Don Giovanni (1991)

 Filmed opera. German production.

The music was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the libretto was written by Lorenzo da Ponte; the opera was originally named Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni (The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni), and premiered in 1787; it was based on a Spanish play traditionally attributed to Tirso de Molina named El burlador de Sevilla, y convidado de piedra or, in another version, Tan largo me lo fiais; the first version of it is estimated to have been written between 1612 and 1625.

After an unsuccessful rape attempt against Donna Anna, Don Giovanni kills his victim's father ('the Commendatore') in self-defense. Donna Anna's fiancé Don Ottavio promises her to avenge her father's death and her own rape attempt. Don Giovanni later meets Donna Elvira, a woman with whom he had a relationship and who hates him for leaving her. Next Don Giovanni runs into a marriage procession and feels attracted towards the bride Zerlina. He schemes to separate her from the procession and from the bridegroom. Once he is alone with her, she responds to his courtship. (The rest of the entourage was sent to Don Giovanni's castle where he promised them a big party.) Unfortunately for Don Giovanni's plans, however, Donna Elvira approaches and starts badmouthing Don Giovanni in front of Zerlina, causing her to change her mind. After a series of further adventures and misadventures, Don Giovanni meets his doom in the hands of... the statue of the Commendatore!

This is the second adaptation of this opera that I have seen, the previous one being that famous 1979 cinematic adaptation filmed in realistic sets. To be frank, I didn't remember a thing about it (I saw it more than 35 years ago!). As usual, I don't have many reliable opinions about the singing; for me they were all good. As for the music, I must have said it before: I am not a great enjoyer of Mozart, finding his music merely agreeable. The plot has above average entertainment value as operas go, but, really, I don't understand how this could have once become such a popular and prestigious form of art.

(I don't rate operas numerically.)

La niña del patio (1967)

In a small neighborhood in Spain live several interacting people: Carmen and her brother Antonio, a bird breeder; Pepe, a middle-aged bon-vivant; Lola, his young girlfriend; Coralito, a former star who teaches singing to Lola; Miguel, who wants to marry Carmen but is rejected by her; Zacarías, who also wants to marry Carmen; and another dweller who is a sort of master of ceremonies and organizer. Carmen's nephew leaves an infant girl for her to bring up; Carmen gets attached to the child. When their landlord says they must buy the place or leave, they decide to raise the money by turning the central patio into a stage and luring tourists into coming there to watch the little girl (now a little older) perform.

Musical comedy with some famous Spanish musical stars. It is not exactly remarkable, but has some agreeable moments of comedy or music.

Rating: 34

Jenaro, el de los 14 (1974)

 A simpleton from a small town wins the sports lottery,  and travels to Madrid to collect his prize, getting into all kinds of trouble. He becomes famous and is besieged by everyone with money requests, business propositions, marriage impositions, erotic entrapments, etc. A woman from his home town gives him the Madrid address of her daughter who is supposed to be working as a typist and living in a boarding house; the reality is different.

Vulgar comedy which has many dumb moments (e.g. when people's rhetorical images materialize before the protagonist's eyes), but which achieves, through brute force so to speak, some genuine comicity in its latter section. As is common in many films, including Hollywood ones, the plot resolves into a highly implausible romantic ending, but on second thought who am I to judge?

Rating: 36

Alerta en el cielo (1961)

A boy lives with his family near an American air base in Spain. He is seriously ill and wants to become a pilot. The folks at the air base do their utmost to please the boy and help him.

Tearjerker which seems to have propagandistic purposes concerning Spanish-American relations. It's of little cinematic value, but has some nice sequences of aerial acrobatics.

Rating: 22

El maestro (1957)

 Title of the Italian version: Il maestro...

 U.S. title: The Teacher and the Miracle

A small town middle-aged teacher moves to a big city with his only son, whom he has been raising alone since his wife died. An accident throws him into a depression bout and then a strange kid enters his life.

Arguably, this is a reasonable movie up until its central dramatic event. After that, it moves into the territory of simple-minded religious-ploitation. I guess one could pin the blame on the kind of mentality which thrived in Spain during the 1950s (and for that matter much of the 20th century). What carries the film and somehow raises it above the level of a mere ideological prop for the backward political Spanish regime of that era is the solid performance by its leading actor, who by the way was Italian. Being a Spanish-Italian co-production, this film has two versions which differ somewhat, though I'm not sure either one I watched was in its integral form (the two versions have missing bits in different points, and thus allow one who watches both to have a sense of what the complete movie may have been).

Rating: 37

Les dents longues (1953)

 English title: The Long Teeth

The film narrates the trajectory of an ambitious jounalist from a small town, from his professional beginnings until he becomes editor-in-chief. The conflict between his professional life and his marriage is expounded.

This is a very honest and realistic drama, though not an extremely engaging one. Perhaps the political intrigues which are an important part of the plot will be better understood by reading the novel (which I haven't). But it's an interesting movie all the same, with fine actors and an interesting subject matter.

Rating: 51

O barão Otelo no barato dos bilhões (1971)

 A man from a lower social class but endowed with extraordinary savvy is approached by a crooked businessman with a work proposition: the businessman wants the poor man to help him win the sports lottery.

This film starts out watchable and after about 15 minutes becomes a mess which barely makes sense. They really did not put much effort into conceiving it, though the cast is stellar (within the Brazilian universe, that is) and the musical score is enjoyable.

Rating: 4

Madrugada (1957)

 A man dies in the presence of his mistress, who then concocts a plan to find out who was responsible for his having distanced himself from her in his final days. She summons the deceased man's two brothers and his father to his house on the pretense that he is gravely ill. Once they are all together (plus one of the brothers' wife and daughter and a later uninvited arrival), she puts her plan into action.

Stuffy and slightly absurd drama which is a variation on The Cat and the Canary (of which I know only the premise); it does a fine job of showing why Spanish cinema was then held in such low esteem by critics everywhere.

Rating: 18

Retour à la vie (1949)

  "World-wide (English title) (festival title) Return to Life" (imdb.com)

Five segments comprise this film: (1) a woman is released from a concentration camp, and is in a state of catatonic apathy; her family members are concerned about getting her signature on an inheritance paper; (2) a barman working on a hotel has to attend to requests from guests who happen to be female army personnel; (3) a curmudgeonly ex-soldier shelters a fugitive German, unaware that he is a former torturer; (4) upon his return, a former prisoner of war finds that his girl is gone with another man and his apartment is occupied by former resistance members; (5) a returning soldier must face the rejection of his fellow villagers towards his new German wife.

I didn't really find these postwar stories very satisfactory, save one (number 4). That exception is the only story which deals exclusively with issues firmly rooted in real situations faced by people returning from World War II. The others derive their mild appeal from their dramatic constructions and the ability of the actors and the directors; they are part of the myth-building around that war, but not, I assume, of the widely experienced situations which it brought about.

Rating: 40

Oto Lara Rezende ou... Bonitinha, mas ordinária (1963)

"Also Known As (AKA) 

(...) 

                                          Pretty But Wicked" 

(IMDB.com)

Edgard, a poor office worker, is approached by a superior with the proposition of marrying the company owner's daughter, who, according to him, has been raped. Edgard has qualms of conscience about accepting the proposition; they are compounded by the fact that he has a crush on his neighbor, a poor teacher in a school for young kids.

This is the second adaptation I have watched of the same play. The other one is more recent (of 1981), but I saw it a long time ago, at the time of its cinematic release. If memory serves me, this older one is the better -- though by far also the lesser known -- one. It's a simple production, obviously operating on a shoestring budget, but the actors give very serviceable performances, and the text seems to have been understood in its totality, or almost so. It's possibly not the best play by Rodrigues (I haven't read or seen them all), but it's possibly the funniest among the ones I know. In a sense, it's more at home as cinema than as a stage play, because of all the car rides and similar scenes which become so more natural when staged in a realistic way. The film adds at least one original touch -- the references to Crime and Punishment's protagonist -- but mostly it's a faithful adaptation. The play's author was a self-styled reactionary who, perhaps involuntarily, exposed the ridiculous face of reactionary ideologies. That may be observed in this film, which, though ostensibly reactionary in ideology, provides an examination of the deleterious effect of the economic power wielded by the bourgeois class.

Rating: 51

O doce esporte do sexo (1972)

 Film consisting of five segments: (1) A man and a woman set up a date in an apartment; the man is concerned about keeping it secret; once they are in the apartment, numerous obstacles to the accomplishment of the sexual act happen; (2) A man has an unrequited love with a prostitute, and keeps on trying to win her affections; (3) the president of a big company takes a day off to indulge in a pleasure afternoon: he is buying a pornographic film and plans to watch it at his house with some guests; (4) in a small town, a yearly event is taking place; is consists of pitting one of its inhabitants against another from a neighboring town and watching who can outperform the other in the number of sexual acts; (5) the devoted wife of a rich landowner suspects her husband is having an affair.

