Zemeckis ha alle spalle anche Beowulf, film d'animazione con un cast stellare, Angelina Jolie e Anthony Hopkins tra gli altri, in cui ha già esplorato le potenzialità delle nuove tecniche digitali di animazione. "Airman" prosegue nella stessa direzione, distaccandosi però con un ambentazione fantascientifica, quasi steam-punk, e un target più vasto.

it.movies.yahoo.com

C’è questa scena mitica in Ritorno al futuro, con Marty McFly che durante il ballo sale sul palco, prende la chitarra e fa un pezzo incredibile, tutti ballano e impazziscono finchè Marty non si fa prendere la mano e il pezzo diventa hard-rock, la chitarra fischia, tutti si fermano e lui dice: “penso che ancora non siete pronti per questa musica, ma ai vostri figli piacerà”. Ed è una scena incredibile, perché Marty con la chitarra fa tutte le mosse giuste, passo dell’anatra compreso, e c’è un tizio nero che a un certo punto alza la cornetta e chiama il cugino e gli dice qualcosa tipo “Chuck, ecco il suono che cercavi” e Chuck è Chuck Berry, che è il vero autore di Johnny B Goode, il pezzo che suona Marty McFly. Chuck Berry è stato fondamentale sotto ogni aspetto.Come autore perché fu uno dei primi a parlare agli adolescenti di storie da adolescenti, come chitarrista perché è stato il primo grande chitarrista rock e perché la chitarra con lui è diventata lo strumento del rock, e come personaggio, perché era un delinquente, quindi era il Rock. Non ci sarebbero stati i Rolling Stones senza di lui, perché Keith Richards non avrebbe mai preso in mano una chitarra, se non avesse ascoltato lui.

Which just about sums up Beowulf, really: a relentlessly puerile cartoon aimed directly at 12-year old boys and savvily hitting the ceiling of a PG-13. (I can't believe Neil Gaiman (and Roger Avary) were partly responsible for this crud, which, acting- and writing-wise, is only a few degrees removed from a videogame's cutscene. Actually, that's what it is: a videogame on the big screen, complete with different quests and big bosses at the end of every level.)

Still, it's worth seeing the film on the big screen for one reason alone. My friend Eloise and I saw it in 3-D and on an Imax screen, and ten minutes into the film -- and that includes the Paramount logo -- my 12-year old mind was screaming HOLY BEJEEZUS EVERY MOVIE EVER MADE FROM NOW ON HAS TO BE IN 3-D!!! To have spears, bodies, rocks, arrows, and boobs all flying at you within inches of your face is absolutely thrilling, and there aren't very many real-life situations that would let you have that experience. (I mean all at the same time.)

- Georges Franju's Eyes without a Face
Seen this amazing movie a couple of times before, and the newly-minted Criterion edition blows the murky video version (from Kino?) out of the water. (The scene when the nurse looks up to see the plane in the cloudy night sky is finally clearer, and I still don't know what it means.) As for extras, there's the surreally beautiful The Blood of Beasts, but I can't imagine seeing it more than once: it's a documentary about abattoirs in post-World War II Paris. The gorgeous shots of the city rival Atget's (but the shots of decapitated lambs, well...).

- Ji-woon Kim's A Tale of Two Sisters
I really really wanted to like this, but its fractured narrative -- yes, I know, it makes total sense in the context of the film -- makes it difficult to like. Great acting (especially by the older sister), and a lush production design (the house, like the boarding school in Suspiria -- another disjointed horror film -- is practically another character). I couldn't tell, though, whether the Ringu / Ju-on references were tips of the hat or ripoffs...

- Stephen Hillenburg's Spongebob Squarepants the Movie
I actually rather enjoyed this -- no major departure from the 11-minute shorts, thank goodness. Still, I wonder what the kiddies of America get out of it, as the humor always seems to have an adult subtext. (Whether or not you find David Hasselhoff's breasts inherently funny is up to you.)

- Peter Davis's Hearts and Minds
Excellent -- so good I want my own copy. Amazing footage and interviews, particularly of Westmoreland and Ellsberg. It isn't a perfect documentary -- Davis makes some juxtapositions that could strike one as being somewhat intellectually dishonest unless the audience is given more historical context (which he doesn't). But the fact that this was made contemporaneously gives it a richer, more relevant dimension, i.e., without the benefit of hindsight (and its similarities with the current war makes it all the more fascinating -- and tragic).

