Coffy (1973)

A nurse seeks revenge against drug dealers and pimps who turned her sister into a vegetable. Her politician boyfriend, it turns out, is a scumbag as well.

Mildly entertaining -- albeit extremely silly -- crime thriller.

Rating: 42

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

Second viewing; previously viewed on February 16, 2007.

A Detroit police detective goes to Beverly Hills to informally help in the murder attempt against a police captain he was friends with. He uncovers a scheme of robbery and insurance fraud.

This sequel clearly lacks the brilliance of the first film. The funny bits mostly don't work, making the criminal plot the only source of passable entertainment.

Rating: 33 (up from 21)

La baie des anges (1963)

English title: Bay of Angels

A twentysomething man meets a thirtysomething woman in a casino and the two bond. They go from one casino to another, winning some, losing some. He is a newcomer to this world, she is experienced and an addict.

Drama on the oft-visited subject of gambling. It may get a little dull around the middle, and the ending is a little disconcerting, but overall it is quite solidly directed and easy to watch.

Rating: 57

Blue Hawaii (1961)

Probably not the first viewing; certainly the first one with the original audio and correct aspect ratio.

A man is back to his native Hawaii after two years in the army. He reencounters his girlfriend and decides not to take a job at his father's fruit company, employing himself instead at a tourism agency.

The plot here is pretty banal, but the film has at least one funny character (the mother), several funny one-liners, and of course stunning locations, which deserved a better rendering than that of the copy shown by my TV service.

Rating: 41

Incident at Vichy (2016)

(Episode of TV series Theater Close-Up)

Based on the play by Arthur Miller, written in 1964.

Several individuals are gathered in a room after having been detained by the Vichy police, in 1942. They talk about their situation, what to expect and what to do.

This is just a filmed play. The text is an intelligent discussion about the persecution of Jews by the German State in the 20th century. I could comment on every aspect of that discussion, but it would be too extended and boring; furthermore the play is for the most part self-explanatory, so I don't think my considerations would be very enlightening. I will just note that the play was written before many of the atrocities committed by the State of Israel happened or became known, and those atrocities shed an interesting light over some lines said by the psychoanalyst character. As a final note, I was shocked to learn of the participation of an actor whom I knew mostly from a famous 1970s show. I didn't recognize him at all in the role of a middle aged aristocrat!

Rating: 65

The Pawnbroker (1964)

Second viewing; first viewing with the original audio; previously viewed on November 20, 1988.

Sol is a pawnbroker in Harlem whose shop is used as a money laundry front for Rodríguez, a local gangster. Sol treats his assistant Jesús coldly. Some local hoodlums besiege ambitious Jesús to help them rob the shop's safe. Sol has flashes of his suffering past life in Germany. A social worker woman wants to befriend Sol. Sol's customers are very peculiar people whom he treats coldly. Sol has second thoughts about his association with Rodríguez.

This is not as interesting as I perceived it to be on my first viewing. It's hard to know what the film's point is, ultimately. Christopher Mulrooney claims it is a Christian allegory where Jesús stands for Jesus. I, on the other hand, think it has some points in common with Marx's The Jewish Question. On a more down-to-earth analysis, the Nazis were bad to this guy, so he viewed the people who fought the Nazis (and made him a citizen of their country) as just as bad? Weird logic. But overall it is mildly interesting for some ideas it generates, and for the depiction of a social environment, even though the main character is a little implausible. The cinematography produces some dazzling imagery, though, and the filming technique is quite impressive, too.

Rating: 56 (down from 74)

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Second viewing; previously viewed on October 14, 1990.

A Detroit cop takes a vacation in Beverly Hills with the intent of investigating the murder of a childhood friend. Over there he is tailed by the local police and ends up interacting with them in the pursuit of the murderer, who happens to be an important art dealer who is involved in drug dealing and other shady businesses.

This is probably the most shocking case of a very good film which I utterly (and mysteriously) failed to enjoy on my first viewing. And when one looks at the complicated production process it underwent, and the several catastrophic paths it nearly took, its artistic (and popular) success is nothing short of a miracle. The script is almost flawless in its seamless integration of humor, action stunts and plot. And it is very competently rendered into images. The dazzling opening credits sequence deserves a special mention.

Rating: 71 (up from 28)

Across 110th Street (1972)

Some smalltime criminals disguised as policemen barge into a room where some members of organized crime are  handling the earnings of the numbers game, kill everyone there and steal their money. Then they are chased by the mafia and by the police.

This is an interesting film, well filmed except possibly for the cinematography, which leaves something to be desired at some points. Most characters are strongly delineated, no matter how small their screen time, and that's the film's forte. It's also an entertaining film, with a fairly engaging plot and good action sequences. There is a mystery in its premise, though. I seem to be the only person who questions this at all. Before the robbery, character 'Harris' is a very poor criminal who has just been out of jail and, by his own words, has had a very hard time finding a job (we assume he doesn't have one). Yet, he owns a machine gun (and lots of ammunition too)! He uses it to perform the robbery, and also later in the film to defend himself from the police and from the people he robbed. The police knows he has a machine gun. I don't know whether the mafia knows it too. Anyway, no one else uses a machine gun in the movie. When they try to catch him, most (all?) of them use pistols. I just thought this was funny. A mystery, as I said.

Rating: 62

Commando (1985)

Second viewing; previously viewed in 1986.

John, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel, has his daughter kidnapped by Arius, a former Latin American president who was deposed by a U.S. special unit led by John. Arius demands that John kill the current president which was instated in place of Arius, if he wants his daughter back alive.

Over-the-top actioner not devoid of entertainment value in the way of stunts and chases. The movie completely puts aside any concerns over plausibility, as the hero is seen liquidating vast numbers of armed enemies and only suffering a minor wound, among other outrageous stuff. But its stunts are well made, and it has a fast pace that keeps it watchable throughout. It's best not to think about the movie's premise though: the 'good' guys in this film stand for American intervention in sovereign countries, which operates under the guise of the defense of liberalism worldwide, and is probably great for a small number of interested parties, but not so great for world peace or for the majority of the American people.

Rating: 31 (up from 12)

The Stranger (1946)

Second viewing; previously viewed on June 23, 1996.

After the end of World War II, a fugitive German ex-official assumes a new identity in a small American town. Just as he is getting married to a local woman, an investigator in an international organization tracks him down to that town but must prove that he is really the man they are looking for.

One of the fundamental premises for The Stranger is that the elite of a certain people is displaced from their land after it is conquered by others in a war. In exile, they hope to, when the situation permits it, assemble a cabal which would plan a future ruling of the world. Aside from the identity of the nations involved, doesn't this sound like a prequel to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? And an exciting one, too, full of suspense and marvelously designed shots and sequences. On another angle, this is a problematic film, because it doesn't question the ethical implications of putting the suspect's wife in danger in the course of an investigation. There is a curious detail in the plot which intrigued me, and here's a warning that this is going to be a SPOILER: at one point, the German impostor says that Marx was not a German, but a Jew. This is crucial for the plot, because the investigator changes his mind about giving up on him as a suspect; he reasons that only a Nazi would say such a thing. But what intrigued me was that he only came to such a conclusion hours after the event. If it was such an obvious thing, why wasn't he immediately shocked by it?

Rating: 54 (up from 30)

Uma Pistola p'ra D'jeca (1970)

Eulália works as a maid in a landowner's house; one evening, during a social gathering in that house, she is raped by her boss's son. Eight years later, she lives with her father and the son born out of that act of violence. They are still tenants of that same landowner, who has become rich by stealing other people's cattle. Her rapist is now about to get married with the daughter of another landowner, and the presence of Eulália and her family is a nuisance to him, so his father decides to expel them from their property.

Heavy drama with deficient script and direction. The main actor, who is also the producer and co-writer, by that time had fully migrated to "serious" drama territory; he somewhat kept his comic mannerisms and inserted a few comic subplots, but they are very ineffective and have a serious mismatch with the overall tone of the movie.

Rating: 21

Love & Friendship (2016)

Based on the novel Lady Susan, by Jane Austen, written c. 1794.

Lady Susan is a young widow who sets her eyes on a younger man, but has a concurrent affair with a married one. Everyone is concerned with the young man's fate if he gets involved with that woman.

Not exactly exciting, but rather a mildly entertaining jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces must fit in the end, sort of. As in all Austen adaptations (and presumably in her own works, only one of which I have read), it all revolves about weddings. Austen's position is very conservative, but fiction is a two-edged sword and the feminist case is easy to make: it is not Lady Susan who is evil, but the situation she is in.

Rating: 57

Partner. (1968)

A nervous and romantic schoolteacher meets a lookalike of his with an opposite temperament.

The above synopsis should be taken with a grain of salt, because it wasn't always clear for me who is who in each scene of the movie. It's a silly movie anyway, which plays with concepts in vogue at the time, yet with little reflection or articulateness. It's hard to take the protagonist seriously as a teacher; he looks more like a student, and his pupils have the same age as him, apparently. Of course, this is not the only thing in the movie which is hard to make sense of.

Rating: 23

O Jeca e a Freira (1968)

A rich landowner takes the child of one of his workers and raises her as his own daughter. When she is 15, and is on vacation from boarding school, she goes to stay with him in his house, and he becomes possessive towards her. Her real parents continue in his service, but she ignores that she is their daughter.

Very poor drama. The only noteworthy sequence is that of Sigismundo in the police precinct; some sense of comicity is displayed in it. The rest of movie is hard to watch.

Rating: 13

No Paraíso das Solteironas (1969)

A poor ranch hand (Joaquim) is devastated when his boss sells his favorite cow, and so he decides to leave the ranch, and also his wife and his daughter, in search of a way to buy that animal back before it is put to death. He settles down at a small town where there is an excess of unmarried women.

Low-brow comedy. There are some vaguely surrealistic elements in the script, as well as a veiled denunciation of authoritarianism in the person of the local police chief. Gypsies are an important part of the film; they provide some social content and also some gaudy costumes to be captured by the very colorful cinematography.

Rating: 30

Elle s'appelait Sarah (2010)

English titles: Sarah's Key; Her Name Was Sarah.

Two plots in different periods develop: in 1942, a Jewish girl and her family are taken from home and sent to camps during the Vélodrome d'Hiver Roundup episode; in present times, a journalist who wrote a story for a magazine about the Roundup finds out that her husband's family has a connection with that event.

Although the sequence at the Vel d'Hiv is quite impressive, the rest of the movie does not hold up to that level of impact. To be fair, the part set in the 1940s is somewhat interesting, even though not all of it is very plausible. The modern-day drama, however, is quite tedious, and doesn't sit too comfortably with the other part of the movie. To make things worse, one never gets a sense of why the journalist character becomes so personally obsessed with the titular character.

Rating: 32