Ever since I saw Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday I thought I will never ever see a better movie about football and the truth is I still haven’t, the champion is still unchallenged. I am mentioning this because I did expect The Blind Side to be another hundred minutes of tackles, both on and outside the pitch, another movie that glorifies what is in fact just a mutant form of rugby, another mix of pain, sweat and tears. To my surprise The Blind Side is nowhere near that definition. The mix is there, but this time it’s about a much violent sport: life.

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Somehow every year from the whole set of international releases there are a few movies we miss out on. You can blame it on bad marketing, wrong targeting or just some freak happening, but either way the result can be the same: a movie goes under the radar and it stays there until someone is kind enough to dig it out and recommend it to us. If this were to happen only to titles such as Sex and the City I honestly wouldn’t mind that much. On the contrary I would actually be glad and even grateful for being spared of the horror of watching such Hollywood productions. But unfortunately it tends to happen to more interesting ones also. For me this was the case of Black Snake Moan, a movie released in March 2007 that I never heard of until recently and that has managed to turn me in the course of two hours into one of its biggest fans. … More

1.3 billion dollars. That’s the result of the latest sale report for James Cameron’s Avatar. Although many debate that the sales have been boosted by the IMAX ticket pricing, the movie’s popularity makes it without a doubt one of the shiny successes of 2009 and the town’s talk for 2010. Yet there are plenty of naysayers out there calling it common, boring, a run of the mill. Compared to the Avatar fan boys/girls their number is insignificant, but their voice must be heard and it is as important as anybody else’s. So I decided that a review based on their opinions would be at least a good idea.

Their first complaint is about the story, which in a highly condensed version goes like this: on a distant planet called Pandora humans … More

The idea of a man taking the wheel of justice in his own hands and dedicating his entire life to the pursuit of revenge is not at all new in the realm of cinematography. For example, Payback from ’99 with Mel Gibson already walked down that road and did it nicely, but Law Abiding Citizen has managed to polish this idea and bring it as close to perfection as a movie could ever do.

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) loses his wife and daughter during a home invasion. Soon after, the two criminals are captured and brought to face justice, but in order to maintain a high conviction rate, the prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Fox) cuts a deal with one of them in exchange for his testimony against the other. As a result one of the murderers gets a highly reduced sentence while the other is facing death row and ten years pass before that conviction … More

You know those movies with post apocalyptic settings in which the main character has a special mission of great importance, where he needs to go somewhere or do something that can change the course of history and that can even mean salvation for the entire human race? If you do, forget about them when going to see Zombieland, because this one is nothing like that. It’s a simple movie, with a simple plot, a simple story and a natural ending to all that, and I love it for it. I love and respect it for its honesty and simplicity and I think that this combo offers more than most pretentious movies do. I’m more impressed with a film that accomplishes everything it has set out to do, than with one that aims high and fails memorably at reaching its goals. … More