Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922)

English titles: Dr. Mabuse the Gambler; Dr. Mabuse, King of Crime.

Second viewing of the first part; first viewing of the second.

An archcriminal uses hypnosis to win at card games; he is a master of disguise, and also manipulates the stock market and runs a money counterfeiting operation. A police inspector (here for some reason called 'state prosecutor') investigates his crimes and, little by little, arrives at his true identity.

Very well made criminal drama, with stunning interiors and brilliantly executed exteriors as well. The text is juvenile in its ideas, and has a terrible credibility problem in the way the titular character performs his psychological manipulations, seeing as he apparently doesn't even have to be near his victims to hypnotize them, among other inconsistencies. The existing ideological interpretations of the main character are somewhat disparate; you can read a summary of them on the film's Wikipedia page and decide for yourself which ones are reasonable.

Rating: 60

Cancel My Reservation (1972)

A TV show host living in New York takes a vacation in Arizona and is framed for the murder of a young Native American woman. His wife joins him and both join efforts to prove his innocence. The owner of a big ranch is involved in some shady businesses and might be the culprit.

This film has a mix of serious criminal drama and comic gags. Most of it does not work, but can be viewed with a small effort. Some of the one-liners are funny but most are just intrusive.

Rating: 39

Life Stinks (1991)

A billionaire bets with a business competitor that he can survive for one month as a homeless person without access to any of his possessions except the clothes he is wearing. If he wins he gets to buy from his rival the very area where he will be living during that month (he wants to build on that area). If he loses he will have to sell an adjacent area to that rival. During that month he will make friends, get cheated and change his outlook on life.

Easy to watch yet uninspired comedy with a similar premise to Sullivan's Travels (1941).

Rating: 43

Roberto Carlos e o diamante cor de rosa (1970)

A bunch of singers touring in Japan accidentally run into a statuette which is Phoenician in origin and contains a map to an ancient treasure. They are chased by a guy who covets that treasure, but are protected by a Japanese swordsman.

Touristic adventure with lots of sightseeing and some fine songs. It is mostly idiotic but a few sequences are visually interesting.

Rating: 13

Truman (2015)

Julián is an actor living in Madrid who has a terminal disease; he receives the visit of long-time friend Tomás who lives in Canada and came to spend a few days with him and try to persuade him to continue his treatment.

Mediocre drama about dying. The problem with contemporary films is that they try to mirror reality but have little else to justify one's sitting for two hours watching them. So, if you want a mirror to reality, watch it, but do it at your own risk. Don't blame me if you end up thinking it fails at mirroring reality, since I am not even sure that it succeeds at that. How could I be anyway? What is reality, if you don't mind my asking?

Rating: 37

Esse mundo é meu (1964)

English title according to IMDB: That World and Mine.
Correct translation of the Portuguese title: This World Is Mine.

In a shantytown live two men, one white and one black. The white guy is an ironworker and the black guy is a shoeshiner. The white guy has a fiancée who moves in with him and wants to have a baby. The black guy wants to own a bicycle so he can conquer the girl of his dreams.

Social drama. Not exactly a well-made movie, it especially lacks a decent script. The abortion angle lacks plausibility; we never get to know why the white woman changes her mind from first wanting a baby despite presumably knowing that it would be difficult to raise it to being resolutely determined not to have it. Overall, a curious movie but not much more than that.

Rating: 32

Topaz (1969)

Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

Version watched: 126'.

A Soviet intelligence official defects to the West, and reveals that the Soviets are installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. A French agent working for the Americans is sent to Cuba to find out what is happening. After returning to the U.S., he goes to France to uncover a Soviet espionage ring.

Unexciting, though well-filmed, spy thriller. The plot is diffuse, traveling through various countries and situations without much of a climax or central point. The French wife's infidelity is a plot point which is only glossed over; it seems, furthermore, to be completely irrelevant and should probably not be in the movie at all.

Rating: 40 (up from 28)

Good morning Babilonia (1987)

English title: Good Morning, Babylon.

Second viewing; previously viewed on May 14, 1996.

Two Italian brothers who work in old building restoration move to Hollywood where they find work on the set of Intolerance. After being initially rejected, they become part of the team that sculpted the sets for that film. In Hollywood, they also meet love, and tragedy.

I rewatched this because I was a little disconcerted with the abysmally low rating I gave it upon my first viewing. Well, I raised it a little. Just a little. What we have here is hollow sentimentality, absurd character behavior (e.g. the production director's animosity), and a missed opportunity for dramatizing in a minimally realistic way the lives of Hollywood workers of the silent period. On the good side, I found the theme of the equality between the two brothers, and the recurring threat of its disruption, an interesting one. But there are better films on that theme, for example Dead Ringers.

Rating: 20 (up from 10)

Lolita (1962)

Second viewing; first viewing with the original audio; previously viewed on September 20, 1994.

A middle-aged professor falls in love with his landlady's teenage daughter.

I found this terrible on my first viewing, but perhaps I was too easily bored then. Character Quilty provides some funny bits, but he is obviously not a realistic character, and that seems a little at odds with the rest of the movie. The film has some brilliant sequences, but its big problem is that its plotline is not terribly interesting.

Rating: 50 (up from 30)

I pugni in tasca (1965)

English titles: Fists in the Pocket; Fist in the Pocket

It depicts an impoverished family living in a big house. The father is absent, presumably dead; the mother is blind; the three sons and a daughter are, respectively: Alessandro, who has incestuous feelings towards Giulia, who in turn has incestuous feelings towards Augusto; there is also Leone, an idiot. Augusto wants to marry Lucia, but has no money.

Drama with interesting and well acted individual sequences, but psychologically inconsistent as a whole. It reportedly caused a commotion among the filmviewing elite who saw it upon its release, but its predictability makes it ultimately ineffective as a shock piece. Also, must they really have two epileptics in the same family?

As for the title, Spiritoso78 at WordReference.com says:

"fists in your pockets it could mean that you can no longer stand the situation around you; basically you're fed up about everything surrounding your everyday life, therefore sooner or later you'll blow up.....and then you'll pull your fists out!"

Rating: 44

Roberto Carlos em ritmo de aventura (1968)

Roberto Carlos is a pop singer who is starring in a movie; he is chased by a gang led by a woman who has a plan to use a computer to write songs for him and other famous singers. But our hero is a composer too, and does not want to be replaced by a machine. Meanwhile, the actor who plays the villain in the film R.C. is doing is a real villain who wants to kill him. R.C. gets to drive a fast car and a helicopter, and even ride a rocket to space.

This exercise in metacinema follows the vogue of madcap films starring pop stars in the 1960s; it is possibly out of sheer frankness that at the very start, through the voice of its protagonist, it confesses: "I am terrible". So, viewers cannot claim they weren't warned. Anyway, A Hard Day's Night it ain't, though many a spectator will want to cry for Help! while watching it. Speed driving is a recurring motif in the songs' lyrics.

Rating: 12

Beto Rockefeller (1970)

Beto is a penniless guy who mingles with rich people pretending to be rich himself. He employs cunning tricks to get away with his imposture, and also to avoid paying for the basic items of survival (like his rent, or cab fare). His goal is to enjoy life and to make love to beautiful rich women. His friendship with a car mechanic is instrumental to his schemes, since he is the one who provides him with cars "borrowed" from the garage where he works. Beto is mistaken with an international jewel thief.

Spin off from a very popular daily TV serial (telenovela). Class struggle in this film (as on the serial) comes down to the poor envying the rich. Not exactly a marxist approach, of course. The film is very thin on plot, and fills its running time with lots of scenes of jet set gatherings, yachts, natural landscapes, urban architecture, and, on the opposite end of the social spectrum, street scenes. There is no sophistication whatsoever in the humor, or in the narrative, but the succession of images is not exactly unpleasant.

Note: on IMDB, as in most other places, the spelling of the title is Beto Rockfeller, which is different from the film's title credits, but matches the spelling of the TV serial's title credits.

Rating: 31

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

Rain Man (1988)

Second viewing; previously viewed on April 1, 1989.

