Whale Rider (2002)

A sob story of colossal proportion, Whale Rider falls under the category “minority trying to keep its culture alive.” In this case, it’s the Maori culture in New Zealand we are talking about, and the story of a family that loses its only male offspring and has to live with his twin, who will have to take over the destiny of the tribe.

Acting is pretty good, admittedly, with the young hero having received more than a few awards and nominations and being pretty certain of a real chance at an acting career. As far as the rest goes, the actors move one more than expected – there is always a danger with a movie about a foreign culture that one doesn’t understand the emoting, but this movie is savvy about avoiding the risk.

Fantastic 4 (2005)

Amazing how much two different comic book franchises can be. The Fantastic 4 was one of the grandest comic book series, second only to Spiderman, but the movie derived from the former was worth only a fraction of the latter’s spinoff. Actually, even the X-Men series works much better in movies.

There is something about the characters of the series that doesn’t work as well. In both other franchises, the heros are derelicts fighting for survival and hiding from a cruel society that wants to get rid of superfreaks. Oddly enough, we seem all to be able to empathize with superfreaks, and we’d wish we had the superpowers. Easy transition to believing the story.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Some movies are just not meant for you. Brokeback Mountain was certainly not meant for me, and I had a hard time separating the movie’s impact on me from the movie itself.

My friend J. and I went together to this remote theater, one of only two showings in the whole city of San Francisco. Stonestown Galleria is a suburban shopping mall, and the tiny theater on its edges seemed to be an unlikely place for what was hailed as a groundbreaking movie.

Meet the Fockers (2004)

Short story: lame.

I confess I kept the movie as a particular treat in my Netflix list, and I was looking forward to a funny movie. “Meet the Parents” was stuck in my brain as an incredibly laugh-worthy movie, and I though that Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand would just be a hoot together.

Not so. Amazing. I don’t know what happened. Even Robert de Niro lost all his funny bones in this sequel. The only one that still stands out is Blythe Danner, who has the same charming ditzyness that made her so vital to the success of the first movie.

House of Wax (2005)

Well, what did I expect? A bunch of teenage rowdies crowds to the opening game of the season, gets stranded in a back country hole and all hell breaks loose. Predictable to the point that my main activity during the movie was hitting fast forward on the remote, and the whole experience shrank down to possibly 30 minutes.

Someone had told me this was the best horror thriller they had seen in years, so I thought it can’t hurt if I watch it. Wrong! I should have read my IMDB before renting it: turns out the whole cast was chosen around the firmament star Paris Hilton. If that wouldn’t have been the clue, then seeing Chad Michael Murray play the bad hero would.

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

That’s one movie that I wish I hadn’t seen.

2004 (when the movie was released) marked the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. The majority Hutu people killed about a million minority Tutsis to free themselves of the spectre of tyranny. Within 100 days they carried out one of the most vicious and devastating attacks on fellow humans that a nation ever attempted.

Why do I wish I hadn’t seen this movie? Because I was sitting at the sidelines, unable to help, unable to do anything, praying that someone would finally send troops to help in Rwanda, to help stopping a senseless slaughter whose main weapon ended up being the machete.

Saved! (2004)

Never ever listen to NPR. They will make anything they like sound grave and wise, and everything they don’t will become sinister and perilous.

Saved! is a teen comedy about Christian fundamentalists. It has all the trappings of a typical teen comedy, and the Christian fundamentalist component is just color added to the usual plot of popular vs. not so trying to get through hell.

Mary attends a Christian high school in Baltimore, MD. Her life of perfect Christianism takes a sudden turn when her boyfriend tells her he’s gay. She decides Jesus wants her to have sex with the boy; as a result, she turns pregnant.

Starship Troopers (1997)

The Godfather (1972)

Rarely have I had such split emotions about a movie. I was not prepared for what I saw, and I am not sure I have a coherent opinion about this movie. It is exciting, and it is dull. It is wonderful, and it is disappointing. There is just not one opinion to form, but a great many, and very conflicting ones.

In short: the movie is about the Corleone family, a Mafia family that is trying to wrestle itself out of a complicated system of vendette that has engulfed the family’s scion, Don Vito Corleone (played by an astounding Marlon Brando). The Corleones disagree with the rest of the mafia on using drugs to make money, thinking that it is too risky and that there is a real danger that the cohabitation between government and mafia will end as soon as drugs are part of the business.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, famous revolutionary, came from an upper middle class environment and dreamt of becoming a doctor before deciding to shoot at people instead. This movie is about the young doctor-to-be going on a road trip with a friend and discovering poverty.

Like a great many European (and European-inspired) movies with a background in social strife, this movie is very plump in its melodramatic accentuation of the rigors of poverty and prejudice. There is no criticism of the hero, who becomes pure and immaculate in preparation of his immolation on the crazy altar of politics.