Machuca (2004) - Great personal investment and heart beats behind Wood's riveting coming-of-age drama

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+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Chilean Movie of the Year + Best Coming-of-Age Movie of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year  

The three excellent child actors in Andrés Wood's Machuca peak up from, for some reason, a piece of cardboard on this poster for the film

  
Gonzalo is a boy from the better part of the middle class in Santiago, Chile in 1973, when the situation in the country under its Socialist president Salvador Allende becomes so bad that the boy's private school takes in some students from poor backgrounds, - among them a new friend named Machuca.

Machuca is written by Mamoun Hassan (The Good Life/La Buena Vida (2008)), Roberto Brodsky (El Brindis (2007)), Eliseo Altunaga (Between Two Hurricanes/Entre Ciclones (2003)) and its great Chilean co-writer/co-producer/director Andrés Wood (Historias de Fútbol (1997)). It is a film that is auspicious for older children (age 12 and up) and adults alike.
The context is complicated and heated politically, but the core narrative of friendship in spite of outer circumstances, and of life as an 11 year-old, is simple and compelling. Gonzalo, Machuca and Silvana, the girlfriend of Gonzalo, are played with distinguished empathy by Matías Quer, Ariel Mateluna (The Magician/El Mago (2014)) and Manuela Martelli (My Last Round/Mi Último Round (2011)), and among the adult actors especially Ernesto Malbran (Sub Terra (2003)) as the idealistic Father McEnroe does a memorable job. 
With very credible staging, the story builds tension steadily; SPOILER the audience member familiar with the period will be able to predict how the school and the boys' friendship will develop towards a very sad precipice.
Machuca powerfully shows the results of excessive political enmity and racism. It is an outstanding film.

 

Related post:

 

Andrés Wood: 2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a 3-minute clip from the film with English subtitles here

Cost: 1.7 mil. $
Box office: 3.1 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.82 times its cost)
[Machuca premiered 24 February (Switzerland) and runs 121 minutes. Wood rehearsed with the child amateur actors for 7 months prior to filming. Shooting took place in Santiago, Chile. Wood has stated that shooting took place only on sundays, - due to the small budget. The film opened #73 to a 4k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, where it peaked the following week at #67, never widened to more theaters and only grossed 26k $ (0.8 % of the total gross). Its biggest markets were production country 2.2 mil. $ (71 %), Spain with 338k $ (10.9 %) and the UK with 213k $ (6.9 %). The film was Chile's official Oscar entry of the year but went unnominated. It was nominated for a Goya award, among other honors. Wood returned with The Good Life/La Buena Vida (2008). Mateluna returned in La Vida Es una Lotería (2002, TV-series), JPT: Justicia para Todos (2004, TV-series) and theatrically in Pega Martín Pega! (2007); Martelli in Like a Crashed Plane/Como un Avión Estrellado (2005)). Machuca is fresh at 89 % with a 7.54/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Machuca?

The 33 (2015) - Great true story squandered in uninspired movie

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Antonio Banderas seems to be looking up in wonder at a mysterious, giant, floating number on this poster for Patricia Riggen's The 33

A greedy mine boss sends a new group of workers down into a mine, which is showing signs of imminent collapse. Soon after a part of the mine collapses, and the 33 men find themselves buried alive in a hollow space about a kilometer below the surface ...

Regrettably, no good film has been dug out of the incredible true story of the 2010 Chilean mining disaster. The 33 is deeply uninspired, flat and boring, seemingly dragging itself towards its ending, which for most of its audiences is already known. Apparently the bet of the filmmakers here has been that it would somehow become compelling storytelling, if enough stars got sprinkled on it, - but great actors employed here can't change the film's deficiency. Furthermore, the only star that really stands out is Gabriel Byrne (No Pay, Nudity (2016)), but for the wrong reason: He seems to start out here with a Spanish accent, which then turns back to his natural Irish English accent shortly after.
The 33 is written by Mikko Alanne (5 Days of War (2011)), Craig Borten (Dallas Buyers Club (2013)) and Michael Thomas (Welcome to Woop Woop (1997)) with Jose Rivera (Letters to Juliet (2010)) contributing story elements, based on Héctor Tobar's (The Tattooed Soldier (1998)) Deep Down Dark (2014) nonfiction novel, and directed by Patricia Riggen (Miracles from Heaven (2016)). It is a poorly handled, conventional film spun over an incredible story.

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2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Antonio Banderas gives an interview about the film here

 

Cost: 26 mil. $

Box office: 27.9 mil. $

= Big flop

[The 33 was released November 6 (Chile) and runs 127 minutes. It is the first film to receive the Colombian Film Commission's incentive for shooting in the country. Jennifer Lopez had to bow out due to her work on American Idol and was replaced by Juliette Binoche. Filming took place from November 2013 - February 2014 in Colombia and Chile, including at the actual site of the event. James Horner's score is the second of two he made in 2015, just before he passed away. The film opened #5, behind behind Spectre, The Peanuts Movie, Love the Coopers (the only other new release of the 5) and The Martian, to a 5.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its second week and grossed 12.2 mil. $ (43.7 % of the total gross). The film is a US-Chilean co-production, and in Chile, it reigned #1 for 5 consecutive weeks and grossed 4.9 mil. $ (17.6 %). The 3rd biggest market was China with 3.4 mil. $ (12.2 %). The 33 is rotten at 44 % with a 5.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The 33?

