José Luis Rodríguez (El Puma and El Maligno, depending on the day) is a traditional Railwayman, Doctor in CC. Physics by hobby and inveterate film buff by devotion. Throughout his life he has accumulated many thousands of hours in dark movie theaters. From his earliest childhood, in one of those village cinemas of the 70’s, where on Sundays at 4 in the afternoon, they showed everything, from films with a black Tarzan to the horrendous Spanish comedies parodied, for example, Johan Cruyff (played by Joe Rigoli) and the myriad disaster films of those years; in which there were earthquakes, giant waves, bees, spiders, bats, caterpillars, giant monkeys, fires in skyscrapers and endless problems in almost all US Airports.
Growing with the change of times, it has experienced the evolution of the World in parallel to that of Cinema, going on to enjoy the Multiplexes, the arrival of the Blockbusters of the 80’s and the appearance of the new Spanish Cinema with the arrival of Modernity with the Movida, expanding his interest in the cinema of other cultures and other times, looking unabashedly towards the wonderful world of Black and White and Silent Cinema.
If I could now have a time machine, I would return to a point where I could choose to be a film critic and not because I like to criticize, which is also true, but to be able to go to the cinema for free and during working hours. He remembers with affection (and a certain nostalgia) the figures of those who could do it, such as the unforgettable Alfonso Sánchez (if anyone does not know him and wants to, look for the short film that José Luis Garci dedicated to him a little before winning his Oscar ) with his suffocating voice, his everlasting cigarette in his mouth and his appearance as a grandfather of the Great Family; Antonio Gasset with his slanderous and brilliant comments (almost always about the audience that followed the legendary FILM DAYS) or the vitriolic criticisms of Carlos Boyero – to whom Joaquín Sabina dedicated a brilliant Sonnet – capable of condensing the opinion of a GREAT film by more than 3 hours, in one or at most two words. He is of the opinion that there are only two types of cinema; The first is what is done so that while watching it we do not think about our lives; The second being that it forces us to spend part of our lives thinking about what we have seen.
Another relevant aspect in which a geek/geek also manifests itself is in relation to Film Music. That came a little later, it was a night in 1982 in which Deckard disobeyed the order to remove an enigmatic replicant named Rachel and that Vangelis immortalized in a priceless and unforgettable Soundtrack.
Thus, currently, this individual has an archive-collection with more than 3,500 films and almost 5,000 Soundtracks that he complements with acquisitions that, certainly, come more from the time when he did not live on this Planet than from the new things that are appearing. every day. By the way, the last series that he admits he saw in its entirety was GOLDEN RINGS. We give this information in case…
Thus, our idea is, with this character, his knowledge and the collaboration he offers us, to develop various thematic cycles in the BUZTINAGA Film Space, with the aim of illustrating how the Seventh Art has identified (and represented) various aspects that this cultural space develops in relation to ART, CULTURE, HISTORY and FOLKLORE. It will be interesting to know how cinema people (because cinema in itself is nothing, they talk about it as if it were a unique and conscious being, when it is only a term that encompasses the particularities of all those who work in each cinematographic project) has interpreted the lives and acts of those other artists, politicians, intellectuals and even filmmakers who may be of interest to us within the activities that we will develop in BUZTINAGA.
All of the above does not mean that all the Cinema we present is “GOOD CINEMA”; There will be films that will be good, but others will not, given that the objective is to present what has been done about a certain character, artistic movement, historical moment, culture or specific work, our objective being to expand knowledge without conditioning it to quality. artistic, given that this criterion is, equally, discretionary and subjective.
Such is our spirit and we hope to count on you to get started and then…, well, then we’ll see.
Thank you