Padre Nuestro

Yesterday was my big Sundance day, with tickets to three films. I can't say I was expecting too much; the fact that I got tickets meant that the films weren't too highly sought after. But I was still excited; I could be in the same room as some celebrities! :) And, to help fill another New Years resolution (start learning Spanish), two of the films were in Spanish (with English subtitles, of course).

The first film, Padre Nuestro was my favorite. In a nutshell it follows a teenager from Mexico as he's smuggled into America and attempts survive in NYC. I haven't seen a non-Hollywood movie in a long time and it was nice to see a movie that (a) actually makes me think and (b) doesn't finish up all nice and perfectly. It gets two thumbs way up from me.

The second movie, Longford, is an English show about two of its most notorious convicted criminals and whether or not any human is incapable of being forgiven. It was originally a TV show in England (I think) so it ran a somewhat short 88 minutes. But it still felt like it was about 20 minutes too long. Maybe I'm just a product of today's fast-paced world, but Longford was just a little slow. But it was still interesting and (again) I always enjoy a film where I actually get to think.

Finally, I stayed up for a midnight showing of Summer Rain, directed by Antonio Banderas. The highlight of this film was having Antonio Bandares himself come out and introduce the movie (my first celebrity sighting!). He was a little long winded, but his speech helped set the tone for the movie. The point he made was that the movie is more like a poem; ideas are suggested, not necessarily shown. Without his set up I probably wouldn't have liked the movie at all. But after hearing his description I feel like he did a good job capturing what he wanted to. Sadly, I still wasn't very impressed with it. But I was 20 feet from Antonio Banderas!