raquelita_bella

It's hard to know if this movie is a tribute or just a copy of Woody Allen's obsessions: a scriptwriter in his 40's, neurotic and sarcastic, meets a young beautiful crazy girl who makes him feel young again (remember Manhattan?). Soon, he has his own TV show, which is a success because everybody loves his wit -but then he looses his old girlfriend, a snobbish middle-aged woman who makes him feel awkward. That turns into a blessing, because life with the young girl is nicer, no matter that his mother, a latin American version of the classic yidishe mame, becomes more popular than him thanks to the TV show. Funny, but not funny enough, the movie has some great dialogues. But it's not well solved at the end, and some parts are just too conventional. A good time, some good laughs, but nothing else.

El lado oscuro del corazon (1992) is a great movie, full of poetry, or metaphores and yet, full of humour. Oh, and it has a story in it.

Then, 10 years later, the director tried again... and gave us THIS. It's terrible. Nothing to do with the first one. A simple, plain story, with too many quotations (no matter they belong to great latin american authors, they seem here too cheesy, out of place) and stupid methaphores (sometimes too obvious, some others just boring). The old characters have lost all their spirit; the new ones are just cartoons of what they could be. Their relations are so stiff that you can't belive them... Do yourself a favour. If you saw the first film, forget there was a second one. You don't need it. If you haven't, do it -watch the first one and forget there was a second try of the director of getting some easy money thanks to the 10th anniversry of his only good movie. Remember, nobody will give you back the couple of hours you'd use in watching this film. So, if you can, avoid it.

Two men die because of their eternal family vendetta (and because of a woman, Ana the anklet). The 'Ghost Boss' punishes them -they'll have to stay in the theatre where they killed each other, with no chance of resting in peace, till they become friends. 50 years pass. And they -because they're bored in an empty theater, or maybe because loneliness is too hard- start a friendship. The ghost boss sends them a 'Final Test' to prove they're really friends and they can go forever... It's a simple story, yes. But it is so well acted and, most of all, so well directed, that you forget it's from the early 50's: when Pérez (Germán Valdés Tin Tan) and López (Manuel Valdés, el Loco) find out they're ghosts, they start to use they're new powers with a brilliant use of edition. Special effects aren't sophisticated, but they work and amuse. Sometimes the humor is just surreal -a bit like Groucho's- and sometimes the story is tender and nostalgic. The happy end isn't the expected --which is good! that avoids the film of becoming a typical love/ghost story. At the end it demonstrates that, more than special computer effects, what makes a movie a good movie is the clever use of what is at hand --and a good script, rather than lousy scenes used like pretexts to show off what the computer can do.