An importer/salesman of cars (Charlie) learns about his father's passing and that he has left most of his money in trust to the mental institution where his hitherto unheard of brother (Raymond) is a patient. Charlie is in a desperate financial situation and decides to take Raymond with him without the permission from his guardian.

I previously disliked this film very much, but I can only speculate about the reasons for it. I probably focused too much on the lack of accuracy in the medical and psychological depiction of Raymond as an autistic person; perhaps I also objected to what I then perceived as misplaced sentimentality. Although I still don't find Rain Man exactly what I would call a good film, I think those points are not of such great importance. Ok, the film's plot and characters are made of clichés. Also, Charlie's decision to kidnap, so to speak, his brother is a completely irrational move which stresses believability somewhat. But I think the film succeeds, to a certain extent, at showing two kinds of self-centered people. One of them is superficially a normal one, but shows a very limited emotional attachment to everyone around him. The other has a psychological disorder, and can't respond to emotional stimuli in a normal way. The question the film poses, and perhaps avoids to answer in an explicit way is: what makes Charlie behave the way he does? The implicit answer seems to be that American society has some inner disorder in its values that conditions its normal members to act abnormally. And that disorder has a name: Capitalism.

Rating: 36 (up from 24)

Akira (1988)

Second viewing, sort of; previous viewing (in February 2, 2003) was somewhat compromised by stretches of sleep during the film; previous viewing was of a dubbed-in-Portuguese copy.

After a nuclear explosion destroys Tokyo, it is reconstructed. The government is conducting research on some individuals endowed with psychokinetic and extrasensory powers. One of them is kidnapped by an underground organization. During his recapture, the government agents take a teenager (Tetsuo) into custody and find out that he is also endowed with special powers. Apparently one such individual (Akira) had been responsible by the catastrophe which destroyed Tokyo. His remains are cryogenically kept at a secret location. Tetsuo escapes and threatens to provoke another catastrophe.

Specifically targeted at teenage audiences, this features lots of mayhem and shouting, and some impressive visuals. There is a bit of social and political comment seving as background to the main plot which suggests the existence of a dark underside of corruption, decay and unrest to Japan's apparently thriving society. Overall, it provides decent entertainment.

Rating: 50 (down from 66)

The Rookie (1990)

Second viewing; previously viewed in November 16, 1991.

A young policeman is assigned as partner to a veteran one, at the auto theft division. The older cop is obsessed with catching a notorious gangster responsible for a huge number of car thefts. They catch him at last (plus his girlfriend and accomplice), but the rookie makes a mistake and the bandits escape taking the veteran cop as hostage.

This has an extremely formulaic plot, but it keeps the viewer entertained; also, the action sequences are well done.

Rating: 38 (up from 24)

C'era una volta il West (1968)

English title: Once Upon a Time in the West.

Second viewing; previously viewed in February 15, 1987.

(165 min version, English dub) (Atypically for this webpage, this synopsis will be accompanied by comments.) A stranger with a harmonica arrives at a small Western town. He's set a date with a man (Frank) who doesn't show up, but sends three of his henchmen instead. The three men are there to kill Harmonica, but he possesses supernatural shooting speed and kills the three men. Frank's motive for wanting Harmonica dead is not known yet. In fact, it will never be known, since Frank doesn't even know Harmonica's identity at that point. I guess he just likes to have random people killed. The railroad owner (Morton) feels that one particular man (McBain) who owns a property near the prospective passage of the railroad needs a scare. This is one plot point you should not ask me about, because I do not understand it. Morton tells his henchman (who happens to be Frank) to do the job, but he overdoes it and kills McBain and his entire family. Again, don't ask me why. On that very day, McBain was meeting his new wife (Jill) who was coming on the train. When she arrives and sees everyone of her new family dead, she decides to live on the property. Why she decides to do that is not known, so don't ask me. She may be crazy in the head or something. One of the town's bad guys (Cheyenne) enters a bar wearing shackles, after gun shots are heard on the outside. How he managed to escape his captors single-handedly and shackled is something we will never know. The plot continues on, with many more obscure points. At a certain point, Harmonica turns Cheyenne in for the reward. The excellent synopsis on IMDB conjectures that this is a "scheme devised by both  men", which is probably correct, since they were on friendly terms before and would remain so afterwards. Cheyenne is sent to a maximum security prison, but some of his henchmen follow the detachment and, later, Cheyenne appears again, free. His henchmen must be very competent indeed. Anyway, the basics of the plot is that Frank and Morton are the "bad" guys and all the other characters are more or less on the "good" side.

This film's strong point is doubtlessly its visual side. The framing of each shot, and how they are edited, is superb, particularly so in the opening credits sequence. The coupling of the visual narrative with the musical score is also artfully constructed, though some have objected, perhaps with reason, to a certain repetitiveness and intrusiveness of the score (this is a characteristic of all films by this director, however). The plot has its problems, as I somewhat outlined in the above synopsis, and the film really does not seem to make an effort in that direction: plotless moments are played out at the most leisurely pace imaginable, and key plot points are simply not played out at all, having to be presumed by the viewer. The performances are adequate for the most part; Ferzetti probably deserves some special accolades. My previous rating probably reflected some of the film's problematic aspects, but also that probably the copy I saw then was pan-and-scan and had a poor Portuguese dubbing.

Rating: 61 (up from 30)

El secreto de sus ojos (2009)

English title: The Secret in Their Eyes.

A justice agent is put in charge of a case of rape and murder. He befriends the victim's husband and promises to catch the killer. The agent feels a certain attraction to his boss, a woman. Also, his assistant is a drunk. The case continues to affect his life even after the killer is caught.

This is a horrible movie, and just as horrible is the realization that I am almost alone in this assessment. It won awards, and is currently at the 143º position on IMDB's list of top rated films. I will not bother to write my considerations about it (watching it has been trouble enough), but Metala84's review points out some important deficiencies in the plot (warning: spoilers ahead):

*begin quote*
The plot of the movie is horrible. Even TV series have more believable "investigations". Finding a killer after watching a few pictures in an old family album? Seriously? Hey what's wrong and so suspicious in admiring a beautiful girl you know from your childhood that makes you a murder suspect? Okay lets put this aside. So our murder suspect writes barely understandable coded letters to his mothers, containing the names of his favorite football players. Who does that? And a few drunks in a bar decode them and here the main characters catch the suspect right away at the next football game on a stadium with thousands of people. Just like that - as soon as they arrive there. Then, how do you get a confession from him? Easy. Get your boss, a beautiful woman, to tell him that his penis is small. There you go, he puts off his pants and shows her she's wrong and also confesses the murder. Piece of cake.
*end quote*

The rest of his/her review raises a few other points which made me think, but I am not so sure I agree exactly with him/her on them. Regardless of that, the fact remains that this is a lousy film.

Rating: 20

Le amiche (1955)

English title: The Girlfriends.

A woman is supervising the opening of a fashion shop in another town and befriends some of the local women in connection with a suicide attempt next door to her hotel room. She also gets romantically involved with the assistant to the architect who is responsible for the shop's premises.

This is very similar in style to soap operas made two  or three decades later (I'm thinking of the Brazilian ones, but I suppose they don't differ much from one country to another). All the same, it is quite entertaining if one does not demand great thrills or complexities.

Rating: 51

Jaws III (1983)

An aquatic park which is opening a new underwater tunnel for visitors has some trouble with a big shark.

While not as unwatchable as some reviews lead one to believe, this is really short on thrills. It was originally exhibited in 3-D, and I presume that watching it in two dimensions, as I have done, makes it even duller.

Rating: 31

Les faux-monnayeurs (2010)

Based on the novel by André Gide, first published in 1925.

English title: The Counterfeiters

A writer returns to Paris after a stay in London, and reconnects with his relatives. He becomes close to his teenage nephew, who has literary ambitions. Other subplots include another teenage boy who abandons his family after discovering that the man who raised him is not his biological father; a woman who is about to marry and discovers she is pregnant from another man; an old school teacher who wants to meet his grandson; another writer who leads a life of debauchery; etc.

