My favorites

1978 was the year i was born. I have no clue to how many movies i´ve watched since. But i´m sure of something... I LOVE going TO THE MOVIES. I asked myself 10 questions as i revisited different films as well as stages of my life in the  process.....

1)My favorite COMEDYI guess it depends on what mood you're in that day
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, CAVEMAN,,,, 
If i had to pick just ONE:  
TOP SECRET Because ... Val Kilmer as a young ELVIS PRESLEY type of ROCK STAR going to sing to NAZI GERMANY. The MOST RIDICULOUS MOVIE PLOT EVER. 
But it works. The way AIRPLANE did. Top Secret pushed further. Nonsense everywhere. Not taking anything serious. Doing good parodies to ICONS and POP CULTURE is not easy.  

2)The film I WATCH the most
There are two films i watch almost every week The Social Network or Moneyball.

 I don´t really know if its Sorkin´s way of writing dialogue or the long moments of silence and reflection that both movies soundtracks HAVE. But i´ve lost track on how many times i´ve watched them .

3)My favorite SOUNDTRACK

Crazy Heart 
I LoveJeff Bridges acting and I love COUNTRY music !! JUST EPIC! I´m a fan of his work since I can recall ....he made The last Picture show, KING KONG on the 70´s with Jessica Lange all the way through the 80´s with TRON and the 90´s with BIG LEBOWSKI. A LEGEND.

4)My favorite CONCERT movie
METALLICA -ORGULLO PASION Y GLORIA 
UNbelievable is to meet  your idols. 
FCKN AWESOME!!! to have it captured ON A MOVIE.  
Inside CHAPTER 23 holds the testament of:
whatever you wish can become true. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!

5)The film i love that NO ONE else has HEARD OF

It´s a tie between my two favorite comedians...
Peter Sellers and Gene Wilder.

BEING THERE is Peter Sellers PERFORMANCE of a lifetime. As a Stan Laurel(ish )character who is the victim of everyone´s assumptions. After facing the death of his long time employer the life of Chance, a simple gardener will never be the same.

FRISCO KID is a "buddy movie " featuring the talents of Gene Wilder & Harrison Ford can you i magine that. Avram the rabbi and Tommy the outlaw TOGETHER??? It´s a wonderful light comedy set in the Old West Gold Rush to San Francisco.

6)the film that always makes me CRY
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Gene Wilder makes an awesome performance as a scary ,crazy owner of a Candy World Corporation. But i have to say it is Peter Ostrum (Charlie) whose performance floored me. Every time i  watch Charlies face when he opens that Wonka Bar searching for the last Golden Ticket. 

7)the film i LOVE that everyone HATES
GOAL
Kuno Beckers performance is not the best, neither is his english. But at least he tried. Whenever i catch it on TV i watch it full and enjoy it. As ROCKY  did on the 70´s it is the story of an UNDERDOG who wants BIG THINGS. To play professional footbal in ENGLAND. Maybe because I love soccer. I would´ve loved to play professional soccer.

8)the film i will NEVER watch again
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM 
It gave me too many nightmares. 






9)the FIRST movie i ever saw
Cinderella 
One of my aunts took me to the movie theatre when i was like 3  but after it i was a little dissapointed because the story wasn´t about the adventures of little mice but about a princess and her step mother. But i loved eating popcorn.

10)the film that SCARES me the most
PET SEMATARY 
It is really scary TO ME beacause it deals with the relationship of DEATH AND LOVE and the circle it makes in our lives. As many fear DEATH because of what it takes away. Stephen King uses that unconditional LOVE to trick us into watching a film that is very, very dark. Rooted within us is the question ..what if we had the power to bring someone back to life? To me that is a scary thought.

ThisDiseased Lewis Carroll Universe

....thats what, american film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum called Terry Gilliam´s film TIDELAND.

"I don´t want to do what is easy ...I don´t want to do what everybody else is doing.

There´s enough people out there doing that and they are tecnically better than I am 

I don´t want know about that.

I wanna take the ideas, the stories... that nobody wants to touch 

or doesn´t know how to make in this instance"

- Terry Gilliam

The first movie i ever saw of Terry Gilliam was 12 Monkeys. It attracted me because of my cousin ALEX. WHO told me you had to watch this FILM! Its Brad Pitt & Bruce Willis like you´ve never seen them. Not in hollywood STYLE but in the world of Terry Gilliam!! He also got me interested in riding bikes, READING Spiderman comics (he had a massive collection) The magazine "HEAVY METAL" listening to jazz,  Neil Peart´s DRUMMING, Nine Inch Nails The downward spiral, oil Painting and french press coffee.

As we begin to grow and experience things we begin liking some better than others. Brands and styles. Movies and stories. Trends and tendencies. As if we were trying on clothes. We watch on others and on ourselves. Some stay forever others pass quickly. The importance of having options or adding colors to our own palette is fundamental.In movie making the more you have to choose from the better. I have many favorite films & directors one of them is Terry Gilliam because he makes no repeated formulas.He has no FEAR.

The representation of SPACE affects the reading of a film. Depth, proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects in a film can be manipulated through camera placement and lenses, LIGHTNING( has a profound effect on the way an image is perceived), DECOR(the objects contained in and the setting of a scene), effectively determining mood or relationships between elements in the diegetic world. Terry Gilliam plays with all of these elements for his dark storytelling.

