Academy Award® nominee Javier Bardem is Uxbal, a man on the wrong side of the law who struggles to provide for his children on the dangerous streets of Barcelona. As fate encircles him, Uxbal learns to accept the realities of life, whether bright, bad â€" or biutiful â€" in this unforgettable Academy Award®-nominated film from director Alejandro González Iñárritu (
Amores Perros,
21 Grams and
Babel).A heartbreakingly direct performance by Javier Bardem anchors
Biutiful, a film from Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu (
Babel,
21 Grams). Uxbal (Bardem) is not an admirable man: he's a criminal middleman, helping human traffickers and illicit street peddlers in Barcelona. But in the thick of his corrupt and compromised world, Uxbal strives to do some modest good: he demands heaters for the cold basement where illegal Chi! nese laborers sleep and he carefully scrapes together money for his children, whom he deeply adores. On top of all this, Uxbal can commune with the recently dead, and tries to pass on reassurance to the bereaved. When Uxbal himself is diagnosed with severe cancer, he desperately tries to leave behind something better for his children. This plot summary paints a bleak picture, and there's no question this is--much like Iñárritu's other films, including
Amores Perros--an emotionally harrowing experience. But
Biutiful is also visually rich and deeply humane, and holds moments of grace that can only be found in sadness and loss. The entire cast brings a fullness of life to all of the characters, no matter how briefly they appear, but Bardem almost never leaves the screen and carries the movie with magnetic force.
--Bret FetzerAcademy Award® nominee Javier Bardem is Uxbal, a man on the wrong side of the law who struggles to provide for his children on the! dangerous streets of Barcelona. As fate encircles him, Uxbal ! learns t o accept the realities of life, whether bright, bad â€" or biutiful â€" in this unforgettable Academy Award®-nominated film from director Alejandro González Iñárritu (
Amores Perros,
21 Grams and
Babel).A heartbreakingly direct performance by Javier Bardem anchors
Biutiful, a film from Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu (
Babel,
21 Grams). Uxbal (Bardem) is not an admirable man: he's a criminal middleman, helping human traffickers and illicit street peddlers in Barcelona. But in the thick of his corrupt and compromised world, Uxbal strives to do some modest good: he demands heaters for the cold basement where illegal Chinese laborers sleep and he carefully scrapes together money for his children, whom he deeply adores. On top of all this, Uxbal can commune with the recently dead, and tries to pass on reassurance to the bereaved. When Uxbal himself is diagnosed with severe cancer, he desperately tries to leave behind some! thing better for his children. This plot summary paints a bleak picture, and there's no question this is--much like Iñárritu's other films, including
Amores Perros--an emotionally harrowing experience. But
Biutiful is also visually rich and deeply humane, and holds moments of grace that can only be found in sadness and loss. The entire cast brings a fullness of life to all of the characters, no matter how briefly they appear, but Bardem almost never leaves the screen and carries the movie with magnetic force.
--Bret FetzerAMORES PERROS - DVD Movie
Amores Perros roughly translates to "Love's a bitch," and it's an apt summation of this remarkable film's exploration of passion, loss, and the fragility of our lives. In telling three stories connected by one traumatic incident, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu uses an intricate screenplay by novelist Guillermo Arriaga to make three movies in close orbit, expressing the notion that we are ! defined by what we lose--from our loves to our family, our inn! ocence, or even our lives. These interwoven tales--about a young man in love with his brother's pregnant wife, a perfume spokeswoman and her married lover, and a scruffy vagrant who sidelines as a paid killer--are united by a devastating car crash that provides the film's narrative nexus, and by the many dogs that the characters own or care for. There is graphic violence, prompting a disclaimer that controversial dog-fight scenes were harmless and carefully supervised, but what emerges from
Amores Perros is a uniquely conceptual portrait of people whom we come to know through their relationship with dogs. The film is simultaneously bleak, cynical, insightful, and compassionate, with layers of meaning that are sure to reward multiple viewings.
--Jeff ShannonAcademy Award nominee Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls) delivers a powerful and sensitive portrayal of a quadriplegic who fights to win the right to end his life with dignity. Based on a true story.
DVD Featur! es:Audio Commentary:Director CommentaryDeleted Scenes:Documentaries:"A trip to The Sea Inside" Making-ofStoryboards:Theatrical Trailer:
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 2004,
The Sea Inside is a life-affirming film about a man who wishes to die. That may seem like a massive contradiction, but in the hands of director Alejandro Amenábar (
Open Your Eyes,
The Others) and actor Javier Bardem (
Before Night Falls), this fact-based Spanish drama concerns the final days of Ramón Sampedro, the quadriplegic poet who waged a controversial campaign for his right to die. He was denied this right for 30 years, and ultimately arranged for his own assisted suicide, but this remarkable film--and Bardem's keenly intelligent performance--examines the hotly-debated issue of assisted suicide with admirable depth and humanity, just as Sampedro did until his death in 1998. For Sampedro, death was ! preferable to severe paralysis (he even refused to use a wheel! chair), but the film does not suggest a "disposable" attitude toward disability. Instead, it's a thoughtful meditation on life and love as gifts to be cherished, and a challenging drama that begs each viewer to examine their own personal beliefs about what makes life worth living. You may not agree with Sampedro and his ultimate denial of life, but
The Sea Inside will urge you to ponder how you would react under similar circumstances, and that makes it a profoundly meaningful film.
--Jeff ShannonThis is the extraordinary story of Becca and Howie. Eight months ago, they had a picture-perfect life with their young son. Now, they are posing as normal in the wake of an enormous loss; blindly looking for footing in a sea of new emotions. This is the remarkably moving journey of a couple finding their way back to love.What happens after the unthinkable happens?
Rabbit Hole, based on the Tony-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire and deftly directed by John Cameron Mitc! hell, slowly reveals the answer: something else unthinkable.
Rabbit Hole is a moving, dark character study of what happens to a happily married couple, Becca and Howie (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart), who suddenly lose the love of their life, their 4-year-old son. As in real life, the grief portrayed in
Rabbit Hole takes peculiar twists and turns, and the deep sorrow and tragedy of the story is leavened by dark humor--much of it coming from Kidman. While
Rabbit Hole is not an upbeat film, it's emotionally resonant in the ways of some of the best films on similar subjects--like
Ordinary People,
Revolutionary Road,
In the Bedroom. Both Kidman and Eckhart bring true humanity to roles that could have been one-dimensional. Kidman, especially, rejects the platitudes offered by the grievance support groups and well-meaning friends. When one acquaintance explains the loss of her own child as, "God needed another angel," Kidman's Becca sna! ps. "Then why wouldn't He have just made another angel? He's G! od, afte r all. Why not just
make another angel?" The beauty and power of
Rabbit Hole comes from showing how Becca and Howie make it back to a life they can bear--and, just maybe, to each other. The excellent supporting cast includes Sandra Oh (another member of the support group) and Dianne Wiest as Becca's mom, who's been through something similar. Everything about
Rabbit Hole feels genuine, almost delicate, from the cinematography to the gentle but extremely moving score.
Rabbit Hole is one of the most moving dramas and one of the saddest films a viewer will feel gratified to embrace. --
A.T. HurleyNominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Dogtooth is a darkly surreal look at three teenagers confined to an isolated country estate and kept under strict rule and regimen by their parents - an alternately hilarious and nightmarish experiment of manipulation and oppression. Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festi! val.
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