Although I haven't read the novel, it feels like they oversummarized it and one has to build an understanding by connecting the dots made of mildly implied events and words; Wikipedia also helps. Les faux-monnayeurs revolves around ephebophilia, which is defined as "the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19". In the case of this novel (and film) we are talking specifically of homosexual ephebophilia. With a little help from those readings, it becomes apparent that the thesis of the film is that there are "good" ephebophiles, exemplified by the protagonist, and "bad" ones, exemplified by Passavant. The film is neither convincing nor engaging, though it has a sufficiently polished narrative so as to be watchable.

Rating: 34

Tropic Thunder (2008)

The director of a war movie, under the advice of the source book's author, decides to turn it into a cinéma vérité experiment without telling the actors about it. As a result, they get involved in dangerous situations.

This is a satire of much of the Hollywood filmography of the 1980s and 1990s. The humor is occasionally of a predictable kind, but spot-on nevertheless. As has been remarked, the opening faux commercial and trailers are the funniest part of the movie. All the actors do an excellent job, and have been very smartly chosen for their parts. Overall, entertaining enough.

Note: If I haven't made any calculation mistake (I had to time the commercials and subtract them), the version I watched was 113 minutes long. Oddly, it doesn't match in length either of the versions which IMDB lists.

Rating: 59

The Hangover (2009)

100 min version.

Doug is getting married; Phil, Stu and Alan take him to Las Vegas for a stag night. The next morning Doug is missing, and the others have no recollection of the previous night.

Lightly amusing comedy. While not exactly funny, it has an imaginative script and good performances. Precedents have been detected in Dude, Where's My Car? and Very Bad Things.

Rating: 58

La Pointe-Courte (1955)

Man and wife discuss their relationship while sojourning at his place of birth, a fishing village. Parallel subplots concern the day-to-day life of villagers: the conflict between fishermen and health inspectors, the death of a child, a young man who wants permission to court a 16-year-old woman, a water joust, a dancing ball, etc.

Somewhat underdeveloped mix of ethnographic semi-documentary and intimate drama. I wonder whether the remarkable similarity in style between the dramatic portions of this film and the work by a few other famous directors made after it are just a coincidence; by the way, a shot from this film (two faces in close-up, one in front view and another in profile) is identical to a shot in Persona. These French villagers, all of which apparently have Italian surnames and faces to match, acquire a nearly mythical aura through the filmmaker's lens; this is an example of how a privileged cinematic point-of-view influences the opinion of viewers. While probably constrained by a survival imperative to break the law, they are obviously harming their customers by selling them infected shellfish; in reviews, however, they are never criticized ( "poor but proud people", says Wikipedia); the Law, on the other hand, is implicitly placed under suspicion ("a small lagoon they have been forbidden to use because of an alleged problem with bacteria" (Wikipedia, my italics).

Rating: 40

Scream Blacula Scream (1973)

Blacula is resurrected in a voodoo ceremony by an aggrieved voodoo priest. The latter's rival as a voodoo master is a woman who, at Blacula's request, performs a voodoo ritual in the attempt to devampirize the accursed African prince. Meanwhile, an ex-cop helps the police solve the wave of fang-assaults which seem to be vampirizing the population of Los Angeles.

As thinly plotted as its predecessor, this seems to be just a collection of set-pieces with little thrilling value. Also like its predecessor, the whole thing is well acted and eventful enough as to let itself be watched. One thing that escaped me while viewing the first movie, and which is present in this one also, is the physical transformation gone through by the titular character; he gains some extra facial hair and some physical strength, making him a sort of hybrid of werewolf and vampire.

Rating: 31

Blacula (1972)

An African prince is made into a vampire by Count Dracula; he is imprisoned in a coffin for two centuries, and then released in Los Angeles, where he makes some victims and encounters a lookalike for his dead wife.

Vampire movie with African American ambiance and characters. The titular character is portrayed in a less unfavorable light than is usual in older vampire films, but the film is otherwise dull. I, for one, have always found the basic moral premise of vampire movies a flawed one. Vampires are basically people who endow other people with a much longer life than they would otherwise have. I do not see how this would make vampires bad. There are some inconveniences in the process, such as having to avoid sunlight, but would anyone really consider the trade-off a disadvantageous one? The demonization of vampires is a typical manifestation of extreme reactionarism that one only sees in movies. In real life most people are obsessed with prolonging life indefinitely, and would certainly welcome a meeting with a vampire.

Rating: 31

Pony Express (1953)

In 1860, two guys want to start a new courier system from Utah to California using messengers on horses, replacing the old stagecoach system. They must face the opposition from the owner of the stagecoach company, and from some Californians who want their State to secede from the Union. Native Americans are used as a weapon by the bad guys.

The plot is convoluted, and rather obscure in some of its details. They put famous real-person names on the two protagonists, pretending these are events in their lives. There is a memorable sequence in and around a bathtub. Pony Express is action-filled but rather long. People have likened it to a B-Western, but the produtcion values are superior. On the whole, watchable.

Rating: 35

Le Havre (2011)

An elderly man gives shelter to an immigrant boy. Other characters are his gravely ill wife, a policeman, the woman who owns the bar, the woman who owns the bakery, a grocer, a boat owner, a Vietnamese immigrant, several bar patrons, a mysterious neighbor, a rock singer, a medical doctor, etc.

Those familiar with the films by this filmmaker are in for no surprise with this one. The same oversimplification of plot, and toning down of drama, the same naïve worldview. The people who entertain that worldview are vaguely socialist and strongly anti-authoritarian, as if socialism did not require strong State authority. They also are pro-working class and pro-immigration, and see no conflict there, much to the joy of Capitalists who can never get enough of new members in the reserve army of labor. Well, I will probably make no friends with these considerations, so let me stop here and say something nice. The film is watchable due to its (mostly bland) sense of humor and an easy flow of narrative.

Rating: 37

Máscara da traição (1969)

*mild spoilers below*

César works as an accountant at an office in charge of managing the revenue of a big soccer stadium. He is constantly abused by his boss Carlos. César is an accomplished visual artist, but his artistic career was cut short by the need to earn a living. He starts an affair with his boss's wife Cristina, who comes up with the idea for a plan to steal the revenue of a soccer game and frame Carlos for it. César would use his artistic talents, and a cast from Carlos's face to be provided by Cristina, to manufacture a mask which would allow him to impersonate Carlos during the robbery.

This is the only instance I can remember of a Brazilian attempt at a film noir in its classical form. It's not exactly a good film. Its plot is quite predictable and derivative, even in its twists, especially by those who know the rules of this genre. The director has a tendency to overextend some non-narrative scenes, which make it a little tiresome. The acting is provided by some then very well known faces from TV, and is quite OK.  I guess it could be watched out of curiosity, and little else.

Caveat: if you watched it yesterday on Canal Brasil, or recorded that emission, watch out: they inverted the order of two segments at the latter part of the movie. At first, I though it was a flashback, but later judged it improbable; I confirmed my suspicion by watching that part at another copy which had those segments correctly ordered.

Rating: 35

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Second viewing; previously viewed on September 8, 2008.

Two men meet, the older one a former bank robber. They meet with the latter's former partners in crime and fail in retrieving the loot from their former robbery, so they decide to do it again.

This is the typical product of a young mind. The script is sentimental in a masculine way and not devoid of inventiveness. I was particularly impressed, when first viewing it, with a sequence involving a car trunk. I couldn't remember the details except that it was one of the weirdest I had ever seen. That assessment still seemed correct upon this second viewing.

Rating: 58 (unchanged)

A Star Is Born (1976)

Based on the homonymous 1937 movie from a story by William A. Wellman and Robert Carson; that movie in turn shared several plot points with What Price Hollywood? (1932), based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns and Louis Stevens.

A declining rock star meets a struggling singer and starts a relationship with her. He promotes her work and she rises to stardom, whereas he sees his career fade.

