Cinema, hallucinogens and canaries...

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2010-01-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

Colors of The Wind

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Score: 7,5

In my blog in Portuguese I wrote about Gran Torino and Fight Club, and these articles resulted in very angry comments and this one is probably going the same path. I'm thankful my blog is not famous and my profile picture is very mysterious otherwise I would be attacked by an angry mob. But even so I won't remain silent! I really like James Cameron. I loved Titanic. But I was 12 when I watched it and its thousands of flaws were completely invisible to my critical views at the time and now they only make it more charming. Titanic is still the biggest box office success of all time, but Avatar is right behind it. But at one thing we have to agree, its plot has been exhaustively explored in much better ways. I was trying to ellaborate an equation with a friend that could result in Avatar, and we got to the following one: Pocahontas + The Last of The Mohicans + The Last Samurai + Dance With Wolves + Atari + Wii.What did you think?

What is it about? Actually it's just an excuse to show what's the latest technology in special effects for motion pictures. I tried to watch it in 3D but it was sold out for 3 days so I watched the regular version. Well, the story is about terrestrials (all Americans, sorry...) who go to a planet called Pandora in order to explore. The team guided by Sigourney Weaver wants to study the planet but the team guided by Colonel Quaritch has other less peaceful interests.

The intention is good, but the script is weak. Let's face it: no army chief in the Middle East will ever say that their interest there is oil as Giovanni Ribisi said to Sigourney that they only want a stone that costs 20 million a kilo. They would disguise it as “Spread of Democracy” or “War on Terror”. But I also understand that the kind of public that is most appealed to this kind of movie is generally not used to think about serious issues or just care about the visual aspect of the movie, so the message must be completely clear otherwise they wouldn't get it.

The leading man, Australian actor Sam worthington, is a marine who's got an avatar (mixed with his DNA) to explore the planet freely, play with the flying jellyfishes (among other funny games), and he ends up becoming friends with the natives, and Zoe Saldaña has the obligation to teach him to be one of them. So he has this double life, part-time human, part-time Na' vi.

This discovery part is beautiful. I was really expecting to see Pocahontas or Vanessa Williams to come along and sing Colors of the Wind. Everything is so colorful that it wouldn't be any surprise if the wind was colored too. It's funny that in Twilight, the glitter-vampire glows in the sun, but here everything glows in the dark. The plants, the animals, everything. You're running away from a predator? You're screwed! Wanna play hide and seek? Don't even think about it... Suddenly I looked down and my flip flops were glowing too. If I had put them up to the air maybe the public would think they were watching it in 3D.

And just between us, this new technology developed by James Cameron to turn real actors in those blue creatures may be revolutionary, but visually it's not of good taste. It's too much information. Reminded me of those gigantic colores pencil boxes. Except for the plants (which were nothing but palm trees, coconut palms, banana plans, ferns and similar things) the animals didn't look real. I felt like watching a Playstation game. The Ets from Evolution (that movie with Julianne Moore and David Duchovny) seemed more conveincing. Pixas does it better... But this technology will be improved. In time no make up will be needed to transform actors for biographies. Special effects will take care of that. There will be no ugly people either. Anyone will have the chance to be gorgeous and slim. Social acceptance expectations rising...

The characters weren't well developed either. They're all plane, shallow, specially the villain. He's a complete stereotype, from the scars in the head to the complete absence of kindness. And it amazes me that someone who fought in a fictitious war in Venezuela (will it actually happen?) to say something like this: On Earth, these men (marines) were the main strenght from the army. Fighting for freedom. But here they were only mercenaries getting their money. Then I ask: whose freedom?

I could write a book about the planet itself. There are many questionable things there, besides the bad taste. For example, if there is plenty of water why there's no oxigen in the air? Why don't the flying mountains fall? Why do the mosquitos fly in circles? I think the script could be more creative about the planet. That luminous tree (Luxurious! The newest trend for the next holiday season) surpassed my expectations. I thought it was about to walk, like in Lord of The Rings, or to talk, just like Grandmother Willow.

The Na'vis are a different chapter. If I were them I wouldn't turn the Ets into giant smurfs. Everything is very similar to what exhists here on Earth and I believe that if there is life outside here it must be completely different from us and totally disturbing. And maybe more than one rational species as we have here. Sometimes the Na'vis act like Indians, specially their social organization, and their religious culture is similar to the African culture, and Pandora, which is a Greek word, was adopted by them as the name of their planet. There's no way for me to say that it was well developed.

And as a designer I have to criticise that millions were spent and they didn't think about hiring a graphic designer to create an exclusive typeface to use as the subtitles of the Na'vi language. They used Papyrus, that everyone has in their own computer. A shame... At least the movie has good values after all. It's against colonialism, imperialism and militarism. And I didn't sleep during the almost 3 hours of it. This is long enough now and I'm gonna stop. I talked enough.

Grammy 2010 nominations

2010-01-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

This year to me marked the return of dance music. It even reminded me of the 90’s, when Aqua, Ace of Base, Alexia, Haddaway, Whigfield, DJ Bobo, Nikki French, Corona, La Bouche and many other bands of this type of music, called Eurodance, made a huge success in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Most of the hits today recall this period of time. Lady Gaga, Madonna, Britney, David Guetta, The Black Eyed Peas, they’re all following this style.

The Grammy awards have more than 100 categories, and I’m only making comments about the 4 main categories, the dance music category, which is pretty strong this year, and some others that may be announced live on TV telecast.

Record of the year

Halo - Beyoncé
I Gotta Feeling - The Black Eyed Peas
Use Somebody - Kings Of Leon
Poker Face - Lady Gaga
You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

They were all huge this year. Taylor Swift was inducted to superstar after Kanye West’s incident. Alright, it was ridiculous, and I felt sorry for her, but they’re making her something she’s not! My favorite one is King of Leon’s track, but I Gotta Feeling is the most successful one.

Album of The Year

I Am... Sasha Fierce - Beyoncé
The E.N.D. - The Black Eyed Peas
The Fame - Lady Gaga
Big Whiskey And The Groogrux King - Dave Matthews Band
Fearless - Taylor Swift

And here comes Taylor again... This category generally awards a well-established artist, probably because the voters don’t know in who to vote. They don’t know if Beyoncé is better, The Black Eyed Peas or Lady Gaga, so they choose Dave Matthews because he’s got no chance on winning. But he ends up winning after all… It always happens. I would choose Lady Gaga.

Song of The Year (songwriters)

Poker Face - Lady Gaga & RedOne, songwriters (Lady Gaga)
Pretty Wings - Hod David & Musze, songwriters (Maxwell)
Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Thaddis Harrell, Beyoncé Knowles, Terius Nash & Christopher Stewart, songwriters (Beyoncé)
Use Somebody - Caleb Followill, Jared Followill, Matthew Followill & Nathan Followill, songwriters (Kings Of Leon)
You Belong With Me - Liz Rose & Taylor Swift, songwriters (Taylor Swift)

I don’t know how they choose different songs for Record of the Year and Single of The Year. It sounds pretty much the same to me. It must be a way to award everyone. If it makes some kind of sense to me, Record of The Year would go to the most successful one, and Single of The Year would go to the best song, which would be King of Leon’s.

Best New Artist

Zac Brown Band
Keri Hilson
MGMT
Silversun Pickups
The Ting Tings

Except for The Ting Tings, which is pretty obnoxious and has been around for at least 2 years, I haven’t heard of any of them before.

