A History of Violence

Call me stupid, but I didn't understand the meaning of the title until just before watching it. I kept wondering why they were referring to the history of all violence in the title of this film. Then I realized that they were talking about the history of the main character. Other than that wee bit of intellectual excitement, the film was a complete waste of time. The point seemed to be to show us all as much gore as they possible could in the two hours. They also decided to include some completely gratuitous sex. I'm sure they had some sort of message that they wanted to convey about marriage and relationships, but it all seemed kind of weak. The premise also seemed stupid. Some one that has that much violence in their past, who in fact seemed to enjoy that violence, doesn't seem the type of person who would choose to start his life over all fuzzy wuzzy and such. Also, the guy had supposedly been out of action for almost twenty years. Are we supposed to believe that he could remember how to fight well enough to defeat men who kill for a living?

Freedom Writers

I wasn't expecting very much going into this film. Everyone was saying that it was so good and incredibly inspirational, which always makes me very leary of films. In that respect it was very cliche and ordinary. The story is terribly inspirational, more so because its based on fact. However, I found the characters extremely flat and predictable, especially the teacher. Everything she did was represented as altruistic and noble. She never had any doubts, she was never selfish, and she never even considered compromising her principals. To me that just doesn't sound like a real person. That is why I usually hate these kinds of "inspirational" films, they are to predictable and unrealistic.
There were parts that I found amusing and sad, as they were intended to be. I can't say that it is a completely worthless film, but it didn't really leave that much of an impression on me.

American Psycho

Christian Bale makes an excellent psychopath. I really think that this film uses him as a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. He seems so safe and sexy. The society that he was appart of engaged freely in sex and drugs. They thought it was ok to do these things and that there would be no consequences. But, Patrick Bateman was the hidden danger in their midst. Maybe I'm reading too much into this.
Another thing that I like about this movie is that it is such a dark comedy. It's told from the point of view of a crazy person so you never know what is real or what is just in his head. He's really quite amusing, especially his terror that other men will have more impressive business cards than he does. Plus, he's hot!

El Espinoza del Diablo

I'm really tempted to write in Spanish for this post, but I won't because I know that the few people who read it don't speak Spanish :( Anyway, before watching this film I thought that it was supposed to be a horror flick. It has some scary movie qualities and there was a least one part where I almost jumped out of my seat, but overall it was more of a sad drama. In an interview that I saw with the director, G. del Toro, he said that he wanted to portray just how dangerous it was to be a child. He succeeded with this film! The lives of the boys in this film were perilous and it was shown just how fragile we humans are.
One of the discussions that the group had after watching the film is "why did the director choose this title?" In the film one of the characters, Dr. Caseres, shows the one of the boys, Carlos, a jar with a preserved fetus inside it. The fetus has a protruding backbone that is oddly deformed. Dr. Caseres explains that the people in the village call this deformity "the Devil's Backbone" and say that children born like this were never supposed to be born. The fetus is preserved in a special mixture of rum and other spices, "limbo water". Dr. Caseres sells limbo water to the townspeople because they believe that it cures infermities and impotence. Anyway, one of the theories about the title was that the film was about a child who shouldn't have been born, Jacinto. I like this theory, but I'll propose another. Santi is suspended in the kitchen cistern. Whenever he is seen in the film, it's as if he is floating. He tries to warn Carlos that the boys are in danger and in the end he helps them to defeat their enemies. The very water that he is suspended in is used to save them.
The properties of the ghosts in this film are interesting too. They seem to be subject to some of the laws of physics, but not to others. They don't walk through walls, they cast shadows, and they leave behind physical evidence of themselves (footprints, a dropped handkerchief, blood, etc.). On the other hand they can be invisible, they exist, and they seem to be able to move to where ever they want to be. Is this because they still expect certain laws to apply to them and the other things happen when they aren't thinking about it?