A bad film in almost every aspect one can think of. In fact, I consider it quite a feat for a person or persons to have come up with so meticulously incompetent a job of work, and I think that gives it some kind of parodic value. There is one sequence, however, that I feel does not belong in it in any way: when the leading actress sings the beautiful Evergreen, composed by herself and a lyricist. It totally differs in style from the rest of the film. The recurrent attraction exerted by this story throughout the decades (4 films, 5 counting its 1932 cousin) is noteworthy. There must be some fundamental relevance about it. Note that in none of those 5 productions the gender of the two main characters has been reversed. Why do you thing that is? Maybe its appeal has something to do with a larger phenomenon affecting the sexes and their roles from the 20th century onwards?

Rating: 19

Kazaam (1996)

A genie who had been trapped for millennia is freed. He is found by Max, who is 12 and lives with his mom. She wants to get married with her new boyfriend, but Max rejects him. Max finds out that his father is in town and goes looking for him. His father is involved with gangsters. 

Unimaginative fantastic drama aimed at the youthful segment. It's all about second chances.

Rating: 25

Funny Lady (1975)

Fanny is a comic entertainer-singer. She meets composer-producer Billy and they start working together. They get married but their different projects put a distance between them. Also, Fanny could never get over a former love of hers.

Musical drama. This is one of those biopics about the life of stars whose main point seems to be that stars have no life. Well, anyway, there are songs and some smart dialogue, and at one point the titular character is at a polo field in Beverly Hills and says: "You can't keep up with the goyim!".

Rating: 32

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

A family moves to a house where macabre events took place. Jesse, the teenage son, has horrible nightmares with a monstrous murderer named Fred. Fred wants to use Jesse to commit murder. Lisa, who loves Jesse, tries to help him.

There's very little here in the way of excitement. The Wikipedia page of the film is actually more interesting than the film itself, what with all discussions about 'subtext' and the like. But the film, for all its lack of novel ideas, is fairly well directed, and may be viewed as a document of 1980s aesthetics and way of life.

Rating: 30

Une femme mariée (1964)

English title: A Married Woman.

A woman cheats on his husband, an aviator, with an actor.

When one follows a filmmaker's career, and that filmmaker is a complete author, that is an interesting experience. Someone's art ages in a similar manner to how a person ages. His youth films look like masterpieces when compared to his middle-age films, which in turn look like masterpieces when compared to his old age movies. But I stress: I am referring only to full authors: people who write original scripts and direct them. Well, to Une femme mariée, then. This film is an amusing critique of sixties' advertising and the effect they had on women; also amusing is the contrast between the protagonist's frivolous life and the matters which occupied the minds of reputedly serious people, emblematized by the topic of concentration camps. Not particularly brilliant, but overall interesting enough.

Rating: 51

Northanger Abbey (2007)

TV Movie. Based on the novel by Jane Austen, the first version of which was written in 1798-1799; it was revised in 1816-1817.

Catherine is invited by a couple to live with them for some time in another town. She meets Henry, whose father invites her to stay in their castle for a while. Catherine is led to believe there is a family secret.

While superficially this is just a costume drama which through a well-woven web of human interactions manages to grab and keep the viewer's attention, one is tempted to construe a deeper meaning in it as a moral tale, stating that love of money is intrinsically murderous.

Rating: 51

Westward Ho (1935)

John starts a vigilante group with the intent of finding the men who killed his parents and kidnapped his brother when John was still a child.

B-Western with a very simple plot. May be watched, may be skipped.

Rating: 33

Les Misérables (1998)

Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862.

Jean is released on parole from prison, to where he was sent for stealing bread. He violates his parole and assumes another identity, under which he becomes mayor of a small town. A very zealous police inspector tries to arrest him, but Jean escapes to Paris. The inspector develops a fixed idea on capturing Jean.

This is a well-made melodrama, fairly watchable. It is said to be a faithful, albeit very summarized, adaptation of the novel. It is a thesis-film, making a case against excessive attachment to the letter of the law in penal affairs, and for a greater attention to socially-related causes of crime. Everything in the movie is greatly exaggerated, particularly the cruelty and bigotry of the bourgeoisie. It's the kind of story that shouldn't be taken seriously, but which provides entertainment even through its flaws.

Rating: 48

É proibido beijar (1954)

**spoilers below**

A gossip columnist is assigned with interviewing an American actress visiting Brazil. At the airport another woman pretends to be that actress, and he believes her (he has never seen a photo of that actress!). The impostor woman asks to stay in the columnist's apartment, claiming she is without a passport. Her mysterious identity and behavior intrigue the young man. He becomes attracted to her, but she refuses to give him even a kisss. Eventually it is revealed that she has a wager going on which states that she should live off the favors of a man for a certain period of time, without retributing those favors in any way, even with a mere kiss.

Comedy whose plot and style have been said to evoke the screwball comedy of American cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. While the dialogue and direction have a certain refinement which places it above the average of Brazilian productions of the time, the utter silliness of the premise weakens it somewhat.

This is said to be based on a play by Alessandro De Stefani, and the book Participação italiana no cinema brasileiro, by Máximo Barro, says that É Proibido Beijar is a "remake of an Italian comedy from the years 1930-1940"; the plot bears a slight similarity with La prima donna che passa (1940), written by him. The synopsis for the latter film provided by IMDB is as follows:

At the 17th century French Court, Cardinal Richelieu bets with two courtesans about the possibility that by midnight he succeeds in conquering the first woman who will pass at that time.

I don't really know if this is the comedy to which Barro alludes to, but I couldn't locate any other movie with a similar plot.

Rating: 45

Richard III (1995)

Based on the play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1593.

This film is an exercise in anachronism. Although based on events which took place in the 15th century, and sporting dialogues from the play written in the 16th century, the film is visually set in an imaginary England of the 1930s, after a civil war which dethrones the monarch. Richard, a brother of the new king, covets the throne for himself, and uses all kinds of immoral schemes to achieve his goal, and when he succeeds he establishes a fascist-like government.

Although as a statement in political science I have severe doubts about the seriousness of this film, as a visual and dramatic spectacle it is quite convincing and, at times, even dazzling.

Rating: 60

Waterhole #3 (1967)

An Army sergeant is stealing army gold. He hides it in a pond in the desert. A card shark accidentally comes into possession of the map to where the gold is hidden. He looks for the gold, but is chased by a sheriff.

Unusual Western comedy with sung verses which narrate the goings-on of the plot. A considerable part of the narrative involves a rape and its consequences. This is approached in a comical way. It is a cynical movie, and occasionally funny. All in all, a curious movie, well acted and well directed; I guess one could call it a product of its time, and leave it at that.

Rating: 51

La peau de chagrin (2010)

(TV movie)

Based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac, first published in 1831.

Raphael is a penniless young aspiring author who, while in an antique shop -- which he entered with the intention of buying a gun for suicidal purposes --, receives from the shop's owner a donkey's skin with magical properties: it grants its owner's every wish, claiming in return a bit of his remaining time of life. To every granted wish would ensue a shrinking of the skin. This would ultimately lead to the owner's death. Raphael accepts the skin and obtains many of his cherished wishes: he becomes a famous author, receives a large amount of money from a distant relative, and sleeps with a woman he desired. However, happiness is an elusive beast. Furthermore, the shrinking of the skin is a constant reminder of his impending doom.

This is well-made, with good production design and cinematography, and a nicely-flowing narrative, as well as adequate acting by everyone involved. The problem is the story itself, a variation on the Faust theme which has all the predictable elements one usually attaches to it, and hardly any surprise. Even so, it is an easy watch.

Rating: 46

Candleshoe (1977)

Based on the novel Christmas at Candleshoe, by J.I.M. Stewart (writing as Michael Innes), first published in 1953.

A teenage delinquent is sold by her foster parents to a crook who passes her off as a child who went missing many years earlier. He delivers her to the missing girl's grandmother, who lives in a big estate. The girl is assigned with finding a treasure which is hidden in the mansion.

Mildly entertaining juvenile comedy. The locations are interesting and agreeable, the humor is mostly bland, the plot is conventional but not dumb. The actors are competent.

The Wikipedia page has a link to a film called Crooks and Coronets, from1969, which has a remarkably similar plotline but apparently gives no credit to Innes' novel.