- Ed Adlum's Invasion of the Blood Farmers
The possibilities are endless given the plot: hick farmers in upstate New York are actually part of an ancient cult of blood-worshipping druids. Some hilarious parts, and the gore is actually rather effective, even if it's made on the super-cheap, but it's still no comparison to Adlum's masterpiece of my boyhood, Shriek of the Mutilated.

- Joel Reed's Bloodsucking Freaks
Call me sick, but I thought this movie was excellent: a loving homage, I think, to Herschell Gordon Lewis. Nasty and hilarious.

- Shunya Ito's Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
Wow. Possibly the greatest women-in-prison movie ever made. While it's still pretty firmly in the exploitation genre, there are some elements -- a touch of Jodorowsky-like surrealism here, Masaki Kobayashi there -- that make it well worth seeing. No wonder Tarantino loved this shit.

- Takashi Ishii's Freeze Me
Unpleasant and pointless.

- Wong Kar-Wai's 2046
This was just about my most anticipated movie of the year, so I can't help but be a little disappointed with the results. It's essentially a sequel -- though in a more formal sense, it's really a remake -- of In the Mood for Love, and so all the familiar elements are here: the cramped hallways, an apartment building, the lush textures, the melancholy soundtrack, doors opening and closing, Nat King Cole, loving shots of cigarettes being smoked. But there are differences: it's a lot more claustrophobic, for starters (Wong literally uses only a third of the frame for a good amount of the film: people are half-obscured by backs, or curtains, or walls.). There's sex. There's Zhang Ziyi in an endless array of high-collared qipao dresses. And Maggie Cheung. And Gong Li. And Faye Wong. And -- there are androids. And futuristic bullet trains. And a set straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And a city straight out of "Blade Runner." And costumes straight out of Liquid Sky.

And, it should be said, a narrative that is, at least initially, almost as disjointed as Ashes of Time. If anything, the film is about different permutations of loss and memory, but it's a mood -- and in a way, it's the mechanism around which the film operates: an evocation, not an elucidation -- that's difficult to sustain for over two hours.

- Robert Zemeckis's The Polar Express
I'm always a sucker for movies that deal, even if only tangentially, with questions of belief and faith; therefore, anything from Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice to Shyamalan's Signs is worth a look. I haven't read the children's book on which the film is based, but I can tell you that the belief part occurs only in the first and last ten minutes of the film, and in between is an hour-long rollercoaster ride designed, really, to show off the wonders of technology. There's a jawdropping sequence involving a ticket; otherwise, this is the most soulless Christmas film I've ever seen.

- Joe D'Amato's Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals
The best cannibal films have anthropologists in them, and this film delivers: not only does it have an anthropologist, it also feature loads of cannibal sleaze and, best of all, Emmanuelle schlock. Someone goes full frontal every 8 minutes or so -- not even the nun is spared -- and this of course includes the stunning Laura Gemser, "famous reporter," who can't act her way out of a paper bag, but is featured in at least half the couplings (which involve almost everyone that has a speaking part). Everything about the film is suitably atrocious, and there's not much plot to speak of -- you sit back and wait for people to be converted into raw meat -- but at least it's great trash.

- Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ
Speaking of raw meat: previously on my blog I alluded to a past life in evangelical Christianity, and so I was probably a lot more receptive to this film -- or at least the possibility of some sort of spiritual experience watching it. My parents in the Philippines would report that their friends, and friends of friends, would, after seeing the film, repent and promise never to drink or cheat on their wives, etc., etc., so I was looking forward to giving something up. (I guess the fact that I was drinking a beer while I was watching it didn't help, though I did wonder whether it was appropriate.) The film is, in any case, a bloody exercise in torment; we see Jesus writhing in Gethsemane at the very start of the film, and only catch the quickest glimmers of the charismatic, gentle, wise, rebel leader -- the Christ I loved and worshipped. Not this Son of God being reduced to a side of raw beef, with every Station of the Cross signalled in tender slo-mo, and a soundtrack sounding suspiciously ripped off from Peter Gabriel.