Best Pop Vocal - Female

Hometown Glory - Adele
Halo - Beyoncé
Hot N Cold - Katy Perry
Sober - Pink
You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

Adele’s so boring but the Grammy’s love her… I never heard of song of hers on the radio. And never heard this one. I would choose Katy Perry or Pink, they fit better the category. But if it is a fair award show, and Taylor Swift doesn’t win any of the main categories, she’ll win this one.

Best Pop Vocal - Male

This Time - John Legend
Love You - Maxwell
Make It Mine - Jason Mraz
If You Don't Know Me By Now - Seal
All About The Love Again - Stevie Wonder

The only one I know is Mraz’s track, and he has done better before, but I can talk about the artists. Stevie Wonder may record a burp and he still will win a Grammy. I like his work from the 60’s and 70’s but now he lives from the success of the past. I love Kiss From A Rose from Seal, but not much other than that. John Legend is boring. Maxwell I don’t know much about.

Best Pop Vocal – Double or Group

I Gotta Feeling - The Black Eyed Peas
We Weren't Born To Follow - Bon Jovi
Never Say Never - The Fray
Sara Smile - Daryl Hall & John Oates
Kids - MGMT

I Gotta Feeling is the best song The Black Eyed Peas ever done by a clear mile. I adore Bon Jovi. I love The Fray’s song but it’s not as impacting as “How To Save A Life”, “Over My Head” or “You Found Me”. Hall & Oates are always a sure presence on my 80’s playlists. Never heard about MGMT… From the huge disparity of the success of The Black Eyed Peas success comparing to the others, they seem to be the clear winners. But the song is not hard to sing at all.

Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals

Sea Of Heartbreak - Rosanne Cash & Bruce Springsteen
Love Sex Magic - Ciara & Justin Timberlake
Lucky - Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat
Baby, It's Cold Outside - Willie Nelson & Norah Jones
Breathe - Taylor Swift & Colbie Caillat

This category and the previous one should be just one, frankly... I just remember Lucky, and I don’t think it’s a big deal anyway.

Best Pop Vocal Album

The E.N.D. - The Black Eyed Peas
Breakthrough - Colbie Caillat
All I Ever Wanted - Kelly Clarkson
The Fray - The Fray
Funhouse – Pink

From all of them, the only one I think I would listen to all the tracks without passing to the next one is The Fray’s, but isn’t it alternative rock? And The Black Eyes Peas is too much R&B/Hip Hop. From the actual pop ones, I would choose Kelly Clarkson’s.

Best Dance Recording

Boom Boom Pow - The Black Eyed Peas
When Love Takes Over - David Guetta & Kelly Rowland
Poker Face - Lady Gaga
Celebration - Madonna
Womanizer - Britney Spears

Except for Boom Boom Pow (terrible title, in my native language it sounds totally pornographic) I love them all. Any of the others could win and it would be fine.

Well, the others thousands of nominees you can check out here:
http://www.grammy.com/nominees

Review - A Single Man

2010-01-05T06:57:00.001-08:00

A Boring Man

A Single Man

Score: 8,0

If I’m completely honest I have to admit that I expected a lot more from this picture. It’s fashion designer Tom Ford’s first featured film. He produced, wrote (adapted) and directed it. Knowing his work, specially his famous and controversial ads (just google him to check them out), it was expected it to be very daring, but I didn’t think he was just going to leave it at that. The story is and adaptation of a homonymous book, from the 60’s I believe, the same period of time that the movie takes place.

I the story, a college professor, portrayed by Colin Firth, receives the call that his partner, Matthew Goode, died in a car accident. And he gets devastated. And that’s all. Some more people come up (otherwise it would be a monologue), people who cohabit with him (meanwhile we also see several flashbacks of Matthew), like Julianne Moore, Colin’s best friend, who has received great reviews from the critics, and is considered for awards. She has nothing to do there. There is just one important scene she’s in, but it’s not like Viola Davis’ scene in Doubt, for example, something surprising and moving.

Besides the three I mentioned before, there’s also Nicholas Hoult, from About A Boy, and was the villain from the British teenage TV series Skins, that I couldn’t miss a single episode, until they changed the whole cast for the new season and I quit watching it. He plays one of Colin’s students, who totally throws himself over him. And during his scenes they increased the saturation of the image, in order to color up Colin’s life.

Nicholas always reminded me of James Marsden, but he’s so dressed up, dolled up, preppy, tanned and with lighter hair, that I couldn’t help reminding of Zac Efron. With better acting skills, of course. Maybe it was a citation to someone and I didn’t recognize. There are two very obvious citations though, like the American Brigite Bardot smoking in the classroom, or the Spanish James Dean, a hustler seducing Colin in the phone booth of the supermarket parking lot. Kinda cliché. And there’s also Ginnifer Goodwin, who was in “Walk The Line” and “He’s Not That Into You”, but she just waves to the neighbors in her two or three scenes.

A picture by a fashion designer could never look bad. If it doesn’t have much to tell, there are plenty of quiet and plastically beautiful takes though. This part specifically is wonderful. It deserves an Oscar of cinematography or set design. But it’s a very gay perspective. We can notice that through the excessive attention to costumes and in scenes like the one Colin can’t stop looking at two shirtless guys playing tennis. The score is very good too. Everything is perfect, calculated. The clothing, sets, and everything else. It’s all so perfect, and then it’s almost kitsch. It seems like a taped version of a Vogue magazine. A two-hour French perfume ad.

The good side is that the quiet scenes explore the facial expressions of the cast. They’re all great though, in all these scenes and in everything else they have to do. Colin was nominated to a Golden Globe, and is also one of the favorites to the Oscars, but I think it’s very unlikely they award two gay characters in a row. One funny thing is that, except for Colin, they switched the nationalities of all the (speaking) cast. Julianne, who’s American, plays a British woman, and Matthew and Nicholas play American guys, even though they’re British.

And in the end the single man is just a boring man. Very apathetic. His behavior is not understandable. Ok, maybe it is, but there’s no way to agree with it. It’s alright to suffer for his loss, but he can’t stop living. Life goes on. And he’s very weird too. What kind of person watches the neighbors through the window while seated in toilet bowl? It’s a very surreal world. There’s only gorgeous skinny people, except for Colin, who’s far from being fat, though, and the story makes everything look very easy, as if opportunities knock on people’s doors everyday. It doesn’t express reality. Ok, I’ll stop “talking” now before I give more spoilers...

UPDATE: One detail I forgot to mention. The worst part of the movie is the excessive valorization (maybe an imposition) of youth, thinness and richness as beauty standards. Colin and Matthew had a relationship for 16 years and they don’t grow old at all. This is also the worst side of the fashion world, which is a very clear and strong influence in this film.

Review - The Blind Side

2010-01-04T17:38:00.000-08:00

Conservatives Have Feelings Too

The Blind Side

Score: 8,5

I knew it! I knew that deep down inside that human being, there was an actress. I think that’s the first time I see Sandra Bullock doing and interesting movie. Ok, I’m lying, but that’s the first defying role she’s done, when she had to become someone completely different from what she actually is. She’s done something similar in Miss Congeniality, but that’s a serious movie. It is written and directed by John Lee Hancock.

