Reviews

Very amusing old movie combining a conventional romantic comedy with an ironical approach on yellow press and charlatanism, and a touch of camp and of dark humor. As I read elsewhere, it is a screwball comedy, that is, a subgenre of the romantic comedy that satirizes the traditional love story and that was popular between early 1930s and early 1950s. While the movie goes well until the nice ending, its first 27 minutes are no less than hilarious. I laughed loud! I loved the town Warsaw, Vermont, which may be seen as a character itself, with really funny denizens. I also liked a lot, previously, the Sultan of Marzipan "from the Orient", and, before it, the charming opening credits featuring caricature action figures of the leading actors and cartoon images in papers which shot being changed by live action hands. Deffinitely, not a movie to be forgotten, certainly worth watching!

Very innovative animated film from Dave Fleischer, which, while not as extraordinary is Bimbo's Initiation from the following year, also puts the character in spooky situations and explores animation surrealism in a radical way Disney, Looney Tunes, Woody Woopecer, and so forth would do only later. The nice film is divided in two quite different parts, both with the aforementioned elements of surrealism. In the former, which comprises just a third of it, Bimbo has problems with a chicken (which eventually becomes clear that he wanted to steal) and law and order. The second and larger part is a creepy musical where Bimbo flees from death, which is represented by multiple creatures, ghosts, monsters, and animated objects, in an accelerated sequence of run and horror.

This is a very different movie inside Clint Eastwood's career as a director, particularly considering his so perfectly structured movies from mid-1990s on. "Bird" is very impressionistic (and Eastwood is a huge fan of jazz, and his impressions are there, with a lot of music too), with little care about contexts and no didacticism about the historical details. I loved the film in its visual, with its shadows and lights, and period art direction, and Forrest Whitaker is a great actor as everybody knows, but I cannot say the same about the script. Pace is far from engaging, the story explains little and also does not impact emotionally as one could expect given the tragic short life of Charlie Parker.

The documentary is a mix of four different things, which perhaps are not very balanced, but its outcome is nice anyway: it is a movie about 1) the quest of director Adolfo Lachtermacher to find a never released pornochanchada (Brazilian sexploitation genre) movie by his father Saul Lachtermacher ("Com minha viúva, não!", also known as "Com o Sexo na Cabeça"), 2) Saul's filmography in general (which also included "Deixa, Amorzinho... Deixa", "O Marido Virgem", and "Com Minha Sogra em Paquetá"), 3) Adolfo's personal experience growing up close to the cinema environment of his father, and 4) an analysis of pornochanchada age in general in Brazilian cinema. Off course the four parts are connected, and Adolfo used Saul's movies (including "Com minha viúva, não!") to discuss the traits of the very genre. The almost absence of other films, however, is certainly the greatest drawback of the documentary, which did propose to investigate the last 50 years of Brazilian cinema. Anyway, the qualities overcame the problems, as Adolfo's text is very good, with a quite intelligent analysis of what pornochanchada meant, without either attacking it or being complacent. As Adolgo says, it reproduced the prejudices which existed in Brazilian society, but also its strong sexism somehow also meant more authonomous and free female characters than the passive ones in previous decades. Sex appeared in a quite exploitation way with profit intentions, for sure, but also it was not something comfortable for extremely moralist and old-fashioned military dictatorship, bringing to the screen important cultural changes in society. Adolfo also presents interestingly how commercial cinema in Brazil evolved from the stage-made naive comedies Chanchadas towards sexploitation outdoor-made Pornochanchadas (while Cinema Novo existed in parallel antagonising it with contempt, and Glauber Rocha said that they created Brazilian cinema), and then to increasingly unsophisticated and politically incorrect cheap comedies and to actually pornographic films. I also liked to know that a single graphic artist made a great number of the painted posters of pornochanchada films: Benício. To resume, I liked the documentary and am very happy that Adolfo could also release his father's movie, 41 years after it was shot.

