Tesis

Year : 1996
Runtime : 118 Min.
Genre : Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Director : Alejandro Amenábar
Movie Stars : Fele Martínez,Eduardo Noriega,Ana Torrent
Country: Spain
Language : Spanish

Wiki: Ángela (Torrent) is a film student at the Madrid's University Complutense. Searching for research material for her thesis (hence the film's title) on audio-visual violence, she attains the friendship of Chema (Martínez), a fellow student and introvert with an encyclopedic collection of violent and pornographic films.
After her professor dies while watching a film she steals the videotape, discovering that it is a snuff film featuring a girl whom Chema recognizes as a former student at the university - and a former associate of current student Bosco (Noriega). Investigating the origins of the tape, they are drawn into the operations of a chilling snuff ring.

I did not known whether I wanted to watch this movie or not because of the year it was made. I usually do not like to watch films made around the year I was born. I don't know why maybe it is because of the differences in hair and clothing styles that puts me off. Anyway, I decided to give this movie a chance because of the trailers. I loved it! It kind of reminded me of a Lifetime mystery movie but ten times better.  I loved the plot. It definitely kept me guessing as to who the killer(s) were. I would love to use a time machine and transport myself to 95 Spain to see what the Spanish thought of this film because I don't believe there were many like it back then.

A few points: The film was made with a low budget and was shot in 5 weeks! WOW. Many films with high budgets and long filming times are not as good as this. Eduardo Noriega (played Bosco Herranz) also stars in The Devil's Backbone. I knew I saw that face somewhere! Fele Martínez (played Chema) looks just like Johnny Depp in this film. I barely recognized him from his later film Bad Education.
Rating: 5/5

Cuidado Con El Angel: E18

Show: Cuidado Con El ángel (Beware Of The Angel)
Episode: 18
Original Airing: ?

It's the day of Estefania's party and everything is planned and ready to go. Estefania begs Cecilia not to allow Mari to come. With great sadness Cecilia tells Mari that she can not come because she does not have anything proper to wear. Roico invites Vicente to the party and he later tells Amador. Amador assumes Mari will be there and so calls his aunt who is a good friend of the Velardes and asks if he can accompany  them. The aunt agrees.  

Beatriz is in bad condition and keeps repeating Amador's name. The doctor tells her friends that they need to get Amador there right away. Amador is fully aware of Beatriz's condition but declines to come. It's only until one of Beatriz's friends threaten to call the police that he agrees to come to the hospital. When he arrives Beatriz had fallen out of consciousness.

The night of the party Mari runs into Juan. He asks why she is not dressed. She tells him that she doesn't have anything to wear and so will not be coming to the party. Juan calls his sister and she fixes Mari into a proper lady and the two of them arrive at the party while Juan is dancing with Estefania. Obviously, Estefania is pissed (yet again).

Cuidado Con El Angel: E17

Show: Cuidado Con El ángel (Beware Of The Angel)
Episode: 17
Original Airing: ?

Isabella overheards Marichuy speaking with Rocio on the phone about what she did to Amador. Isabella immediately reports the information to Estefania and the two of them tell Velarde.

In his office Mari reveals that Amador tried to rape her and in the fight hit him over the head. The judge tells Mari to pack her bags and leave. Cecillia tries to change his mind but is unsuccessful. As Mari packs, Adrian goes to Amadro's apartment to confront him. The two exchange words, as Adrian is leaving he hears laughing and returns to see Amador faking his blindness. Adrian rushes to Velarde's house just in time to tell Mari and the judge that Amador was faking his blindness. Mari helds back to her room to unpack.

In completion distress, Estefania and Isabella try to think of another way to remove Mari from their lives. Isabella says that they must find out who this man from the nightmare is and use that against Mari. Isabella goes to Mari's room in an effort to coach information about the mysterious man out of her but Mari tells her nothing.

Juan receives a call from an American bank. Juan has never heard of this banking account and tells them that Vivianna has passed away. The confused banker reveals that a withdrawal had been made two days ago.

Cuidado Con El Angel: E16

Show: Cuidado Con El ángel (Beware Of The Angel)
Episode: 16
Original Airing: ?

Maruchuy feels terrible about what she did to Amador. She confides in Candelaria, who later tells Father Ansemo. Mari calls Amador to see how he is doing. Amador plays the pity card and thus making Mari accept an invitation to come see him tomorrow.

Father Anselmo pays the judge a visit at his home. He planned to speak with Cecilia but Estefania makes an excuse for the judge to speak with Father Anselmo instead. After the brief meeting the judge becomes convinced that Marichuy is in some kind of trouble and that the father knows about it.

