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An error has ocurred. Please try againSee also a list for my favorite vampires and for the most ridiculous blood suckers.
I have also made a list of Brazilian movies with up to three films representative of each state.
Add: "Dia estranho", from 2014, directed by Flávio Rossi, with the participation of Paulo Miklos (I give it a 7).
Reviews
Khitrovka. Znak chetyryokh (2023)
Replacing Sherlock Holmes for Stanislavsky
Amusing Russian detective movie, adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Sign of Four, but replacing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky and journalist Vladimir Gilyarovsky, and London for dangerous and low-class square in Moscow called Khitrovka. Besides the duo, there are colorful character in either major or minor roles. Khitrovka itself is almost a character, always crowded, and it is very nice how director Karen Shakhnazarov (who has other movies I enjoyed from both Soviet era and post-Soviet times, like Zerograd, Ward Number 6, and We are from Jazz) showed in each scene several events happening at the same time.
Yami no teiô kyuketsuki dorakyura (1980)
Melodramatic and silly, but with good atmospheric moments
This is a Japanese Marvel Comics Dracula animated movie. I liked the animation style, but the story is silly. Satanist cult vs Count Dracula in love vs Vampire Hunters in Boston. Things are not well developed and there are many cheesy melodramatic moments and parts with excess of narration. The eventual miracle and Janus's story (and his very concept) make the film worsens. Dracula eating a hamburger in New York exemplifies well how poor the script becomes. On the other hand, I did like Lilith, and it would be nice if this character had more screen time. The film would also be better if it had less melodrama and more horror atmosphere such as in the first 14 minutes or later with the zombie vampires.
The School for Good and Evil (2022)
Extremely bad!
Stupid fantasy Netflix film for teenagers. Bad plot, embarassing acting (Sofia Wylie and Jamie Flatters among the worst), irritating characters, silly art direction, caricatural representativeness (which however reinforce sexism, and also the idea that blond hair is more beautiful and associated to good at least on probability), lots of clichés and cheesy slow motion, that annoying pompous narration (they could make even Cate Blanchet go badly!), terrible soundtrack, awful battle scenes. Very little is nice (like the birds that transport to the schools, or the explanation given inside the tower in the end about the victories of the good) and what could be good ideas (king Arthur, cyclops, the creatures) are badly developed. It is inspired in fairytales, but not in a smart way. It questions manichaeism and the bias based in appearance, but it does it clumsy and irregularly. The kiss of the true love as the proof of being good is one of the stupidest things I ever heard. Sophie is by far the best character, but certainly not enough to save the movie. If at least they assumed that they were lesbian, it would had a good ending.
The Lighthouse (2019)
Very innovative, expressionist, but terrible end
The film is very innovative, both in its black and vintage visual with almost square ratio, and in its script, written by the director and his brother, and inspired by the last text by Edgar Allan Poe. The story happens in the 1890s and the movie sometimes seem to have been shot in that decade. Good performances by Dafoe and Pattinson and great costume design and art direction contribute to that effect. On what concerns the aesthetics, cinematography emulates expressionism. The very first scene seemed taken from Murnau's Nosferatu (a movie the filmmaker would produce a remake of five years after The Lighthouse). There are also moments when it reminds Hitchcock's Birds, but I do not think it is a horror movie as sonenpeople label. Then, let us move to the script from now on. It is about two lonely men in a very dysfunctional labour relationship. The script do not maje it clear what actually happens and what are hallucinations, imagination or lies, as both become drunk, seem driven into madness under those harsh conditions, and appearantly have dark backgrounds. Besides that, there are lots of superstition and sea folklore, and we do not know if its fantasy or delusion. Characters alternate aggression and warmth, joy and argument, and cooperation, confession and lie, in no coherent basis, what reinforce the impresssion of increasing madness and alcoholic escapism. All that is unusual, perhaps even weird, but innovative and refreshing. However, that interesting experience is compromised by the endpoint. Although the movie has great merits, its bizarre ending is seriously disappointing. It should have ended twenty minutes before.
