Foursome: All-U-Can-Meat (2006) (TV)

This is an episode of a sex reality show. In this episode they have two guys and two ladies who had never seen one another previously go to a house and have heterosexual sex during a couple of days (there are lesbian innuendos but nothing happens, although my state of semi-alertedness while viewing it doesn't make me the most reliable witness). The people in this episode are named Oscar, Paul, Heather and Marie. Aside from the main quartet we see some extra ladies with very little clothes on who play waitress and oral sex tutor respectively. Even though all appearances indicate real sex, this is a softcore show, where penises are shown only in a non-erect condition -- otherwise they are digitally blurred or, when in contact with a woman, not shown at all. The only memorable event from the episode is that Paul suffers from impotence in the beginning of the episode and recovers later in it.

Saw it with the sound turned off, with subtitles.

Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har: See-Saw (1962) (TV)

Lippy the lion and Hardy the hyena are on a raft in the ocean and land on a desert island where a pirate is burying a treasure. The latter tries to kill Lippy and Hardy because he wants no one to steal his treasure. Lippy and Hardy escape to a ship which happens to belong to that very same pirate. The chase continues aboard the ship.

Saw it dubbed in Portuguese.

Stardust (2007)

A star falls to Earth and is transformed into a young woman. A boy promises to bring the star to the girl he loves; a witch wants the star-woman's heart so that she may attain immortality; the heir to the throne must recover a precious stone which by a coincidence hangs from the star-woman's neck.

Dreck with good production values.

Rating: 15

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby (1956) (TV)

An antique shop owner has a sickly attachment to his products and as a consequence runs into financial difficulties.

Good episode, with good atmosphere and an adequately creepy main character.

Direktøren for det hele (2006)

English title: The Boss of It All.

The owner and CEO of a software company works incognito at said company, and is much loved by his co-workers (actually his employees). He decides to sell the company to a foreign corporation, which will immediately fire all workers except him. Since he doesn't want his employees to know he was the one who did this to them, he hires an actor to pass off as the CEO.

The premise is not plausible in the exact terms stated in the film, but the device of "hiding" the people higher up in a company's hierarchy is common practice. Sergeants take the blame. Aside from that, the film is extremely poor of actual insight or even ordinary sitcom humor. Plus, it looks like it has been filmed by a drunken monkey (or several).

Rating: 11

*batteries not included (1987)

Minuscule spaceships with amazing powers of damage repairing come to the aid of the dwellers of a building which is being threatened with demolition.

This is insane, to such a degree that it actually becomes kind of interesting. The view of futuristic concepts like robots and spaceships as agents of an almost reactionary attachment to old things is conceptually bizarre and perhaps says something about the inner workings of a certain science-fiction psychology.

Rating: 32

Friends with Money (2006)

Several middle-aged couples are shown with their particular traits and the problems they face in their lives; the odd one out in this group is a single woman who has quit her teaching job to work as a maid.

An interesting updating of the tale of Cinderella, with focus being distributed among its various characters. It avoids dullness with intelligent set-pieces, within which we glimpse a morally decadent society where ordinary civilized acts such as demanding others to respect a store queue are frowned upon, and obsessing over other people's sexuality seems to be a national pastime.

Rating: 57

Scoop (2006)

A dead journalist contacts a living Journalism student and tells her what he heard about the identity of a serial killer.

Very lightweight yet not without interest or entertainment value.

Rating: 50

Aladdin (1992)

Based on a story in Antoine Galland's version of The One Thousand and One Nights (Galland reportedly heard this story from a Syrian man). The film reportedly also borrows from The Princess and the Cobbler (1993) (whose unfinished version was available since the 60's) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940).

A street boy falls in love with a princess. The evil visier uses the boy to get a hold of a magical lamp which contains a genie who has the power to grant three wishes to the lamp's owner.

Animation which succeeds at entertaining within a strictly conventional framework.

Rating: 50

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Portrait of Jocelyn (1956) (TV)

The portrait of a man's first wife shows up at a gallery. She was declared missing five years ago. The man's present wife gets jealous.

One of the weaker episodes. Slightly annoying, both in the development and in the conclusion.

Goya's Ghosts (2006)

(mild spoilers) In 18th Century Spain, an ambitious clergyman takes upon himself the duty of persecuting young women through the Inquisition. He falls out of favor after the father of one of his victims sets a trap for him. He flees to France where the Revolution soon takes place. He then returns to Spain as one of Napoleon's men.

