An automobile race pilot down on his career finds a car which appears to have a mind of its own.
This silly movie has some identities with the Wacky Races cartoon which came out three months before it; it also seems to have influenced a horror novel (and subsequent film version) named Christine. But before all those, in 1965, there was a TV series (which I have no recollection of having ever seen) called My Mother the Car. The Love Bug has a serious theme buried under the supernatural and romantic antics which make for its surface plot: people like to think they "made" something which is simply the product of technology.
Rating: 36
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
An evil witch turns a prince into a baboon. A sea captain who is in love with the prince's sister helps getting the royal simian back into human shape.
Lazily written, lazily directed, a showcase for stop-motion animation sequences. Ridiculous in a marginally entertaining way.
Rating: 32
Lazily written, lazily directed, a showcase for stop-motion animation sequences. Ridiculous in a marginally entertaining way.
Rating: 32
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Gigi (1958)
Based on the novella by Colette (1st edition 1944).
Paris, beginning of the 20th century. A girl receives lessons in courtesanship from an aunt. A rich bachelor who is a friend of the family becomes her natural candidate for a first lover. This guy has an older friend who is also a bachelor and has collected many mistresses over the course of his past life.
The lyrics are mostly good and some are very good. The actors are all good, as far as I can remember. The screenplay is well constructed, within the constraints of sentimental musical drama. The spectacle side of it is attractive, even though the mise-en-scene is frequently simple.
Rating: 59 (this is one of a number of films which I have no record of having watched before, but probably have, at least a part of it anyway).
Paris, beginning of the 20th century. A girl receives lessons in courtesanship from an aunt. A rich bachelor who is a friend of the family becomes her natural candidate for a first lover. This guy has an older friend who is also a bachelor and has collected many mistresses over the course of his past life.
The lyrics are mostly good and some are very good. The actors are all good, as far as I can remember. The screenplay is well constructed, within the constraints of sentimental musical drama. The spectacle side of it is attractive, even though the mise-en-scene is frequently simple.
Rating: 59 (this is one of a number of films which I have no record of having watched before, but probably have, at least a part of it anyway).
Friday, February 10, 2012
The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958)
In the nineteenth century, the first consul of the U.S.A. in Japan is met with hostility and romances a geisha.
A perfectly mediocre film, about which I do not have anything of interest to say.
Rating: 38
A perfectly mediocre film, about which I do not have anything of interest to say.
Rating: 38
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Kidnapped (1960)
Based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson (1st published in 1886).
Scotland, the eighteenth century. After his father dies, David leaves his native city. He carries a letter written by his father to the latter's brother, to be delivered by David. But this is only the starting point to a series of adventures.
Coming-of-age here means finding out about one's duality, and the world's, Robert Louis Stevenson's perpetual theme. What meaning can these ancient monarchical rivalries hold to present audiences? Probably none, but perhaps that is the point: structure is placed above meaning. Does the film work these ideas out satisfactorily? Alas, I did not think so.
Rating: 42
Scotland, the eighteenth century. After his father dies, David leaves his native city. He carries a letter written by his father to the latter's brother, to be delivered by David. But this is only the starting point to a series of adventures.
Coming-of-age here means finding out about one's duality, and the world's, Robert Louis Stevenson's perpetual theme. What meaning can these ancient monarchical rivalries hold to present audiences? Probably none, but perhaps that is the point: structure is placed above meaning. Does the film work these ideas out satisfactorily? Alas, I did not think so.
Rating: 42
Monday, January 30, 2012
Hotel Atlântico (2009)
An actor takes some time away from work, wandering aimlessly from city to city. He encounters some people and gets into serious trouble.
A more or less inconsequential exercise in the bizarre or absurd or surreal, consisting of a series of sections each of which a transfiguration of a classical movie. Thus you have "The Morning After" in the episode with the woman on the bus, then "The Most Dangerous Game" with the psycho and his buddy, then "The Beguiled" in the small town, and then it all switches to a more lyrical tone in the last act, and you have "Midnight Cowboy". What is extraordinary is how, in a country where bad acting is the norm, this filmmaker has managed to assemble a set of absolutely correct performances.
Rating: 52
A more or less inconsequential exercise in the bizarre or absurd or surreal, consisting of a series of sections each of which a transfiguration of a classical movie. Thus you have "The Morning After" in the episode with the woman on the bus, then "The Most Dangerous Game" with the psycho and his buddy, then "The Beguiled" in the small town, and then it all switches to a more lyrical tone in the last act, and you have "Midnight Cowboy". What is extraordinary is how, in a country where bad acting is the norm, this filmmaker has managed to assemble a set of absolutely correct performances.
Rating: 52
Sunday, January 29, 2012
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
A journalist, aided by a hacker punkette, investigates, at the request of a millionaire, the disappearance of a girl a long time ago.
Quite silly and boring.
Rating: 15
Quite silly and boring.
Rating: 15
Saturday, January 28, 2012
J. Edgar (2011)
Momma's boy is spurred by her into becoming a big police chief. He modernizes libraries, then the police. Rejected by a girl at work, he turns to boys. His strange perversion is having meals with one of them. He wiretaps people in power. He becomes too powerful himself. His mother makes a speech, then dies. After his death, the girl who rejected him burns all his "private files".
A film consisting in alternating a man's old age with his own account of his youth. My opinion of it should be inferrable from the synopsis above, but, to spell it out, I frankly do not get what the precise point is, and the dialogue and dramatics follow recent standards of inverisimilitude and enigmatic patterns of behavior and emotionalism.
