Saturday, April 16, 2011

30 Day Film Challenge-Day 11 - A Film By My Favorite Director

Here's another category where I'm at a loss. I generally don't pay much attention to directors, mostly because when I have in the past they always end up disappointing me eventually. Tim Burton and Kevin Smith are two best examples of that. I loved both of their work, but eventually they seemed to fall into the trap of believing that they were more important than their movies, and they lost me. But there is one director who has yet to, as the British say, climb up his own ass...Guillermo del Toro. Not only have I loved his two Hellboy movies, and Pan's Labyrinth is sheer, if disturbing, genius, but he frequently uses his fame to further the careers of other filmmakers who might otherwise be ignored. Case in point El Orfanato. This brilliant ghost story was directed by Juan Antonio Bayona and probably would not have made it to American shores if not for del Toro putting his name behind it. I generally don't like horror, but this creepy tale of ghostly children and horrors from the past is a beautiful, disturbing, yet ultimately satisfying bit of story telling that everyone should see...just not alone.

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