No (2012) - Larraín's enthusiastic, fine film of Chile's 1988 No campaign

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+ Best Chilean Movie of the Year

The rainbow of the posters for Pablo Larraín's No doesn't signify a film about LGBT issues as could be thought but instead of a reality where marketing can color reality in a different color

After many year's hard dictatorship under General Pinochet, he issues a general election in 1988 to legitimize his rule. No follows one of the marketing men who work for the No campaign, which struggles to get the Chilean people to vote no to a continued future under Pinochet.

Gael García Bernal (Bad Education/La Mala Educatión (2004)) is very credible as the ad chief, and No provides an interesting look behind the scenes of the political ad campaign creation. Pedro Peirano (Old Cats (2010)) wrote the screenplay, based on the unpublished play El Plebescito by Antonio Skármeta (No Paso Nada (1980)), and Pablo Larraín (The Club/El Club (2015)) directed it.
The structure of the film is rather flat and consists for much of the time of characters who sit (and sometimes stand) and watch new segments on TV, along with us. On the positive side, No refrains from using clichés and insists on telling its story with a lightness and interest for the creative process behind the campaign, which is original.
The same can be said of the decision to shoot the film in 80s-faded video (technically called low definition 3/4 inch Sony U-matic magnetic tape), which is another curious detail about this fine film.

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2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch the trailer with English subtitles here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 7.7 mil. $
= Uncertainty
[No was shown at various festivals around the world, including at Cannes where it won the Art Cinema Award. It got nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, losing to Michael Haneke's Amour (2012). It made 2.3 mil. $ (29.9 % of the total gross) in North America. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were its native Chile with 1.2 mil. $ (15.6 %) and France with 0.9 mil. $ (11.7 %). No is certified fresh at 93 % with a 7.7 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of No?

Aftershock (2012) - Extreme tastelessness in one of 2012's worst films

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+ Most Tasteless Movie of the Year

The effective poster for Nicolás Lopez's Aftershock

Some unbearable Americans and some unbearable Chileans go all in, partying and sightseeing in Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile, before a major earthquake throws them into deadly horrors.

 
Aftershock has got to be a candidate as Worst Movie of the Year 2012: All of its characters are grotesquely juvenile in their behavior, although one of them, the film's star actor/co-writer/co-producer Eli Roth (Clown (2014)) is really 40 years old. SPOILER The joy in seeing them all get slaughtered, which is the easily predictable outcome, if you know the rationale behind the movie, is, - unfortunately, - as non-existing as our sympathy with them. Once the violence and gore sparks in, we are depressed and annoyed at the characters to the point where seeing their gruesome deaths do nothing to alleviate the constipated downer that Aftershock is.
Roth is flat out embarrassing in the film.
What makes the venture even worse is that it is inspired by one of Chile's terrible earthquakes, the massive 8.8 quake in 2010 that cost at least 525 lives and thousands of homes. This is here turned into cheap exploitation clay in the hands of Roth and co-writer/director Nicolás López (Promedio Rojo (2003)), a very dubious Chilean director. The filmmakers even shot their trash partially at the actual places of the very recent destruction and death. - Sometimes tastelessness can be cool or fun, but in the case of Aftershock, it just smells bad. Really bad. In spite of its cool tagline, - 'The only thing more terrifying than mother nature is human nature', - Aftershock is resounding garbage. Roth and López co-wrote the script with Guillermo Amoedo (Knock Knock (2015)).
It is some satisfaction, at least, that audiences have stayed away from it in droves: Its very limited US release earned it just 40 grand from 110 theaters in its opening weekend, (for a good release, this is possible from just a handful of theaters.) Interestingly, Roth is reported to have gotten the film financed by a group of doctors from Buffalo, NY. - Maybe a new horror film from him could be about how a famous director cheats a group of doctors into spending millions on a shit movie that never makes a buck, - and then gets punished for it a hundred ways from Sunday.
(But no, in actual reality Roth is soon premiering his cannibal genre revival, The Green Inferno (2013), and he is also producing a new horror film with Peter Stormare as a homicidal Clown (2014).)

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess

 

López and Roth introduce the film at a film festival in this video here

Cost: 2 mil. $
Box office: 294k $
= Box office disaster (returned 0.14 times its cost)

[Aftershock premiered 12 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 89 minutes. Shooting took place in Chile. The film was cut from an initial NC-17 rating to achieve an R rating. It opened #45 to a 40k $ first weekend in North America in 110 theaters, ending up with a 58k $ gross (19.7 % of the total gross) domestically. North America was the film's 3rd biggest market. Its biggest and 2nd biggest were UAE with 112k $ (38.1 %) and Singapore with 67k $ (22.8 %). Reportedly the film's costs were covered from distribution rights sales, and so the distribution companies took the loss in this case. López returned with Que Pena Tu Familia (2012). Aftershock is rotten at 39 % with a 4.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Aftershock?