The Whale (2022)
Darren Aronofsky and Brendan Fraser did it!
This is one of the big films directed by Darren Aronofsky. The script, adapted from a play, has deeply built characters, a nice structure where previous and essential story is being unveiled when characters clash in their arguments, and really brilliant dialogues (I loved Charlie's definition of the Bible, justnto give an example: "I thought it was... devastating. God creates us, expels us from paradise, then we wander around for thousands of years killing each other before he comes back to save 144,000 of us. Meanwhile, the other seven and a half billion of us fall into hell."). Cinematography mostly in a single dark room and Brandan Fraser's fantastic performance make together an impressive claustrophobic sensation throughout the movie. All actors do very well, but Fraser impresses particularly for his body work, supported by a masterwork makeup. The film is a heavy drama, but not of the easy one kind, which manipulates spectators' feelings. It is much smarter, with quite genuine characters and issues. Several depressed people damaged by various authentic social problems, from the loss of beloved ones to religious conservative pressures and repression, from childhood and family trauma to the sentiment of shame and failure. The film has just six characters (besides the online students and Alan, who is already deceased and is just mentioned several times), what makes one suspects it is adapted from theatre even if does not have that information. It works well, as the interaction between them is quite strong and penetrating. There are parallels between The Whale and another movie by Aronofsky, The Wrestler, with both main characters impressing visually, feeling decay, and dealing with the imminent death in a way that is not avoiding it. The Whale is mostly a sad film, but there is also some hope. The ending is just like what Chatlie advised as a teacher: what really matters, "the honest things", is not always what is widespread accepted.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
What a difference when you have a good director!
I was skeptical in the very beginning, considering the opening scene too videogamish, but I changed my mind very soon, since the following scene with the demon (who reminded me D&D RPG monster Beholder, in a giant version; very cool!). Off course spectator may expect an overwhelming CGI extravaganza, but it works, and it does it for a simple reason: the script is surprisingly quite good. When the multiverse issue becomes trending and action films (with Marvel in the core) are mostly CGI-dependent without any deepness or writing quality, it is really engaging and refreshing to watch this sequel, also much better than the visually nice, and acceptable but not great, first film starred by Doctor Strange. The story is good, the supposed madness actually made sense, and several events were interesting and amusing. The various spells are very nice, also a good inspiration for roleplaying. Sam Raimi is a good director, and I still never watched a film by him I disliked. Scarlet Witch showed to be a nice villain, much more interesting than her role in every film I watched before where she took part (I never watched series WandaVision). I also enjoyed every alternative universe that appeared in this film, and the various characters and versions as well. I liked the arc of Stephen/Christine, America Chavez, and Wanda. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is perhaps even more a fantasy film than a superhero one, and has additionally nice elements of horror, sci-fi, and comedy. Good movie.
Vesna (1947)
Lyubov Orlova os the best of the film
The film by Grigori Aleksandrov has its good moments and gags, a beautiful cinematography, and a nice general idea (visually identical actress and scientist swap their roles while a movie about the latter was to be made, and, while they deceive, there is a lot of learning for everybody about life, conventional wisdom, and love). The problem is that the movie is too slow and tepid. Its greatest merit, for sure and by far, is the fantastic performance by Lyubov Orlova. Much more than the director's wife, she was a top actress in Soviet cinema. Orlova was able to perform well two characters with very different personalities and mood, and also both women disguising themselves as if they were the oher one. This Soviet comedy reminded me a lot a genre of cinema which would be very popular in Brazil in the following decade, called Chanchada, which consisted in light-hearted and often chaotic musical comedies. The difference is obvious: in Spring there is no samba, but some patriotic propaganda. Aleksandrov had been a partner of Eisenstein, directing Oktober with him, but eventually directed alone several comedies. This one is better than his The Shining Path, but it is much worse than funny and smart Volga-Volga.
