Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)

Synopsis: A white baby is washed ashore after a shipwreck and raised by ninjas. He grows up and gets involved with the mistress of a counterfeiter.
Appraisal: Basically a poor script and a lot of good actors. There are a few laughs (very few as I remember). The result doesn't quite amuse but somehow is seldom or never annoying.
Rating: 30

"Unseen Cinema: The Mechanized Eye" [DVD]

"Unseen Cinema" is a box of 7 DVDs with so-called avant-garde films made by Americans. This is the first of them, devoted to "Experiments in Technique and Form". The films are the following:
5 Paris Exposition Films (1900)—James White
Eiffel Tower from Trocadero Palace (1900)
Palace of Electricity (1900)
Champs de Mars (1900)
Panorama of Eiffel Tower (1900)
Scene from Elevator Ascending Eiffel Tower (1900)
Captain Nissen Going through Whirpool Rapids, Niagara Falls (1901)—creators unknown
Down the Hudson (1903)—Frederick Armitage & A.E. Weed
The Ghost Train (1903)—creators unknown
Westinghouse Works, Panorama View Street Car Motor Room (1904)—G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
In Youth, Beside the Lonely Sea (c. 1924-25)—creators unknown
Melody on Parade (c. 1936)—creators unknown
La Cartomancienne (The Fortune Teller) (1932)—Jerome Hill
Pie in the Sky (1934-35)—Nykino: Elia Kazan, Ralph Steiner & Irving Lerner
Travel Notes (1932)—Walker Evans
Oil: A Symphony in Motion (1930-33)—Artkino: M.G. MacPherson & Jean Michelson
Poem 8 (1932-33)—Emlen Etting
Storm (1941-43)—Paul Burnford
Portrait of a Young Man (1925-31)—Henwar Rodakiewicz

I have reviewed Portrait of a Young Man, In Youth, Beside the Lonely Sea, and La cartomancienne. My general appraisal of this DVD is: worth watching. The films are somewhat immature (some more than others), but most of them contain something interesting.

S.W.A.T. (2003)

Synopsis: After a rescue operation that succeeds with a few glitches, two S.W.A.T. members are demoted to indoor jobs, and one of them decides to quit. A new sergeant gives the one who stayed a chance to integrate his newly formed team. They have as their first task the transportation of a foreign drug lord.
Appraisal: I was expecting more from this film, given the possibilities that the subject matter offers. The film is marred by the excess of clichés and some tedious drill scenes. The action scenes are interesting but not outstanding.
Rating: 48

The Fourth Protocol (1987)

Synopsis: A Russian general plans to blow an atomic bomb in the American Military Base in England. He sends an ambitious and cold-blooded major to execute his plan.
Appraisal: Spy drama that entertains but is a bit formulaic and low on thrills.
Rating: 47

"Forensic Files" Unholy Alliance (2005)

*This synopsis contains spoilers*

A woman is reported missing by her husband. They both belong to a cult called "Apostolic Church" and were married by design of the pastor. The car was found at the parking lot of a convenience store, but she hadn't been seen inside. The police found tire tracks matching the husband's car at the place where the body was found, and also blood from the victim and the husband in a glove, and vegetation in the car from the place where the body was found. The husband had made an insurance on her wife's life. He had love affairs with both another cult follower and the pastor's wife.

Flashdance (1983)

Synopsis: A woman who works as a welder by day and as a dancer in a bar by evening dreams of becoming a ballet dancer.
Appraisal: Wonderfully filmed, but the screenplay is idiotic. Scenes that will go to the anthology of stupididity: (1) Alex dragging her friend out of the strip club -- and will she support her? Nah... (2) Alex throws a fit because her boyfriend made a phone call -- and gets out of the car in the middle of a tunnel...
Note: Saw it dubbed in Portuguese, but also constantly checked out the original dialogue in written form.
Rating: 46

Intacto (2001)

Synopsis: A man who was born with 'the gift' -- he steals other people's luck by touching them -- is the only survivor of a plane crash. He is proposed a deal by an insurance agent who had the gift once but lost it when he was touched by an old man who is 'doubly gifted': he can steal the luck from the gifted ones.
Appraisal: Very cold and mechanical. The execution is perfect, but the story isn't interesting enough. Echoes 'Unbreakable' and anticipates 'The Cooler'.
Rating: 36

What Women Want (2000)

Synopsis: After an accident, a man acquires the power to read women's minds. He uses his powers to outsmart the woman that took the position he coveted in the advertising company for which he works.
Appraisal: Entertaining comedy that starts very well as a comedy and loses some of its comedic edge as it goes along, becoming more dramatic and sentimental, but still retaining a good deal of its charm until the end. It gets a little repetitive at times, but that does not happen often enough to become annoying. The only thing I complain about is the excessive use of songs in the soundtrack; even though the selection is good-tasted, it is my opinion that music should be used in non-musicals with moderation and, preferrably, in the orchestral form.
Rating: 64

O Ano em que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias (2006)

English title: The Year My Parents Went on Vacation.
Synopsis: In 1970, Brazil was under a military dictatorship. A couple has to hide (there is no hint as to what exactly they are being persecuted for, but it is implicit that it's something considered subversive by the regime) and leaves their only son at his grandfather's (without checking first if he was at home -- I'm not kidding). Said grandfather had died moments ago and the boy is left at the care of the Jewish community living in the same building. It is the year of the soccer World Cup and the boy is a soccer fan.
*This comment contains spoilers*
Appraisal: If you read the above synopsis, you may have guessed what my first grudge about this movie is: the parents didn't check if the grandfather was there! It is the kind of thing that should prompt everyone in the audience to leave the cinema immediately -- c'mon, what kind of real people would drop their son in the sidewalk and leave, for Christ's sake -- but I was polite (and had no means of transportation to leave the mall...) so I remained until the end of the movie. Sadly, the film doesn't improve a bit afterwards. There isn't a single intelligent sequence or performance. Nothing. And now it is definitive: Brazil has officially become a branch of Hollywood, filmically speaking. Some of the worst vices in American cinema are present in this film, and I will give just a few examples: the boy has a sequence alone in which a jolly song in the soundtrack plays in the rhythm of his movements; in a party, a song is played and the boy starts dancing, which prompts every one in the room to start dancing too, in a most frenetic and contagious way; etc. Example of a stupid scene: the boy is starving, yet refuses the pie that the girl brought him -- of course, he will eat it later, he just doesn't want to show the girl that he has such lowly, shameful needs such as eating. Example of a stupid line: when the boy asks his mother about the whereabouts of his father, she answers 'your father is always late'; as if anyone remotely human would be trying for wit in a situation like that! Bottom line: this is an empty, superficial film, with cardboard characters, clichéd situations, and no imagination or cinematic skill.
Rating: 15