Isabella and Martirio make a deal to get rid Maruchuy by causing trouble and making Mari look guilty.

Beatriz (Amado's girlfriend and friend of the artists group) tries to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills. The group of friend find her and take her to the hospital. This group is also informed by Vicente that Amado is "blind" from an attack with Matuchuy.

Juan comes back from his trip with gifts for everyone, including a snow globe for Maruchuy. The judge calls Juan after being convinced by Etefania to call for coffee. Juan arrives and Mari runs to him with open arms. Estefania looks pissed.

 

Cuidado Con El Angel: E15

Show: Cuidado Con El ángel (Beware Of The Angel)
Episode: 15
Original Airing: ?

WTF! W..T..F! This episode is the most annoying so far. Marichuy is the victim in this episode and yet she is treated like a criminal, again I say WTF. 

Last episode Marichuy went to see Vicente for painting to decorator her room. Amador attacks Marichuy in an unsuccessful attempt to rape her. Marichuy hits Amador with a glass and he falls to the floor unconscious.

Marichuy has nightmares during the night and wakes everyone in the house. Candelaria informs  Cecilia and Isabella that she has had these nightmares on and off since she can remember. Candelaria speaks about her time in the orphanage, which leads Isabella to investigate Marichuy's past. She discovers that Cecilia is Marichuy's real mother and informs Estefania.

Roico tells Marichuy that Amador will report her to the police if she does not come to see him. At Vicente's apartment Amardo apologies to Marichuy and removes his bandages. Amador cries and overacts (such a liar) that he has gone blind from the hit (Vicente picks up on the phoniness of Amador but Mari. and Roico remain in shock)

  

Bandidas

Year : 2006
Runtime : 93 Min.
Genre : Action, Comedy, Crime, Western
Director : Joachim Rønning
Movie Stars : Penélope Cruz, Salma Hayek, Steve Zahn, Sam Shepard, Dwight Yoakam, Ismael 'East' Carlo
Country: France, Mexico, USA
Language : English, Spanish

It was a fun movie, nothing heavy or anything. Penelope and Salma equals hot and I think the makers of this movie counted on that a bit too much. I had just watched Don't Tempt Me and I enjoyed Penelope as a bad chick so I figured I'll give this film a try. The story was a bit over done: hot chicks fight crime and steal from the rich and give to the poor.  I'll definitely be adding this to my collection of films that should suck but you love them anyway. 

Plot
In 1848, A small town in Mexico is taken over by big bankers from New York. These bankers want to build a railroad across Mexico, so the ruthless Tyrant Jackson kills the land owners near prime railroad territory. A small town farm girl (Penelope) and a rich pampered lady (Salma) join forces and rob banks to give the money back to their own people. With Jackson's forces looking for them the pressure is on, but the girls with the help of a forensic investigator from New York focus on robbing all New York banks.

The Devil's Backbone

Year : 2001
Runtime : 106 Min.
Genre : Drama, Horror, Thriller
Director : Guillermo del Toro
Movie Stars : Eduardo Noriega, Marisa Paredes, Federico Luppi, Íñigo Garcés, Fernando Tielve, Irene Visedo, Berta Ojea
Production : Guillermo del Toro
Country: Spain
Language : Spanish
Watch Online: StageVu
Quality: Medium-Good
Subtitles: English

Such an interesting tale of orphans in war filled Spain. The lines between antagonist and protagonist are clearly drawn and illustrate the boys joining together to destroy their oppressor and give an old friend justice for his murder. This film is a  literature motif, the old good vs. evil, making it a classic. The whole film lead up to Jacinto becoming this force of evil and therefore the need for him to be destroyed.  Jacinto being the antagonist, drowns because of his greed in the form of gold weighing down his body. I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes basically movies. This movie is for everyone and a instant Spanish classic to watch over and over again.

Plot
Unaware of his fathers' death Carlos is left at an orphanage with a dark secret of a murdered boy that will leave the orphanage in pieces.

Y Tu Mama Tambien

Year : 2001
Runtime : 106 Min.
Genre : Comedy, Adventure, Drama
Director : Alfonso Cuarón
Movie Stars : Maribel Verdú, Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna
Production : 20th Century Fox
Country: Mexico
Language : Spanish
Watch Online: StageVu
Quality: Medium-Good
Subtitles: English

