Ocean's Eleven - Steven Soderbergh

The house always wins

-Daniel Ocean (George Clooney)

The 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven (the original was filmed in 190, starring Frank Sinatra) is probably the last pop-corn movie that didn't need guns, sex, or over-the-top gore to entertain the public. Guys get to see a smart robbery and girls enjoy George Clooney et al. Everybody wins.

Antología Poética - Rubén Darío

Hasta hace como 50 años, a la mayoría de los varones de familia de burguesía hispanoamericana (conjunto que, obviamente, incluye a España) les daba, en algún momento de su vida, por escribir poemas "en estricto romance bien romanceado." Y leían sus creaciones en fiestas, bodas, y así. La mayoría de esos poemas eran basura panegirista dirigida a un jefe, un amigo, una enamorada, o una pareja de novios, que se conformaba con que las últimas palabras de los versos rimara entre sí con cierta gracia y alternancia, y que su número de sílabas fuera consistente a lo largo del poema. Esa tradición ha desaparecido prácticamente por completo, aunque hay un bombero poeta en El Callao, en Perú, que todavía publica sus cuadernos y los vende por cinco soles.

El responsable de esa fiebre poética fue Rubén Darío, el hombre que introdujo el Modernismo a las letras de habla española, y creó toda una estética alrededor del color azul y la figura del cisne (leer "Blasón"). Comparar a Darío con sus miles de imitadores es bastante injusto: mientras sus imitadores creían que combinar palabras para tener métricas y rimas perfectas era como resolver ecuaciones, Rubén Darío combinó las palabras usando técnicas de poesía clásica como quizá nadie lo ha hecho en los últimos 500 años. Rítmica y matemáticamente, las poesías de Rubén Darío son perfectas, más allá de su valor literario, que es infinito. 

Y sin embargo, el destino de Rubén Darío ha sido bastante triste. En vida fue considerado el primer meteco de la historia de América Latina, a pesar de que algunos de sus poemas, como "A Roosevelt", podría ser firmada por cualquier izquierdista anti-yanqui de nuestros días.  Hasta los críticos del modernismo, muchos de los cuales criticaron a Darío por ser vendido a los franceses y a los europeos, deben reconocer que poemas como "¿Qué signo haces, oh Cisne, con tu encorvado cuello?"  son una reivindicación de la América Hispana. 

El legado estético de Darío fue víctima de su propio éxito. Ante la oleada de imitadores y admiradores, pronto salieron críticos dispuestos a cometer el parricido cultural innato a las actividades artísticas. Quizá la crítica más bella y acabada al Modernismo y a Rubén Darío es el poema "Tuércele el Cuello al Cisne" de Enrique González Martínez.

En la actualidad, Rubén Darío es apenas leído. En parte porque la poesía ya no interesa a nadie, pero en también porque la gente que fue forzada a leer sus poemas ha ido muriendo. Hace unos meses, Google sacó una herramienta llamada Ngram Viewer que permite saber qué tan frecuentemente es mencionada una palabra o un conjunto de palabras en los libros que se han publicado en toda la historia.  La serie de tiempo que se obtiene al computar "Rubén Darío" en el corpus de libros publicados en español desde 1880 es la siguiente (link a la imagen original):

Los valores en el eje vertical no son relevantes. Lo que destaca es cómo la popularidad de Rubén Darío alcanzó un primer pico alrededor de 1920. Después, tuvo un "revival" alrededor de 1970, que quizá se deba a que la gente que lo leyó en su juventud en 1920 empezó a publicar libros cuarenta años después, en los cuales el autor nicaragüense aparecía mencionado. Desde entonces, la "popularidad" de Rubén Darío presenta una clara tendencia a la baja. Dudo que las páginas de internet que tienen poemas de Darío compensen su pérdida de popularidad en el mercado de los libros, pero ojalá me equivoque.

Si el precio de que la gente lea la poesía de Rubén Darío es que luego algunos egomaniacos hagan poesías malas, creo que es algo que todos podemos soportar.

Mientras tanto, siempre estará Mozart, el cual le gustaba mucho a Darío.

The Italian Job - Peter Collinson

The original version of The Italian Job (1969) is about a bunch of English guys who go to Europe to steal some gold using three Minis. The main song of the movie, "Getta Bloomin Move on," has become a football anthem for English fans. In addition to offering one of the best open ends in the History of movies, this is a movie about British (English) pride at a time when the European Common Market was creeping on British Sovereignty.


Another movie called The Italian Job was made in 2003, loosely inspired by the movie directed by Collinson. Mini was no longer a British brand, the public stopped liking open ends, and there is no connection whatsoever to the United Kingdom. But the British were still afraid of the Europeans taking over their sovereignty...

The original movie is just excellent.

Alfie - Lewis Gilbert (1966) & Charles Shyer (2004)

This is the first time that I'll review two movies simultaneously.


Both versions of Alfie tell the story of a British womanizer (1966 Alfie lives in London; 2004 Alfie lives in NYC) who, at the end, discovers himself empty and alone. 