Species (1995)

Synopsis: A creature developed in a government lab from a combination of human and alien DNA escapes and is chased by a team of experts from various fields. She takes the form of a beautiful woman.
Appraisal: The screenplay of this sci-fi leaves much to be desired; the premise is completely absurd from a scientific standpoint; in purely narrative terms, it also has several flaws, such as the convenient inclusion of a psychic in the team, who tells the search party where to go next, and also reveals everyone's inner feelings ('He likes her, but is afraid to tell her'), much to the viewer's annoyance. There's also an anthropologist that doesn't get a chance to use his knowledge once, but will prove very important in the development of the story for an entirely different reason. One particular sequence aggravated me enormously, namely when the research leader refuses to let two members of the team leave a room where an alien is -- for no reason at all! That being said, the film is not entirely devoid of entertainment value; the plot is eventful enough, there are car chases, and a final sequence inside a sewer; the alien devises an ingenious manner of faking her own death.
Rating: 33

Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages (2000)

English title: Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys.
Synopsis: A young man throws a food wrapper on a beggar and is reprimanded by a man that watched him do it. These characters, plus some others related in some way to them, are examined in separate stories that follow that incident.
Appraisal: Separate stories with a unified theme, namely, the barriers that separate humans, be they racial, linguistic, national, generational, affective, socioeconomical, etc. The incident mentioned in the synopsis is ingeniously conceived and masterfully staged -- it would make for a lovely short film. The later development of the individual stories is painfully dull; the only exception is the sequence inside a subway train, which is, again, well staged and emotionally powerful. The film bears a thematic resemblance with the slightly superior Crash (2004/I).
Rating: 30

The Omega Code (1999)

Synopsis: A motivational speaker, young and brilliant, accepts the invitation to become a minister for a media-mogul-turned-chairman-of-the-European-Union. But the latter is an ambitious and unscrupulous man who has stolen an algorithm that can decode prophetic messages in the Bible.
Appraisal: It is a fact that Hitler read his own name in Nostradamus and that this reinforced his insane plans. This film has a similar premise, but here it has a difference in that it takes the prophecies seriously, and thus is as insane as its protagonist. It also resorts to supernatural in a matter-of-factly way -- people disappear and then reappear in a different place, wounds are healed instantaneously, people resurrect. It adheres to all the thriller conventions, but is totally incompetent in providing decent action or suspense.
Rating: 5

The Interpreter (2005)

Synopsis: A United Nations interpreter overhears a conversation that might signal that a certain African leader is in danger.
Appraisal: The one interesting thing about this film is the set-up of the premise of the film as a metaphor for a political dilemma. The metaphor concerns the question 'can you identify a whispering voice?' which comes about as the protagonist overhears a conversation and is requested to identify its authors. The clarification of the metaphor is done very near the ending, and is contained in the dedicatory of a book. This curious angle aside, this film is mostly an excrutiating series of improbabilities, be they political, emotional, or of a simpler kind, such as leaving a threatened politician alone in a room or discussing sensitive political stuff inside a crowded bus.
Rating: 20

P.S.: I saw it again on 2008, June 21, and, although I still don't exactly like it, this time I found it far from 'excruciating'. It's too conventional in structure, yet sort of fun to watch. Just don't think of it as a realistic picture and it will go down easier, exception made to when it gets down to the characters' more personal bits, which are definitely corny ('list of favorite words'? give me a break...).

The new rating is 40.

Eye for an Eye (1996)

Synopsis: A woman sees the man who raped and murdered her daughter walk away free because of a technicality and does not accept that fact.
Appraisal: An impeccable execution is not enough to hide this film's basic limitations, namely, its derivative plot and the predictability of its development. Still, it is solid enough as entertainment if you are not looking for something too original and groundbreaking.
Rating: 51

Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)

Synopsis: A Texas Ranger investigates the theft of arms from an Army convoy and finds that a powerful drug dealer is behind it.
Appraisal: This is a professionally made, conventional low-brow action film, but the pace is a little too slow for it to be called a thriller. The deification of the cop in the person of the title character -- most evident in the shot that shows him against the sunlight from below -- is emblematic of the reactionary wind that swept America -- and the world -- in the 80's.
Rating: 31

Hangfire (1991)

Synopsis: A tanker truck explodes sending toxic fumes toward a prison. The convicts have to be evacuated, and they take the occasion to evade. Led by a ruthless and vicious criminal, they install themselves in a small town, taking many hostages there.
Appraisal: A cheap, poorly staged, poorly acted actioneer. The screenplay is just the same old clichés: truculent feds are outsmarted by the local police, etc.
Rating: 19

Palavra e Utopia (2000)

