Nublado nubladisimo, como buen cielo Inglés

Long time no see! I'm studying abroad in England at the moment, and in between traveling and school I've been rather uninspired, but hopefully I'll get better soon. Still, I'm taking a drawing class, and this was one of my assignments:



Ceci n'est past un collage
Acrylics over Cartridge paper
A3 size

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Crappy photo is crappy 'cause I don't have easy access to a scanner right now. And yes, I just joined two A4 sheets, I'm too cheap to actually get an A3 sketchbook, lol.

Ni una nube, si por algo hace este frío de la chingada

Portrait of a sulk
Chinese ink on opalina paper.
20x23cms

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I basically wanted to draw something really ornamental, and try a new way of inking - I despise inking with actual pens or markers, and in contrast I really enjoy working with brushes. I've been experimenting with a looser, freer stroke nowadays; it's much more fun, even if things end up sort of lopsided, haha.

Cielo azul a más no poder, sin una sola nube

Chinese ink and watercolors on guarro paper.
15x23 cms.

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My entry for this week's Illustration Friday; the theme was Wise. I couldn't really think of anything, and then all I could think of was Merlin - not the young, creepily smirking BBC new version, but rather the weirdly adorable creepy hawaiian-print wearer old guy from Disney, haha. Ah, well, such is my mind.

Cielo todo negrito, una que otra estrellita

Mosaicos
Acrylics on illustration board
21x21cms

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I started this little project around August, mostly because I wanted to frame something I'd painted and put it up in my new, blank wall. I worked on it really sporadically and slowly, but I learned a lot from it, and had a lot of fun as well. This sort of illustrates my love for bright colors, textures and patterns; a sort of hectic representation of myself, haha.

Cielo despejadito, despejadito

What's this, another update? This soon? GASP. My, my, I'm shocked at myself.



Because sometimes you just want to say no.

Acrylics on illustration board.
20x17cms

Atardecer pasando de rosa a lila a azul

Why yes, I do remember this place.



WHY SO STYLISH?
Is it too obvious I'm about dying for a pair of green Ray-bans?

Watercolors on guarro paper.

Cielo demasiado azul, sin una nube a la vista

Gone Baby Gone
Bases on the Dennos Lehane novel about two detectives in the Boston area investigating the kidnapping of a little girl, which becomes a professional and personal crisis.

I must say how surprised I was at seeing such a well done movie knowing Ben Affleck was the director. It is interesting, emotive without having to restore to melodrama, touching, and it makes one think for a long while after seeing it.

I really liked the way it was told, the way it seemingly jumps all over the place and yet it all makes sense in the end. It creates a lot of suspense, and it keeps you guessing what’s going to happen.

The acting was pretty good – nothing too remarkable, but take Ed Harris, for example, who was also in that lame-ass movie, Nacional Treasure 2 I saw the other day, and compare his terrific performance in Gone Baby Gone with NTs cheesy and boring one. Casey Affleck, too, was surprisingly good, considering it’s the first time I’ve seen him in a dramatic role, and he pulled it off really well.

The most interesting part of the movie, though, is the subthemes it handles – What’s right and what’s wrong? Does the end really does justify the means? Most of the characters have a pretty gray morality, and it’s that dichotomy between right and wrong that leaves you thinking, and that makes the characters intriguing, because one has to wonder to just which lengths they’re willing to go to do right in their eyes.

It’s hard to write a good critic without living the ending away, since that’s what just turns the movie around completely, and leaves you one last question: Has Patrick done the right thing? Believe me when I say it’s hard to answer it.

Technically, it has certain camera angles that are pretty good, but other than that, the lack of embezzlement fits really well with the theme. The movie doesn’t waste time with the faux-grittiness that is so popular nowadays, and it shows things and people with a stark realism (physical looks included) that is as weird and refreshing to see in Hollywood.

To sum it all up: I do hope Ben Affleck goes on directing, because honestly? He does it better than he acts.



Love in the Times of Cholera
Florentino Ariza, Fermina Daza and Doctor Juvenal Urbino form a romantic triangle that lasts generations, with the cholera plague in XIX century Colombia as background. Based on the novel by Gabriel García Márquez.

For starters, this doesn’t manage to even come close to the novel. The first part is too melodramatic and corny in excess, and it managed to bore me. Enter Javier Bardem, and he saves the movie. Really, without him, it’d be so so bad.

Giovanna Mezzogiorno, the actress playing Fermina Daza doesn’t show any emotion, and just while actino alongside to Bardem manages to shine a bit (I couldn’t remember where I’d seen her before, and it wasn’t until I realizad she’s Italian that I remembered she’s in L’Ultimo Bacio, one of my favorite Italian films. I don’t remember her being quite this bad in that one.) I’m still downright pissed at the way Benjamin Bratt tore to pieces the character of the Doctor Juvenal Urbino. I always liked him loads in the book, and Bratt made him conceited and unlikable, a complete villain instead of the protagonist he should be. In the same way, his and Fermina’s relationship becomes false and in no way convincing instead of the wonderful couple they were in the book.

Ah, but Bardem. He placed Florentino Ariza with a tad more insecurity than he shows in the book, but leaving that out, he was perfect. He gets that mixture of shyness, dreaminess and sheer magnetism Florentino always had, and while the movie was focused on him it became interesting, and even funny. As soon as it went back to other characters it became stifling and boring. So there are some good moments – even some pretty good moments, but they’re outshined by the bad ones. But yeah, the last part improves significantly, so much that you can even leave the theatre with a smile.