Rabbits (2002)
Dark rabbits
This is an aesthetic experiment by David Lynch, exploring weirdness and confusion feelings. The dark set with great usage of light and shadow, together with enigmatic and possibly meaningless dialogues and characters who are antropomorphic rabbits for no reason create a mystery atmosphere, which is disturblingly contrasted with the laugh and applaud track in sitcom style placed in moments they never fit. Released an year after great Mulholand Drive, the three-actor cast is entirely composed by actors of the feature movie, included the leading duo, although here the two gorgeous Laura Harring and Naomi Watts cannot be recognized under the dark brown rabbit masks.
HollyBlood (2022)
Good Spanish vampire flick which mixes genres
Not everything works in this Spanish movie, as there are some too silly moments, but the good ones not only overcome them but also are simply hilarious. The film mixes genres, alternating from dark humor comedy of manners to horror parody and to high school romantic comedy, with references to vampire hunting action flicks and a funny mockery on Twilight. Holllyblood is a film that entertains and it made me laugh loud. The way they portayed Azrael was brilliant! I may also add that, as great filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar showed several times, nobody mocks on the Catholic Church as the Spaniards do.
The Marvels (2023)
Teenage public empowerment vs wasted opportunity to discuss imperialism
While 'The Marvels' is not as terrible as bad ratings and box office bomb may suggest, it is not better than recent average MCU franchise flicks either (differently from good Captain Marvel). It is confusing (and too much dependent to other films and series), tepid, and has an extreme teenager stamp (what may tire a little who are not part of the juvenile public). Action is frentic (the switch-strategy of team fighting is nice, but other action scenes do not work very well), and the drama (from interplanetary refugees to family issues) is shallow and underdeveloped: spectator feels nothing. Off course I have seen much more ridiculous villains in other superhero movies, but the bad guys here, particularly the leader Dar-Benn, are also far from interesting and visually rough. At least silly gags are on average less stupid than in most other Marvel films from the 2010s and 2020s (and the Cats scene was actually funny!). By the way, if it were a better written movie, not focused only in making youngsters feel identified with the three main characters, there is a general plot that could have been converted in a consistent script: imperialist powers use stick politics to rob natural resources from the periphery, just like in the Earth!
Transe (2022)
Perfect depiction of 2018 Brazil, but not a good movie
The film is a precise depiction of the mood in 2018 in Brazil, when Jair Bolsonaro was elected as president of Brazil. The dispair an perplexity of those who support democracy and human rights was precisely like what was shown in the movie. However, despite that, the movie is not good (but it is obviously far from the disaster bad ratings suggest). Why? What the directors and producers intended is not clear, and there are different problems depending on their very intention. If the idea was to criticize the naive and poorly politicized upper and middle-class non-activist leftists who do not connect to the majority and agree that the art and positive thinking will be enough to change things, a different approach, not in first-person, would be desirable. As spectators follow character Luisa, her point of view is implicitly portrayed as "the correct". It is true that the character has an arc, changing her behavior as the story advances, in contrast to her lovers-friends-roomates. Then, the intention of the directors and producers coud be to didactly induce spectators with the same drawbacks shared by the characters to be more pro-active and critical. That possibility could be reinforced by the talk in the bar, where minor characters Bella and the black guy (whose name I could not find) have several quotes clearly directed to explain what was going on in Brazil to the three (Luisa, Johnny and Ravel) and to the spectators. Well, did they expect that only that profile of spectators and citizens would compose the entire attendance of the film? They have all traits of the caricature of what the left is in the eyes of the most narrow-minded conservatives: they use drugs, are bissexual and have an open love affair, they do not want children and have a family structure that is very different to the conventional, they are apart to day-to-tay problems and life of lower classes, they party and sing all the time and are never seen working or studying, they want a better world but have confusing and esoteric understanding about politics and society. Off course left wing people are various, and among them there are people identical or very similar to those in the leading roles, but the film decided to chose the closest possilbe to the caricature to represent them (with both traits which are not problems at all if there is no prejudice, and also effective drawbacks). Therefore, if spectator is right wing, if she/he voted for Bolsonaro, she/he will probably reinforce her/his perception about the left and about her/his own vote for the far right after watching it. Particularly because one of the best built characters in the movie was João, the guy who would vote in Bolsonaro. Among the three main characters, musician Ravel is a particularly annoying character. To resume, the film has the great merit in portraying well a dramatic moment in Brazilian history, but chose characters that may bias the very understanding of what it portrays.
