The Alex Archives

             "There's plain few problems that can't be solved with a little sweat and hard work."           Western is a genre as old as cinema itself, and it has in it everything that America represents or did at one point. However, as much as it is an American genre, it does lack one of the key aspects of its culture: religion. I am not talking about the imagery of Christ or the occasional encounters with preachers and churches, but rather the hope and sense of community that people found in their faith. I have read many reviews about this film and comparisons with Shane (1953) are all too common, especially on Letterboxd, and while I have yet to see the movie, I can see its influence, especially in the way it tries to portray heroism and doing the right thing for others. Pale Rider is a product of a dying genre, one that started to become smaller and more emotional. Long are the days of Native American fights with the Coloni...

            "A new age has begun, an age of freedom. And all will know that 300 Spartans gave their last breath to defend it."           ​It is hard to describe a movie from the past two decades that has had as much impact on young men as 300 . Even when we compare it to films like Fight Club , Drive , or John Wick , 300 seems to speak in a way that almost any man is captured by its aesthetics and mythology. To dismiss a movie, especially one with such magnitude and power as "popcorn entertainment," is at best, ignorant, and at worst, a facilitator of its message and, in the case of this film, its cryptofascist message. Let us be clear for a second: movies, like any other art form, are not created in a vacuum by soulless and thoughtless people. The zeitgeist, culture, time period, and events all affect the media we consume, produce, create, and enjoy. German cinema from the 1930s and 40s served as a way to understand the Führer pro...

              "Will God Forgive Us?"           ​Have we taken for granted the power of propaganda films? We are almost 100 years removed from WW2 and the several communist revolutions that took place during the 20th century. I believe that during this period of time, when people from the past are starting to become impossible to relate to or to understand, we often dismiss their experiences and history as something foreign, from a less civilized time, it is easier to latch on to iconography and the images produced during that era. Propaganda movies are often victims of this simplification, and no country or society is more likely to have such results as Nazi Germany. Perhaps the biggest example of this is Triumph of the Will , in which filmmakers (and modern right-wing viewers) have distilled the 2-hour movie as a compilation of "based" content, where massive rallies, unification, standardization, and epic scenery are the ...

             "There's a reason for everything. There's always a plan"           Los fines de semana todos tenemos nuestros propios rituales, lavar la ropa, salir a hacer las compras y de vez en cuando, ver una película de comedia nunca está de más. No concuerdo con la idea que Heaven Can Wait es absurda en su premisa, incluso Dios puede equivocarse y en una burocracia algunos procesos son tan ambiguos que remover a alguien antes de tiempo es algo que podemos ver todo el tiempo. Lo que logra Warren Beatty y Elaine May en términos del guion es una mezcla de fantasía y absurdismo que no solo hace a uno reír, nos hace pensar en nuestras propias vidas y que haríamos si se nos diera otra oportunidad.  Si bien el personaje de Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty) busca satisfacer sus deseos terrenales y cumplir su sueño de jugar en el Super Bowl uno se da cuenta de que, a pesar de tener todo el dinero del mundo, al entrar en el cuerpo d...

    "Alex and Friends" is a continuation of the recommendation program made last year where people recommend things to watch and review. Today's recommendation:  My Little Pony: The Movie Recommended by: P1STOLWH1PP1N           "That's it! I simply... cannot... even! I have nothing! The bad guys have won! I'm so sorry"           My Little Pony was not a direct influence on my childhood. I managed to see the 1980s cartoons on the TV, and while at that time I found them entertaining to watch, as anything on the TV was new and amusing, it offered little value to me, after all, their whole purpose was to commercialize toys for a female audience. It was not until the 2010s that a new series was introduced, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic , which had 9 seasons and spanned the entire decade. This series improved the concept of a magical world filled with ponies and other creatures to spread good values and the power of frien...

            "Good Morning America, it is Charles Gibson, and it's Tuesday, September"           ​It is hard to ignore the influence the September 11 attacks had on the world and everything that exists in it. Media, culture, politics, society, security - all were affected and changed beyond recognition. Looking back to this event, now 23 years in the past, it is perhaps the nostalgia or the process of becoming an adult that often makes me think , everything was better in the 90s and 2000s, and perhaps I am just blinded by those ethereal feelings. Under all the grief and suffering caused by the attacks, there is a sense we lost something, I was only 11 months old when this event happened but I always had the feeling the world lost a certain type of innocence (for lack of a better word) and looking back to old videos from that era, it has always felt that way to me. In my teenage years I went through a period of music discovery, duri...