These short comedies are not exactly funny, and at their worst (number four, "The Tournament") may get annoying due to the repetitive nature of its humor. The most interesting one is possibly number three ("The Little Film"), in which a film within the film is shown and explores the effect of expectation in the fruition of films. The first one ("The Apartment") is uneven, but perhaps the most visually elaborate of the lot. Number two, "The Quarter" -- literally "The Mouth", but really a slang term referring to the prostitution quarter -- is mildly interesting as a psychological study in masochism. The fifth and final one ("The Suspicion") is shorter and tries to provide an ending with a bang, but is very dated and will fail to shock present-day audiences.

Rating: 35

Les grands sentiments font les bons gueuletons (1973)

"World-wide (English title): Big Sentiments Make for Good Sports" (IMDB.com)

(spoilers!) A few days in the life of two middle-class families who live next door to each other in an apartment building. Irascible curmudgeon Georges' mother has died in a car crash. Authoritarian music-lover Claude's daughter is getting married. Funeral and wedding will happen on the same day. Other characters include Georges' brother Stéphane, who develops a crush on the marrying neighbor, and Claude's cousin Alphonse, a prankster. Claude doesn't own a telephone, so he borrows Georges' whenever he needs to use one, and also for his daughter's incoming calls. Georges likes to lie about his social status (e.g. while both are at the barbershop he tells Claude he has bought a boat). Claude listens to classical music in his cellar. Both families' boys disappear one afternoon and are found (by Claude) leaving a vacant lot in a state of intoxication from smoke and alcohol. On the way to the funeral, Stéphane gets lost in the Paris traffic for a while. One of Claude's wedding guest families arrives after it is over. The master of ceremonies at the wedding dinner is a weird type who goes into a tantrum with his clients for "not letting him do his job"; he imposes some infantile games on them. The deceased woman's sister is an extremely obnoxious woman who drives Georges into a fit of fury at the table and is thrown out of the house with her son and daughter. On her way out she demands a ring which she says she had lent her sister; Georges ignores her (he had already removed it from her sister's finger). There is also a busybody female who lives on the same floor as them and likes to stand in the hallway and berate them. And a wheelchair-bound man who is always trying to use the elevator, and irritates everyone.

Entertaining comedy which mines everyday disasters and people's pettinessess and quirks for comicity. It's very well made, and the cast -- especially the two leads -- is in great form. A film like this, which looks for a new gag at every scene, is bound to misfire occasionally, but overall it works well and is certainly an interesting watch.

Rating: 56

O grande xerife (1972)

A town is suffering raids from a gang of bandits. The inept local mailman is elected sheriff.

Mostly poor Western parody filmed with passable professionalism (though perhaps lacking closer shots at some scenes) and featuring a few offbeat comedic moments.

Rating: 35

63 Up (2019)

 Latest installment of the series which follow a bunch of people starting when they were seven, every seven years. This installment has the flavor of an ending, featuring a recapitulation of former installments for each interviewee; since the director died two years after its release, perhaps he had some doubts about his remaining time to live. I enjoyed watching it; there is not much to be said about it that has not been said by others, or by myself on previous installments. Without any implied demerit to any participant, there is a sense that some were more interesting to watch than others. In my opinion, the most interesting ones -- in completely opposite ways -- are Tony and Neil. Coincidence or not, in this installment the filmmaker has chosen to put them as first and last interviewee, respectively. The links to my reviews of former installments are given below:

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: Seven Up! (1964) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: 7 Plus Seven (1970) (TV) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: 21 (1977) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: 28 Up (1984) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: 35 Up (1991) (TV) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: 42: Forty Two Up (1998) (TV) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: 49 Up (2005) (TV) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Some Call It a Pastime: The Films I See: 56 Up (2012) (TV) (thirdworldthreat2.blogspot.com)

Countdown (1967)

Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

 The Americans are concerned that the Soviets are sending a man to the moon, and revive a previously discontinued program which consisted in sending a shelter capsule prior to sending a capsule with a single astronaut in it. Said astronaut woud then stay in the shelter until a rescue team could be sent.

Science-fiction which goes for realistic drama instead of sensation. The problem is that the drama isn't all that interesting. There is little in the way of special effects. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of it is how it adopts a balanced view of patriotism, neither iconoclastic nor gung-ho. That was somewhat at odds with the turn of the ideological tide in the sixties towards the left, which during the 70s reached full deconstruction mode of all things that bore any relation to old notions of nationalistic pride; there was a reversion of this in the 80s. From the 90s onwards, with the end of the Cold War, new ways of collective thinking were needed.

Rating: 42 (up from 27)

Nobleza baturra (1965)

 English titles: Aragonese Nobility; Rustic Chivalry

Based on the play (1929) by Joaquín Dicenta (hijo), which in turn was based on the homonymous 1925 film he wrote; there was another previous cinematic version released in 1935.

A woman has a relationship with a servant of his father; she keeps it a secret because her father would not approve of their marriage; he would rather she married a rich landowner who courts her.

Musical drama. This is a well made but unexciting story set in a time where a woman's chastity was deemed important, and choosing her husband was the pinnacle in female emancipation.

Rating: 43

La viudita naviera (1962)

 Candelaria marries a ship captain and he sets sail to Havana right after the wedding. Some months later, she receives news of his death. Another ship captain, a don juan type, starts courting her.

Musical comedy with passable musical numbers and bland yet tolerable plot and dialogue.

Rating: 37

A viúva virgem (1972)

In a small town, a woman becomes a rich widow on her wedding night. She travels to Rio and meets a fortune seeker. She keeps having visions of her late husband.

Erotic comedy. The script is clearly dated, and gets progressively more absurd as the movie advances. Some of the ideas are funny, such as the institution of a stock market for the male protagonist's marrying enterprise. Overall, however, the film is not really funny. The actors seem to be having a good time while being on it, and this somehow makes the film endurable.

The plot bears some similarity with that of La viudita naviera (1962).

Rating: 34

Independência ou morte (1972)

 The life of Pedro I of Brazil from his youth to his abdication from the emperor's throne. His affair with Domitila is given much screen time.

Historical drama. I don't know the facts well, so I can't judge its historical accuracy. Dramatically, it's a very unsophisticated product, yet effective at reaching an undemanding audience. The production values are at times inadequately low. The acting is passable, but Menezes is somewhat above the rest. Despite the film's limitations, it manages to convey the problems of liberalism, which, depending on one's own ideological inclinations, may be seen as unfortunate setbacks on the path of progress or as evidence of liberalism's intrinsic flaws.

Rating: 34

Tras el cristal (1986)

English title: In a Glass Cage 

(mild spoiler) An ex-Nazi doctor survives in an iron lung after a botched suicide attempt. He lives in a house with his wife and young daughter. A young man applies for the job of nursing him; he has a past connection with his patient which has affected his psyche in terrible ways.

Incompetent psychological horror with some shockingly disgusting scenes and which completely fails to ring minimally true or engaging. The characters don't just seem deranged but mildly retarded. I guess the intention was to show that victims of abuse sometimes turn into abusers themselves, but having a plausible overall premise does not excuse one from translating it into a script which makes sense dramatically.

Rating: 18

Deadly Friend (1986)

 Paul, a teenage genius who has built a robotic companion for himself, moves with his mother to a new neighborhood. He befriends fellow teenagers Tom and Samantha, who lives with her abusive father. When Samantha dies, Paul uses his electronic savviness in a risky experiment.

Uneven sci-fi horror which is fairly watchable for the first half of its length, and then devolves into gratuitous shock sequences and an uninspired ending. The plot is basically a variation on Frankenstein.

Rating: 39

Betão Ronca Ferro (1971)

 Cláudia, a circus artist, meets Geraldo, a rich guy. The two get married and go to live in Geraldo's parents' house. Geraldo is away frequently on trips and Cláudia does not get along with his snobbish parents.

Drama with a few musical interludes. Its central theme of class conflict was present in Chofer de praça, a previous film of its co-director and star. This one, however, is considerably worse: it's dreadfully directed and the script is very poor and full of holes; especially toward the end it becomes so absurd that it attains a kind of surreal quality. 

Rating: 18

You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

(mild spoilers) A nightclub owner establishes that his younger daughters, who already have a suitor each, cannot get married before their elder sister -- who does not have a suitor and does not seem anxious to pick the first one who comes along -- does. He devises a trick to speed the process which consists in writing anonymous love letters and addressing them to the elder daughter. When a suitor comes along, she will be led to believe he was the one writing the letters, and thus presumably fall in love with him. A fortuitous incident has a dancer who had unsuccessfully sought employment at his nightclub deliver one of the letters, and thus be mistaken as the real author.

This musical comedy is partly a remake of an Argentinian movie (Los martes, orquídeas), and partly an adaptation of Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew. It's visually in very good taste, and as a narrative works fairly well. Like its primary source, it's set in Argentina, which explains the slightly more socially conservative premise of the plot, as compared to films set in the U.S. or Europe.

