Little Miss Sunshine

I loved this movie. It is funny, touching, has some wonderful gags. A funny ending. And a great turn by Alan Arkin as a grandfather whose advice to his grandson is "Fuck as many women as you can". This is one cool movie.

The old books

Ever since I was a little kid I had seen the Shakespeare books in my parent's library. They were wonderful 1923 editions from Yale University. The kind of book binding you don't see anymore. I remember browsing them as a child and knowing how special they were.
Last month my parents decided to clean up the place and they told me whether I wanted the books. I inmediately said yes. I placed them in a bag and said I would take them to my apartment later. Well, I forgot about it for a month. And yesterday when I went to look for them, they were not there. The cleaning lady had mistook them for trash and had thrown them away.
I know it's silly to cry for books, but I felt such sorrow. This books are something I wanted to remember by father by. His love for reading. His love for Shakespeare. The thought of these books being taken away by a garbage truck was truly painful.

Well, I figured I should look for them. Maybe the garbage truck had not passed by my parent's house. I looked through all the bags. Nothing. Suddenly I looked in the bottom of a garbage can and there they were. I almost cried from the joy of it. The books were there.

I took them to my apartment today. I smelled their wonderful "old book" fragrance.
I was the happiest man on earth.

Peace

There is something special about Christmas morning. I love waking up early and just going into the balcony and enjoy the silence. There are no cars in the street, no trucks and their horns. I guess everyone is back at their homes, exchanging gifts or simply recovering from their hangover. But that's not really important, the important thing is this silence. This peace. And well, peace is what Christmas is all about, isn't it?

Feliz Nochebuena. Feliz Navidad.

Felicidades

Well, we are so close to Christmas weekend. A long one since yesterday they gave us Tuesday off. I did all my shopping already so I won't have to go to Plaza. So maybe it's time to catch a movie or keep watching the "Band of Brothers" DVD that someone lent me. Hmmm..maybe that's not great Christmas fare. I'm sure Turner Classic Movies has a few great films for the season.


Anyway, I'll have my share of pernil and pasteles and all the great Holiday food. And I'll spend some quality time with my family. Which is always a good thing.
Well, have a good one...Felicidades!!!

Apocalypto

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see this movie, but I went to see it today. This is the kind of movie that creates mixed feelings. It is extremely well made, the acting is excellent (these people were all non-actors!!!), one gets involved in the story. And there are scenes such as the one featuring the sacrifices that are extremely effective.

But suddenly one realizes one is watching every action cliche in the book simply set in a different place and time. The wild animal chase, the jumping off a waterfall etc. But maybe that's the whole point, this is an old fashioned adventure movie and that's all. A Mayan Indiana Jones.

As for the violence, well, it's not as terrible as some critics make you think. Plus, it doesn't really shock you in the context of an adventure movie.

The Queen

Nowadays there are very few movies that challenge. That do not take the easy way out.
Here's one of the few. An intelligent, sometimes even funny movie about Queen Elizabeth's II's reaction to Lady Di's death. Instead of taking the easy way of showing what a terrible person she must have been to react coldly to her death, the movie makes us understand her and even sympathize with her. Here's a woman brought brought up with the old English ways, having to react to the E! entertainment world of today where the death of an ex-princess creates world mourning.

Anyway, the movie has an amazing performance by Helen Mirren as the Queen. She's a shoo-in to win the Oscar. Watch it at Fine Arts.

A childhood memory

Maybe it's the season. But I've been reminiscing about things I used to like as a kid. And one of them was Peanuts. I guess I learned English reading the comic strip. There was something wonderfully reassuring about its world of little kids. And, although I didn't realized it at the time, there was a whole philosophy of life in it.

So when I learned that there would be a Peanuts movie I was thrilled. And finally, the movie arrived in Puerto Rico. And my uncle, who knew about my love for Peanuts, invited me to a Gala Premiere!! You can imagine how special I felt. Gala Premieres used to be a big deal way back then. People would dress up and everything. So there I was, 9 years old, dressed with jacket and tie, at my first movie Gala Premiere with my uncle and aunt. As you can imagine, I loved the movie. Many of the gags and situations were lifted from the strip, so it was wonderful to see them in the giant screen of the Radio City theater in Santurce. Well, I loved it so much that I made my parents take me to see it again three days later.

Anyway, I saw this movie again yesterday. And it was wonderful. I had not seen it since 1970!!!! Maybe it's the season. But I love revisiting it again.

Happy Feet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I took the day off and went to Plaza to do my Christmas shopping. After doing that, I decided to catch a movie. I was not ready for the gore of "Apocalypto", so I decided to see "Happy Feet".

Well, I was really surprised by it. I thought it was going to be all cute, dancing penguins but it turned out to be quite different.But this is an animated movie directed by the man who made "Mad Max" and "Babe". Which means that this is a movie full of nice moments followed by some pretty dark sequences.

Still, it was a cool movie to watch. Some nice songs (the movie begins with The Beatles "Golden Slumbers" and there's a reference to the famous last Beatles tune "And in the end/ the love you take is equal to the love you make"). But they are mostly funky tunes.