It is an adaptation of a book, as usual in Hollywood. The book is about the evolution of one position from that civilized, elegant and friendly game called football in the US, where they use a few more protections, and rugby in the rest of the world. The other part of the book is about the tearful story of Michael Oher, one of the greatest athletes to act in this position (maybe the best one, but once I don’t know anything about US football it would be risky for me to point that out).

Michael had a tough childhood, raised by a drug addict mother, but she lost the guard to the State, in Tennessee, in the South of the US, where most of the people is Republican and religious, and social inclusion is something really important… He is admitted in a rich people’s school because of his athletic potential but hi grades are not good at all, so he can’t take part in the teams. On a Thanksgiving holiday a rich family sees him walking by himself in the cold and takes him home.

The rich family is composed by Sandra Bullock, blonde, flamboyant and imperious, Tim McGraw, the country singer, the teenage daughter, played by Phil Collins’s daughter, Lily Collins and the younger son, who is quite a character. The conservative good Christians take him home for one night but he stays for more and more and he conquers the whole family, which adopts him after all and even hires a tutor, played by the always excellent Kathy Bates (who should have been better used in this picture and in Hollywood in general), to help him to improve his grades, get into the football team and get a college scholarship.

The whole film is totally cliché and the formula has been used thousands of times, but it’s a beautiful story and interesting to watch anyway. The whole cast is perfect, the main actor is very charismatic, Kathy is great, but Sandra is the one who steals the scene and she will be one of the front runners for the main awards in the upcoming award season. I think she has done too much cosmetic procedures in her face, which is always a problem for actresses because it makes them lose the facial expressions, but she found a prefect role. She was nominted to the Golden Globe, SAG and Critics’ Choice awards. Let’s see what happens.

Despite of the difficult story the script has very funny moments, like when Sandra complains about the laziness of the service in a public office asking who runs the place, and the attendant points to Bush’s poster on the wall. Or when Kathy is very concerned to say that she’s an atheist democrat in her job interview. The movie has this obligation to say that conservatives have feelings too. I don’t know, I never had much contact with them, but it’s something hard to believe… Right now, when the main Republican public figures are Sarah Palin and the ex-Miss California Carrie Prejean, a movie like this is a good way to show their good side too. But it’s a nice movie to watch after all.

Review - (500) Days Of Summer

2010-01-04T17:22:00.000-08:00

Losing Time…

(500) Days Of Summer

Score: 7,0

I had little interest in watching this movie, mainly because I have no sympathy for the leading couple. They’re boring and uninteresting. Thet are directed by Marc Webb, in his first movie. He used to direct before short films and music videos for artists and bands like Counting Crows, Snow Patrol, Fergie, Good Charlotte, Green Day, 3 Doors Down, Backstreet Boys, Maroon 5, Wallflowers, Jesse McCartney, Daniel Powter, Weezer, Evanescence, Gavin DeGraw, Lenny Kravitz and Incubus. Great list. But to my surprise it is not totally bad. But it’s not really good either. I could have been better.

The story is about a young man, Joseph Gordon Levitt, who reminds me a lot of Heath Ledger, in an ugly-teenager version, who falls for a girl at work, Zooey Deschanel, who’s not very friendly to the others apparently. But she actually responds to his moves and they start a kind of relationship, but he was much more into her, than she was into him.

And then we see the 500 days since he knew her and we have to witness all those terrible disillusion moments, and who’s been through the same thing, can’t find this picture funny at all. Even more when the significant other is Zooey. She’s a bad actress, weird, boring, and kinda dumb about herself. The personification of the word loser. She tries to be like Kirsten Dunst or Claire Danes, but she’s not good enough.

The only role of hers I actually enjoyed was in Almost Famous. She’s not particularly good, but everything around her works brilliantly, and the screenplay is awesome. I heard she’s fine in Weeds, but I haven’t watched the episodes she’s in. The films I saw her acting, The Happening, Yes, Sir, etc., they’re all bad. And she ain’t good either. And is it just me, or they don’t match at all? He’s too juvenile for her. But it actually makes sense. It’s not a Love story after all.

And we can tell that it was done by a music videos director when the best scene is a musical sequence with “You Make My Dreams” by Hall & Oates (I love, love, love the 80’s!!!). At least the soundtrack is great, even though the songs are totally different and don’t make sense together. The movie was well received by most critics and has received nominations for awards that have separate categories for comedies. And I agree, the plot is not cliché at all, even though the ending reminded me of My Best Friend’s Wedding, which is much better than this one. But I still think it could’ve been better.

Review - Precious

2009-12-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome To The Doll House

Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire

Score: 9,5

Once I heard about Precious, during the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Audience award, I got interested, but it was eclipsed by Tarantino’s new movie, which I enjoyed until a determined moment, and by Michael Haneke’s movie, that won the Palm D’Or and has been nominated for awards in the Foreign Language categories. But Precious actually premiered at Sundance, where it won awards for best picture, the audience award and a special acting prize for Mo’Nique. Then it received distribution support from Oprah and Tyler Perry. The movie is an adaptation of the novel Push, a best-seller in the 90’s, and directed by Lee Daniels, who produced Monster’s Ball, which earned Halle Berry’s Oscar.

Sapphire, in the movie is called Miss Blu Rain, is the author of the book, and a teacher for students on Harlem, and wrote the book based on the experiences she lived through her students during this time. The story is about Claireece Precious Jones, played by Gabourey Sidibe, a 17 year-old who’s sexually abused by her father since her childhood, she has a daughter and gets pregnant for the second time. Her mother, played by Mo’Nique, is jealous due to her boyfriend’s preference and tortures her daughter physically and psychologically.

Just through this plot you can tell that it’s a pretty tough movie. The cast also has two famous singers: Mariah Carey, who was devastated by critics in her first movie, Glitter, and even though I’m a fan I must admit that it’s a really lame movie. But she did so much better in her next movies. She is really good in this one, and she looks physically older, without fancy make up or other beauty enhancements. Maybe this would be her appearance if she wasn’t famous. She plays a social worker who takes care of Precious. The rocker Lenny Kravitz plays the nurse in the hospital when Precious gives birth.

As I said, the film won the audience award in Cannes, and everybody was crying in the theatre when I watched it. Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar this year, but Precious shows people from the same social class and their problems without appealing to the fantastic or fantasy, proving that fairy tales only exist in book pages. Reality is always different. One is a nice fable, the other is a beautiful picture, the kind of movie that make us dedicate a few hours a week giving soup to the poor or teaching Geography in alternative schools, instead of hoping that they win the lottery or a big prize on TV.

The whole cast, even though it’s not big, it’s superb. Specially the two leading ladies, who could easily win Academy Awards. And they deserve it. But it would be easier for Mo’Nique to win (what I’m actually hoping for so far), because Sidibe has serious competition: Meryl Streep, who won for the last time 27 years ago, has been nominated 15 times and deserves another one for a long time, and Sandra Bullock, who finally showed her power after all this time. But just imagining Sidibe winning, I think even Meryl wouldn’t mind waiting a year or two more to get another one.

Above all, Precious is a film about life, about most of the people that live in this planet, which only celebrates the richness of 5% percent of its people, and Hollywood studios definitely represents that, always investing in the life of the rich and famous or juvenile sci-fi movies disguised as philosophy. But there’s always a small independent feature that shows what the Veuve Clicquot glasses in the movie theatre screens obfuscate from our sight.

