True Believer (1989)

A lawyer with a background as a civil rights militant now specializes in drug cases; he hires a young assistant who persuades him to take the case of an unjustly imprisoned Korean immigrant.

The main character exemplifies Millôr Fernandes's adage: "Never trust an idealist who profits from his ideal". He eventually comes to terms with his conscience, with the unexpected bonus of discovering that the case he took was not really a departure from his specialization (civil rights violations as a result of drug repression). Criminal drama with a liberal slant, done with a modicum of intelligence and very professionally.

Rating: 51

Gabbeh (1996)

Set in rural Iran, this is about a young woman who encounters successive obstacles to her marriage with a man she fancies.

This could perhaps have been a better film if more resources were applied to its production. The actors here clearly cannot act, most of them anyway, and the script has a somewhat disjointed structure, with poorly written dialogue. But there are some good ideas and the premise has some potential; its main asset is the lovely display of color mainly on women's clothes.

Rating: 48

The Punisher (1989)

A vigilante had been wiping out several members of the mafia, but now the police believe him to be dead. When the head of that criminal organization returns to the U.S.A., there is speculation over the biological status and possible new actions by the aforementioned independent executioner. A headstrong policeman has his own ideas about the vigilante's identity, and has pursued a solitary investigation to find and apprehend him.

Mildly rewarding as a testosterone-fueled thriller, yet severely lacking in the dramatic department-- the subplot about the motivations of the cop for chasing the Punisher is borderline retarded. What is most problematic about this film, and also with the Batman films, is that they are based on a concept -- that of individual vigilantism -- which is, to the best of my knowledge, absent from reality.

Rating: 33

O despertar da besta (1969)

Alternate title: O ritual dos sádicos.

English title: Awakening of the Beast.

One or more gangs are kidnapping young women and administering drugs to them in order to make them perform sex acts for perverted men. Concurrently, an assembly of intellectuals debate the effects of drugs.

A blend of Reefer Madness and Corman's The Trip, this fits neatly in the exploitation category, wherein a theme is exploited for its shock appeal rather than being legitimately explored into its causes and consequences. Well, anyway, it was voted one of the best 100 Brazilian films, go figure. And, God knows, it might actually be, Brazilian films being so bad in their majority... This film marks a contrast with the earlier work of its diretor. The taste for shocking imagery is still present, and here there is the extra bonus of some impressive color cinematography in the hallucination sequences, but the raw power of those earlier works, which, perhaps unwittingly, dissected the very core of Brazilian machismo ideology, is gone, and the Coffin Joe character is replaced by its maker-as-character, now a celebrity of sorts.

Rating: 31

One Crazy Summer (1986)

Two high-school graduates go on a summer trip to an American island town, where they meet some weird friends of one of them. They also meet a teenage rock singer on the run from her former employers. One of the visiting boys feels attracted towards her, and tries to help her over troubles she's having with her father's mortgage.

Amiably wacky comedy, which is funnier on its first half and then gets somewhat draggy, though not as much as to become unpleasant.

Rating: 55

O rei do baralho (1973)

Nearly plotless. The titular "king of the card pack" is a gambler who has a stunningly sexy girlfriend.

Bressane's films (with very few exceptions) follow a certain pattern which has become a veritable formula. His doctrinary master is Brecht, and his fellow cinematic disciples are Bresson, Straub, and Godard. He seems to be very fond of film theory, and also of classical culture. In his early career, he displayed a certain attraction to the lower classes of society. Later on his career his films would abandon this fictive milieu in favor of a decidedly bourgeois one. I find most of his films awful, with few exceptions and only one which I can say I really like (Killed the Family and Went to the Movies). O Rei do Baralho is not one of his worse ones, probably because the director managed to assemble an interesting cast.

Rating: 31

Araya (1959)

Documentary about a semi-desertic region in the Venezuelan coast and the community of its inhabitants. The local economy is based on salt mining and fishing.

This is a splendid documentary, aesthetically pleasing in a visual sense, informative about its subject, and with a poetic voice narration.

Postcards from the Edge (1990)

Second viewing; first viewing with original audio; previously viewed dubbed on September 4, 2000.

After having a drug overdose, actress goes into rehab. She lands a part on a cheap action movie, but the insurance company requires that she lives with someone "responsible", which, in her case, means her mother, with whom she has a conflictuous relationship.

