Las películas españolas

Houston premiere of The Great Vázquez kicks off Festival of New Spanish Cinema

The Great Vázquez (El Gran Vázquez)
Kidnapped (Secuestrados)
Lope
Photo by Teresa Isasi
Bicycle, Spoon, Apple (Bicicleta, Cuchara, Manzana)
Lovestorming (No Controles)

Houston cineastes will again have the opportunity to savor a sampling of contemporary Spanish films when the touring Festival of New Spanish Cinema returns Friday for a two-weekend run at the Rice Media Center.

This year's selection “is the biggest and most adventurous yet,” promises Marta Sanchez, founder of Pragda and prime organizer behind the 10-city tour of Spanish movies. The diverse program spotlights performances from some of the biggest Spanish stars working today -- including Santiago Segura, Luis Tosar and Leonor Watling – and films (some of them nominated for Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of Oscars) that have been hailed at festivals throughout the world.

This year's selection “is the biggest and most adventurous yet,” promises Marta Sanchez, founder of Pragda and prime organizer behind the 10-city tour of Spanish movies.

The festivities begin at 7 p.m. Friday with the Houston premiere of The Great Vázquez (El Gran Vázquez), filmmaker Oscar Aíbar’s madcap biographical comedy, set in 1960s Barcelona, about influential Spanish cartoonist Manuel Vazquez Gallego, played by Santiago Segura as an incorrigible con man and serial bigamist who steals from one wife to give to another. After the screening, Aíbar will be on hand for a reception provided by Martin Codax and Las Rocas Albariño wine, presented by Casa de España.

Other festival offerings on tap this weekend and next include:

80 DAYS [80 Egunean] – 7 p.m. Saturday

Fifty years after they parted to embark on very different paths in life, childhood girlfriends Axun (Itziar Aizpuru) and Maite (Mariasun Pagoaga) are reunited – and given a second chance to acknowledge their long-repressed desires. Co-directed by Basque directors Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga, this sensitive drama was honored with a Film Commission Award at the 2010 San Sebastian Film Festival.

KIDNAPPED [Secuestrados] – 9 p.m. Saturday

Named best horror film at the 2010 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Miguel Ángel Vivas' technically proficient but aggressively violent thriller focuses on sadistic home invaders who torment a family of upscale Madrid suburbanites. During its fleeting U.S. theatrical release last year, reviews were, to put it generously, mixed. Consider yourself warned.

EVERY SONG IS ABOUT ME [Todas las Canciones Hablan de Mi] – 5 p.m. Sunday

Filmmaker Jonás Trueba, son of Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque), earned comparisons to Woody Allen and Francois Truffaut with his debut feature, a light romantic comedy – generously laced with melancholy – about a slackerish would-be poet (Oriol Vila) who’s hard-pressed to get on with his life after the end of his six-year relationship with a lovely, but not infinitely patient, architecture student (Barbara Lennie).

LOPE – 7 p.m. Sunday

Alberto Ammann, Leonor Watling, and Luis Tosar – three superstars of contemporary Spanish cinema – join forces with director Andrucha Waddington (The House of Sand) for this briskly paced period comedy-drama loosely based on the life and loves of 16^th-century Baroque dramatist Lope de Vega y Carpio.

BICYCLE, SPOON, APPLE [Bicicleta, Cuchara, Manzana] -- 6:30 p.m. Jan. 27

Director Carles Bosch details the steadfast struggle of Pasqual Maragall, the former mayor of Barcelona and president of Catalonia, to withstand the relentless ravages of Alzheimer's. Following the H-Town premiere screening of this acclaimed feature – winner of the 2011 Goya for Best Documentary -- the Festival of New Spanish Cinema will host a panel discussion with Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Gustavo Roman and caregiver Connie Assiff.

WITH OR WITHOUT LOVE [Una Hora Más en Canarias] – 7 p.m. Jan. 28

Love and lunacy commingle chaotically in director David Serrano’s screwball musical comedy about a married megabitch (Colombian star Angie Cepeda) who behaves badly – and, with her zany sister (Juana Acosta), plots madly -- after she’s dumped by her lover (Quim Gutierrez).

WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? [¿Quién Puede Matar a un Niño?] – 9 p.m. Jan. 28

OK, this isn’t exactly New Spanish Cinema, but never mind. Get ready for some scary stuff, kids, when maniacal children terrorize a vacationing British couple on a remote island in Narcisco Ibáñez Serrador’s 1976 cult-fave horror thriller, which was heavily censored for its American release back in the day under the title Island of the Damned.

LOVESTORMING [No Controles] – 4 p.m. Jan. 29

Aided and abetted a motor-mouthed former classmate and an array of eccentric strangers, heartbroken Sergio (Unax Ugalde) tries to win back his ex-girlfriend with the heartiest of New Year’s Eve parties in Oscar-nominated filmmaker Borja Cobeaga's rambunctious comedy, a recent box-office smash in Spain.

HALF OF OSCAR [La Mitad De Oscar] – 7 pm Jan. 29

Manuel Martín Cuenca's austere and moody drama of dark secrets and frayed family ties plays out against the windswept beach and mountains of Almeira. Oscar (Rodrigo Saenz de Heredia), a taciturn security guard in a semi-abandoned salt mine, has his routine interrupted by the not-entirely-welcome reappearance of his sister, Maria (Veronica Echegui), who arrives from Paris pregnant and with a French boyfriend (Denis Eyriey) after a two-year absence. Nothing good comes of this.

unspecified

Movie Review

Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero

Photo by Jay Maidment

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter.

One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.

Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.

The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).

Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?

The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.

That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.

Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.

With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.

---

Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

movies film