Rating: 38

Warpath (1951)

A former army official is on a mission to avenge the death of his fiancée by some bank robbers fleeing the scence of their crime. When he hears that one of the robbers has joined the Cavalry, he reenlists.

*mild spoilers below*
Moderately entertaining Western, with a reasonably well-woven plot and some tension. The most interesting thing of the movie is that a very intelligent plot point is entirely wasted, and seems to happen by coincidence. The protagonist, at a certain point of the narrative, leads a wagon train through a Sioux camp, and the wagon master shoots a Sioux child. This makes the position of the protagonist become similar to that of his offenders, since all are now respectively responsible for one death.

Rating: 41

Traitement de choc (1973)

Second viewing; first viewed on November 28, 1997.

English title: Shock Treatment.

A woman approaching her 40s checks into a clinic which offers an expensive treatment which claims to stop aging. There are some fishy occurrences at the clinic, and she starts poking around in search of any clues of wrongdoing.

Although the premise is somewhat smart, and its critique of capitalism is spot on, the film is flawed on account of an excessively conventional and excitement-free narrative. Also, what's with all the nudity?

Rating: 50 (down from 65)

Futureworld (1976)

The theme park of Westworld is reformed, expanded and reopened. Several world leaders are invited to spend one day there, as  well as some journalists, among whom is one that received a tip that something very fishy is or will be happening there.

This has some good ideas, but turns out to be not so good. Probably its biggest problem is that the development is too linear and predictable, with little tension or excitement. But the film suffers from another problem: its premise is no longer frightening to some, perhaps most, people. Well, imagine world leaders being replaced by robots at the service of a big corporation! How horrible, except isn't that what they are already? And that corporation is doing it to save the world from itself, it says. That's not frightening either. If they are not being sincere, we fall into the case that I just commented upon. If they are being sincere, well, that's nothing to fear, is it? If they had accomplished that in 1976, global warming would have been stopped by now, and that Swedish girl would not have had her childhood taken away from her. Wouldn't that have been nice?

Rating: 41

Sans toit ni loi (1985)

English title: Vagabond
English translation of the French title: Without Roof or Law

The dead body of a young drifting woman is found in a ditch. The film then flashes back a few months and then follows her up until her death. She wanders aimlessly through the countryside taking odd jobs and sleeping in empty houses or in a camping tent. She meets with assorted characters, occasionally settling somewhere, only to depart after a short period.

To be frank, as I started watching this film it didn't look very promising, and even began to annoy me a little. To begin with, the notion of a young female drifter without any goal in life is very implausible, and the reasons for that are not very hard to discern. But I decided to suspend my disbelief. Perhaps the purpose of the movie was precisely that: to imagine an unusual character living an unusual life. And it actually got better, or, more accurately said, it felt better when I took that more broad-minded stance toward it. It is a very simply, almost crudely staged movie. I decided to overlook that too. All in all, one might say that its originality consists in not making the main character a victim, at least not in a traditional sense. She does not come across as a particularly endearing person either. She is nothing special, but her unique condition makes her the object of the projection of the people she encounters; she is like an empty vessel into which everyone pours their frustrations. The film may be seen as a parable of sorts, a parable without a discernible moral. The ending, though simply a return to the beginning, is oddly disturbing; the strange sequence that precedes it maybe the source of that emotional effect.

Rating: 55

Flic ou voyou (1979)

English title: Cop or Hood.

An eccentric internal affairs agent investigates the murder of a corrupt cop, and gets involved in the feud between two mobsters.

Endlessly tedious criminal thriller with a comic undertone. The only thing that made it bearable was the good work of some of the supporting actors (notably Balmer).

Rating: 28

Kasaba (1997)

English title: The Small Town.

While this is generally considered to be based on an original screenplay, excerpts ('alintilar' is the word that appears in the final credits) from Anton Chekhov were used in the film's dialogue; from what I deduced from some websites, they are from The Cherry Orchard (written in 1903), but I could not verify that.

A family consisting of three generations of men and women live in a small town. An old man who recollects his time in the war; his wife; his son who went abroad to study but returned without having really made something of his life; his wife; his orphaned nephew who can't hold a job and dreams of going abroad; a boy and a girl, children of the younger couple. The film consists of several sequences in town and in the neighboring woods: a classroom where the girl studies; a cemetery where she and her brother go to pick plums; a funfair; and the film's pièce-de-résistance: a picnic in the woods where they talk about nothing and everything.

Occasionally interesting, not badly filmed, a little disjointed overall.

Rating: 43

Joyeuses Pâques (1984)

English title: Happy Easter

A married man cheats on his wife on every occasion he can. Things go awry when he takes a young woman to his house when his wife is away on a trip. Said trip is aborted and she comes back to catch her husband and his guest in the house. He tells her she is his daughter from a previous marriage.

This is based on a farce written for the stage; although that is not stated in the credits, it is discernible at a few heavily dialogued stretches. Equally discernible are the frantic attempts at disguising it with car wrecks and chases which have little to do with the main plot. The whole thing eventually becomes mildly amusing for the very absurdity of it all.

Rating: 37

A trezentos quilômetros por hora (1971)

Lalo is a humble mechanic who works in a garage whose owner is a famous auto racer. Lalo has a crush on his boss's girl. He and another mechanic surreptitiously borrow cars belonging to the garage's clients to practice racing -- he as pilot and his colleague as his coach.

Inane sports drama where every frame is ridiculous -- excepting perhaps some racing sequences which are competently made considering the poor standards of Brazilian cinema. The love drama is particularly atrocious, and the protagonist's love object is probably the most revolting female character in all of cinema's history.

Rating: 20

M/Other (1999)

This is about a couple who faces a crisis triggered by the presence of the husband's 8-year-old son from a previous marriage in their house after the boy's mother suffers an accident and has to stay in the hospital for a period.

Drama about trivial matters of conjugal life. The filmmaker presumably deems it more important to affect naturalism than to tell an interesting story. What I find odd is that most of the people who went nuts about this film were neither married nor had kids. How can they tell anything in it rings true? Anyway, it's definitely on the boring side.

Rating: 33

Ôdishon (1999)

English title: Audition

A widower decides to remarry. A friend of his who is a film producer suggests that they use an audition for a new movie as a way for him to select his new wife. The widower's choice falls upon one of the candidates, a young woman with a sad story about her past. She turns out to be something quite different from what he expects.

This film made quite a splash among horror fans around the time it was released. Although I can understand the reason of its popularity among that kind of cinephile, I was myself underwhelmed by it. I guess it could not be denied that it is extremely gruesome in parts, and I strongly advise easily impressionable people against watching it; even somewhat callous viewers should beware, as it has scenes  of a physically repulsive and/or unsettling nature. But in the end of the day, what killed the film for me was the basic psychological inconsistency of the female character; also, some plot points had less than crystalline clarity. The female protagonist comes across simultaneously as a sadist and as an aggrieved woman. This was the first confusing point: although having that dual character is perhaps not an a priori impossibility for a real person, it was not a wise dramatic decision to make her so, because it makes it harder for the viewer to understand her. The event or events that trigger her fury are insignificant, and the film seems to mine that fact for a sort of dark humor. But if her anger is against all men, those insignificant events would not trigger anything, because she would just pick the first man who fell into her trap. It is also she who disappears without a trace at a certain point of their relationship; he, on the contrary, looks for her; thus, she had no plausible reason to feel mistreated or abandoned by him. These inconsistencies may suggest to some that she is just plain crazy, but the fact is that madness is not random; it must have some kind of inner logic. From all that it becomes clear that the only concern of the filmmaker is to produce a nightmare with as much shock value as he can achieve. Instead of just dismissing an incoherent mess of a film, viewers saw in it what they wished; thus, it was variously called "feminist" and "misogynistic", for example.

Rating: 30

Le guignolo (1980)

Upon getting out of jail, a confidence man embarks on a luxury cruise pretending to be an oriental potentate. He gets involved  with a confidence woman who wants to play a trick upon a rich man. A second adventure concerns a briefcase handed to him by a passenger in a plane; unbeknownst to our hero, it contains a microfilm with the description of a new kind of fuel.

