Second viewing; first seen on January 13, 1996.
A musical band lands a gig in a hotel in Rio de Janeiro. By a coincidence, the band leader's romantic interest is from that city and happens to be returning home.
Entertaining musical comedy, quite imaginative and well made. Read the fine TV Guide review.
Rating: 58 (up from 40)
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
The Fallen Idol (1948)
Second viewing; first seen on December 22, 1994
Based on the short story The Basement Room, by Graham Greene, first published in 1936.
The young son of the French Ambassador in London is very attached to his house's butler, and gets mixed up in the latter's affair with a young French woman.
This turned out to be quite different from what I remembered, that is, the story of a young boy's shattered belief in a childhood hero. In fact, the whole affair is much more casual than that, and the boy seems to be much more resilient than my recollection implied. And the film is after all a comedy, if you employ a wide definition of the term. The mind of children is an important element, but I am not inclined to consider it as the film's main theme. In my view, the child here serves mainly to amplify the old theme of relationships, lies and ironic endings. It is very well filmed and well acted.
Rating: 60 (up from 50)
Based on the short story The Basement Room, by Graham Greene, first published in 1936.
The young son of the French Ambassador in London is very attached to his house's butler, and gets mixed up in the latter's affair with a young French woman.
This turned out to be quite different from what I remembered, that is, the story of a young boy's shattered belief in a childhood hero. In fact, the whole affair is much more casual than that, and the boy seems to be much more resilient than my recollection implied. And the film is after all a comedy, if you employ a wide definition of the term. The mind of children is an important element, but I am not inclined to consider it as the film's main theme. In my view, the child here serves mainly to amplify the old theme of relationships, lies and ironic endings. It is very well filmed and well acted.
Rating: 60 (up from 50)
Monday, January 26, 2015
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.
Two childhood friends go their separate ways as they grow up: one of them becomes a criminal, and the other a priest. When they reunite, the latter worries about the influence that the former may exert on the neighborhood youngsters.
This film is practically all of it made of memorable scenes. Its conception is clever, too, bringing together two strands of drama, one concerning adults and the other concerning kids. The Dead End Kids are exceptionally well handled for comedy. The film's theme is a complex one, and inevitably one may be misled into thinking that some of its characters' assertions are actually the film's purported thesis. For instance, it is implied that the reform system "made Rocky a criminal", and that furthermore it was all a matter of chance, or of who ran faster. This is all vey poetical, but the film makes it very clear that, since their childhoods, Rocky and Jerry were very different in temperament. It is uncertain whether this kind of film is good or bad for the cause of improving society. It was from a time when individual choice was still considered important. Yet, the emphasis here is on improving the environment where people grow up. I am skeptical of both, because ultimately people make their environments, and choice must always overcome individual predispositions. That does not mean social work, on one side, and moral teaching, on the other, are useless. It's just that they can only do so much. Anyway, this is a necessary film especially as a piece of implicit self-criticism of the film industry regarding all the criminal idol-making that made for much of the production of the time.
Rating: 74 (up from 50)
Two childhood friends go their separate ways as they grow up: one of them becomes a criminal, and the other a priest. When they reunite, the latter worries about the influence that the former may exert on the neighborhood youngsters.
This film is practically all of it made of memorable scenes. Its conception is clever, too, bringing together two strands of drama, one concerning adults and the other concerning kids. The Dead End Kids are exceptionally well handled for comedy. The film's theme is a complex one, and inevitably one may be misled into thinking that some of its characters' assertions are actually the film's purported thesis. For instance, it is implied that the reform system "made Rocky a criminal", and that furthermore it was all a matter of chance, or of who ran faster. This is all vey poetical, but the film makes it very clear that, since their childhoods, Rocky and Jerry were very different in temperament. It is uncertain whether this kind of film is good or bad for the cause of improving society. It was from a time when individual choice was still considered important. Yet, the emphasis here is on improving the environment where people grow up. I am skeptical of both, because ultimately people make their environments, and choice must always overcome individual predispositions. That does not mean social work, on one side, and moral teaching, on the other, are useless. It's just that they can only do so much. Anyway, this is a necessary film especially as a piece of implicit self-criticism of the film industry regarding all the criminal idol-making that made for much of the production of the time.