Rating: 51

¡Bruja, más que bruja! (1977)

(spoilers) Juan goes to war and, when he returns, he finds his fiancée Mariana married to his uncle Justino. She fails to get pregnant, and Justino engages the help of Tía Larga, the village witch. Tía Larga deceives Justino by having Juan impregnate Mariana, but the adulterous woman fears that the child will resemble Juan, and, with Juan, go to the witch with a new commission: to murder Justino.

Comedy with musical interludes which are said to emulate the style of a zarzuela. It's uninpired as a comedy and also musically.

Rating: 34

Mambrú se fue a la guerra (1986)

 English-language title: Mambru Went to War

After the Spanish Civil War, a man who fought for the Republicans is afraid of retaliations by the winning party and hides in his house's basement. His wife is the only one who knows he is hiding; everyone else thinks he is dead. When Franco dies, she reveals the truth to the other family members living in the house. But the old man's adaptation to outside life will not be easy.

Social satire which tries to depict Spanish middle-class as hypocritical and money-obsessed, regardless of one's nominal stance as pro or against Franco. The plot and characters do not stray much from clichés, but the actors are good, and the film is watchable.

Rating: 40

Across the Pacific (1942)

 An undercover agent traveling on a freighter ship investigates a Japanese plot that could provoke the U.S. into entering World War II.

Espionage thriller with a mediocre plot yet mildly entertaining; it is historically curious for being based on a literary source which more or less "predicted" the attack on Pearl Harbor, a few months before it took place. Since the movie was made after the real-life attack, they changed the target of the fictitious attack attempt to Panama. For some reason, they chose a title which makes no sense at all: in the movie version they never get to the Pacific Ocean.

Rating: 44

The Exorcist III (1990)

 A series of grisly murders baffles the police. An aging detective police Lieutenant investigates. Supernatural forces seem to be at play here.

There is some artfulness in the mise-en-scène of a few sequences, and the imagery throughout is appropriately ghastly. The idea of merging supernatural horror with the theme of serial killing is almost a natural one, but I am not aware of it having previously or subsequently been done. There is a lot of yelling in this film, and that is not a good thing. Also, a lot of the film is just static talk between the policeman and the suspect in a psychiatric prison cell. Well, I guess adding the ups and subtracting the downs the sum total is: watchable.

Rating: 40

Duende y misterio del flamenco (1952)

 U.S. title: Flamenco

Documentary about the titular Spanish style of music and dance, also featuring some other Spanish dances. It gets a little boring after a certain amount of viewing time (which will probably vary from one person to another), but the singing and dancing are undeniably beautiful.

Beat the Devil (1953)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on January 4, 1989

A ship bound for Africa is docked at an Italian town while it waits for an engine part to be replaced. Among its passengers is an American adventurer who works for a group of crooks who plan to get rich exploring uranium. The American and his wife befriend an English couple who are taking possession of a coffee estate which they have inherited. The English guy's wife starts an affair with the American; she has a tendency to lie about her husband, which leads to a series of misunderstandings. A further series of mishaps happen later.

This is a much improved print compared to the one I watched previously (restored too). That being said, and having now a knowledge of the entertaining source novel, my admiration for this movie faded somewhat. The plot and the dialogue are interesting, but they do not feel as lively and authentic as in the novel; by the way, most, if not all, the critics, for some mysterious reason, state without the shadow of a doubt that all the best lines of dialogue, some of which are really splendid, come from the first credited screenwriter. To be fair, a funny exchange about the wrecked car, and in fact that whole sequence, were created for the movie. Ditto the unfunny allusions to Hitler and Mussolini. Nearly all of the other dialogue came from the source novel and were thus written by its author, Claud Cockburn. And for all we know Cockburn may have written the previously mentioned ones as well, since he also contributed with the script in a direct manner and did not receive credit for it. The casting for this film was brilliantly done, but in my opinion the two leading actresses would have been more convincing if they had switched roles.

Rating: 60 (down from 73)

You'll Never Get Rich (1941)

To allay his wife's suspicions, a theater owner has his choreographer pretend to be the romantic partner of a dancer whom he (the theater owner) is courting. This gets the choreographer into trouble (or so he thinks) and in order to get away he enlists in the army. Trouble soon follows him, but fortunately so does romance.

To be frank, I quite enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so of this musical comedy. When the action is moved to an army training camp it becomes another military propaganda movie, and its entertaining value oscillates. Also, the main character is a wimp; it is puzzling that the leading lady should prefer him to her fiancé, who seems to be a much more successful person without any noticeable personal flaws. The songs and musical numbers are not  among the best in the genre, either.

Rating: 40

The Sopranos (1999-2007)

 Present-day Mafia in Newark is the subject of this TV series. I am just logging here the completion of my viewing of it, without much to say about it. It's a quality show, well done in all departments (just one actor I didn't like, who had been a musician prior to the show, and perhaps should stick to that career). One detail that perhaps has not been given due attention to is that, despite the suggestion (through its psychoanalyst characters) that the main character is a sociopath, he did not raise his children to be like him. I see him more like someone who was born into something and did not have much of a choice regarding his life path. And the suggestion that a psychotherapist who treats criminals is a criminal herself is more than a little problematic, and ultimately would imply that shows like The Sopranos or films like The Godfather should also be viewed as criminal activities, because criminals watch them and interact psychologically with them. I think that the acritical presentation of such theories by the show was a mistake.

Buffalo Bill (1944)

 A scout for the American army becomes a successful buffalo hunter for profit. The Native Americans are harmed by the ensuing disappearance of the buffalo, and wage war against the Whites. The titular character decisively helps the Whites win. He later moves East and becomes a star in a carnival act called "The Wild West".

Hypocritical Western in which the hero is actually the villain. It's amazing how they come up with the most sanctimonious speeches for him and yet everything he does contradicts what he says. Well, anyway, it has lots of well filmed action, and lovely cinematography. I guess viewers with a certain dose of cynicism (who hasn't it?) might enjoy it moderately.

Rating: 41

Cleopatra (1963)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on March 12, 1992

Egyptian queen takes Roman general Julius Caesar as lover; after he dies she replaces him with another Roman general.

Impressive historical drama, which makes use of modern concepts such as "romantic" (actually its roots go back to the Middle Ages, I think) love and psychoanalysis -- and a bit of modern dance too -- to weave its tale of love and politics. The result is not bad, though at times it becomes a little too melodramatic, like when Anthony abandons his fleet during a battle to follow Cleopatra, and then develops a guilt complex. The version I watched this time is certainly longer (4h06) than that of my earlier viewing; for a theatrical viewing that would be impossibly long, even with the intermission, but on streaming one can pause and resume at will. Also, I had possibly seen it in a Portuguese-dubbed version, whereas this time I saw it with the original audio. Too bad they cropped the frame to fit into a 16:9 TV.

Rating: 62 (up from 49)

Adriana Lecouvreur (1989)

 Opera performance. Music by Francesco Cilea; libretto by Arturo Colautti based on the 1849 play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. First performed in 1902.

The plot is inspired by the rumors surrounding the death of a real actress (same name as the source play's protagonist's). It's one of the bizarrest operas I've seen, though I confessedly haven't seen that many. I kept expecting the appearance of one Miss Duclos which never happened. The third act is comprised mostly of a ballet and a recitation of a scene from a play. The protagonist dies from smelling or kissing a poisoned flower (it must have been a very potent poison). The singing here sounded stupendous, though I am not really the most qualified person to give such assessments. The sets, too, were stunningly beautiful.

I don't give ratings to this kind of spectacle.

Gregorio y su ángel (1968)

 U.S. title: Gregorio and His Angel

The janitor in an orphanage is fired because of his alcoholism. A mysterious little girl follows him around, helping him earn money and urging him to stop drinking. 

Morality tale with Catholic themes. It's quite boring from start to finish, despite the main actor's fine performance.

The year of release is an estimate. IMDB says 1970, Mexican sources say 1966; there is a DVD release, and a few other sources, that say 1968. The actor who plays "Don Ramón" in the TV show El chavo del ocho (1973-1980) plays a small part here, as one of the baddies; he looks much younger here than in the show, which is another factor against the 1970 date, I think. 

There is a report that the male star was in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1966 "to make an English-Spanish movie"; since Gregorio y su ángel was shot in Acapulco, there is a high probability that it is the film in question (in the film he even has a beard just like in the photo); as for the release date, maybe it got shelved, or post-production was delayed. The screenwriter appears with the star in some photos taken in Spain in 1960.

Rating: 28

Le roi de coeur (1966)

 U.S. title: King of Hearts

A British soldier is sent on a mission to defuse a time bomb left by the Germans that will blow a small French town up. By a turn of events, the internees at a local madhouse escape.

This is a film which should be watched exclusively for its elegant mise-en-scène, costumes, witty dialogue, and assorted fragmentary creativity. A few critics were quick to point out the flaws in the film's message, but audiences at large were not so picky and bought it hook, line and sinker, making the film a huge, albeit delayed, international success. There is a very explicit scene in the movie: the "general" is in bed with a prostitute, and imagines his ideal world as one of constant war. So, I don't see how a world ruled by these mad characters would be a peaceful one. It may be that the screenwriter yielded to the temptation to please the viewing crowds and ended up by romanticizing madness in a flagrant contradiction to himself. For that purpose, he also had to make the regular military into buffoons. To sum it up, it's an interesting -- occasionally brilliant -- movie whose central idea shouldn't be taken seriously.

