The deepest conquest in “Embrace of the Serpent”

By Jenny A.

Photo: Courtesy

The ravages of colonialism cast a dark shadow over the South American landscapeest  in Embrace of the Serpent, the first film shot in the Amazonian rainforest in over 30 years. Filmed in stunning black-and-white, the film centers on Karamakate (portrayed in various stages by Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolívar Salvado), an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists (Evans and Theo, portrayed by Brionne Davis and Jan Bijvoet) who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him. The film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (Theodor Kock-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes) who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant.

Embrace of the Serpent from director Ciro Guerra who reflects a poetic film and It’s a tense, trippy, emotional and full of adventures and if you go into it just looking for metaphors and symbolism about colonialism and indigenous culture, you will find those things. During 2 hr. 3 min.you will see the real redemption of the white colonials with the best images of the jungle even are in black and white.

The Second Mother reflects the social issues of unspoken class

By GTVW Staff

Photos Agency

The Second Mother, a film by Brazilian director Anna Muylaert, starring the great Regina Casé, one of the South American country’s finest actors. The Second Mother centers around Val (played by Casé), a hard-working live-in housekeeper in modern day Sao Paulo. Val is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers’ needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler. But when Val’s estranged daughter Jessica (Camila Márdila) suddenly shows up the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray. Jessica is smart, confident, and ambitious, and refuses to accept the upstairs/downstairs dynamic, testing relationships and loyalties and forcing everyone to reconsider what family really means.

A film full of sensibility, humiliation of the unspoken hard working class barriers that exist mainly when the live-in housekeeper’s daughter suddenly appears and realizes of her mother real world. A pure division among social class between Val and Barbara, her employer. Definitely, this is very well structured in its plot and performances in which the main topic is about upper-class stereotypes and Jéssica gets increasingly fed up with her mother’s willingness to be patronized and humiliated by her employers.

A hurt childhood in “The boy”

By GTVW Staff

Photos Agency

Directed by Craig William Macneill and written by Craig William Macneill and Clay McLeod Chapman, this film based on the novel Miss Corpus by Clay McLeod Chapman begins with a nine-year-old Ted Henley (Jared Breeze) and his father John (David Morse) are the proprietors of The Mtn. Vista Motel, a crumbling resort buried in the mountains of the American West. This boy is a chilling, intimate portrait of a 9-year-old sociopath’s growing fascination with death.

During 105 min you will have suspense, drama, strong performances. Morse as alcoholic makes the father’s emotional desolation and someone who doesn’t care his child. Definitely the mystery in each scene will surprise you when this boy is incapable of understanding how to form real bonds with new acquaintances and reflects certain violence close to death in which boy’s imagination is the best part of the film.

The rails involve an outlandish thriller for “Last Passenger”

By Jenny Alvarez

Photo Courtesy

Lewis Shaler (Dougray Scott) is an overworked doctor and devoted single dad heading home with his young son Max on the last train from London. When he strikes up a conversation with a beautiful and flirtatious stranger (Kara Tointon), Lewis believes life is finally looking up. But events then take a dark turn when Lewis discovers the guard has mysteriously vanished and the brakes have been sabotaged. Unknown to the handful of remaining passengers, a vengeful sociopath has taken control of the train and is hell-bent on crashing it, taking his passengers with him to the grave.

As the speeding locomotive ploughs through stations and level crossings, the body count rises and panic turns to terror. Lewis realizes that the police are powerless to stop the diesel-powered ‘slammer’ train, and the desperate passengers must find their own way out of this nightmare. Lewis takes the lead in a series of increasingly perilous missions to stop the train before the driver can realize his dark plan.

Last Passenger is a kinetic thriller with melding suspense, action with great performances with great credibility of the situation. It has a well structured dialogues and a well-worn plot with some scenes full of tense and explosive action. Besides in one hour, 36 minutes your predictions will fail when Scott and Tointon make for a decent lead couple, and the film does eventually give some depth to Goldberg’s Jan and David Schofield’s Peter, although for the bulk of the running time they are relegated to annoying cardboard cutouts. Definitely this film is more focus on survival, not the mechanics of villainy but makes it an exciting thriller anyways.

