de color de “Intocable”, pero es sobre todo Charlotte Gainsburg (si, la hija del Serge y Jane Birkin, que revolucionaron los “lentos” en los setenta con la canción “Je t’aime non plus”) quien, para mi, se lleva la función. Hace un papel muy moderno o actual: una chica que ha sufrido un agotamiento –“Burnout”- por trabajar en una multinacional (insisto que para mí se trata de una enfermedad actual y del mundo en qué vivimos, inimaginable hace tan solo 20 o 30 años) y se dedica a ayudar en una asociación legal para los “sin papeles” ¡Ojo! No lo hace por altruismo, sino porque se lo recomiendan como parte de su proceso de recuperación. En este sentido alabo que el filme no caiga en el “buenismo” en que, por ejemplo, “Intocable”-el modelo inspiración de “Samba”- incurría. El fil...