• Spanish

WHAT: Lucky Bastard
LINK: www.luckybastardmovie.com

By Lizandro Melean / @lizandro_melean

The found footage sub-genre, popularized by The Blair Witch Project in 1999, should be dead already, although it’s still alive and well with offerings like Paranormal Activity part 20, is dead and buried in my book. I must confess I still watch the Paranormal movies just for fun, I see these movies as a Halloween haunted house attraction of some sorts, but Lucky Bastard has brought life into the sub-genre focusing on a subject that goes hand by hand with it: porn.

Director Robert Nathan has created an obscene film, full of nudity, sex, hardcore scenes, simulated penetrations, sex acts that are there to offend you and it also offers performances that make you believe everything that’s happening on screen.

Betsy Rue is someone you should pay attention to. She has the look of a white trash porn star and knows how to act like one; she even reminds me of the real porn star Sylvia Saint. The movie is so great it takes the time to develop her role as Ashley Saint. Lucky Bastard shows you the dark side of the porn industry, it tells you what happens after the fake moaning ends and it transforms into sighs that ask for a better future. It’s a social critique that lies beyond the nudity.

Another actor that makes this movie succeeds is Jay Paulson, who plays a fan of a website called Lucky Bastard, and in the movie he wins a contest “to be with” Ashley Saint. His role is multilayer at times, and although we don’t know the reasons for his behavior, we know people like him live in this world.

This film is a spit on the face to the porn industry, to their makers, their actresses, and ultimately to their fans. Lee Kholafai and Catherine Anette are two other actors that are worth mentioning. Kholafai looks like an upcoming porn star and Anette has something that makes her shine in every scene she’s in. She has one of the best solo scenes with Paulson’s character, I truly enjoyed “their moment” after the “restaurant scene”.

Hollywood is afraid of this film, no one wants you to watch it, but Lucky Bastard is having great chances in festivals and in certain independent movie theaters that believe, like I do, that true films are sometimes cooked outside the cookie cutter Hollywood system.

Lucky Bastard is crude, polemic, dirty and sick. 90 minutes of sex, blood, and violence, the kind of violence that makes you think about the world we’re living in, not like the fake violence portrayed in movies like Die Hard 5. To me this movie is beautiful; a critique to the porn industry, a documentary about how hard it’s to be a porn star, and how a sick bastard can ruin your life

If you have a chance, you must see it…you’ll be a Lucky Bastard.

Click here to find out if the movie is playing in a theater near you.

• Spanish

WHAT: The Lords Of Salem

By Lizandro Melean / @lizandro_melean

The new movie from horror maestro Rob Zombie is his most stylish and haunting film yet.

The Lords of Salem tells the story of an ex-junkie and radio DJ called Heidi (played by Zombie’s wife/muse Sheri Moon Zombie) who receives a package with a strange album in it from a band called “The Lords”.

This is one of those movies that needs to be seen with little to none knowledge about it. The flick is not for everyone, Zombie knows it and that’s why it’s so genuine. He’s not trying to please large crowds, he always had the creative control of the piece and it shows on screen. Thank you for that!

This is a return to form for the horror genre where cheap scares are replaced by a slow, atmospheric and eerie ride that worth the price of admission. This is one of those movies that make you shiver while you’re watching it. This is a modern horror masterpiece full of psychotropic textures, colors and masterfully done shots (you gotta love the hallway’s tracking shots)

The acting department is flawless from Sheri Moon Zombie, who owns the screen, Jeff Daniel Phillips (who looks A LOT like Zombie), horror-veteran Ken Foree, Bruce Davison, and the oh-so-fabulous Dee Wallace.

Zombie is the Tarantino of horror movies. A director that loves the medium with all his heart and his movies are an original homage to everything that inspires him. That’s why “Lords” has influences from masters like Argento, Bava and Polanski, but with a lot of salt and pepper from Zombie’s kitchen cabinet.

The film’s soundtrack is amazing and catchy. It gets under your skin and stays there. Movies like Paranormal Activity are trying to kill the power of music in the genre. Jaws, The Omen, and The Exorcist were movies that had a great and haunting score that are still relevant. Zombie, using his vast music knowledge, has made a new soundtrack that will be remembered by horror fans in the future.

The movie is filled with a lot of Freudian concepts and religious questions and critiques to the church establishment, and although it doesn’t have a lot of blood and gore, it doesn’t need it. The movie takes shelter in the unknown, in powerful acting and in a script that makes you dive deep in this world of the macabre.

Rob Zombie is one of the few modern horror directors that understand and make love to the genre the right way. The horror genre is hated by the conventional Hollywood system, but ironically it sells tickets and fills movie theaters. It will continue alive and well (the right way) while minds like Rob Zombie are lurking to mind-fuck-you like you deserve it.

If you want to see the director’s Q&A in the Los Angeles premiere hit play below.

• Spanish

WHAT: Sound Changes Everything by Javier Fuentes
LINK: www.javiertfuentesart.com

By Kiangsy Palmini / @lpetitki

This is the work of Javier Fuentes, a graphic designer born in Cuba and raised in Venezuela that now lives in Boston. Javier decided to create a book with black & white images of the capital of Massachusetts. In the creation, he felt that by adding a word to complete the image, and also music made by him, he could transform, in an important way, its original concept.

That’s why he decided to record instrumental music that he put into an EP so you can listen to it while you’re checking the book, that way you’d experience the different feelings and emotions that a photograph can express with music. Go ahead and discover how Sound Changes Everything.