I am glad that filmmaker Adolfo Lachtermacher decided to search this sexploitation movie of his father, also moviemaker Saul Lachtermacher, who shot it in 1981, never released it, and died in the following year. Fortunately, Adolfo found it in 2022 and released it on April 28, 2024, together with a nice documentary he made about it, also addressing Brazilian sexploitation genre, known as "pornochanchada". "Com minha viúva, não!" is one of the best pornochanchadas I have watched, with very funny moments (which overcome the silly or problematic ones, such as those reproducing homophhobic prejudice) and a fantastic metalinguistic element, playing with what is reality and what is fiction (something I have seen in another great pornochanchada, "As delícias da vida", from 1974). In Saul Lachtermacher's film released in Canal Brasil immediately after his son's documentary and 41 years after producing it, there is a smart script which not only plays with metalanguage, but also mocks on the very Brazilian cinema industry of those times, with its sexploitation, the lack of money, and the shadow of censorship under military dictatorship. It is also a delight seeing actors who have passed away starring the movie, such as Flávio Migliaccio, Rossana Ghessa and Jorge Dória.

This documentary has good moments, particularly some reflections about racism and the black question in Canada, and is directed to exploring an interesting historical character whose stories did catched my attention. However, the director follows a path which always make me complain a lot when I see it in cinema (it has been recurrent among Brazilian documentaries, with filmmaker Petra costa being the most famous case): she talks too much about herself and her family, mixing them with the supposed subject of the movie, with no real reason for doing that. Additionally, I considered it a very loose film, stretched with musical clips, animated insertions, and relatively not so much about black cowboy John Ware himself.

Great World War II movie by Clint Eastwood, made from the view of the Japanese side, just like his other good film from the same year, Flags of our fathers, portrayed USA view. Neither of them did it from a jingoistic view, to be clear. Eastwood's approach on both was an anti-war one: while showing the conflict in really impressive and well made scenes (no less than amazing), message and grey palette always emphasize brutality, the lost lives, the harsh survival conditions. In Letters from Iwo Jima it is even more remarkable, not only for being a more balanced production and script, but specially for exploring in depth Japanese individuals despute meing an US movie, with excelent characters (both in conceptual development and in acting performance). Eastwood was very carefull, in several moments (not mentioned here in order to avoid spoilers), to make it clear that this would not be a anti-Japanese propaganda film, and that people in both sides may be good, may be bad, may be victims, may commit mistakes, suffer. It joins orher masterpieces from Eastwood in his incredibly sensitive filmography: Gran Torino, Million Dollar Baby, Invictus, Unforgiven, The bridges of Madison County, Mystic river... By the way, general Kuribayashi is a brilliant strategist, but for some officers a biased idea of honour lays above intelligence and above the very accomplishment of the mission.

It is a curious Japanese animated movie. The script is a mess but has funny and smart moments. Animation itself is mostly rough, but the film changes many times the animation style (either mixing real footage with animation, or with minimalist drawing, or without the black line, and so forth) in a sophisticated way. The story happens mostly in classic Cleopatra's arch in Egypt and Rome, but there is also an odd time-trip sci-fi story where it was bizarrely inserted. It is widely known as an erotic animated film but despite a lot of drawn nudity there is no explicit sex, as all sexual activities are shown in various animation styles which never display hardcore parts. There is a lot of explicit violence but animation graphism lessens its brutal impact. Julius Cesar is green with no reason, but Egyptian characters follow historically coherent racial skin colours pattern. Egypt and Rome are well presented but many surrealist references to modern culture, history and arts elsewhere provide an unexpected but interesting experience. To resume, it is not among the best animated films I have watched, but it is certainly not forgettable either.

"Flags of our fathers" is a quite good war movie by Clint Eastwood. Besides the very well made war scenes, it must be praised for its script, so far from a narrow patriotism someone could expect for the poster picture. Indeed, that very poster is much more meaningful than I could have imagined. The film shows war as butchery, as nightmare, as showbiz. Among several life stories addressed, the most striking is certainly the one of Ira "Chief" Hayes. In both how he behaved and in how people dealt with him, it represents a lot the very United States in the place the country sets aside for native people.

This is a good horror film, very interesting for its unusual approach: exploring a small and often negelected part of the novel Dracula and making a period horror film inside a boat. The film is visually nice in both the Gothic elements and in the vampire representation. The characters created for filling the blanks, as the segment of the logbook is small in Bram Stocker's work, are interesting ones (and credible, despite de fragrant intention do adapt a Victorian work into contemporary inclusiveness concerns). Edition works well for providing the proper horror atmosphere. The only drawbacks, which are not enough to undermine the good outcome, are the ending (in a tone which is acceptable but not the one I would prefer) and the stupidity of the crew in their dumb strategies to fight the menace. I enjoyed the movie, anyway, and consider it true to the classic work of Bram Stocker.