It depicts how an oppressive regime may be overthrown and replaced by one just as oppressive or more so -- too bad it does it through low melodrama. A crude, often grotesque, film. With this and The Lives of Others a trend seems to be on, of demonizing organizations that, for just reasons, nobody likes (Stasi, the Inquisition). Their modus operandi is, in both films, severely fantasized; it's never too much to remind that not understanding history is the best way to repeat it.

Rating: 20

Let's Get Harry (1986)

Harry, an American engineer working in Colombia, is kidnapped along with the American ambassador by a drug dealer who demands the release of a partner of his who is a prisoner of the Americans. When the American government refuses to comply with the kidnapper's demand, Harry's brother assembles a team of friends and hires a mercenary to lead them and all fly to Colombia to rescue Harry.

Unremarkable and slightly comical adventure which reportedly underwent severe cuts made by the producer(s) and as a result lacks all the parts where the rescue team is trained and also where a bit of character development is done. I have a serious plot understanding problem: I could swear that, at one point, Harry and the ambassador were moved somewhere else (we see them leaving on a boat); nevertheless, when the rescuers get to the drug dealer's lair Harry and the ambassador are still there.

Rating: 30

Other People's Money (1991)

A Wall Street investing mogul has his eyes on a Rhode Island company run by an aging man who refuses to sell it. A battle between them will be fought with a knock-out blonde lawyer (whose mother is the company owner's wife) as the intermediary.

Incredibly smart from the strict Economics angle, perhaps not so much from the mere dramatical one (the seduction play between Lawrence and Kate is a contrived and not very believable narrative add-on). Still, an interesting film. Similarly themed ones: Wall Street (1987), Ruthless (1948), and, very marginally, In This Our Life (1942).

Rating: 55

Heights (2005)

Several characters whose paths cross: a lawyer who is about to be married to a struggling photographer; a writer/journalist who is writing an article about a famous photographer from the point of view of the latter's ex-lovers; a prestigious stage director and actress; a struggling actor; and a few minor ones.

The text doesn't receive a cinematic shape in accordance to its melodramatics; what we get instead is sleepy naturalism. I don't like the ending either, it's contrived to wrap up things in a happy fashion, thus pretty much nullifying the drama.

Rating: 30

The Big Bad Swim (2006)

Several characters learning to swim, plus their teacher, interact in various ways.

The characters are reasonably well defined, and the progress of their relationships is done with a degree of ability so as to keep the viewer interested. But nothing actually happens in the movie, anyway no major conflict; the pathos is kept at a diminutive level, and things just work out all right by themselves. Maybe they intended it to be a series pilot...

Rating: 49

Superbad (2007)

Two underage guys, with the help of a third one who got himself a false I.D., take on the important task of buying drinks for a party. They expect this will ensure them their first laid. Along the way they meet a deranged pair of cops and a few other bizarre characters.

Not too bad as an unpretentious pastime. Too bad it just drags on forever. Both character and film have a lot of fat to burn.

Rating: 45

Look Both Ways (2005)

Near the site of a train accident (or, it is speculated, suicide) a painter who has a vivid imagination for disasters meets a photographer who has recently found out he has cancer. A few other characters connected to said presumed accident are shown and their life problems.

Two many irrelevant subplots take much from the film, which hasn't a strong central situation to begin with. Add to that a tedious songtrack. And a hugely mistaken choice of an ending.

Rating: 21

Up in Smoke (1978)

Two nobodies roam L.A. in search of drugs. Then they are deported to Mexico; there they are hired to bring a weed-made van (that's right, but they don't know it) across the border.

This film was just entertaining enough to keep me from falling asleep, but I'm not really into drug-related humor.

Rating: 35

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

A man discovers that he is a character in a book and that his death is scheduled to happen soon.

The only strange thing about this vacuity is Thompson's performance, which kept me entranced whenever she was onscreen; she is very intense and looks nothing like any writer I have ever seen or imagined.

Rating: 14

No Such Thing (2001)

A journalist travels to Iceland in search of her boyfriend who went missing with his crew while doing a story on a mythic being.

I don't know what to think of this film. In fact, I don't know whether we are supposed to think about it at all. The style is dry and the mise-en-scène, very bare bones. The story is just a recycling of sci-fi/horror cinematic clichés, except the dialogue is a little more literate than usual. Depending on the viewer's mood, the effect may be either slightly comical or boring.

Rating: 37

Cinderfella (1960)

The story of Cinderella retold with a guy. He has a fairy godfather, two stepbrothers and a stepmother. He gets Princess Charming in the end.

However great the pleasure I get from watching Lewis, it is hard not to notice that there aren't many interesting things happening in this film. The dining table sequence is nice, but not much else is noteworthy.