Review - Everybody's Fine

2009-12-15T17:39:00.000-08:00

The Lost Link

Everybody's Fine

Score: 9,0

In September or October Robert DeNiro won na award for this movie, but He hás been forgotten by the main awards ever since. The same thing happened to Hillary Swank for Amelia. I liked it a lot when I did some research about it later I found out that it’s a Kirk Jones’s remake of a homonymous Italian movie by Giuseppe Tornatore (director of Malena and Cinema Paradiso that I love and desperately need to watch again) from the early 90’s with Marcello Mastroianni in the leading role. My score dropped half a point after this.

Well, the story is about a man who recently lost his wife and gets his place ready to receive his kids for the Thanksgiving Holiday, but he only gets cancellation calls. So he decides to surprise them and visit them all in New York, Chicago, Denver and Las Vegas.

His “kids” are Robert, played by Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon), who’s part of the Denver’s symphonic orchestra, Amy, portrayed by Kate Beckinsale (Pearl Harbor, Van Helsing, Click), who owns an advertisement agency in Chicago, Rosie, Drew Barrymore (no presentation required), the sweet Vegas dancer, and the mysterious David, a fine artist who lives in NY.

The essence of the story is to show a relationship among father and children Who Love each other, but can’t communicate. And it’s very natural. Normally children spend more time with their mother, and after her death, who used to establish their connection, they don’t know how to make an approach anymore. The father had a distant relationship with his kids, never exchanged experiences with them, and now he wants to recover the lost time.

Anyway, it’s a beautiful story, with its tearful moments, and the ending is different than the original Italian movie, at least! The Italian is more sarcastic, ironic, while this one is more sentimental. I just think the last scene, with Paul McCartney’s song, very cliché. And corny. It could have been a beautiful movie for all seasons, but it turned out to be just another Holiday’s movie to be shown on TV on Christmas Eve, as we can see in the poster.

Review - New Moon

2009-11-21T11:27:00.001-08:00

Moonstruck: Who's Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf?

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Score: 5,5

As Money moves mountains and there are several books continuing the story (badly as it seems…), the studios couldn’t lose the opportunity to take money away from the pocket of fanatic teenagers that can’t distinguish art from business, and people like me who pay just to have arguments to trash it. Because, let’s be honest, the plot from the first one, that is apparently less loyal to the book, which I didn’t read and never will, is way better. It just fails when that whole biting, blood, poison, battle of good and evil, greyskull sword bullshit starts. And that’s practically the whole thing in this new production. The few parts that differ from it and resemble the first movie are not convincing. Mainly because all the characters change their behaviors.

After the happy ending from the first one, it continues on Bella’s birthday. She cuts herself with wrapping paper and causes a commotion in the glitter-vampire’s (who glows like Priscilla in the desert) place. Then he notices that this relationship is inappropriate and dumps her alone in the woods. She should have prepared a Bloody Mary to this people ages ago… With chicken’s blood, they would never notice. Then she leaves the strong and independent Julia Roberts girls she used to be behind and becomes sort of a Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, without the Latin furor. She gets hysteric and totally out of control. Doing shit non-stopping. Screaming like crazy into the night because of a silly dream. The feminist became a helpless fairy tail princess. I would have thrown her at the Girl, Interrupted’s mental institution along with Angelina Jolie. It would all go away in a snap.

Kristen reminds me of Jodie Foster each day more. In all aspects, if you know what I mean… And being paired with Robert Pattinson, who’s fake even in the make-up muscles, it’s even harder do understand the reason of all this enchantment. Can you imagine the terrible horse blood breath he must have? In the first film it was acceptable, but this time he’s got competition. And it’s disloyal. So there’s no way to take this teenage romance. And they’re teenagers (she is, he probably saw Joan of Arc being burned in the fire), they change opinions as they change clothes.

After being abandoned, she “tries to forget” the Sparkling glitter boy by rebuilding an old bike with Jacob’s help, played by Taylor Lautner, the long haired guy from the first picture, and a new moon rises. And then the movie exceeds its fantasy share. When a half-naked tanned bodybuilder appears in a 17 year-old room, and clearly they’re attracted to each other, what would happen? But nothing happens here! It’s way too much pureness than my human nature can take... Even Sarah Palin’s daughter in Alaska couldn’t resist it (probably for much worse than that), and then what would you obviously say about these two?

But she then finds out that her new fling is a werewolf. Seriously, this chick is a weirdness magnet. The next movie will show Santa Claus and the Easter bunny’s meeting. Big foot, mummy, Frankenstein, Casper, they’re all on the line to appear on it too. One of these days she will also find the smurfs, because she’s no Little Red Riding Hood but loves to get lost in the woods. And all she found so far was vampires and werewolves. Just throw her in the Amazon. If she can face vampires and werewolves, anacondas and jaguars are just a breeze.

The other movie was a low budget production, and after its sudden success, it got more resources for its sequels. They changed the director and brought the guy from The Golden Compass, expanded the cast and hired Dakota Fanning, who was adorable in I Am Sam, but now she’s growing up and reminding me of the Olsen twins, and Michael Sheen, from Frost/Nixon and The Queen, but the special effects are still lame. None of the werewolves look real. The seem like videogame characters. And when Bella takes a picture of her friends, what they did on the camera’s screen is just terrible. The make up improved just a little bit.

The screenplay didn’t help either. There are some atrocious dialogues and some nonsense scenes. That scene where Bella’s depressed and just stands still in here room while time flies before her eyes was already done (and better done) 10 years ago in Notting Hill, with Hugh Grant passing by a street fair while the seasons change. There was also Ronan Keating singing “When You Say Nothing At All” as soundtrack, to make it more poetic. Or it is “Ain’t No Sunshine”, I don’t remember quite well. It was ten years ago after all… One other thing that I don’t understand is why in every movie that someone is running away, they always end up in Rio. It’s probably Hollywood’s official hiding-place. At least this kind of movie is perfect to make jokes out of it. I’ll keep on watching its sequels anyway, so I can still have much mockery to do.

Review - Girl, Interrupted

2009-11-16T20:26:00.000-08:00

Rebel Without A Cause

Girl, Interrupted

Score: 9,5

This pictures is from 10 years ago but I still like it as much as I did when I first watched it. In the late 80's and early 90's Winona Ryder was becoming one of the most promising actresses in Hollywood, making successful movies such as Mermaids, Edward Scissor Hands, The Age of Innocence, Dracula and Little Women. Winona herself produced this movie supposedly (apparently…) as a way to after all establish herself in the industry as one of its most important stars and get the Academy Award that she was so close to get a few years before, but they handed it to Anna Paquin.

But there was Angelina Jolie along the way, who stole all the attention. And the Oscar… After this she got involved with that robbery stuff and her career went down the drain… I believe that if she really wanted awards for this picture, she should've sticked to Lisa's role, played by Jolie, who's by far the best character in the picture, even though it's a supporting character. At least she added a good movie to her resumé.

Sometimes I try to figure out what's her memorable scene in the movie, but I can’t just pick one. They’re all great. The one with the puppet, the one in the isolated room, the one they sing Downtown, the two ones in the ice-cream shop, and several others. The one they showed during the announcement of the nominees in the Oscar is quite good, but they picked a boring part of it. Probably because she curses in all of them. And curse words on television (or body parts like nipples) are pretty much like the end of the world. But violence, war and torture are family-friendly subjects…

Girl, Interrupted is based in an autobiographic book written by Susanna Kaysen, about the time she spent in a mental institution. After trying to commit suicide, Susanna, played by Ryder (extremely skinny), is sent to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (nothing to do with Madonna’s song…). She reacts well to the treatment until she befriends Lisa, played by Jolie, a sociopath who’s been there for 8 years.