A great film on the history of black music in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, the transformations of US society in that decade and the evolution of the black question and racial prejudice in that country, the innovations in blues and birth of rock n'roll (with a great influence of those black artist in the rising white stars from England and USA). Casting is great and performances are fantastic. The film has good art direction which makes spectator travels to that age of social and cultural key changes. Through skilled actors (and singers!) Adrien Brody, Beyoncé, Jeffrey Wright, Columbus Short, Mos Def, and Kevin Jackson we know a little more about giants of music such as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, Etta James, Howlin' Wolf, and Willie Dixon, besides key producer Leonard Chess.

A generous documentary for a generous bright star. It is a film that succeeds in making spectator know who was Leila Diniz. However, differently from what is usually the expected, it is much more impressionist than careful in following her steps, big events, and detailed list of works. The documentary presents, instead, very personal testimonies of people who had closeness with her as friends and colleagues, besides pictures and footage. That mosaic constitutes a powerful and coherent portrayal of that strong, empathetic, loving, irreverent, intense, feminist, pioneer and brave artist and woman.

Brazilian filmmaker with Arab origins Karim Aïnouz Demonstrations in Algeria for ousting Bouteflika and avoiding his fifth term as president (his last two were alegedly kept by electoral fraud). Karim Aïnouz presents beautiful footage, incredibly shot only with a smartphone in a single day, and follows one activist in particular. Nardjes is actually a good choice: she is charismatic, communicative, daugter and granddaughter of people who died or have been in jail fighting for the country independence. Indeed, the documentary is partially based in her very view of the whole situation, as the scenes go where she is and a great part of the explanations about what was going on were given by her. Off course who controls the camera also presents his own point of view, emphasizing elements she had no control, such as the stong religious cultural behaviour, the presence of a man with Down syndrome among the multiple activists, two men firting with Nadjes (only the first of them being gentle), and some curious writings in the signs, either against the opinion of foreigners or saying that the prostesters were white, red and green (!) blood cells. Considering both her analysis, what activists cried or their testimonies as interviewees, and what images showed, it is clear that while there were elder people in the crowd (and one of them mentioned French oppression and the struggle against it), it was mostly a demonstration of a youth without prior political experience. Football support aesthetics and an atmosphere of party overcame the references to past struggle against colonial rule. It is related both to the wish of generational renewal in politics by very young activists and the understanding that the authoritarian militarized regime had its origins in people who were initially heroes of independence. The fear of violent repressions existed, and they happened elsewhere, but nothing more serious has been captured by the film.

Guillermo del Toro is a great director, who is able as few to explore fantasy and magic realism in a unique and dark way. Here, the world of circus is in the core. The magical and extraordionary on stage are generally just acting, we know, but depending on the intentions it may be seen as deception. Indeed, in the story almost everybody are terrible people, with no moral code but the search for profit or feeding a addiction. It becomes quite violent sometimes, as also harsh and depressing, raw. The good story (which is a remake, and I am very curious about also watching the 1947 movie) has a good development and the best end possible. Art direction and acting are perfect. The film perhaps becomes slightly less interesting in the middle, after a great beginning inside the circus, and becomes excellent again when Bradley Cooper's character follows his ambition and meets Cate Blanchet's.

This Brazilian short film certainly has a good production and an important intention, but unfortunately it seems not to have a script, but just an idea for a script. It presents some traits of the black main character - she is a young lesbian woman who is also a swimmer - but only her colour does have consequences for the story. The parallel between her and her father, as he is a policeman, is very interesting for discussing racism in the police, but the issue is only presented and the film ends without developping any story. Outcome is tepid, with undevelopped added elements, and seems unfinished.

Very funny comedy of manners full of dark humor and magic realism about fictional moments world famous French actress Sarah Bernhard with the sisters of her Brazilian maid Amélia. Dialogues and situations are hilarious, exploring the problems of communication and contrast of cultures. There are many colorful characters, such as slf-centered and lunatic Sarah and the two Amélia's sisters and an additional household member (there are references to Lady Macbeth and to witches in Sarah Bernhard's lines, which may apply to herself and to the three unsophisticated women), the hyperactive assistant of Sarah who speaks in several languages but Portuguese (Betty Gofman had my second favoutite performance together with Béatrice Angenin and second only to Myrian Muniz, brilliant as the elder and rougher of the "witch" sisters), the Portuguese actor who tries to have some profit in that situation, and the businessman who frigthens indebted actress. A great ending for the film in which the French superstar always loked to Brazil with colonial eyes.