English title: Word and Utopia.
Synopsis: The film addresses part of the life of António Vieira, a 17th century Portuguese priest that had an important political role during the reign of João IV (a period not shown in the film), and also did catechesis work on the Native Brazilians (none of which is shown in the film). After João IV dies, Vieira falls into disgrace and is chased by the Inquisition.
Appraisal: The film ignores Vieira's earlier years, during which he became a powerful figure. This was an error, in my opinion, as it gives the feel of watching a story without the beginning and also makes it hard to understand Vieira's full dimension as a political man. In fact, much of the film was hard for me to understand, but of course that must be partly attributed to my ignorance of Portuguese History, and also to my difficulty in understanding -- and at times even paying attention to -- Vieira's baroque texts. (Also, the subtitles for the Italian dialogue were clearly full of mistakes.) Anyway, the film is elitist and just pours Vieira's sermons and letters on the viewers, without shedding some light on them by way of drama or even voiceover. I don't think the story as it is told here holds much interest to modern audiences. Vieira's prophetic theories were really bizarre and would constitute laughing matter by today's standards -- even Catholic ones. There is some interest in the comparison with 'Anchieta, José do Brasil', which is a portrayal of another jesuit, and the realization of the changes that the Company went through -- from the opposition to the slavery of Natives and Blacks, motivated by its own interests in their conversion, to the eventual approval of such practices.
Rating: 31

Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991)

Synopsis: The son of the couple from 'The Blue Lagoon' is rescued by a ship after his parents die. A series of events takes him back to the island where he was born, along with a baby girl and her mother.
Appraisal: There are two main problems with this film: (1) the core of the plot is too similar to 'The Blue Lagoon'; (2) the rest of the plot is flimsy and unimaginative. The case against civilization is poorly made, having a greedy pirate and a love rival as its only pieces of evidence. As a consequence of that -- and of another fact that can hardly be missed -- the ending comes off as rather unconvincing. All that being said, I must be fair and say that the film is well photographed and well filmed -- every shot seems just about perfect, not only in an aesthetical sense, but also in a functional one. P.S.: Saw it dubbed in Portuguese.
Rating: 38

Cama de Gato (2002)

English Title: Cat's Cradle.
Synopsis: Three guys rape a girl and things spiral into even bigger tragedy.
Appraisal: The plot is moronic. The dialogue, well, here's a representative example -- a mother speaking to her son: "I know it is hard to get rid of your Oedipus complex." -- she wasn't joking and neither am I. The camerawork is also poor. The whole thing is embedded in a pretentious framework of interviews. The acting is not bad -- two of the guys are very good, the third one is not as good but does his job well enough (figure out by yourself who is who) -- they save the film from receiving a zero rating.
Rating: 12

Anchieta, José do Brasil (1977)

Synopsis: José de Anchieta was a jesuit priest that lived in the 16th century and spent the last four decades of his life in Brazil doing catechesis of the natives and serving as a kind of diplomat between native tribes.
Appraisal: Rather primitively staged -- a feature which appears to be intentional -- and excessively slow-paced at times, this filmed biography offers only a superficial glimpse at Brazil's history and at this particular man's life. Some of the dialogue is in a Brazilian Native language, without subtitles -- which makes it hard to figure out what goes on. Judging from this film, and also from some things I read on the Web, Anchieta favored gentle persuasion towards the natives and brute force (which included an execution) against Protestants. The permanently enraptured state that characterizes the leading actor's performance is probably misguided and would not convey the priest's real nuances of personality; in all fairness I have to say that he is not given much to work with scriptwise. Having myself been raised as a Catholic without ever really having understood much of the religion, I regard with amazement the devotion to Mary; in this film, Anchieta's devotion is so intense that I hypothesized that it was the sublimation of a Mother fixation or nostalgia of some kind; but either this has no factual substance or it was a phenomenon that affected not only him, as Anchieta's father was also a notorious devout of Mary. One detail that intrigued me concerns the fact that at the beginning of the movie Anchieta tells us in voiceover that his mother was of an 'indigenous' ethnicity (he was born in the island of Tenerife, off the coast of Africa) and that this was a common feature he shared with Native Brazilians. In fact it is now known that his mother was actually of Jewish origin, a fact that he would probably have hidden for fear of the Inquisition. Anyway, I don't know if the voiceover is based on Anchieta's actual writings, though I think it most probably is. In conclusion, I have found this film to be barely watchable; maybe with subtitles where needed my rating would be a little higher.
Rating: 31

"Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell & Kenyon" (2005) [DVD]

This is a collection of short films made by two English pioneers (see my review for "The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon", posted on November 11, 2006 for more information on them). The DVD contains short films made between 1900 and 1906, with an informative narration and music on the soundtrack. These are the films I saw: Youth and Education · Audley Range School, Blackburn (c.1901) · Special March Past of the St Joseph’s Scholars and Special Parade of St Matthew’s Pupils, Blackburn (1905) · Morecambe Church Lads’ Brigade at Drill (1901) · University Procession on Degree Day, Birmingham (1901) The Anglo-Boer War · Torpedo Flotilla Visit to Manchester (1901) · Lord Roberts’ Visit to Manchester (1901) · Lieutenant Clive Wilson and the Tranby Croft Party, Hull (1902) · Opening of the Drill Hall in Accrington by General Baden-Powell (1904) · A Sneaky Boer (1901) Workers · Messrs Lumb and Co Leaving the Works, Huddersfield (1900) · Pendlebury Colliery (1901) · 20,000 Employees Entering Lord Armstrong’s Elswick Works, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1900) · Alfred Butterworth and Sons, Glebe Mills, Hollinwood (1901) · Parkgate Iron and Steel Co., Rotherham (1901) · North Sea Fisheries, North Shields (1901) · Cunard Vessel at Liverpool (c.1901) High Days and Holidays · Whitsuntide Fair at Preston (1906) · Manchester Band of Hope Procession (1901) · Blackpool Victoria Pier (1904) · Leeds Athletic and Cycling Club Carnival (1902) · Dewsbury v Manningham (1902) · Sedgwick’s Bioscope Show Front (1901) · The Great Local Derby : Accrington v Church Cricket Match (1902) · Halifax Catholic Procession (c.1905) · Burnley v Manchester United (1902) · Sheffield United v Bury (1902) · Preston Egg Rolling (c.1901) People and Places · Living Wigan (1902) · Tram Ride into Halifax (1902) · Electric Tram Rides from Forster Square, Bradford (1902) · Jamaica Street, Glasgow (1901) · Ride on the Tramcar Through Belfast (1901) · Wexford Bull Ring (1902) · Manchester Street Scene (1901) · Panoramic View of the Morecambe Sea Front (1901).