Jack et la mécanique du coeur (2013)
Wonderful animation
This is a charming and visually wonderful animated fantasy film with elements of steampunk, expressionism, romantic drama, musical and even Western and high school. The fantastic often appears as metaphor, as the discover of the world and of love is risky and the clockwork heart may break. I simply loved the twisted architecture and the slim characters. Genius filmmaker Georges Méliès deserves the homage. The are are nice adult gags and smart oneiric usage of animation possibilities. Pace and the script are a little uneven (and I did not enjoy musical score), but the ups overcome the dew downs.
Bandida: A Número Um (2024)
Good crime movie based in real events in the largest slum in Rio de Janeiro
Amusing movie about the history of crime in the largest slum in Rio de Janeiro, Rocinha, emphasizing the life of the first female narcotics leader, who also wrote the book in which the film is based. There are many qualities besides the interesting story. Good direction and edition provide a pace which allow developping well the charcters and events and also attracting spectators' attention throughout the movie. It is also visually nice, using well different filters, lights, fog, sometimes emulating the 80s in a vintage way, in others showing pink and néon in a stylish crime girl power look. I liked a lot each segment portraying Rebecca's life since childhood, with class and patriarchy blows, all crime and drug lords with their unique traits, the way African Brazilian religion crossed personal relations, the connetion between crime and police along decades, the remarkable and unusual music score choices. To resume, I must add that the movie is considerably light given the great violence and serious social issues which are depicted and not hidden.
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)
Bad, a copy of everything that has been done before, but not as awful as part 1
Rebel Moon is a movie where spoilers are impossible, as there is nothing original and everything copy what has already been done uncountable times before. You may expect all the clichés: star wars-like evil space empire (and light swords!!!!), the heroes teaching untrained villagers how to fight, a romantic dialogue about the fear to lose each other (many other terrible dialogues eventually appear), motivational screams before battle... The scene with royal family (the first one with a royal family; the second one was not good either, but far from this silliness) was laughable, with quite embarassing acting, and a ridiculous quartet playing calmly music throughout the violent scene wearing bizarre masks. Anyway, this bad sequel is still better than the awful part 1 released one year before. I will never understand how Zach Snyder was able to make Watchmen, and I thank the gods of cinema for not having it directed by him a decade afterwards, or he would certainly make a crap despite the wonderful quality of the graphic novel. Snyder simply does not know what cinema is, and cannot distinguish between it and videogame.
Uma Fada Veio Me Visitar (2023)
Terrible direction and writing
Terrible direction by Vivianne Jundi. The film is visually bad (ridiculous room for the leading character, seeming a cheesy theatre stage) and acting is also unsuccsessful despite some good actresses, such as Zezeh Barbosa, Fernanda de Freitas, Dani Calabresa and, well, we may include Xuxa Meneghel. We cannot know how skilled is Heloisa Périssé's daughter, who plays Luna, as the entire cast wrecks in this badly written and directed production. Thalita Rebouças's dialogues are poor and childish, annoying a lot. The ending (of the plot, not that neverending stretched unnecessary scene of the dress and the party) was a little better, but the development until there was clumsy at best. To resume, the movie is embarassing and seems bad theatre for teenagers. It is so bad that even the reference to She-Ra and the 80s did not soften my bored heart.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)
This sequel is much more Netflix than Chicken Run
Netflix sequel for Chicken Run, released 23 years after the original and brilliant stop motion film, is frustrating. Very far from the smart script of 2000 movie, it is full of clichés and unfunny gags, and dialogues are terrible. The silly amusement park mastermind scheme is far from the funny political script of the original flick (the issue of nuggets could work in a political film about food, although certainly uneasy to adapt it for kids). Even animation is not as inspired, lacking contrast sometimes in spite of being well done. To resume, this one is not truly a Chicken Run movie. It is pure Netflix juice, and that is not a compliment.
