MOTM: "Solo Con Tu Pareja" or 'Only with your Partner' (1991)

While the feature-length debut of director Alfonso Cuaron could be seen merely as a showcase for the tenderly sultry Claudia Ramirez—known in Mexico largely for her early telenovela roles—“Love in the Time of Hysteria” (the English release title) revives the romantic melodrama in ways that haven’t been seen north of the Rio Grande for some time. 

Because at its heart, this movie is a dark comedy. More a spoof of love sickness than a glorification of it.

Soundtrack of a Script: "The Social Network"

You’d think a movie about something as commonplace as Facebook would be pretty milquetoast, right? What would it be about, anyway? The innovation of the status update? The intricacies of app requests? The art of the Facebook stalk? As uninteresting as all that sounds the movie is actually nothing like what you’d expect. Therefore I can only come to the logical conclusion that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin chose the title “The Social Network” (from his adaptation of the book “The Accidental Billionaires”) to deliberately avoid any affiliation between our everyday familiarities with Farmville and the “true story” of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

And the score. Don't forget that wonderful score.

Criticature: "Darkman" - 9/22/10

I remember the first time I saw an ad for “Darkman”. I was about…oh, say 10 or 11? Granted, the comics I was reading at the time were about four or five years older than I was, but it was during this time, flipping through dog-eared copies of Alien spin-offs, that I first set my impressionable eyes on the Struzan-esque image of Peyton Westlake, in relief against a wall of industrial flame and shadow.

Criticature: "Big Fan" -- 8/11/10

Wait a minute...this isn't Jersey Shore!?

I’m going to be upfront with you, dear reader. I am not “a sports guy”. Though I’d like to be, I’ve found I have neither the knack for or the kind of passion needed to sustain such a love. But that’s not to say it’s somehow invalid of my respect and admiration; this idea of competition. The clash of titans. Autumn thunder and such. But the debut film “Big Fan” by Robert Siegel (who penned a similarly gritty drama, “The Wrestler”, back in 2008) is not about any heavyweight athlete. Ironically it’s about one of the ‘little people’ that follows the titans. A fan.