There is very little for the actors to do except scream and weep; the most complex character is the Roman consul, who turns out to be a much nicer guy than those Jews, who mostly glower. Gibson misses the boat by not filming the coolest scene in the book -- the moment when Satan tempts Jesus in the garden is positively psychedelic -- but he adds a great, memorable one of his own: the Head Glowering Jew tosses the bag of coins to Judas... except that, unexpectedly, he throws it at the camera instead. Almost as good as those binocular shots at the end of Salo.

Brasília sempre gerou em mim, uma paulistana da Mooca, sentimentos contraditórios. Uma reação, aliás, compartilhada por grande parte de meus amigos que moram na capital. Em alguns momentos, ela é a cidade dos recomeços e dos infinitos espaços. Em outros, é o labirinto modernista que asfixia qualquer cidadão com sua escassez de esquinas, com sua abundância de repetições.

Por isso, quando algum estrangeiro me pergunta sobre como é viver em Brasília, costumo dar diferentes respostas, que dependem do meu estado de humor em relação à cidade. Quando estou de mal com a capital, eu me limito aos seus aspectos arquitetônicos. Falo da cidade forjada em cimento e vidro em menos de quatro anos. Descrevo o interior abafado dos edifícios. Concluo dizendo que o Plano Piloto parece ter a forma de avião, ainda que Lucio Costa, autor do famoso plano urbanístico, não tenha pensando nesse objeto voador na hora desenhá-la. Palavras dele: ‘‘Não tem nada de avião! Jamais foi um avião! Coisa ridícula! Seria inteiramente imbecil fazer uma cidade com forma de avião.”

Quando estou em paz com Brasília, ela é, simplesmente, meu set de "Back to the Future". Como no filme de Robert Zemeckis, ela parece estar numa outra dimensão de tempo e espaço, criada para mudar a história do que ainda está por vir. Basta olhar para os edifícios, para suas "tesouras": Brasília foi concebida com as mais futuristas idéias dos 50. Dizem até que foi objeto das profecias sobre o aparecimento de uma nova civilização feitas por um padre italiano no século XIX.

Brasília é o futuro do pretérito. Mas, sejamos justos: ela não se limita a um tempo verbal.

Brasília é Zemeckis com trilha sonora do Eagles. Peço perdão aos incríveis músicos locais (que são muitos). Mas, para mim, é inevitável lembrar de Hotel California quando penso na capital. Tenho a leve impressão de que a culpa é dos versos finais da música. Sabe, quando o viajante tenta deixar o edifício e o porteiro diz: “Você pode entrar quando quiser, mas não pode mais sair”?

Há muita especulação sobre a real identidade do Hotel Califórnia: já fizeram alusões à indústria fonográfica norte-americana, ao estilo vida yankee e até ao próprio inferno (que, aliás, resume bem as duas primeiras comparações). Para mim, Hotel Califórnia continua sendo a iluminada cidade que jamais teve a forma de avião.

To be continued...

P.S.: A foto deste post é de Javier Martinez, argentino, ONGueiro, rockeiro e, claro, morador de Brasília. Mais fotos de Javier estão na página que você pode acessar aí ao lado, na seção Tecnologia e Criação.

A versão de Hotel Califórnia é do Bob Marley, muito mais condizente com o ambiente descrito na música.

• Emmett Brown era sólo conocido como Profesor Brown.
• Marty viajaba al 11 de Marzo de 1952.
• No solo era aspirante a guitarrista profesional, sino que era un genio de la piratería, ya que copiaba películas de cine.
• Su madre se llamaba Eileen en vez de Lorraine.
• Su novia se llamaba Suzy y no Jennifer.
• El pueblo donde viven aún no tenía un nombre predefinido.
• La maquina del tiempo era un refrigerador. El elemento que hacía posible los viajes en el tiempo era Coca-Cola.
• Emmett Brown en vez de un perro, tenía un mono llamado Shamp.
• En vez de terroristas libios, le perseguían agentes del gobierno. Y en ningún momento se planteó enseñar la maquina del tiempo a Marty.

En el tercer borrador, que fue escrito en Julio de 1984, cabría pensar que no habría tantas diferencias con lo que finalmente vimos en las pantallas, pero…

• Jennifer Parker continuaba llamandose Suzy Parker.
• El pueblo ya tenía nombre, pero no Hill Valley, sino Elmdale.
• Marty no aspiraba a poder llevar a su novia al lago en un todoterreno marca Toyota, sino un Camaro Z-28.
• El centro comercial donde Emmett cita a Marty para mostrarle el, ahora sí, Delorean, se llama Three Pines y no Twin Pines.
• Marty aun no tiene un Tio Joey presidiario.