This is a very good movie, which I apparently didn't give its fair due when I first watched it. It's mostly brilliant sequence after brilliant sequence, even though the storyline and situations per se are not strictly original. The acting is good, especially MacLaine, which does a terrific job as the slightly self-centered mother. The film conveys well a relationship which, although far from healthy, has genuine love in it. The MacLaine character suffers from the same psychological illness which was the theme of the novel Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov.

Rating: 71 (up from 67)

In the Army Now (1994)

Two losers join the army as water purification agents, expecting an easy time and a generous monetary compensation. They are sent to Chad in the campaign against the Libyan invaders.

Poor comedy which offers little or no humorous rewards, but has reasonable production values and an overall not too unpleasant story flow. Christopher Mulrooney called it a "splendid satire of the New Army", and he possibly knew better than me.

Rating: 31

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

It is impossible to ascertain whether I have viewed this film on an earlier date. If I have, it was very long ago, in the seventies, or maybe even in the sixties.

Based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, published in 1812, and on its earlier version by Charles Perrault, published in 1697. According to Wikipedia, "This in turn was based on "Sun, Moon, and Talia" by Italian poet Giambattista Basile (published posthumously in 1634), which was in turn based on one or more folk tales. The earliest known version of the story is Perceforest, composed between 1330 and 1344 and first printed in 1528."

A resentful woman endowed with magical powers casts a deadly spell on a beautiful princess, which, after the intervention of a good fairy, will entail that the princess enters a dormant state on her sixteenth birthday, which can only be interrupted by an adequate kiss.

Graphically, this is an impressive accomplishment, superbly merging modern concepts with traditional ones. The weaker part is the script, which shows little flair for invention and has magic as an ubiquitous resource to solve all dramatic problems.

Rating: 64

Il gattopardo (1963)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

English title: The Leopard.

During the Italian unification wars in the nineteenth century, a Sicilian nobleman and his nephew devise strategies for preserving what they can of their position and way of life.

It's beautiful to look at, and at times provides a good glimpse at a small town and its little people during a period of turmoil. The character of Tancredi has little or no psychological consistency and exists chiefly to utter the famous sentence and lay out the basic thesis of the film. If you enjoy very extended sequences of balls, dinners, masses, etc., and very little in the way of plot, then this film is your very thing.

Rating: 65 (down from 66)

The World According to Garp (1982)

First decent viewing; previous viewing in 1983 was experienced without understanding much of the dialogue.

The life of Garp, an individual who was conceived with the help of an unconscious soldier, and raised by Garp's mother. He grows up to be a novelist, but is overshadowed by his mother, who is an instant success with her memoir. He marries and has children, while his mother founds a sort of refuge for abused individuals.

There is an expression in Portuguese for which I found no equivalent in English: "crônica de costumes", whose literal translation would be "customs chronicle". Maybe this film fits in that category. Some could argue against that, saying that this is a social chronicle, and no less. Well, whatever. To be extremely frank, I wondered while watching it what fun was to be found in the contemplation of these characters' lives. But, as usual, I reprimanded myself, pondering that it had an extremely well-structured and economic screenplay, that the impeccable mise-en-scène was especially visible in sequences like the one where Garp lets his manuscript's leaves get scattered about, and that the casting choices were a work of genius. The multi-incident narrative never quite conceals that the core of the film is the somewhat sad story of a fatherless man who strives to be the best father in the world.

Rating: 55

Ice Age (2002)

In the beginning of an ice age, a sloth joins a mammoth and a sabertooth tiger in the task of returning a stray infant to its father, who has left for warmer climates with his herd. The sabertooth has a hidden agenda, though.

Very poor in plot, unremarkable in graphics, and with gags which will cause a mild chuckle at best, this film's success is thus perfectly explainable.

Rating: 32

A madona de cedro (1994) (TV miniseries)

Based on the novel by Antônio Callado, first published in 1957.

Delfino, a modest sculptor living in the Brazilian historical city of Congonhas, receives the unexpected visit of Maneco, a childhood friend who has been living in Rio de Janeiro. Maneco works for an art thief and tries to coax Delfino into stealing the statue of the Virgin Mary from the local church.