The cast also includes Brittany Murphy, in one of few moments when she’s not playing comedies, as a sexually abused girl who cuts herself, Jared Leto as Winona’s boyfriend just about to leave to Vietnam, Vanessa Redgrave as the hospital’s psychiatrist and Whoopi Goldberg as the head nurse. It is directed by James Mangold, who did later Kate & Leopold and Walk The Line, two movies that I really like too.

This film also was kind of an end of a phase for Angelina She was in the peek of her “crazy” moment, she had done acclaimed roles in a row, like George Wallace and Gia, that gave her several awards, she married Billy Bob Thornton and excelled in the eccentricities and became an easy target for gossip magazines and websites. After that she just shot lame movies, like Tomb Raider, Alexander and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, that I find very entertaining, a good metaphor for marriage, but it is actually more famous for other reasons.

She’s now getting back on track. She did Changeling and A Mighty Heart (that I really dislike, but it’s a clear evolution), became a humanitarian, adopting needy children, following Mia Farrow’s footsteps. I hope Zahara (or Maddox, as things are going…) don’t steal Brad from her. Terrible comment, I know… Now she replaced Tom Cruise in the police thriller Salt. The script was redone so she could fit in. It will be released in the Summer of 2010.

Anyway, the movie flows very well, it keeps you interested all the time, the cast is very good, even though Angelina has all the great moments, and the soundtrack from the 60’s is like a breeze for the ears, with hits from Simon & Garfunkel, The Mamas & The Papas, Jefferson Airplane, The Band and specially End of The World byt Skeeter Davis and Downtown by Petula Clark. The main subject is one of my favorites. I guess it really brings good discussions and great acting moments. And even with all my enthusiasm, the movie didn't get the best reception. The author of the book hated it, and called it melodramatic because the script includes facts that never actually happened and don't appear in the book. I totally understand her, because she lived the real situation, but not us, so we couldn't exactly know what is accurate or not in the plot. But I really enjoyed what I saw in the screen.

Review - Whatever Works

2009-11-14T19:52:00.000-08:00

A Simple Twist of Fate

Whatever Works

Score: 9,0

We can recognize Woody Allen’s movies just checking out the initial credits. The black background, white Benguiat typeface and old songs playing, that I believe are from the 1920’s until the 1950’s. Besides, of course, the neurotic annoying talkative person that when he acts in his own movies he usually plays. I now believe that that’s how he is, and these characters are a way for him to see himself in a new reality, living different situations and doing things he wouldn’t, so he satisfies himself this need through his pictures.

Well, the annoying neurotic person this time is Larry David, who has already been an annoying neurotic (and inappropriate) person in Curb Your Enthusiasm for a while, so he definitely knew what he was doing. In the picture he tells his story, how his first marriage didn’t work and how the unexpected happened to him. The unexpected is called Evan Rachel Wood, gorgeous as usual, playing a young girl from Mississippi, with a very characteristic (and strong) accent. I like Evan. Since Thirteen and Running With Scissors and could tell that she was a good actress. Such a good actress that we could never tell that she is crazy enough to date Marilyn Manson. I just haven’t seen her doing comedies.

Evan shows up in his door (in NY). She ran away from home and has no place to go, starving and looking for shelter, and she finds rescue in Larry. She is naïve and is treated like the personification of the universal stupidity by him, who’s such a pain in the ass, negative, grumpy and hypochondriac. Totally folkloric, you can’t take him seriously. And she gets up fascinated by the genius he self-proclaims to be, and by his supposed intelligence and he enjoys transmitting his knowledge to her. And they learn to live with each other and their relationship grows.

The cast has some other people that just appear later and I won’t spoil details from the script telling exactly what they do. Patricia Clarkson (who worked in Vicky Cristina Barcelona and was nominated for an Academy Award for Pieces of April - which I really enjoyed) as Evan’s mother, Ed Begley Jr. as her father, and there’s always the heartthrob, to make the annoying guy (once the universe evolves around him) feel inferior (what’s one more neurosis for someone who has so many?), function taken by Henry Cavill, from The Tudors, and a few years ago was considered the most unlucky man in Hollywood for losing 2 roles for Robert Pattinson, in Twilight and Harry Potter, Superman Returns for Brandon Routh and James Bond to Daniel Craig. I wouldn’t exactly consider that bad luck, except for Twilight. But losing work to all that dramatic eloquence that comes from Pattinson must be really frustrating…

Woody Allen might have won the Best Comedy Picture Golden Globe early this year for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but in my opinion this one is way better. There are jokes even in billboards, like when Evan goes to a rock concert. And the story just grows through time. The beginning may be a little difficult because it’s hard to stand the annoying guy, but when Evan comes up everything changes. She’s got almost all the jokes, and she should be at least be nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a comedy role, because we all know the winner is gonna be Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia. Patricia Clarkson also adds so much to the story, Henry comes to provide some sighs, and Ed is just the cherry on the top.

At least Allen’s given a break to Scarlet Johansson. I doubt she would do it as good as Evan did. And it’s nice to see Woody coming back to NY after shooting in Europe for a while, once he couldn’t raise funds in the US. But even so this was limited release. Very few people have seen it. One curious thing about the production is that this script was written in the 1970’s, but he filed it. He decided to produce it during the screenwriters strike, back in 2008, and just had to change a few references to make it more current. It’s amazing to see how the criticisms to the religious morals (Christianity in this case) are still valid nowadays. They probably will always be…

Review - Love Happens

2009-11-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

Chances Are…

Love Happens

Score: 6,0

When I saw the trailer I loved it. Maybe because of the song. “Better Days” by Goo Goo Dolls. I love the song, the band, etc. But it doesn’t actually play in the movie. I missed it. Anyway, putting all this aside, the picture is directed by Brandon Camp and the screenplay is by Mike Thompson. Nice to meet you… Another attractive feature to me was the cast. I love Jennifer Aniston since Friends’ first episode. I’m still waiting the day she establishes herself in the movie business. She only had 2 or 3 good roles so far. Aaron Eckhart also has my admiration since Thanks For Smoking, The Dark Night, No Reservations and so on. There’s also Judy Greer that generally does movies I like, such as Elizabethtown and 27 Dresses. We just ignore 13 Going on 30...

Eckhart plays this widower who turns the loss of his wife in a kind of diary and then is convinced by his agent to publish it. Then he becomes this sort of celebrity guru, just like a less flamboyant version of Walter Mercado (I don’t know if he is known in the US…) helping people to overcome their problems, spilling all those corny quotes and selling solutions just as those fake religions do. Writing about it I just realized how this could be a great movie. Quackery, religions, lying for oneself, etc. Yeah, it could be really good…

And then comes Jennifer Aniston as the florist working in the hotel he’s promoting a workshop and he makes a move. And then love happens, just as title suggests. But the whole image of strong person he sold is all a lie because he never faced his loss and is not ready to get involved with anyone until he solves his own problems. Hmm… Actually the story is not as interesting as it sounds. Don’t fool yourself.

