Inside Job (2010)

Documentary about the U.S. financial crisis of 2008.

Overall I found it quite informative. Reading other people's comments, however, I get the impression that some facts were somewhat misrepresented. Anyway, there are things in it that just rubbed me the wrong way. For example, someone saying that high executives see prostitutes and then go back to their wives... ok, what has this got to do with anything? This kind of remark should not have been included, simple as that. And about the ending, it is just that same old same old: we got to do our best, fight for a better world, blah blah blah. Well, that's what I (and everyone else, I suspect) always do, so please spare me -- unless one would be a little more specific about it. I do not have a deep enough knowledge of the situation which would allow me to criticize this movie with confidence, and if I had I would not be among its target audience to begin with. Here is a very general reflection, though. The idea that greed for money is evil should be balanced with the idea that there are non-monetary types of greed as well. A populist government which is not sure he can afford his populist actions is greedy for popularity, and is just as guilty (perhaps more) in case of a catastrophe. And let's not forget that there are other capital sins. Like, for instance, sloth.

Rating: 52

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

A clumsy policeman tries to avert the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, to be carried out during a baseball game.

Second viewing. I laughed as hard as on my first viewing, the film is intelligent and well-made.

Rating: 60 (unchanged)

Timeline (2003)

A company develops a machine that transports people to the 14th century. A team is assembled to rescue an archaeologist who used it to travel to the past and did not come back.

Not much to say about this one. It is very poor on all levels, except acting. (I liked especially Thewlis, Connolly, and Butler, who is splendid).

Rating: 25

Coup de tête (1979)

English title: Hothead

In a small town in France, Perrin, a local football player, is fired from the team on account of a conflict with the team's star player. After that, Perrin is accused of rape and convicted on the grounds of the testimony of the victim (who is not sure, though) and of three other alleged witnesses.

A silly movie, despite some competence in the screenplay's first half and the excellence of the cast. The second half of the movie, however, is marred by very implausible events and generalized boredom.

Rating: 31

Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)

A fiction pretending to be the life of composer Jerome Kern (1885-1945). He befriends an arranger (a fictional character) and his little daughter Sally (ditto), travels to England, meets an American Broadway producer, meets Eva, a young woman with whom he falls in love with, comes back to America to do a musical for said producer, the show does not happen, he barely fails to embark to England again on the ill-fated Lusitania (yes, he really missed that boat), later returns to England on another ship, gets married with the one he fell in love with, becomes famous, searches for Sally who has left home to become a singer, Sally's father dies, Sally is found (she sings in a Memphis nightclub), Jerry goes to Hollywood.

This has reportedly little to do with Kern's real life. There are many well done musical numbers (which happen as musical numbers in the diegesis), the best of which is probably the circus one. A lifeless biography. The copy I watched was probably not complete.

Rating: 41

Geometría (1987)

Based on the short story "Naturally", by Fredric Brown.

A student summons the Devil in the hope of getting some help to pass an exam.

Amusing.

Watched it dubbed in Italian.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

A dealer in old books is hired to verify the authenticity of a copy of a demonology manual, of which only two other copies exist.

Second viewing. This is not as bad as I thought on my first viewing, but is still a weak movie. The ending is kind of beautiful, though.

Rating: 32 (up from 18)

Amei um Bicheiro (1952)

Marcos is an operator in the illegal business of "jogo do bicho" gambling in Rio de Janeiro. His wife needs an operation, so he decides to make a risky move against his boss.

Second viewing. Despite some naiveté here and there, the general lines that drive the movie are frankness and realism. The direction is competent and makes good use of location shooting. The actors are good.

Rating: 52 (down from 54)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Blanche is a penniless woman who leaves her hometown to stay at her married sister's house. They come from a formerly wealthy Southern family. The sister's husband, of an inferior social class and a brute, doesn't like the idea of having Blanche in the house.

A play of very intense pathos which somehow has undertones of a weird comicity. As film adaptations go, I don't think one can do better than this. The performances are simply stupendous, but I do not need to say this at this point in history.

Rating: 62

Missing in Action (1984)

A veteran of the Vietnam War who spent several years as a prisoner of war is convinced that there are still American soldiers being held prisoners in Vietnam camps, and decides to rescue them.

A fairly insane movie, yet not an altogether bad one, once you watch it with the proper spirit. Cannon, the company behind it, specialized in low-budget films, many of them rip-offs of bigger productions. Missing in Action is sometimes tagged as a Rambo rip-off due to certain similarities between the protagonists of both franchises. It should be pointed out, though, that the first Rambo film, called First Blood, had a very different plot, and the second one appeared after Missing in Action. In plot, it is closer to Uncommon Valor (1983), which is a superior film, and not in the low-brow surreal genre as this one.

Rating: 34

Baby Doll (1956)

A man (named Archie Lee) is married to a much younger woman (nicknamed Baby Doll) who has agreed to consummate their marriage on her twentieth birthday. Coincidentally, on that very day they are having the cotton syndicate manager as guest, who is there to make justice against Archie Lee, who has set his cotton gin on fire.

