Buzz (2005)

Description: Documentary about the life and career of screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides. For anyone who is interested in how pictures are made.

Supernova (2000/I)

Synopsis: A spaceship answers a distress call from a distant planet, and upon getting there they encounter a man who has found a strange object which has rejuvenating powers.

Appraisal: Science-fiction with some thematic resemblance with the film which I saw just prior to it. This one is watchable but no big deal, being preceded by many films with similar ideas.

Rating: 36

The Fountain (2006)

Synopsis: A medical researcher investigates cancer in the hope of finding a cure for his wife. Meanwhile, the latter writes a novel about the search for the mythical tree of life in pre-colombian Central America.

Appraisal: Worthless "epic" drama which is highly recommended for masochists. Along with this one, there has been a flurry of films about personal power released in 2006 (The Illusionist, Perfume), all of them very unhealthy. I wonder if I should worry.

Rating: 15

Ging chaat goo si 4: Ji gaan daan yam mo (1996)

Englisht title: Police Story 4: First Strike.

Synopsis: A Hong Kong cop gets involved in an international affair of illegal trading of nuclear weapons, in Ukraine and Australia.


Appraisal: Fairly entertaining spy comedy, with several top-notch action sequences and some well choreographed fights.

I watched a dubbed in Portuguese version.

Rating: 55

Nick of Time (1995)

Synopsis: A man is blackmailed into killing a politician, or else his daughter will be killed.

Appraisal: Very well filmed suspense story. It's really worthwhile to watch a movie in which every filmic resource is used to greatest effect, even though it is obvious that the plot per se, although not unmeritorious, has modest ambitions. 24 (the TV series) has the same central situation, in its first season (2001). Red Eye (2005) is a variation.

Rating: 56

The Killer Elite (1975)

Synopsis (mild spoilers): Two guys work for a private agency who protects important people and kills undesirable ones. One of their operatives receives a higher bid and switches sides; in the process, he shoots his best pal, wounding him seriously. The latter recovers from his injuries and is offered a job to protect a foreign politician; the job entails him the opportunity to get revenge on his ex-partner.

Appraisal: It is blatantly unrealistic in its layout (e.g. the hero and his sidekicks are totally unconvincing as an invincible team) and in the devices employed to drive the action (e.g. the politician's daughter who takes a stroll when there are killers on the prowl outside). There is a certain degree of enjoyability to it, though; the performances are good, the action sequences are well directed, etc. It is my second viewing, with the rating slightly raised.

Rating: 38 (up from 25)

The Golden Child (1986)

Synopsis: A superpowerful kid is kidnapped by an evil entity, who wants to destroy it. A guy in Los Angeles whose occupation is locating missing children is summoned by a woman linked to the magic kid to find him and rescue him.

Appraisal: The judeo-christian concept of a messiah is superimposed on the Tibetan buddhist culture to produce this comic adventure; it is well filmed and kind of entertaining, particularly so an interesting dream sequence; the humor is uneven, ranging from moderately funny to embarrassingly unfunny (the low point being perhaps the 'viva Nepal' scene at the airport).

Rating: 30

Hombre mirando al sudeste (1986)

English title: Man Facing Southeast.

Synopsis: A man appears in a psychiatric institution claiming to be from another planet.

Appraisal: The film sheds some light on the legend of Jesus, viewed in connection with the concept of mental sanity, both in its individual and collective forms. The analysis is correct but incomplete; it would take a brutally honest filmmaker to investigate this kind of phenomenon (I mean Messianism, not extraterrestrials) in a really powerful way. The premise was reused in K-PAX (2001), to even dismaler results.

Rating: 40

Nacho Libre (2006)

Synopsis: A Mexican friar dreams about becoming a professional wrestler.

Appraisal: The primitive humor is possibly suitable for children between 4 and 6. The cinematography and some of the production design are interesting.

Rating: 11

Sin City (2005)

Synopsis: Several stories involving crime and violence. A cop stops a maniac from raping an 11-year-old girl. An ugly man sleeps with a beautiful woman and she is killed while he is asleep. He goes after the killer, who is an extremely nimble fighter. A fugitive from the law chases a woman beater and his goons down to a part of town ruled by prostitutes.

Appraisal: This is a humoristic work in its textual aspect, of a shallow kind that does not preclude enjoyment. The grotesque situations and dialog are subordinated to arresting, rigorously stylized images, resulting in a film that precisely attains its tone and sticks to it. It is comic-book fun, cinematically translated, for the eternal adolescent male.

