Reviews by Jimmy Tancredi

For me, the cover signified that it wouldn't be your typical pop album, and that's definitely true, but the lyrics tend to be deceptively light - in a good way. You're drawn in and you think some of the songs would be a little darker, but then she hits you with this completely contrasting, uplifting chorus. It's weird but it works.

reflective and somewhat emotional in contrast to the standards of today's youth who cherish the "fied here and now". However you can see a lot of immaturity in the direction and script, especially in the latter it is based, a lot of literary works of renowned intellectual only to tell the difference before the rest of the protagonist of his own track age - a fact that also makes the film takes an air of "cult" which, in my opinion, has not - and makes the movie lose some of its originality. The movement of cameras sometimes tires a little too.

Exaggeration of a rookie aside, there are positive sides as the undisputed loyalty to the thinking of young people today - until I saw in some of the crises of the unsafe Oliver, in his paranoia and assumptions without rhyme or reason. The soundtrack is flawless - her voice, lyrics, everything in her talent fits perfectly with the movie and the character. And the photography has gone far from what I was expecting.

Anyway, it's a good movie, unruffled and distinct, even with some exaggerations coming from an inexperienced filmmaker. Independent and faithful to the public of Generation Y.

In We need to Talk About Kevin, Tilda Swinton delivers the best performance of her long career by portraying emotions nothing but unconventional. Swinton lent her image to a startled character, abandoned, lost by society and also, completely devoid of any influence on her son.

Early on you can see Kevin is not a sweet innocent child. With an optimistic father sire, Kevin’s bad behavior culminates in a brutal act. With grotesque expressions, Ezra Miller deserves much praise for a such remorseless act.

From the direction till the soundtrack, We need to Talk About Kevin is a technically impeccable motion picture. It provides a unique experience for the viewer, provoking your imagination with a story of pure cruelty, however, close to current reality.

Weekend was one of the most beloved romantic dramas by European critics last year.

The picture is written and directed by Andrew Haigh, who has been production assistant and editor neophyte in works such as: Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom Of Heaven, all of them destined for the male public.

This new venture is a warmhearted romantic gay drama. In which a consanguinity is able to evolve in a single weekend, leaving marks and emotions for the two young man differently conceived, an ardent Russel who does not raise the GLS flag and then there’s Glen, a militant skeptic already with restrictions to romance.

The narrative’s boost is contagious and the cast manages to create a sphere of reality completely out of stereotypes. The ending escapes from obviousness and is capable to stir us.

The Iron Lady is an average film which relies only on the glorious performance from Meryl Streep.

Due to its dull script and somewhat little emotionally appealing the film can not sustain alone and needs other means to get poignant.

The dramatic appeal is that the film has taken more into account than the historical context of Thatcher’s life, it has no relevance on the film scene of a poorly explored and superficial. The brilliant and magnificent interpretation of Meryl Streep was Oscar worthy which it is the only strong point of the film.

The flick struggled too much to try to have an appeal with the public and therefore lacked focus in relation to the biographical history of the character.

If the scene of the opening credits already affirms that it will be a heavy dip in a violent world, covered with dense blackness and incendiary, what follows is an attempt to reveal this evil once hidden behind the power and the many untruths that people from the story are trying to impose itself. The corrupt businessman to the meticulous killer, maybe even beyond that.

The great ambition of the film is pervaded all these facts by the figure that resonates with insane intensity of credits lost in the narrative development, Lisbeth Salander cultivates in her "inability to live socially" - which the state condemns a hallucinatory force in her proper strangeness of being. Her impenetrability marks the film, or perhaps the latter is molded to it. And it is in the journalistic curiosity that Mikael and Lisbeth in the particular vehemence that the entire film unfolds, not only the desire of Blomkvist to uncover the truth and try to prove to himself that after all is still a work in a universe capable unfair, but also a woman afflicted with many cruelties, far from innocent, but that is the search for a killer of women the desire to exterminate this scum of men who mistreated, echoing ghosts of Christmases past that the film does not reveal, but it suggests. Salander is the driving force that has long, affecting Mikael and the rising tension, which grows, in an investigation of a past that resonates even today.

David Fincher here is in the same technical finesse of Social Network", but quite superior to echo the masterpiece of director who is "Zodiac." He is able to develop his work respecting the genius of suspense that Stieg Larsson writes in the text at the same time deepens the personalities of his intriguing characters, from a family background that exudes decadent bitterness, wickedness and misogyny that characterize the protagonists to be precisely to the contrary, whether feminism is a transgressor of Lisbeth or the breakup of this family structure represented by Mikael, all enrolled in a theatre now conscious and well thought out.

