Movie Review: Official Competition (Competencia oficial)

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

A hilarious comedy from Spain. 

This movie is based off a simple but effective premise. An eccentric arthouse director (Penelope Cruz) decides to put two actors who would obviously have friction on the set in the same film, hoping to catch that friction in her movie. These two actors are a pretentious actor who views himself as a great artist and above common audiences who "don't understand" his art (Oscar Martínez), and an egotistical and very commercial movie star, who is most concerned with awards and living the movie star life (Antonio Banderas). Yet from this simple premise directors Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat (who also wrote this film with Gastón Duprat) create an incredibly smart and entertaining movie that also keeps us not knowing what will happen next. Of course, a comedy like this heavily depends on its stars. Luckily for us the three leads are at the top of their game here. They not only make these incredibly over the top characters somehow believable, but they are simply having so much fun making this film. I will say as much as I love both Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, I have rarely seen them have this much fun before a movie camera. It is simply impossible not to get swept up into the sheer energy and fun in these performances and this guaranties that its audience will have a great time. It doesn't hurt of course that the script is incredibly funny. To do comedy as over the top as this film is always dangerous, because when it fails it can really fail. However this movie shows just how delightful over the top comedy can be when done right. I laughed out loud several times watching this film and so did the rest of the audience in the theater with me. The humor became especially daring towards the end when it took a very risky dark turn but one that worked very well. 

This is simply a great movie and extremely funny.   

Movie Review: Domino: Battle of the Bones

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A darn funny movie. 

This movie is a pure comedy with no pretentions of doing anything more than providing you with a good time at the movies and it does just that. The idea of an intense domino tournament as the basis for a whole movie is already funny and this film finds plenty of good humor to wring out of this premise. The tone of the film is already set from the very opening, where we get a lecture on the history and the importance of dominos by the "pimp-fessor" of Dominology aka Snoop Dog (who also produced this movie). His lecture is over the top, silly and quite foul mouthed as well as very funny. As the movie goes on it is able to keep this tone throughout and provide plenty of laughs along the way. This film is full of incredibly over the top silliness that only multiplies as it goes along. Though much of this movie is based on cultural differences  between a black grandfather and his white step-grandson, it is not a message movie by any means, but instead a very impolitically correct, foul mouthed, nothing is off limits comedy. Yet there is something sweet and good-hearted about the relationship between the two main characters that keeps the movie from feeling mean spirited. Much of this is due to the excellent chemistry between  Lou Beatty Jr. and Nathan Dana. This also allows some of the supporting characters to be as over the top, crazy and not exactly likable but just plain funny. These characters include the extremely down on his luck and desperate man running the tournament (David Arquette), a "man of God" who acts like anything but (director Baron Davis) and a scene stealing cocaine-loving and out of his mind villain (Tom Lister Jr.). All these characters bring plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Unfortunately this movie also has a B-plot involving a woman (Valeria Vallejos) who wants to prove herself to her family (who doesn't believe women have any place in dominos) that simply is neither as funny or emotionally involving as it should be. The basic story is also very predictable and familiar, but in a comedy like this that is a fairly small fault. 

 

Video: Hynkel's Speech (From The Great Dictator (1940))