Posts Tagged ‘Texas’

Short Take: Utterly ineffable, yet readily comprehensible. Unlike anything you’ve ever seen

Director: Terrence Malick

Screenwriter: Terrence Malick

Cast: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Sean Penn

Length: 2h 18m

Synopsis: The era is 1950s America. Mr. O’Brien (Pitt) is an old-fashioned man who, like his father before him, adopted the kind of parenting skills that, looking back, leave a bit to be desired. He cares for his wife (Chastain) and three sons, but his disciplinary methods and anger issues prevent too strong of a connection from forming between them – at least not in the same sense that parents nowadays are expected to achieve. The eldest son, Jack (McCracken), goes through a sort of coming of age process that involves learning various exceptional and unexceptional life lessons, mostly by way of observing his father, mother, brothers, and friends. This family story is also at certain intervals juxtaposed with scenes showing the creation of the universe, extinction of the dinosaurs, and several biblical references. To be sure, it is very much an avant garde film; using montage at certain points not too unlike what Eisenstein might have enjoyed, as well as narrative temporality that likens back to the French New Wave. It belongs with the class of films that can be described as being like a Rorschach test: you will understand it best from your own perspective, and feel sensitivity in whichever ways correlate with that perspective. It is not necessarily whatever you want it to be, but it is dramatically more abstract than anything else Terrence Malick has done.

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Short Take: Has everything an exploitation movie requires, including controversiality

Directors: Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror, Sin City), Ethan Maniquis

Screenwriters: Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror), Ãlvaro Rodri­guez (From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter)

Cast: Danny Trejo (Spy Kids, Heat), Jessica Alba (Good Luck Chuck), Robert De Niro (The Good Shepherd), Jeff Fahey (Grindhouse, The Lawnmower Man), Michelle Rodriguez (TV’s Lost, Avatar), Steven Seagal, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan

Length: 1h 45m

Synopsis: A widowed ex-Federale who relegates himself to being a day laborer on the border between Texas and Mexico gets offered an opportunity to earn $150,000 if he assassinates a senator hell bent on closing the border between the two nations. Double-crossed after taking the job, the man, known only as Machete (Trejo), must do what he can to stay alive and avoid capture. He receives help from an understanding Customs officer named Sartana (Alba) and an underground pro-immigration network headed by Luz (Rodriguez), a food truck worker. Together they will try to clear Machete’s name and uncover a conspiracy that aims to make voters sympathetic to the bigoted senator’s platform. It would appear that the bad guys just f****** with the wrong Mexican. Read the rest of this entry »