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El Mariachi - (1992)
I had one of those funny moments when I started watching
El Mariachi - I thought I'd seen all three films in the series (the next two are
Desperado and
Once Upon a Time in Mexico) but I hadn't. I still hadn't seen the first one - and boy, it surprised me. First of all, it had only cost a 24-year-old Robert Rodriguez a little over $7,000 to make, so I found myself watching a microbudget film when I was expecting something a little more. Secondly, Antonio Banderas was nowhere to be seen.
Desperado was packed with stars, like Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi and Quentin Tarantino - but obviously, in
El Mariachi we get mostly amateur actors in all of the roles. Saying all of that, it was surprisingly good. It held up as an entertaining film, and never dipped into the territory most microbudget films end up in - instead, Rodriguez let his love for cinematic craft lift this into action territory much the same way Sam Raimi lifted
The Evil Dead into horror. It's fun, exciting and surprisingly well performed. Incredible for the budget. It serves now as an origin story for the El Mariachi character Antonio Banderas takes on in the next two films.
6/10
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Desperado - (1995)
I had seen
Desperado before, and after being surprised by the low budget
El Mariachi, I felt a little let down by this much larger budget follow-up. I can explain it like this - if
El Mariachi is a nice, normal old photograph of a very pretty girl at home, then
Desperado is the glossy, airbrushed print of a model who has had enhancements done on her. Stylized violence is the order of the day, and everything is posed to look "cool" - the best example of which is when Banderas and Salma Hayek stroll away from a huge explosion like fashion models on a catwalk. The first time I saw
Desperado I really liked it, but after being charmed by the down-to-earth
El Mariachi this came off as a little ugly and extravagant to me. I'm not sure where it stands now, so I'll just say that this has some great music in it, and perhaps is deserving of another viewing when I'm more in the mood for this kind of movie.
6/10
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Life is Beautiful - (1997)
Here is what I said in my Letterboxd review yesterday : "This is a difficult one. I really don't think
Life is Beautiful qualifies as a "great" cinematic work of art, and I also don't find that Roberto Benigni has a really profound grasp of comedy. It's solid, and it's heart is most definitely in the right place - but to be so light-hearted around the subject of concentration camps also veers towards indecency a little. The consensus votes this as one of the best - but to me this is middling fare." I wrote it during one of those moments when I captured my feelings about it concisely. At times Benigni seems to me a desperate comedian who throws every idea he has at an audience with such vigor that his desperation is what elicits the laughter, instead of the cleverness of the joke. I love his pure passion, and passion for filmmaking, but I think the sad reflection of a father saving his son from the Holocaust is what won
Life is Beautiful so many plaudits, and that the movie itself is good to average, but not great.
6/10
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Quartet - (2012)
Strange that Dustin Hoffman could go so long being an actor and then be inspired to make a film at such a late age. Although I'm getting there, I think
Quartet is more suited to people who can relate more to old age, and I found it extraordinarily dull. That said, I should mention that the performances in it are fantastic, especially from Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith. It's very contemplative, and asks a question about whether you're still really you when you reach the latter stages of your life, and encourages people to still be themselves despite the large hurdles that come your way. I never found my way into this film, and since I couldn't connect I just found myself counting the minutes until it ended.
5/10