Senna (2024)
Heartbreaking race scenes, cheesy soap opera tone, in a production with ups and downs
The fictionalized TV series about Ayrton Senna's life has good acting performances, and quite good cinematography and edition. The scenes of car racing are breathtaking! However, there are problems in the script and directing decisions which are quite serious and annoyed me a lot. Firstly, there are too soap-operesque elements, specially in the first two episodes; the problems continues throughout the series, but there is an improvement from the third episode on. Another - expected - drawback is that it is too laudatory and exaggerates in the bias to portray Senna as a hero. Curiously, there are depicted events which conter that bias, such as his selfish individualism, his vanity of always blaming others for his faults, and his recurrent broken promises (betraying his wife, his father, Toleman Lotus, Prost...). Despite that, the laudatory tone overcomes the elements of a nuanced character, and is reinforced by invented situations and a few omissions (for example, they did not show that Senna did in McLaren before moving to Williams what he did in all other team he ran for: complained that his car was worse). What I despised the most was the depiction of fans in a poor neighborhood and bar always watching his races on a humble TV set. Not only it was soap-operesque and heightened, but also it was ridiculously the only situation where the production showed (undevelopped as characters) black people, as in Senna's world there were only white or Japanese rich people. Senna's family is also portrayed as if it had less money than actually had, and the education institute Senna's sister created with his name is much less idealist and more controvesial than last episode suggests. To resume, there are nice moments, but content is stretched in a cheesy soap opera way. If it were cut to one third of its full length, it could have reached a much better and more consistent outcome, as a two-hour feature movie.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Fantastic! That is pure D&D roleplaying game!
This is awesome! Is is a nice fantasy adventure movie for everyone, for sure, but when spectator knows D&D game it becomes clear that the movie is much more than this: it is fantastic! Not only there are several references to spells, places (in Forgotten Realms setting), characters and monsters (they are ll in the Monster Manual!) from the game, but the incredible script was able to make unique characters, with traits, behavior and dialogues, which emulate perfectly how players roleplay and how they compose their very characters, what those who are familiar to RPG will be able to notice and will enjoy a lot. The film reached a spectacular outcome, being the movie D&D fans were waiting for since the disappointment with silly 2000 flick.
Padmaavat (2018)
Visually beautiful but full of problems
The film is visually great, with beautiful art direction, and making a medieval historical epic in India is something interesting by itself. Unfortunately, the script and direction are far from the same level. The movie is cheesy, badly paced, historically unconvincing (like a Bollywood '300') with soap opera stylistic elements and overacting. Malik Kafur is a ridiculous character, and the bathtub musical scene was embarassing. Additionally, portraying the struggle between a muslim treacherous psycopath and a honorable heroic Rajput is something very problematic given the current Fascist anti-Islamic wave led by Narendra Modi in India.
Krew Boga (2018)
Expressiinist immersion in the Middle Ages, christianization and the birth of Poland
Much more than an atmospheric movie, as I read somewhere, this is an expressionist one. Grimy art direction and fisrt-person camera are combined to provide the spectator the feeling of early christianization missions: fearsome, unpredictable and ethnocentric. The Polish movie, in order to heighten that feeling, unveils very little information, and even the Germanic dialect of the pagan natives is nearly never followed by subtitles. We do know that there was a Christian king who could attack pagan tribes, that one of the two unrelated missionaries was a bishop, and that the whiteclay-painted people worshipped Slavic god Perun and goddess Mokosh. Therefore, a good guess is that the aforementioned ruler could be Mieszko, and the story happened some time after the beginning of his reign; given the actor's age, it may be in the 970s. The bishop could be inspired in Jordan, although the name of that character in the script was Willibrord, the very name of a later Anglo-Saxon bishop who lived elsewhere, in the Netherlands; if it were Jordan, the first Polish bishop, the year would be 968. Anyway, more important than historical accuracy (about a time whixh knowledge about is not accurate either) is the immersive experience in Middle Ages far from so-called civilized settlements. It is also a truer narrative about how European nation-states were born than the usual laudatory ones.