Le transporteur II (2005)

English title: Transporter 2.
Synopsis: Some bad guys kidnap a boy and inject a deadly virus in him as part of an evil plan. The professional driver we'd already seen on 'The Transporter' saves the day.
Appraisal: Less fun than the first one. Script is more nonsensical, action sequences are uneven.
Rating: 47

The Transporter (2002)

Synopsis: A professional driver whose job is transporting stuff or people discovers during one job that his cargo is a Chinese woman. A series of incidents will bring the two together against a gang of slavers led by the girl's father.
Appraisal: Fairly good actioner that has a good leading actor, a beautiful actress, good action scenes, and a story that does not make much sense but is coherently structured and pacy.
Rating: 56

Pumpkin (2002)

Synopsis: Some college girls plan an sports competition with handicapped teenagers as a means to win the Sorority of the Year prize. When one of the girls falls in love with the boy she is supposed to coach, who is physically and mentally handicapped, she faces general opposition.
Appraisal: This film is not totally bad, but I simply did not see anything daring or innovative or unique in it, as it has been praised to be. It adopts cartoonish caricature as its basic style, and never lets go. It's watchable -- the script is coherent enough and there is a sort of liveliness to the whole proceeding -- but the fun wears out quickly and an overall feeling of pointlessness takes over. I couldn't help thinking that the behaviors and values its sarcasm is aimed at doesn't exist anymore in the USA. I could be wrong about that of course -- especially since I have never lived in the USA -- but my main objection is of a different nature. The last line in the film gives away the basic artificiality of the film's construction: the whole love plotline is merely a very implausible device used to make fun of sororities and mothers and hypocrisy in general. In short, it's another variation of something we have seen before, and a lackluster one at that.
Rating: 35

Pane e tulipani (2000)

English title: Bread and Tulips.
Synopsis: An Italian housewife, during a vacation trip with her family, is forgotten at a mall during a stop. She decides not to wait for them to come and fetch her, and, instead, to go home by herself, but she ends up doing something else.
Appraisal: Most of the time, this is an extremely boring film, that succumbs to the ineptitude of its writers. The instant when one of the characters introduces herself by saying 'Grazia Reginelli, aesthetician and masseuse!" was when I abandoned all hopes in it. Although the level of the acting is fairly good, and the score is intelligently used, nothing can save this film. The film wisely panders to the unhappily married women in the audience, and as a result it has enjoyed a huge -- considering that it did not rely on a big publicity campaign, but rather on word-of-mouth -- commercial success, especially in Brazil, prompting us to draw the conclusion that there are a lot of unhappily married -- and I should include here the ones who once were in this category -- women in the world, and more so in Brazil.
Rating: 28

Saw II (2005)

Synopsis: The son of a detective is locked up along with several other people in a house. The air system feeds poisonous gas into the building, giving the people two hours to live. The keys to the doors are hidden around the place, and inside a vault. A recording provides some clues that will help them get to the keys. Meanhwhile, the police interrogates a man who claims to be responsible for the kidnapping and imprisonment of those people.
Appraisal: There was no need for a sequel to the overrated 'Saw', let alone an uninspired one, as is the case. As with many other sequels, its plot is highly derivative from the first film; also, it doesn't make much sense much of the time, in terms of character behavior. It all amounts to gratuitous gruesomeness, without suspense or credibility.
Rating: 8

Orange County (2002)

Synopsis: A high school student who wants to go to Stanford to study to become a writer gets rejected because someone else's transcript was sent as his. He tries to revert the situation, causing a lot of turmoil.
Appraisal: This film is the perfect example of an eulogy of mediocrity. It has a self-referential structure -- the character's short story is the film itself -- which no doubt means that its screenwriter is happy to write mediocre stuff like this film. In fact, the script could have been written by a computer program -- everything is predictable and uninspired, although it rarely gets to be really annoying. Stanford should probably sue this movie as it portrays its students and staff as morons; it also suggests that this university will provide admissions for money -- a notion that, applying to American universities in general, seems to be very widespread and that, although I have never seen it denied, I could never be sure whether it is openly admitted or not.
Rating: 37

After Dark, My Sweet (1990)

Synopsis: An ex-boxer who has escaped from a mental institution hooks up with a sexy widow, and gets involved with her uncle's plot to kidnap a rich kid.
*The following contains spoilers*
Appraisal: I had already seen this film at a previous occasion, and did not like it much. After I saw that one critic had ranked it as the best film of 1990, I decided to give it another chance. I liked it slightly better on this second viewing, but it's definitely not the best film of 1990, not by a long shot. First off, the good things. The leading actor practically owns the movie, with his intense portrayal of 'Kid' Collins. It's a performance that one does not forget. Also, this film has one of the sexiest sex sequences (sorry for the alliteration) in the history of cinema. Aside from that, the film is worthy mainly for the dark mood, ably sustained throughout the whole movie: everyone may be trying to fool everyone else and no one can be trusted. The problem is that this mind game oscillates between fascinating and downright incomprehensible in what regards to character motivations and shifts of behavior. It adopts an elliptical style in which a lot has to be assumed without having been seen, and that may get a little frustrating. (The plot per se is simple, though; what is complex is what happens inside the characters's minds.) The ending, to give just one example, is quite puzzling, since the woman, who apparently was a deceitful crook who had earlier tried to beat the boy to a pulp (this was done offscreen, so it's an assumption), now was against murdering him (why?).
Rating: 55 (up from 48 on a previous viewing)

A Walk to Remember (2002)