Rating: 28
A film consisting in alternating a man's old age with his own account of his youth. My opinion of it should be inferrable from the synopsis above, but, to spell it out, I frankly do not get what the precise point is, and the dialogue and dramatics follow recent standards of inverisimilitude and enigmatic patterns of behavior and emotionalism.
Rating: 28
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Descendants (2011)
A rich lawyer and landowner in Hawaii is legally pushed to selling his lands. Meanwhile, his wife is in a coma after a jet-skiing accident. He finds out she was having an affair. All that and he has two daughters to look after, whom he hasn't payed much attention to in the past.
An absurdly bad movie, almost totally devoid of storytelling interest and human understanding. The only bearable moments are when good old Beau Bridges brings his unfailing acting charisma to the screen (and, well, his part is well-written, which accounts for the "almost" above).
Rating: 25
An absurdly bad movie, almost totally devoid of storytelling interest and human understanding. The only bearable moments are when good old Beau Bridges brings his unfailing acting charisma to the screen (and, well, his part is well-written, which accounts for the "almost" above).
Rating: 25
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Our hero investigates a certain maharaja's theft of a sacred stone and some children.
Second viewing. It is a parody of ancient Hollywood trash and, to a certain extent, of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The fact that the franchise continued afterwards, and went back to a more serious tone, is interesting but not surprising.
Rating: 50 (unchanged)
Second viewing. It is a parody of ancient Hollywood trash and, to a certain extent, of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The fact that the franchise continued afterwards, and went back to a more serious tone, is interesting but not surprising.
Rating: 50 (unchanged)
Aquarela do Brasil (1942)
A short cartoon in which an American humanoid duck named Donald Duck meets a Brazilian humanoid parrot named José Carioca. The latter shows the wonders of his country to the former. The narrative is situated at one remove from the spectator, as the latter views a hand with a paintbrush draw the images on the screen. The levels of diegesis are deliberately confused, e.g., the water or a river is used as ink by the painter.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
In 1936, a U.S. archeologist looks for the Biblical covenant ark which is supposed to have extraordinary powers. The Nazis are looking for it too.
This is my second or third viewing. I am a little amazed that I used to admire this film. It is not extraordinary in any way. It is competently directed, but its screenplay leaves a lot to be desired. And what does the climactic scene (where, in order to survive, Jones and his girlfriend avoid looking at the ark's visual projections) tell us about the film's stance toward itself?
Rating: 52 (down from 75).
This is my second or third viewing. I am a little amazed that I used to admire this film. It is not extraordinary in any way. It is competently directed, but its screenplay leaves a lot to be desired. And what does the climactic scene (where, in order to survive, Jones and his girlfriend avoid looking at the ark's visual projections) tell us about the film's stance toward itself?
Rating: 52 (down from 75).
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Tati (1973)
Based on the short story "Tati, a Garota" ("Tati, the Girl"), by Aníbal M. Machado.
Manuela and her daughter Tatiana (Tati for short) move from her humble house to an apartment. Manuela is unmarried, and Tati is an impossible kid. Manuela works as a seamstress and Tati makes friends in their neighborhood. Manuela finds it hard to make ends meet and, to complicate things further, is pregnant again. A boat captain becomes attached to the two.
Not very good. It has obvious deficiencies of mise-en-scene, and is plagued by often inadequate vocal utterances. Carvana is miscast as a boat captain. The fact that the movie is almost invariably attributed an erroneous title in Brazilian film dictionaries is a dead giveaway that practically no one in that country has watched it.
Rating: 31
Manuela and her daughter Tatiana (Tati for short) move from her humble house to an apartment. Manuela is unmarried, and Tati is an impossible kid. Manuela works as a seamstress and Tati makes friends in their neighborhood. Manuela finds it hard to make ends meet and, to complicate things further, is pregnant again. A boat captain becomes attached to the two.
Not very good. It has obvious deficiencies of mise-en-scene, and is plagued by often inadequate vocal utterances. Carvana is miscast as a boat captain. The fact that the movie is almost invariably attributed an erroneous title in Brazilian film dictionaries is a dead giveaway that practically no one in that country has watched it.
Rating: 31
The Next Three Days (2010)
Based on the French film Pour elle (2008).
A man does everything he can to clear his wife of a murder conviction, and after all devices are exhausted he decides to break her out of prison.
A well-designed thrilling machine. The psychological angle was not disregarded.
Rating: 53
A man does everything he can to clear his wife of a murder conviction, and after all devices are exhausted he decides to break her out of prison.
A well-designed thrilling machine. The psychological angle was not disregarded.
Rating: 53
Friday, January 13, 2012
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Based on the novella "Dream Story" (Traumnovelle), by Arthur Schnitzler.
A New York doctor goes through some strange nocturnal adventures after his wife tells him about a sexual fantasy of hers.
Second viewing. It is a well-made movie, and a thoroughly enjoyable one, but the simple fact that it is based on a 1920s literary work makes the situations a little anachronistic. A few of the directorial choices are odd, to say the least, like 'Marion''s eye-rolling, but mostly the director has an intelligent way of handling the story and the characters.
Rating: 64 (unchanged)
A New York doctor goes through some strange nocturnal adventures after his wife tells him about a sexual fantasy of hers.
Second viewing. It is a well-made movie, and a thoroughly enjoyable one, but the simple fact that it is based on a 1920s literary work makes the situations a little anachronistic. A few of the directorial choices are odd, to say the least, like 'Marion''s eye-rolling, but mostly the director has an intelligent way of handling the story and the characters.
Rating: 64 (unchanged)
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