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Babel is the name of a movie of the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñarritu which was writing by him and the writer Guillero Arriaga. This film is led by some well-known actors as Gael García Bernal, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet.

This movie got the Golden Globe to the best movie drama in 2007 and was nominated to six Oscar but, finally, it only obtained the prize on the best soundtrack category.

According to the Bible, Babel was a celebrated tower erected by men who were culturally united in order to reach Paradise. Irritated by this enterprise, God destroyed the building and condemned humanity to speak in different languages. Incapable of communicating with each other, since then man has consequently known division. The Mexican director updates the biblical myth by transposing it on three distinct continents. The first segment takes place in the United States, on the edge of the Mexican border.

A nanny cares for the children of a couple travelling in Morocco. As her son is getting married in Mexico, she illegally embarks on a traumatic journey with the children. In the Moroccan segment featuring an American couple (Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt), the wife is accidentally wounded by a bullet shot by some kids. The weapon, a rifle, offered to a local guide by a Japanese tourist. And on to Japan, in a parallel story the turmoil of a deaf and mute teenager who has a conflicted relationship with her father. All things considered, the story engages with its shot, but never reaches its target.

Everything in the film is geared toward the Third World. From the precarious situation of undocumented Mexicans which finds a direct echo with the destitute Moroccan families, couples in crisis, dysfunctional families and the shadow of terrorism hang on this sum with clear stakes: to embrace all contemporary pains and to exonerate the affected heroes. Pontificating to the extreme, Babel does not need divine intervention to see its beautiful work bury itself: it crumbles right under our impotent eyes.

Babel is unpredictable and shocking, with compassion hanging on for dear life. Holds you tightly within its grip through its lengthy running time and forces you to empathize with a large cast of international characters and their individual quests in a visceral way.

I borrowed this movie in a video club and, nowadays, it´s the one I prefer most.

The film is set in a working class suburb of Vancouver, Canada.

My life without me is the story of Ann, a young woman (twenty something, I suppose) who works as a cleaner at the University. Her husband is out of work, but he is going to start a new job, building swimming pools. They live in a trailer with two small daughters in a very bad conditions.

One day Ann fainted and goes to hospital where she is told of having cancer and has only a few months to live.

Ann makes a list of all the things she plans to do before she dies and decides not to tell anyone about her illness.

One of the most emotive parts of the film is when Ann records tapes for her daughters´birthday until they are 18.

Ann also tries to find someone to take her place as wife and mother. She, eventually, finds a woman, also called Ann, who lives close to her.

In the sonhdtrack there is an old song that I was looking for years and, when I first heard it, it was a fantastic surprise for me.

All the cast in this film is English, except Leonor Watling and the director, who is Isabel Coixet.

I watched most of the film with a lump in my throat, so, if you like this kind of stories, you must see this film.

One of the sadest films I´ve ever watched is “A Walk To Remember”.It’s a love story about a boy called Langdon (played by Shane West) who has problematic friends and they send another boy to the hospital.So he’s punished and has to do community service.While he’s helping some children with studying problems, he meets a very pious classmate called Jamie (Mandy Moore) who’s the priest daughter and who is working as a voluntary. He also has to take part in the school play so he asks her for help. He finally falls in love with her and make such beautiful things for her like calling a star with her name and build a huge telescope for her.But she tells him that she has leucemia and that the treatment doesn’t work anymore so she´s dying soon.He stays with her all the time and in the end he makes her dream of getting married come true.

I also liked the soundtrack which is sung by the actors.This way, some songs like “Cry”,”Only Hope” or “It’s Gonna Be Love” are sung by Mandy Moore and other like “You” and “So What Does It All Mean” are sung by Shane West.

I liked the movie a lot because it´s really worthwhile and moving and although I spent the whole movie crying I recommend it to everyone who wants to cry a little bit.

Irene Falcón García

‘Torrente, el Brazo Tonto de la Ley’ is a 1998 Spanish dark comedy written, directed and starred by Santiago Segura.

Torrente is a lazy, rude, drunkard, racist and extreme-right-wing Madrid cop; a despicable character who only cares about himself . He lives with his wheelchair-bound father, whom he treats quite badly. One day, a new family of neighbours move in, and the sexy younger daughter, Amparito, catches his eye, so he becomes a friend of Rafi, her nerdy cousin, to get closer to her. At the same time, he discovers that a band of drug traffickers are operating in a nearby Chinese restaurant; he knows that if he cracks this case, it could make him regain the status he lost within the police department; but the only people he can count on to help him are Rafi and his equally nerdy friends.

