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Hotel paura (1996)
3/10
Don´t waste your precious time on this waste of celluloid
11 March 2003
Warning: Spoilers
******Spoilers ahead***************

This movie shows the decadence of a fortysomething finantial director who gets himself trapped into a whirlwind of bad luck. Carlo Ruggeri is a respected Diretor in what seems to be an accounting firm. Almost as a gift to his wife, he buys an upscale, roomier apartment. After the conclusion fo a merging process, which Carlo was one of the the masterminds, he is vile and unjustified fired. He cannot get the deposit on the new apartment back, and the landlord of his old apartment needs it for his soon-to-marry daughter. Carlo can´t find anything for rent, as the offers are mostly for temporary contracts and students.The City Hall places Carlo and his wife and daughter on a low-budget flat, where the residents are mostly white trash. At all times, Carlo keeps his poise.Either very calm, or weak, he accepts everything without a quarrel.Carlo also refuses help from his brother-in-law, a prick who envies his success and seeks to humiliate him. Soon Carlo´s wife, Liliana runs out of patience and moves to her mother´s place, in another city. The city hall discovers this the day after, and Carlo is no longer entitled to stay on the flat. And so the story goes, things always getting worse. According to director Renato de Maria, "the story of a man who makes his way through society from top to bottom. It looks like a journey to hell, but it isn't: it is a journey like all the others - a road which leads to knowledge and self-awareness." Too bad the editing of the scenes is a tad loose, the way the story is told is shallow, insipid. De Maria didn´t want to turn this movie into a melodrama, but the result is just a boring movie. In the movie Carlo loses everything, even his integrity. Don´t waste your time on it.
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Tricheurs (1984)
6/10
Nice chronicle of an anti-hero.
12 February 2003
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is about the interaction of a professional player and an average woman, both after their golden years, in the fortysomething age. Elric tries to keep himself sane while coping with his gambling addiction, which every now and then leaves him so broke he can´t afford a bag of groceries. Suzi is an average woman, who has just broke up with her lover when Elric meets her. Every gambler has a collection of superstitions, and these superstitions compel him to have Suzi by his side when gambling at the roulette. Both make a lasting effect on each other, and their gambling goes simultaneously with their man-woman relationship. I couldn´t tell more without being a spoiler, so that´s it for a summary of the flick. Good character building, uncompromising acting, competent direction, anything brilliant nor clumsy.Nice entertainment, shows decadence without leaving sadness in the watcher. 6 out 10.
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4/10
feels like something from a movie directed and produced by students
11 February 2003
Even knowing beforehand 44 votes is not something to be trusted, i was very disappointed after watching this movie. Its IMDB voting average (the day before i watched the film) was 8.1, which led me to think this was at least a good movie. Maybe someone who worked on it inflated the ratings. As i watched this movie, the impression that it was a production of Movie students got stronger and stronger, a kind of "this was the best i could have done, with the limitations i had". Poor photography, vague direction and acting that was nothing out of the ordinary, all could be the result of the collective work of people with little experience and/or talent. The lead actress is above the film average, but i was already thinking of turning the TV off and go to sleep 48 minutes after the beginning. Just a dull movie, most people would rather skip it. 4 out of 10.
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7/10
Worth the time. Not of the 100 best movies, but nice.
1 February 2003
Warning: Spoilers
*******************Spoiler Alert***************************************

********Don´t want to read a spoiler, skip this*******

After the first 20 minutes, what seemed to be a film about a group of friends and their jokes on each other twists to that twists to a nice cat and mouse chase. This is a crime-thriller with a nice blend of suspended breath moments with light little jokes and some romance here and there. This is not of the 100 best movies i´ve seen, but it´s worth the time watching. Good acting by Mr.Cluzet, and Claude Zidi has a mastery of telling things by bits, keeping you curious.
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10/10
Another masterpiece by Julio Meden
9 December 2002
Once again Julio Meden reminds us that doing movies is an art. Not just story telling, but Art. The very way of telling the story can be artful, and this flick is a nice example. Newspaper reviews in my city gave it two stars out of four, but this guys would never give good ranking to a movie without gay action or dark, 10-ton-of-sadness endings. Great movies, artistically speaking, can be done without leaving the feel-good mood, like this one. Good acting, superb job of photography, optimistic way of portraying the human being, an excellent movie!

Don´t be shocked with the sex scenes, there´s much more story around. The director was very courageous to jeopardize the movie reputation among puritan, hypocritical viewers. 10 out of 10.
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Code Unknown (2000)
5/10
**not a movie you would feel sorry for not watching...
16 November 2001
Being a long-time fan of Juliette Binoche, I would have gone to the movie Teather anyway, but after I read my local main newspaper critics appraising this flick, I had great expectations.

This movie is not bad, not even in the neighborhood of being bad, but adds nothing to your cinema experience. Doesn´t leave you happy or upset(maybe for the money spent on the ticket), does nothing for your heart pulse.

La Binoche is a great actress, and in this flick we have another proof, with the best scenes in this movie carried by her talent.

I wasn´t moody when I went to the movie, I was pretty happy and relaxed, so don´t credit any bad temper for my comments.

If you have nothing better to do, watch this movie. If you miss it, don´t worry, there isn´t much to lose.
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Madregilda (1993)
4/10
If you miss this flick, don´t worry. There´s nothing to loose.
16 March 2001
If you miss this flick, don´t worry. There´s nothing to loose.

This is a movie that sips its inspiration from the same fountain that director Emir Kusturica drank when the movie `Underground' (1995) was made. It´s a surrealistic flick with an impoverished artistic vein.

In the beginning it looks a lot like `Hope and Glory'(1987) by John Boorman, tough the other flick is MUCH better, as the story follows the steps of a young lad in a war-plagued Spain during the General Franco regime. All of a sudden the story changes, as if another somebody had changed a TV channel while you were watching it. The movie now depicts an insane, resentful, incompliant man, who happens to be one of the supporters of the totalitarian regime, as a member of the Military. The portrait of this man could be defined as a cry against totalitarian regimes, no matter what name they get. This man is also the father of the boy of the beginning of the movie, and the killer of her mother, in a jealously frenzy. There´s another subplot (is there a main plot in this?) involving the imaginary relation between the boy and his mother, but the scenes are interwoven in the Frankenstein way. The overall impression that this movie leaves on the viewer is that this could have been a good flick if a better director conducted the work of filmmaking.

I must be honest and tell that I had a hard time just staying awake, thanks to dull characters and dark photography.
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