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.