Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)

I have had this movie out from Netflix since last MAY. I can't remember when I started watching it (July? August?) but I do know I watched about half of it, then never got around to watching the rest until tonight.

That's not to say it's a bad movie. It's just that it is SO similar to the American remake (Vanilla Sky), and there's really nothing that marks it as superior. This Spanish version was done first, but not (in my eyes) done better.

Very interesting to see Penelope Cruz play the character of Sofia in both the original and the remake. I love her for being so pretty!

Y Tu Mamá También

Well. This movie is not for the faint of heart. What it amounts to is a porno with a little less sex and a little more plot. The literal translation of the title is "And your mama too," but this movie is not for your mama (unless she's a really different mama from mine). Wow, it's kind of funny to think this same director did one of the Harry Potter movies.

Hud says Tenoch and Julio are like a Mexican Beavis & Butthead. I didn't think they were quite so bad until the scene where they were each lying on a diving board at a deserted pool and simultaneously jacking off. I had flashbacks to Beavis doing his "monkey boy."

They sure gave a lot of odd extraneous information in this movie. I thought they might tie together all the loose threads in the end, making them suddenly relevant, but . . . they didn't.

In a nutshell: this was another one of those movies that made Hud say, "You sure can pick 'em."

Volver

This was a quirky little movie, and definitely unique. I appreciated being forced to sit and just watch a movie for once (subtitles will do that to you).

Penelope Cruz is some pretty hot stuff. It's funny to see her in a movie role where she's speaking Spanish, although this shouldn't be funny, since it's her native language. But her speech is so rapid and harsh-sounding and very natural. Again, shouldn't be surprising, but I'm just used to hearing her halting and accented English.

The plot was somewhat predictable. I guessed who Paula's father was as soon as Raimunda said, "He's dead," and I figured out that Irene wasn't actually a ghost before Raimunda ever even saw her, though apparently Sole and Paula never did figure that out themselves. I also figured out that it was Agustina's mother who died in the fire, not Sole and Raimunda's. But predictability didn't ruin it for me. It was still fun and interesting to watch.

I don't think I could call this a comedy, though. I guess there was situational irony, and a sort of lighthearted attitude in the face of serious subjects, enough so that it certainly wasn't a drama. But none of it was (for me) laugh-out-loud funny, let alone groan-out-loud funny. Also, I did find it a little bit difficult to believe that gorgeous Raimunda was a sister to homely Sole, although at least this made sense with their father's attraction (ugh!) to one sister but not the other.

It is interesting to note (well, interesting to this non-Spanish-speaker, at least) that the title of the movie means "to return." Of course this applies not only to the return of Irene, but also to Sole and Raimunda's return home.

Pan's Labyrinth

It's been two weeks since I watched this movie and regrettably I can't remember much to say about it. It was very good (except for the faun, plagued by poor special effects that detracted from the movie). It is in Spanish, so I had to watch the English subtitles. And the little girl's stepfather was horribly cruel. In fact I think they may have overstated his cruelty. Anyway, I can't get the image of him beating the poor peasant man to death by repeatedly smashing the butt of a bottle into his face and driving his nose into his brain.