Casa de mi Padre Movie Review

Will Ferrell is a successful sketch and movie comedian because he commits himself to the role one hundred percent and never wavers. I have faulted him in the past for giving too much of a knowing wink to his over the top performances and in his latest it’s the absence of that wink and his usual commitment, this time to the drama, that makes his performance admirable. However, Casa de mi Padre is not a drama. Well, it is in a sense because it’s made completely in the style of Latin American telenovelas combined with low budget Mexican cinema. So it’s a comedy by virtue of the fact that the filmmakers have deliberately set out to parody those styles.

También la lluvia (Even the Rain) Movie Review: Self Importance Masquerading as Greatness

Juan Carlos Aduviri as Daniel playing Hatuey. The specter of Christianity is approaching from behind.

*As a matter of full disclosure I should point out that I saw this film in the original Spanish without subtitles. While my Spanish is good enough to get the majority of the dialogue, there were certainly subtleties of character that were lost on me, as well as at least one key scene of dialogue between the two principals, Sebastián and Costa. I have some suspicions about certain character elements, but as I can’t be certain I will avoid making reference to anything unless I feel confident I understood it all.

También la lluvia (Even the Rain), Spain's entry this year to the AMPAS for the Foreign Language Film Oscar, starts out so well, coming close to brilliance in the way it toys with the concept of life imitating art imitating life, but then degrades itself in the third act by falling in love with its own self-importance and tossing in a melodramatic plot turn designed solely to bring about a contrived denouement. It made me so angry because the combination of Paul Laverty’s screenplay and Icíar Bollaín’s direction worked so well together until a particular moment (more on that later) when they completely lost my respect.

Mammoth Movie Review

Swedish director Lukas Moodysson makes films about the ways people need each other. His newest film, Mammoth, is more specifically about the ways children and parents need each other. Here is a director who is comfortable with vastly different tones while maintaining a similar approach and style. This isn’t as joyous and celebratory as Together and certainly not the depressing nihilism of Lilya 4-Ever, but it falls somewhere in between.

There is something of an Alejandro González Iñárritu influence here, with interconnected action that takes place in three places around the world (New York, Thailand, The Philippines). The casting of Gael García Bernal (star of Iñárritu’s Amores Perros) is perhaps an homage to that influence. Mammoth doesn’t have the heavy-handed serendipity found in the films of Iñárritu, but deals with the interconnectedness of the characters in a more restrained and natural way.