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CHUPA – Carlos Rafael Rivera
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There have been many ‘boy and his pet’ stories, in both film and literature over the decades – the list is too enormous to mention – but the common threads that link so many of them is the way that humans and animals often bond with each other in extraordinary circumstances, and change each other’s lives for the better as a result. This new film, Chupa, directed by Mexican filmmaker Jonás Cuarón (son of Alfonso Cuarón), was inspired by one specific ‘boy and his pet’ story – 1982’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – but whereas Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece involved friendly aliens, Cuarón’s film involves a creature from Mexican folklore: the chupacabra. The story follows a teenager named Alex (Evan Whitten) who, while visiting family in Mexico, gains an unlikely companion when he discovers a young chupacabra hiding in his grandpa’s shed. To save the mythical creature, Alex and his cousins must embark on the adventure of a lifetime. The film co-stars Demián Bichir and Christian Slater and has been a massive success on Netflix in the weeks since it premiered in April 2023. Read more…
THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT – Carlos Rafael Rivera
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Queen’s Gambit is a Netflix mini-series directed by Scott Frank, based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis. It stars the luminous Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth Harmon, a young girl growing up in an orphanage in the mid-1950s, where she has lived since her parents died in a car crash. Beth discovers an extraordinary aptitude for chess, and the series charts her life from then on, as she starts competing in and winning games, becoming more famous in the chess world, but simultaneously becomes increasingly dependent on drugs and alcohol in order to cope with the high pressure environment. The series co-stars Bill Camp, Marielle Heller, Harry Melling, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, and was an enormous critical hit when it debuted in October 2020, with special praise bestowed on Taylor-Joy’s lead performance, as well as the period style and design. Read more…
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