I liked it very much and I think is one of the most hilarious films I’ve ever seen that’s why I recommend it to everyone that hasn’t seen it yet.

by Jaime

When someone asks me about a good movie I always answer Ocean´s eleven. It is without any doubt one the best movies I´ve ever watched and it might be my favourite one. At first, I didn´t even know the actors and I hadn´t heard about them either, but that film, was incredibly worth watching.

The film takes place in Las Vegas. The main characters are eleven friends led by Danny Ocean (George Clooney) who form a team in order to break into a casino. Obviously, the bad guy is the director of the casino (Andy Rodriguez). Since this man appears, you know that they will eventually get the money, but it is amazing watching the way they prepare every single detail for a just three-minute-long theft. Moreover, it´s gripping seeing how everything perfectly matches at the right moment so that they can get their target.

They pretend a false robbery and when the casino calls the police, they intercept the call and it´s them who appear dressed as SWAT instead of the real police. They get to the safety box, pick the money and flee as is nothing had happened.

In spite of being an excellent movie, it is also played by great actors, such as Brad Pitt, Matt Damon or Julia Roberts. Furthermore, the soundtrack sounds fine and there is also quite a lot of humour.

All in all, Ocean´s eleven is for me, a highly recommendable film. From my point of view, it is one of those Hollywood films everyone enjoys. If you have a good time you can watch the second and the third part. They are also amazing!

By Víctor Nieto

My favourite film is In the name of the father, by Daniel Day-Lewis. I’ve followed him since his wonderful role in the Last of the Mohicans. The movie is set in England, the 5th of October 1974. That night, at eight o’clock in a pub in Guildford, an IRA bomb explodes, killing five people.The police is forced by the public demand of justice to act quickly, so they find them guilty without proper evidence.They were an easy target and a quick way to calm the society down. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.During a trial full of mistakes and with a huge lack of proof, the “Guilldford Four”, including Gerry and Paul, are sentenced to life imprisonment. Afer the controversial sentence, the police find enough evidence to acquit the Conlons, but they tried to hide it.At the beggining the aim of the movie is to show a broken relationship between Gerry (Dad) and Daniel (Son). But after the sentence, when Gerry and Giuseppe arrive in prison, their relationship turns better and closer.An important role in the movie is played by, Emma Thompson, as Gareth Peirce, a woman who focuses all her efforts on Gerry Conlon’s case. Her final speech at Court, it represents a crucial moment in the movie.

The name of the father’s soundtrack is played by U2, and this is another good reason to watch this great movie. My last advise is this: Don’t lose any of you time reading this review, just watch it !!

By Alberto Llano Pahíno.

A film review

I have chosen the film “El Orfanato” (The Orphanage) because it was the last film I have seen and, as I do not have a good memory, I prefer to write about something recent.First of all I would like to summarize the plot and then I will explain what I liked.The main character (Belén Rueda) returns with her family to and old mansion, where she had lived as a child, in order to fund a residence for disabled children. While she is arranging everything around the house a series of strange events start to happen which lead to the disappearance of her son.We could say that we are dealing with a horror film and, although I am not keen on this kind of movies, in this case I enjoyed it since, in my opinion, it is more a psychological thriller than a horror film. Besides, Belén Rueda’s performance is brilliant and her role very realistic. On the other hand, I would like to say that there are other characters who are not so credible and a little bit histrionic.I would recommend watching it because it is a good quality Spanish film which is going to represent us in the Oscar’s Awards and, in addition, the location shots were filmed in
Asturias.

It is a film that keeps you on the edge of you seat and you can enjoy it, unless you are an easily scared person.

My favourite film is called “Mystic River”. It was directed by Clint Eastwood and the main actors are Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon.

The film starts in the summer of 1975, when three children (Dave, Jimmy and Sean) are playing in a sidewalk in Boston. Dave is abducted by two men and subjected to sexual abuse.

Twenty-five years later, when Jimmy´s teen daughter, Katie, is found dead, they get in touch again. Sean is the policeman who investigates the murder, but Jimmy, who is an ex-convict, tries to find the murderer before the police to kill him.

