Sherlock Holmes...

So along with nearly everyone else in this country we went to see movie this past Christmas weekend. We decided to wait on seeing Avatar in 3D after the crowds die down. Visually striking and well acted, this version of Sherlock Holmes is definitely worth seeing. I have read a few negative reviews about Guy Ritchies direction but we couldnt disagree more. Ritchies f/x driven version (not necessarily a bad thing here) actually stays true to the story. With a strong cast and an ambigiously gay undercurrents between the Holmes and Watson, Sherlock Holmes is worth the price of admission. Sure, Ritchie adds his trademark slo-mo fight sequences and other stylistic flurishes, but he allows the characters to breath and without ruining their performances with MTV style cuts or cheesy CGI. And overall, the story is easy to follow and doesnt get lost under all of the endless fight scenes or subplots. After a strong opening weekend and an ending that leaves the door open for more sequels, Robert Downey JR clearly has another film franchisee under his belt....and again this isnt a bad thing.

Heading into 2010...guerilla style

Last week we were relaxing at home, casually watching a lo-fi suspense movie named Cavite on the Sundance Channel. At one point the main character eats at a taco shop, which we noticed looked strikingly similar to a taco shop down the street from us. Soon the character was visiting other locations that looked straight out of our neighborhood. Sure enough, we checked the movie online and it was filmed in San Diego. The film is about a security guard who becomes the unwilling puppet of a terrorist group that has kidnapped his family. Apparently, we missed the train on this one, as it was a big deal back in 2005 when it came out. It won the "Someone to Watch" award at the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards.

The film was obviously shot on the run, guerilla style with a low-end camera, minimal crew and no location permits. It was very encouraging for us to see that you can make a film on barebones and still receive recognition from the industry for its quality in story, and has further strengthened our resolve to finish a short film for festival submission this year.

Sherlock Holmes...

So we were able to check out the latest Sherlock Holmes and I have to say that it was an entertaining film. Checkout our blog tomorrow for a full review.

Happy Holidays from your friends at El Roberto!!!

Hey everyone, we just wanted to take the opportunity to wish all you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and whatever else you might be celebrating at this time of year. It’s been a great year for all of us here at El Roberto, and we’re very appreciative that folks like you visit our little website from time to time and feign interest in whatever we might have to say. There may be a ton of other movie blogs out there that are bigger and better, but we’re happy just to be able to share our love of movies and filmmaking with people who feel the same way we do. Now get back to being with your friends and families and watch some good Christmas films while you are at it!!!

Happy Festivus!!!!

Its Tuesday....

and we have spent the night wrapping xmas gifts. As promised, later this week we will post a review of The Limits of Control. Until then, checkout the trailer...

How to create 3D video at home!!!

So we have been checking out all of the reviews about Avatar and how your life depends on seeing it in a 3D/IMAX theater, and were curious to see how easy it would be to create 3D at home when we stumbled upon this clip. We are definitely going to experiment with this and will post our results.

$300 budget?!?!

That's right. According to the BBC a filmmaker from Uruguay who created and posted a short film called Ataque de Panico! on YouTube in November 2009 has been offered a $30m (£18.6m) contract to make a Hollywood film. Checkout the video and let us know what you think.

This isn't the only filmmaker who has landed a career from posting a video on Youtube, checkout this old viral video from 2000 called 405.

DIY film production tips!!!!

Hello, Dolly!!

As the year comes to a close we're working to build up our gear cache...in addition to getting a second camera, a big focus for us is acquiring a dolly to utilize for long tracking shots. Unfortunately a professional one costs a gazillion dollars-definitely not in our budget. So we'll have to make do with a homemade one. Thankfully, there are numerous videos on the web detailing how to make an efficient and low-cost dolly and track. A cool DIY vid is below. Well for sure be making one of these in the next couple of months and posting our results. Ciao for tonight.

Sunday Sunday Sunday Sunday

Finally...someone agrees with us that The Royal Tenenbaums is one of the best films of the decade. Directed by Wes Anderson the The Royal Tenenbaums was definitely overlooked in Rollingstone's best 10 films of the decade list. It will be interesting to see if City of God will get its due.
By request, we will be posting a review of Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed a documentary by Ben Stein later this week.

Last round...

So I'm in the last round of the screenplay competition I enrolled in September. I finished 3rd in my heat once again, so I'm doing okay, although not as well as I'd like. My assignment in the last round is as follows: The Location has to be set in a nursery. A wig has to appear in the script at some point and the genre is ...drum roll please...OPEN!!!! Yeay!!! THANK GOD. The last 3 assignments have all been in genres I'm bad at: Horror, Monster Movie, and Science Fiction. Bleh..but now my options are much broader. I just got my assignment an hour ago, so I'm going to spend the rest of the night thinking of a killer story idea. Ciao!

Top Ten Movies of the Decade!!!

So Rolling Stone just came out with a "best of 00's" issue. There is a section devoted to the best movies of the decade which we were eager to check out, as Peter Travers is a good critic whose tastes generally run similar to ours. So here's their top ten

10. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

9. Mystic River

8. The Departed

7. Brokeback Mountain

6. The Incredibles

5. No Country for Old Men

4. A History of Violence

3. Mulholland Drive

2. Children of Men

1. There will be Blood

I'm a little meh about this list..its very male-centric. A lot of guns and violence driven films here..and Mulholland drive as number three??? What?? I appreciate an enigmatic film as much as the next person, but making it the third best film of the decade mainly based on its purposeful ambiguity seems a stretch. Anyways I won't spend a bunch space trashing their picks..however, we've listed out a few movies we think they definitely should have included on their top ten of '00 (besides Mystic River, ugh. Okay I'll stop. sorry.)