Stop supporting captivity of large aquatic mammals with Blackfish

By : Alfonso De Elias

Photo: Courtesy

Gabriela Cowperthwaite comes with BLACKFISH. Many of us have experienced the excitement and awe of watching 8,000-pound orcas, or “killer whales,” soar out of the water and fly through the air at sea parks, as if in perfect harmony with their trainers. However at this point may have destroyed the ability of some of the cetaceans to thrive in wild. Yet, in our contemporary lore this mighty black-and-white mammal is like a two-faced Janus—beloved as a majestic, friendly giant yet infamous for its capacity to kill viciously. BLACKFISH unravels the complexities of this dichotomy, employing the story of notorious performing whale Tilikum, who—unlike any orca in the wild—has taken the lives of several people while in captivity. So what exactly went wrong? Shocking, never-before-seen footage and riveting interviews with trainers and experts manifest the orca’s extraordinary nature, the species’ cruel treatment in captivity over the last four decades, and the growing disillusionment of workers who were misled and endangered by the highly profitable sea-park industry. This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals. Even if the injuries they inflict on one another when kept in close proximity It’s not all about the trainers, the footage was there to be seen and conservation and rehabilitation is great for this animals but not for some ex trainers who defend the right of a good documentary that is only trying to prove the point that orcas and marine mammals belong in the wild and not a tank doing tricks for food. Two thumbs up for this film which makes us think about life in captivity of killer whales as they are separated from their biological mothers.

Parked doesn't go anywhere

By GalaTView Staff

Photos: Courtesy

Fred (Colm Meaney) lives a quiet and isolated life in his car, having lost all hope of improving his situation and re-entering the ranks of society. That all changes when he forms an unlikely friendship with Cathal (Colin Morgan), a dope-smoking 21-year-old with a positive attitude, who becomes his parking lot neighbor. Sharing laughs, and the hard times too, Fred and Cathal find the simple, free pleasures of life.

Andrea Arnold's adaptation of Bronte's classic Wuthering Heights is coming in a great movie

By GalaTView staff

Photo Courtesy

From British filmmaker Andrea Arnold, Wuthering Heights is an epic love story spanning childhood well into the young adult years, the film follows Heathcliff (in Arnold’s version, a black boy), who is taken in by a Yorkshire farmer, Earnshaw. Living in Earnshaw’s home on the windswept moors, Heathcliff develops a passionate relationship with the farmer’s teenage daughter, Cathy, inspiring the envy and mistrust of his son, Hindley.  When Earnshaw passes away, the now-grown characters must finally confront the intense feelings and rivalries that have built up throughout their years together.

Under all the characters’ moods, for those pictures of the passions that he may desire to sketch for our public benefit this movie is really exhilarating in many aspects. For instance, there are facts such as racial discrimination, rather than that of class is the key factor in Arnold’s story, with Heathcliff portrayed as black of African descent. However, love with savage romance is the main ingredient in this story. It is highly recommended for those who love tragedy, romance and pain in love!

Lawless will take your breath

By GalaTView Staff

Is Jeff who lives at home or who else?

By GalaTView Staff

Foto Cortesy Paramout Pictures

One of the most entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny, and unexpectedly touching efforts to come dispatched from his basement room on an errand Jeff, who lives at home; his mother, slacker Jeff might discover his destiny (finally) when he spends the day with his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife. What will happen after of these issues? This film is scheduled to be released in American theaters on March 16, 2012 and in interview with GalaTView the main actors talked about their main characters.

SUSAN SARANDON (Sharon):  “I think that the biggest mistakes are in comedies.  I mean, you can be mediocre in a drama or who-done-it or whatever, but when a comedy is bad, ooh, that’s so bad. When you’re just trying to do what your job is in the scene and the more out of control because they set it up so well that you don’t have to come up with clever lines.  If you’re just in character and you … I think the thing that was so great was how comfortable an atmosphere these guys make, and how safe you feel so that you can take chances and make big mistakes.  Then, you know, get on track again and you know that they’ve got your back, and that they’re watching and they’ll take care of you.  So you just have to fulfill your job in the scene within character and not try to be funny or get attention or whatever.  You just have to be there and hope that it works.  Sometimes they’re really good at improvising, all these guys.  I mean there are actors who forget what the point of the scene was, and you like go off somewhere.  That’s happened to me a number of times where someone says to me, “I thought we were supposed to get to this?”  And they’re down in some other world, and so everybody can’t do it.  You know, it’s not a talent that everybody has, but there are like experts.

Well, I don’t think we’ve done a lot of takes because once it rained you couldn’t really go back.  It wasn’t that kind of movie where they were going to take another day and dry everything out.  But I felt like it was much more romantic with the rain coming down except the fact that there was something in the water that was really stinging my eyes.  So I didn’t know where that water was coming from, but it wasn’t rain water.  Maybe but it was a little bit, it was hurting. So it wasn’t as romantic as it felt initially before my eyes started to burn.  But I think it added.  I mean I loved gathering everything and then having it.  It really moved me emotionally.  I felt like I was being baptized or something that one take that we got when I stood up, and see everybody going away.