Pace is sometimes a little clumsy, there is a lot of unconvincing overacting, and the very beginning seems too much theatre. However, the film improves when the famous detective finally appears. Basil Rathbone is a perfect Sherlock Holmes. His first dialogue with Watson is exactly what you expect for the characters. I think Musgrave Manor as a whole could have been better explored and shown; the script and edition fragmented too much its portrayal. Anyway, there are some charming atmospheric thriller elements, such as the crow, the ritual and the storm, besides a few funny gags. The ending is also pretty nice.

Always fabulous Daniel Day-Lewis portrays perfectly a successful arrogant fussy short-tempered methodical obsessive authoritarian and intolerant haute couture dressmaker, who is often ambiguous about praising or criticizing. Vicky Krieps also shines in a very delicate and precise performance in the role of the unsecure enamored former waitress who admires him and always expects something from him that never comes. Paul Thomas Anderson's competent direction appears not only in their remarkable performances but also in every element that contribute for the recurring atmosphere of tension, oddity, discomfort, imminent disruption in their dysfunctional relationship. It is a movie to slowly feel beyond watching. Will that bizarre relationship have a happy end? Well, how much what is happiness may vary deppending on whom it is applied to?

The movie intended to be a dystopian fable of Bolsonaro's Brazil with its militarism, fake patriotic defense, widespread charismatic Christianity, and impoverishment of people. However, the excessive long length and terrible pace make it a failure, and the script tries many things without reaching any cohesion. There is the intention of putting peripheric (and formerly in jail) lesbian black women as protagonists in a naturalistic aesthetics such as the recurrent one in films from Contagem, but the script is bad and the references are fragrant and not sophisticated. The grimy aesthetics in a slum in Ceilândia (near Brasília) in the very beginning seemed promising but soon the terrible pace became an obvious constraint. The first 14 minutes could have been two! Together with a lack of events, there is a boring testimony in a documentary style in order to compensate the impossibility of understanding what is going on simply by watching the scenes. After the title of the movie appears, situation does not change for nearly one hour and a half. Almost nothing happen, and pace is sluggish as hell. There are many boring or annoying scenes intending to show that atmosphere, but they are often too long (and recurrently with long bad music). The most remarkable was the bizarre 8-minute charismatic worship ceremony scene, a penalty I believe that spectator did not deserve. The supposedly main plot of the former convict women who composed a gang of oil theft and smuggling is very badly connected with the elections, in which one of the characters is a candidate of fictional Party of the Arrested People, with a platform with many issues directed toward the rights of the poor people. Only when one hour and a half length is over, the references to Bolsonaro's Brazil appear, including explicit mentions to him, in the mouths and T-shirts of his (in the film, always white) supporters. In the radio, it is mentioned (with bad sound) that the regime opposed "criminals and subversives", like in military dictatorship. Policemen use Bolsonaro's slogan as theirs; nothing is subtle in the movie. We also see that the women gang becomes increasingly partner of motorcycle delivery men, who suffer with job insecurity of (also a core issue in nowadays world). Uninteresting naturalistic long dialogues (on lesbian sexuality, life in jail, dysfunctional family background, and so forth), emulating a documentary, occupy a long fraction of the movie throughout it, contributing for its tediousness. To resume, this movie with more than 2 hours and a half length would work better if it were not only shorter, but actually a short film. There is too much time for too little to show. The long dialogues of women who look like belonging to the poor people do not make the film be truer or deeper.

I am very positively surprised by Black Adam, particularly considering the unfair bad ratings. It is among the best superhero movies, amusing and colorful, with well balanced dark humor, drama and adventure. The very beginning was already very promising, with a visually nice Kahndaq (exciting Egypt-like atmosphere), and the film kept that high level until the end. The story is simple and unpretensious, fitting typically the superhero genre, but is not trivial. Characters are quite interesting, both in their development and in their visual. Only Atom Smasher and Cyclone are in a much lower level, but not enough to damage general outcome. I did like Black Adam, Dr. Fate, Hawkman, Adrianna Tomaz, Amon, Hurut, Ishmael, and Sabbac! It is a movie in which producers had full control of what they were doing all the time.