Pero quizá la diferencia más importante de este borrador con la trama original es lo que concierne a como regresa Marty al futuro (al futuro de Emmett, al presente de Marty, jeje). Y es que la escena del rayo descargando su energía sobre el condensador de fluzo aún no estaba pensada. Para emular la energía que desprende el plutonio que lleva a Marty al 20 de Marzo de 1955 (en este borrador), Marty y Emmett se desplazan al Estado de Nevada donde van a llevar a cabo una prueba nuclear y es allí donde Marty desaparece regreso al futuro.

En un cuarto borrador, con fecha del 21 de Octubre de 1984 aun podemos encontrar pequeñas diferencias con la trama original:

• Suzy sigue siendo la novia de Marty.
• La matrícula del Delorean en vez de OUTATIME es: NOTIME.
• Y la fecha de 1955 a la que llega Marty es 19 de Marzo.

So, just how gory is it? Quite a lot -- but in this case, director Robert Zemeckis is forgiven. That's because his Beowulf exists in an artful middle ground between live-action and CG animation, so the gory gusto is distanced. And it doesn't hurt that Beowulf -- the tale of a hero who slays monsters but is staggered by his own weaknesses of the flesh -- is sheer fantasy and pretends to be nothing else. In fact, if you loved The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you'll find comparable elements of dazzling wonder -- and melancholic woe -- in Beowulf.

That's not to mention a superb cast of actors (Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, Ray Winstone, Robin Wright Penn) who are heard in all their glory while seen in CG reimagining. Cool headbands, too.

Beowulf may be a classic ancient poem rebooted for today's moviegoers, but it retains a haunting sense of epic grandeur amid some of the wildest, bloodiest action (at least, in its unrated form) that you'll find anywhere. It's audacious, kick-butt and cathartic, but that's not all this tragic yet rousing tale is about. Check it out and see -- and don't worry: There's more than gore in store.

Robert Zemeckis' recent foray into animation boggles the mind. Both The Polar Express and Beowulf are clunky, wooden, and sophomoric attempts to bring classic literary adaptations to the quick-cutting MTV generation and each fails miserably. Beowulf is a particularly worrisome piece of work, relentlessly violent, macho, masochistic, and simple. It's hard to believe this is the same director who brought us Back to the Future and Cast Away, two Hollywood films that transcend genre in fascinating ways. Like many of Zemeckis' 90's films (What Lies Beneath, Forrest Gump), Beowulf panders to the lowest common denominator of a certain genre, in this case the historical epic. The film is a series of blunt force traumas to the viewer's senses, using a ridiculous "realistic" animation approach to the bloody story of Beowulf (Ray Winstone) fighting off Grendel (Crispin Glover) and his demon mother (Angelina Jolie). With the exception of Grendel's horrifying appearance and Glover's incredibly wicked incarnation of the monster, every character in Beowulf screams, seduces, and slithers with overbearing intensity, slaying subtlety in the process. 

These imaginary landscapes from Mario Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, composited in-camera from miniatures, magazine cut-outs, and occasionally some actual life-sized live-action (tiny figures on the cliff on the right of [3]) may not be REAL, per se, but they have a physical existence beyond that of the digital landscapes of Zemeckis' BEOWULF, and that seems to matter to me.

I hope I'm not a Luddite -- I've used C.G.I. with pleasure in my short INSIDE AN UNCLE and the TV show INTERGALACTIC KITCHEN. But there's a tendency to use it to tackle every problem nowadays, when maybe it's only the right solution SOME of the time. For instance, did anybody find the computer generated bugs-crawling-under-the-skin in Stephen Sommers' THE MUMMY half as disturbing as the bulges that traverse the body of the hapless inhabitee in Cronenberg's SHIVERS? The difference is, one thing is incontestably THERE, in front of the camera, and the other, we know, isn't.

*

I don't think I need SAY anything to connect this post to our Nibelungen Week here at Shadowplay. A picture (or two) tells it better:

Lang's DIE NIBELUNGEN is a magnesium-tipped arrow fired at the rooftops of epic entertainment, which overshoots and ignites a mausoleum of APOCALYPTIC GRANDEUR.

Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD is a piece of cheeky matinee fun, with a slightly off-colour malaise lurking somewhere behind its Technicolor dioramas. Bava's dark side always provides a subtly bitter aftertaste, while Lang's is like swallowing one of those booby-trapped Monty Python chocolates where steel bolts shoot out through your cheeks.

I was keen to see KNIVES OF THE AVENGER as I'd never seen either of Mario Bava's Viking mini-epics, and had heard about the Norse ships he made out of pasta. But this movie doesn't show any sign of linguine long-ships, though there's an effective matte shot of a distant boat.

I was also very curious to see how Bava's low-tech, low-budget saga-let would hold up against the C.G.I. 3.D. phantasmagoria of Robert Zemeckis' BEOWULF. My feeling about that movie, discussed at length in an earlier post, is that the modern technique wasn't in any way useful in capturing the timeless or ancient qualities of the myth it's based on.

Bava scores heavily against Zemeckis, and right away. His first images are of sand, sea and stones. Runic-style symbols etched in the shore with a stick. Carved rocks. The pounding of the sea. Simple images, but everything in them is genuinely prehistoric, even older than the story being begun. Rather than distracting us with ultramodern razzmatazz that can't evoke anything more that the number-crunching of geeks, Bava gives us, as much from necessity as choice, an atmospheric still-life captured by his gliding camera eye.

The film isn't one of the maestro's meisterwerks-- but it is a pretty good spaghetti western in Scandinavian drag (I think it's actually better than Bava's "real" westerns), with a very smart and unexpected plot twist a half hour in, and some beautifully lit cavescapes for the climax. Somebody should, er, borrow that plot twist for a better movie.

#15 – Beowulf

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/

Trailer:

Regi: Robert Zemeckis

Manus: Neil Gaman og Roger Avery

Med: Ray Winstone, Robin Wright Penn, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Brendan Gleeson og Crispin Glover

Spilletid: 113 minutt

Ok, her snakker vi et ambisiøst prosjekt innen animasjon. Robert Zemeckis, regissøren av filmer som Back to the Future 1, 2 og 3, i tillegg til Forrest Gump, har fått med seg et stjernelag til å spille rollene i denne klassiske eventyrfortellingen. Som om ikke det var nok, så er manuset skrevet av Neil Garman, som også sto bak boken Stardust (sjekk julekalenderen i går) var basert på, og Roger Avery, som har vunnet en Oscar for beste manus, sammen med ingen ringere enn Quentin Tarantino (for Pulp Fiction).

Historien finner sted i Danmark for noe som virker som rundt 1000 år siden eller så. Det er en verden som ikke er ukjent med monstre av ulike slag, og kongen Hrothgar blir plaget av vanskapningen Grendel, som holder til i fjellene og terroriserer mennene hans hver gang de feirer noe. Hrothgar trenger hjelp med å kvitte seg med Grendel, og Beowulf dukker opp med sine menn. Beowulf er en skikkelig helt, og etter at han klarer å ta knekken på Grendel, blir han utnevnt som konge. Dessverre er ikke alt han har fortalt sant…

Dette er nok det mest realistiske animajsonsprosjektet jeg har sett, til tross for forskjellige fantasiskapninger her og der. Det er åpenbart at de går for total realisme på menneskene, og selv om de har et stykke å gå, er dette det klart beste til nå. Noen ganger ser det helt fantastisk ut, andre ganger ikke fullt så bra. De dyrene som er med, ser helt ekte ut. Hunder, hester, rotter.

Når det gjelder historien, har jeg lest at den ikke er helt trofast til legenden den er basert på, men det gjorde ikke så mye til og fra for meg, siden jeg barre kjente litt til den fra før av. Dette er veldig fascinerende, og man kan vel egentlig ikke gjøre feil med en drage. I tillegg er det en fantastisk scene der Beowulf forteller om når han kappsvømte med en anne, og måtte drepe noen enorme sjømonstre på veien.

