Signs - Raising Victor Vargas

Jim enjoyed Signs. I couldn't bear the predictability and how it was talking down to the viewer by again and again hammering in the moral points about loss and regaining of faith. Hello, we got it already! Well done craftmanship? Yes. Interesting and exciting? Not at all.

Viridiana and I saw Raising Victor Vargas (trailer) this Thursday. It was much better than I had hoped. I really enjoyed it. It's a very honest, intimate, entertaining story. No particular plot, just a great narrative. You will like it too. Afterwards the director and three of the cast was there to take questions, which is always fun.

For some reason it has a really awful IMDb rating, but the reviewers rightly loves it. In Salon, Stephanie Zacharek writes "Sometimes even big movies feel small and puny minutes after you've left the theater. But, small as it is, "Raising Victor Vargas" feels even more expansive after the fact. You get the sense that in making it, Sollett didn't waste a scrap. Talent, time, film stock, natural lighting, you name it: He made the most of everything he had, and he passes the savings along to us. We get to leave the theater holding onto something."
Elvis Mitchell in NYT "Raising Victor Vargas is a true find, a picture with a vital daffiness that's all its own, rather that a film that lives on the leavings of other movies."

It will open on April 18th here and in July in France according to IMDb's release date list.

We saw it with KCRW's monthly "Matt's Movies". Give them $50 a year and you can get two tickets for the monthly screening. If you are in Los Angeles and like movies you should consider it.