Rating: 59

Le Jardin des Plantes (1994)

TV movie. U.S. titles: Tales from the Zoo; The Greenhouse

Paris, near the end of World War II. The head of the Botanical Gardens has a son who deals in the black market and gets along fine with the Germans (or so he thinks). The son is captured, along with a few other random people, and shot in reprisal for the killing of a German officer by the Resistance. He leaves a daughter which he was raising alone (the mother is an actress). The child is taken in custody by her grandfather the botanist, who doesn't tell her that her father died; instead, he lies that the latter is a Resistance captain and is in hiding.

Dramatic comedy with a historical setting. The plot is quite childish, and not necessarily because it has a child as one of the protagonists. All the same, it is well structured and eventful enough that it doesn't become annoying. Overall, a competently done but ultimately silly movie which vaguely reminds one of Jorge Luis Borges's story Theme of the Traitor and the Hero (1944), and, from another angle, the movie Life Is Beautiful (1997).

Rating: 46

Un ballo in maschera (1980)

 First shown under the TV program Live from the Metropolitan Opera.

Filmed opera performance. Music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Antonio Somma. First performance of this opera was in 1859. It was based on the libretto by Eugène Scribe for the opera Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué.

Set in colonial era U.S., this has the Boston governor and his secretary's wife falling in love with each other. The secretary finds out about it and joins the revolutionaries in revenge.

I can't find much to say about this opera, none of whose tunes I recognized. The plot is pretty banal, and the proceedings are somewhat enlivened by a bizarre page character played by a woman (though the character is male). The singers are very good, but I always appraise them so, because my ears are not of a refined connoisseur kind.

No rating is given, because I only give them for movies (with rare exceptions).

Color Me Dead (1969)

 A notary is poisoned and has at most a few days to live. He sets out to find his killer, whose motive is connected to a bill of sale for a stolen uranium bar.

This remake of D.O.A. (1950) has no screenwriting credits, except for the original source. I frankly find the premise quite odd -- since when do burglars get their transactions notarized? Anyway, aside from this, the film is watchable though not noteworthy in any way.

Rating: 38

Panic in the City (1968)

A man falls unconscious in the street and they detect an abnormally high amount of radioactivitiy in his body. After some investigation, it is found that foreign agents are building an atomic bomb and intend to blow Los Angeles up.

Low budget thriller. It's quite decently written and filmed, and succeeds in entertaining despite some minor implausibilities.

Rating: 51

El indulto (1960)

English title: The Reprieve

A woman tries to get away from her violent husband, with help from the latter's brother, for whom she develops feelings.

Melodrama. While not especially remarkable, it's not totally devoid of interest either. As a depiction of the atmosphere of a small town and of male oppression (a theme which is still relevant in some parts of the world) it's passable; at some point it becomes a prison movie, and moderately entertaining at that. Another plus is the good performance by the actor who plays the villain.

Rating: 38

Lohengrin (1990)

Filmed performance of the opera by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. It is based on a character from novels by medieval writer Wolfram von Eschenbach.

After a boy disappears, his sister is accused of having murdered him. The king establishes that there must be a trial by combat between the accuser and anyone who will step forward to defend the woman accused. An unknown stranger volunteers.

This is a rather fatiguing three-hours-and-a-half viewing experience, and I must avow to having failed to see much sense in the premise. I think it's rather absurd that knights in charge of guarding the holy grail should be allowed to get married in foreign lands but not be allowed to reveal their names and identity. Anyway, I guess this is all about the singers, and the plot is left for intellectuals to invent the silliest explanations they can come up with. And the singers here have performed magnificently, or so my untrained ears have decreed. As for the music, I am equally unskilled to emit an opinion: I was bored most of the time, and when some recognizable tune came in (which here happened only in the third act) I felt slightly entertained.

(Unrated, as this is not a standard movie.)

Jetlag (1981)

 Alternate title: Vértigo en Manhattan

U.S. title: Jet Lag

A woman living in Barcelona travels to New York with the intention of seeking out a former boyfriend; he is now in a new relationship and does not want to see her.

This is one of those films where the protagonist's mental state is revealed gradually, and we only get the full picture of her condition by the end of the movie. It's not a very interesting movie, but it's fairly well done and not exactly painful to watch.

Rating: 40

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

 An American casino owner in Cuba is hired by counter-revolutionaries to transport some gold which they stole from the Treasury. He plans to get rid of his employers and steal the gold for himself. To achieve that goal, he concocts a plan involving a sea monster.

Comic adventure with horror elements. Its funniest thing is probably the humorous voice-over narration. Overall a slightly amusing film, very cheaply made. There is a version made for TV which has three additional sequences which were apparently made after the film had been completed; they are slightly amusing in themselves.

Rating: 36

Last Woman on Earth (1960)

 The planet suffers a sudden temporary shortage of oxygen which kills most people. Three Americans (a dishonest businessman, his wife, and his lawyer) are scuba diving in Puerto Rico during the incident and survive. They now must plan for their livelihood and living arrangements.

This cheap love triangle drama with a "science"-fiction premise does not have much to offer in terms of excitement or ideas, but flows passably well through dialogue and some scenic location sequences. The shorter version in color is the real thing; the black and white version has two additional sequences which do not really add much and were apparently shot later, given that the actress has a different appearance (she seems to have dyed her hair or something).

Rating: 34

Permanent Vacation (1980)

 A young jobless man wanders from place to place in New York City. He visits his girlfriend, then his mother who is in a psychiatric institution, then goes to a movie theater but just stays in the lobby, then steals a car and sells it, then boards a ship to Paris.

This movie's protagonist is often explaining himself. He is also very implausible as a character, because among other things his source of livelihood is not very clear. He is not rich, as may be inferred by his opportunistic car theft. Yet, he doesn't seem to be a habitual criminal, because that would somehow make him less of a "permanent vacationer"; after all, crime is a profession too. The musical score is well done, but not much else in this movie is. I wish I could say better things about it, but unfortunately cannot.

Rating: 28

Battlestar Galactica: miniseries (2003) & Season One (2004-2005)

 Based on the 1978-1979 TV show of the same title.

Human-created cyborgs lead a devastating attack on humans, killing most of them; the few survivors escape on spaceships in search of a new planet. But the cyborgs have the ability to mimic the human appearance and have infiltrated the crew of the escaping fleet.

I didn't like this show much, and am not watching the remainder of it. While its subject matter (AI takeover) is interesting, the dramatics here is far less interesting. If I had to point out a positive aspect of it, however, I'd say that the producers did succeed in gathering an attractive collection of female characters, spanning all profiles (sexy femme fatale, rebellious tomboy, tender-hearted with a dangerous psychological ambivalence, middle-aged sage, middle-aged slut).

King Kong (1933)

 Fourth viewing, probably; previously viewed on December 11, 2014; once or twice between 1983 and 1986 (if once, then there may have been another viewing on an earlier date).

A movie producer-director takes his cast and crew on a sea voyage to an uncharted island where he intends to shoot a picture featuring a gigantic ape. They end up not making that film, but instead bring the ape to America. The ape can't resist a blonde, and that spells his downfall.

This film has been a recurrent source of entertainment for me, but his charms have faded somewhat along the years. It's a triumph of technique, and its simple plot has some grandiose connotations, but coolly considered it's basically just an exceptionally well made adventure movie for kids (maybe I'm getting old?). To be fair, it is also a self-referential story about the disadvantages of location shooting: the film within the film, as planned, is roughly the same storywise as the film we watch, but completely antagonic as a filmmaking procedure. Thus, King Kong extracts its poesy from the human need for adventure and realism, but expresses this poesy by resorting to artifice and deceit. That's sort of fascinating in itself.

Here's my earlier review from 2014.

Rating: 59 (down from 69)

The Emperor Jones (1933)

 A black man kills another in a fight and is sentenced to a labor camp. He escapes and boards a ship, taking refuge in a small island. After some time in the island, he overthrows the local ruler and takes his place. After some more time the people get tired of his tyranny and prepare to overthrow him in turn. He flees the palace, intending to leave the country. He must cross a dense forest in his way to the port.

This cinematic adaptation of a one-act play considerably expands it. I didn't like the play much (based on a reading), but I found the movie reasonably enjoyable and mostly well done. I can't find much to say about it, though, as its characters and situations are built in a quite straightforward and explicit manner.

Rating: 51

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Third viewing; previously viewed on December 15, 1990 and May 9, 2013.

George is on the brink of suicide and is helped by an angel who gives him a new perspective on his life. The core of his problems is the greed of a banker who wants to take over George's small town.

