Rudo y Cursi

A big hit in Mexico where it was released last year, Rudo y Cursi stars Gael Garcia Bernal (as Tatto) and Diego Luna (his half-brother Beto) in a rags to riches story that involves soccer and misplaced brotherly love.
The concept of the charolastra or space cowboy may be lost on Anglos but it's how Tatto views himself. After he becomes a famous soccer player he uses his swiftly burning celebrity to produce a music video wherein he sings Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" ("Quiero que me quieras") dressed in a hideous western suit complete with good guy white hat. [See below video.]
Beto and Tatto live in a coastal town in abject poverty. Their common mom's new boyfriend lacks common sense or decent traits (yet he's a cop) and life at home holds little future whether due to lack of money or Bete's penchant for gambling (he just lost his wife's blender on a bad bet). A scout for soccer teams, while waiting to get his flat tire fixed, spies the brothers working out during an ad hoc soccer match. One offer leads to Tatto being invited to try out in Mexico City with a pro team, much to Beto's chagrin since he considers himself the better player.
Tatto's gets his chance to shine and he's eventually on his way to sports stardom with Beto soon following. Rudo y Cursi finds a way to weave in social commentary while following the brothers on their upward trajecectory. Thing is, even after making it to the top Tatto's still too innocent to handle his new model girlfriend or come to the realization his singing reeks of vanity rather than talent. Beto still has his family to support. These guys have all the fame and money a person could want and still nobody likes them.
Rudo y Cursi marks the directorial debut of Y tu mama tambien co-writer Carlos Cuaron. Unlike his brother Alfonso (Children of Men) Carlos doesn't know where to put the camera and Rudo y Cursi often seems lost in its own setting. The film is more dramedy than overly comical. The balancing point are the polished performances from Bernal and Luna. This duo certainly lends a Redford-Newman vibe to any international or Mexican film in which they star.

Good

There's no denying Good hovers over concepts of good and evil.  And with a title that boldly states its intention it's not surprising when Good is bad.
Good stars Viggo Mortensen as a university professor, John Halder, in Germany during the rise of the Nazi regime. The film starts in the late-30s then rewinds to 1932 to fill us in on Halder's backstory. A succinct third act shifts the action to 1942 and a grinding halt as the film's true intention of being a holocaust drama unfolds.
Good primarily spends time developing character, and Mortensen shows diversity playing a meek, nebbish guy who barely knows what to do when a beautiful student starts seducing him. You know he's acting because Mortensen has made his name playing handsome virile leading men. Men with guts, men with tattoos, men you don't mess with. If Mortensen had been cast in a Broadway play that entailed him transforming from a meek teacher to a sycophant of Nazi ideals the mood and atmosphere might sustain his performance.
On the big screen Mortensen demands respect because of his physique. Even as a wimp, when he strips down he's still buff. Halder's weakness cannot be overcome by Good deficient story, which revolves around people conforming to survive in a society that persecutes outcasts.
Jason Issacs plays Maurice, Halder's only Jewish friend. Their relation and that of Jodie Whittaker. who marries Halder, are connected by fate. Mark Strong who made such an impact in RocknRolla and Body of Lies makes less of an impression here.
Director Vicente Amorim delivers on some fronts like atmosphere. The actors are always drinking beer from an array of steins that lend credence to the era. A lengthy tracking shot at the end attempts to take in the same kind of spacious grandeur as the tracking shot in Atonement. Only here it's Halder wandering through a concentration camp and therein lies Good's fault. It's just not that interesting watching the realization of Halder's Faustian bargain coming to fruition.

Up, up and away

There’s darkness in movies and then there’s darkness in cartoons. The new Pixar movie Up starts out in a somber if not outright devastatingly emotional mode. Speaking to director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera on a recent visit to Houston I mentioned two scenes where the viewer sees blood.
Animated film can encompass everything from Fritz the Cat to Waltz With Bashir to anime but we’re talking about a film distributed by Disney, and the 11th film from Pixar.
Early on in Up we see the lead character, 78-year-old retired balloon salesman Carl whack a construction worker on the head with a mailbox. And there will be blood. “We needed it, you battle certain things with animation. He hits the guy on the head and we’re programmed to laugh, but then he takes his hand away from his forehead and there’s blood,” points out Rivera.
“At Pixar there aren’t that many rules, we can do stuff and if it works for the scene we use it,” says Docter.
“As producer I’m always concerned whether we’ve pushed too far,” comments Rivera. “I looked and for instance, Dory gets a nosebleed in Finding Nemo and that’s what gets the sharks after her. And in Beauty and the Beast he gets stabbed in the back and you see it.
“This is a whimsical world where a house floats away tethered by balloons. We need emotional stakes to make it matter.”
Up also adds talking dogs to the mix. The canines are able to vocalize because their master, a long lost explorer who’s a cross between Prospero and Capt. Nemo has fashioned advanced dog collars that convey the pooches’ thoughts to words.
“The dogs talk but their thoughts betray them. They’re dogs, they tell it like it is,” Rivera notes. Docter adds: “We did things for the dog’s dialogue, like we’d look up a phrase on Google Translate from English to Japanese and then back from Japanese to English to see how we could rearrange the words. ‘Soon the bird shall be ours yet again.’”
Up will open May 29 but not before opening the Cannes Film Festival in a 3D presentation.
“The 3D is basically how much you separate the objects from right to left eye,” describes Docter. “What we tried to do on this movie was to not have too many things reaching out at the viewer. It’s generally distracting.”
Docter emphasizes they’re not calling attention to the 3D so much as using it for the special depth it brings to scenes like the ones that incorporates tepuis (pronounced ta-pooh-ee), a series of unique mesas only found in regions South America. In particular the climax takes place on a tepui modeled after Mount Roraima in Guyana.
When they were location scouting they landed on the top of one tepui and Docter asked the helicopter pilot how many people he thought had been there.
“Thousands?”
“More like 10s.”