Rating: 67

Author! Author! (1982)

Synopsis: A playwright is left by his wife; she leaves her many children with him. He has also one of his own. He is beginning the production of his play.

Appraisal: The text, although a bit uneven, has some enjoyable moments and succeeds at showing some aspects of modern life like parenting and divorce, and the particulars of the profession of playwright. The direction is really perfect, ensuring that every actor, including the little ones, is very much at ease in every scene.

Rating: 50

Inland Empire (2006)

Appraisal (spoilers): After two viewings, I still haven't got the story right, that is if there really is one to start with. I have read dozens of theories, but I found none of them half satisfying. Therefore, I must judge this movie as a collage around some central ideas, in which strict logical and causal sense is not alway obeyed. The central themes, on a superficial analysis, seem to be Prostitution, Hollywood, Adultery, and Murder. The film's layout and structure seem to mimic the human mind, a notion previously used in The Shining (1980) (a scene of which is quoted in it) and As Deusas (1972). Several clues point to a two-way interaction, or even an exchange of roles, between real characters and imaginary ones, or maybe between dream and reality, as in Lewis Carroll's famous quandary in "Through the Looking Glass" in which he proposes that we might be somebody's dream, and wonders "what if he left off dreaming?".
Here are the clues:
--the announcer at the end of Marilyn Levens's show says: "where stars make dreams and dreams make stars"; notice how this apparently innocent sentence could be understood in a way that fits the strange theory of mutual interaction between Reality and Fiction.
-- when 'Kingsley' is explaining what happened in the Polish film he says "after the characters had been filming for some time". See? He doesn't say "after the actors had been filming", which would be the reasonable thing, but "after the characters had been filming", which is really odd. He goes on to say, in the same sentence, "they discovered something... inside the story. (...) The two leads were murdered!". Why "inside the story"? How can something "inside the story" affect the real world in any way? Now look at the whole sentence, all in one piece, and reordered: "the characters discovered that the leads were murdered, inside the story". Now, I am not sure what all this means, if anything; it could be that the characters are conscious entities, and suddenly the people who give them life (the leads) disappear; then what? ("what if he left off dreaming?"). And all this comes from the mouth of a character in IE, which is weird too.
-- The 'Phantom' character is looking for an "opening" and is seen both inside the OHIBT movie and outside of it. He is said to be able to disappear.

Well, these are consistent clues, but I'm still a long way from deciphering the dozens of riddles in this film. Anyway, the film succeeds partially at best, in my opinion; it is funny at times, and it establishes a mood that occasionally gets absorbing; it does, however, veer into self-indulgence and self-parody at quite a few occasions. It is unlikely that my opinion would be radically different had I deciphered all this apparent mess into a coherent plot or meaning of some sort; there is a level of obscurity beyond which Narrative Art ceases to be aesthetically efficient as such, and I suspect Inland Empire has crossed that line.

Rating: 47

Kippur (2000)

Synopsis: Israel, 1973, during the Yom Kippur war. Two guys go out seeking their outfit, riding in their old car. They are strayed from their purpose by an encounter with a medic, and eventually join a rescue team. They roam the battlefield in a helicopter, looking for wounded soldiers, whom they carry back to be treated.

Appraisal: The emphasis here is on realism, not shying away from repetitiveness and occasional static, uneventful shots. The dreariness of the events and landscape is accentuated. Dullness inevitably sets in, and the most intimate moments are perhaps the hardest to bear. Most critics appear to have seen a masterpiece; deserts are known to cause mirages.

(The copy I watched was dubbed in French.)

Rating: 38

Diner (1982)

Synopsis (spoilers): Several young guys and girls in Baltimore, 1959, and their little stories or simply their character traits, are depicted. Eddie is about to get married but he says he will only do it if his fiancée passes a test about football trivia. Boogie is a compulsive gambler who makes a bet he can't cover for; he also bets on his sex achievements towards his dates. Fenwick is immature and impredictable: he breaks window panes with his bare hand, plays pranks on his friends, lies down on Christ's manger in a stable, etc. Plus other minor characters and incidents.

Appraisal (spoilers): Most characters seem obsessed with popular culture -- one is a football fanatic; the other is a popular music collector and connoisseur who scolds his wife for disarraying his records; a very minor one has memorized all lines in a movie; and so on. It's probably good that the movie shows this phenomenon -- which today is possibly even more prevalent -- in what appears to be its beginnings; this, coupled with male bonding, forms a type of urban culture which the film evokes with affection not devoid of sharper comments about the low status imposed on women. Conflicts get resolved quite easily, but otherwise this film is competently crafted; to be sure, these are not characters I am crazy about, but it wasn't so bad spending some time with them.