What can I say, this was surely interesting and a little fun adventure between two best friends and a woman they befriended at a wedding. It's a bit sexual... well, extremely sexual in content so if you have a problem with adult content such as that than this is not the movie for you.  I enjoyed the drive through Mexico with the characters and the narrator's footnotes after each major event. I hate with movies leave you with questions so the footnotes helps tons. After the trip to Heaven's Mouth it's quite obvious that Julio and Tenoch's relationship as best buddies is over, but I still found it to be depressing in a few ways. The reason I feel this way is personal reasons. I'm at that age when friends start to change and you begin to accept that you may never see them again, so when I watch movies about it I feel...I don't know how I feel, maybe impending doom. A little birdie tells me that statement is a little harsh. Anyway, let's get out of my personal life and back to the film. This is a favorite of mine because the characters grow as people and have a little fun on the way. Please watch it if you have time. Spoiler! I was surprised when Lucia died from terminal cancer after showing no signs during the whole film. Julio explained that it had spread all over her body and she died about a week after they left for home
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Plot
Julio and Tenoch's girlfriends go off to Italy for the summer. Left to themselves, they met Lucia at a wedding and invite her to a invented beach called Heavens Mouth to impress her. She immediately declines but accepts the offer after a drunken call from her husband stating that he has cheated. The three go on an adventure though Mexico looking for an invented beach and discover their own relationships and secrets buried between the friends.     

Pan's Labyrinth

Year : 2006
Runtime : 112 Min.
Genre : Fantasy
Director : Guillermo del Toro
Movie Stars : Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Ariadna Gil, Álex Angulo
Production : Warner Bros.
Country: Spain
Language : Spanish

Freaking awesome film! It's not your everyday run of the mill type film, but a fairy tale for children with a twist for adults.  It has blood, violence, war, tradgeis, and a soft warm fantasy for a girl wanting to leave her world for a better one. The characters were not as developed  as I would have liked, as in the emotions and history were not there.

Warning, contains spoilers.
This is just a random little point but somewhere in the movie the faun says 'what reason would you have to not trust a little ole faun like me?' and then points to himself. No one innocent  would  say something like that and then precede to point to themselves with a look of shock on their faces. From then on, I was thinking that the tasks were tricks and the faun was evil . Imagine my surprise  when the faun turns out to be a good guy.

Plot
The story takes place in post-Civil War Spain in 1944. Ofelia, our main character, is forced to move to the country-side with her pregnant mother Carmen  to be with her tyrant step-father Captain Vidal.  Ofelia is the reincarnated princess Moanna of the Underground Realm who curiously escaped to Earth and died. Ofelia is told by the Faun that she must complete three task before the full moon in order to return to her world. Meanwhile, Carmen is having extreme pregnancy complications and is bedridden. Mercedes, the kind housekeeper, is secretly helping the Maquis guerrillas against Captain Vidal and the Franco regime. Ofelia becomes trapped between her hope of a new world and the world she lives in.

 

The Orphanage

The movie started out very slow for me, well most movies do according to me. I'm not very into movies that revolve around children (The Unborn, etc.) so this movie was a long shot for me. It wasn't perfect but there it was full of twists and turns that would make your tongue wrap around your head. I didn't expect much from this movie after all it's about an orphanage and nothing horror related that isn't a documentary can relate to a horror movie. I was was pleasantly surprised. There wasn't any cheap screams, like most horror movies. You know, face popping up in the mirror when the girl bends down to do or get something.  It's something that everyone will enjoy, whether you like horror or not.

The film opens to the main character Laura in the orphanage of her childhood. Shes has returned after many years in hopes of reopening. Laura, and her husband Carlos have an adapted son, Simon who is HIV positive. He is unaware of either facts. Simon has a friend named Thomas that is a ghost. His parents chalk it up to Simon just being lonely.

An elderly lady by the name of Benigna Escobeda shows up claiming that she is a social worker there to check in on Simon. Laura tells her to leave, which she does, but she is later seen sneaking around the yard near the coal shed.

During a party Laura and Simon have a fight that leads to Simon hiding from Laura. While searching she is trapped in the bathroom by Thomas. When she escapes she finds that Simon is missing. Laura believes that Benigna has taken him. 

Six months, Laura sees Benigna out shopping. Benigna is hit by a bus and dies almost immediately. Laura finds a doll of the ghost boy, Thomas on the scene of the accident. The police search her home and find evdents that she worked at the orphanage and had a son named Thomas. Thomas was disfigured and so he hide his face under a shack. The children of the orphanage played a trick on him that resulted in his accidentally death.

Distressed, Laura seeks the help of a medium named Aurora. Aurora's clues lead Laura to discovering the remains of the orphanage children Laura grew up with. Benigna murdered them for revenge of her son's death.