Rating: 74 (up from 50)
Sunday, January 25, 2015
The Chronicle History or King Henry the Fift wih His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944)
Second viewing; first seen on December 18, 1988.
Shortened title: Henry V
Based on the play by William Shakespeare, written around 1599.
An English king thinks he has rights over the throne of France, and wages war on that country.
Very pretty to look at, but the text did not move me. Reportedly the play was bowdlerized to conform to the war effort. Anyway, wars may not all be stupid, but this one surely seems so.
Rating: 54 (down from 56)
Shortened title: Henry V
Based on the play by William Shakespeare, written around 1599.
An English king thinks he has rights over the throne of France, and wages war on that country.
Very pretty to look at, but the text did not move me. Reportedly the play was bowdlerized to conform to the war effort. Anyway, wars may not all be stupid, but this one surely seems so.
Rating: 54 (down from 56)
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Dolores Claiborne (1995)
Second viewing, first with the original audio; first seen on June 24, 2002, on a dubbed copy.
A housemaid is tried for the murder of her employer; in the past she had been acquitted of the murder of her husband. That was a cause of great frustration to the prosecutor; he hopes he can finally convict her now. Her daughter, a New York journalist, is notified of the incident and comes to help her mother, from whom she was estranged and with whom she had not been on the best terms.
This film excels in what regards its moral foundations. The main character embodies many real persons who have no doubt been through problems which are very similar to hers, and her behavior is at once convincing and morally uplifting. It is also an entertaining film, probably due to its source novel (I haven't read it, though) and certainly thanks to its carefully crafted script (you will find similarities in style in the writer's subsequent work, but the final result was never as good as here), which uses every resource at hand to excite the viewer's interest and emotions. It would certainly be possible to say more about this film, but at the moment I am not able to do it, for several reasons (to begin with, the heat where I live is scorching).
Rating: 71 (up from 68)
A housemaid is tried for the murder of her employer; in the past she had been acquitted of the murder of her husband. That was a cause of great frustration to the prosecutor; he hopes he can finally convict her now. Her daughter, a New York journalist, is notified of the incident and comes to help her mother, from whom she was estranged and with whom she had not been on the best terms.
This film excels in what regards its moral foundations. The main character embodies many real persons who have no doubt been through problems which are very similar to hers, and her behavior is at once convincing and morally uplifting. It is also an entertaining film, probably due to its source novel (I haven't read it, though) and certainly thanks to its carefully crafted script (you will find similarities in style in the writer's subsequent work, but the final result was never as good as here), which uses every resource at hand to excite the viewer's interest and emotions. It would certainly be possible to say more about this film, but at the moment I am not able to do it, for several reasons (to begin with, the heat where I live is scorching).
Rating: 71 (up from 68)
Monday, January 19, 2015
The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952)
Second viewing; first viewed on November 8, 1992.
From Wikipedia: Based on the play by William Shakespeare, written about 1603, in turn based on the short story Un capitano moro (A Moorish Captain), by Cinthio, first published in 1565 in his collection Gli Hecatommithi. It may have been based on a real incident taking place in Venice about 1508. Still according to Wikipedia, there is an earlier tale from the One Thousand and One Nights, named The Three Apples, which bears similarities to it.
This is one of the most fascinating stories of all times, if I may say so without having actually read the play. The theme of psychological manipulation is of prime importance in our times. There are other themes being explored here which are mostly subordinated to the first one, as they are part of the manipulative schemes devised by Iago. Othello is placed in a position similar to Groucho Marx: he simply could not join a club (i.e. Desdemona) that would accept him as a member. Anway, we should talk about the movie as such. It is pictorially very inspired, and performs a felicitous translation of theater into cinema. I must say, however, that I find that such Shakespeare adaptations can only go so far in shaking its stage origins and, unless they are free adaptations (not the case here), suffer from it.