After Sean´s investigation, there are two suspects: the girl´s boyfriend (whose father had dissapeared due to Jimmy´s crimes) and Dave, whose strange behaviour makes him a real murderer. Even his wife tells Jimmy she suspects of her own husband because the night Katie had been killed, he had arrived home with blood on his clothes and his story about a car accident had been a bit fantastic. Jimmy goes mad and, helped by his bouncers kills Dave near the Mystic River.

Inmediately after this, Sean phones him to announce that the murderer has been arrested and he has confessed: the murderer was Katie´s boyfriend´s brother, who had killed her because he was jealous.

I’m not going to write about my favourite film because, after a lot thinking, I can’t really say which film is my favourite, so I’m going to write about “Stardust”, the latest film I saw in the cinema. This film is based on a novel written by Neil Gaiman, who is a famous writer of books and comics and it’s directed by Matthew Vaughn, the director of the not very lucky third part of X-men (at least, this time he did it better). The main characters are Charlie Cox and Claire Danes as Tristan Thorne und Yvaine, and Michelle Pfeiffer and Mark Strong performing the principal villains (Lamia and Septimus). Other famous actors like Peter O’toole or Rupert Everett also appeared, and the work of Robert De Niro in the rol of a very funny and peculiar pirate, capitan Shakespeare shines specially. The story is a fantasy tale full of magic: a wall that is a portal from the England of 150 years ago to a magical realm called Stormhold, a fallen star with the shape of a beautiful young woman that only wants to return to the sky, a young man who is in love with a capricious girl and wants the star to probe her his love, three evil witch sisters looking for the star to become young again, a dying king and his ambitious sons searching for a magical jewel, and also ghosts, flying ships with not very dangerous pirates, unicorns… All these elements conform a beautiful fable about love and fate.

In my opinion this film is almost perfect. The music and the special effects work together creating a magical environment where the actors can play without the feeling of being secondary on the movie, as usually happen in other fantasy films (for example “Eragon”). When I first saw it, this movie reminds me classical films like “
Willow” or “Lady Hawk”, which I used to enjoy when I was younger. It shows the eternal fight between the good and the evil and this is, probably, the thing that doesn’t convince me a lot, because the bad ones are too evil and the good ones are so good that sometimes they seem complete idiots. Life isn’t always black or white, so why has fantasy to be?

I really recommend this film. Even if you don’t like fantasy films very much, you can enjoy the delicious plot of the movie and the playing of Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro, that sometimes is completely hilarious. Stardust is the kind of tale I would read to my children, if I had children, obviously.

‘Pay it forward’, this, in my point of view, terrific movie became very important for me since I watched it this summer in Canada. Obviously, I watched it in English with English subtitles too, but I watched it in the student college where I was in the TV room with a lot of Canadian friends, so maybe this is why I like it, because it makes me remember all of them.

The film is about Trevor McKinney, a young child who attemps to make the world a better place after his teacher, Mr.Simonet, gives him the chance in the sociology class. Kevin Spacey plays a very good role of Mr. Simonet and Haley Joel Osment as Trevor. Helen Hunt plays the role of Arlenne McKinney, Trevor’s mother. She has problems with alcoholism.

The plot starts because Trevor’s new teacher, Mr. Simonet, offers his students an assingment: think of something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor had the idea of paying a favour not packed but forward, but with new good deeds one to three new people. Trevor brought on a revolution with this idea, not only in the life of himself, his mother and hist teacher, even in the life of people completely unknown to him.

This is a romantic and dramatic movie. Romantic because of the realtionship between Mr. Dimonet and Trevor’s mother. And drama because it deals with real feelings and problems.

I liked the movie althought I don’t like drama and romantic movies, in my view they’re usually a bit tedious. The only one which I liked is ‘Noah’s ark’.

I highly recommend this movie to everybody because it is worth watching. And on the other hand the actors are brilliant in this movie. There’re a fantastic cast.

The only thing I would change is the sad ending because I don’t like sad movies. But in spite of it I think the movie is good becuse it has an expected ending. For this I also find it gripping, you never know what is going to happen.

I don’t have more to say because I think it is a good movie, with an excellent script. Just watch it!!

By Nuria Ortiz Pérez.