Star Reviews - Film Criticism by Sebastián Zavala

I've definitely not been as prolific this January as I was last year. I guess it has to do with the holidays. Last year I had to go to school, I had to work on stuff I didn't necessarily like, so I wrote reviews to "kill boredom", so to speak. Since now I have very little to do besides some essays I haven't started yet - and plan to start on February, all I do all day is read, watch movies, play Wii games, go out with my friends or other stuff. I'm becoming lazy, I'm eating more, and my belly's alarmingly big. (Well, not that big, I'm not fat, I'm just like... a thin guy with a biggish belly.) Yeah, I still play tennis, and I'm going out on bike with a friend from time to time, but I just feel... dreamy... it ain't good.

All this laziness has resulted on a decreased review production, and on me posting less and less commentaries. This means there are a couple of subjects I haven't been able to talk about. There's, for instance, this week's tragic event: the death of Heath Ledger. The man was a really good actor, having given a fantastic performance in Ang Lee's Brockeback Mountain, and being only 28 years old, he had a lot to look forward to. I mean, he was filming a freakin' Terry Gilliam movie. But, to everyone's surprise, he passed away. I, for once, wasn't expecting anything like that. When my aunt told me one of the "Brockeback actors" had died, I thought she referred maybe to an extra or a more obscure thespian. Not Heath Ledger. I'll definitely miss watching and reviewing films starring him - I think this would be a good time to start reviewing some of his better movies -, and I'm just hoping his death had nothing to do with drugs or the pills the police found on his bed. I personally don't think he was a drug addict or anything, and I'm pretty sure his passing away had nothing to do with any of that. We'll see when they finish the investigation, I guess...

And now on to "merrier" matters. I don't know if any of you have heard about the "CAP alert" website. Well, I'm not precisely an atheist, but I don't think I belong to any religion; that doesn't mean I don't respect religious people. Many of my friends are religious, I know many Christians who are really good people, really intelligent people in some cases, but the guys who write in this "CAP alert" website are just retarded. Either that, or they aren't talking seriously. The site is dedicate to reviewing movies using a "Christian" point of view, and telling its readers if, according to Christians, a film is suitable for watching. The writers rate the films using diverse categories such as "offense to God", "violence" or "sex/nudity." The thing is, these fundamentalist Christians seems to be extremely old-fashioned in their way of thought. Here are some hilarious examples of how these guys review films:

Dungeons & Dragons: "many, many images of a form fitting breastplate - female"

Shall We Dance: It would seem that the entertainment industry is trying to make sure kids at least know about, among many other sins, the practice of homosexuality.

A Beautiful Mind: Sexual issues included sex talk, anatomical references, seeking of sexual conquest, a woman placing a man's hand on her chest and a man and woman in bed (clothed). Maybe the man and woman in bed together were married in the movie but the actor and actress were not.

Inspector Gadget: "I'm gonna kick some b–t."

The Aviator: "mammary display, clothed"

Cars: "male car exhibiting rear underside to female car"

Thanks to daylightatheism.org.

Yup, it seems the guys from the CAP website think diverse attitudes such as talking about homosexuality, saying the word "butt", actually having breasts or showing the underside of a freakin' animated anthropomorphic car are sins. I even remember I once saw in one of their reviews, under the "offense against God" heading, the word "farting." Yes, these people even think that farting is offending God. That's gotta be one of the most laughable websites I've ever read, not only because these guys seem to think almost every film in existence is sinful, but because they use ridiculous categories and make use of Bible verses as a "scientific report." (At least according to their review of the movie Kinsey.)

I guess I'll write more about this website in the future. Like I said, I'm not a religious guy, but I respect people with their own beliefs. That doesn't mean, though, that I can't talk about these so-called "reviewers" who don't seem to know much about movies, and believe that farting is a sin.

Anyway, since I've only wrote one commentary and two reviews this week, I'll be posting new reviews between tonight and tomorrow. What movies? You'll see. Hope you've been enjoying the website, and remember, if you have anything to say about these articles or my reviews, all you have to do is send me an e-mail. See ya!

Happy new year everyone! I'm sorry I couldn't publish my review on the 1st, but I've been kinda ill since then. Today I got better, though, so I finished by review for Superbad, posted it, and decided to write the first commentary of the year. I've got a couple of things to talk about, so this won't be as brief as the last commentary of 2007. Let's see...

Firstly, I must say I was unpleasantly surprised on Tuesday by something that occurred to me. (Well, not only to me, you'll see.) Tuesday the 1st of January was the day I Am Legend was supposed to arrive to Peruvian theatres. So I went in the afternoon to the nearest theatre will my dad. We went to buy the tickets for the movie, and the lady in the counter said something to this effect: "Oh, the movie hasn't been released yet. There has been a distribution problem."

So, there had been like a thousand adds published in newspapers for the past couple of weeks, there had been adds in the streets, there had been talking about the movie in national TV programmes, and now they tell me the flick wasn't going to be released until Thursday? (Today.) Yeah, that was pretty frustrating. I mean, that film's being released like two weeks after the U.S. release, and Peruvian distributors cannot even handle a late release. I mean, they managed to release the crappy Aliens vs. Predator on time the week before, even though it was a world-wide release. Yeah, the thing puzzled me. And frustrated me. And that was the day I started feeling ill. Great... yeah, great start of a new year.

And then the distributors and national directors complain about piracy. "Oh yeah, you shouldn't buy illegal copies! They're eeeviil!" But do they do anything cool to make people stop buying pirate copies of their favorite movies? No. Do they lower the prizes of original DVDs? No. Do they manage to release a commercial, big budget and anticipated movie on time here in Peru? No. Yup, they aren't doing anything to make people stop buying pirate DVDs, so they shouldn't complain. Yup, that's my point.

Anyway, since the flick has been released today here in Lima, I guess I'll be watching it on Sunday, and the review will be available on Sunday night or maybe (hopefully not) on Monday morning. Yeah, I know it's really late, but it's not my fault. I just live in a South American country where distributors cannot even handle late releases. I just hope they'll be able to handle the release of the second National Treasure flick. (Which is slated to be released here in like two weeks.) Anyway, I'll try to forget the incident, and since nothing bad has happened this first few days of the new year - apart from that and my little illness - I guess I have nothing to worry about. For the moment, I'm actually excited because I'm buying a Wii on Saturday... yeah, I'll be playing the whole weekend. =D

Well, hope you'll continue reading the website this year. I have more reviews in story for you, both of old and new movies. Hope you'll keep enjoying the site... "see" you next commentary!