Technically, the cinematography was rather pretty – green and wet just like the Caribbean, even if it wasn’t anything that remarkable (it does help in lack of a proper plot, though). It was honestly weird to have Shakira songs thrown around left and right. It fits while the ending credits are rolling. While in the middle of the movie? Not so much.

I give it a very low 3 out of five. I hesitated from this grading because in all honestly I didn’t like half of the movie all that much, so that last point is here just for Javier Bardem and his marathonic attempts to save a disaster.

Cielo ligeramente nublado

Atonement
Maybe I should start by saying the credits haven't stopped rolling and that I'm still crying. Or maybe I should start by saying this has been my favorite movie of 2007.

I've only read half the book, but I can say that that first part was adapted in a wonderful way - it is incredibly faithful to it, and yet it takes the best of the book and enhances it further, for it has none of the sober and too-slow tone of the novel. The pacing becomes fast, dynamic, and it makes the movie much nicer.

It's hard to think of a film in which all the performances are as solid and awe-worthy of this: I've been admiring James McAvoy's acting style for a while (who doubtlessly steals the movie), that way of getting inside a character's skin. But I can't ignore the fantastic performances of Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai, both acting as Briony, and even Keira Knightley gave a very good performance even if it could be considered as the weakest of the bunch. But really, all performances are good - rather for what they don't say but for what they do; that way of expressing in silence.

The plot on itself is pretty good represented; it is emotive without being melodramatic, and it is very touching - it manages to hurt, say. Just like the ending hurts, but that you expect since the beginning.

I must say that the technical side gets to overshine the actual plot at times, it was that good. This has been one of the best camera works I've ever seen - it tends to centered, quiet shots, and there's even a two minutes and a half long shot. How long it took to plan that, I can't even imagine, but it could easily be the climax of the movie. The cinematography, also, was absolutely stunning - it plays with the contrast of light-colored and illuminated shots with the darkness of the war in green and black dark tones. Simply marvelous. The music I've liked for some time, but its taken to a whole new level when together with the film.

So in short I loved it, and I guess I'll have to see it again to fully digest it. And as to the question everybody asks themselves: Do I forgive Briony? I'm not sure. She was but a child.

Cielo azul sin una sola nube

La Môme / La Vie En Rose
D: Olivier Dahan
Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory, Emmanuelle Seigner, Gérard Depardieu.

Based on the childhood, adolescence and stardom of French singer Edith Piaf.

I must start by saying that I'm not at all familiarized with Edith Piaf, and that I've never been a great fan of that specific kind of music. And even with that, I was pretty satisfied with the movie. The thing is: the movie on itself (script, illumiation, photography, etcetera) are good on theirselves, but not doubt at all, what makes this movie extraordinary insteaf of just plain good is the performance of Marion Cotillard.

This was, no place for doubt, one of the best performances I've seen in my life - Cotillard gets inside the character, makes it real, and if it wasn't for her, the movie wouldn't be half as good as it is. As I've said, the script is good, and I've always liked non-linear narrative; but it's Cotillard's performace what makes it emotional, deep and touching. I must admit I spent the last twenty minutes of the movie crying - once I started I just couldn't stop. And yet, there's something that never quite clicked for me, I don't know what. I'm not sure I'll be able to see it again, for example.

There's this scene in particular, I'm not going to spoil anyone but it has Edith walking through long hallways time and time again, and it could very well be the climax of the movie, since in just one moment the viewers realize something horrible has happened, and the tension and emotion that that scene causes surprised me. The cinematography is forever changing according to the age and Edith's shifting moods (dark and opressive for the Paris of her childhood, elegant and smooth for the New York of the 30s, colorful and vibrant for California, and so on), but it never goes beyond the rule.

I give it a five out of a five, but I must add: this grading is for Marion Cotillard's superb acting. The movie is good, but not as good.

Cielo despejado con cielo demasiado azul

Across the Universe:

A dock worker Jude travels to America in the 1960s to find his estranged father. There he falls in love with sheltered American teenager Lucy. When her brother Max is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, they become involved in peace activism. The film title and main characters are named after various songs by The Beatles.

I have to say that I’ve never been the greatest Beatles fan, and even yet I enjoyed this movie immensely – what’s more, it made me realize what I was missing and as soon as I came back from the theatre I started downloading assorted songs obsessively. But yes, a large part of the movie’s charm falls on the songs and their connection with the storyline – the emotional impact, let’s call it.

The movie opens with a wide shot of an English beach, a silent moment before the photographic and surrealist frenzy of the rest of the film. This might be one of the things that doesn’t leave me completely satisfied, seeing that while the surrealist feeling fits with the decade and it wonderfully made, it becomes a tad too much at times.

In contrast, the strength of the film falls on the parts that deal with the Vietnam war, which are emotive, well done and leave the audience thinking. The romance and the friendship themes are left a bit under the shadow of the war motifs, but they’re still attractive and are helped significantly by the music. The best performances were, to me, those of Jim Sturgess, Martin Luther McCoy and Joe Anderson, but I do have to say, all of the cast’s voices were impressing.

So yes, it worked for me. I do recommend it, and that’s even when you could never really call me a fan of musicals.



I also saw Yamakasi - Les samouraïs des temps modernes, and while it was fun, for a Luc Besson film, it was really weak, story-wise. The element that comes to life in this one is the use of Parkour and Free Running - which include roof to roof jumps, and fantastic acrobatics. It's about freedom, in a way. I saw it on the computer, but I've seen the dvd in my favorite video rental store for a couple of years now and I'd always wanted to see it. Why, you say? Because of the posters. My dream has always always been to be able to fly. Which is ironic, considering I'm mildly afraid of heights. So these posters? Seemed like my fantasy fulfilled.