Stemmeskuespillet er bra generelt, du kjenner igjen de fleste uansett, siden de ser ut som de gjør i virkeligheten. Det er selvsagt med unntak av Beowulf. Ray Winstone er i virkeligheten en litt tykkfallen type (han ser sånn ut), og det holder selvsagt ikke når man skal spille Beowulf. John Malkovich får en egen scene til å oppføre seg veldig som John Malkovich, og det er gøy. I tillegg er det litt morsomt at Crispin Glover, som er en real-life freaky type, får spille freak-of-nature Grendel, som for øvrig snakker en slags nordisk variant av engelsk i filmen.

Det er faktisk manuset som trekker litt ned her, til tross for skrytet mitt av forfatterne i begynnelsen her. Det blir litt mye ”I AM BEOWULF!”, som dabju helt korrekt påpekte at minner sterkt om diverse linjer fra 300. Faktisk sier Beowulf ofte at han er Beowulf, for å forsikre seg at folk har fått det med seg.

Men uansett et veldig underholdende eventyr, som jeg godt kan se igjen. Dette er den beste animajsonfilmen 2007!

Den Høye Fotograf’s dom: 8/10

Andres dom:

IMDb: 6.9/10

VG: Terningkast 4

Dagbladet: Terningkast 4

Kommentarer og synspunkter blir mottatt med glede. Følg med i morgen for plass nummer 14, og sleng deg gjerne med konkurransen: Tipp topp 4 i Den Høye Fotograf’s julekalender!

Rating: 8/10

Truly great stories never die, and when it comes to the English language the story of Beowulf is among the greatest and most enduring stories we have. In fact, Beowulf is arguably an English heritage equivalent to The Odyssey. It is tale of mythic beasts and a legendary hero. And, like the myths of ancient Greece, it has been adapted many times, changed, re-imagined, butchered, and sewn up like new.

The latest cinematic treatment of Beowulf, penned by Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Mirrormask) and Roger Avary (Silent Hill) and directed by Robert Zemeckis (The Polar Express, Cast Away), takes no small number of liberties with the age old tale. However, where previous incarnations of Beowulf have attempted to politicize the plot, even make the monster Grendel into a sympathetic poster boy for society's outcasts, this rendition stays close to the spirit of the original. That spirit, of course, being a really cool story about some really scary monsters and a bad-ass viking who sails in and gives them the proverbial "what for".

The CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) of Beowulf is, in my opinion, unmatched by any previous film, including the groundbreaking Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Of course, as with The Polar Express, Zemeckis cheated a bit by mapping the faces and bodies of real live actors, but the achievement is still a remarkable one. However, there is still room for improvement. Certain characters' faces, perhaps because the actors they are based on are so recognizable or because the animators tried too hard to match the face perfectly, slipped into the uncanny valley. When we finally see the face of Grendel's mother, played by Angelina Jolie, it seems eerily plastic.

If you live within driving distance of a cinema that is showing Beowulf in 3D, make the trip. It's worth it. The quality of the 3D is the best I've seen, and the movie was shot specifically with 3D presentation in mind. If you're not able to see it in 3D, that might prove to be an annoyance to you. 3D is in its second infancy. It's the brand new thing all over again, and directors can get away with gimmicky shots like spear-heads pointing out of the screen right between your eyes, and shots from ground level that exist only to show the plane of the ground receding into the distance. I'm not sure how that kind of camera work will translate in a 2D presentation.

The acting, while nothing to shout from the rooftops about, manages to be good enough to compliment a technically amazing film. I have no complaints about any of the performances, but similarly, none stood out as being especially good - not even Sir Anthony Hopkins managed to really impress.

Much ado has been made by concerned citizens about the amount of nudity in this "cartoon" film. First off, it's not really a cartoon. It a live-action film that was skinned inCGI so as to eliminate the need for complicated makeup and even more complicated stunt shots. Better that the whole thing is CGI than have those embarrassing suspension-of-disbelief-shattering moments where live action switches to CGI while the hero does something humanly impossible. Secondly, there is no real nudity. Oh sure, there are a couple of bum shots, and a lot of Austin Powers style penis-covering, but never are any genitalia on display. Even Jolie's much ballyhooed "nude scene" is a reasonably tasteful shot of her character's body covered in a golden filmy substance. Only vague shapes are visible, no pornographic detail.

In fact, besides the story having a no-holds-barred, heroic strong-man plot, there are very important lessons concerning pride and lust, and the shame that is their ultimate reward. In short,Zemeckis' Beowulf gets back to the core of the hero story: an outsider swooping in to the rescue, and a firm moral underpinning.

