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The Dilemma of The Killer

Posted on November 17, 2023 by Hugo Pagan Soto

I come to David Fincher’s The Killer with eagerness. I am driven by a longing to find the Fincher from Se7en (1995) or perhaps the one from Zodiac (2007). My search does not seek comparisons but to come across the visual style and the unique staging that have made the North American director a reference in the film industry. I am inclined to specifically mention those two films from his filmography because The Killer invites us into a world that beats the rhythm of murderers and emotionally complex characters. In the end, I leave this meeting recognizing the work of an experienced director, who knows the job and demonstrates it but who does not leave his mark with the impetus with which he did before.

SLY: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Hugo Pagan Soto

I remember when I started writing about cinema. One of those first articles was about my action movie heroes. SLY (2023), the documentary that covers Sylvester Stallone’s film career, made me return to that moment and the motivation that generated that crude writing. Those celluloid heroes that Hollywood spawned were my favorite refuge for years and there I always ran into that Stallone. It is impossible to imagine the history of cinema without Rocky, without Rambo, without Cobra, without Tango, without John Spartan…

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Posted on February 16, 2023 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Why don’t you ever tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, the same end, and the same agony?
Erich Maria Remarque

Perhaps Erich Maria Remarque would have wished he had never had the experiences that inspired his transcendental novel. All Quiet on the Western Front marked a turning point in the world of literature and its adaptation for the cinema in 1930 by Lewis Milestone paved the way for anti-war films. Director Delbert Mann also adapted Remarque’s play into a television movie in 1972. Now it’s Edward Berger’s turn, almost a hundred years after the first adaptation hit the big screen.

Blonde (2022)

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Hugo Pagan Soto

The screen could never contain her, nor could those 2 hours and 47 minutes of Blonde (2022). Marilyn is larger than life itself, not even death has been able to spoil her figure. Scandals, food to feed morbidly hungry stomachs and the perfect fertilizer to make the figure even more enigmatic. Andrew Dominik knew that he was going to enter a rough terrain, that he was going to be put under the magnifying glass for the mere fact of approaching one of the figures who helped create the Hollywood industry. The seasoned director decided to undertake the task from the part that he is best at, the visual discourse. To put together his story, he relies on the homonymous novel by the American Joyce Carol Oates. At over 700 pages, the book, published in 2000, became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Don’t Look Up (2021)

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Adam McKay could well have taken fragments of daily life, edited them coherently, and he would have gotten the same script from Don’t Look Up (2021). What we are given in code of satire is nothing more than the harsh reality of our times. Between the lines of parody and humor we come across the decadent world of mass media, social networks, opportunistic politicians and self-proclaimed entrepreneurial gurus of technology and markets. What the speech proclaims, we know, we live it and even little matters to us.