(I can't really explain the ending in full detail so here's the one from wikipedia) 
Unable to cope with the situation, Carlos leaves the orphanage as Laura promises him she will be done in two days. Laura recreates the original orphanage layout and attempts to contact the ghost children. She soon begins to see them around her when she initiates a game of "Uno, Dos, Tres, Toca la Pared" [One, Two, Three, Knock on the Wall; similar to Red Light, Green Light in America], which she used to play while growing up at the orphanage. The ghosts lead her to a hidden door within a cupboard under the stairs (La Casita de Tomas; Tomás' "little house" which Simón referred to just before his disappearance). This door leads to a hidden basement room. In the room, she sees (in her head) Simón alive and hugs him in a blanket.

As the ghost children vanish, Laura finds that the blanket is empty and the body of the deceased Simón, wearing Tomás' mask, lies behind her. She realizes that she had inadvertently caused Simón's death (she had accidentally blocked the hidden door to the basement where he was playing, trapping him inside), and that the unexplained noises she had heard were Simón trying to get out. At one point Laura had heard a loud crash which had been Simon falling through the stair railing, and onto the ground below, breaking his neck. Laura carries Simón's body upstairs and swallows many handfuls of Trankimazin capsules, begging to be with Simón again. Laura's wish is granted as the ghosts of the dead children appear and Simón returns to life in Laura's arms. Simón then tells Laura that his wish was for her to stay and take care of all the orphans.

Later, Carlos walks alone over to the memorial for Laura, Simón, and the orphans which stand outside the orphanage. Carlos returns to the orphans' old bedroom and finds on the floor a medallion of St. Anthony, the seeker of lost articles, that he had given to Laura some time earlier. He hears the sound of the bedroom door opening; as he looks up he slowly smiles.

El Secreto De Sus Ojos

El Secreto De Sus Ojos, also known as The Secret In Their Eyes, is a 2009 Argentinean film by Juan José Campanella, based on Eduardo Sacheri's novel La Pregunta de Sus Ojos (The Question in Their Eyes).It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, making Argentina the first to win it twice.

Having this be my first Argentinean film I was more than excited. The movie is a crime thriller, something I'm very much into, so I thought I would give it a go. For all of you who have not seen it, I'll give you a quick summary. Spoiler Alert! Benjamin Espósito is seen writing a novel about the Morales case, having been assigned to it years before. He pays a visit to Irene Menéndez-Hastings, his partner on the case, to seek advise on how he should tell the story. She suggests that he begin at the start of the case.

On a quiet morning in June Liliana Colotto is found raped and murdered in her home. (Warning! Nude scene of Liliana's body) Espósito promises the widowed husband, Ricardo, to put his wife's killer to justice.  Aided by alcoholic friend and assistant Pablo Sandoval and the law smart Hastings, they uncover photos of Liliana in her home town of Chivilcoy. All the photos contain a man named Isidoro Gómez looking deeply at Liliana, his eyes never leaving her. Espósito sees this as unresolved lust and believes they are the eyes of an killer. Espósito's suspicion leads him on a journey spanning  years to uncover secrets of the accused killer, the widowed husband, and himself.
The Ending

Espósito, after completing his novel, with help of Hastings finds the widowed husband of Liliana in a rural area of Buenos Aires Province and takes his finished book to him. Apparently, he is no longer obsessed with his wife's murder and has seemingly moved on. Espósito is shocked and reminds him of his promise to get the man who murdered the love of his life. Backed into a corner, the widower reveals that he tracked down Gomez, kidnapped him, and shot him. Espósito leaves with this revelation on his mind. As he is driving back, Espósito begins to wonder about the case and about the widower. This thinking leads him back to a conversation he has with the widower years ago, a conversation about the death penalty. The widower was strong in his belief that the death penalty was wrong and unjust. Espósito is unsure that  a man who believed so strongly against the death penalty could go back on his views and kill a man. Espósito senses that something is not right and heads back to the widower's property. Undetected by Ricardo, Espósito follows him into a small building at the side of the house. Inside is a makeshift cell, where Ricardo has been hiding Gomez for the last few years. Gomez is tried and older looking. He asks if  Espósito could get Ricardo to speak to him, apparently, he has not all these years. Ricardo reminds Benjamin of his promise that Gomez would never go free.
My Review
The film moved a little bit on the slow side for me. I usually like the fast pace murder mysteries but, it was still a decent watch. I didn't really talk about the love connection between Hastings and Espoito, but that was a good twist in the plot. The character were full with emotion and wonderful actors. The scenery was nice to look at, reminding me of some old French city. All in all, it was just a decent film. I read so many good reviews for this movie that after I saw it I became fairly disappointed. I was expecting to be blown away and fall forever in love with Argentine films, but unfortunately this was not the case. I would recommend it to other people with a understanding of films, not someone who gets bored easily or is unable to see past what is in front of his/her face. The plot is about human nature more than just a murder case.
Rating