These are the movie premieres that hit the screens starting this August 18:
By Salvador Llopart
Success, in this cinema, seems to ask… no, it demands repetition. Fesser, as a director, could have stretched the gum of Champions (2018) much more. Take advantage of the pull of that film about a disabled sports group to repeat the same thing. But he didn’t do it then, and he hasn’t done it now; Not, at least, in a mechanical way. With Campeonex we are facing a sequel, it is true. But not before a carbon copy.
A good part of the protagonists of the first installment return and others enter, such as a jinxed trainer (Elisa Hipólito), or so they say, and a young man with muscular atrophy (Brianeitor) who is a crack at his own, on the console and the game. As in its predecessor, humor governs without condescension and sends a stark gaze over characters who, in addition to facing their physical situation in real life, must deal with the many setbacks with which the writers pave their way (for there to be a film ).
Once again, this is a story of overcoming narrated without false tenderness, a trademark of the house. Where emotion rules, of course. Not in vain do we access a world, that of the disabled, where feelings prevail over calculation or what we call intelligence. Competition -because there is sports competition- has a lot to do with video games. In this supposedly imagined virtual world, Fesser demonstrates that, in addition to having a broken hand for feelings, which we already knew, he has an impeccable sense of rhythm and a deep knowledge of visual grammar.
The same director says that everything he knows he has learned in cartoons. It shows in his taste for chestnuts and blows, in the manner of the highly admired Mortadelo and Filemón of the long-awaited Ibáñez. There is also a lot of Berlanga in the candid treatment of the characters, as well as a certain humor without conditions -and without cynicism- typical of Chumy Chúmez, Forges, Gila and many other humorists of the generation of Brother Wolf.
Campeonex is tradition without dandruff, humor without sweetening and kindness without false modesty. It doesn’t bring you to tears, no. They go out alone. And if you allow me the cliché, the action is fast-paced. Good action.
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
When it comes to cinematographic pedagogy, Mark Cousins ??is a “first class”. His lessons are always exciting, they have analytical insight and their knowledge of history is vast and democratic: Ousmane Sembene or Youssef Chahine are just as important to him as Murnau or Hawks. Author of pharaonic works such as The story of film: An odyssey (15 chapters), its appendix The story of film: A new generation (2 chapters) or Women make films (14 chapters), Cousins ??has signed a handful of documentaries (more than thirty between long and short) of which we have been able to taste those devoted to Orson Welles and producer Jeremy Thomas. Cousins ??is stimulating even when his assessments are debatable or vehement, as when in the opening of each chapter of The story of film he affirms that Amitabh Bachchan is the most famous actor in the world (more than Marlon Brando, Sylvester Stallone or Robert De Niro?).
Now Alfred Hitchcock is the object of his gaze. Hitchcock is one of the most analyzed artists of all time, but he is and will continue to be an inexhaustible filmmaker and each new approach to his work will always be welcome. The originality of this documentary is that it is narrated, from beyond the grave, by Hitchcock himself (who makes fun of the motives that he did not get to know, beyond the motives of a crime). Hitch, then, analyzes himself. Of course, it is Cousins ??who is analyzing, and the voice we hear is that of actor and stand-up comedian Alistair McGowam in brilliant imitation.
Alfred Cousins ??(or Mark Hitchcock, as you like) divides his study into six chapters (Escape, Desire, Loneliness, Time, Fullness and Height), he illustrates with profusion of examples and details the style or trademark of the teacher, his main obsessions, its thematic constants. To the scholar, My name is Aldred Hitchcock will not bring great (or small) news, but attending a deluge of fragments of works by the greatest creator of forms in cinema for two hours is still a succulent pleasure.
By S. Llopart
The superheroic world continues, in Hollywood, granting quotas to minorities. The black one had its Black Panther (2018) and the oriental one, Shang-Chi (2021). Blue beatle, meanwhile, marks the turn of the Latino minority (if we discount the Spider-Man of the multiverse, Miles Morales, who is mestizo). Blue Beatle perhaps responds to a quota, but, deep down, he retells the everlasting story of the confused teenager (Xolo Maridueña) in his search for a place in the world. In this sense, this Blue Beetle, by Jaime Reyes, has a lot to do with Spider-man. And the influence of Iron Man is recognized, by the suit. Mix of mixtures, super for teenagers, we are facing a heroic hodgepodge where the presence of Susan Sarandon, as a well-known name, contributes pedigree. And a little more.
Por Ph. Obstacle
In the middle of the controversial rearmament of Japan –perhaps related to the success of Oppenheimer (sic)–, comes a new installment of the franchise that Production I.G. (the studio that revolutionized anime with Ghost in the Shell) has been exploding for a decade, in the form of animated movies and series, as well as manga, novels, and video games. With its usual futuristic visual sophistication and its spectacular action scenes, although with narrative ups and downs and excess of verbiage, the new episode of this cyberpunk dystopia, reminiscent of Minority Report for its treatment of preventive crime (the Psycho-Pass of the title, which warns of the potential danger of each individual), speculates significantly on the relationship between Japan and the world: an unsubtly armed group calling itself the Peacebreakers plans to reconnect the country with the strife ravaging the planet.
By S. Llopart
Since The Garden of Forking Paths or even before, literature -and later cinema- has been obsessed with infinite possibilities. This trend is summed up in the usual “what if…” that we now call “the metatarsal”: you know, where everything is possible, everything at once and everywhere. Small coincidences is that: the examination of Julia’s life possibilities, embodied by the magnificent Lou de Laâge in a succession of life(s) ranging from seventeen to eighty years old. A solidly made film, exhausted, however, in a succession of coincidences and accidents. If everything is possible, everything results from a frightening lightness. One stays with the one-way stories where “character is destiny” that Heraclitus said before the metatarsus and his dizziness arrived.
Por Ph. Obstacle
An original hybrid of animation and documentary, skilfully mixing hand-drawn cartoons, in a style that is as classic as it is endearing to the characters (more elegant and stylized in the landscapes), with real images taken from newsreels of the time about the expedition to the North Pole carried out by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and the Italian Umberto Nobile, who was in charge of designing and piloting the airship in which they traveled in 1926. In addition to the chronicle of the eventful trip, seen through the very feminine In the eyes of Titina, the dog with the name of the Italian song, the film also satirizes, in a grotesque-Fellinian key, fascism personified by Mussolini, with whom Nobile had his problems. A small jewel of Norwegian crafts, with an attractive art deco air, to enjoy with the family.