Synopsis: He is a popular kid, to whom morals come second; she is the reverend's daughter, mocked at by the popular kids because of her clothes and her religion. Their paths cross at school.
Appraisal: **The following text contains spoilers**
I was a little disconcerted when I started watching this film. It seemed to represent a departure from the liberal values that were so dominant during the 90's in Hollywood. Well, I thought to myself, finally that silent majority that vote for the Republicans will have their adolescent sons and daughters see a film where their values are not dismissed. As the film proceeded I got more and more intrigued with possible interpretations for the plot of this movie. Let's start from the beginning. Landon is with his gang and a guy that wants to join in. Several events happen that lead to the guy getting injured -- he might have died. Landon thus gets in close contact with death, or specifically the possibility of a death to which he would have been an accomplice. This is certainly a traumatic occurrence for a young man, and it puts Landon's life in a crisis. To sort out this crisis, he must face death very closely, and this he does through Jamie, who is the personification of death. If the most obvious fact connecting her to death does not convince you of that, look at the parallels between Jamie's family and Landon's: Jamie lives with her father and her mother is dead, whereas Landon lives with his mother and his father is estranged but alive; furthermore, Landon's father is a cardiologist, and the heart is a symbol for life. The process in which Landon (life) will approach Jamie (death) is not an easy one, and many obstacles will have to be overcome. At this point, there is an important theme of the movie that is developed: nakedness. Like all adolescents, Landon belongs to a group because it offers shelter for him -- in other words, the group 'clothes' him; without the group he would be naked. But in order to face death, he must be stripped of these clothes, since death is nothing other than the baring of the soul from the body. Ergo, he must abandon his group in favor of Jamie. But Jamie, aside from being a symbol for death, is also a character, so she has clothing issues of her own, like any character. The theme of clothing is made explicit in regard to her: she is the most fully dressed of all the students in the school, and the other students must somehow undo this, so they do a computer assemblage of her face with someone's naked body -- they, too, have stripped her. Another theme of the movie is faith, and it is somehow related with Landon's crisis, since he states at one point that he doesn't believe in God because 'there's too much bad shit in the world' (quoted from memory, so expect inaccuracies). The realization that he might be a part of that 'bad shit' leads him to a relationship with death -- Jamie -- that would somehow restore his faith in God, if only Jamie's father 'has faith in him'. Here, faith in God and faith in Man are equated, which may sound like a revolutionary concept, but actually has its roots in the old gnostic belief that Man has the Divinity within himself. Furthermore, Jamie's father stands as a symbol of God, and the Bible as his code; Jamie's mother stands as a symbol of Mankind, and her book of quotations as its code, including in it everyone from Aristotle to a famous country singer. The step that proclaims the identity of Life and Death is realized through Landon and Jamie's wedding. The ending is deeply symbolic too, with Landon turning the book of quotations over to the preacher -- thus establishing a link between Mankind's wisdom and God.
(Addendum: All of the above is a joke.)

The following text is serious. This RIDICULOUS film is made almost unbearable by the relentless insertion of songs in the soundtrack.

Rating: 18

Melinda and Melinda (2004)

Synopsis: Two stories unfold with a similar premise: an unexpected woman butts in at a dinner party; one story is tragic, the other comic.
Appraisal: This is my second viewing of this film (my previous review was posted on this blog on June 30, 2006). I had to see it again because I was very tired when I first saw it, fighting sleep all the way through, and I thought that might have reflected on my poor rating. In fact, that was the case: this is not a bad movie, although the artificiality in character construction was correctly pointed out. On the other hand, the lack of visual brilliance was incorrectly criticized, I see it now: the film was strikingly well shot and designed, though I don't know whether this was the director's work or the cinematographer's and the production designer's (caveat: my appreciation of the camerawork is approximate at best because I saw it both times in a pan-and-scan version). I still maintain that the film bears little or no connection with anybody's real life, Manhattanite or not, but its cerebralism is engaging and reveals an apt storyteller.
Rating: 60 (up from 14, shame on me...)

Groove (2000)

Synopsis: A guy, helped by his friends, organizes a rave party at an unoccupied house. At and around this party, interesting things will happen and several people will interact.
Appraisal: Not much happens in this movie, but it is still nice to watch, as it is well directed and edited. Another virtue of the film is that, although there are several characters and they are not given that much dialogue, they are reasonably well defined.
Rating: 52

La teta y la luna (1994)

English Title: The Tit and the Moon.
Synopsis: When his baby brother is born, 10-year-old Tete gets very jealous of her mother's milk. He views Estrellita, a fairground performer who has just arrived in town with her husband, as a substitute for his mother. Tete's teenage brother, in his turn, falls in love with Estrellita, which arouses her husband's jealousy.
Appraisal: The concept of this film is interesting, and presents a unique view of childhood. Unfortunately, the execution leaves much to be desired -- it's a film with some interesting parts that don't make a strong whole. One of the main flaws of the film is lack of subtlety -- everything is not only shown many times, but is also described with voiceover or dialogue. The development of the plot is often trite and unimaginative; also, the ending struck me as being at odds with the fact that the boy's obsession with women's tits and milk signals a regression into early childhood, rather than a progression towards adolescence and liberation from his childish fears -- except there is a possibility that this is more complex than I naively assume, and in this case what is really implied by the ending is that his regressive obsession is transmuted into sexual desire, which marks his passage into adolescence and his liberation from his childish fears (it sounds at once brilliant and far-fetched).
Rating: 41

Nuit d'été en ville (1990)

English Title: Summer Night in Town.

Synopsis: A couple on a one-night stand have a long talk after sex, about their pasts, personalities, and projects for the future -- might these include each other?

Appraisal: A man and a woman meet, say, in a bar, and decide to go to the apartment of one of them and have sex. And after sex, the film begins: it consists exclusively of a conversation between the two. This conversation is not supposed to be realistic, I guess; one does not behave like this in real life, and if they did, they wouldn't be talking like these two people talk. But one can interpret this conversation as symbolic of what goes on in their minds, the inner process that culminates in what is commonly referred to as falling in love. Said like that, it would appear as though this film is a work of genius. The actual experience of watching it, though, was less than satisfactory for me. I am not exactly sure why it was so, and maybe there was more than one reason. First, a film consisting exclusively of two people talking inside an apartment is bound to become tiresome eventually. Second, and probably more serious, these characters didn't get through to me -- maybe I don't buy the whole meet-have-sex-fall-in-love scheme; or maybe I found the poetic style of the dialogue to be a little too affected for a film. Or perhaps these are not characters at all but only abstractions, and I am simply too much of a philistine to appreciate it.