 

Las road movies (literalmente "películas de ruta", en inglés) son un género cinematográfico cuyo argumento se desarrolla a lo largo de un viaje. Herederas de la tradición literaria del viaje iniciático, que se remonta a la Odisea homérica, las road movies combinan la metáfora del viaje como desarrollo con la cultura de la movilidad individual de los Estados Unidos y el Occidente opulento después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, cuando la posesión de un automóvil se vuelve uno de los signos de la identidad adulta.

Los orígenes del género datan de la época clásica del star system de Hollywood, pero comienza a distinguirse específicamente de otras temáticas en los años 1960, con obras como Rebelde sin causa y Salvaje; la madurez le vendría con piezas como Bonnie y Clyde y Easy Rider, donde la noción del viaje es parte explícita de la temática.

En general, las road movies tienden a una estructura episódica, en que cada segmento de la narrativa enfrenta a los protagonistas con un desafío, cuyo cumplimiento revela parte de la trama. En las road movies iniciáticas, en la tradición del Bildungsroman, el viaje revela al héroe algo sobre sí mismo en lugar de sobre el lugar al que ha llegado. Sobre este modelo pueden organizarse distintos modelos; si bien en la tradición del final feliz el corolario del viaje es el triunfo del héroe en su lugar de destino y el retorno a casa, las variantes pueden presentar un nuevo hogar en el lugar de destino, un viaje infinito, o —una de las formas preferidas de la épica romántica— la anagnórisis del personaje, que descubre que el conocimiento adquirido le hace imposible regresar a su origen, escogiendo la muerte o el exilio definitivo en su lugar.

"Road movie." Wikipedia, La enciclopedia libre.

Y aquí va la lista principal de películas:

• Diarios de Motocicleta, de Walter Salles (2004) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarios_de_motocicleta)
• Easy Rider, de Dennis Hopper (1969) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Rider) 
• Priscilla, la Reina del Desierto, de Stephan Elliot (1996) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_aventuras_de_Priscilla%2C_reina_del_desierto
• El Cielo Protector, de Bernardo Bertolucci (1990)(http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_Bertolucci)
• Mi Pequeña Miss Sunshine, de Jonathan Dayton y Valerie Faris (2006) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pequeña_Miss_Sunshine)
• El Señor de los Anillos I, II y III, de Peter Jackson (2001, 2002, 2003) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Search?search=se%C3%B1or+de+los+anillos+pelicula)
• Rebelde sin causa, de Nicholas Ray (1955)(http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebelde_sin_causa)
• Bonnie y Clide, de Arthur Penn (1967) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_y_Clyde_(pelãula))
• Hasta el fin del mundo, de Wim Wenders (1991) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Wenders)
• Thelma y Louise, de Ridley Scott (1991) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_y_Louise)
• Duel (El diablo sobre ruedas), de Steven Spielberg (1971), USA
• Qué tan lejos, de Tania Hermida (2006), Ecuador.
• El Camino de San Diego, de Carlos Sorín (2006), Argentina
• Into the Wild, Hacia Rutas Salvajes, de Sean Penn, (2007), USA

.

Otras películas que tienen algunas características de road movies o transpiran un ambiente de viaje o de vida en sitios insólitos son:

• Dersu Uzala, de Akira Kurosawa (1975) (http://www.miradas.net/2005/n41/estudio/dersuuzala.html)
• Paris, Texas, de Wim Wenders (1984) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par%C3%ADs%2C_Texas)
• Indiana Jones, de Steven Spielberg (1981, 1984, 1989, 2008) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones)
• Cuenta conmigo, de Rob Reiner (1986) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuenta_conmigo)
• Forrest Gump, de Robert Zemeckis (1994) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Gump)
• Stranger than Paradise, de Jim Jarmusch (1984) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jarmusch)
• Dead Man, de Jim Jarmusch (1995) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man)
• Borat, de Sacha Baron Cohen (2006) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borat_(pelãula))
• Kalifornia, de Dominic Sena (1994) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalifornia)
• Perdidos en Tokio, de Sofía Coppola (2003) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdidos_en_Tokio)
• Y tu mamá también, de Alfonso Cuarón (2001) (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_tu_mamá_también)
• Eurotrip, de Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg y David Mandel (2004)(http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroviaje_Censurado)

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