Then you have a feeling of accomplishment rather than going home and thinking, “God, I couldn’t really … ”  But when you just give it  and then you’re done.  Then you can go home and say, “Okay, there is something that went on there that they should be able to use.  You know, that’s cool.”  And that’s the joy of working with people that you really respect. “

JASON SEGEL (Jeff):  “I’m a giant fan, and I just remember a period in my life when I was out of work, and I was sitting there waiting for someone to cast me.  And it very much was like Jeff.  You know, the sign that I’m supposed to be an actor is getting cast and 21 to 25 was a crazy out-of-work period.  It was before I really starting writing hard.  And I remember very much just sitting there thinking like I’m going to wait for the sign that I’m worthy of being an actor.  My goal was to bring the Muppets back, and I think that I achieved that.  It was half a decade of my life, and I just want to take a minute to concentrate on more human related projects.  I was just born hilarious, but beyond that this movie was a no-brainer for me.  I read the script and it was just very clear what my job was, and it was to show up and be regular.  And I think everyone probably would agree it was just so well written.  There was no need to like talk about what the character’s motivation was or anything like that.  It was nice work.  So that’s what I mean, born hilarious.  You know, I mean I knew what my job was and it was just to show up and do what they had written. So I didn’t try to bring any funny bones to it.  It’s funny because I guess like by nature we’re a little bit funny, but the goal was just to be honest on this one. We thought that day was a little subtle and wouldn’t read, so we amped it up for Jeff who was at home with it.

To me I don’t like it when I see somebody trying to be funny.  To me the whole goal whether it’s comedy or drama is just being natural, like being really irregular.  That’s my goal. If it ends up being funny, it’s because we happen to be funny by nature.  But I don’t know.  The goal for me the whole time was just to be really regular.   I didn’t think about if it was a dramatic scene or a comedic scene.  I think both.

Our job like when we worked with these guys was to show up and really understand what the scenes were about and what the point of them was, and then just be completely open to whatever was going to happen.  You know, the only preparation you had to do was really understand what the point of what you were doing was.   And then beyond that you had to be ready to just be like painfully honest.”

JUDY GREER (Linda): “It felt really seamless to make this movie because we always were, I felt like every time we were on set we were always acting like there wasn’t a lot of down time or the cameras were always rolling.  I mean obviously I can tell them apart, but it wasn’t like one experience was different. I mean I had some really emotional moments with Ed, and that was really fun.  And then I’ve always liked Jason, and he’s funny.  I’m learning other than just speaking. But it was really working with both of them felt really comfortable.  They both have a similar energy, and sense of humor and I came there a few days after they had already met, and like the bonding between them was so obvious already.  I don’t know if you guys knew each other well beforehand, but they seemed like immediately to me like brothers. If you don’t have lines in the scene that you’re shooting that day like you’ll probably up talking a lot.  I remember one day I was like, “Oh, it’s that scene where I’m just having dinner with Steve in the restaurant and I’m just in the background.”  And we ended up like having the whole conversation that you can hear.  It’s fun, though, because you just go to work ready to work every day.

I think there were like three cameras and we’re doing the scene, and like anything that comes up if they like, they like say other lines, say this.  It’s like there’s never a bigger name. Like I never feel like we go like from the bigger name to the middle to the end.  Like it’s always like this.  We’re always trying new things, and the camera is moving and let’s stop and go back or skip something.  I feel like it was like a whole day but it probably wasn’t.

.  I feel like I got it all out on camera, and then I have a harder time like getting ready for scenes like that than I do letting them go. So we don’t have to feel like that anymore.  But getting prepared for it is more difficult for me. “

ED HELMS (Pat): “Every day is unforgettable for me. They’re just so full of chaos and excitement, but let’s see.  One in particular was … God, I’m really bad at this.  I’ll tell you Jason’s most eventful day. He piloted an F-16 and actually was in a dog fight and saved America one day.  I rode a rollercoaster and was in a car crash the same day.  That’s a true story.  There was a baby.  A baby came out on the rollercoaster right behind me and I pulled it out.  I got it and then Fabio was hit in the face with a Canadian goose.  Well, at deliveries you don’t sing it.  Breathe, just breathe.  Close your eyes and let the baby come out.  We’re goin’ upside down now, you hear.  And then it was there.  I had it right in my hand and I was sobbing, and it was really emotional and then … It’s also the most, I don’t know, it’s the most fun way to go to work on a set everyday just not knowing what you’re going to say.  You know, I’ve done little bits of theater and stuff where you literally say the same lines every night.  And that has its own kind of Zen appeal.  Like you can really find nuances in the same lines.  But then there’s this whole other really exciting process, which these guys are all about.  I don’t know, it’s really fun but It’s so exciting and even the most mundane things feel really fresh and cool every take like sitting in the bath tub with Jason. We probably set there for like three hours.”