Robin Williams supplies one of the voices, but is mercifully not allowed to go wild.

The movie is bit too long though, but well worth seeing. And those Latino penguins are funny as hell.

thought

The New Year is arriving. And with it a milestone in my life. In April of 2007 I turn 46. I would be past the middle of the decade that an older friend of mine called "The last really good ten years". I always remember when he told me that on my 40th birthday. And now almost six years later, those words come to my mind.

Then again, fuck it. I'll start jogging, eating really healthy and start taking Viagra and go on. Anyway, there are still four years left until that. There's today and tomorrow. And tomorrow. Yeah, fuck it.

true

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." ~Albert Einstein

Christmas magic

Once upon a long time ago, local tv channels used to show these wonderful Christmas shows, "Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and others.But these two were always favorites of mine when I was a kid. There was so quaint and reassuring about them. There is an innocence to them that is so incredibly irristible. No wonder they are shown year after year in the national networks.

A couple of years back I bought them on DVD and it felt great watching them again. This year I gave them to a friend that has a two year old boy and he loves them too. And that madem e feel so good. To think that another little boy discovers a bit of the magic of this season through the work of Rankin Bass and their amazing stop animation specials.

"Scoop"

I wonder why this movie got so many mixed reviews. It's a light, funny farce about a college student who receives a big news scoop about a serial killer from a dead reporter. It's pretty cool and reminds me of old 1940's movies full of wonderful comic moments. Maybe after "Match Point", critics were expecting another masterpiece from director Woody Allen and instead he delivered a solid little romantic comedy. A romantic comedy a million times better than the crap that plays at Plaza theaters every week. Check it out and be surprised.

on cold and snow

I was watching the news channels on Friday, seeing all the images of the winter storm that hit the Midwest. The cars stuck in the snow or slipping down icy roads. And it made me realize one of the main reasons I didn't stay in the Midwest or Northeast when I graduated from college or grad school. I never got to enjoy snow and cold weather. Sure, if you're on vacation, it's great to see snow and then come back to warmer weather. But when you live there and you realize that the cold weather will last form November through April, well, it's not so great.

Anyway, it was cool to see the images on CNN, and then go to my balcony and enjoy the warm breeze.

new channel from Onelink

I've been watching this new channel available on OneLink called Vene Movies, from Venevision. And it is quite interesting. It features movies from Spain, Argentina, Mexico and other Latin American countries. They are shown uncut and without commercials. I prefer the ones from Spain and they seem to have a nice library of them.
Check it out on channel 144.

Visual Arts closes down

One of the the weird things about growing older is seeing places you love vanish. The candy store where you bought baseball cards, the movie theater where you saw your first movies.Now another such place closes down: Visual Arts Bookstore in Condado.

I remember the first time I saw the store, it had a small sign outside. I walked in out of pure curiosity and inmediately loved the place.It was full of books about movies and had movie magazines I had never heard about. It was unlike any bookstore in Puerto Rico.

Soon word got around about this wonderful little store with all the books you could not find anywhere else. And there was also this talk about how Dominique, the owner, used to work in high finance but gave it up to create the store. It's something all of us who work for others, simply dream about.

Thanks to Dominique's store I learned about all kinds of movies, from Italian horror flicks to Oriental movies. When he had Viva Video there I was able to rent Chabrol, Truffaut and Orson Welles movies. I was also able to discover great magazines such as Video Watchdog and others.

But, that's the past. Visual Arts is closing down. There's a Liquidation sale. I will go there and buy a few books at a low price. But it will be a sad day nevertheless. A small of oasis of art and culture amidst the cheesiness of Condado is gone forever. Damn.

crime

Today some tecato broke my car window . I guess he was looking for CD's or things like that. Unfortunately for him I had left nothing inside the car. Anyway, it's really not that big a deal, I guess. Although I do hope he overdoses and dies...

Scumbag

I read something today that made me realize how low peple can stoop in order to make some money. It seems tv host Hector Marcano has been seeking high ratings by hiring alleged psychics to "solve" the disappearance of a little boy (Rolandito) that happened more than 10 years ago. Every Sunday, a psychic goes in the show and then hits the road seeking the body of the child. Each one comes up with a wild theory about it being here or there.

Meanwhile, the parents of the boy have to see this circus played out on tv. One can imagine the pain they must feel by reliving their personal tragedy thorough the horrendous spectacle Marcano has created. Yesterday they finally wrote him begging him to cease exploiting their child's death for ratings. Amazing.

Marcano should stick to presenting hald naked women and ripping off Argentinian and Antena 3 game shows. That's what he should do and stop being such a heartless fuck.

WTF????????

This has to be the weirdest DVD ever. A LONGER cut of the most unnecessarily long movie ever. My God, I had to fast forward through the entire island dinosaurs scene. Who in his right mind thought "Yeah..that King Kong movie was too damn short. Give me an extra hour"

By the way, a friend of mine noticed something weird about "King Kong"...here is an island full of DINOSAURS ...and this moviemaker prefers to take home a stupid giant gorilla!!!!

lazy days

Sometimes a long weekend arrives at the correct time.