The film is visually nice and has good performances. However, I did not like the script. I considered a very promising idea to fullfill the blanks on the story of Ophelia, who appears so little in Shakespeare's Hamlet. However, the movie does much more than it. The inserted parts not only are predictably much less impacting and more generic than the lines wrtitten by the bard, but also made the whole story loses a significant part of its strength. While Claudius and the queen are still interesting characters, Hamlet was turned into an almost minor character, what is bizarre. It is too much the present wave of mainstream cinema (with its core concerns and formulae) and relatively little of Shakespeare.

Delicious film. The Truman Show meets Amélie Poulan. The very beginning seemed a little tepid but the film improved a lot, becoming even better each plot twist, and it does surprise sometimes. There are many layers and the story is moving, funny but with a recurrent touch of ssadness. Dystopic near future (or present?!), with overwhelming artificial intelligence and the death of paper, merges with nosltalgy full of charming drawings, perfumes, sensations and mood from the 70s. Daniel Auteuil has a great performance as usual, Fanny Ardant is striking in her role too, and, maybe above all, Doria Tiller makes spectator understands perfectly how Victor felt in love for her version of Marianne. Nicolas Bedos has a fantastic direction and script, leading to an unnexpectadly remarkable movie.

This is one of the best movies on Nazism ever made and incredibly innovative in how it shows the horror of the Holocaust, in the very place of "Final Solution" main extermination camp, one of the most represented historical events in cinema. While it obviously deserved the Academy Awards of best sound and best foreign language film, I consider it also was the best among the nominees for best picture (and the winner was the worst! What a shame!).

A review is certainly not enough for explaining a so deep, complex movie, so attentive to details, so strong without using easy emotional formulae. Dialogues and cinematography are awesome, music score and the sounds in background (sometimes constrasting with the calm beauty of flowers or any other comfort in the opposite side of the wall) are disturbing. Director Jonathan Glazer accomplishes a great work, very clever in showing visually only the tormentors. Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel have great performances as horrible Auschwitz couple as Hedwig and commandant Rudolf Höß. The script brilliantly explores the banality of evil, the selective love and care, the dehumanization, hatred and revenge combined with opportunism and upward mobility, the marriage without love and full of interest, the military ethos, the usage of part of the prisioners for forced labor and the extermination of the others, the fact that good people may be found everywhere, and the children living in comfort but either silently disturbed by those sounds of suffering and violence or mocking on mass murder in gas chamber (the latter being Klaus, the xenophobic eldest son, I suppose). Distracted spectators may lose important elements which appear, sometimes in background or in discrete details, such as the robbery of properties of killed jews, the Holocaust trains, the smoke caused by the burning of bodies, the Zyklon B, possibly Austrian communist political prisoner Eleonore Hodys, the crematoria technology develipped for mass incineration. It is a mature film with very sophisticated aesthetic and narrative elements which will have a place in the history of the cinema as one of the best movies representing that paramount stain in human civilization.

Very sad and important mini-series on the fire tragedy that killed 10 teenage football players of Flamengo. Pedro Asberg was very skilled in showing who were those boys and giving space for their famílies to express themselves. Additionally and not less important, the explored well both the irresponsability of the previous club managers not fixing the serious structural problems in the dorm, and the absolute lack of empathy of present managers and their view of people as commodities. People suffered the horror of mosing their children, with all the future ahead, in dire circumstances, and president of Flamengo and his crew made them keep suffering for years. Moving doxumentary that makes cry and get furious.

A good and extremely underrated film on a paramount misogynistic crime (and sexist Judicial system) in Brazil. All actors have good performances (Ísis Valverde is particularly successful in the leading role), cinematography is beautiful, direction is very competent, characters are deeply developped, and there are quite good dialogues. It is almost a sexploitation movie, considering the high number of sex scenes involving Ísis Valverde, Gabriel Braga Nunes, Bianca Bin... Several people criticized the film for not showing many important (and polemical) events of her life, being therefore an incomplete biographic movie. I agree with the diagnisis that it is not enough for a biopic (what the title may suggest), and a serious absence was not including the buzarre murder of the housekeeper after her separation and before she moved from Belo Horizonte to Rio de Janeiro. However, as a movie on violent misogyny and the structural sexism, which had the murder of Ângela Diniz as a turning point case, it succeeds.