This fantastic drama is generally viewed as a sentimental parable about self-sacrifice and the value of the individual, but there is another side to it which is equally important and perhaps more interesting, namely the dramatization of the perennial debate between free-marketeers and keynesians (or to a certain extent socialists). This aspect of the movie hasn't aged much, and one can see this issue being still being debated on books and on the opinion pages of newspapers. There is one detail, however, which somewhat obfuscates that economics issue: the State is complete absent from the movie's dramatic equation; that places all the burden on private actors. At no point in the movie its protagonist, or anyone else, considers running for office or otherwise engaging State institutions. While this allows for the specific dramatics here to develop, it's also the source of its more implausible elements. Further considerations about this movie may be read on my 2013 review. Perhaps I should add that the notion that bankers are lonely and frustrated creatures is another deeply flawed notion which has no counterpart in the real world.

Rating: 63 (unchanged)

 

The Next Voice You Hear... (1950)

 People start hearing someone on the radio claiming he's God. He delivers edifying speeches, always at the same hour, during one week. No one seems to be able to identify who is speaking and how he managed to transmit his voice on the radio. The plot centers on a suburban family (father, mother, son) expecting a second child. Familial conflicts and work frustration occupy the mind of the father.

This film may look as the most preposterous piece of silliness ever to fill a screen, but at least it shows some degree of self-consciousness when it has one character remark: "People silly enough to believe in God are silly enough to believe God's talking on the radio". But, just like the voice on the radio, this character comes and goes without explanation; I mean, officially he is still there, has the same name, and the same job as boss in the factory; but his ideas vanish late in the movie and he is suddenly a gentle person who's best friends with the protagonist's son and provides a refuge for the boy when he is disgusted with his father; also, he now replies a "God bless you" in kind. I'd say a film is problematic -- or I am -- when the two characters I find most interesting are the supposed villains, namely, the protagonist's old friend he meets in a bar and a woman in that bar. Paradoxically enough, it is an easy-to-watch movie which may be watched with an eye for involuntary comedy.

Rating: 38

Meet John Doe (1941)

 Second viewing; previously viewed (probably in a dubbed copy) between 1983 and 1986.

A newspaper columnist writes a suicide note which she attributes to a character she makes up and publishes it as if it were real. Thousands are moved by it and the newspaper's new owner convinces her to go on with the lie, even hiring a real person to pass off as the note's author. This John Doe becomes the object of a national following. People believe the things he says, though he only reads out loud what the columnist wrote for him; furthermore, the newspaper's owner has his own personal political goals in mind.

This is tremendously confusing from an ideological standpoint, which makes for a somewhat frustrating yet curiously fascinating viewing experience. Is this an anarchist manifesto? At some point it looks like the "movement" is making government superfluous. On the other hand, the "people" don't seem to have much craving for autonomy, and their cohesion disappears when their leader is revealed to be not exactly what he said he was. Also, there is a sinister streak here that seems to demonize an attempt to build a third party with some relevance in the United States. The funder of the movement, an oil magnate, is revealed to have fascist tendencies. But did he have to be that way? Why couldn't he be a normal guy with legitimate political aspirations? Is it the fact that he was a liar what makes him bad? But the "good" guys were liars too, and the film gives them a chance to come clean and redeem themselves. Why doesn't the magnate have the same chance in the script? On the other hand, I don't deny that this film is really entertaing, perhaps even in a kind of oneirical manner.

Rating: 63 (down from 67)

Aventuras com tio Maneco (1971)

English title: Journey to an Unknown World

Maneco, an adventurer, takes his nephews to visit the boys' grandfather. Upon arriving at their destination they find no trace of him and spot a flying saucer with two extraterrestrial beings who tell them that the old man was  kidnapped by a robot from their planet. The robot is trying to locate a flower which it has the mission to destroy. Said flower has the power to liberate the alien people from the dominion of intelligent machines. Maneco and the children go into the jungle in search of the missing grandfather and the flower.

Kiddie adventure which alternates live action with animation. It was filmed in location in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. There's little to remark about it except that it's one of the earliest films to tackle the theme of AI takeover. That aside, it's a poor production with little artistic merit. It spawned a TV series and three cinematic sequels, which leads me to believe that it must have done relatively well at the box office.

Rating: 28

The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976)

Inspired by the play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, which premiered in 1913.

A prostitute is invited by a writer to take part in a contest which awards every year a woman considered remarkable for her sexual skill. She takes lessons from the writer in the love-making art as a preparation for her challenge.

This pornographic comedy is mostly a failure; it has a very low erotic charge, and as a comedy it is poor, even cringeworthy occasionally; a few witty dialogue lines and above average production values make it somewhat less unbearable than the usual product in this line.

Rating: 30

A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)

An American diplomat returning home on a ship finds the woman with whom he had spent an evening while in Hong Kong hiding in his apartment. She is a stowaway and wants to emigrate to America.

Romantic comedy in a style which is close to those screwball comedies of the 1930s -- not surprising, since the screenplay was written around that time. It's an agreeable film which flows nicely and even warrants some laughter, in spite of a few dissonant chords -- e.g. the valet's "wedding night" which tries to be funny but fails. When you think about it, this is a kind of Madame Butterfly without the racial issue, and thus minus the tragic element.

Rating: 58

The Marriage of Figaro (2019)

 Filmed performance of the opera Le nozze di Figaro, music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, composed in 1786, based on the play La folle journée, ou le mariage de Figaro, by Pierre Beaumarchais, written in 1784. This performance occurred in November, 2018, in London, and was made available to stream in January, 2019. Since August, 2020 it is freely accessible.

The barber to a rich gentleman wants to marry one of his employer's house staff. Said gentleman wants to have the privilege of being the first to sleep with the bride. They devise a scheme to foil the (not so) gentleman's plans.

This is probably one of the most famous operas of all times, and I must confess to not having had such a great time with it. It simply was not intellectually stimulating to me, alas, what with all that plot full of coincidences and hackneyed devices. The music is considered great, but, again, I must confess that Mozart belongs to a period of relative musical simplicity which, while superficially agreeable, is not wholly satisfactory to me. The sets and costumes are gorgeous, and the staging was faithful to the original intent of the composer and writer, and to the period in which it is set. I wouldn't have it any other way. The singers were OK to my untrained ears.

Not rated, since this is not exactly a standard movie.

The Count (1916)

 Third viewing; previously viewed on: January 24, 1990; June 18, 1996.

A tailor finds a letter in a customer's jacket addressed to a woman who is giving a ball. He decides to attend the ball impersonating said customer. The tailor's former assistant, by a coincidence, happens to be at the premises.

Passable short comedy which has some inventive moments and also some formulaic slapstick bits. Curiously, this is not exactly a satire of rich people. It's more like a conflict between the petty bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat, here personified respectively by a tailor and a guy who was fired by him for being completely incompetent. Due to it happening in a party of rich people, they get some collateral damage from the abovementioned conflict, which somehow adds to the comicity. A funny review of it can be read here.

Rating: 47 (unchanged)

A Woman (1915)

Second viewing; previously viewed on March 3, 2006.

(*spoilers*) Several people are in a park during an afternoon: a womanizing husband, his wife, their adult daughter, a pretty pickpocket lady, a tramp, a policeman, two idlers. The tramp gets into trouble with all the males in that cohort; he then escorts the womanizer's wife and daughter to their home, and is invited to enter. When the husband and one of the park idlers arrive there, the tramp tries to fool them by disguising himself as a woman.

While not exactly original, this short comedy is somewhat better than my excessively harsh previous review (linked above) assessed it to be. The park segment, while somewhat cliché, has its funny moments; the second part is just standard slapstick, though the main actor in drag is remarkable at his performance -- quite refined and miles away from crude caricature.

Rating: 46 (up from 34)

The Champion (1915)

Third viewing; previously viewed on January 28, 2006 and January 20, 2007.

 A homeless man employs himself as a sparring assistant to a boxer. Armed with a horseshoe in his glove, he knocks the boxer out and, viewed then as a promising fighter, accepts to challenge the world champion.

Somewhat below average comic short which lacks really inspired ideas but is reasonably well done. As I remarked in my first review (link above), it's mostly aimed at kids.

Rating: 44 (down from 62)

Tôkyô nagaremono (1966)

 English titles: Tokyo Drifter; The Man from Tokyo

A former gang member goes straight after his boss disbands their gang. He not only refuses a job with a rival gang but keeps getting in the way of their evil plans. After a while, he decides to leave Tokyo so as to stop causing trouble for himself and others, but his enemies send a hitman after him.

Both the Italians and the Japanese were heavily influenced by American culture (by a strange coincidence, both were in the losing side in World War 2), and their cultural industries are not all that dissimilar in that respect, except that Japan seemed to prefer the urban criminal genre, and Italy had a taste for Westerns. While very sloppily edited, and perhaps even occasionally sloppily filmed, and as a consequence excrutiatingly hard to make sense of at some points, this film shows a flair for uncanny imagery, and I guess that makes it watchable despite its flaws.

Rating: 35

The Face on the Barroom Floor (1914)

Third viewing; previously viewed on May 29, 1996 and January 6, 2006.

A bum walks into a bar and tells his story: he was once a painter who fell in love with a woman and she traded him for a man whose portrait he was painting.