Rating: 54

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

Synopsis: In the 18th century, a man develops an obsession about smells, becoming a perfumer and also a murderer. (Based on the novel by Patrick Süskind, 1st edition 1985.)

Appraisal: Basically this film makes no sense, for obvious reasons, unless watched with Odorama. To make matters worse, the plot is ridiculous. That leaves us with only the most superficial aspects of a film, such as cinematography -- astounding, acting -- competent, production design, etc.

Rating: 22

Grbavica (2006)

Synopsis: In Bosnia after the war, a woman lives with her daughter. Trying to make ends meet by working as a waitress, she also has to face up to her daughter's rebeliousness and growing inquisitiveness about her father.

Appraisal: I didn't find the drama in itself especially compelling, although it is sufficiently absorbing; also, it resolves itself in a simple, perhaps even simplistic, way, resorting to an exterior element (a gun) as a means of producing some climactic tension. I liked the individual sequences, as they show a sufficient mastery of space and of the actors. Despite its up-to-date narrative style and social context, this is basically a melodrama in the old tradition of Stella Dallas or Imitation of Life.

Rating: 51

Honogurai mizu no soko kara (2002)

English titles: Dark Water; From the Depths of Dark Water.

Synopsis: A recently divorced mother moves with her 6 year-old daughter into an apartment. Strange things start to happen to them that seem to be connected with a girl that once lived in that building and went missing.

Appraisal: Interesting little horror movie, very atmospheric and well acted.

Rating: 63

Silent Hill (2006)

Synopsis: A mother looks for her daughter in a supernatural town. (Based on a Japanese video game series.)

Appraisal: The film is well acted; it is also technically irreprehensible. One problem with it is the plot, which is hugely uninteresting and ridiculous; also, the set-pieces simply aren't thrilling.

Rating: 27

Spies Like Us (1985)

Synopsis: Two spies are sent on a mission in Afghanistan, unaware that they are being used as decoys. The mission has to do with a Soviet intercontinental missile.

Appraisal: This film has some of the most awful comedy moments in movie history (the doctor impersonation, the doctors' endless introduction, the exam cheating, etc.); they are mostly concentrated in the first half of the movie. There is a slight improvement in the second half, where the film becomes watchable, but not much more than this. Chase's performance is very funny, even when he is doing unfunny stuff; Aykroyd's is equally good, although his character is not meant to be as funny.

Rating: 30

Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006)

Description: A live performance by a pop singer and his band.

Appraisal: The first part of the movie consists of songs from his new album, mostly wimpy, infinitely repetitive melodies with lyrics I could not follow, and who cares. In the second part he turns to old hits, raising the musical level a bit, even though his performances are still poor. Watching this guy strain his vocal chords in tortured close-ups makes me think about the economic perversions that shaped the stardom system from the 60's onward. There used to be songwriters and there used to be singers; they were two separate entities that only very rarely combined into one person. It has always been clear, though, that being a singer is a much more rewarding job than being a songwriter, and at one moment all songwriters decided they would no longer hand their songs over to singers who would become famous at the former's expense (their thought, not mine). The fact that none of them writers could sing was not important, it soon became clear. And after they got famous, they needn't write good material either, they would continue to be loved and to sell, that's what fans are for. The star of this film gives himself away as to what this whole game is about, when he mentions a question made to him by his ranch's caretaker: "How could someone so young afford to buy such an expensive property?" So there you have it.

Rating: 13

Brás Cubas (1985)

Synopsis: The film tells, in the form of an autobiography written after the author is dead, the life of Brás Cubas, an ordinary upper-class guy living in Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century. His first love, a prostitute; his college education in Portugal; his engagement to a politician's daughter, who eventually favored a more determined rival; his frustrated political ambitions; his love affair with his married ex-fiancée; his reencounter with his childhood friend Quincas Borba, the creator of the "humanitist" philosophical system.

Appraisal: Scarse on intelligent filmic ideas and probably insignificant to those who haven't read Machado de Assis's stupendous novel ("Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas", 1st ed. 1881). And it is Cotrim, not Brás, who says "I don't want charity" during the inheritance division.

Rating: 25

Syriana (2005)

Synopsis: Several stories relate to a shady merger deal between two American oil companies. An Arabian emir's son favors a Chinese company over an American one for the drilling operations in his country. A professional killer is hired to kill him. Etc.

Appraisal: This film should be categorized as science-fiction given the fantastic turns taken by its plot. I guess it is nice that someone is approaching this kind of subject, even in such a simplistic manner. And it has some entertainment value.

