Gael Garcia Bernal
Date of birth
30th November, 1978
Occupation
Actor
Sex
Male
Height
1.68
Neruda Review
Excellent
Clever Chilean director Pablo Larrain (who also directed Natalie Portman's Jackie) takes on the Nobel-winning poet Pablo Neruda in this inventive biopic, which playfully creates a cat-and-mouse adventure as it traces two years in which he was pursued by government officials who wanted to arrest him for his communist ideas. It's funny and emotional, and visually stunning as it criss-crosses Chile from the ocean to the ice-capped Andean peaks. And its originality makes it simply stunning.
In 1948, Pablo (Luis Gnecco) is a senator in Chile's parliament when right-wing President Gonzalez (the great Alfredo Castro) begins cracking down on communists. Pablo is famous for his movingly evocative poems, which champion the working classes even though he lives the life of a rock star. So he goes into hiding with his painter wife Delia (Mercedes Moran), abandoning their amazing art-filled home for a cramped apartment. As they wait for their handlers to figure a way to smuggle them out of the country to Europe, they learn that the government has assigned a top cop to track them down: Oscar (Gael Garcia Bernal) is a second-generation detective with serious daddy issues. He's also relentless in his pursuit, following Pablo and Delia around the country as Pablo leaves tantalising clues behind.
The film is structured like an extended chase sequence, as these two men try to outsmart each other. Along the way, the story traverses Chile both ideologically and geographically. Even with the quirky-arty tone, the perspective is remarkably internalised. The central idea is that these two men need each other to define who they are, fuelling each others' obsessions as they essentially create each others' stories. It's a complex idea that plays out with comedy and insight that's conveyed sharply by the two actors, who invest plenty of wit into the procedings.
Continue reading: Neruda Review
Not Sexiest Man Alive Material? Ryan Gosling And 9 Others Who Never Made The Cut
By Holly Williams in Lifestyle / Showbiz on 17 November 2016
Seriously? These guys have never been named Sexiest Man Alive?
So Dwayne Johnson was named People's Sexiest Man Alive this year; a decision that has been the source of both praise and confusion. Praise because he's an excellent role model with enormous muscles and because he's mixed race, and confusion because all the obvious choices haven't been exhausted yet.
Here are ten more Hollywood heartthrobs who deserve to be named 'Sexiest Man Alive' sooner rather than later.
Continue reading: Not Sexiest Man Alive Material? Ryan Gosling And 9 Others Who Never Made The Cut
Gael Garcia Bernal, Salma Hayek , Diego Luna - 69th Cannes Film Festival - Women in Motion Gala Awards - Arrivals at Cannes Film Festival - Cannes, France - Sunday 15th May 2016
The Burning Trailer
A handsome yet enigmatic shaman from the Amazon rainforest named Kai swims down the river on a whim to come across a beautiful young woman named Vania. Since her tobacco farmer father was murdered after refusing to give up his land to an army of mercenaries intent on deforestation and the acquisition of his property, she has been held hostage under their brutal tyranny. Kai is desperate to rescue her and sets out to kill any man who gets in his way; but things aren't easy when there's a lot more in the forest in the way of danger than the tree burners. His determination to protect Vania and her home evolves into a passionate romantic relationship, further fuelling their desire to fight. But with just the two of them, is it a fruitless battle?
Continue: The Burning Trailer
Rosewater Review
By Rich Cline
Extraordinary
A harrowing true story infused with sharp humour and bristling intelligence, this riveting film is an auspicious writing-directing debut for TV news comic Jon Stewart. It's based on London-based journalist Maziar Bahari's book Then They Came for Me, a strikingly intimate memoir about being imprisoned in Iran. But the film never becomes a rant at an unjust society. Instead, it digs deep beneath the surface to find much more resonant, and more important, themes.
Maziar (Gael Garcia Bernal) left his pregnant wife (Claire Foy) at home in Britain to travel to Tehran to cover the contentious 2009 elections, after which the streets broke out in protests at what people saw as a rigged victory for Ahmadinejad. Maziar stays to report on this, and does a comical interview with a member of Stewart's team at The Daily Show. But the regime sees this as cooperation with an enemy, and arrests Maziar in his mother's (Shohreh Aghdashloo) home, charging him with espionage. While held in the notorious Evin Prison for nearly four months, Maziar is subjected to psychological torture at the hands of an interrogator (Kim Bodnia) he names "Rosewater" because of his scent. And the memories of similar experiences endured by his father and sister (Haluk Bilginer and Golshifteh Farahani) help Maziar survive his ordeal.