This is a (purportedly) comic adaptation of a (then) famous poem. The main actor enlivens the piece, and that's the film's main attraction. But the film has some intelligent ideas, like making the man who stole the protagonist's loved one fat and middle-aged (and rich) instead of handsome and young. That, and the encounter in the park, are what one could call the reality touch.

Rating: 56 (down from 63)

Ambrose's First Falsehood (1914)

(*mild spoilers*) Ambrose is reluctantly taken by another man (a friend? a stranger?) in a car ride with two young women. They enter a cabaret where Ambrose gets involved with a performer, incurring the rage of the place's owner (the performer's husband?). Ambrose's companion had sent a note to Ambrose's wife saying he traveled on business; when the wife reads in the paper that there was a train wreck, she thinks Ambrose died.

Mildly entertaining short. Due to its antiquity, and multiple later uses of this same plotline, one could attach a certain historical importance to it.

Rating: 40

His Trysting Place (1914)

Title displayed on the card: His Trysting Places.

Second viewing (at least); latest previous viewing was on January 7, 2006.

A married man with an infant son goes out to buy a bottle for the child and inadvertently switches overcoats with another man. This causes a misunderstanding with his wife on a account of a letter which she finds in the overcoat's pocket.

Above average short comedy with many interesting individual sequences done with great ability (e.g., the initial kitchen sequence).

Rating: 56 (up from 54)

Saved by the Belle (1939)

 Series: The Three Stooges

Three American salesmen are selling their products in a Latin American country. They happen into a plot to overthrow the current dictator and are dragged into the middle of it.

Relentlessly inventive and funny short comedy, done to perfection.

Tassels in the Air (1938)

 Series: The Three Stooges

A housepainter is mistaken for a prestigious interior decorator and hired, along with his two bumbling assistants, to redecorate a house.

This funny short brims with ideas and is expertly directed.

Nertsery Rhymes (1933)

 Short. A man is pestered by his three sons into telling them bedtime stories.

This is a rather like a vaudeville act, I suppose. It reuses two musical numbers from other films. The comic bits are funny and the musical numbers are good. I watched this because it was the first screen appearance of a famous comic trio. More info: Wikipedia page.

Lord of the Flies (1963)

 After a war breaks out in England, all English children are evacuated to an unspecified place. A plane carrying a bunch of them crashes near a deserted island. Only the children survive. On the island, most of the children revert to savagery.

Though it, or rather the novel on which it is based, and which I haven't read, has inspired its share of intellectual elaborations or interpretations, I couldn't honestly see that it warrants anything deeper than the truism that boys will be boys. I watched a 1990 remake in 2001, and liked it better than I liked this 1963 version twenty years later. I don't know whether my relative judgments would hold if both films were watched closely in time. Anyway, the plot development is sketchy, and the concepts the film toys with are handled in a very arbitrary way. I couldn't understand why the majority of the boys didn't seem to care much about being rescued. Even unruly boys have a certain rationality to them. All in all, not a terribly serious movie. The cinematography is good, and the island landscapes are truly gorgeous.

Rating: 40

It's a Date (1940)

 A famous actress wants to play the lead in a new play, but she is too old for the part, and it gets offered to her daughter. Both women vie for the heart of a middle aged bachelor, but he prefers the older one.

Dramatic comedy. The plot has an interesting symmetrical structure illustrating the theme of age: the mother is too old for a certain part and the daughter is too young for a certain man. Of course this resolves itself in the happiest manner for everyone involved. The leading actress is also a lyrically trained soprano, and so she is made to sing an assortment of musical numbers which are not really essential (and occasionally not even connected) to the plot development. Overall, not an especially attractive film, but not an especially unpleasant one either.

Rating: 40

Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Inside a ship casino the band leader is murdered. The ship's owner is the prime suspect. A detective couple is among the people on board. Pretty much everyone linked to the deceased is a suspect too.

Mystery thriller with comedic undertones. The satire of bohemian slang is one of the highlights of the movie; from a modern perspective it shows that nothing looks as antiquated as what passed off as modern in an earlier age. The mystery plot is well devised and grabs the viewer's attention to the very end. While the film is nothing out of the ordinary, it's agreeable enough.

Rating: 51

Night and Day (1946)

 A rich guy drops out of law school to become a full-time composer. He becomes very successful, but due to his devotion to his work he neglects his wife.

Fake biopic ("based on the career of" is priceless) which is merely a vehicle for the songs of one composer. Amid the generally poor dramatics, the greatest flaw is that the protagonist lacks personality aside being a compulsive worker. The musical numbers, on the other hand, are competent, occasionally great.

Rating: 36

The Toast of New Orleans (1950)

 An opera singer is visiting a small fishing village. Her impresario sees singing potential in a young fisherman and offers to coach him. He accepts and falls in love with the singer.

I hate to be harsh with this movie because there's fine singing in it. But my criterion here is interesting script or imagery,  which this film lacks. So...

Rating: 34

Valley of the Kings (1954)

 A woman hires an archaeologist to search for the tomb of a pharaoh who allegedly was an early monotheist.

Adventure which apparently was derived from Freud's Moses and Monotheism, though they changed the biblical character to Joseph, yet placing him in a period which was actually closer to that which has been hypothesized for Moses. The plot is very conventional and the location shooting in Egypt provides some interesting sequences.

Rating: 35

The Formula (1980)

 A police lieutenant investigating a murder finds that it is linked with a race for the possession of a secret formula for the production of a synthetic fuel from coal.

This monotonous thriller has a few plot holes and is apparently based on a false premise: the technology for synthetic fuel already exists and is of public knowledge: Synthetic fuel - Wikipedia. The film has some interesting dialogue and competent actors, but is not otherwise engaging or convincing.

Rating: 34

The President's Analyst (1967)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on May 16, 1998.

A psychoanalyst is summoned by the Intelligence agencies of the U.S.A. to treat the President. After some time performing his duty, he decides he can no longer withstand the stress caused by his new job.

Political satire. One of those films which seem to be a compendium of its era's quirks. Its approach is naïve and superficial, and, in at least one specific segment (the one with the suburban family), also bigotted under the guise of anti-bigotry. While rather inconsequential overall, it's easy to watch and mildly curious. I had no recollection of having watched it previously, and only became aware of that fact when I checked my personal notes. Also surprising was my favorable opinion of it on that earlier occasion.

Rating: 45 (down from 65)

Norma (1981)

Exhibited under the TV programme Great Performances. The performance took place in May 4, 1981, at the O'Keefe Centre, in Toronto (today it is called the Meridian Hall).

Opera with music by Vincenzo Bellini and libretto by Felice Romani, based on the play Norma, ou l'infanticide by Alexandre Soumet. Both opera and play came to light in 1831.

The action is set in Gaul around 100-50 BC, when that region was under Roman occupation. A high priestess has an forbidden affair with a Roman proconsul. He then tires of her and starts an affair with a younger priestess.

Now, this is madness at its awsomest. I honestly don't know how much of this is based on real customs of the time and place, but I found the whole thing totally ridiculous. The soldiers want to rebel against the occupiers but must wait for the permission of a zany woman who not only has an affair with the enemy but has had two (!) children with him (where does she hide them, for Christ's sake?). But absurdity piles on absurdity here: now the younger priestess, who is also in love with the same guy (which society would survive with a religious class like this -- oh wait!), for some obscure reason renounces him in favor of her older rival. I will not proceed  with this; suffice it to say that there is a marvellous dreamlike quality to all this nonsense, and that the music is beautifully soothing.

I really can't assess the performances; for my taste they were all just perfect. The video quality is not very good, and the subtitles are absent for most of the duration. The filming of the thing seems to have some terrible framing flaws at times, but it could be a defect of the DVD transfer.

I will not give this a rating because it is not really a regular movie.

The War Game (1965)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on October 31, 2005

In 1966, the U.S. drops an atom bomb on Vietnam; the U.S.S.R. and China declare war on the U.S. and Western Europe. This film describes what happens in England when it suffers a nuclear attack.

Anti-armamentist propaganda with a fictional plot told in a documentary form. It's well made and effective, though at one or two occasions it overplays the sarcasm note in the intertitles. Films like this are generally held in very high esteem and acquire a somewhat sacred aura. I myself was quite moved when I first saw it. But now I wonder whether it has actually prevented any war. I suppose everyone but the very uninformed knew pretty much what nuclear war entails. Politicians, who are the only ones with the power of deciding wars, certainly know it beter than most. And I suspect that the premise is a bit silly (a nuclear attack on Vietnam), and in retrospect nothing of the sort happened in the real Vietnam war. An interesting sequence of the movie shows some common English folks being interviewed about whether they favored retaliation in case of a nuclear attack. They all answer affirmatively. This may look shocking, and possibly that was the filmmaker's intention, but he is being dishonest here. This interview is shown after the point in the narrative where England retaliates, but it is somehow disconnected from the line of events narrated. So, from a game theory angle, it makes sense to answer 'yes', because of the principle of mutual deterrence. But *after* an attack the situation would be completely different, and mutual deterrence would no longer make sense.