Mortal Kombat (2021)
Good adaptation, but worsens a little in the second half
Making videogame movies often reaches bad outcome: it is a challenge to be true to the original source and also have a good story, as games use to have too narrow ones. This Mortal Kombat has a considerable success in both sides of that very challenge. There are several references to the bloody violent game, with the special traits of each fighter being very well portrayed. The story also started very well, with a quite interesting background. Unfortunately as more and more characters were incorporared, the story shrank, becoming not much more than a sequence of magic fights, most of them unremarkable. Then, altough still with some nice moments, the flick becomes more tepid and less striking in its second half. Anyway, it does work for anyone who wants to see the classic game adapted to the big screen, as Mortal Kombat is there indeed, and the movie is pretty decent despite the drawbacks.
Red One (2024)
Formulaic, but there are worse Chistmas films and worse action flicks
Hollywood produces thousands of nearly identical action flicks which seem to have scripts written by machines or artificial intelligence. Minor variations - Greek mythology, Russian mafia, worldwide-scope terrorists stealing nuclear weapons, alien invasion, and so forth, just to mention some clichés - do not change the plot structure, the visual effects and the fight corraography. Well, now they decided to change the cliché-Christmas movie for the very same formulaic action flick but making it Chistmas-themed: reindeers, good or bad behaviour lists, Krampus... It is too generic, but is not among either the worst action flicks or the worst Chistmas movies. It is moderately enjoyable and seriously forgettable, that is, it is acceptable if you to not expect for a consistent and innovative movie. Having an athletic Santa Klaus or merging a bud movie with fantasy are no innovation...
A Hidden Life (2019)
Immersive, great couple
Nearly three hours of a film about a then happy simple family in a Catholic rural village in Austria until Nazism changed it all. Well, not "all"... Visual is stunning and art direction is perfect, showing precisely how life is in countryside. Acting is excellent, and Valerie Pachner and August Diehl are not only talented actors but I must also highlight that their chemistry was special and they portrayed a very moving and convincing couple. Based in a real life event, when a common man refused to swear to be loyal to Hitler. In a Kantian way, he considered himself free, despite being in prison. Also very interesting was to see how denizens from the village changed their behavior and how hard was to endure inan also hostile environment. Thos very well done movie is an immersive experience into a historic chapter not to be forgotten or to be taken as a caricature.
Coisas Eróticas (1981)
Absolutely terrible, I watched it in 2x speed
Boring to death and utterly grotesque. I had to watch it in speed 2x, because I could not wait until anything happen. All actors are terrible, and there is no script, just amateur-level porn. It is the first hardcore film from Brazil, and it is also embarassingly the 20th Brazilian movie with greatest attendance in movie theaters inside the country ever, with more than 4.7 million spectators. Just for understanding what it means, if you take an internationally successful and very well done movie such as City of God (the 45th most attended Brazilian movie!), it had 3.3 million people attending it. Imagine a whole population that is composed by teenagers; that is how it looks like! By the way, what the hell was putting Ennio Morricone's sountrack for Sergio Leone's masterpiece Once Upon a Time in West for a scene of swinger couples playing naked in the beach?!
The Last Duel (2021)
Great movie on the middle ages and the fate of women
Very good film by Ridley Scott on the actually historical last judgement by duel in France. With great period production design and a good script showing each time the point of view of one of the three main characters, the movie explores various elements in middle ages: the role of woman, the issues of property and law, medicine before science, rule organization, taxes and vassalage, friendship and opportunities. The battle scenes, either in war or in the duel, are grimy, vicious and realistic. The fact that MArguerite's is the last version is perfect, and by watching all the three spectator understands why. It was more than a version, as the lettering anticipated.