As a director, Stewart continually finds clever ways of revealing the inner workings of Maziar's mind, revealing his thoughts in inventive imagery and sounds. For example, one sequence beautifully weaves in Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the Edge of Love, which holds a powerful memory for Maziar and also echoes the music and movies Iran's religious regime has strictly forbidden. Even the ghostly appearances of Maziar's father and sister are seamlessly integrated into the story. And the other significant achievement here is a refusal to make anyone a villain. As played by Bodnia, Rosewater is a man doing what he believes to be right, with pangs of conscience that eerily echo the news headlines about how American interrogators mistreated prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Bagram.
Continue reading: Rosewater Review
Amazon Gives Five New Series The Greenlight, Including Ridley Scott's 'The Man In The High Castle', While 'Mozart In The Jungle' Will Return For Season Two
By Stephanie Chase in Movies / TV / Theatre on 18 February 2015
The streaming service looks to continue its hot run after taking home a Golden Globe for original series, ‘Transparent’ last month.
Amazon are fast becoming a force to be reckoned with in the land of the streaming services, as they continue to expand their original programming portfolio. This time, the company have just announced five new series which have received the green light, after Prime users voted last month during the first pilot season of 2015.
The film is based on the memoir of London-based journal Maziar Bahari, 'Then They Came for Me', which tells the story of his 100-day imprisonment in Iran under suspicion of spying. The film is set against the backdrop of the 2008 Iran elections which caused shockwaves around the world after incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in what many Iranians declared a fraudulent election.
Continue reading: See The Trailer For Jon Stewart's Directorial Debut 'Rosewater'
Who Is Dayani Cristal? Review
By Rich Cline
Excellent
Actor-producer Gael Garcia Bernal takes a strikingly complex look at the timely issue of human migration from Central America to the United States, which is rarely depicted with such honest humanity. By exploring three sides of a single story, this artful film is an enlightening documentary, a moving drama and a riveting mystery. It also offers a glimmer of hope if politicians shake off party pressures and take some notice of what it has to say.
The film opens in Arizona's Sonora Desert, where more than 200 unidentified bodies are found every year. These are immigrants who desperately travel north seeking a better life for their loved ones back home, but end up as illegals struggling to survive in the harsh landscape. When police find a body with the name "Dayani Cristal" tattooed on it, experts (Bruce Anderson and Ivon Ton-Quevedo) begin the search to determine the man's identity. Meanwhile in Honduras, the missing Yohan is discussed by his parents, wife and children as a kind man who made the trip to the USA to fund treatment for his dying son. At the same time, Garcia Bernal retraces Yohan's difficult journey by rail through Mexico, seeking people who may have met him along the way.
All three strands of this film are so personal that they're impossible to dismiss on the usual political grounds: this isn't the story of an issue, it's about a real man with a family. And through various conversations with people on every side of the story, the true picture emerges of a badly broken system that has been tarnished with lies from American right-wing fanatics who portray migrants as criminals who just want to steal from the US government. The truth is that the economy needs immigrant workers to survive, and the vast majority of them are intelligent, conscientious workers who are genuinely trying to help their families survive. And the problems back home can be directly traced to US corporations that have stolen jobs and resources from their homelands.
Continue reading: Who Is Dayani Cristal? Review
The Most Undiscovered Movies On Netflix
By George Percival in Movies / TV / Theatre on 14 May 2014
People often complain about the selection of movies on Netflix- we pick out some undiscovered gems.
Most films on the lower rungs of Netflix occupy that position for a single reason: they’re downright terrible. The acting is at best laughable and at worst cringe-worthy, whilst the script seems to be the product of baboons who possess a slightly above average intelligence. Elsewhere, the special effects are seemingly artefacts from design software that became obsolete once Windows 98 was released and the goofs and continuity errors come thick and fast. But amongst the schlock, the horribly ill-conceived box office flops and throwaway Chuck Norris vehicles are a selection of films hardly deserving of their placement amongst the vast expanse of Hollywood detritus. We’ve all sifted through the lower echelons of the vast Netflix database, ambivalently scrolling past Beverly Hills Ninja and Death Wish 4 and laughing at the hilarity of shoe-string budget horror C-movies such as Return Of The Killer Tomatoes and Strippers Vs Werewolves. Hiding amongst the most forgettable and artistically hollow filmic endeavours are some criminally overlooked works of cinematic art. Here is a selection of filmic diamonds who have unfairly found themselves confined to the Netflix motion picture ghetto:
“Cannes has always sought to adopt a universal and international approach, and in tune with this tradition, Campion will be surrounded by eight luminaries of world cinema, from China, Korea, Denmark, Iran, the United States, France and Mexico,” the Festival said in a statement.
Continue reading: Cannes 2014: Sofia Coppola, Willem Dafoe And Gael Garcia Bernal Will Judge