Comedy with some mild action, some nudity, a hero who is intended to look amoral and charming, and an excessive amount of plotlines and subplots. Mostly unengaging and unfunny.

Rating: 32

La moutarde me monte au nez (1974)

English titles: I'm Losing My Temper; Lucky Pierre.

A math teacher gets involved in a series of troubles which bring him to the house of a movie star. He spends the night with her and becomes famous overnight, which only adds to his troubles.

Modern slapstick with a solid first half and a so-so second one.

Rating: 51

Pouic-Pouic (1963)

English title: Squeak-squeak.

"Léonard Monestier has made his fortune trading on the stock exchange. His eccentric wife Cynthia almost bankrupts him by selling some of his shares to buy an oil concession in South America. Convinced that the concession is a fake, Monestier decides to sell it on to a friend of the family, the naive millionaire Antoine Brévin. Antoine wants to marry his daughter, Patricia. However, Patricia has a different opinion on the matter. She manages to persuade the car delivery guy, Simon Guilbaud, to pretend to be her husband. Unaware of this development, Monestier invites Antoine to his house in order to get him to agree to buy the oil concession. After the invitation to Antoine, the butler Charles informs Monestier of the rushed marriage of Patricia. To prove that the concession is genuine, Monestier hires his son-in-law Simon to pretend to be his son, Paul, who is currently in South America. At this point, the real Paul turns up, with a Latin showgirl, Palma. Monestier has to resort to..." -- Written by Lara Cain (IMDB)

Entertaining farce. Admittedly, it loses a little steam in the second half, but not enough as to make it unwatchable.

Rating: 51

Julius Caesar (1970)

Based on the play by William Shakespeare, "believed to have been written in 1599" (Wikipedia), the main source for which "is Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives" (Wikipedia).

Rome, 44 BC. Julius Caesar returns victorious from battle, and may become Emperor. A group of Senators wants to prevent that, and plot to kill him.

This is the second filmed version of this play that I watch. I liked the previous one, of 1953, slightly better, but cannot state the reason why. This one felt a little lethargic, for some reason that I cannot fathom either. It is an easy watch, though, as the plot and dialogue are interesting, and there is no technical flaw in the filming that I could spot.

Rating: 46

Policarpo Quaresma, herói do Brasil (1997)

Release title in Canada: The Patriot

Based on the novel Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma, by Lima Barreto, published in serial form in 1911, and as a book in 1915.

The titular character is a civil servant who gains a reputation as an eccentric for his extreme nationalism. He faces a series of vicissitudes as a consequence of that obsession.

Lacklustre comedy, based on a book I have not read, and from which, based on summaries available on the internet, it departs on several instances. The theme of the movie is the possibility of Progress in a backward environment; it shows how one individual's good intentions are often misguided, or doomed, or both. This theme is probably taken from the source novel, but it is not satisfyingly developed for the screen. The competent work of most of its actors gives the movie a modicum of watchability.

Rating: 30

Le sauvage (1975)

U.S. titles: Lovers Like Us; The Savage.
U.K. title: Call Me Savage.

A woman runs away from her husband on the very night of her wedding. She is helped by a man who lives in a deserted island. He gets stuck with the woman.

Vapid comedy whose basic situation -- a man who wants to get rid of a woman and eventually falls in love with her -- has been used in countless films, many of which better than this one. As a mindless entertainment it isn't completely ineffective: it is short and filled with action.

Rating: 33

L'avare (1980)

English titles: The Miser; Grandiose Delusions.

Based on the play by Molière, first performed in 1668, and in turn "loosely based on the Latin comedy Aulularia by Plautus, from which many incidents and scraps of dialogue are borrowed, as well as from contemporary Italian farces" (Wikipedia). On the sources of L'avare, see also this article by Moritz Levi.

Harpagon, a widower with a son and a daughter, wants to marry a young woman. The problem is that his son is also in love with her and she with him. His daughter in turn wants to marry Harpagon's butler. Harpagon has a chest full of coins buried in his back yard.

This is a faithful adaptation of the play, very well done. For those who enjoy this sort of antique it must be a treat. One of the big problems for me is that there is a blatant contradiction in the main character's psyche. He wants to marry out of love, which contradicts his whole characterization as a miser. Well, anyway, that's the way they wrote plays in those far gone days, without much psychologizing. The French Wikipedia page on this film is impressively extensive. One learns, for example, that one line from the play which was suppressed in the film was: « Comment diable ! quel Juif, quel Arabe est-ce là ? » (said by Cléante), and that it is often absent in modern theatrical performances as well. One reads also that one of the critiques made to the film is that the amorous side of the main character was not given any attention by the main actor. But that was not given any attention by the playwright either! My take is quite the opposite: as subtlety was never a forte of that actor, he is perfect for this kind of play and role. But justice be done: his original contribution to the adaptation, both sequences featuring an offerings collector for the Church, the last of which ends the film, are pure genius.

Rating: 50

Faites sauter la banque! (1964)

U.S. title: Let's Rob the Bank

A man loses all his money after a bad investment made on advice of a crooked banker. He decides to avenge himself and get his money back by robbing the bank. As he lives next door to it, he engages his whole family to dig a tunnel connecting his house (and commerce establishment) to the bank.

Interesting comedy. The humor and plot are of an elementary kind, but it's all reasonably well done, so it works.

Rating: 51

Black Spurs (1965)

After Santee becomes a bounty hunter, his girl abandons him. He makes a deal with a crooked businessman who wants the railroad to pass through his city instead of a neighboring one. It consists in bringing women and gambling, and thus lawlessness, to that neighboring city, which would make it unsuitable in the eyes of the government for being the site of the railroad passage. It so happens that Santee's former girlfriend now lives in that city and is married to the local sheriff.

B-Western. Though cheap and unsophisticated, it is, as most Westerns, easily watchable.

Rating: 32

Fort Utah (1956)

Western. A former gunfighter, an Indian agent, and a caravan leader join efforts against renegade soldiers who mutineered and took over a fort, killing all the other soldiers in it. Those renegades have also stirred up revolt amongst the Indians, who want the renegade leader dead.

B-Western, with a very compact narrative. Not exactly thrilling or original, yet not entirely uninteresting either; the plot is propelled forward by a stream of challenges, conflicts and dilemmas faced by the protagonists; there is a considerable amount of fistfighting and gunfighting, and even some romancing.

Rating: 35

Stranger at My Door (1956)

A bank robber on the run is forced, on account of his horse's injured leg, to take refuge at a preacher's farm. Said preacher, who is married to a younger wife and has a son from a previous marriage, becomes dead set on converting his outlaw guest.

B-Western which has garnered some late respect and deals with the theme of redemption, one that is always popular among critics and cinephiles. It has a fair amount of well-staged action sequences, and a plot which does what it can to explore all its potential dramaticity, in this case availing itself of an apparently untameable horse as a metaphor for the bandit. To be blunt, the script's dramatic solutions are of the facile kind, occasionally venturing into the absurd. Even though I am naturally averse to religious propaganda, I tried in earnest to approach this film with an open mind, but it didn't fare as well in my assessment as it did in some other people's. Slightly above average for its budget range is the most I can concede to it.

Rating: 38

La mort en ce jardin (1956)

(Poorly translated) U.S. title: Death in the Garden.

At a South American village, miners revolt after the government seizes their mining grounds. An old man is wrongly accused of being the leader of the revolt; he was planning to go back to France with his mute daughter and a local prostitute to whom he proposes marriage. A stranger in town sleeps with said prostitute and in the next morning is accused of a robbery. When government reinforcement troops arrive to town, the four of them, plus a missionary priest, board a riverboat and flee the village. They take refuge in the Amazon jungle, trying to find their way to the Brazilian border. With the shortage of food, and the difficulties in orientation, their survival is seriously jeopardized.

Pulpish adventure with a few memorable sequences which, if not conceived by the director, fit his notorious style nicely, such as: the teasing of a mute girl by stepping on her boot laces; a snake devoured by ants; a prostitute in a gala dress in the middle of the jungle; etc. Also, he seems to have a predilection for eye hurt. The premise is dated: freedom for miners is frowned upon nowadays by environmentalists. It is an eventful enough story as to avoid dullness, but there is little in it of real originality or consequence. The cinematography, on the other hand, is breathtaking, especially as seen on a (presumably) restored high definition copy.

