Like most modern adaptations of Shakespeare, I expected this to be awful. Boy, was I wrong! This was terrific and really entertaining.
Reviews
4 Reviews
Strings
(2014)
Beautiful and Moving
18 February 2014
This was an incredibly beautiful and moving piece. The language is Spanish, but one does not have to understand Spanish to fully appreciate this masterpiece.
This is a story about a little boy with serious physical limitations and the little girl who showed him how to experience the world he had been denied. The boy arrives at school and is shunned or ignored by all the children except one Maria. Maria befriends him and uses her imagination and love to give him the gift of fun and humanity.
The animation is so well done that the characters are humanized. Maria is so very charming and wise, but still such a little girl.
The film won the 2014 Goya award for best short film animation.
This is a story about a little boy with serious physical limitations and the little girl who showed him how to experience the world he had been denied. The boy arrives at school and is shunned or ignored by all the children except one Maria. Maria befriends him and uses her imagination and love to give him the gift of fun and humanity.
The animation is so well done that the characters are humanized. Maria is so very charming and wise, but still such a little girl.
The film won the 2014 Goya award for best short film animation.
Di Di Hollywood
(2010)
The film has some real strengths
30 July 2013
I thought that they did a remarkably good job with this variation on the theme of "A Star is Born." There are three main ingredients that combined to make this twisted fairy tale believable.
First, with only few minor rolls, none of the characters were completely despicable nor completely sympathetic.
Second, Elsa Pataky's physical appearance. She always looks appropriate in ways that I would not have thought possible. Most of it is good acting, but there is also skillful makeup and wardrobe.
Finally, the sets and locations are impressive and believable. The humorous exception, here, is their rechristening of the Beverly Hills Hotel as the "Everly Hotel". It looks like there should be a "B" hidden behind the foliage.
Incidentally, there are a few unexpected twists and turns along the way, as well as few more-or-less predictable "surprises."
First, with only few minor rolls, none of the characters were completely despicable nor completely sympathetic.
Second, Elsa Pataky's physical appearance. She always looks appropriate in ways that I would not have thought possible. Most of it is good acting, but there is also skillful makeup and wardrobe.
Finally, the sets and locations are impressive and believable. The humorous exception, here, is their rechristening of the Beverly Hills Hotel as the "Everly Hotel". It looks like there should be a "B" hidden behind the foliage.
Incidentally, there are a few unexpected twists and turns along the way, as well as few more-or-less predictable "surprises."
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish
(1992– )
Highly recommended for adults
26 April 2012
I am glad that I watched Destinos on my own volition, as a middle-aged adult, using various resources that are now freely available for learning Spanish. Luckily, I did not have fellow students telling me the punch lines beforehand, so the intended surprises actually were. There is an interesting transition between the first few episodes which seem like standard educational films with a flimsy premise to carry the educational material to the final episodes that are carried by characters and a story line that you have come to care about.
Destinos seemed like a pretty painless way to learn or improve Spanish, but it was more than that. The story actually sucked me in, which was, of course, the higher educational purpose, namely learning a language by immersion. Of course, it helps if you allow yourself to get sucked in. Fight it, and its value diminishes.
For the overly sophisticated, bored viewers who may be forced to watch Destinos, I suggest you look for the hidden "Easter eggs" in the form of sly jokes you might easily miss. Google "Gioachino Rossini" and you might see what I mean.
I understand and remember that, at eighteen, long, lost love is just a concept. If you did not like Destinos at that age, try it again in thirty years after fate has left a few marks on you.
Destinos seemed like a pretty painless way to learn or improve Spanish, but it was more than that. The story actually sucked me in, which was, of course, the higher educational purpose, namely learning a language by immersion. Of course, it helps if you allow yourself to get sucked in. Fight it, and its value diminishes.
For the overly sophisticated, bored viewers who may be forced to watch Destinos, I suggest you look for the hidden "Easter eggs" in the form of sly jokes you might easily miss. Google "Gioachino Rossini" and you might see what I mean.
I understand and remember that, at eighteen, long, lost love is just a concept. If you did not like Destinos at that age, try it again in thirty years after fate has left a few marks on you.
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