Rating: 47

Slither (2006)

Synopsis: An alien organism falls into Earth and installs itself inside a man. From there he begins infecting other humans. He also has an enormous appetite for meat. That initial host's wife, plus some policemen and the town's mayor start investigating the problem and then set off to exterminate those malignant creatures.

Appraisal: There isn't a single molecule of invention in this film, all of it being recycled from earlier horror movies. The more explicit sources are Night of the Living Dead (entire sequences) and Shivers (one scene, as I remember). It is well acted, though.

Rating: 22

Corazón iluminado (1996)

English title: Foolish Heart.

Synopsis (spoilers from beginning to end): Juan is a young man living in Buenos Aires in the early Sixties. His father is a door-to-door salesman with a gambling addiction; he is training Juan to become a salesman as well. Juan's friends are involved with esoteric practices; one of them is an old photographer who invented a device that purportedly photographs the soul of a person. One day Juan meets Ana in his circle of friends and a mutual attraction arises between them, even though Ana is engaged to an older man. Ana and Juan start seeing each other and Juan learns that Ana suffers from severe psychiatric disorders, having previously been committed to an institution, and being now under constant medication. Juan's friends take a picture of themselves with the "soul catcher" and the place where Ana was supposed to appear in the photo has only a smear of intense brightness. Juan's father frowns upon Juan's relationship with Ana, and also upon Juan's aspirations to become a filmmaker. Ana and Juan have a fight and during their subsequent separation Ana gets involved with a pimp who enslaves her into prostitution. Juan rescues her and shelters her, but one day she vanishes; later he learns that she has been institutionalized again. Juan visits her and helps her escape. Together they elope from their families. On the run from the police, they check into a hotel, where they engage in the serial ingestion of Ana's sleeping pills. They are rescued and taken to a hospital; Ana is unconscious by then. After that, they don't meet again and Juan assumes (or is told, it is not clear) that Ana is dead. Many years later, Juan is a successful filmmaker living in California, and returns to Argentina because his father is ill. He seeks his old friends out and learns that Ana is alive. He meets a seductive woman in a church and follows her to a building where they have sex. In the following day he goes to the place where Ana lives and speaks with her through the intercom, but she refuses to see him and sends him away. He meets the seductive woman again on the beach, and a stranger takes a photo of them. He runs into that woman again at the hospital where his father was, and urges her to reveal who she really is but she runs away. When he sees her the next day in a pier, he stabs her to death. His father's condition worsens and he dies. Juan returns to Los Angeles, and, while on the plane, someone hands him an envelope with a photo inside. It's the picture that was taken on the beach with him and the seductive woman; instead of her face, all we see is a bright smear.

Appraisal: This is an emotionally gripping film. Babenco has an eye for composition and handles the individual scenes very well. Mendonça and Lopes steal the respective portions of film they are in and are responsible for much of the film's strength. The film explores the interesting concept of the mixed-up feelings that disturbed women arouse on some men; they are viewed in dual terms, both as suffering, fragile creatures and as mysterious seductresses. This is possibly akin to Cet obscur objet du désir, slightly. Otherwise, the film brings to mind certain aspects of Tender Is the Night. Mad Love (1995) is a closer relative, I think. The film is largely successful and is a rewarding experience for those who take it on its own lyrical, confessional terms.

Rating: 65

Idiocracy (2006)

Synopsis: A man and a woman are cryogenically frozen as part of an army experiment; they are due to be unfrozen in a year, but the project is cancelled and they are forgotten. They finally get unfrozen after 500 years. The world has become populated exclusively by idiots, due to the reproduction rate being negatively correlated to intelligence.

Appraisal: A vast array of excellent comic actors and actresses is this film's forte. The screenplay packs some interesting observations about the current state of affairs in some countries of the world, the U.S. obviously included. After some 30 or 40 minutes of film, maybe less, it has said everything it had to say, the remainder of it being just padding and repetition. The notion that the whole world has devolved in this manner is not really tenable; I think the problems depicted here are mostly U.S.-specific; after the Roman fall, a period of barbarism ensued, but the U.S. is not an empire of such widespread hegemony. Anyway, the film has more serious problems, one of them being lack of reference: since it doesn't have a single intelligent character, any stupidity that is said may be credited to that fact, rather than to its screenwriters' own shortcomings. Just to give an example, when the main character advises people to "read books" and other preventive actions, he is contradicting the film's basic premise that states that the problem is genetic, not educational; as I said, one can easily claim that this is due to that character's lack of intelligence, instead of the film's.

Rating: 47