• Spanish

WHAT: The Place Beyond the Pines Review

By Lizandro Melean / @lizandro_melean

The Place Beyond the Pines is a film about destiny and the decisions that we take, and how they can destroy our lives. This is an epic 2 and ½ hour crime drama full of tracking shots, handheld cameras, action, suspense, drama, and romance. Director Derek Cianfrante has created a film that has nothing to envy from those made by modern cinema masters like the Cohen brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson.

The movie starts with a tracking shot from Ryan Gosling’s back (this type of shot becomes a motif in the film), that take us inside a circus tent where we see our protagonist doing some stunts with a motorcycle inside a metallic sphere.

Gosling is the instant hero of Pines from the beginning with his Metallica’s T-shirt (from its award winning album Ride the Lightning), old boots and tons of tattoos over his body. His character is someone who can be easily hated, but Gosling makes us feel something completely different in a role that’s reminiscent of what he did in Drive, but more fleshed out…oh, and instead of a car, Gosling prefers to ride a motorcycle this time around.

The king of the “Hey Girl” memes delivers a “Hey” as his first line, joke or not, it works. This is where we meet Romina (Eva Mendes), a love he had a while ago. The detail is that she has a baby of his, but he ignores it until Romina’s mom spills the beans and reveals the truth to our stuntman.

What follows is a desperate battle of a man that would do whatever he can to provide for his family (yup, it seems like working in a circus doesn’t fill your pockets), even robbing some banks here and there. This is something that nobody should do, but if the burglar is Ryan Gosling, trying to do what it takes to provide for his baby, everything changes. That’s life. That’s the power of Hollywood.

The cinematography is impeccable kudos to Sean Bobitt. Furthermore, the cast is excellent. Gosling is giving shape to a new kind of hero: tough and sympathetic. His presence on screen is hypnotic. Eva Mendes is a cute Latina that impressed me in this flick, his physical transformation in the end was really well done.

Bradley Cooper has another home run with a role that definitely shows that this guy knows his craft. There’s another actor in the flick that has a really bright future, but to avoid spoilers, I can’t say who he plays in Pines. We saw him last year in Chronicle.

The plot is rich, detailed and with lots of twist and turns to keep you amused, that’s why it’s impossible for me to discuss it in detail here without spoiling anything. This is one of those movies you need to go and see without knowing too much. This is a roller coaster that’s better to ride blind.

Some will hate the twist in the middle and it may be the cause to turn your eyes away from the screen, to me it was perfect, real and powerful. Pines are three movies in one. It’s a story about police corruption, fatherhood, dedicated mothers, a movie about life and about everything that hides across the pines; a philosophical journey about the flawed American dream and our society. This is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Depressive and real like life itself.

Hey girl…or boy…put on a Metallica shirt, ride a bike, car or metro if you’re green, and run to theater near you to watch this piece of art. Thank me later.

• Spanish

WHAT: American Ecstasy
LINK: http://americanecstasy-movie.com/

By Lizandro Melean / @lizandro_melean

Jonathan Leder is a really interesting photographer. Leder’s job is pretty amusing, he takes photos of uninhibited ladies that like to play a lot in front of his lens. Jonathan is already an established name, he has done commercials for well-known brands such as Adidas & Louis Vuitton.

Now the photographer/director is promoting his first feature film called American Ecstasy, an anthology movie that follows the steps of films à la V/H/S and Creepshow.

The movie stars the ex-playmate Britany Nola. In the trailer you can see a washed out photography and it transmits a 70s kind of vibe. I suppose the story is about a guy that seduces women (maybe prostitutes) and then he tortures them inside a hotel room. Lovely date, isn’t it?

The most twisted fantasies will surely be portrayed in this sick and interesting flick. It doesn’t have a release date yet, but we’ll keep you updated.

See the trailer below.

Bonus: Below there are a  couple of stills of Jonathan’s work as a photographer. In the images you can see 2 of his main muses/obsessions: women and beds. Enjoy!

• Spanish

WHAT: Spring Breakers Review

By Lizandro Melean / @lizandro_melean

Spring Breakers is Harmony Korine’s new film. It stars Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Rachel Korine, Ashley Benson, and an almost unrecognizable James Franco.

Don’t let the Disney cast fool you here. This movie is a hit in the face to all the people that believe Project X was the movie of a generation. This is juvenile degeneration, pure nihilism, violence and sex in every corner. My respects to these four ladies, they got rid of their childish image with this movie.

The film tells the story of four cute girls that hate to dress, or it seems like it because they spend the entire movie in their swimsuits and underwear, they also want to have the best spring break of their lives. To do this, they need to steal money here and there, they need to blow cocaine and also tease with a lot of drunken guys.

Korine has created a young exploitation movie in Breakers (echoing Kids a little bit). Many will feel terrorized for what they’re watching on screen, others will think this is just a piece of nonsense sex vignettes. To me this is a hard critique on today’s youth.

James Franco gives life to a character that’s a satire to the gangster stereotype, an adult that acts like a child who loves Britney Spears, and that looks like Kevin Federline, and that spends half of his day aiming at people with two machine guns. His performance is pure method acting. There’s not a single trace of the real Franco here, the best of Spring Breakers.

The script is simple yet effective, the photography is outstanding; full of neon colors and flash cuts, the soundtrack is a pop-adrenaline-injection. A movie that can laugh and pay tribute to Britney Spears the way Spring Breakers does it is genius. I always hated Spears music, now I’m a fan of “Everytime” because of this movie.

Slow motion, real acting (although I didn’t care for Selena Gomez’s character), James Franco in the best role he has made lately, Skrillex, bars, boobs, behinds, semi naked girls, trash, drugs, threesomes, guns and the best representation of today’s youth I have seen this year…Spring Break FOREVAH!