Rating: 59 (down from 68)

P.S.: I chose to date it as a 1965 movie, instead of 1966. Although it was first widely exhibited in 1966, some BBC people saw it in 1965 (and banned it from TV because it was deemed too shocking).

Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)

 The titular agent goes to Hong Kong to investigate a drug ring. She finds out that it is being run from a casino owned by an American woman nicknamed the Dragon Lady. Jones's two assistants are made prisoners, and it's up to her and some Chinese sidekicks to rescue them and foil the plans of the evil Dragon Lady.

Action thriller with a conventional plot which rides on the martial arts wave in the West which was set off by Enter the Dragon two years earlier. The complete inadequacy of the main character's outer demeanor for an action hero is perhaps here enhanced relatively to the first movie for humorous purposes; thus, she is made to wear impossibly encumbering outfits, which she conveniently disrobes when some physical action is required. She then engages in the fights with the usual lethargy, and invariably wins. Her Chinese sidekicks, on the other hand, are agility incarnate. The final action sequence at the casino is quite well done.

Rating: 33

Wrong Is Right (1982)

Second viewing; previously viewed between January 20 and February 02, 1983

Alternative title in some copies shown outside the U.S.: The Man with the Deadly Lens

A TV reporter gets involved in a complicated plot involving an Arab country. It all begins with the murder of an American reporter who was actually a spy; then the leader of that Arab country dies in an alleged suicide. The plot also involves some Arab terrorists and an American presidential election.

Political thriller. Purportedly a commentary on the ubiquitous influence and power of television, it also satirizes American politics. It was considered prophetical of some aspects of the September 11, 2001 attacks, but that is somewhat of a stretch, though admittedly another hypothesis is that the film may have instead inspired the perpetrators of that attack. The fictional plot includes the possibility of a false flag attack; this possibility has also been advocated by some in regards to the September 11 attack. Despite those exciting real life parallels, the film is actually quite bland and not very memorable. It's funny that I didn't change my overall assessment of it after 38 years, even though my understanding of the plot has been considerably better on this second viewing.

Rating: 49 (unchanged)

Cleopatra Jones (1973)

 The titular character is an American international anti-drug agent. In this film, however, she comes back to America to fight drug dealers and police corruption, after a police bust occurs at a charity rehabilitation center for drug addicts.

I guess this film is a way to deal with the age-long dilemma of whether the best way to handle the drug problem is to attack the production centers or to focus on the drug market. Here we have a super-agent who is proficient at both the CIA-like and the FBI-like angles, thus providing a two-pronged strategy. I guess the biggest problem with this routine actioner is that its leading actress totally lacks any appearance of dynamism which would be expected in a character like this. The filming is professionally done though, and the film may prove entertaining, provided one is not expecting much.

Rating: 34

The Three Must-Get-Theres (1922)

 A poor young man from a small village goes to Paris to be a musketeer. Once there, he is assigned, along with his three partners, a mission to return a jewel to the Queen in time for a ball.

Generally funny parody with lots of physical humor and witty intertitles. Probably slightly more fun to watch than its object of mockery, the film version released in the previous year.

Rating: 56

The Three Musketeers (1921)

 Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet, first published in 1844, and inspired in real characters.

In 1625, a young man from the province goes to Paris hoping to join the king's musketeers. There he befriends three musketeers and joins them in a mission involving a jewel which, through the machinations of the prime minister, could harm the relations between the king and the queen.

Bowdlerized version of the famous novel. The queen here does not have an extramarital affair (though it is implied that she has extramarital feelings which she represses); also, the protagonist's sweetheart is not an unfaithful wife but is unmarried and lives with her uncle. Furthermore, the prime minister's motivation is said to be  to neutralize the queen's influence over the king, but no mention is made of the prime minister's wish to cause a war between France and England. This renders the plot frustratingly vague, even if one doesn't mind the puritanical undertones. I suppose only children would experience a really unfettered enjoyment of this film. Adults should concentrate on the action and forget (or mentally correct) those plot elements. That is not so hard to do, really, since the film is well directed and the actors perform reasonably well.

I know of two versions of this film, one with 119 minutes and another with 142 minutes of length. The longer one seems to have a more natural frame rate, but I am not sure that it has any additional scenes in it. There seems to be a third version with 128 minutes of length, but I know nothing further about it.

Rating: 52

Warum läuft Herr R. Amok (1970)

 English title: Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?

A middle-class man, with a good-looking wife and a son, leads a mediocre life, dealing with pressures to get ahead professionally and other annoying features of social life among colleagues, relatives and neighbors. He shows no signs of psychological imbalance, until one day...

I was unsure whether to put a "spoiler" alert on top of this review, but decided it would make no sense, given that the film's title is a spoiler in itself. As reported by a cast member, this was mostly (or totally) improvised without a written script. And it mostly succeeds at achieving a reality look. Of course a film is always just a film, and manipulation is inevitable. I guess the film's main virtue is to work as a snapshot of early 1970s' zeitgeist, with capitalism taking over from the libertarian dreams of the 1960s. We see some reviews calling it "nihilistic", but this is probably coming from people who have no idea what those times felt like. Anyway, that kind of mood seems to be gone, which does not mean that new problems haven't appeared. A curious detail is that two writer-directors are credited, one much more famous than the other, but it seems established that the more famous one had absolutely nothing to do with the making of the movie.

Rating: 56

Be My Wife (1921)

*mild spoilers ahead*

 A man is wrongly suspected by his wife of having a date with another woman, and in turn suspects her of having a date with another man. The suspected rendezvous place (where in fact that double infidelity is actually happening with a friendly couple) in both cases is a clothes shop which clandestinely provides that kind of service along with equally clandestine alcoholic beverages (it's the Prohibition era).

I found this comedy quite mediocre, though by no means painful to watch. The mechanical transformation of the shop's fitting room into rendezvous room is kind of funny with the workers always in their respective positions. The most curious bit from a, say, social point of view is the fact that, judging from this film, people in those days called the cops to catch their respective spouses on the act of adultery. Not much else I can find to say about it.

Rating: 42

An Eastern Westerner (1920)

 A young man who leads an inconsequential life is sent by his parents to a Western ranch. His new environment offers him several challenges and an opportunity for love.

A formulaic yet very well done short comedy displaying fine physical comedy and a talented comic star.

Rating: 53

Les surprises de l'amour (1909)

English titles: Love's Surprises; The Surprises of a Flirtation

Second viewing; previously viewed on January 1, 2006

*spoilers ahead*

A family comprised of father, mother, and two adult sons are having a meal together. One by one, the men invent an excuse to leave the table and then surreptitiously evade the house. They all go meet their respective lovers, who are coincidentally one and the same, and, as the next one arrives, the one who is there is forced into hiding. Finally, another woman arrives and starts sadistically beating the hiding men. The men eventually flee the house and meet outside.

Short comedy which is half amusing, half puzzling, and 100% fascinating.

Rating: 42

Der Golem. Wie er in die Welt kam (1920)

English title: The Golem: How He Came Into the World

Faced with the impending expulsion of his community from Germany, a rabbi builds an automaton from clay to defend the Jews. The Golem goes berserk and endangers the community.

Fantastic drama with good special effects and an enjoyably simple plot which is reportedly faithful to the medieval legend it is based on. The characters are well-done caricatures: the rabbi-astrologer, his seductive daughter, the Golem himself, the unfortunate assistant, the hedonistic king, the effeminate courier, etc. The magnificent sets alone would make the film worth watching. 

The restored version is shorter (at 76') than some other versions which have been released; the (apparently) longest version (at 101') does not contain any scenes which alter the narrative in a perceptible manner, and lacks the scene where the little girl throws the "Golem-switch" star of David.

Rating: 57

The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)

Second viewing; previously viewed on February 10, 1991

Based on the short story Babylon Revisited, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, written in 1930 and first published on February 21, 1931

An American writer returns to Paris, where his daughter is living with his in-laws since his wife died. He recollects his life in the French capital, the parties, and his conjugal quarrels. Now he is asking to take his daughter back, but will his sister-in-law agree?

Though some of the dialogue is copied from the short story, this is not a faithful adaptation. The period it is set in is after World War II, whereas in the short story it is 1930. Also, in the film the protagonist chooses one sister over the other, and the rejected one holds a grudge. When I watched the film for the first time, I hadn't read the short story, and perhaps that caused me to like the film better. Now, analyzing the changes, I think they render the film slightly absurd. There is nothing so special about the protagonist that should make them covet him so promptly and intensely. Furthermore, the sister-in-law was already dating someone else, and it is strange that she would simply disregard him nonchalantly. She would later marry her former suitor, who appears thus to be a real saint. The movie is not as depressing as the short story, but also makes less sense. The screenwriters filled it with witty one-liners, providing a continuous source of amusement, but detracting from the film's credibility (no one talks like that). It's mostly a phony drama, but somehow it conveys many of the short story's ideas, and it's never really boring.

