Argentinian Film reviews

I recently saw this great Argentinian film titled Samy and I (Spanish title Samy y Yo) which was released in 2002. It stars Argentinian actor Ricardo Darin as Samy Goldstein, a writer who seems to be going nowhere until he meets Mary (Colombian actress Angie Cepeda) who convinces him to host his own show playing himself.

There's a scene where Samy waits in a restaurant for Mary. While he waits, there's a great song on the soundtrack. After much digging I found out the title of the song and artist. The song is Aya by La Portuaria, a great Argentinian rock band from the 1990's. If you visit the La Portuaria website you can see a video of them performing the full Aya song. Click onto and go to the videos page. Find Aya  & play this video of them performing the whole song. Sorry it wouldn't link directly to the video. It's pretty cool that they recorded such a rocking song that includes banjo which the lead singer Diego Frenkel plays.

Back to discussing the film: It's entertaining, amusing, inspiring and a good film to watch if you want to practice watching Spanish language films. Here's a clip from the film. It's been uploaded by someone who's a big fan of Angie Cepeda.

BTW, Ricardo Darin is also great in a more recent Argentinian film titled El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes, released in 2009). Here's the trailer for it:





This film is both a mystery and a love story. Soledad Villamil is great as his co-worker. There's an especially powerful scene where she attacks a suspect's manhood and manipulates him into confessing.

IMO, Ricardo Darin is kind of sexy with his dark Latin features and deep blue eyes. I've also seen him in another film title El Aura (The Aura, released 2005) about an epileptic taxidermist who fantasizes about committing the perfect crime. This film I wasn't so crazy about because of the violence and what I found to be a dissatisfying ending. Another film with Ricardo Darin that I really like is Son of the Bride (El Hijo de la Novia, released in 2001). More about this film and others in the next post.