It's obvious that the movies are different. But they also tell us how our society has evolved: how the concept of manhood has changed, how the film industry depicts the working class, and what we think about abortion. In order to summarize the similarities and differences between the two, I'll use one of these tables that technocrats and business people use to conceptualize things. That should make this blog look serious, or something like that.

	Alfie 1966	Alfie 2004
Does Alfie treat women like shit once he gets tired of them?	Yes, all the time. I doubt any script written today would contain Alfie’s offensive remarks. The director and the studio would be sued immediately by some kind of feminist NGO.	Only after a while, and with politeness.
Is Alfie a working class guy?	Yes.	Yes, though he lives in a nice studio and can afford expensive clothes (he even mentions his Gucci shoes, Hugo Boss suit, and stuff like that)
Is Alfie obsessed with his dressing?	Not really. He likes to look decent.	Yes. Completely
Are all women of the movie ridiculously beautiful?	No. Some are OK, one is actually ugly (the one who has an abortion, meaningfully –she appears without make-up all the time), and only one is outstanding.	Yes. Alfie’s World is full of glamour, champagne, and partying.
How’s the subject of abortion dealt with in the movie?	The woman has an illegal abortion in Alfie’s house. Alfie can see the fetus in his kitchen, and that’s when he decides to change.	Alfie leaves the girl in a clinic (it’s not clear whether the place is legal or not). At the very end, she decides to keep the baby.
Does Alfie have any close friends?	Not really. He had one while at the hospital and he ended up sleeping with his wife. But no, Alfie’s a loner.	Yes. And he betrays all of them. Alfie 2004 is about a womanizer as much as it is about a guy who betrays his friends.
How’s the subject of children born out of marriage dealt with in the movie?	The movie hints that having children out of marriage is bad for everyone involved: dad, mom, and kid.	Children? What are children? And where’s my champagne?
Is there any morale or message at the end?	Yes: acts have consequences. Alfie loses his child, forces a woman to have an illegal abortion (he pays for it, though), and will probably die of tuberculosis.	Yes: being a womanizer who only cares about expensive clothes is OK when you’re in your late 20s - early 30s

Alfie 1966 tries to give messages, whereas the 2004 version is about having a good time. I don’t mean this in a pejorative way. Alfie 2004 is actually a really entertaining movie, and the soundtrack is really good. But the differences between the two movies say something about how Western societies have changed, and what their collective priorities are.


Here’s the trailer for the 1966 movie (you can actually see the movie for free in Youtube starting here).


And here’s the trailer of the 2004 version:


And last but not least, "Old Habits Die Hard", the 2004 main song:

Predator 2 - Stephen Hopkins

"Shit happens"

Not many movies are, at the same time, representative of their age and ahead of their time. Predator 2 is one of them.

Like many movies of the 80s (Robocop would be one example), Predator 2 is set in an apocalyptic future where violence, pollution, and chaos disintegrate the social tissue. Predator 2 is set in Los Angeles in 1997, a city devastated by the war between the Colombian and the Jamaican gangs. The movie got it right on pollution, but wrong on the extent of urban violence, which is now contained in the immigrant neighborhoods. 

Also, the movie depicts Mexican immigrants as the innocent victims of the violence. Were a remake of Predator 2 to take place, the gangs would be composed of Mexicans and Salvadorians, and the victims would be Colombians and Jamaicans. That is how American popular culture is moved by clichés...

(Predator 2 also got it right on how ridiculously big is Los Angeles: according to the movie, an alien spacecraft can be hid in the sewage system and nobody would notice. Well, I am not sure about spacecrafts, but Los Angeles hosted the Olympic Games in 1984 and a large portion of Los Angeles was unaware of that)

I would like to stop for a bit on the lack of of apocalyptic movies in the 1990s and 2000s. The Reagan years were very tough for the US, no matter what the Tea Party and the nostalgic conservatives say: urban unemployment was rampant and cocaine was spreading faster than the Universe (people were also learning to make crack), making the downtowns of the largest cities very dangerous places. The apocalyptic movies of the 80s are set in a distant future because the studios wanted to portray the image of a happy country, in line with Reagan's "Good Morning America". The solution found by directors, who after all portray what they see,  was to set their stories in the future... After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the healthy economic expansion of the 90s, nobody thought about Apocalypse -or if somebody did, could not find funding. After 9/11, I guess, Americans think that we are finally living Apocalypse, so there is no need to tell stories about the future...

Back to Predator 2, now.

As weird as it sounds today (2011), Predator 2 has an ecological message: by telling the story of an alien who likes to hunt humans for fun, the movie tries to send the message that hunting animals is bad. That is what the director and the writers say in the "Making of...", which was recorded at the same time as the movie. The fact that Predator 2 is currently seen as an action popcorn mediocre movie and not as an ecological parable, is a testimony of the changes in aesthetic values lived over the last 30 years.

