Before Night Falls

Pros: Lead actor Javier Bardem provides the heart; director Julian Schnabel provides the art
Cons: Near the end, it feels like a story stretched on Silly Putty

The first year of the new century was a good time to explore other lives as Hollywood blew the dust off that old studio staple: the biopic.

Suddenly, film biographies were springing up like weeds on untended graves. Making appearances in your...

Pros: superlative acting, cinematography, editing, and a very strong story
Cons: just a bit prettified and desexualized

Julian Schnabel’s film of Reinaldo Arenas’s memoirs is a great film. Inevitably, much of the book is missing, but its essences and most of its themes survive. The film is not as raw -- sexually or otherwise -- as the book, but had Arenas lived longer, ...

Pros: acting, directing, script, photography - a sensitive masterpiece
Cons: none

I have come to understand that my video choices are beginning to parallel my reading choices. When selecting a book, I go strictly by the cover, never investigating the contents until later. Which explains how I became immersed in the Mt....

Pros: Good performance, nice cameos.
Cons: What's the point? Honestly.

Before Night Falls is the true story of real life Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. I knew nothing about the man before watching the film, and after it was over, I still know nothing about him. If I was being quizzed, and the question asked,...

Pros: Bardem's acting, Good cameos by Depp, Beautiful cinematography, Provides insights into Castro's Cuba, Excellent translation of the writer's life to film medium
Cons: Uneven, Pacing is problematic, Seems disjointed at times, anti climatic during the U.S. scenes, Over reliance on voice overs (though difficult to communicate a writer's work otherwise)

Before Night Falls depicts the life of the gay Cuba poet/novelist Reinaldo Arenas and shows us a rare look inside Castro's Cuba. That reason alone makes Julian Schabel's film worth viewing, as about the only glimpses we generally get of Cuba...

Pros: A very balanced and compelling bio pic from Julian Schnabel
Cons: The last act moves a bit to quickly.

Directed By Julian Schnabel. Written By Schnabel and Cunnigham O'Keefe and Lazaro Gomez Carriles. Based upon the memoir "Before Night Falls" by Reinaldo Arenas Javier Bardem Reinaldo Arenas Olivier ...

Pros: Superior direction by Schnabel and a career-making performance by Javier Bardem
Cons: Poetic pacing and atmospheric language may lose more narrative-driven viewers

A "cri di coeur."

It's a critics' quote from another era; rarely can the phrase 'cri de coeur' be applied to films anymore. In an age where economics and entertainment rule the cinema, it's hard for anyone to hear, much less make,...

Pros: Yes, Bardem's performance is great - but the film is also a stunning achievement
Cons: Not much...the movie's not for everyone, overly stylized construction may put you off

You've really got to hand it to Julian Schnabel. This New York-born painter-turned-filmmaker, whose only other feature to date has been Basquiat, from 1996, has pulled off two amazing feats which more often than not baffle makers of filmed...

Pros: Strong, poetic performance from Javier Bardem who makes his American debut
Cons: Only Bardem's astonishing performance elevates the overwhelming dreariness and depression of this fragmented tale.

Spain's most acclaimed young actor, Javier Bardem, makes his American debut in this cinematic parable and portrait of Reinaldo Arenas, who was persecuted for literary and sexual transgressions in Cuba.

A writer and homosexual, Arenas...

Pros: Well-acted by Bardem and several others.
Cons: Dull and uninvolving.

Before Night Falls is a well-acted film to be sure, but it fails on one level of high importance: the subject's importance as an artist is never fully established. For all the insight this film provides, he might as well have been a garbage man....

Pros: Good story, some excellent performances,
Cons: Directing is inconsistent, should not have been done in English (see below)

People's revolutions begin with the best of intentions, such as removing unjust rulers, but often have an unfortunate tendency to go awry, exchanging one dictator for another. Cuba is an excellent example of this axiom: in 1959, a small band of...

Pros: Actor Javier Bardem, director Julian Schnabel, and composer Carter Burwell all deliver great work.
Cons: The storytelling structure is disarming at times.

(Dir: Julian Schnabel, Starring Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez, Andrea Di Stefano, Johnny Depp, Hector Babenco, Vito Schnabel, Olatz Lopez Garmendia, Sean Penn, Michael Wincott, Najwa Nimri, and Sebastian Silva)

Reinaldo Arenas has become one...

Pros: Bardem in the leading role
Cons: Too artsy and long for its own good

The plight of gays in Cuba, retold in the form of individual life experiences of dissident poet Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem), is but one of the many major themes in Julian Schnabel’s "Before Night Falls."

And one of the many problems with...

Pros: Depp, Penn, music sometimes, as is Bardem sometimes
Cons: everything else especially directing, including Bardem who is sometimes annoying

Whenever Winona Ryder at this years Oscars publically thanked Javier Bardem for his "beautiful performance" she must have meant his beautiful body and looks.


I remember the 1996 movie Basquiat, which depicted the life...

Pros: Well-acted, nicely photographed, creative direction.
Cons: Story not very cohesive, starts to drag, no real emotional investment in the characters.

Hopefully, this film isn't indicative of the way painter-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel's career is going. Normally, a film can stand on its own without a lot of comparisons. But this film is so similar to his 1996 debut (and far superior),...