Tag: Blanca Suárez

My Bakery In Brooklyn (Potentially now just called Bakery In Brooklyn), is a small time movie that came out earlier this year. A january film, and you all know what they say about January movies.

But that usually means films released in the theater. There is no stereotype about VOD only films released in January, just the normal VOD stereotypes. But not all films straight to the internet are bad, so this one has a chance.

And technically, I only decided to watch it because I knew one of the main two leads, a girl who was in both Prom and Scream 4 (in the same year) and not a whole lot more. I had to see where she went from there!

She went straight into the hands of a lawyer, good choice!

Vivien (Aimee Teegarden) has a lot going on in her life, and she is about to go to Europe! But she is also dating a cute guy, a lawyer (Ward Horton), who works for a bank. She is close to her cousin, Chloe (Krysta Rodriguez), is a television producer (or something), for a cooking show with a famous chef. It is a hard job, but she has nutrition training and is up to date on all the latest trends.

And then their Aunt dies. It was sudden and unexpected, but she left the bakery she owned forever to Vivien and Chloe. Well, Chloe knows a lot about cooking, and Vivien was about to leave the country, so they basically agree to just let Chloe run it and have it. Until she changes her mind and shows up anyways.

Turns out they have different ideas on how to run the shop. Vivien wants to keep it traditional and honor her aunt. Chloe thinks they need to modernize it all, keep up with the trends, make it more healthy, and that will increase the profits and neighborhood image. They bicker and bicker, and even put a line down the middle of their bakery, in order to decorate and run it as they see fit, and compete to see who gets more business.

But guess what? The tax man cometh, and the bank is going to take their store thanks to unpaid debts. Damn it, Aunt. Now they have to work together to get a lot of money. And the boyfriend lawyer? He works for the banks. Ruh roh!

Also starring Aitor Luna, Anthony Chisholm, Blanca Suárez, Enrique Arce, Ernie Sabella, and Griffin Newman. And most of them have their own subplots too.

You see that? Right there? A goddamn line in the middle.

True story. I probably wrote this review the same day I watched the film. It was really easy to write, it just flowed off my fingers, and I trashed the fuck out of this movie. Which I still plan on doing. But for whatever reason, when it came time to post it two weeks later, it was completely missing outside of pictures and no revision history to speak about. Fuck.

This is not a movie anyone will care about, nor will anyone really want to read I expect given the lack of recognition. So normally in these cases, I would cut my loses, be upset, but not try and rewrite it. But I gave this movie a 0, and it came out in 2017, and if it ends up being one of the worst, then damn it, I need it to exist so it can be on a worse of the year list. So please, check back in 2018 to see if I actually did waste my time with this.

Here are the problems with this movie. First, there are too many side plots. These side characters who are involved seem to go off and do their own things, but don’t add much to the main story. Secondly, the ending is a complete and total cop out. But thirdly, of which I plan on mini-ranting, this is not a movie but a motherfucking sitcom pilot.

Sure, it is longer than a normal show, and this could’t work in the hour long format, so it would have to be a half hour comedy. But to assume that I would get to see a real film has me feeling a bit bamboozled. Being a pilot is the only way to explain why it is so terrible.

All the side plots? Good, it gives them something to work on and expand over the season, since they don’t help the movie at all. The cop out ending? It allows a longer plot where it may eventually backfire and have a goal later. But the acting isn’t great, the problems are minor, AND THEY PUT A LINE DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE BAKERY.

THEY. PUT. A. LINE. DOWN. THE. MIDDLE. OF. THE. BAKERY.

This is like number one on the list of things a bad sitcom eventually does, when two people have to share a space. It always ends badly, it is always stupid to watch, and everyone knows it. Yet it is 2017 and they added that plot point to a movie? I feel like I am just not being respected with this pile of crap in front of me.

My Bakery in Brooklyn? More like, My Shit in Brooklyn. And I will flush it. That is the proper thing to do, no matter where it is.

Another Thursday, another foreign film. Or documentary. Really it is whatever is convenient on a Thursday and/or how hard it is to find a documentary I want to watch. And this week, a documentary to watch was too difficult!

So I picked My Big Night, as I saw the trailer recently at the theater and it looked funny. And it had dancing! I like to dance and party, every night is my big night. In the comfort of my own home. Clubs are scary.

My Big Night is directed by Álex de la Iglesia, who more recently directed The Last Circus and Witching and Bitching. The former I never heard of before, but it looks intense. The later I actually had recommended to me at least twice and I never saw. Whoops. Maybe I will get around to that one if My Big Night maintains my interest, at least a little bit.

And the first musical number reminded me awkwardly of Prisencolinensinainciusol.

Hooray the new year! Sure, it is like, August or September of 2015 when this movie takes place, but we need to celebrate this bad boy now.

Namely, the television company has serious issues, including a corrupt owner (Santiago Segura) about to lay off hundreds of people. So they have had massive protests outside of their studios. Regardless, they are filming this special months in advance to make sure it goes off without a hitch. That means retakes, reshoots, crowd shots, over and over again.

Speaking of the crowd, they are full of extras who have had to dress up in the same clothes, pretend to party with fake food and drinks, day after day. And then someone gets seriously injured and they need a new extra. That is where Jose (Pepón Nieto) comes in. He has been waiting for a temp job for months and this is the first one to bite. He will do anything, even if his ex-wife and kids are leaving the country to vacation and he has to leave his senile mother (Terele Pávez) at home alone. He also has to deal with Paloma (Blanca Suárez) a very attractive woman who is sitting next to him who is apparently a jinx but super into him.

Other plot lines include! Aging singer Alphonso (Raphael, who I’ve been told is a real singer doing a parody of himself?) battling for the “midnight” spot with a young pop star Adanne (Mario Casas). A stalker (Jaime Ordóñez) who loves Alphonso enough to want to kill him during his performance. And a few women trying to steal Adanne’s sperm to have a blackmail baby. And the two cohosts (Hugo Silva, Carolina Bang) constantly bickering over their lines while auditioning to host a future show.

And shit, even more weird side plots.

Also starring Carmen Ruiz, Carmen Machi, Carlos Areces, Luis Callejo, Enrique Villén, Tomás Pozzi, Luis Fernández, and Ana Polvorosa.

When you’re this fly, you don’t even need color.

My Big Night is an insane ride, with intersecting plot lines and characters, all woven around an absurd idea. The whole movie is absurd, so many little things working together to make this the craziest night of pre-recorded television ever. I like crazy, I like absurd, I would have just liked a little bit more details.

Honestly, the only reason I was able to understand the protesters outside, the time frame of this taping, and how crazy the taping process has been, is thanks to re-reading the plot summary after the fact online. There is so much going on during this film, that they forget to mention all the finer details.

Now, My Big Night is definitely entertaining. I had characters I was rooting for and enjoyed a lot of the music. Some of it could be lost on me culturally, especially not knowing anything about Raphael in real life. It just felt like it should have been a lot more. The ending was also pretty week, comparatively. It was like they had no idea how to end it.

The movie has a ton of promise and I would be excited to see more from this director. You’ve earned yourself a viewing of Witching and Bitching.