Rating: 
Summary: Call me shallow.....
Review: ...I hate to sound so shallow, but .... I am afraid that I simply could not get past the fact that the Nico was just soooooooo unattractive. It made the story hard to swallow. The director ought to have found a young actor at least half as cute as the young girl that was interested in Dani. Either that or give Dani a pair of dark glasses, a cane and a canine assistant. Then the story would have been believable. ~[: p p.s.
My SO has asked me to mention that they both looked like they needed a good bath (but he says that about most Europeans).
Rating: 
Summary: i mean what i say
Review: a really sweet coming of age story from a different culture's perspective. set in sunny barcelona, its cast of characters are two boys and two girls hanging out at the beach (and bars where the fourteen year old gets served!), with the intent of one day getting it on. i found them all to be extremely beautiful people in their honesty and openess, and the depth of emotion that the director conveyed was astonishing. he took his time developing the characters in a curious way, i feel like i have four new friends. okay, i went and saw the thing twice, i loved it. i usually like movies that challenge my mind, but this one was totally different than anything i've seen. the feelings this film conjure up are what make it. the soundtrack is extremely well placed, with some songs in english. there are subtitles, but if you know a little spanish, the movie can be quite endearing.
Rating: 
Summary: oddly homophobic story of gay love
Review: Dani, who belongs to an affluent family somewhere on the southern coast of Spain, gets a summertime visit from his old friend Nico. They hit on some girls at Nico's insistence without giving up their old pastime of krampack. When Dani realizes that he is in love with Nico, he begins acting like an idiot: he grabs at Nico's privates when he is having sex with a girl, tells the girl that Nico is really a maricon, then pushes himself onto the local mature, sophisticated writer but runs out before they hit the bedroom. What I find insulting about this film is that the boys never say the "gay" word, but they express their hatred of "maricones" quite often. I don't mind the director trying to pretend that gay history and culture don't exist, but it is offensive to tell a story about same-sex love that simulataneously preaches hatred of gay people.
Rating:
Summary: oddly homophobic story of gay love
Review: Dani, who belongs to an affluent family somewhere on the southern coast of Spain, gets a summertime visit from his old friend Nico. They hit on some girls at Nico's insistence without giving up their old pastime of krampack. When Dani realizes that he is in love with Nico, he begins acting like an idiot: he grabs at Nico's privates when he is having sex with a girl, tells the girl that Nico is really a maricon, then pushes himself onto the local mature, sophisticated writer but runs out before they hit the bedroom. What I find insulting about this film is that the boys never say the "gay" word, but they express their hatred of "maricones" quite often. I don't mind the director trying to pretend that gay history and culture don't exist, but it is offensive to tell a story about same-sex love that simulataneously preaches hatred of gay people.
Rating: 
Summary: Dull, sophomoric and unattractive
Review: For me, this film failed for several reasons, all fatal. First, as another reviewer noted, I found the characters themselves nearly repulsive - in brief, not intriguing, but opaque and practically slow-witted, with no inner mystery. Next, the focus is too tight, just a few steps back from a Bergmanesque perspective - in brief, the viewer's quite out-of-luck if he feels little sympathy for the two boys, because this is practically a two-character film. Next, for me at least, the theme is severely outdated (depassé, añado, antequado, whatever)by about 36 years. Its precedents are so numerous that it would be futile to attempt to list them. Next, I agree with other reviewers that this film is NOT just about homosexuality - certainly not - let's all recite the corny depassé phrase: it's about two boys coming to terms with their sexual awakenings. Just two boys practically alone in a two-boy film - don't jump to the conclusion that other themes or parallel plots, etc. are going to enthrall you and eclipse the thread-bare homosexual-heterosexual plot line, for in fact there isn't much else to this work. A question in my mind is whether this film was produced with the express intent of targeting an early-teen audience. If not, the film leaves me wondering if the director ever considered that a typical theater is attended by actual, living males and females - most all of whom are beyond their teen years and find these boys' problems anticlimatic. In fact, more varied and dramatic sexual challenges develop well after the "awakening" and continue for a lifetime. All the adult audience knows this. All the audience also knows the script-writer and the boys have other options: transexual operations, switch-hitting, the homosexual may still marry a male or female or both - they could even have been among the chromosomal minorities, or they could move to Utah and have twenty spouses, or become child-molesters, etc. - everything's possible in America. But this story is simple. And