Monday, December 25, 2006

Quinceanera. The movie reminded me shades of Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi and Raising Victor Vargas, both uplifting, showing the lesser known, but no less inspiring, communities in international cinemas. What was most assuring and inspiring about this film, I guess, as with all other good independent films, is that you don't need big budget, nor big film stars, to make a decent film. What you need is a strong script, characters that audience can identify and sympathise, and viola, a nice film that is worth our 90 to 120 minutes, is born, and we happily leave the cinema with smiling faces. Perhaps the ending was resolved a little too conveniently, as if the director was already satisfied with his work for 80 minutes, and was in a hurry to wrap up the film in the next 10 minutes ... I don't know why, but the word Quinceanera reminded me of food, like tacos or something ... sorry, now I know it is a rite of passage, a most solemn occasion, so I know better now ...

Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. While I should be missing a gentler side of Jack Black, as I missed the chance to catch The Holiday and now there is no space as there are other newer films to catch ... This is B-grade material, but I would dare to say A-grade effort. The lyrics to the songs leave much to be desired, of course, but the music is frankly not half as bad, and much of the music, the riffs, was pretty tight as well. Jack's previous headlining effort, Nacho Libre, was really disappointing, but this one makes up for it. The cameos were hilarious as well, such as Tim Robbins, Dave Grohl, and of course, Ben Stiller, which reminds me, I should watch Night of the Museum soon ...

♥ 10:33 am