Padre Mickey, (Not Much of a) Film Critic

I don’t see too many films, but now that we live in Parque Lefevre we have a movie theatre within walking distance, as well as a Blockbuster. It only costs about $3.00 per person at the theatre, but they rarely have anything I want to see. The Blockbuster carries the films which are popular, yet will carry something we really want to see on occasion. Blockbuster recently decided to get rid of their videotapes and stock DVDs exclusively, and so they were selling their stock. We bought a lot of movies using “How bad can it be for $.99?”as our standard. So now we have a lot of video tapes with spanish subtitles, but wadda ya want for $.99?!?

Sunday we rented three films at the Blockbuster: “El Cadáver del la Novia de Tim Burton”, “V de Venganza”, and “The Producers” (the musical version, not the classic Mel Brooks version). I didn’t think much of the Corpse Bride; if this film had never been made it would have made no difference in my life. Actually, the fact that it was made has made no difference in my life, except for an hour and some odd minutes that I could have been doing something else. I fell asleep midway through V is for Vengeance, so I can safely say that I wasn’t too impressed with it, either. I loved the Producers! It was hilarious! Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder’s original portrayals tended to haunt Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick’s performances at first, but they eventually won me over. The new songs were pretty good, too, although nothing in that film can surpass “Springtime for Hitler.” So it made up for the other two films.

I have waited all (Northern Hemisphere) Summer for “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna” to finally show up in Panamá, and we bought our copy right away. KANK is the latest film by Karan Johar, writer and director of “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,” “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...” and “Kal Ho Naa Ho.” It was worth the wait; it is the best film Karan Johar has done at this time. He learns so much with each film, and each film is better than the one before, but I was really impressed with KANK. The story was great, the cinematography was beautiful, and Shahrukh Kahn, Rani Mukherji, Abhishek Bachchan, and Preity Zinta all gave fine performances. I’m not a big fan of Preity, but she was excellent in this. For some reason I missed Kajol’s cameo, so I’m gonna watch it again this weekend. The only disappointment were the songs; there wasn’t anything that sticks in your head like “Yeh Ladka Hai Allah” or “Maahi Ve.” I give it an 8 out of 10.

What films have you enjoyed lately? The Borat film probably won’t come to Panamá, so I hope it’s still playing when I am in the States in January.