Another interesting change concerns masculinity and what an attractive man should look like. Most action heroes of the 80s are sweaty guys on steroids not caring about being violent and gross. It would have been unsurprising if Arnold or Stallone farted in the middle of an action scene. The action heroes of today dress on Prada, do not sweat, and are always politically correct (the exception is, sometimes, Russell Crowe). I guess that change in the concept of manhood should be enough to prove that women are taking over the World...

I personally think that Predator 2 is better than the first one: there are more action scenes confronting the monster and human beings rather than humans against each other. The special effects are more elaborate and the monster has more personality and weapons. But the movie was a commercial disaster in the US (the movie had a positive return thanks to its sales abroad), partly because it was ahead of its time. The movie was rated R when it was released because it was considered too violent and containing too much explicit language (it also has a scene of sex). Today, Predator 2 would be a PG-13 easily. The movie just shows bones and skulls instead of guts and explicit violence scenes, as most action movies do today. What was considered excess of blood in the 1980s is a picnic for Tarantino.

And the other sad thing of Predator 2 is that it is really hard to compete against Arnold Schwarznegger, even if I think that Danny Glover did an excellent job as the monster hunter.

Long story short: only fans will find that Predator 2 is a good movie...

Alien vs. Predator - Paul W. S. Anderson

"And they use us like cattle"

-Sebastian de Rosa (Raoul Bova)

Alien vs Predator (AVP) was one of the most expected movies in the History of the sci-fi genre but it was disappointing. I mean, the movie is just a bunch of dark against dark on darkness, and scenes with humans take a lot of time. People would have liked to see the monsters fighting against each other. Alas, action scenes are actually scarce. The structural problem with the Alien and Predator movies in general is that they have to be shot with little light; otherwise, it would be obvious that the characters are just people in disguises. But then, the question arises: why are we still doing movies like this in the traditional way? Would not it be more effective to computerize everything, get rid of humans, and  have more action sequences?

Here is the trailer of DC Universe Online, a recently released video game. The game itself is really bad, but the trailer could be the basis for a good movie. And with better voices, nobody would miss human actors. 







Quite honestly, AVP could have been worse. The sequel, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem goes over the top with the gore scenes. The directors tried to use blood and guts as a substitute for action. I will not talk about it, in case you wonder...


Here is the trailer of AVP.

Predator - John McTiernan

"If it bleeds, we can kill it"

-Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Predator set the standards for modern action movies. The scene of the palapa is one of the most exciting action sequences ever filmed. Given the standards of the time, the implicit political messages were kept to a minimum.

Predator is the ultimate popcorn movie.

And it deserves to praised as such.

Also, if you ever happen to watch the behind-the-scenes, you will understand why Arnold was elected as governor of California.




Predator was filmed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Rambo II was also filmed in Mexico -Guerrero, to be precise. Twenty years ago, it was common to film action movies in the Mexican Pacific coast. But then, the Vietnam related movies were no longer in (so there was no need to simulate a tropical forest in a safe environment), and the relative costs of filming in Mexico were ridiculously high in comparison to South East Asia or North Africa, when these countries opened up to trade and investment. I guess it was cool to see Arnold and Stallone around.

You can still visit the site where Predator was filmed. The helicopter is still there and there is a restaurant next to the lake of the final battle.

U218 Singles - U2

U218 Singles is the nth compilation of singles/greatest hits/meaningful songs/lovely songs by U2.

U2 might be the only band that offers "Beautiful Day" & "Sunday Bloody Sunday" in the same album.

And not only that: they sometimes sing both songs in the same show, sometimes one after the other...

The Washingtonienne - Jessica Cutler

"No matter how many expensive meals we ate here, or how much our designer outfits cost, girls like us would never be fat cats. In this town, we were nothing but pussy."

-Jackelyn

The Washingtonienne is the autobiographic novel of Jessica Cutler, a Congress staffer who had her 15 minutes of fame in 2004, when her porno-blog was unveiled.

Jessica received money from senior political appointees for having sex with them. The fact that men paid to have sex with someone like her (here's a supposedly hot picture of her) should say enough about how lonely people in Washington, DC are.

You can get the book for $0.01 in amazon.com, or you can save that money and read the Wikipedia entry on Cutler. Believe me, you won't miss anything at all.

The main character of the book (i.e., Jessica) is full of herself and is annoying after 20 pages. It's pathetic how she tries to present herself as a liberated woman for having sex with a bunch of guys for money. 

If anything, the value of this book is that it shows how quickly DC changed in 5 years. Adam's Morgan, where Jessica bought cocaine, is now a relatively posh area of DC. But I guess that's irrelevant for anyone else than the 50 thousand people who live in the NW part of the city.

Why did I put this stupid book in my list of readings? Oh, yes, I remember now.  The Economist -in its infinite wisdom- recommended it...

The Washingtonienne was translated and published in France, which has a long tradition of releasing porno-books, dating back at least since Flaubert's Madame Bovary.