Volver

When it comes to Almodovar films, film enthusiasts are fairly polarized: they either love them or hate them. Initially, I must say I fell into the latter category, trying to suffer through the confusion of films like Kika and Carne Tremula. Granted, I saw these films before I knew any Spanish, and probably missed a lot of nuance as well as cultural aspects that don't really come through in subtitles. Lately, though, I have immensely enjoyed the last few films Almodovar has made, including Hable Con Ella and La Mala Educacion. This trend continues with Volver, a subtle story based around the lives of two sisters and the puzzling return of their mother, who was thought to be dead. Penelope Cruz is excellent, wholly deserving of the Oscar nomination she received, as the mother of a teenage daughter who is struggling to make ends meet in modern-day Madrid (although most of the film takes place in La Mancha, the place where Don Quixote mistakes giant windmills for monsters).

My description of the plot is way over-simplified, but the payoff for following the plot of this film is great, so I won't give anymore away. Almodovar keeps you guessing throughout the film, and you never really know what is reality and what is not...that's the fun of it. The story itself is touching, and deals with broken families, relationships between mothers and daughters , etc, etc.

Cruz probably gets a bad rap due to her questionable body of work in Hollywood (Vanilla Sky, Sahara, that shitpile with Matt Damon and some horses...), but she really is an excellent actress, albeit when speaking her native tongue. Which is normal..how many Hollywood actresses ever try and make films in other countries? Hell, most can't even pull off a decent British accent, much less speak a foreign language believably. So, that's my two cents on her...she should stick with Spanish films, they suit her much better

Pulse

My expectations were low for this horror flick, and as much as I really wanted to be scared, the film didn't do it for me. This is sort of like the movie 'White Noise' with Michael Keaton a few years back, with technology being the driving force behind ghosts trying to enter the realm of the living. In this case, the audience never really gets an explanation for why these spirits have come to try and take over the souls of the living. All we know is that a college-aged computer geek hacked into someone else's system and unwittingly released these cyber-spirits. The chick from Veronica Mars is in this film as well as bunch of other no-namers that I vaguely recall seeing in other teen-genre films in the last few years.

I won't say Pulse is disappointing, but I can't really recommend it either. The concept is interesting, but the plot is muddled, and ultimately the director resorts to some pretty cliched horror movie tricks to finish off...

1.5 out of 5 Stars