Rating: 45

Os três cangaceiros (1961)

A village in Northeastern Brazil is repeatedly raided by a gang of bandits (of the kind known as cangaceiro) who rob the local establishments and kidnap young women. Two of the villagers are rivals for the love of a woman, and when she is kidnapped they, plus a third one, disguise themselves as bandits and infiltrate the gang.

After the success of O Cangaceiro, a fad of similar films happened in Brazil, and it was inevitable that comedies too were made. This one has a very simple-minded type of humor and a predictable plot who borrows on Seven Samurai (and its American version The Magnificent Seven), The Three Musketeers and The Lone Ranger. There is nothing really to recommend it, unless you have an interest in Brazilian cinema and Brazilian comics, or want some really mindless entertainment.

Rating: 31

Gigot (1962)

Gigot, a mute who is the butt of everybody's jokes and pranks in his neighborhood, one day meets a homeless woman and her 6-year-old daughter and gives them shelter. The child and Gigot take a liking to each other. The mother is a bit of a slut.

This is not a consistently enjoyable film, but through its ups and downs it is still an interesting one. A personal project of its main actor, it is not a realistic portrayal of poverty, and is designed as to give ample room to his comic and dramatic abilities. The script follows a very predictable sentimental line. The choice of a Parisian setting and musical score seems to be designed for dramatic purposes, taking into account a certain image of France that has consolidated abroad through countless works of fiction. One detail that puzzled me was that Gigot, unlike most people who do not speak in real life, does not seem to have hearing problems (he is spoken to normally and seems to understand it; he also dances to the exact tempo of gramophone music). Despite that, many reviews and sites describe him as a "deaf mute".

Rating: 50

O libertino (1973)

A distinguished member of society is on a crusade against immorality and pornography. He and a few ladies who share his concerns have founded an organization for that purpose; they regularly meet. Through those ladies, he receives alarming news: a building he owns, and collects rent from, is not the school for young women it purports to be, but rather a brothel.

The main character and the basic structure of the plot are the same as in O Puritano da Rua Augusta, from eight years earlier, which has been updated and adapted for the needs of sexploitation. O Libertino manages to be even worse than its predecessor; perhaps part of the blame is to be laid on the cuts it allegedly suffered from censors, but it's hard to imagine a much better movie could be made by simply adding stuff to the dismal present remains of it. I am trying to watch every movie made by Victor Lima, and so far this is his worst. His main virtue, that of a nice flow of the narrative, is here also, but it counts for little in such an uninspired and predictable script.

Rating: 21

Arizona Bushwhackers (1968)

The historical premise is that, during the American Civil War, Southern military prisoners were offered freedom in exchange for serving in places outside the zone of conflict, which in this case were located in the American West. Here, one such prisoner is assigned the mission of bringing law and order to a small town ruled by the local casino owner. Being of Southern origin, he is received with hostility by the majority of the town.

B-Western with very little going for it. The plot has a surprise around midfilm -- which I will not reveal, even though it is in every plot summary for the film available in the internet -- which stirs things a little, but still cannot lift the film above its basic dullness. The biggest attraction here is the cast, which boasts good actors in a decaying phase of their careers.

Rating: 31

The Savage (1952)

Tale of a white man who is raised by a Sioux tribe after his parents are killed in a Crow attack. His sense of loyalty and identity is repeatedly put into test when conflict arises between the Sioux and the Whites.

The main character here goes through a series of ordeals which place him in an awkward role that is a blend of double agent and diplomat. The whole drama is laid out as a case of bad apples on each side. None of that has the minimal connection to plausible situations: reality is much simpler, or much more complicated, depending on the angle from which you look. Still, it works as a sort cerebral exercise of problem solving, not too boring and not too exciting either.

Rating: 37

The Seagull (2018)

Based on the play by Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896.

Told in a circular fashion, it starts as a group of people gather at a country estate around a dying man: his sister (an actress), her son (a writer), her lover (also a writer), the estate manager, his wife, their daughter, her husband (a schoolteacher), a medical doctor, a young actress who used to live in the estate's vicinity. After a brief prologue, there is a long flashback with the same characters at the estate years earlier; the fim then returns to the present time for a conclusion. The plot is basically  thus: the young girl who wants to be an actress falls in love with the old actress's lover; the old actress's son, who is the young woman's boyfriend, is heartbroken; the manager's daughter loves the old actress's son, and is loved by the schoolteacher.

I have never seen or read the play, or do not remember. One can tell this is an adaptation from a play, but it is sufficiently well written and well directed as to work as a film on its own. I thought at times it is a bit overscored, especially at the beginning. The actors are passable. I found it a bit elliptic, and I don't know how much of the play's dialogue was excised, but perhaps in a movie the flowing of the narrative is more important. To be honest, it did not impress me as one could expect from the play's fame. But it is a coherent story, with coherent characters, and overall it is quite watchable. The seagull thing was quite incomprehensible though.

Rating: 55

The Patsy (1964)

I thought I hadn't seen this movie, but while watching it I had a palpable sense of déjà vu, so it is likely I have seen it before. Anyway, it must have been before 1983.

A famous comedian dies and his staff gather together at a hotel to decide what to do about their careers. They spot a natural comicity in the hotel's bellboy and decide to manufacture a replacement out of him for the deceased actor.

An uneven, unsatisfactory comedy. As someone nicknamed Anne_Sharp has remarked on the User Reviews section at IMDB, this is a variation on The Girl Can't Help It. A few set-pieces are fine, for example the one at the singing teacher's, but they are rather the exception. Maybe kids could like it, as the humor and the plot are kept at a very simple level, and there is a tendency to sentimentality, which gradually seeps in as the film advances. When the main character is being clumsy, he gets some laughs. When he is being unfunny, he does not. It is relatively easy to make clumsiness funny, but it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to make unfunniness funny.

Rating: 44

Gun Battle at Monterey (1957)

Two robbers are hiding from the law after a robbery. One of them shoots the other and runs away with the money. It turns out, though, that, contrary to what the shooter thought, his partner was not killed. He is looked after by a young woman and, after he is well again, goes after his doublecrosser, who now is the boss at a small town.

This Western's basic plot idea is that of a man pretending to be his lookalike, but there is an ingenious twist to it which I will not reveal here. The ending is moralistic and might displease viewers who are more on the cynical (they would prefer the term 'realist') side. This is a very cheaply made film, and a very unpretentious one, but it is watchable.

Rating: 36

Bugles in the Afternoon (1952)

"After violently attacking a fellow officer Lt. Edward Garnett, cavalry Captain Kern Shafter is court martialled. Later, he rejoins the army with Custer's regiment at Fort Lincoln, Dakota, becoming a sergeant, where he runs into his old foe." (IMDB)

This is reasonably well-done, with a fine color cinematography and adequate performances, but the storyline holds no surprises for the spectator, a fact which detracts from its entertainment value. Although at times one could mistake this for an A-grade Western, its overall cheapness is visible in the fact that they edited footage from an old black-and-white movie into it for a few battle scenes. Perhaps cheapness also accounts for its shortness; I would have preferred that it included an early part that depicted the situations which led to Shafter attacking Garnett. As it is, we have to take the aggressor's word for what happened. And, even so, I do not quite understand what exactly Garnett did that would earn him such violent attack.

Rating: 39

Fancy Pants (1950)

A theatrical company is hired to impersonate some aristocrats by a young man trying to woo a young woman and impress her family. Said family especially likes the butler and hires him (not knowing he is really an actor), taking him to live with them in an American Western town. There is further confusion as the people in that town think the 'butler' is really an English aristocrat, and thus his employers decide to go along with it and make him impersonate an aristocrat. The story goes around and the President of the U.S. himself decides to visit that family. The 'aristocrat' proposes a fox hunt.