Rating: 31

"The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon" (2005) [TV-series]

James Kenyon and Sagar Mitchell were two English filmmakers of the beginnings of cinema. They made documentary one-reelers featuring common people or social events (they also made a few short fiction films); these films were shown at fairgrounds or city halls. They made films between 1897 and 1913 and then went back to their original line of work -- photography. They stored the hundreds of films they made in metal containers where they remained for decades until in 1994 they were found in a basement in Blackburn, Lancashire, and handed over to a local film historian who then gave them to the British Film Institute who restored them and stored them in a safe place. This documentary is divided in three chapters of one hour each. The first, named 'Life and Times', shows images of common people and the streets of English cities in the beginning of the century. The second, 'Sport and Pleasure', depict football and rugby matches and the people watching them as well as other leisure activities; in the last one, 'Saints and Sinners', we see religious processions, immigrants on ships, some fiction films, military events, etc. The show host has done a research job of identifying places and people in the films and tracking down their descendants. By all accounts, this TV series is a fascinating spectacle, which moved me beyond words.

Storytelling (2001)

Synopsis: (1) 'Fiction': A Literature student is dumped by her boyfriend and classmate; she goes out the same night and runs into her Creative Writing teacher. (2) 'Nonfiction': A struggling documentary maker is making a film about Scooby, who is in his senior year in high school and doesn't want to go to college despite his father's pressure for him to apply.
Appraisal: This film may seem a little harsh on its characters and many people have criticized the filmmaker for this; for me, it is his best quality; remember Gide - "c'est avec les bons sentiments qu'on fait la mauvaise littérature", something along the lines of "it's with good feelings that one makes bad literature" -- "good feelings" here meaning feelings of the sappy type, hypocrisy, etc. The first story is frankly caricatural -- there is the moron, the lesbian, the teacher's pet, the prude, etc. On a superficial look, the moral of this first segment seems to be that people won't recognize a true story when they see one, because they are blinded by their beliefs or prejudices. But I also think that the professor is right: 'when you put it down on paper, it becomes fiction', so it matters less whether it really happened than whether it's rendered with technique, style and inventiveness. The second segment deals with the making of a documentary, so credibility is not an issue here. Of course there is the ethical issue of exploitation, and this may be the central issue here, but I think another point that is implied is that documentaries shouldn't be regarded as 'true' (or even 'truer' than fiction) simply because they have real people and events in them; after all, films, even documentaries, are necessarily partial. We know a lot about this family that won't make it to the documentary, so it will present a partial, perhaps even distorted view of the family, one that, as we see in the preview session, will serve the purpose of reinforcing the pre-existent opinions and prejudices of its audience, rather than informing them and opening their minds to something they didn't know before. But it must be said that there is much more to this second segment than the documentary-making subplot; the family is quite interesting in itself.
Rating: 65

Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Synopsis: Bubby is raised as a prisoner in his own house by an abusive mother, who tells him that the air outside is poisonous. One day his estranged father returns home.
Appraisal: The first act of the movie -- that is, up until the point when Bubby leaves his house -- is really interesting and original. A good idea would be to release the film with that first act only. It would have been a good film and a continuation to the story would be rather unnecessary. But, of course, they wouldn't do that, since a feature length film has so much more prestige -- not to mention commercial potential -- than a short film. And the result is that the film has two very unequal parts: a good, occasionally brilliant first act, and a mediocre, slightly amusing at best, second act (that is, the rest of the movie). Act One shows Bubby in his surrealistic nightmare of a home, depicting the way a family would be when deprived of the faintest veneer of civilization. Act Two shows Bubby in the difficult process of fitting in with the outside world, and the way his uneducated condition initially poses a barrier to his adjustment, until he finds the right crowd and the right occupation. The way his very limitations become a factor in his success bears some resemblance with 'Being There'.
Rating: 55

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Synopsis: On Halloween's eve, a dangerous patient escapes during his transfer between psychiatric institutions. He had killed several members of his family and several other people ten years before, and now decides to seek and kill his 7-year old niece. The psychiatrist that had been in charge of him tries to prevent him from doing that.
Appraisal: While it must be said that the plot of this horror film is seriously derivative, it is still mildly entertaining due to its fairly well written script and some intelligent set-pieces. Not all sequences are well staged though; for example, when the killer climbs on the back of a truck full of people, he goes incredibly unnoticed as he proceeds to killing one by one of them.
Rating: 40

The Rocketeer (1991)

Synopsis: Just before World War II, a gadget is built that consists of a pair of small rockets mounted on an armour that is supposed to be worn on a man's back and allow him to fly. A gang of hoodlums gets hold of this gadget and is chased by the FBI; one of the hoodlums hides it inside a small racing airplane, and it is found by a young aviator, who then gets involved in the the frantic race for the device.
Appraisal: Good entertainment, appropriately toned down for the consumption of people of all ages. It is pacy and well photographed, and features some good (though not extraordinary) action sequences. It will appeal to nostalgic viewers and also to kids with no knowledge of the 30's. Its major flaw, in my opinion, is its excessive insipidness.
Rating: 57

The Wings of the Dove (1997)

Synopsis: Kate is poor but has a rich aunt who wants to find her a respectable husband. She however is in love with a journalist. When rich heiress Millie comes along and falls for said journalist, Kate concocts a plan.
Appraisal: Based on one of Henry James's later novels, it addresses the problems of a class that has to engender all sorts of schemes in order to satisfy their natural need for love and simultaneously maintain a lavish lifestyle without having to work for it. The plot, besides being more than a little dated, is of a contrived sort that is not exactly my cup of tea; the film has nevertheless many elements that contribute to make it palatable. (1) it was written with refinement, building credible characters and shedding some light into the social dynamics of the beginning of the century; (2) it was directed with sufficient competence, and everything seems to be at the right place at the right time, including the camera; (3) the actors are at ease within their characters; (4) the actress that plays 'Kate' is more than at ease; she delivers an unforgettable performance, perfect in every detail.
Rating: 68