Rating: 35

Chief Crazy Horse (1955)

About the great Native American warrior, leader of the Lakota Sioux, who led his nation in a series of victories but was eventually forced to surrender and then was finally killed by Little Big Man, who had switched to the side of the whites.

Western obeying the conventions of the time at which it was made, amongst which the pompous dialogue, a romanticized portrayal of Native Americans, and horribly made up whites playing them. It's watchable though.

Rating: 31

Keane (2004)

A wacko spends his days searching for his missing daughter who disappeared while under his care (or so he thinks -- remember he is a wacko). One day he meets a woman with a kid the same age of his own alleged daughter.

Very sentimental but doesn't offer the viewer much except the main actor's face (he is good though).

Rating: 35

In This Our Life (1942)

Two sisters, one very bad and the other very good. The former is engaged to a lawyer and the latter is married to a doctor. The sisters' father and his brother-in-law were once business partners. A young African-American servant wants to become a lawyer. The Internet Movie Database Plot Summary is considerably more detailed, but in my opinion it spoils the film, as it did for me to a certain extent.

Cathartic drama where people take to one side of the family or the other and women have men's names. Sexual highlights: when her husband disapproves of her best friend (a woman), the bad sister retorts that she might get new ones he would disapprove of even more; the good sister doesn't want to get married for a while, she just wants to "be happy"; the bad sister says she would do "anything" for her uncle if he would just help her with a certain trouble she got into.

Rating: 53

Das Leben der Anderen (2006)

English title: The Lives of Others.

In East Germany of the 80s, a playwright is investigated by the State Police.

Dreary melodrama wich tries to evoke the discomfort of living in a Police State. Some wild assumptions are made in regards to the operations of the East German Stasi, and a poorly motivated course of action is taken by the chief investigator.

Rating: 34

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Help Wanted (1956) (TV)

From the Internet Movie Database Plot Summary: "Mr. Crabtree is grateful to find a new job, until his new employer gives him a most unexpected assignment."

This is a variation on Strangers on a Train. Of course, it wouldn't take long for the police to crack this nowadays. I suppose even in the 50s it wouldn't be impossible. Anyway what attracts me in these stories is the psychological element, and the weirdness of the situations. Watching this show is one of the few fully satisfactory experiences of my life.

The Tracey Fragments (2007)

It tells the troubled life of a 15-year-old girl who loses sight of her younger brother whom she was supposed to be watching. The film makes use, from beginning to end, of the multiple-frame technique.

A technical curio which doesn't go much farther than just that. The central situation of the plot bears some relation to Rain (2001) (based on Kirsty Gunn's novel). While some of the events are kind of funny (though apparently it takes itself seriously), the film as a whole just dwells on victimization as usual.

Rating: 37

Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand (2004)

English title: Turtles Can Fly.

Some Kurdish refugees in Iraq and their daily activities on the days which preceded Saddam's fall.

I don't really enjoy dramatizations of social problems. Nor am I fond of lame narrative devices such as kids which can see the future in visions. All that being said, I will give it some credit for the energy dispensed to the narrative and the good work of direction of the non-professional actors (and their own work too, of course).

Rating: 31

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Three brothers make a trip to India.

Photogenic crap.

Rating: 19

I'm Not There. (2007)

A series of characters who sing or act or write or defy the law. Each of the characters is said to stand for a persona of the same American singer/songwriter.

A lame soap-opera pretending to be a modern work of art, except for the black-and-white sections, which are watchable (but much of them are simply reenactments of what we already saw in the documentary No Direction Home). A very stinking film.

Rating: 8

Hard to Kill (1990)

A cop witnesses (and films) the ordering of an assassination and subsequently an attempt at his life is made which kills his wife and puts him in a coma for seven years.

This gets a zero in believability, but on the other hand one must remember that B actioners are the poor man's Surrealism.

Rating: 30

Secondhand Lions (2003)

A boy is left by his widowed mother in the care of his two anti-social uncles who live in a farm. She tells him they have a fortune stashed.

The plot has a few elements which could lead to an interesting investigation of matters such as the dichotomy between what people are and what they appear to be. The film cops out of that, settling instead for being just a tame, weakly entertaining drama/adventure with some lame "life lessons" which make no sense and an ultimately misogynistic worldview.

Rating: 30

Finding Forrester (2000)

A gifted but poor student with a passion for basketball meets a reclusive writer who starts helping him with his writing.

A series of unrealistic clichés in a film which is all the more ridiculous for its seriousness of tone.