This has to be one of the unfunniest movies of all times, which is probably why Americans like it so much. The humor is so overdone, and the main character is so devoid of consistency, that one suspects this was all done with the purpose of achieving a new low in comicity. On the other hand, the production values are extremely high, and the actors are extremely competent. The contrast between these assets and the poorness of the script produces a sense of waste and absurdity which paradoxically may arouse a perverse curiosity in the viewer.

Rating: 31

Wide Sargasso Sea (1993)

Based on the novel by Jean Rhys, first published in 1966.

An impoverished young girl who inherited a large property in Jamaica accepts an arranged marriage with an Englishman. After a harmonious beginning, their relationship sours due to a series of incidents and his maladaptation to the tropics.

Poor film which seems just a piling up of colonial and postcolonial clichés in a very rushed up and summarized manner, and lacking in anything that could engage the viewer into caring the least bit about the characters and what they are going through. I suspect the sufficient condition to be met by older movies for being shown in cable TV is whether they have a present-day star in a bit part.

Rating: 30

Crazy - Um dia muito louco (1981)

A guy kills his housemate and during his attempts to bury his body is repeatedly disturbed by visitors. The visitors consist of a bit actress, a Bible saleswoman (both of whom are responding to an ad about a room to let), a neighbor who wants to borrow a camera, and a policeman who wants to speak with the deceased man.

Half-baked attempt at black humor. There is a noticeable slant toward sexploitation, albeit with more plot structure than is usual for Brazilian films of that kind. A quote by Shelley ("Death is here and death is there, Death is busy everywhere, All around, within, beneath, Above is death - and we are death.") puts a morbid finish to this film and also to this director's career. Perhaps he knew he would die soon after he finished it.

Rating: 30

I quattro dell'Ave Maria (1968)

English title: Ace High

Version watched: 122 minutes, dubbed in English

Two guys who extort some money from a banker are in turn robbed by the guy who had been betrayed by the same banker years ago. They team up, and with a high wire acrobat, to rob a crooked casino.

Above-average Italian Western, with an ellaborate plot and competent craftsmanship. There is always the matter of cultural authenticity, in a film which is characterized by compounded fakeness: it emulates other, and better, Italian Westerns, which in turn emulate a cinematic tradition which, in its original, American form was never too fond of historical accuracy to begin with. The fakeness here begins with the title's Catholic reference, whereas the American West was predominantly Protestant. The style of the humor is of a silliness that became a matter of style in numerous films of this genre. All those things I once found very annoying, less so nowadays. However, I am not exactly amused by them, even now. Let's say I am vaguely intrigued, and leave it at that. It is said that this film is the second part of a trilogy, whose final installment I reviewed here.

Rating: 39

From Hell to Texas (1958)

A man, acting in self defense, causes the death of a rich rancher's son, who rounds up his other sons and personnel to exact revenge. The man is on his way to meet his estranged father. There is a long chase, during which the rancher's men take the worst, even though the man they are after is averse to killing on a matter of principle.

Although well filmed, and filled with enough incident as to entertain, if only barely, this is a film that has little to offer in terms of substance, except for a very ridiculous premise which leaves the viewer suspicious of some hidden mockery. It is not clear who might be the target of that mockery, but possible candidates would be the Christian religion, or perhaps the cinematic tradition of separating the world into heroes and villains and ascribing a much gentler nature to the former, which does not prevent them from winning every time.

Rating: 36

Johnny Reno (1966)

A U.S. marshal is riding across a desert and is shot at by two guys. He kills one of them and arrests the other. It so happens that those two guys were wanted for killing a Native American, and the townsfolks want to lynch him, which the marshal will not allow, of course. During his stay at that town, he will uncover some dirty secrets behind that lynching fury.

The premise of this has a very bad guy who runs a small town and wants to commit an injustice against two drifters, in order to cover up a crime he committed. But there are further layers to this: the crime was motivated by racism (that evilest of all evil things). The details of the premise are not well thought out. The impression I get is that, in a time when society was being bombarded with liberal ideology, filmmakers got away more easily with some of the outrageously implausible assumptions behind the events in this movie.

Rating: 26

Alegria de viver (1958)

Musical comedy. A guy who works for a big company is held in high esteem by his boss, who wants him to marry his daughter. But the guy has a double life: at night he runs a nightclub for young people. His boss's daughter, who is in town on vacation from boarding school, has no intention of fulfilling his father's plans, and thus she sends her disagreeable cousin passing off as her to meet our hero.

Earlier fluff from the same director of Rio, Verão & Amor. Whereas that film depicted the "British invasion" in Brazilian music and customs, Alegria de Viver's plot is set against the backdrop of American rock-and-roll's colonization of Brazil's young hearts and minds. One joke stands out from the rest of the movie: a girl fakes a suicide attempt and plots to have her friend come over to her house. When said friend is shown several cans of poison and a a dozen bottles of lysol that her fake suicidal friend had in store, she comments: "Poor Silvia. She wanted to die disinfected!"

Rating: 31

Denver & Rio Grande (1952)

Two teams are building different railroads in 19th century America. One of them is completely lacking in ethical principles and tries to lay tracks on the other team's assigned area; this leads to a continuing conflict in which one of them tries to sabotage the work of the other.

The plot is a slightly monotonous succession of ploys from the bad guys against the good guys. If you do not believe that capitalism is an evil system, this film might make you change your mind. If the federal government were in charge of building railroads in the U.S., none of the troubles the plot depicts would be possible. There is also an implausible female spy who, despite being extremely indiscreet and an obvious informant for the enemy, gets to remain in her job as a secretary for the whole film. In the end, the filmmakers were apparently so embarassed that they did not even have the gaul to make the hero kiss her.

Rating: 32

Rio, verão & amor (1966)

The romantic and musical adventures of a bunch of youths who live in Rio de Janeiro. Paulo pretends he is a millionaire and an executive (he is a chauffeur and a struggling bossa nova composer) to impress beautiful and upper-class Gabriela. Gabriela's friend Lolita is in love with Maurício, who sings in a rock-and-roll band and does not care about Lolita. Paulo's brother Pedro is a lifeguard who is getting engaged to Margarida, a working class girl who lives in a boarding house for young women under the strict surveillance of the owner Augusta. Both Gabriela and Maurício's respective fathers are executives in a big company (they do not say what their line of business is, or I did not pay attention) which is promoting a musical competition between bossa nova and rock-and-roll songs. Amidst all that, there is a French woman who is very despondent and tries suicide several times.

The script is sheer fluff, but the color cinematography and the locations in Rio give the film a very attractive look; some shots are really breathtaking.

Rating: 31

In Old Oklahoma (1943)

Reissue title: War of the Wildcats

The IMDB plot summary is correct and I transcribe it here: "Cowboy Dan Somers and oilman Jim "Hunk" Gardner compete for oil lease rights on Indian land in Oklahoma, as well as for the favors of schoolteacher Cathy Allen." Written by Jim Beaver, email: jumblejim at prodigy dot net

This is a routine Western, though admittedly it is a little above average for Republic. The plot is beyond predictable, but it entertains nevertheless, though only mildly. Intrigue, fistfights, romance, a competition between good guy and bad guy, where neither is on the extreme of each category, and there you have it. The best thing of the movie is something which is not really there as an actualization, only as a potentiality: it is a certain quality of open-endedness, of infinite progression and infinite oscillation. The slightly abrupt ending suggests that the fight is not really over; ditto the inner fight that the leading female character experiences, which would make her switch male partners on and on indefinitely.

Rating: 39

The Last Command (1955)

Drama around the characters and events of the Texas Revolution, prominently Jim Bowie. He initially does not support the revolutionaries, but as he acquaints himself with the situation under president Santa Anna, he changes his mind. There is a romantic subplot with a young woman who is in love with him, and a young man who is in love with that young woman.

Watchable historical Western. The romantic subplot is annoying and unnecessary. There is a noticeable slant towards the American side, which makes it, rigorously speaking, a propaganda piece. A first look at the events may leave one puzzled with the insistence of making it a matter of Democracy vs. Despotism instead of Americans vs. Mexicans. On behalf of the movie, one might argue that the characters themselves may have believed that notion, perhaps out of self-deceit.

Rating: 47