plot-lining these rather banal and opaque characters through a cinematographic microscope in an attempt to monumentalize this awakening not only appears painfully sophomoric, but can lead the viewer during his hour and more of boredom to wonder if the director and script writer, etc., are emotionally retarded, or sexually repressed - or perhaps only twelve years old. In effect, to this viewer, the sexual theme is so banal that I can imagine better films being made on such parallel themes as the early teen's learning to hit a baseball for the first time, or an infant's learning to eat from a spoon. Personally, when I was a teenager, even readings like Fruehlings Erwachen, by Franz Wedekind seemed outdated, though they had charm and a certain fatal wickedness to them - but were naive in real-life context: e.g., the U.S. sends sixteen year olds to war - I suppose Germany sent them even younger at the end of WWII. D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers made a greater impact me as a kid - the quasi-nude wrestling scene between the two main male characters, and the woman confronting the bull. But well before that, I'd read Horace' tongue-in-cheek (I believe) defence of incest in Latin, back in eighth grade (after all, if the animals do it, why not us?). I would really recommend Rio Fugitivo, by Edmundo Paz Soldan - a much more complex and contemporary work set in Cochabamba, Bolivia - a work that deals with a spectrum of life challenges from a young boy's eyes. I refer to the novel, since to obtain foreign films in the U.S. is tough, given the virtual entertainment blockade this country maintains toward the rest of the globe. Thanks heavens for Internet.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific movie, never in America!
Review: I loved this movie. It is refreshingly NOT like American coming-of-age movies, which I avoid like the plague. The underlying tension between Nico and Dani over a summer's visit is a constant theme, one that can certainly be familiar to gay people. So much of the time, teenage gay movies either tend to be maudlin, mushy or just plain depressing. This movie is none of those. Another refreshing aspect of the film is that it doesn't try to tie all the loose ends up at the end of the film. I bought the movie and viewed it without reading all the reviews because wanted to view it fresh without preconceptions, and I won't detail it any more than this. It is light as a feather in many ways, which was what I was looking for. I bought the DVD and recommend that any other buyer look at the interviews with Cesc Gay and the main cast members after seeing the movie. Another point: the movie I received was "unrated" but I have no idea why this would even be R-rated. There was no gratuitous nudity, only a topless girl in one scene. I think the censors must've gone overboard on this one. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Just GREAT
Review: I own this movie and I see it at least 3 times a year, just because I really enjoy it. I find some of the critics unfair because it seems they expect some kind of thesis about teenage homosexuality and it's not. It's just a story about this kid who's in love with his best friend who's not gay.
I don't really know what's with the movie that just makes me feel good. I don't know if it's the respect, and even love, all the characters are portrayed with (even when they are being selfish). You feel that even the characters with smaller parts are real people with something to tell and many times you are left wanting to know more about them.
It's a strange feeling when you see people in a movie that you would like to have in your life as a friend. I love the movie and I love all the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Coming of age and having fun
Review: I saw the movie on cable and then bought the dvd to show to my friends who do not speak english, only spanish. After seeing it the second time I asked my self why? It is a fun little movie, but once is enough. I only bring it out when I have guests that do not speak english, only spanish, to show them that experimentation is part of growing up.
Rating: 
Summary: cute, honest
Review: I saw this movie in the theatre when it was released. Although I certainly would put this up with "Beautiful Thing" and with "Wild Reeds" in its poignant portrayal of youthful coming-out, it lags behind "Beautiful Thing" in the charm department. It compares more closely with "Wild Reeds." In this story where two best-friends grow up, one realizes that he is in love with the other. It is told in a gentle (read: slow. This is not a fast paced movie), yet achingly naive way that made my heart go out to the guys. What is beautiful about this movie, is that the actors look like real people. They are not disgustingly cute (though not unattractive, one has an awkwardly large adam's apple, and the other has bad skin). The uncomfortable adolescent situations had me sqirming in my seat. There are scenes which remind me of the novel "A Boys Own Story."
Rating:
Summary: Bueno!
Review: I try to see the majority of the gay themed movies that come out and I am usually disappointed with the poor quality. Fortunately, I did not feel this way about Nico and Dani. It's a charming, sensitive, realistic film which was very well done in all aspects.
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