The problem with love stories like that is that the formula was way done and redone several times. It’s really hard to come up with something new. The common place, the obvious and clichés are what happens to 95% of all these pictures. We can just say what’s about to happen all the time. Nothing surprises us. All the actors are really good but the scrip doesn’t allow them to grow. We can tell a great difference between Judy’s work here and in 27 Dresses. The character is the same, the best friend of the blonde main character. In the other one she was full of life, but here she has nothing to do. There’s also Martin Sheen (from Apocalypse Now, The Departed and The West Wing), father of Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and the whole bunch… He’s Eckhart’s father-in-law.

It’s a clear case of how edition makes you or breaks you in this business. You can arrange everything however you prefer and turn into an awesome trailer when it’s definitely not a big deal. Or you can chance the subject and turn into something completely different, such as people do on YouTube. I remember this video where Ferris Bueller’s Day Off becomes a gay romance just by doing a recut. I hate this movie by the way. Ferris is such a crook, the kind of person that grows up to become a criminal. I was totally compassionate about his sister. There are another examples of these recut videos here. It’s fun to check out.

Review - Fame (2009)

2009-11-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

When Will I Be Famous?
(I Can’t Answer That…)

Fame

Score: 5,5

When I heard that Fame was being redone, I just didn’t have a clue about what to expect from it. But I knew that it would be almost impossible for it to be as good as the first version. And I got it right. I love musicals, so I just couldn't miss it, even without having high expectations. But it has its highpoints of course. I just didn’t find them... Just kidding! I can list some good things about it, but there are plenty more bad things, which are extremely more explicit, and there’s no way to watch it without comparing it to the original one. So let’s get it started.

The Alan Parker’s version shows the life of a group of students from the New York School of Performing Arts. This one follows the same plot but changed the stories, what can actually have several consequences. To redo all scenes could be risky and changing them sounds smart, but they can better or not than the older ones. Comparison is unavoidable. It’s a lost cause. If I had the Power to make decisions in studios, remakes would be strictly forbidden, with rare exceptions. Because until we get one film such as “The Departed”, we would have to take thousands of Psychos or Fames first.

In the first film we witness young artists struggling. Just ordinary kids full of hopes and dreams, with their personal issues and their own charms. Here it’s more like a TV series for teenagers. Everybody is gorgeous. That surreal world that only exists in model agencies catalogues. And they’re inexpressive. Apparently they’re less talented than the kids from the older version. Back then there was no such technological resources. You got it or you don’t. Nowadays on the screen anyone can be a great singer. Special effects can make you dance. Everything is so industrial, artificial.

Even though there’s a difference of almost 30 years between them, the remake is so conservative. They don’t have sex, there’s no gay people, no taboos, no drugs. I’m not advertising drugs, but we all know that all theses things are extremely common in the artistic community. It definitely doesn’t show reality. The characters are shallow and badly drawn. They all have the same issues. Their parents don’t want them to be artists. Just like Sister Act 2. And they all they face is failure all the time, in extremely cliché scenes. We just can’t stop thinking they all suck. So why are we watching it? We end up not even putting faith on the talented ones.

Recreated some classic scenes like the Hot Lunch sequence, the graduation and Irene Cara’s performance of "Out Here On My Own" (the videoclip with several scenes from the original movie here and just the scene here). I just couldn’t stop reminiscing the original scenes, where even the songs are better. The girl that reprises Irene’s scene is the Best thing from the picture. She’s pretty, sings Ok, but there’s no emotion at all in the scene. At least they didn’t try to retake the title song scene, with the students dancing in the streets. They used the new version of the song for the end credits.

Awarded actors like Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) and Megan Mullally (Will & Grace) are lost in a script that don’t allow them to grow. At least Kelsey’s got the best line in the film when a student complains about having to play classic music on the piano. Megan was given a singing sequence but I found it annoying. Her singing works when she’s doing comedy like when she played Karen, which gave her 2 Emmys and 3 SAG awards. I loved when she sang Unforgettable on Will & Grace Finale. Out of this perspective, I don’t find it interesting. The good side about it is that these kids have the chance to get to the spotlight and try better things from now on. But next time don’t do remakes. Don’t even think about Footloose! Something bad is coming from that… Unless they change the focus just like they did with Hairspray. Just a little advice…

Loggerheads Review

2009-10-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

Things We Lose Along The Way

Loggerheads

Score: 9,5

Lately I haven’t had any time for anything and I have barely watched movies. That’s why I haven’t posted here for a long time. School is driving me crazy and consuming all my time and my sleep hours. I hope I have some time to go to the movies this weekend and have more things to talk about here. I had some free time recently and I watched this one that I always wanted to I see and now I had the chance. This kind of independent films always reminds me like uncompromised cinema is better. They are far away from the obvious clichés from money-seekers.

The cast has some known faces too like Kip Pardue that did The Rules of Attraction, Thirteen, and did a small role in another independent movie I love called Imaginary Heroes. There’s Bonnie Hunt, famous for her TV work and also for films like Beethoven, Jumanji, Jerry Maguire and The Green Mile. Chris Sarandon, Susan Sarandon’s first husband, from A Dog Day Afternoon, and Tess Harper, who has been severely punished twice in her life: She was part of Ishtar, that terrible Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty movie, and she was married to Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men.

Well, the movie shows three different stories that happen in different times, just like The Hours, but they’re not so distant from each other in time. Bonnie is a car rental agency attendant who lives with her mother, quit her job and tries to find her son, that she was forced to give to adoption when she was 17. Kip is a homeless drifter obsessed with loggerhead turtles (that’s where its title comes from) who meets George, a motel owner who offers him a place to stay. Tess is a preacher’s wife torn between doing what her husband, or God, wants her to do and following her heart.

This is a 2005 film from director/writer Tim Kirkman, that I never heard about before but IMDB told me that this is his last picture and is based in a true story. The movie premiered in the Sundance Festival winning the public choice award and several other prizes in other festival throughout the world. It was shot in 2004 in Wilmington, NC, the same place Dawson’s Creek used to be shot. Almost everyone who knows me know that I love Dawson’s Creek. At least I did 10 years ago.

It’s such a shame that movies like this don’t get their deserved recognition in the major award ceremonies, with very few exceptions, and have no room in movie theaters. In the meantime we have transformers, mutants, witches and hobbits, GI joes, interplanetary trips, guns, blood and unintelligent comedies occupying these spaces all year long. The ones who enjoy all I listed above will definitely not enjoy this picture once they have completely different timings. And there are no explosions. Just dialogues, expressions, looks and feelings.

Stephen Gately

2009-10-12T00:30:00.000-07:00

Most of the things I remember when I was growing up are from the 90's. I was born in 1985, and in the 90's I went from a child to an annoying teenager. In pop music this a period also known for the syrupy singing groups known as boybands and girlbands, such as Wilson Phillipps, New Kids On The Block, in the late 80's and early 90's, and then Backstreet Boys, 98 degrees, LFO and ‘N Sync. But my favorites from this kind of groups come from the other side of the ocean. They're from Britain or Ireland. They were Take That, Spice Girls, and specially Westlife and Boyzone. I always thought they were less about (that ridiculous stereotyped) image than the others, and more about melody and music. They had better songs.

Most of these groups vanished and then came back together recently. So did Boyzone. They were 5 Irish singers, but only two of them used to actually sing the songs: Ronan Keating, who also has a very successful solo career overseas, and Stephen Gately. The other 3 were more like backing vocals. After getting back together and toured during the Summer, Stephen went on vacation and passed away. The cause is yet a mystery.