The nineties were probably the prime of Brazilian TV channel Globo, whose average production is of mediocre quality, and has been decaying steadily into unwatchability since that decade. They made a few watchable miniseries, for example Agosto, and this one. It has a nice plot, and overall decent acting, the highlights of which are Paulo José as a blend of the hunchback of Notre Dame and the Phantom of the Opera, and Humberto Martins as Maneco.

Rating: 56

Foxcatcher (2014)

A weird billionaire offers sponsorship to a wrestling champion and his brother, who is also a wrestler. The offer is accepted by the former only, and he moves to the billionaire's estate. The relationship between the two becomes weirdly affectionate, but things go sour. Then the brother decides to come too.

I watched this at the end of last year, but could not bring myself to write these notes. It is an interesting movie, but abides by the current trend of lack of intelligence in certain scripting choices. Certain real-life events were omitted which would considerably clarify the movie. For example, before the fatal event near the end it is known that the real Dave Schultz was leaving Du Pont's team. This would provide a reasonable clue to the latter's feelings and thus to his gruesome act, and yet that fact was omitted in the film. Is it because the filmmaker thought insane people need no justification for their acts? If so, it's ridiculous. There is also the real-life accident which injured Du Pont in his youth, and which gets no mention in the movie. Perhaps it would bring light to some issues, but, again, omitted. Perhaps they were afraid that it would imply that every person with Du Pont's physical history would be prone to his personality and behavior. It seems nowadays everyone is afraid of being offensive, and as a result nothing but anodynous stuff gets said or done.

Rating: 60

Boys on the Side (1995)

Three young women with very different personalities are forced by circumstances to go on a trip together. One has a serious illness, another has some problems with the law, and the third, while not plagued by anything as menacing as her companions are, has some chronic problems of the social and romantic types.

Semi-romantic, semi-melodramatic and utterly unexciting chick flick. The behavior of the characters is not always understandable and seems on occasion to be motivated more by the need to make the "story" move through its "necessary" steps than by true psychological plausibility. The writer even resorts to introducing a "psychic" character which is rather outrageously out of place. On the other hand, the dialogue at times injects intelligent social commentary to the drama.

Rating: 32

Blue Velvet (1986)

Second viewing; first viewed on June 14, 1987.

A young man returning to his hometown during his father's illness gets entangled in a criminal case which he decides to investigate on his own, with some help from the police detective's daughter.

A much talked about movie which does not deliver as much as its reputation would make one expect.  I saw in it mostly a moderately amusing parody of adolescent films of the late fifties and early sixties. The one I can summon without much mental effort is The Blob, but I am sure there are others. It is uncertain whether a finer analysis of the film as a social critique (or as anything else, for that matter) would be a rewarding enterprise. I confess to not understanding exactly why I felt so averse to it on my first viewing. I could not find my earlier notes about it, but I remember being annoyed by what I considered to be the filmmaker's simple-mindedness. I was in error, perhaps, as now I see this simple-mindedness as rather the object of the filmmaker's critique. My present objection is to the film's inconsequentiality.

Rating: 47 (up from 30)

The Borgias (2011-2013) (TV series)

Historical drama. The show's last season was cancelled, leaving the story incomplete.

While the production values are first rate, and there is an overall good taste in the mise-en-scène, this series lacks a real punch. The most curious thing about it is that the actors who play Cesare Borgia and his henchman Micheletto physiognomically resemble respectively a wolf and a fox.

Le dos au mur (1958)

English title: Back to the Wall

A man finds out that his wife is cheating on him. He keeps this fact hidden from her, and proceeds to blackmail her under a false identity.

Ingenious thriller, with all the right plot twists and turns, and good performances from the cast.

Rating: 59

Amarelo manga (2002)

English title: Mango Yellow

Several incidents in the lives of several lower-class people in the town of Recife. The action is mostly set at a hotel and at a bar. The central plot concerns the hotel cook's plot to win over the affections of a butcher.

This film is a notch above the utter worthlessness of Brazil's production. By interspersing its sordid fiction bits with street life scenes of Recife, it makes everything more real, more like an exposé of Brazilian misery and squalor.  One is reminded of Italian neorealism, also of Brutti sporchi e cattivi. Its focus on human perversions makes its author a kind of working-class version of Buñuel, if that is possible. But before I go overboard with praise, I must add that not all of it works equally well, and the conception far exceeds the execution in success.

Rating: 40