City of God - I can't believe this was overlooked. In my opinion it's the epic gangster film of the decade. Genius director Fernando Meirelles runs at breakneck speed with the tale of slumkids growing up wild and reckless, in colorful 60's Brazil. The movie is so much fun to watch-its like "Goodfellas" except with Brazillian street urchins.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Charlie Kaufman is a genius and the first mainstream screenwriter to make the human mind and nature his main subjects. And all director Michael Gondry's movies seemed culled straight from your most Ambien-induced dreams. Those two forces together made a magical, whimsical movie about the way our brain and hearts work. It's funny, bizarre, depressed and hopeful all at once. Plus it made you think, which is considered a fatal ailment in movies nowadays.

The Royal Tenenbaums-Comedic classic. Inspired hipster's Halloween costumes for the rest of the decade.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon- Ang Lee made an exquisitely shot film which I think re-ignited interest in the artistic Asian action film genre at least in the US. Although I have to admit after the 19th knockoff movie came out with the same "flying warrior" wire stunt tricks, I started to curse this movie.

Also, I noticed that for a magazine about music, it was strange that Rolling Stone didn't mention any music documentaries. Here's a couple we think they should have shouted out


Dig! Before Britney Spears shaved her head, or Amy Winehouse snorted coke in the middle of her concert, there was good old Anton Newcombe of The BrianJonestown Massacre pummeling his bandmates on stage in front of a packed house of records execs. This film (culled from 2000 hours of footage) is a breathtaking glimpse of a musical genius whose megalomania keeps his band from success even when it's being thrown at them. It's Celebrity Trainwreck 101.

Some Kind of Monster-Yeesh..these guys are such arrogant wusses.

On a personal note, we've had an intense week related to converting some large HD quicktime clips into 50mb windows media player files. It has been painful to say the least. But after much blood, sweat and tears, we've found a solution, which we'll share within the next couple of day. Ciao!!

DIY Film tips....

New DVD box set release...

The Criterion Collection is releasing the box set, 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa today. As is says on the Criterion site, "The creator of such timeless masterpieces as Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and High and Low, Akira Kurosawa is one of the most influential and beloved filmmakers who ever lived—and for many the greatest artist the medium has known. Now, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the Criterion Collection is proud to present this deluxe box set celebrating his astonishing career. Featuring twenty-five of the films he made over the course of his fifty years in movies—from samurai epics to postwar noirs to Shakespeare adaptations—AK 100 is the most complete set of his works ever released in this country, and includes four rare films that have never been available on DVD." If you are thinking of what to get for a film buff this xmas, this DVD collection is a must have for any film geek. I know that I want it.

While I am enjoying checking out the Criterion Collection site, I am not digging that they are charging you 5 bucks to watch Michelangelo Antonioni's film L'AVVENTURA, while you can watch it here for free...

DIY DSLR CAMERA STABILIZER!!!

We are thinking of trading in the old Canon XTI for the latest Canon DSLR which has the HD Video feature.

Holiday Movie time is here!

So it is December 6 already and sad to say we're a little disappointed with the current movie offerings. Around this time of year all the studios start pushing their big holiday movies and Oscar contenders. But so far we've only gotten a couple of Oscar-buzz movies (like Precious) and a whole lot of boring, run-of-the-mill flicks crushing the box office due to lack of any serious competition (I mean really, Blindside???).

But it finally looks like some good quality movies are coming out in the final weeks of the year. Entertainment Weekly has put out a list of the top ten remaining movies they're looking forward to this year. I definitely agree with their choices. I'm particularly excited to see the Peter Jackson movie "The Lovely Bones" and Tom Ford's "A Single Man" Check it out.

More remake news...

Hitchcock fans will be pleased to know that Michael Bay plans on producing through his Platinum Dunes production company a remake of The Birds. We can almost guarantee that this film will be awful and will cost gazillions to produce. Also, apparently the director assigned to this disaster plans on amping up the gore to make it a R-rated flick. Naomi Watts is apparently signed on to play the new Tippi Hedren. Hopefully the director doesn't have some issues to work out on Watts. Stay tuned.

Here is part 2 of the Anthony Francoso interview produced for Artepolitik.com.


What is El Roberto up to next? We are currently in preproduction for our music video/short film that we are planning on shooting in January and are wrapping some smaller video projects this month before the end of the year. More to come soon.

Raise yo hands like its Friday

Here is part one of the interview with Anthony Francoso of the band Geronimo that we produced for Artepolitik.com, which is an emerging Art and Politics web site. Definitely check out Artepolitik.com and take time to participate in some of their forums.


On a different note, after our last post about the Clash of the Titans Remake I have been been thinking a lot about film remakes in general and if a film is better after a second go around. Honestly, I believe that there really should be a rule if a film is a classic such as Pyscho then it shouldn't be remade. If a film was bad or has a lot of potential to be good then why not....right?!?! Any thoughts???

Clash of the Titans remake!?!?

That's right....someone decided that it was a good idea to remake the original 1981 Clash of the Titans into a 300 rip off. I have to admit, that I will probably go see this film or at least wait until its been ripped and posted online someplace....my only concern is the somewhat cheesy looking effects and metal music playing in the trailer...hopefully that doesn't end up in the final film. Honestly I am anxious to see it and I encourage someone to try to remake the original Jason and the Argonauts as well. Not to disrespect the work of Stop Motion Animator Ray Harryhausen who created the effects for Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, and many others but I would fully support remakes of these films if down correctly...any thoughts?