I didn’t know much about them because the media back then, at least in my country, wasn’t as intrusive as today and I got acquainted to internet only in 2000, when they split. His death is something extremely sad. These circumstances always make me think how ephemeral life is. This year so many mainstream celebrities left us, like Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett (who died in my birthday) and Patrick Swayze. Stephen was very young, only 33. But still he had a successful life and there will always be people who will remember him. I will. I have 3 of their albums at home. Every now and then I used to listen to their music and I'll probably keep on doing it.

Rest in peace.

Review - Dying Young

2009-10-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Dying Young

Score: 8,0

When I was a kid it used to show on TV an ad about this movie’s VHS release. My mom was dying to watch it and always asked us to rent it too when my dad rent us movies. By that time we, me and my brother, just watched thins like Snoopy, the Smurfs, the Snorks, Garfield, Looney Tunes, Speedy Gonzalez, and the ones that traumatized me, I cried rivers and I would never watch again: The Little Match Girl and one of Monica’s Gang adventures (A Estrelinha Mágica). Anyway, we couldn’t find the movie in the beginning. It was the first romance Julia Roberts did after Pretty Woman, so it was always rented. We found it after a while and I watched with her. But I couldn’t understand it. I was too young for that…

The story is the same old thing. They fall in love, but one of them is terribly sick. He is, actually. Leukemia. Julia was in that The Little Mermaid Ariel-Jessica Rabbit period, with that huge super-totally-completely fake red hair. She plays Hillary, a 23 year-old who looks like 35, and she catches her boyfriend cheating. She dumps the asshole and returns to her mother’s place, played by Ellen Burstyn, who was also mother from the possessed girl from The Exorcist.

But her mother drives her crazy and she must get the hell out of there. So she answers an ad in the paper to be Campbell Scott’s nurse. I never got how Campbell never became one of the big heartthrobs in Hollywood. He is better actor than most of the actors his age and prettier too. First, she is kicked out by his father, but then Campbell calls her back. The rest we all know what happens just by looking at the poster.

It was interesting to watch it because the story is between Oakland, San Francisco and some other town. Some takes were done close from where I live, once Campbell’s mansion is really close. It’s funny too see how things changed like the street lamps. I guess all the electric wires now are underground. The mayonnaise hair treatment was totally new to me. I’ve seen people using some plants, eggs, chocolate and other things, but mayonnaise was the first time.

This a classic non-classic movie. It has all the ingredients for success but it didn’t happen. James Newton Howard’s romantic score plays the whole movie, just like every other romance like The Way We Were, My Heart Will Go On, I Have Nothing, Endless Love and so on. James’s orchestral version is really pretty and deserved an Academy Award in my opinion, but it rose to success in Kenny G’s saxophone version. Kenny wasn’t so disgusting that time but then he became official soundtrack for weddings, radio love shows, girly events and all sort of parties. The soundtrack is really famous until now, but the movie not so much…

Julia is still the same big star always doing the same roles. This one is a drama reprise from her Pretty Woman’s character. The poor girl who gets the rich guy, can’t eat fancy food in classy restaurant and loves a wild party. Director Joel Schumacher had even tasted success before with St. Elmo’s Fire (that I adore) and The Lost Boys, and he continued directing successful movies after that. But he did Batman and Robin, the one with the nipples, and the terrible version of The Phantom of The Opera in 2004.

Maybe it doesn’t have place in the Sun because its ending is not that tearful as the other romances, except for romantic comedies that always have happy endings. Perhaps the title doesn’t help either. The original title “Dying Young” is terrible. Creepy. The Brazilian version is “All For Love”. Totally corny. So cliché. But even so I can’t think of any appropriate elegant and attractive title to give to the picture. But that’s fine. Corny title, Julia Roberts disguised as The Little Mermaid, Kenny G in the soundtrack, it’s all working out together.

Review - Taking Woodstock

2009-09-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

Dazed and Confused

Taking Woodstock

Score: 9,0

Woodstock. Ang Lee. Imelda Staunton. Emile Hirsch. Liev Schreiber. It couldn’t go wrong. Well, it wasn’t really what I expected. I loved the preview, I found it very interesting and different than the usual. Ang Lee is a great director. I love Sense and Sensitivity, Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm. We can forget about Hunting Tiger, Couching Dragon… He shows lots of sensibility in his work. The silent scenes, soft music, stares and gestures, all these are very characteristic from the Asian cinema, and his productions too. He makes a blend between both Eastern and Western conceptions.

The film is about Elliot Tiber, played by Demitri Martin, who’s famous for his standup comedy, a young interior designer who gives up his ambitions in the big city in order to help his parents with their motel. In Brazil motels generally have round beds, a mirror on the ceiling, they charge per hour and they're used for other ends, if you know what I mean… There’s something interesting about these three characters. Demetri is 36, and he plays this guy who’s on his early 20’s. His parents are played by Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman (that I didn’t know before) and they look older than they actually are. And it works. It reminded of those teenager’s TV shows like The OC and 90210, where the teenagers have 25 and their parents 35. In this case it doesn't work quite well...

Demitri, I mean, Elliot gives up his career to help his avaricious mother and his passive father. They try to improve the motel, but they can’t get a loan. So he decides to use the place to host a music festival, with an audience almost totally composed by hippies, world wide famous nowadays, to get the money they need. Despite having most of the town against them, they get the support from Live Schreiber, as Wilma, a transvestite ex-Marine responsible for security, Emile Hirsch as Billy, a disturbed recently returned Vietnam vet, and Max, played by American Pie’s dad Eugene Levy, who also rents his farm to host the concerts.

Despite the mixed reviews the picture has got so far, I really enjoyed it. But I won’t lie, I expected to see a little about the concerts, not only the preparations. But to portray Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Joan Baez or Joe Cocker could be risky too. Unless they used real footages from that period, like it was done in Milk, for example. I was taking a look at the list of the performances on the festival, and it must have been f****** awesome! Even though I’m not really close to the hygienic hippies, or weed, or acids… But the screenplay was based on an autobiographic book by the real Elliot, and it was just about the backstages, so I guess it’s ok.

As Ang is really good in what he does, he wouldn’t allow his film become a dump. The performances are good, specially Imelda’s, who’s brilliant as the hard-fisted sulky mother, always running with a broom so the shameless hippies would cover themselves. In my opinion she should be recognized and at least be nominated for awards as supporting actress. After losing an Oscar to Hillary Swank she deserves to be rewarded somehow, and she is a brilliant British actress and is much worshiped.

Critics have criticized the theatrical troupe that lives in Elliot’s barn, which is really ridiculous by the way. They think it’s appellative because of the nudity and all. Let’s face it, the 60’s, hippies, weeds, LSD, filth, nonsense and nudity are all in the same context. There’s no way to talk about one of them hiding another. The criticism also goes to Liev, who’s supposedly “too hunky” too play a transvestite. But a war vet and security at Woodstock would never be any skinny queen. And it was based on a real person. There must be a description of her in the book, and the production must have studied all the character before choosing the cast.

Anyway, I don’t have much else to say besides I liked it and would love to watch it again. It was one of the movies presented at Cannes, and Emile Hirsch showed up on his skateboard and wearing almost the same clothes he used during his flight from LA. Charming kid… It didn’t have the same bad reaction as Inglourious Basterds, but it hasn’t been as successful in the box offices as Inglorious, which is the greatest box office success on a premiere in Tarantino’s career by the way. Go figure… I was also even more interested to see Woodstock’s concerts. I’ll check some DVDs and documentaries as soon as school gives me a rest.

