That was an excellent one.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Matinée (1977) starts its audience off in a cleverly misleading, deliberately low-key manner, but soon sets up a noirish situation for two young boys that cleverly utilizes many believable twists and surprises to build towards both the expected high voltage climax (which itself has one really amazingly credible moment when it seems the vicious, hard-luck gangster has been caught by an alert detective) and a most unexpected, yet natural and character-consistent fade-out. The acting of both the young stars (and in fact, the whole cast, with a special pat on the back for Farnesio de Bernal) is commendably realistic. Writer/director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo never puts a foot wrong either in his vividly powerful, cleverly characterized screenplay or his consistently astute direction with its eye-opening use of real Mexican locations.