Toutes peines confondues (1992)

Synopsis: A murder in a small Swiss town puts local detective Vade in contact with drug dealer Gardella, son of the victims. The Interpol invites Vade to work for them. Vade is assigned with spying on Gardella, who in turn tries to corrupt him.
Appraisal: This film starts with rapid editing, and goes on like this until it sets up the central situation, which is that of a cop infiltrated in a gangster's house and taking an interest in the latter's wife, while at the same time having to report on what he sees to his Interpol boss. From then on, it takes on a more leisurely pace, while acquiring some mildly erotic undertones. The filmmaker, through a cold-as-ice mise-en-scene, strips the film of its suspense, thus making it hard for the viewer to develop more than a superficial interest in its story. The score consisting of Shostakovich's String Quartets creates an oppressive atmosphere that, however, seems to hover over a void. I ended up with the impression that this film was something of a potboiler (pop star in the leading role; some female nudity), without much artistic ambition.
Note: the title translates as 'all sentences to run concurrent' -- I don't know what relation this bears to the film's plot.
Rating: 43

The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)

Synopsis: Jack lives with his daughter Sarah on a semi-inhabited island where he had a hippie commune going in the sixties. He is worried that a housing project being built on the island will compromise its natural equilibrium. Jack is sick and doesn't expect to live long, so he invites his lover and her two sons to live with him and Sarah in the hope that Sarah will get along with them and have some connection with the outside world.
Appraisal: Presumably intended as a melancholic requiem for the hippie ideals of the sixties, this film is loaded with schematism in its plot and characters. Despite this, there are some interesting things being said about sexuality and the consequences of human isolation; if only they could have made it a little less contrived, it might have achieved greatness. Here are some examples of what I am talking about: (1) the change operated on the main character after a certain key event in the movie -- from ultraliberal hippie to Victorian paterfamilias -- is less than believable; (2) the whole check-writing stuff is also quite unbelievable: that is not the way people do things. In both cases, I know that the filmmaker is trying to show some things about these characters, but she should have found more reasonable ways to do it. The film also has some interruptions in the narrative where we see a character brooding, generally against a bucolic landscape, and invariably to the sound of a pop song. Needless to say, these moments of self-indulgence add nothing important or even interesting to the movie, on the contrary. The film's strongest asset is the leading actor; whatever lack of depth is there in the script, his performance makes up for it -- and then some. As a matter of fact, the whole cast delivers worthy performances, and I guess this should be credited partially to the director's work.
Rating: 65

Made (2001)

Synopsis: Bobby and Ricky are two-bit boxers with opposite personalities -- one is serious and quiet, the other is expansive and more than a little obnoxious. They take on a job of "supervising" a money delivery for a gangster.
Appraisal: 'Made' is entertaining enough so viewers are likely to overlook its greatest flaw: it is uncertain as to whether it wants to be a realistic drama or an over-the-top comedy. Its comedic aspect relies heavily on character 'Ricky' and his outrageous behavior and lines; it is generally funny, but, since it is basically a one-joke scheme, it sometimes veers dangerously close to becoming as obnoxious as the character himself.
Rating: 57

Brucio nel vento (2002)

English Title: Burning in the Wind.
Synopsis: A hungarian immigrant in Switzerland meets an acquaintance from his childhood years who has a bond with him that is known only by him.
Appraisal: The weakest point of this film's plot is that Tobias's obsession with Line has very poorly explained motivation; also, his stalking behavior seems quite absurd. Once one accepts it, it's not so hard to watch the movie. It's very well directed and the actor that plays Tobias has a strong cinematic presence, put to good use by the director. But don't kid yourself, this is a melodrama, thinly disguised by some literary flourishes provided by the reading in voiceover of some of Tobias's writings. After I read a very concise biography of the author of the source novel, the film's plot struck me as a woman's fantasy about her past. Tobias's character has very little human consistency into him -- he is probably a projection of the novelist's frustrations and sufferings relating to her past. In fact, the only character closely resembling a real person here is Janek, Tobias's friend who is always hungry. This film's flaw, to put it shortly, is that it has shallow characters, and perhaps the filmmaker is conscious of this, since he, in a sort of faulty act probably, has recurrently displayed a certain type of event in the movie that works finely as a metaphor for shallowness and unachievement; I won't reveal it here because it would be a spoiler.
Rating: 50

About Schmidt (2002)

Synopsis: A man retires from his job in an insurance company. Soon after that, his wife dies. He decides to drive his R.V. and visit some places.
Appraisal: This one is very hard to comment upon without falling into commonplace (acting was great, etc.) or gibberish (how sad it was, yadda yadda). It is primarily a character study, which is not a bad thing for a film to be, but not a great thing either. I think it makes a good point by showing that Schmidt is pitiful but not much more so than most of the charaters in the film. Better yet, it hints that what is killing this man, robbing him of his life, of his happiness, of his freedom, is the kind of values he grew up with, his prejudices, everything that has been hammered into his head since he was very little. Take, for example, the line where Schmidt expresses his admiration for Bill Cody, buffalo slayer and clown. It's plain obvious that the tragedy is not that Schmidt hasn't "achieved anything great", but that, were he to achieve it, it probably wouldn't be something good, since his values are twisted and petit-bourgeois -- his model of a great achiever is the man who helped decimate the population of American bison! On another, related, plane, the film undoubtedly succeds in delivering the message that people will reap what they sow in the first place. Too bad this is such a disputable message -- the world is not a fair place, that boy in Africa standing as a pretty good example.
Rating: 66

Yesterday (2002)

