Product: The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
Rating: 5.0
Wonderful movie! Wenders back on track...
Friday the 26th... I wake up and look for the entertainment section in the newspaper... I'm looking for reviews of "The Million Dollar Hotel"... and there I find them... 2 stars in both the papers I read... 2 out of 4... "Wenders is not the same...", "This movie, compared to what Wenders did on the 70's and 80's, eats dusk".... and there you go... another one from my gallery of "don't trust critics"... the papers talked about the movie as not "Wendersian" (if this denomination exits) enough... that he lost his talent when he left Germany etc... but there was no direct attack TO the movie... mostly comparisions to his classics "Wings of Desire" and "Paris, Texas"... so with this I take the conclusion... press sucks.Now, it's nightime... I came back from school directly to the theater... alone since I don't want to be bothered by questions or boredom... I'll watch it again tomorrow thoug, with my friends this time....And the movie begins... there's a distorted helicopter shot that turns into the skyline from LA... and it comes down until we see "The Million Dollar Hotel"... than the shot disolves into a view from bellow this "logo" and next we see Tom Tom on the roof of the hotel... and I stop here not to spoil it to anyone... it's a beautiful scene though, with great use from slow motion and the yellow sky.We then are introduced to everyone in the hotel... there's the John Lennon clone, the Indian and all these bizarre characters... Tom Tom enters the hotel... he is following Eloise (Milla)... we then are introduced to Skinner (Mel Gibson), the FBI detective.... someone has been suposedely killed and he wants to find the killer because the father of the victim is afraid of bad publicity... he is a TV magnat.The story evolves around Mel Gibson looking for a "killer", the characters in the hotel and their plan (which of course I wont reveal) and Tom Tom and Eloise. Now, Tom Tom and Eloise AREthe movie... MAN!! This is Milla's best work to date... man... she's like... perfect... and anyone that doubted her talent will have to eat their words... Jeremy Davies is AMAZING too.That's the basic storyline and I won't go further cause I could stumble in big spoilers... now, I can't say how much I loved the movie... really... BUT, at the same time in which I and about other 10 people clapped at the end, about 30 people LEFT in the middle of the movie. People can't apreciate good movies nowadays... they are too used to most of the crap done in Hollywood... and can't stand inteligelint movies like this one... movies that take their time to tell the story.So, now, this is what I thought of the movie:- It's by far the best movie I've seen this year , Wenders is really back on track after Buena Vista and TMDH, no matter what people say... no matter what people say!!- The soundtrack is nothing short of genial.... the movie opens with "The First Time" (in perfect sinchrony with the scene) and closes with a different version of "The Ground Beneath her feet".. we hear most of the other tracks in the movie... the jazz tracks are shown in the tracking shots of the building when Wenders shows us the rooms, we a guy playing trumpet one of the windows... there's one right at the beggining (one of my favs too)... Bono makes a cameo.- Check out Milla Jovovich's and Jeremy Davies acting... they are absolutely marvelous. Also be sure not to miss Ms. Jovovich's mention to "One Hundred Years of Solitude", Marquez's masterpiece.- Yeah Mr. Wenders!! Welcome back!! Two great movies in a role!!"Everything on Television is not real" - Milla/Eloise