Rating: 20

Finding Nemo (2003)

Animation. A little fish is captured by a man on a boat. The fish's father looks for his son and once he finds out his whereabouts he does all he can to rescue him. Meanwhile the little fish has been put in an aquarium.

Run-of-the-mill.

Rating: 47

Wu Qingyuan (2006)

English title: The Go Master.

The film tells the life of a Chinese man who specialized at a certain board game and moved to Japan a little before World War II. When the war broke he decided to stay in Japan where his career as a player would be secured. (Sorry for occasional imprecisions or inexactitudes.)

Very dull most of the time, and incomprehensible at times.

Rating: 23

Club Fed (1990)

Angelica, the wife of a white-collar criminal, gets framed for one of her husband's crimes and is sent to Club Fed, a minimum security prison which looks more like a resort for millionaires. The FBI chief has plans to shut down Club Fed and send all its inmates to a maximum security prison. He intends to frame Angelica on an embezzling scheme, having the prison warden as his accomplice. An undercover FBI agent is sent in there to investigate but he falls in love with Angelica.

Sleazily directed and frequently shamelessly plain, but also, on occasion, funny and verbally witty.

Rating: 30

Nadine (1987)

A woman and her husband, which incidentally are about to be divorced, accidentally get hold of the plan for a new state highway; they are chased by a crooked speculator who had stolen those papers in the first place.

This is my second viewing of this fine film; it's entertaining and smartly directed; furthermore it features a wonderful performance by the female lead. I'm embarrassed that my initial appraisal of it had been so negative.

Rating: 55 (up from 26)

The Aristocrats (2005)

An interview film, sort of, with several comics telling the same joke, about an agent trying to sell a very bad number about a family who does a series of nasty acts amongst themselves. The punchline consists in the name of the skit.

The joke in itself is fascinating for its self-referentiality (it's a joke about not being funny which isn't very funny itself). The film, while at one point correctly explaining the joke, dwells mostly in the "dare" aspect of it, in a sort of competition to see who comes up with the most horrendous set-up; there aren't many possible combinations, so dullness is inevitable.

Rating: 21

August Rush (2007)

A kid is separated from his mom and put in an orphanage. He escapes and ends up in a sort of slum of kids ruled by a Fagin-like character. The kid has an incredible musical talent. While running from the police he takes refuge at a religious man's house. The man notices the kid's musical abilities and puts him at Juilliard. Meanwhile, his mother is looking for him.

An Oliver Twist rip-off combined with elements from Conte d'hiver, The Notebook, etc. A film which works as its own parody.

Rating: 5

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

In World War II, during the battle for the island of Iwo Jima, a photo is taken of the Americans planting the flag on one hill; this photo and the participants in it are then used in a gigantic propaganda scheme to convince American citizens to buy war bonds and thus finance the war. The three soldiers who take part in it react differently to that process.

A completely honest film, it must be said. I am glad I have seen it, it's a film by which some things are learned, about the U.S., about Japan (the film is ever so subtle about what exactly happened to Iggy, you might wanna do some googling afterwards, or read the book), about how different people react to notoriety, etc. It even winces back at the silliness of "Saving Private Ryan" ("So much for leaving no one behind"). The narrative is not that compelling, at times it seems like one of those TV shows which show reenactments intercut with real testimonies, yet I don't mean to sound like this makes it a bad film. The battle sequences are good and the story, as I said, is interesting; in short, perhaps not a cinematic masterpiece, but still worth seeing for its absolute honesty.

Rating: 67

The Notebook (2004)

At a nursing home, a man reads a story to a woman who lost her memory. It is about the love story between a rich young woman and a working-class guy.

This is related, somewhat distantly, to the likes of Love Affair (1939 and 1957), Conte d'hiver (1992), and Before Sunset (2004), and more closely to Splendor in the Grass (1961), to which it could be said to be a rebuke. The change in worldview in regards to that last movie is commented upon in poetical terms with quotes from Whitman, the hero's favorite poet; a wink is made to the audience in reference to the 1961 film ("I am more of a Tennyson man myself", says the hero's father). Although this may seem like a worthy proposition at first sight, the shape it takes in the movie is flawed in some essential respects; the most serious one is perhaps the notion that giving love to someone who cannot perceive it is a meaningful thing; the sheer absurdity of the notion reveals itself particularly in the scene where the old woman relapses into amnesia; there is a faint glimpse of a better film which could have been in that scene, but then it slips back to the old "eternal love" discourse and then the film is over; in addition to this aspect, the actual construction of the story is pretty lame, falling through due to numerous details which range from psychological implausibilities to monetary inconsistencies.

Rating: 24