His worlds are full of fantasy and dirt, a magic loneliness, surreal confussion and misguided adventures...as if we enterd a world full of lost people in the after math of war. A world recovering. A world that just exploded and is trying to join all the broken pieces. Like in BRAZIL. A world not completly clean nor clear in ideas. Deeply troubled main characters that have to socialize within as well  as stumbling onto others. There are no supporting ROLES everyone counts. As in movies or theatre we all are laughing as we witness the brutality of the few who think PEOPLE MUST BE CONTROLED. Gilliam makes this point across like on  the Monthy Python skits.

Only in a Terry Gilliam movie you will see HUGE UNIQUE

worlds made of clouds and doubts, colorful CHARACTERS, grey PERFORMANCES,  factory bureaucracy, deformed lifestyles , THE BROTHERS GRIMM, a fisher king, the future made of brick walls, A  BARON MUNCHAUSEN, CRAZY CAMERA ANGLES,  the ever present poor people, the all seeing eyes, all the  questions remain silent as type writers, TIME BANDITS , ZERO THEOREMS and wait...Tom Waits is the devil.??????

To André Bazin, a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist, he believed that a film should represent a director's personal vision but the interpretation of a film or scene should be left to the spectator.

The real magic of Terry Gilliam, to me is that he doesn´t have to make sense. Nor is trying to give us a happy closure perfect movie ending. He screams his thoughts and ideas out there for us to see and experience. No one is right or wrong. THE IMAGINATION has no limit. Every MIND is DIFFERENTLY complicated. As admiring a painting... Gilliam´s work stays with us and speaks to you. And you ALONE. Everyone can criticize but you have to acknowledge...He has THE COURAGE TO PUT IT ON FILM. His work has influenced, trascended  and molded my creative process in so many different ways  as those rainy afternoons with my cousin ALEX... listening to jazz, drinking coffee and  watching a Terry Gilliam movie...

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO...

"I know this sound silly ...and i know that i might sound ridiciulous...like this is "the scene" of the movie, where the guy is trying to get a hold of the long lost son... this is "that scene" and i think they have "those scenes" in movies because they´re true."

-Philip Seymour Hoffman 

DARKNESS

By some fantastic inexplicable unknown force every movie begins so. In darkness. We don´t know whats it about or who are we going to meet. But i discovered the one true constant in every single movie ever made in history. And that is ..."Time stops here for a reason".

Movies are stories worth telling by characters we are drawn to like or to hate. Told by them and witnessed by us. To be in a little relationship. A two hour relationship. Character involves the illusion of being a human and a premise is an assumption that something that will happen is true.

"to be able to tranform, to undergo a metamorphisis not act but become and comand and inhabit the character" 

-Martin Scorsese

The Academy is not always right...it has given OSCARS for 86 years and not necessarily are THOSE MOVIES OR PERFORMANCES THE BEST OF THAT YEAR. In my opinion. 

"acting is ...claiming the moment " 

-Marlon Brando 

Movies also reflect the struggle within ourselves and our inner changes.

"i was creating characters that i felt ... i´m learning" 

-Dustin Hoffman

The way a story is told,  the way we are introduced to the characters. Conflict or the lack of it moves the main character to action taking him outside his daily routine. Or the oposite. A charcter so troubled by the constant conflicts of his own persona he cannot relate to anyone not even him or herself.

TIME. 

Time is the only proof that a movie has what it takes to prevail. Performances that last forever. To act is to portray the inner truth of another human being. Year after year we watch performances that reach deep inside ourselves. Portrayed by a stranger we will never meet but we will always remember.

Movies are the way may skilled artists are capable of carrying emotions to our senses in a cinema. From  script to film from the movie set and a camera to finally reach our EYES and SENSES.

THE MAGIC

The real MAGIC in movies happens in scenes where absolute silence could be just listening to the wind or missing someone we lost. Scenes where you can almost hear the character´s mind. Nothing in movies is ignorable.

"ignorable is different from unimportant"

-Meryl Streep

As different people there are different points of view. My favorite is not gonna be your favorite. There are movies we buy, movies that make you think, others make you laugh, others you can never watch again. WHY????Movies are deep connections and answers to ourselves. We watch each other and ourselves in the silver screen. And how easy it is as an audience to criticize. To stand up and go. Or to remain seated watching how it will end. What all of this is about.

Movies are entertainment, teaching tools, they are history, they are fiction or human feelings encapsulated in film. They ALL mark  a certain point of view. We might not share it, WE MIGHT NOT EVEN LIKE IT, but it is basic to our social behavior and every day communion to respect the other and what his beliefs. Everyone... has felt happy, afraid or sad. Triumph or tragedy are constants worth telling the stroy.The movies in our lives  become a part of us kind of like our family. We are all not the same it´s the differences that makes us grow and learn and come together.  Thats is why "THE MOVIES" are so important to us. And that is why we MUST go to the movies . To feel that experiences over and over again.

If Movies are events (TIME)

the Score is the mood (STOPS) 

Actors perform the present (HERE).

That  is why...Time stops here.

"if you analyze it..... the way fairy tales and folk tales are analyzed.............. all those characters actually, probably represent aspects of the protagonist. It´s really Dorothy who needs courage, needs the brain, needs a heart " 

-Harold Raimis (talking about The Wizard of OZ)