Bliss 2 stars
Apparently, in Chinese and “bliss” means something entirely different. beautifully shot film, of unhappy people in a grim, rainy, and bleak urban Chinese city I couldn’t identify. And they don’t get any happier. yikes.
El Cantante 2-3 stars (depending how much you like salsa)
Had to ditch The Fall (sigh, Dave says his best of the festival) but thanks to the good folks at Visa it was a pretty enjoyable all-around gala event pictures. The story of Hector Lavoe salsa musician and one of the biggest superstars of the 70s/80s Puerto Rican community in NewYork (who knew?). JLo is in it. Marc Antony is in it. Surprisingly(?), they’re both pretty good. in fact every scene in this movie is pretty good. The only trouble is there’s a lot of scenes in this movie each much the same (Hector belting out salsa, JLo acting sassy, Hector falling in to drugs, Hector belting out salsa, JLo being sassy, hector back to drugs…) for about two hours. good music, though a _lot_ of it.
D.O.A.P. (Death of a President) 3 stars
Fictional story about the assassination of an actual president. So the title kind of gives away what’s going to happen, but it’s good, there’s real tension to it, you don’t know how or when and you don’t want him to get shot but obviously you know it’s coming. A little over-the-top in places in its backhanded criticism of the current Bush regime (and bear in mind I’m no Bush apologist myself) but nonetheless worth seeing.