Enrique Lopez Lavigne Movies
- 2008
28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo helms The Jacket screenwriter Massy Tadjedin's script, which revolves around the chase that ensues after a desperate criminal carjacks an unsuspecting young woman. As the lead-footed criminal leads authorities on a high-speed chase through the streets of Los Angeles, the tension ratchets up with each passing mile. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Having just recently been released from the orphanage where he spend the vast majority of his childhood, a young thief named Alex befriends a pretty kleptomaniac named Sara in this tender tale of love among the nimble-fingered. Ten years ago, Alex's mother taught him to be the perfect thief. Now, after growing up and striking out on his own, Alex ventures into the supermarket where burgeoning thief Sara is attempting to perfect her skills. Eventually entering into a "professional" agreement in which they partner in theft and subsequently split the take, Alex and Sara gradually find their attraction to one another eclipsing their criminal ambition. But the leap from partners in crime to lovers in life won't be an easy one, because despite the fact that Alex has little to lose and no prospects for the future, Sara comes from a respectable background with loving parents and a chance for further education. As the relationship becomes more intense, Alex soon finds himself forced to make Sara's decision for her. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juan José Ballesta, Maria Valverde, (more)
The devastating rage virus that annihilated the British Isles mysteriously resurfaces in Goya Award-winning director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel to the Danny Boyle-directed horror hit that terrified audiences worldwide by offering a breathless new take on the familiar zombie mythos. Six months has passed since the rage virus caused British residents to indiscriminately murder and destroy everything in their paths, and now the U.S. military has declared victory in the war against the rapidly spreading infection. As the reconstruction process gets underway and the first wave of refugees return to British shores, a family separated by the devastation is happily reunited. During the initial outbreak, Don Harris (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) sat holed up with a small band of survivors in a remote farmhouse. Their kids well out of harm's way at a remote boarding school, Don and Alice's outlook for the future is decidedly bright until all hell breaks loose in the country and Don just barely manages to escape the clutches of the infected. The joy of later seeing his son Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and daughter Tammy (Imogen Poots) as repopulation efforts get underway in London is short-lived, however, when an innocent bid to reconnect with the past sets into motion a tragic series of events. Now, just as society struggles to sort through the rubble and rebuild London from the ground up, the virus that nearly destroyed a nation strikes back with a vengeance. Jeremy Renner, Rose Byrne, and Harold Perrineau, Jr. co-star in the frightful sequel, which highlights the dangers of declaring victory in the calm before the storm. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, (more)
- 2007
A naïve young artist living with her father in an Ibiza cave sets out to explore life on her own terms in Sex and Lucia director Julio Medem's sensual tale of personal transformation. Ana (Manuela Vellés) is a free-spirited nymph who has only known the natural world. An ethereal, nubile woman who supports herself and her father by selling her colorful paintings at various arts and craft fairs across her scenic island, Ana is eventually discovered by a French woman named Justine (Charlotte Rampling) and lured away to art school in Madrid. Once there, Ana is confronted with a life she has never even imagined -- a life that reveals both profound love and near-unbearable pain. As she takes her first step toward womanhood, Ana gradually discovers that life is more than a geographical and linear journey; it is also temporal and cyclical as evidenced by the many lifetimes she has lived before her current existence. Eventually, in a transcendental bid to explore her many past lives, Ana turns to hypnosis. It is this journey that reveals to Ana the source of her chaos -- the hideous commonality that has followed her from her very first journey. Instilled with the wisdom of her many past experiences, Ana is propelled ever further back in time and across the continents, all the while knowing that one day the time will come for her to use the power to create life, and employ her vast knowledge for the good of all humankind. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Manuela Vellés, Charlotte Rampling, (more)
- 2003
Javier Fesser's stylish action comedy Le Gran Aventura de Mortadelo y Filemon (Mortadelo & Filemon: The Big Adventure) brings to life a pair of comic-book characters. Filemon (Pepe Viyuela) and Mortadelo (Benito Pocino) are bumbling secret agents who are fired after their supervisor hires Fredy Mazas (Dominique Pinon) to track down a powerful substance invented by Prof. Bacterio (Janfri Topera) that has fallen into the wrong hands. At the time of its release in its native country of Spain, the film had the most successful opening weekend in history for any domestic film. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Benito Pocino, Pepe Viyuela, (more)
Daniel Calparsoro's Guerreros is set in the Balkans in the wake of the ethnic conflict between the Serbs and the Kosovo Albanians that prompted NATO military intervention in 1999. A group of young Spanish army engineers is stationed in a Kosovo village to help the Albanians recover from the war's devastation. The unit is sent on a mission to restore electricity to a small town in hostile territory, but their operation is derailed when they get caught up in the fighting between Serb and Albanian paramilitaries. Struggling to stay neutral, the peacekeepers find themselves fighting for survival as they scamper around the Balkan countryside searching for a way back to headquarters. Their descent into the quagmire of ethnic fighting tests the limits of their idealism and underscores the moral complexities posed by humanitarian intervention. This polished actioner screened at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eloy Azorín, Eduardo Noriega, (more)
Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results in this speculative sci-fi horror effort from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital 28 days later, bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors following a terrifying encounter in a seemingly abandoned church, Jim soon learns the truth behind the deserted streets and the menacing creatures that lurk in the shadows. It's soon revealed that the chimpanzees had been harboring a deadly virus that sends its victims into a furious, murderous rage, and in the days following the initial exposure, the entire population was nearly wiped out due to the resulting homicidal rampage. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity -- or has the deadly "rage" virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, (more)
- 2001
Following up on his 1998 art-house hit Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Julio Medem spins this audacious film about flesh and forgetting. Lucia (Paz Vega) is a young Madrid waitress who is devastated to hear of the death of her old flame Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa). Hoping to flee her troubles, she seeks out a beautiful island paradise her dead lover often talked about. There she meets and befriends Carlos (Daniel Freyre) and Elena (Najwa Nimri) who are also refugees of personal tragedies. Unbeknownst to all of them, the three each have a connection to Lorenzo. Years previously, Elena had a spontaneous fling with Lorenzo on the same island on the beach. Nine months later, she bore his daughter, Luna (Silvia Llanos), but unable to raise a child on her own, she enlisted the help of a nurse, Belen (Elena Anaya). In attempting to reconnect with the child he never knew, Lorenzo had a passionate affair with Belen, one which caused her to neglect Luna, with tragic results. As Lucia slowly learns these details, she recalls the book Lorenzo was writing just before his death, and soon the lines between fact and fiction begin to slip away. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paz Vega, Tristan Ulloa, (more)
- 1998
- R
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Julio Medem directed this romantic Spanish drama with location scenes in Finland. School children Ana (Sara Valiente) and Otto (Peru Medem) are brought together when a paper airplane flown from a window by Otto unites Ana's mother Olga (Maru Valdiviesio) with Otto's father Alvaro (Nancho Novo). After this encounter, Olga and Alvaro fall in love -- with the result that Alvaro leaves Otto's German mother Ula (Beate Jensen). To be near Ana, Otto begins living with Alvaro and Olga. Ana believes that Otto harbors the soul of her dead father. As adolescents, Otto (Fele Martinez) and Ana (Najwa Nimri) share a kiss over a book opened to a passage about the Arctic Circle, and they often sleep together. Otto is grief-stricken by the death of his mother -- partially due to his leaving her for Ana. Shown at 1998 film festivals (Venice, Toronto). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Najwa Nimri, Fele Martínez, (more)
- 1998
El Milagro de P. Tinto is the first full-length film of Madrid-born Javier Fesser, whose career behind the camera had previously been in advertising. The story, which follows the saga of an ordinary Catholic family, appears to be very conventional: Young P. Tinto wants to be the father of a large family when he grows up. He dreams of having a bunch of healthy kids as soon as he finds himself a woman. Fifteen years later, we find him living with blind Olivia in a valley off the beaten track where the express train for the North has stopped only once in the last five years. Time passes, but the children he has dreamed of do not arrive. Fifty years later, when the couple has given up all hope, a miracle takes place, the 'miracle' alluded to in the title of the film, which will make possible the continuation of the Tinto family from one generation to the next. But the new arrival is not only a long time coming but also appears to be from a highly unusual source. In the final analysis, this family portrait is anything but conventional. Javier Fesser uses offbeat set designs borrowed from comic strips and cartoons as he concocts a fantastic and entertaining cocktail of social satire and surreal comedy reminiscent of Theo Van Dormael's Toto the Hero. The film received a Special Mention from the jury at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival for its style, humor, and originality. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Luis Ciges, Silva Casanova, (more)
- 1998
Set in an unknown time and place during the 18th century, Isabel Coixet's follow-up to her 1996 drama Cosas Que Nunca Te Dije/Things I Never Told You centers on the reminiscences of The Teacher (Julio Nuñez), a 68-year-old man who shows up at the home of young Martin (Gary Piquer) and his ailing wife, with whose sister The Teacher was once romantically involved. The Teacher fell in love with Matilde (Olalla Moreno) sixty years ago when his father, a doctor, took him along on a housecall when she was ill. He meets Matilde again twenty years in the future and finds that though she has married Leon (Christopher Thompson) a French messenger, she still possesses a bewitching childlike innocence. Matilde does not realize that her spouse has fallen into a passionate relationship with the local fencing instructor's seductive daughter Valeria. After another long absence, The Teacher returns to the village. This time Matilde has heard about the ongoing affair. Miserable and eager to learn the truth, she begs The Teacher to take her to the fencing school where Leon and Valeria tryst so she can see for herself. The gallant Teacher refuses, but this doesn't stop the determined Matilde, and tragedy ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julio Nunez, Patxi Freitez, (more)
