Tag: Antonio Banderas

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

Rated: PGPuss In Boots: The Last Wish

Directed by: Joel Crawford

Story by: Tommy Swerdlow and Tom Wheeler

Screenplay by: Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow

Produced by: Mark Swift, p.g.a

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek Pinault, Olivia Colman, Harvey Guillén, Samson Kayo, Anthony Mendez, Wagner Moura, John Mulaney, Florence Pugh, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ray Winstone.

‘Puss In Boots is never afraid.’

He’s a fearless hero loved by all, most especially himself.

Puss (Antonio Banderas) has nine lives.  But how many times has Puss in Boots died?

Thinking back there’s the card cheating death, the I can fly death… To name a few.  He thinks, four?

No, it’s eight.

And now with a bounty on his head, nothing new, there’s a red-eyed wolf (Wagner Moura) tracking him that actually stands a chance at defeating the, until now charmed, Puss.

For the first time, this fearless ginger cat that can sing, dance and wield a sword like the best of them, feels his fur rise.

The red-eyed bounty hunter can smell his hear.

Puss in Boots, for once in his many lives, is afraid.

The Last Wish is another colourful explosion from DreamWorks; a side story to the Shrek Universe, the film is also introduced as a fairy tale.

And like the Shrek films, it’s a fairy tale with a difference: Goldilocks now Goldi and her three bears, Little Jack Horner now Big Jack Horner.  Although, he still tastes pies by using his big thumb.

And then there’s the wishing star that falls from space to the earth.

To find the star is to find one last wish (hence the title) to be granted by the one who finds the star.

Everyone wants that wish.

Except for Perrito (Harvey Guillén).  He’s a deranged chuahua who’s ridiculously happy with his lot in life when he really shouldn’t be.

Then there’s the old flame of Puss, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault).  She has her reasons.

And of course, Puss, who for the first time appreciating that his life may end, wants to wish to start his nine lives all over again.

That’s the foundation and running thread through the story – to be happy with what you have, to enjoy the one life given.

It’s all a bit sweet, Perrito, AKA the wanna-be-therapy-dog, hilarious.

But the humour didn’t always hit the mark for me.

There’s some adult moments with Puss not wanting to be a lap cat, his descent into the domesticated life of a pet illustrated to the soundtrack of, ‘The Doors’, This is The End.

And that red-eyed bounty hunter is genuinely creepy.  In a good way.

The trio of SoftPaws, Puss and Perrito has a good dynamic to get through the challenges on their quest for that last wish; so the story although simple at times worked and sometimes not.

The twist of the traditional fairy tale characters didn’t always tickle: Goldi (Florance Pugh) and her three bear crime family just didn’t get there; although sweet, it was all a bit annoying.

My nephew and I agree on 3 1/2 stars: a good movie overall with explosive animation and not always funny bits.

Official Competition

Rated: MOfficial Competition

Directed by: Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn

Written by: Andrés Duprat, Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn

Starring: Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas & Oscar Martínez.

Viewed in Spanish with English subtitles.

‘What a wanker.’

It’s Humberto’s (José Luis Gómez) 80th birthday.  His life summed up in the presents laid out before him: a massage chair, a Virgin Mary under a glass dome, a rifle set in its casing.  A painting of a sad clown.

He’s a millionaire who feels like he has money but no prestige.

He wants to be remembered, differently.

He decides he wants to build a bridge.  Or a movie.  Yes, fund a movie.  A good one.  Only the best.

Enter award winning director, Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz).

Humberto buys the rights of a Nobel Prize winning novel to base this, only-the-best movie on, and having failed to read it, he asks Lola what it’s about.

She explains its about a rivalry between two brothers.  She has the two actors in mind to build on that rivalry for the film:

Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez): a teacher, an academic, an actor of integrity and respect.

And, Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas): popular, multi-award winning and arriving at rehearsal in a Lamborghini pashing his latest.

Let the butting of egos begin.

Official Competition is a movie about making a movie, most of the set in an expansive, minimalist house as Lola pulls the actors into the minds of their characters.

Kinda sounds boring, but it’s brilliant watching the techniques used to get the ego’s of these two actors into a place so Lola gets the tone she needs for each scene.

‘I want the truth,’ she demands.

Have to say, Penélope Cruz as Lola looks amazing as the sensitive, brilliant and dedicated director, Lola.  She is the wild, red curly-haired, sensitive and very aware puppeteer.

The film is about how very different these two actors she’s chosen to play the parts as brothers, are; to then realise, they’re as vain as each other.

Iván at one point is seen to be accepting a pretend Academy Award in the mirror, after denying he’d ever lower himself to the popularist farce, and of course not speaking anything but Spanish, to announce in his pretend speech that he was only attending the ceremony to formally reject the award.

Meanwhile, Lola looks incredulously at an online video of Félix making a plea to save the pink dolphin.

I just kept bursting out laughing.

It’s hilarious, all set to Lola’s tricks, using big screens in the background of monologues, rocks suspended over their heads during rehearsal, the sound of kissing while surrounded by microphones, a meat grinder used to signify transition but also showing the edge of Lola’s destruction.

Even Iván’s wife, Violeta (Pilar Castro) an academic hipster who’s written a children’s book is shown as vain as Iván shares a new piece of discordant music where she comments on the brilliance of the tribal drumming.  But no, that’s just next door banging on the wall, again.

This is one of those quietly clever films that seems like it’s not about much but then gives you a tickle when the cleverness of a layer reveals itself.

The whole film’s about ego so in the end the film finishes with a forced clever ending with an ego all of its own.

Great acting, unique and clever story and a good laugh.

Pain and Glory (Dolor Y Gloria)

Rated: MA15+Pain and Glory

Written and Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Produced by: Agustín Almodóvar

Executive Producer: Esther García

Original score: Alberto Iglesias

Director of photography: José Luis Alcaine

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, César Vicente, Asier Flores, Penélope Cruz.

Spanish with English subtitles.

‘If you don’t write or film, what do you do?’

‘Live, I guess.’

Pain and Glory is a drama, a life story shown in monologue and intimate conversation.

Salvador Mallo’s (Antonio Banderas) life is filled with patterns and colours, water and tiles, suspension and scars.

The story of the film circles his life as he remembers teaching a young builder to read and write when he was growing up in the catacombs with his mother, as he remembers his career writing and making films and the past disagreements with friend and actor, Alberto (Asier Etxeandia) whom he hasn’t seen since the premiere of his most successful film thirty-two years ago.

He remembers as the pain of his ailments take pieces from him, his back pain, his migraines, his choking – he can’t create anymore, but he can remember.

This is a film that bleeds the present and the past so the trigger of smoking heroin with the man described, ‘You’re the opposite side of that text,’ Salvador falls, taking him back to the time when he experienced his first desire, his first love, the escape from the ‘bad ring’ of Madrid, to get away from the temptations of addiction to Havana and the Ivory Coast.

But sometimes, love isn’t enough.

He has no regrets.  To recover from his past, he writes the story.

So the past and present are intertwined like his writing translated into this film.

Director and writer, Pedro Almodóvar has taken pieces from his own life, translating them into the film like the character Salvador makes films about his past.

The hair, the setting of the apartment the same as the man himself, Pedro.

Antonio Banderas has just won the Cannes 2019 Best Actor Award (the film selected to compete for the Palme d’Or) for his performance here.  And I can see why.  He just seems to get better with age.  His humble sincerity a warmth felt through the screen.  He’s endearing.

And there’s more to the film than a character study as the scenes cut from the bright sun shining through the exposed roof of the catacomb house, to the animation of red broken lines like the branches of a tree exploding in the drawn lines of a brain, a contrast to the quiet suffering of a man embarrassed of his pain, refusing to allow his housekeeper to tie his laces, wearing loafers, catching taxis, lying in the dark.

But there are no complaints as he loses himself in memory.

This isn’t a sad film, more a poignant tale of all the darkness and light in life – sad and happy and true.

The overriding feeling I got from this film was grateful: life can be cruel, but it can also be kind.

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