Rating: 51 (down from 63)

Deliverance (1972)

Second or third viewing; previous viewing or viewings were between 1983 and 1986

Four men go river canoeing on a region that is about to be flooded for a dam. They have some unpleasant setbacks during their adventure, both from nature and from some locals.

Although I still consider this to be a memorable and remarkable film, it impressed me a lot less than on previous viewings. To begin with, this is clearly a sick fantasy which is unfair on the real people who live in the geographical region depicted in the movie. That being said, fiction has the advantage of always lending itself to a comical reading, and that struck me as the only approach that works with this movie (though previously I probably had a different, more naïve, reading of it). The key factor that made the film work as well as it did was Reynolds' brilliant performance.

Rating: 70 (down from 92)

Madame DuBarry (1919)

 U.S. release title: Passion

Fictionalized dramatization of the life of Louis XV's mistress.

This has a poor script, but partially makes up for it in spectacular scenes, both indoors and outdoors. The indoors scenes are impressive mainly because of the luxurious sets and the outdoors ones mainly because of the mob scenes during the French Revolution.

Rating: 47

O profeta da fome (1970)

*mild spoilers*

English title: The Prophet of Hunger

 The protagonist works in a circus as a fakir, eating metal objects. The circus soon is destroyed and, after a quarrel with another member of the troupe, he wanders off with his girlfriend in search of a town. He eventually settles in a small town where he crucifies himself for money. He is arrested and later released. He then sets himself up as an artist of hunger.

This film seems to have pretentions to saying something very important and deep, but it is impossible to know what it is, and actually even what it would be about. The cinematography is impressive, especially on the restored copy I saw it in, but even that did little to attenuate the dullness it causes on the viewer after the curious initial 10 minutes or so.

Rating: 25

What's Up, Doc? (1972)

Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

A man is in San Francisco with his fiancée for an interview for a grant for his research on the musical property of rocks. At the airport, he meets a woman who keeps getting in his way and disturbing his plans. That woman has a handbag exactly like his. Another man at the airport with an identical handbag has stolen secret government documents. At the hotel, a guest keeps her jewels at another identical handbag.

 Comedy emulating the screwball style. It has an inspired script, with more than a few funny moments. One might object that it is just an updating of something very old, but it's so consistently entertaining, and everything works so well, that it's hard really to criticize it for that.

Rating: 75 (down from 81)

Soninha toda pura (1971)

*spoilers*

A middle-aged woman is staying at her private island with her young male lover. Along for the trip are the woman's daughter and the latter's best friend.

Sexual drama. Not much to see here. The protagonist is a virgin who is seduced by her lesbian friend and in the end gets raped by her mother's lover. The girls do lots of gigling and running around on the beach, then rehearse Romeo & Juliet, do some kissing, and that's it. Mother and lover do extensive making out indoors while the girls are outside on the beach or upstairs locked in the bedroom. The dialogue is just what one would expect from this kind of set-up: cynical with the man-woman couple, juvenile with the girls. To see this in a restored copy eases the dullness somewhat.

Rating: 33

Paris nous appartient (1961)

English title: Paris Belongs to Us

A young student of literature is dragged into a group of intellectuals in Paris and investigates a supposed conspiracy which allegedly is killing its members one by one and has the potential to destroy the entire world.

The life of a student may be extremely tedious, and the allure of the theater world, especially when combined with intrigue and mystery, may provide an irresistible distraction. That is what happens with this film's protagonist. The events she seems to navigate have the same structure as the ones in a schizophrenic's mind, but we are never given a hint of a possible mental health issue. The cold war context in which those events are situated are a fertile ground for conspiracy. The external menace, in the person of a businessman who seems intent on destroying the leftist threat in the artistic milieu, is compounded by the internal threat, in the person of two disruptive Americans, an apparently paranoiac writer and his ex-girlfriend who specializes in seducing and abandoning people. For the protagonist, she is also a love rival. I could write more about this film, but watching it would be probably the only way to absorb all its layers and nuances. An intelligent film about political activism, big cities, and despair.

Rating: 68

Port of New York (1949)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on January 18, 1989

(*spoilers*) An agent from the Narcotics Bureau and another from the Customs Police join efforts to catch the head of a drug smuggling gang. Some legal shipment of narcotics disappears from a ship. A woman who had been a passenger on that ship and was an accomplice to the smugglers wants out. The police stakes out a locker in a railway station and finds the buyer. It's a nightclub comic. The two agents raid the bandits' storehouse one night, and one of them gets killed. The other one impersonates a drug buyer to get to the head of the gang.

Violent criminal documentary-style drama. Mildly entertaining.

Rating: 47 (unchanged)

The Mauritanian (2021)

 True story of a man who was dragged from a social gathering in his native Africa, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 New York incidents, and spent fourteen years in the Guantánamo prison. He was released thanks to the efforts of a lawyer who believed in human rights and the rule of law.

This is not really an excellent movie, but I can't say why exactly. I guess this story had many angles from which it could be told, and the one we see isn't the most exciting one. Be it as it may, it is an interesting and well acted movie about injustice and how one individual coped with it.

Rating: 58

Phantom (1922)

 A guy is run over by a carriage and the woman riding in it comes to assist him. He becomes obsessed with that woman, who belongs to a higher social class than his. He finds a substitute in a lookalike from a lower social class. To provide for his lover's expensive cravings, our hero takes a loan from his moneylending aunt. When the latter finds out how he is spending the money, she demands it back or else.

Romantic drama with expressionistic touches. There are some dull passages but overall it's interesting and visually striking.

Note: the version I watched was approximately 120 minutes long.

Rating: 57

Uma mulher para sábado (1970)

*spoilers*

Nando and Loco are long-time friends. Loco is a visual artist coming from a rich family; Nando gave up his artistic career and now works as a sales rep. Nando has a girlfriend but does not want a commitment. He meets Dorianne at a party and feels attracted to her. Loco sets up a week-end at his beach house with Nando and two women, one of whom happens to be Dorianne. Nando sleeps with Dorianne; Loco has no such luck with the other woman. After they return, Nando does not want to pursue a relationship with Dorianne. Loco decides to give in to his father's pressures and take a position at his company. He asks Dorianne in marriage. Nando goes back with his girlfriend.

This is a mostly badly directed film. It also has some very ludicrous dialogue, spoken in a strangely awkward manner (I wonder whether the actors were dubbed by other persons). In spite of that, the basic plot line shows some promise and we at least can imagine the better film this could have been.

Rating: 34

Zabriskie Point (1970)

Second viewing; previously viewed on September 20, 1987

An ex-student (Mark) on the run from the police for alleged involvement in the death of a policeman during a student riot steals a small plane and meets a young student (Daria) in the middle of the desert where they make love and talk.

This is curious as a record of an era and its sillinesses, which, come to think of it, are still our era's sillinesses, with a few changes. It starts very interestingly with an excellent sequence in a classroom where students debate their "movement"; then there are some riots and they go to jail; after that it shifts its focus to the two main characters, and it becomes a little dull.

Rating: 50 (down from 68)

Lua de mel & amendoim (1971)

 This film is comprised of two segments: (1) Lua de mel & amendoim. A womanizing middle-age man wants to have sex with his fiancée but she refuses to do it before they get married. He finally gives in, but has problems in the honeymoon. (2) Berenice. A young womanizer meets a woman who will not have sex with him as she does not approve of his lifestyle. He eventually falls in love with her.

A pair of thematically-related films, mildly comical in tone. The first one is set in São Paulo, and the second in Rio de Janeiro. They may be viewed today as a testimony on the morals of another era. The first episode depicts conservative values in their orthodox form; the second depicts a more liberal way of life, which nevertheless does not diverge a lot from the old ways: the independent woman is not keen on enjoying casual sex because that would not be emotionally satisfying and would not free her from being a sex object. Despite those interesting considerations, the film is poorly made, and not entertaining.

Rating: 26

Metropolis (1927)

Second viewing, probably; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

First viewing of the restored version lasting approximately 2h25. 

 In a future time, the city of Metropolis goes through some turbulence in connection to a mass movement centered on a prophetess and her promise of a "mediator" who would reconcile workers and capitalists. A capitalist's son feels attracted to the prophetess and claims the role of mediator for himself.

This is a lot longer than the version or versions I saw previously, so I jumped at the opportunity of seeing it. The most interesting thing about the movie is its political ideology of humane conservatism, which I suppose is something akin to social democracy, though a somewhat malicious reviewer could also make the case for a prefiguration of National Socialism, with the mediator as a kind of Hitler prototype. Admittedly the plot is not as exciting as its premise, particularly in its middle section. There is a strong religious component to the script, with the Maria-following exhibiting messianic characteristics (she embodies a conflation of the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and Mary Magdalen), and its flipside personified by the apocalyptic preacher (he seems to be only a hallucination of the protagonist, and for some reason which escaped me is conflated with the Thin Man, a spy for the capitalist; it seems this is better explained in footage that was not recovered). The set designs and visuals in general are stunning, as is well known.

Rating: 67 (unchanged)