Fantastic!

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The Key To Reserva is a film buff's ten-minute joy drawn from seeing a born master filmmaker play around with a geeky little experiment. In under the amount of time it takes to get a coffee refill at Sitwell's, one sees a nearly complete suspense thriller, bookended by director Martin Scorsese's preface and reaction.He announces his intention before we see the actual cut of the film, which is that he is trying to do justice to Hitchcock's style by doing it as he believes Hitchcock would do it today, as it is of a lost script for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. When we see the movie, though, it actually translates into the awkward cartoonishness of De Palma. However, it's fascinating for any film buff.

Scorsese does Hitchcock, how awesome is that! This is basically one fine homage to the master of suspense from a great and acclaimed director of this age. Beware though that this is not really a movie, it's in fact a cleverly and originally done advertisement.It in fact is a complex advertisement for a Catalan winery, disguised as a short movie directed by none other than Martin Scorsese, based on a lost script for an Alfred Hitchcock movie (which of course is not true). It really must have gotten some publicity and the advertisement also obviously won some awards. The movie focuses on some behind the scene's work, in documentary style, in which Scorsese discusses his golden find and why he made the film. It also even features Scorsese's editor Thelma Schoonmaker, to make it all seem all the more legit. The movie further more also features the entire short, which got based on the 3 pages of the 'lost script'. The short is entirely done in Hitchcock style and features many tongue in cheek references to some classic Hitchcock moments.Quite funny how many people actually still believe that Scorsese found really a lost Hitchcock and this movie got based on it and therefor this movie is also a real and serious one. On the other hand, if there are still so many people who think this is real, than you could also wonder if the advertisement truly worked out, since so many people did not and still don't 'get it'.As a whole, this short is a fun one to watch. It's quite amusing to see Scorsese raving and babbling on about his great find and it shows that Scorsese is actually quite a good and amusing actor on his own, as he had already proofed before in some movies, in which he often played a very small role.But of course it's mostly all about the short, based on the 3 pages script, which got entirely done in the style of Hitchcock. The Hitchcock fanatics should get a real kick out of it, since Scorsese seemed to have gotten every little detail right. No doubt Scorsese himself is also a great admirer of Hitchcock's work. Things such as lighting, camera-work and angles, editing and even the look of the actors are spot on. It on top of that also features lots of references to some classic Hitchcock movies, such as; "North by Northwest", "Rear Window" and "Notorious", among many others.Seems like Freixnet will also do more movies such as this one in the future.A nice homage, as well as a great and clever advertisement.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Martin Scorsese goes to lengths at the start of The Key to Reserva to present it like it's buried treasure he's discovered; his enthusiasm seems genuine, even funny (i.e. when he goes on about if Hitchcock were alive he'd direct it, but he's not, so...) and then he presents what he's directed- missing pages from a few pages of script that were never shot by Hitchcock. But as the film unfolds, which seems like the greatest homage, as opposed to a real abandoned script, to the master of suspense ever made, there's the eerie feeling it is just that. I loved seeing Scorsese go into a kind of master's class demonstration of how to emphasize all of the obsessions, which were highlighted in the screenplay... And yet, it also seemed a little fishy. It wasn't until later on that a friend, who also saw the short, told me it was fake. Curses! And the birds at the end too were part of the gimmick I bet! All kidding aside, it's a splendid tribute to Hitch, with a dastardly sense of timing with the scene at the opera, a strange amalgamation of the tensest of Hitchcock's grab bag calling to the likes of Sabateur (ironically, or just oddly enough, twenty years ago Dario Argento, a disciple of Hitchcockian suspense to a very-much Italian horror degree, had a sequence almost just like this one in his film Opera). Simon Baker plays the killer, and there's a timing to his movements that suggests something like perfect clockwork, a kind of divine madness that comes more out of technique then in storytelling. Then again, it's the story itself, however short, that brings it out as such. In the end it's all a big goof by Scorsese played on the audience, but a brilliant one, and he puts himself in the background knowing of his own persona in the process. Matter of fact, that's the real key to reserva, if you'll forgive the not-quite pun: process is the way it goes, be it timing a murder to an orchestration, or a dolly shot or crane move to just the right pitch. And, of course, always with a knowing grin as with the master's best work... which reminds me, you'd never know it, but it's a wine commercial!

I have been a longtime fan and imitator of Alfred Hitchcock from day one. I opened up the file for "Key To Reserva" and I had to watch many times. As explained in the prologue, Martin Scorsese found some notes depicting a three minute scene from an unrealized Hithcock film called "The Key To Reserva". Scorsese decided to film the three minutes in the style of Hitchcock, basically the style of late 1950's Hitch ("The Man Who Knew Too Much", "North By Northwest", even "Torn Curtain") Not Marty style, Hitchcock style. Well, it was like Hitchcock came back from the grave (actually his ashes) and lensed this great piece. We have a hero in a blue business suit, ala Roger Thornhill, seek out a hidden key in an elegant theater box. It's pure Hitchcock, even down to the crazy Hitchcock logic (The key is hidden in a place that would be scientifically impossible. But we're watching Alfred entertainment us, not teach us.) Our villain hardly looks like a villain. He looks like anybody can mop the street with him, but watch it, still waters run deadly and deep. Throw in references to "Rear Window" "Notorious" "Saboteur" a Bernard Herrmann score, and you got one tasty cinematic snack!