Reviews

I remember watching this when it came out 24 years ago and enjoying it. I also remember it wasn't very well received and some critics were not satisfied with the "sappiness" of getting in touch with their inner kids. One review I read actually says that it was a thing sometime in 1991 and people should get over it. The boomers need some therapy.

I rewatched tonight and I wasn't ready. The dialogues are clever, I was afraid it was going to be corny but I actually found the humor to be quite smart and mature, also it handles complicated themes pretty well. I loved both Bruce Willis and Spencer Breslin's performances, special shoutout to how charming were Lily Tomlin and Jean Smart whenever they were on screen. Stating the obvious, this is not a perfect movie: the music is very dissonant from the tone of the film, some editing choices are odd, sometimes direction gets a bit muddled. But the movie works and it deserves a second chance in popular culture. The message is healing and necessary. Make peace with your past. You still have time to turn things around. Everything's going to be okay. You're okay.

• SPOILER FREE REVIEW –

"You're killing me Susana" is a movie directed by Roberto Sneider, starring Gael García and Verónica Echégui. I recently bought the Blu-Ray since (thank God) I didn't get a chance to watch it while it was on theaters. The movie is described as an epic journey for a Mexican man trying to recover his estranged wife, having to face cultural differences with the Americans and also his own life-long sexist ideas regarding women and relationships. This completely sold me, since, as a Mexican woman, I've been facing the latter subjects for my entire life.

I trusted Sneider- he directed and produced an earlier film called "Arráncame la vida" that tackles similar subjects, also based on a novel. Even though the movie doesn't really live up to its source material (the book with the same name by author Ángeles Mastretta) the movie is enjoyable and delivers its message properly. Actually, just go watch that instead. Don't even bother with this one. Or watch something else. Anything else.

This is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It just doesn't know what it is. The character arc is completely absent; it has an uneven tone; the laughs are cheap and spread too far between each other and, in the end, I think it makes women look really bad… when it was, allegedly, trying to do the opposite. It sort of glosses over the subjects which the movie promised to tackle in zero-effective way. The way this movie was marketed has nothing to do with the movie at all, and created expectations that, probably, ruined the whole experience for me (which is becoming a common problem with movies nowadays). Technically speaking, sound is terrible, editing is awful and the soundtrack is completely disposable. Gael Garcia's acting is really but not even he could save this wreckage.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's POV is both fresh and wonderful. He manages to approach an obscure subject such as death in a very humane and warm way, among other characters like how tough it actually is to grow up, and how really complicated human interaction is. The movie keeps you interested, it moves you and touches some very delicate fibers in the way. It has a smart script, with understandable dialogue and relatable characters that, thank God, have more than one dimension.

I find the acting to be superb, specially the acting performed by Thomas Mann, R.J. Cyler and Olivia Cooke, the young actors that play the principal characters of the film. They will make you laugh and cry. It also made me very happy that there's no unnecessary drama, just very human reactions to very human problems.

I feel it has some sort of Little-Miss-Sunshine/Juno feel to it, feeling just so intimate and natural, giving it some realness that most of us are craving for. Getting a bit techy, I must say I find the film's cinematography to be very simple and pretty. It has a Wes-Anderson-y feel to it, still being very down-to-Earth. On top of that, it has amazing music that goes with it; mellow and soft, but never corny. It also has very decent editing. All in all, I very much recommend it. Just a warning; keep a box of tissues around.

Sicario is a very decent action movie, with extremely tense and well-shot action sequences, superb directing by Dennis Villeneuve and AMAZING cinematography; this movie looks great. Regarding the story, it's an effective thriller, doesn't shy away from getting violent, but there's not much else. No big questions are attempting to get an answer.

I must say the acting is very good. The stand-outs, for me, are Brolin and Del Toro. The latter's character is madly interesting. I must say that I hated it the first time I saw it, but second time I really got to like it. Maybe it helped that I'm now more familiar with Denis Villeneuve's work, thanks to his masterpiece Arrival. Or that my expectations changed (the marketing in my country was very different to the actual movie). So, if you didn't like it the first time around, give it another chance.