These are the movie premieres that hit the screens starting this March 10.
By Salvador Llopart
A woman, a phone and a meaningless conversation, and suddenly screaming and blood: blood everywhere. This is the first scene of Scream 6, identical to the other first scenes of the entire saga, as classic and necessary a scene as the first scenes of, say, James Bond. Thus we know that we have just entered the territory of horror, stabbing subgenre (or slasher, in English).
This new Scream follows the tradition started by Wes Craven more than twenty-five years ago, in 1996. Although now it becomes more bloody, almost gore at times. More imaginative and dynamic too. And above all more self-aware. More ironic with its own premises. Scream 6 is no longer a sequel, no; It is the beginning of a franchise -with new rules- about cinematographic horror.
Its function is not to frighten us, but also. Its objective is to subvert our expectations as shrewd spectators, -or so we think- and make us participate in a game to confuse and mess us up. An intellectual proposal, then? Brainy college seminary? (The murdered in the first scene mentioned above is a teacher). Not at all.
Scream 6 is visceral and simple, with anthology murder scenes. And the protagonist, again, is that ghostly, faded-faced assassin, Ghostface. The closest thing we have to a Buster Keaton of horror. He takes hits without flinching; he is thrown downstairs, or runs smack into a door. A loser with a dagger, come on. Which leads us to a disturbing conclusion: the border between horror and comedy is more blurred and light than we imagine.
This new Scream picks up where the previous one left off, with Ghostface’s potential victims regrouping in New York. The city, with its multitudes, gives rise to anthology scenes. One of them -the best- in which the murderer is part of the crowd that packs the subway. Crowd killer, now, against the idea of ??the murderer lying in wait in the dark.
Anything goes when it comes to subverting our expectations. Good for this Scream 6, then. It does not matter that the plot is seen, at times, the seams of manifest falsehood. Here the essential thing is the proposed game. Where a dead person is not a dead person; It is an open question to the genre of horror.
Por Philipp Engel
The camera saved his life. Taking photos is what allowed Nan Goldin to stay on her feet, to get ahead. Marked by deep family trauma, from when she grew up in the alienating suburbs of Boston, she found her own in the inner-city LGTBIQ community.
He made them his real family and his favorite subject: his photos are the photos of his friends, and also the best of this Oscar-nominated and Venetian Golden Lion-winning documentary by Laura Poitras, which in turn opened last Wednesday the tenth edition of the Americana Film Fest on the big screen at the Phenomena.
The film lives up to its title, Beauty and Pain, when, flown over by the stony voice of the photographer, which opens up in a canal, the color portraits of all the nocturnal birds parade across the screen, like a slide projection. who have fluttered by the hectic existence of Goldin, who has also been a drug addict and, occasionally, a prostitute and dancer in hostess clubs.
His work reaches its ultimate climax with the New York No Wave of the late ’70s and early ’80s, marked by heroin, and crowned by the tragic hangover of the AIDS crisis.
The film loses steam when it reflects Goldin’s crusade, carried out in recent years, against another large family, this time of powerful pharmacists guilty of the death of thousands of people for the commercialization of opioid drugs that caused addiction, guaranteeing one death. slow, but sure.
As it is the new documentary by the combative filmmaker chosen by Edward Snowden to unleash his secrets, as immortalized in the Oscar-winning Citizenfour (2014), it may surprise the unsuspecting viewer that this part is less investigative journalism than a mere vehicle. for P.A.I.N, the organization founded by Goldin, which also produces the film.
The great portrait painter of the underground has ended her career with a monumental selfie, which fascinates by the vividness and experience of thousands of photographs that could be as many album covers, as provocative as they are sincere, as joyful as they are painful.
By Jordi Batlle
Some notes sound at the beginning that suggest a western, or a spaghetti western, and the setting where the action will take place (a high mountain town with a ski resort) bears the Eastwoodian name of Malpaso.
The protagonists meet by chance when they go to see their respective wives, injured in an accident, and when they arrive at the hospital they will receive an unexpected surprise: they are both married to the same woman.
It is the beginning of an entanglement that does not go much beyond this acceptable premise and that, basically, is sustained by the charisma of the two main actors and their contrasting characters: it goes without saying that Paco and Ernesto, Ernesto and Paco, accredit enough vis comic to give very simple scenes a special flight.
The scene stealer Raúl Cimas, with his characteristic Martian insouciance, is also very amusing.
By Salvador Llopart
It used to be said, of someone wanting to stand out, that they had an excessive desire for prominence or that they carried an excessive ego. Now there is talk of narcissism. In short, it is the same. The need to be the protagonist of everything: the groom at the wedding or the dead man at the funeral (even if one is not dead).
Sick of myself is a sad story, in the key of black comedy, about the obsession to be recognized. Of victimizing yourself to get attention. You follow the story with curiosity as it surprises you. But there comes a time when it stagnates, becomes monotonous and does not advance.
In any case, one cannot stop looking at the human wreck that its protagonist becomes -the excellent Kristine Kujarth- for highlighting. With the danger of what they will say or, as they say now, with the danger of cancellation, hovering over her person.
By Jordi Batlle
The protagonist of this film has three loves, as in the song by Manolo Escobar. One is his trade as a tailor who makes kaftans with an endangered craft: to see him in his workshop, among fabrics, threads and buttons, embroidering or hemming, is to recall the fragile elegance of Daniel Day-Lewis in The Invisible Thread. .
Another is his wife (magnificent Lubna Azabal), with whom he shares the business. The third is unspeakable, especially in a country like Morocco: he is in love with the young apprentice he has hired and has fleeting relationships with other men in public baths.
Maryam Touzani, wife of fellow filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (both sign the script), blends these three loves into a delicate and appropriately silky ensemble.
It is a work that is warm and sensitive like a caress, although it runs somewhat lethargic.
Por Philipp Engel
As the title of her very literary memoirs, recited here by a persistent voice-over, says, María Casares was a privileged Resident.
Franco’s coup uprooted her from her land, Galicia, but allowed her to flourish as a great theater diva who, throughout her more than half a century of career, also appeared in classics by Carné, Bresson or Cocteau.
The captivating talent of the actress who fell in love with Camus could not have fully spread her wings in that Spain without freedom.
The director of Trece campanadas pays him a tribute at the height of the circumstances. Although the chronological order, the interviews with experts and some symphonic moments make us fear the threat of desktop television, it does not materialize.
On the contrary, the film stands out for its agile, elegant and original use of archival images.