We're No Animals (2013)

I love this movie so much

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Better Late Then Never

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Why is the main photo for this movie on Netflix a photo of Al Pacino looking wasted when he's not even credited in the movie? Why is the movie listed as being made in 2013 but just released in 2017? Why are there so many references to Pacino in Alejandro Agrestri's IMDb profile? There are a lot of red herrings surrounding Al Pacino these days, and none of it seems to make sense, much like this movie. But look past the bullshit and maybe you can solve the puzzle. Lucila Sola aka Lucila Polak is Pacino's current girlfriend who claims to have been with him ten years (though there are references to many different lengths of their relationship in various articles online). However, her daughter, Camila Morrone, age 20, has a photo of herself on her Instagram (camimorrone) as a very young child sitting right next to Mr. Pacino on a movie set. Lucila Polak was born in 1976, according to a public records database search, but she has often been referenced as being born in 1979 and was first issued a Social Security number in 1995/1996. Her brother, however, who was a member of the California bar for a period of time starting in 2011, is not listed at all in the same public records database. John Cusack's character in this movie is a known celebrity and wears a black headband like Al Pacino. Look at the multiple Instagram accounts surrounding Cami Morrone and Al Pacino and there are multiple bizarre posts, some that seem to refer to parts of this movie (like sex with a woman that makes her pass out). And last, but definitely not least, there is a wealth of information on a website called ArgentinaPrivate regarding the Argentine escort scene, and one post lists the age of consent as being 13, according to Article 119 of the Argentine Penal Code. Just be warned, if you have even half a soul, this website might make you vomit.Much like that Crazy Days and Nights website (that may or may not even be run by the same person that started it originally) I'm just posting a few known facts and offering readers of this review the opportunity to try to make more sense out of this movie that doesn't seem to make much damn sense at all. Good luck.

This film reminded me of the Dogma film "Hotel" (2001 dir: Mike Figgis) where many American movie stars appear mostly as cameos, or barely as part of the plot. There was, however a plot there, at least. On this film, we have "Kubrick-like" intertitles preceding scenes, all about the planning of the filming of a movie, which is being filmed as this is a movie within a movie anyway. The dialogue for the first half is - as always - about "the evil military that killed people indiscriminately", without a full explanation of WHY and WHAT HAPPENED. This is as if you were learning about World War II and "there was a lot of killing going on" but absolutely no explanation of what happened, just tidbits of talk. Imagine every German film ever made from the end of the war to the present, in which they talk about Nazis. Every film. Or every American movie talking about Vietnam... even it if is a romantic comedy. They try, and fail, to make this some type of artsy film, some very recognizable names are in it, but the dialogue goes nowhere. They try to be "French New Wave" but with less plot, and a lot of scenes about Buenos Aires that serves more as a fantasyland attraction rather than the presentation of a city, or the history of the country, or even some type of plot. A complete waste of time and talent. Go see "Hotel" instead. There is a scene in which a girl tells John Cusack that Argentina is stuck in the past, 35 years back, and cannot move forward. Such is the state of filmmaking in ARG today. Stuck in the 1980s and forever trying to sanitize (but failing in omission) the event s that CAUSED the military coup of 1976. The Argentitnes need at least another 50 years to catch up to the rest of the world. This is a piece of garbage, and frankly, had the coup never occurred, Argentina would have been another Lebanon of the 1980s or the Venezuela of today. Che Guevara and Maoists forever admiring what is unclean only because it is "revolutionary" - conveniently ignoring that ARG, for all its faults, became rich and prosperous thanks to the European immigrants that worked - and di dnot pick the quick fix of a revolution to advance the country. For the lazy and the feeble minded, the Cuban revolution is a thing to be worshipped. These are still dangerous times!

Pacino's character was right in this film. It's lais·sez-faire approach makes it poignant, up close and real and makes modern feel modern all over again. It's nice to see American actors getting to be like in European movies, talking back about American politics like that, without being lazy-cynical or nihilistic, just saying what is, and keeping it playful-real. Friendly, like it's supposed to be, even though all the darkest themes are on the roster. This is the dialogue America needs to be having. I loved all the songs too. They sport classic pop/rock undertones, with some of Hipp's Philly cheese steak grease warps in just the right places. Lyrics! Melody! I feel like I got to hang with the boys on this one, and watch them play at life, however daunting the playground.

I was born on 1989, the year when the Berlin wall went down. The USSR used cinema as a weapon, even before Hitler. Of course, because as a media for propaganda, nothing was, or still is, more effective. Of course, they use us because we tend to believe that any thing shown on a screen is a fact, or at least could happen cause, after all, now it's just happening in our living room.But since I was a kid that I ask myself why the actors don't go to the loo, or why they pretend that I'm not there talking to each other. I know, my problem but this film give me some hope, in a sense. It showed me Donal Duck talking with Mickey, playing cards, being humans, trying to make up a story, showing how Sartre could be right, o wrong, or us. How far we are domesticated by cinema? How far we shout that not? Not so far the last, sometimes we crave for more blood, false love, sex, propaganda, phony identification in order to go on like hamsters.Thanks, John Cusack and Al Pacino. Thanks, the makers of this allegory.