Rating: 72 (down from 90)
From Wikipedia: Based on the play by William Shakespeare, written about 1603, in turn based on the short story Un capitano moro (A Moorish Captain), by Cinthio, first published in 1565 in his collection Gli Hecatommithi. It may have been based on a real incident taking place in Venice about 1508. Still according to Wikipedia, there is an earlier tale from the One Thousand and One Nights, named The Three Apples, which bears similarities to it.
This is one of the most fascinating stories of all times, if I may say so without having actually read the play. The theme of psychological manipulation is of prime importance in our times. There are other themes being explored here which are mostly subordinated to the first one, as they are part of the manipulative schemes devised by Iago. Othello is placed in a position similar to Groucho Marx: he simply could not join a club (i.e. Desdemona) that would accept him as a member. Anway, we should talk about the movie as such. It is pictorially very inspired, and performs a felicitous translation of theater into cinema. I must say, however, that I find that such Shakespeare adaptations can only go so far in shaking its stage origins and, unless they are free adaptations (not the case here), suffer from it.
Rating: 72 (down from 90)
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Citizen Kane (1941)
Third viewing (1st: before 1987, 2nd: March 7, 1987).
The life of a newspaper owner is told through the testimony of several people who knew him.
I think I finally absorbed all the power of this film, after two earlier viewings in which, for reasons I am not fully aware of, I had a hard time staying awake. Maybe it is just the fact that now I saw it at home, and was able to take a break whenever I felt tired. In fact, there is nothing dull about it, it is a relentlessly energetic film. Admittedly, it is a very formalist enterprise, and I would be extremely dishonest if I tried to make it into a political or sociological or psychological essay or something like that. Many critics at the time of its release were clearly expecting something in those lines, and were deeply disappointed. One of its harshest critics is, paradoxically, the one who got closest to defining it: Jorge Luis Borges, the writer, said it is "a labyrinth without a center". He went on to predict the film's reputation would not survive long. He was wrong of course (and seems to have retracted from that opinion later in life), and his definition, although meant as disparaging, is actually the best compliment one could make. There is no higher aesthetic achievement for a work of art than being "a labyrinth without a center". This absence of a center is perhaps exactly what Welles had in mind and what he meant by "taking the mickey out of it" when referring to the central Rosebud mystery. Meaning in art is not to be preached or explained. All the same, few movies makes us more aware of the destructive power of financial capitalism than Citizen Kane.
Rating: 90 (unchanged)
The life of a newspaper owner is told through the testimony of several people who knew him.
I think I finally absorbed all the power of this film, after two earlier viewings in which, for reasons I am not fully aware of, I had a hard time staying awake. Maybe it is just the fact that now I saw it at home, and was able to take a break whenever I felt tired. In fact, there is nothing dull about it, it is a relentlessly energetic film. Admittedly, it is a very formalist enterprise, and I would be extremely dishonest if I tried to make it into a political or sociological or psychological essay or something like that. Many critics at the time of its release were clearly expecting something in those lines, and were deeply disappointed. One of its harshest critics is, paradoxically, the one who got closest to defining it: Jorge Luis Borges, the writer, said it is "a labyrinth without a center". He went on to predict the film's reputation would not survive long. He was wrong of course (and seems to have retracted from that opinion later in life), and his definition, although meant as disparaging, is actually the best compliment one could make. There is no higher aesthetic achievement for a work of art than being "a labyrinth without a center". This absence of a center is perhaps exactly what Welles had in mind and what he meant by "taking the mickey out of it" when referring to the central Rosebud mystery. Meaning in art is not to be preached or explained. All the same, few movies makes us more aware of the destructive power of financial capitalism than Citizen Kane.
Rating: 90 (unchanged)
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