Cool university. (: What else are they showing? I bet there's some Lucrecia Martel, amIrite?

I guess that was one of them, I read the names today and Lucrecia Martel seems a bit familiar.

And it was more of an official cultural thing with the Argentinian embassy. They did the same thing with the Colombian embassy last year, but the movies weren't so great.

Haha I liked Up too, but I think it was a little overrated by critics. Not one of Pixar's best imo

In what way is Ciao gay? And how did that make it worse?

Yeah, I didn't think Up was as good as Nemo or The Incredibles, but definitely one of the better animated offerings in the last few years. Just wish they'd drop the predictable chase sequences near the end.

Ciao is a gay film in that it focuses on gay characters. Unfortunately, seeing as how most such films target a specific and small gay audience, they tend to be low budget and have a low-talent cast (it's kinda hard to find good gay actors, I guess?). So this one is plagued most notably by a lack of acting talent. But it was rather unusual in the sense that it didn't have a sex scene (most *** themed films do) and did actually aspire to something more serious and meaningful (it's about dealing with grief, mostly) and had achieved a certain melancholic mood. But I place way too much weight on acting for any of it to matter much in the end. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone really...:/

With Almodovar's movies I thought there wouldn't be such a thing as a *** movie without a sex scene. It's like he's marketing it.

Focused on gay characters... that would explain it.

Did you see Milk by any chance? If so what did you think of it

I have a Colombian webquaintance who's response to my prodding about good Colombian films is that there simply aren't any. Can't be true, surely?

Well Spanish films are usually very sexually charged so I wouldn't necessarily blame it on his gayness. And Almodovar is an entirely different bag of chips...;)

Btw, I'm not criticizing sex in gay films, but I'd like them not to rely on it alone and the good looks of the actors to sell the film (like Shelter for example, which is a terrible film but which seems to rank very highly within gay circles...presumably because of the good looks of the actors...didn't see much else going for it...:/)

I did indeed. I liked it well enough, but having seen The times of Harvey Milk prior it didn't really stand a chance to having anywhere near the same emotional impact as the documentary.

I only watched one of them and thought it was enough for me. It was something called "Como el gato y el raton" (literally translated "like the cat and mouse"). Really bad movie!!

http://www.cmoproducciones.com/imagenes/afiche-gato.jpg

*** I guess it's the same in all the countries where there are no big movies. Like 2 years ago, there was a Lebanese movie that made it to Canne. Of course all the Lebanese saw it as one of the best movies of all time, tho in reality it was only a good average movie. But it was the best Lebanon had ever seen.
So people can get biased, I guess that's why the embassy wanted to show us such a shitty movie.

yeah makes sense I guess, certain countries have comparatively underdeveloped film industries (still), that's the Hollywood monopoly coming into play I guess. But still, you wouldn't think that should preclude the possibility of a country having talented filmmakers or good writers? Gah