Of all Williams I have seen this is the closest he gets to comedy. It is a well orchestrated film which is amusing to a certain extent. It is a satire of the U.S. South, of relations between ethnic groups, and of capitalism.

Rating: 58

The Joy Luck Club (1993)

Two generations of Chinese-American women and their stories. The mothers were born in China and their daughters in America. Civil war, abuse from their husbands, backward customs, all are part of the mothers' stories. Some of that still affects the daughters' lives, although they live in a modern society.

Second viewing. This is perhaps the most extreme case of a change in my appreciation of a movie, to such an extent that I have trouble understanding my previous assessment. For, now I see it, this is blatantly a soap-opera, with all the stereotypes one is entitled to. The events are crammed into the length of the movie in such a fashion that there are no genuinely cinematic sequences: most are static dialogue and the rest are sequences where there is little movement or it is very simple. What enjoyment one may take from it comes from a perception of its very exaggerations and simplism which overflow into kitsch.

Rating: 48 (down from 80)

Tocaia no Asfalto (1962)

A hitman is hired to kill a politician and falls in love with a prostitute. A subplot concerns a congressman who is investigating the illegal activities of the aforementioned politician.

This political thriller has some naive touches in its plot, foremost among which is the hitman's scruples at the church, on account of an ecclesiastical tale he heard from his girlfriend stating that a church where a murder has occurred must stay closed for a hundred years. Also worthy of note is one particular sequence featuring ludicrously pompous dialogue between an honest young congressman and his girlfriend, whose father (another politician) is being investigated by him. It is not badly filmed, especially considering the overall poorness of Brazilian cinema of that period (but shouldn't I say: of any period?). The film's title, which translates to "Stakeout on the Asphalt", refers presumably to one specific sequence wherein a gang of hitmen trap the honest congressman in a very risky (and implausible) manner: one of them lies on the road, thus forcing the congressman to stop his car and barely avoid killing the bad guy. The other stakeouts in the movie do not involve asphalt at all and take place, respectively, at a church, at a cemetery, and at a train station. The last of these has, again, some implausible behavior on the part of the ex-prostitute, who could have done a lot better in her attempt to save her boyfriend.

Rating: 33

My Fellow Americans (1996)

Two ex-presidents by rival parties are incidentally united on account of a plot to frame one of them, conducted the present occupant of the presidency.

This has an elaborate screenplay, is funny and moderately critical of the American political system.

Rating: 64

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Gigantic skyscraper catches fire on the night of its inauguration due to its builders having used cheap material in it. The architect, at first with the building's personnel and later with the firemen, tries to help avoid a complete tragedy.

Second viewing. Very well-made and entertaining disaster-movie. This genre's plot conventions are mostly true to human nature, as can be observed in the real-life economic cataclisms that recently shook, and are still shaking, several countries of the world, and of which this film is a metaphor.

Rating: 52 (up from 36)

Bogus (1996)

A fatherless boy who just lost his mother "creates" an imaginary friend who comforts him. He is placed under the care of his mother's foster sister, who is a busy woman and is not enthusiastic about her new duties.

This is a fairly bad film, an ideological signpost of an era which, having lost its faith in the Great institutions, and systems of ethics, metaphysics, politics, etc., retained their "believing" element and placed it in an "anything goes" superstructure. Of course this kind of trend is not altogether new in cinematic narrative: Miracle on 34th Street was released in 1947 (yes, blame it on post-WWII angst) and, certainly not by sheer coincidence, remade only two years before Bogus' release. This film's apparent anticapitalist message (centered on the foster mother, a workaholic businesswoman) is actually pro-capitalist when you think that for Capitalism to work it must balance production and consumption; all it's saying is "Relax, take some time off, spend some money, if not with yourself, then with your kid."

Rating: 14

Body Double (1984)

Jake is staying at his friend Sam's residence while Sam is away. Sam informs Jake about a woman who lives at a nearby building, and who can be seen through a telescope while performing a sensual act (which she does every day at the same hour).

Second viewing. A gratuitous but very well filmed and, to a certain extent, entertaining blend of Rear Window and Vertigo. The filmmaker puts no holds on vulgarity and the film is best enjoyed with an eye to self-parody.

Rating: 56 (down from 68)

Intervista (1987)

English title: Interview.

A famous Italian film director is making a film, and gets interviewed by Japanese journalists. His film reenacts his first visit to the studio as a journalist who would interview a movie actress. Next he starts to shoot what is apparently another film, based on a literary work. An old actor with whom he had worked before shows up on the set and they take a weekend off to visit an actress who worked with the two of them many years earlier in a movie. In that movie the old actor played a journalist and the old actress played a young actress whom the journalist interviewed and had a brief affair with. They all rewatch that movie in the old actress's house.

I guess this is not entirely without interest as an "essay" on interviews (and also filmmaking, I guess), and by the way it is my second viewing. My rating did not change, I am afraid. To be honest I did not find it particularly remarkable.

Rating: 41 (unchanged)