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.

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