Synopsis: A detective whose son had been kidnapped some time ago and a criminal psychologist whose father has also been kidnapped investigate the possible link between these crimes and a series of murders of scientists; they uncover a strange revenge plot having to do with medical experiments conducted thirty years previously.
Appraisal: I found it impossible to understand the details of this plot. Most of the lines are spoken in Korean, and the subtitles that were shown in Brazilian channel Telecine were apparently full of errors (if not, this film is insane -- what the fuck has Nijinsky to do with all this? And a guy who has 'soap dish addiction'??). Even without the errors, I am honest to say that I would still have problems understanding parts of it. Hell, even the action scenes were hard to figure out at times. Well, never mind. The fact is: it is technically very accomplished, but I found it exceedingly dull.
Rating: 21

[Politics] How to Be a Filmmaker in Brazil

One Brazilian film actor/director has recently caused an uproar of sorts with his statement (stolen from Jean-Paul Sartre's play "The Dirty Hands") that "one doesn't make politics without getting one's hands dirty", issued apropos the recent scandals involving President da Silva's Workers' Party. The uproar is justified, but it is important to decode the statement; its real meaning is "in Brazil one doesn't make cinema without getting one's nose dirty".

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

Synopsis: In 1999, the ozone layer is almost destroyed. Scientists come up with a device that replaces it with an artificial shield. The side effect is that it blocks all light from the Sun. In 2024, the company that installed the shield and maintains it is a megacorporation with almost unlimited power. A group of rebels finds out that the corporation owners may be withholding important information that would jeopardize their business. The leader of the rebels seeks help from one of the builders of the shield -- a man from another planet who has immortality powers that come and go according to complicated rules.
Appraisal: This film has several plot weaknesses in addition to its ridiculous premise. The dialogue has a few inspired moments, and the action is not so badly staged, so I guess it would be wrong to call the film dreck, but I think all of us deserve better. [Note: I have seen the shorter version; a director's cut has also been released which is longer.]
Rating: 17

Addams Family Values (1993)

Synopsis: The Addams couple has their first baby. They hire a nanny who is a serial killer of rich husbands; her target is Fester. She convinces Gomez and Morticia to send Pugsley and Wednesday to a summer camp so they won't spoil her plans.
Appraisal: A film suffering from multiple personality disorder: one is a Hollywood PG-13 movie with a glossy production design and funny special effects, the other is a satire of American institutions with a relentless compulsion for sarcastic dialogue. The obvious metaphor is Frankenstein's monster, who was made from pieces from several different persons and could not function properly -- in this case we have, on one side, a writer that is visibly trying to put some outrageousness into the screenplay; and, on the other side, a director and, I presume, a studio that prefer a more well-behaved, blander format, with an emphasis on sophisticated visuals. This film is to be avoided, unless you have a fisherman's soul and therefore enjoy spending hours through nonsense just for that funnier piece of dialogue.
Rating: 28

"Forensic Files" Marked for Life (2005)

Synopsis (CONTAINS SPOILERS): El Segundo, California, 1957. Two couples are making out inside a car when a man approaches with a gun pointed at them. He robs them, rapes one the women, flees in their car, crosses a red light, is stopped by a police car, gets out of the car, shoots both policemen. He escapes after being hit by a bullet from one of the policemen. Both policemen die. The car is found, there are two partial fingerprints on the wheel, they are of the same finger, they are joined to form a complete fingerprint, no match is found anywhere. In 1960, a man finds the gun in his back yard. They locate the place of purchase, and the form filled and signed by the purchaser. No one by the name in the signature has a matching fingerprint. In 2002, a woman reports on her uncle who was bragging about being the perpetrator. His fingerprint doesn't match the one they had. They decide to scan their entire database since it's all done by computer now. They find a match, it's a guy arrested for burglary in 1956, he didn't come up in 1957 because the data from South Carolina was not in the national database then. They find the guy, he does not have any criminal record after that 1956 crime, he has a wife and kids now. He is arrested, his handwriting is compared to the one in the form the killer had filled at the arms store, they're nearly identical, he still has the mark from the bullet wound. He pleads guilty.

Happy, Texas (1999)

Synopsis: Two escaped convicts impersonate a couple of homosexual child pageant coaches.
Appraisal: Formulaic comedy that is mildly entertaining but has really not much imagination or boldness. Everything goes by the book: there is romance, car chases, someone is revealed to be a homosexual who doesn't fit the usual profile, etc. The actors are fine, which helps.
Rating: 44

The Shining (1980)

Synopsis: A man gets a job of taking care of a hotel in Colorado during the winter, when there will be nobody there; he takes his wife and kid along with him.
Appraisal: It's my second viewing of this film, the first in 25 years. I adored it when I watched it for the first time, and I still adore it after the second viewing, but my appreciation is entirely different. It's funny that most reviewers on IMDb love the film, but take it at face value, ignoring its apparent inconsistencies as minor slips of the filmmaker. Those that don't reject it entirely. To my former self, and to those hundreds of admirers, 'The Shining' is a horror movie, designed to scare, and successful at that. I can't possibly accept that now. As a horror movie, 'The Shining' could only please the most undemanding viewer, as it consciously and consistently plays against genre rules, to the degree of looking like a parody, which it certainly isn't, provided one watches it with an eye to symbolism and multiple layers of subtext. One of the keys to the reading of this film is a psychoanalytical one, where the hotel is in reality Jack's mind, and Jack, his wife, and his kid are actually different aspects of the same person; if you like freudian terminology, you can think of Jack as the Id, his wife as the Superego, and his son as his Ego. Another subtext is the one unveiled by one Bill Blakemore in this article. I found it very insightful and probably true in its essence, but I think the genocide of Native Americans is a "trigger" rather than the main theme of the film. I prefer to think of the film as an assertion that establishes a link between political issues and psychological ones. In other words, the film tries to build a bridge between War and Violence on one side and the structure of the human brain, which is based on a perpetual inner conflict wherein the Id battles the Superego over the possession and eventual annihilation of the Ego, on the other. There is this FAQ that mentions yet another fascinating interpretation or layer, having to do with McLuhan's theories of media.
Rating: 80 [a favorite of mine, 9th position in 1980]