the band's visit and m

so last weekend, i watched two really amazing movies. they are completely unrelated, except for the fact that both are foreign. 

the first, "M", is a german thriller from 1931, and fritz lang's first sound film. it's about a child psycho murderer in berlin; the police cannot locate him, nor do they know who he is. whenever he sees a lone child, he goes under a sort of trance, and starts whistling "in the hall of the mountain king", that ever-creepy tune by edvard grieg. he wins over the child he is about to kill by buying them candy, balloons, and the like. it is shot beautifully, with interesting looks and not too much talking, which just makes the movie even creepier (and much more noir-like). overall, the movie is great, with just the right amount of suspense to keep you interested and scared. i definitely recommend everyone watches it-you will love it.

the second, "the band's visit", is an israeli film, about a certain alexandria ceremonial police orchestra, who go to play in petah tiqva at an arab cultural center. the band arrive in israel from egypt, but accidentally end up in bet hatikva (apparently a fictional town in the negev desert). one bad thing after another happens to them, as they try to get to the right town to play the show and represent their  country to the israelis. the orchestra, consisting of 8 men, play traditional arab music, which obviously enticed me, because i adore arabian music. it's hilarious, sad, thoughtful, and will leave you smiling. the characters speak arabic, hebrew and english to each other, which is awesome. the music is, of course, wonderful, and the end is just epic. whether you play an instrument, are arab or jewish (then i love you), or are just into cute, funny foreign films, then watch this. please, it's just wonderful. 

el laberinto del fauno

i watched pan's labyrinth last night. i think the english title should have kept true to the spanish one, and should have been faun's labyrinth, but that is the only thing i didn't like. it was beautiful, haunting, gruesome, magical, and sad. ivana baquero played ofelia really, really well. actually, i thought all the acting was wonderful, from every character. it was a modern-day fairy tale, that faced serious issues as well. i love a good anti-fascist movie! and the fact that it's spanish was cool, i could understand [some of] it (which is surprising seeing as i haven't had bi-weekly spanish lesson for 3 months), and i remembered how much i love hearing people speak spanish, especially castilian. the monsters (mr. faun and pale man, as well as captain vidal!) were fabulous creatures, things that could make you scared just by looking at them, especially the pale man. so all in all it was a marvelous movie, definitely worth seeing! i loved it. and i'm going to end now because i just read over what i've written and it sounds really "oh yes, i am intellectual, oh yes, if you want to talk about politics and the franco regime, i'm your girl!" but that is not what i want to put across because i am so humble like that (not really). well, and i don't want to talk about politics, no thank you. i'm not against them or whatever, i don't think they are super boring, i'd just much rather talk about a lot of things that aren't politics. ah, ok. i'm so scared someone's going to come along and hear me talk about how i don't like talking about politics as much as everyone else does, and they'll be all upon me (all upon me? i don't know why i just said that.), saying "you are ignorant and blahablhablha because you think politics are boring, you are so juvenile, blahablhabh". anyway. what was my point? oh yeah, pan's labyrinth. it's gooood, see it!

yo what up, hombre pálido! you be hungry for some niñas, ehh?