Josie is an editor who works for a newspaper and has only 25 years. Her boss wants her to disguise herself as a teenager and sneak into college to do an investigative piece. The problem is that in her early teens, she hasn't had good experiences and has fears that they repeat and it causes her resignation.

Starting with the fact that hardly a woman of 25 years would pass for a teenager, and more strenuous has never been kissed. Taking into consideration that is a fiction we get the part that is a romantic comedy, and especially in the 90s.

I believe that in the epoch it worked well in a successful way, almost became a modern fairy tale.

This is undoubtedly the darkest of all Almodovar. Here, the director abandons almost completely melodramatic speech devoted to him and dives deeply into a realm of more psychological approach than usual, full of nuances and shocking. Proof that he is able to get out of your comfort zone and venture into original productions.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of The Skin I Live In is a confused gender identity built upon the character Vicente/Vera. Robert Ledgard, responsible for the handling, believes, like all good stuff, we're just skin we inhabit. Thus, he believes to be carrying the most severe punishment to the rapist of his daughter, as irreversible as death would be a life of shame and humiliation a female body as despised by Vincent (played by an excellent Jan Cornet).

However, the plot takes unexpected directions when confronted the viewer with the past of Dr Ledgard, plagued not only by the rape (and then suicide) of her daughter, but also by the death of his wife. What should be only a quest for revenge becomes a quest for resurrection of lost love. Vincent gets a face almost identical to the deceased wife of a surgeon and extra protection against burns, skin highly resistant. Robert arrives to declare for their creation transsexual she "never has been burned again". There had been a necrophiliac transfer morbid personality, like the classic Hitchcock film "Vertigo".

Dr Ledgard, by this time had forgotten the whole accident why would continue that crazy saga, but not Vincent. This was still a little about himself alive, a "soul" that overlaps the whole matter that lived there, however modified and tangible (a fact that triggered the tragic end). Thus, it is possible to say that the greatest message of Almodóvar is that no matter where we are or how the body we have modified, our essence will always remain and will overcome (message that can be taken both as an ode to the human soul and beauty inside and a heavy critique of contemporary exaggerations in plastic interventions).

The art direction is tremendous: the colors of Almodovar almost disappeared, giving way to a cold surgical practice, but not so barren (by contrast, is required for immersion and psychological tension voyeuristic). The picture is flawless, the soundtrack by Alberto Iglesias is one of the best by the Spanish and filmography of the performances leave nothing to be desired. Highlights also include the excellent script and the sober direction. Through The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodovar shows the world that can escape the commonplace that gave him fame and, thus, stands as one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.

I like when it's approached a dramatic theme with a dose of comedy, showing a relaxed and optimistic side without overdoing it and falling in very improbable. It makes rethink how to handle difficult and unexpected problems when you add a little levity.

I don't really like Seth Rogen, but he fulfilled the role of comic relief and to represent the friend who use disappoints at times, but you can count on him. Even with the impression that he was playing himself, was surprised to learn that in reality is Seth's best friend Will Reiser, in whose life the film was based.

It was daring the bar scene in which Adam tries to lure girls saying he has cancer. It's so strange and compelling as to be original, when instead of masking the problem, takes advantage of it as a differentiation and as a point of interest.

Anna Kendrick is highlighted once again playing the role of a more mature for her age, in a more contained than in Up In The Air. She can be annoying and adorable at the same time.

Gladly in the end there wasn't the kiss between the two. The film finished with a taste of expectation, making unnecessary to show the novel is finished, since it was already clear there was involvement between them.

You can not stop commenting on the soundtrack that worked well as a whole. In particular, it was great to hear High and Dry and Yellow Ledbetter.

Nature is perfection and when you believe everything you see, some emperor penguins come and completely change my perception and feelings.

It's a splendid story, incorrectly judged with Animal Planet's episode, which presents the cycle of survival of those species in the most inhospitable place in the world. Threatened by hunger, cold and predators (leopard seals and gulls), the monogamous penguins must preserve the ancient cycle of the species, as reflected in the birth of new offspring and the search for food.

It is a piece of art, proving that a story can make a difference (the voice of Morgan Freeman) or curious fiction concepts that mingle easily in the documentary (in case the French dubbing with human voices voicing penguins).