• #freshpresslive – feb 10/12

    Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 8/12

    Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 7/12

    Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.

  • Small Talk – The Kooks (2 of 2)

    When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.

  • Small Talk – The Kooks (1 of 2)

    The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 2/12

    Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.

  • #freshpresslive – Feb 1/12

    Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.

  • #freshpresslive – Jan 31/12

    Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.

  • #freshpresslive – Jan 30/12

    David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.

  • Small Talk – Daniel Radcliffe (1 of 3)

    Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.

  • Small Talk – Graffiti6 (2 of 3)

    Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”

  • Small Talk – Graffiti6 (1 of 3)

    Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.

  • Small Talk – Nick Carter (3 of 3)

    Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.

  • Small Talk – Nick Carter (2 of 3)

    During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.

  • Small Talk – Nick Carter (1 of 3)

    There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.

  • Small Talk – Hedley (2 of 2)

    When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.

  • Small Talk – Hedley (1 of 2)

    It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.

  • Small Talk – Marina and The Diamonds (2 of 2)

    Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.

  • Small Talk – Neverest

    Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.

  • Small Talk – Marina and The Diamonds (1 of 2)

    Marina and The Diamonds are working on some new music, but Marina is being very secretive about it. Although the release has been delayed, she let’s us in on some secrets about the new album, and how alcohol changed her life.

 
 

Tag Archives: bandidas

 

DVD Review: Bandidas

Posted by Eric Emin Wood on February 9th, 2007


Bandidas was written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, who wrote The Fifth Element, and stars Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. If none of those names mean anything to you, or (in Besson’s case) send you screaming for the hills, keep running. Bandidas has nothing to offer.

Those of you who are fans of Hayek (like me) and/or Cruz (I wasn’t, but after Volver…) will simply read this review hoping I’ll answer a few questions, and given that Besson and Kamen are the men who dressed Milla Jovovich in duct tape and had Chris Tucker playing a transsexual radio host prone to breaking out into “All Night Long” in a futuristic Bruce Willis movie, let us agree they’re not going to be the same questions you’d ask if I was evaluating, say, Volver or Frida.

For instance, are Cruz and/or Hayek the first people we see? (No, that would be Steve Zahn’s Quentin, an early New York forensics detective who ends up getting called down to Mexico.)

How many minutes of this movie do not have Penelope Cruz or Salma Hayek in them? (Between five and ten, and three and a half of them are in the beginning.)

Is there a cat fight? (Yes. They even pull on each others’ hair.)

When the film is rated PG-13 for “sexuality, nudity, and violence,” is it because…? (No. That honour again belongs to Mr. Zahn, who in an awkward moment ends up displaying his naked rear end for the screen. As compensation he gets to make out with both stars. Twice. Lucky bastard.)

When I said that in Volver Penelope Cruz played a terrific character, it’s because she turned a selfish woman who has problems with her mother, a slightly rebellious daughter, an unemployed deadbeat husband, and two jobs she just lost into a likable character. In Bandidas I say she plays a good character because Besson and Kamen go with the Robin Hood archetype; greedy bankers kill her father, a farmer living in turn-of-the-last-century Mexico, and she vows to rob from the rich and distribute her wealth to the poor. Simple, entertaining, easy to latch onto (Hayek plays a rich girl in a similar situation, only her father owned the land before he was killed by the bankers). In Frida, I’m hoping Julie Taymor took a compelling, artistic approach in presenting the very complicated work and life and inspiration of Frida Kahlo. Here I was just hoping the story was interesting enough to keep me watching Cruz and Hayek for 90 minutes.

Which brings us to our last question: was it? Yes, for the most part, it was. For the first 20 minutes, Cruz and Hayek are technically against each other, and during that time the movie’s a bit slow going. Once they meet (hilariously) while robbing a bank, however, it kicks into gear. I will also point out the film is relentlessly silly: for instance, during an openly pointless training montage it’s discovered that Hayek’s character, Sara, who gets hiccups whenever she’s nervous, can’t shoot a gun to save her life. So she’s given throwing knives, and of course she’s great at throwing them. Of course. Cruz’s horse is so good at listening to her she can stand on his back, ride him across a plank suspended precariously between two roofs, and turn off or on his libido with a whistle. The cartoonish villains, headed by country singer Dwight Yoakam (about 11 notches removed from his eerie performance in Sling Blade) are the kind dumb enough to start playing the banjo when they should be guarding a bank. And except for the fathers, no one ever seems to get permanently injured. Even a guy thrown off a moving train looks like he might as well have just been shoved down two or three stairs.

In terms of features, the screener had two: a “Burning Up The Set” featurette where Hayek and Cruz explain where the film came from (longtime friends, they hatched the idea as an excuse to work together and pitched it to Besson), talk about how much everyone enjoyed working with each other, and generally state the obvious, and an audio commentary with the two stars. Cruz and Hayek admit they’ve never done a DVD commentary before, but become more comfortable as it goes on. There are some good anecdotes, and their closeness is palpable.

My rating for Bandidas is a good example of the pointlessness of star ratings. I give it three stars, but can assure you enjoyed it more than Borat, which I gave four, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Talladega Nights, which I gave three and a half.

Tags: