It’s really striking how well director Alejandro Montoya Marin understands the experience of being an artist, most of all a starving artist. You feel something of a fire in your belly to express yourself and show the world how much you can give to them in the way of art, and sometimes it’s so difficult to get by. Alejandro Montoya Marin’s is a pretty remarkable short drama that focuses on the life of a singer and songwriter named Holly, who is struggling to get a solid gig at local clubs to perform for audiences. She’s barely scraping by and is now experiencing the end of a very intense relationship with the love of her life.
Author Archives: Felix Vasquez
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
“Home Alone” already stretched the idea of logic and suspension of disbelief already, but when Dreamworks squeezed out a sequel hoping for equal to more success, we instead got “Lost in New York.” Not only did this follow up basically prove that the original’s premise was a tad far-fetched, but something of a flash in the pan. This sequel is just leaps and bounds sillier than even the third “Home Alone” and even presents a ton of misguided morals within its narrative. You can sense the movie is one giant misstep, when it casts the likes of Tim Curry as one of Kevin’s adversaries, and turns Rob Schneider in to a hilariously slimy bellboy, and wastes them in favor of rehashing the same dynamic we saw with Marv and Harry from the first film.
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
One thing you can always count on with aliens, that no matter how advanced or sentient they are, their primary form of security is always two huge closing doors that slide together and seal as gradually as possible. You assume in their world they’d have laser doors that seal up in a matter of milliseconds, but no. It’s always very slow closing doors that never quite close fast to stop our heroes. But of course they always murder the alien pilots because–they’re obviously not trained to zip through the doors I assume. “Independence Day: Resurgence” is a sequel with such an obvious mission to launch an “ID4” cinematic universe that it’s almost not really worth watching “Resurgence” at all, when you get down to it.
Dangerous Worry Dolls (2007)
Life is funny. One moment you’re in prison being beaten up, the next moment you’re having a miniature skull growing out of your forehead. “Dangerous Worry Dolls” is a silly, dumb, and very unscary take on the further obsession of mini monsters doing dangerous things by Charles Band. You have to give it to the man, he always finds a way to squeeze in miniature monsters on to film and look for new and unique ways to make them villains. “Dangerous Worry Dolls” is terrible, but at least Band has a new and unique idea for making mini-monsters become the villain for a movie that looks like it was made on a budget of ten dollars.
Deer Flower (2016)
When you consider the cultural context behind “Deer Flower,” director Kangmin Kim’s short animated film is an interesting if horrific look at remedies from the East. Told through what essentially looks like origami, “Deer Flower” is a stark and pretty unusual tale about a family seeking a cure for their son’s ailment. Traveling a long distance and paying a lot of money, they take their son behind a farm, where a reindeer is held down by a machine and has its antler cut.
Los Sures (1984)
Filmed thirty two years ago, Diego Echeverria’s documentary “Los Sures” is a striking and mesmerizing look at living in poverty in Brooklyn New York in 1984. Finally restored and given a long overdue theatrical release in 2016 to a wide release, “Los Sures” is a still very relevant look at impoverished and how those without opportunities are frozen in place in a neighborhood becoming more and more foreign to them. Diego Echeverria offers almost no narration and absolutely no soundtrack, instead painting the film with the sounds and sights of Williamsburg Brooklyn. The neighborhood dominated with a heavy Puerto Rican and Dominican population, Echeverria offers up a brief look in to the lives of four subjects, all of whom have no exit from their environment.
The Atheist Delusion (2016)
One of the many aspects that I love about Ray Comfort’s mercifully short documentary about challenging the views of atheists is that Comfort just eventually gives up. Mid-way through his hour long masturbatory self-promotion fest that doubles as an ego shining for Comfort, he just outright gives up trying to convince his interview subjects and spends about five minutes badgering them in to submission. He relentlessly bugs them in to admitting begrudgingly that they believe in a God, and that they are simply in denial. Ray Comfort is beyond the capacity of accepting that atheists exist, and spends at least a good stretch of the final half of the film insisting: “Come on, you know God exists. Admit it. Admit it. You know it in your heart. You just like to sin, that’s it. Admit it. Do it. Do it!”