Review - Inglorious Basterds

2009-09-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Oh, My God! They Killed Kenny!

Inglourious Basterds

Score: 6,5

Tarantino is one of my favorite current directors. Besides the main theme war/holocaust has already bored me, it was no sacrifice to watch his new production. I knew that he would come up with an interesting way to talk about the subject. And I wasn’t wrong. He defined it as a spaghetti western with a World War II iconography. The film is really interesting and the stories catch our attentions. We barely feel the two hours and a half pass by. So you may ask why my score was kinda low. Ok, there’s an explanation. I will talk about it. Follow me!

Well, the picture has two different stories that cross and finally meet at one point. Let’s get acquainted to them:
#1 – At the Nazi occupied France a Jew family is hidden in one farm in the countryside, but they’re found by the German Jew-hunter Hans Landa, that Tarantino wanted to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio. I really like him, I believe he’s a great actor, but I wonder how it would be Leo speaking German, French and Italian... The role was played by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, who won the best actor prize at Cannes. Anyway, just one girl escaped. Sometime later she’s in Paris using the name Emmanuelle Mimieux as an alias, owns a movie theater, and is desired by a German soldier, played by Daniel Brühl, that kid from Goodbye Lenin, and in a way he forces her to host at her movie theater the launch of a Nazi picture, with the presence of important Nazi authorities, including Hitler.

#2 – An alternative army called Inglourious Basterds and lead by Brad Pitt hunts scalps from Nazi Germans. These scenes are really, really pleasant… They have several allies including Frenchmen, Americans, Englishmen and a famous German actress played by Diane Kruger, who played also Helena in Troy and reminded me of Demi Moore. But I knew it wasn’t her… Tarantino wanted Nastassja Kinski for this role at first. With Diane’s help, they try to create a plan to kill Hitler in the Nazi movie premiere and win the war.

Despite the stories be completely untrue and do not portray the real facts that happened during the period, they are interesting. You might still be asking about the score… Ok. I believe this is the movie with more ups and downs that I have ever seen. The credits in the very beginning are extremely boring. And they last forever! It’s only yellow words in a black background. After that we can see things happen and we get involved. The picture has a great sense of humour. Hilarious at some parts and it counts a lot. On the other hand there is too much violence. Tarantino’s violence obsession is beyond pathological. At least half of the cast from his movies get killed.

There are long scenes that combine black comedy and thriller. They are awesome. One of the best of the whole picture is the one at a tavern, but I actually didn’t like the ending of it. The whole cast is superb. The Austrian actor won the best actor prize but the one who got my attention was Brad Pitt. Besides becoming an underestimated actor for being an extremely attractive man, he always proved to me he was a good actor since Thelma and Louise and The Twelve Monkeys. He’s one of the few Hollywood actors who did three great performances in a row. Burn After Reading, Benjamin Button and this one. Three completely different roles, but just like Burn After Reading, he shows here all his comedy skills.

Diane also surprised me. I didn’t know she was that good. I only saw her in Troy, and I don’t remember seen her acting ever since. I also want to see more from her boyfriend, Joshua Jackson from Dawson’s Creek. He was the best actor in the bunch along with Michelle Williams. But the picture loses all the humor in its last third part, and that really bothered me. Tarantino exaggerated in his already famous sadism and I couldn’t laugh this time. It was really over the top. I guess that's why it wasn’t really well received in Cannes, so he changed the edition before releasing it on theaters. But even so I couldn’t appreciate it very much. I would like to see the first version to find out the improvements. If there were any…

I guess...

2009-09-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

My sign is cancer.
But I don’t believe in horoscope.
I always attended the same school.
It only changed when I moved to another city.
But then I came back to the same one.
I was in the volleyball team.
Used to hate Chemistry and Physics.
I love History and Geography.
I attended undergraduate school.
I graduated.
I made a lot of friends.
I lost touch with most of them.
I never learned to bike.
Or whistle.
I fighted a few times.
I learned to control myself.
I remember my childhood a lot.
But I would never comeback if I could.
I hate giving explanations.
I can handle myself on my own.
I love freedom.
But I’m no libertine...
I talk alone.
I think walking around my place.
I look totally crazy doing it.
My mom gets irritated.
She gets dizzy.
I wanted to be an actor.
I wanted to be a dentist.
I wanted to be a diplomat.
I wanted to go to the Olympic Games.
I used to cry a lot.
I used to be fearful.
I love scary movies.
I can lie like no other.
I have movie scripts written in my head.
I just need to write them down.
I may look cranky.
I’m more caring than I look.
I have several nicknames.
I won’t tell any...
I’m creative.
I travel in my imagination.
Just like Bobby’s World or Muppet Babies.
But I’m still aware of everything around me.
I love old cartoons.
I don’t like the new ones.
I love rain.
And rainy days.
I sleep in turbulences.
I sleep when I drink.
I don’t feel offended easily.
Sometimes I should.
I hide what I feel.
I can’t talk about it.
I step aside from the ones I dislike.
Or who disappoints me.
I can memorize easily.
I take to long to make a start.
I love music.
But I generally don’t like songs in Portuguese.
I love musicals.
I can dance.
But I never do.
I hate asking.
I hate reading.
I hate talking on the phone.
I create moments listening to music.
I collect things.
I can’t get rid of them.
I feel like I need to be nice.
I’d rather feel bad than making others feel bad.
I can’t really notice when people is taking advantage of me.
I help even who doesn’t treat me well.
I hate hearing my voice.
Or seeing me on video.
I just lose things when I need them right away.
I’m sarcastic.
And ironic.
I can spend a whole day reading maps.
I once knew all the capitals of the world.
I love curiosities.
I’m from the northeast of Brazil.
I love my accent.
I hate localism.
I believe patriotism is much more relevant.
I can’t see myself coming back to my hometown.
I hate being nervous.
I never think I’m stressed.
Until my body gives the signs.
I can’t pull a subject with people I don’t know.
Even when everything goes wrong and I act like losing hope,
I know everything is gonna be alright.
I try to get used to the unavoidable.
I believe frustration is the worst feeling.
I can’t plan anything.
I hate cigarettes.
Or drugs.
I hate getting out of my normal behavior.
I’m only disposed at night.
I can’t sleep before midnight.
I love the 80’s.
I’m an encyclopedia of useless culture.
I laugh recalling things that have happened before.
Or could’ve happened.
I feel ashamed for others.
I love being alone.
I love cooking.
I love sports.
I can’t live without internet.
I’ve seen a lot of TV.
I don’t even turn it on now.
I’m less organized than I think.
I hate being the center of attention.
I talk low.
I don’t talk much.
My dad hates it.
I’m not exactly shy.
I used to bite my arm when I was angry.
I don’t do it anymore.
I've been more impacient.
I used to be scared of injections.
The other kids didn’t like me.
I don’t really know why.
Or maybe I do...
I was born to the arts.
I’m extremely normal.
I guess...

Hello!

2009-09-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I had this blog for about 3 years, I guess. It used to be in Portuguese, my native language, but since I have so many friends who are not familiar with it, I decided to create a new space, exactly as the other one, but in English, so I can have more people sharing their opinions about the things I write. I hope it works and everyone enjoys it!