Criticultura em Portugal

Donny Darko (2001) Written and Directed by Richard Kelly Starring Jake Gyllenhaal Graffiti (2015) Directed by Lluíz Quílez  Starring Oriol Pla Donny Darko , a wildly innovative sci fi-teen-apocalypse film, had the bad luck in premiering a couple months after the September 11 2001 attack on the World Trade center. The film had the very unfortunate plot element of having an airplane engine drop into a suburban home as its key driver, and apparently that was just a bit close to home for the movie-going public. Plus, the film did not offer standard escapist fare that was to dominate Hollywood for the next year or so. It bombed at the box office, but has subsequently become a cult hit, with massive video sales in the following years, and websites devoted to explaining it. The film also pretty much launched Jake Gyllenhaal’s career.  The film is based on a (now) fairly familiar wormhole/time loop/alternate universe plot, well -trodden in the Star Trek series. Alternate timelines were also

The Best Man (1964) Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner Starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson The 1960’s were a good time for cynicism about US elections. You might say “duh”, since Watergate and Trump have put the kibosh on any idealism we might have once had. But in 1964 we were still the era of Kennedy, so movies like last week’s T he Manchurian Candidate and The Best Man strikes me a radically outside the then-accepted narrative of American Goodness. The Best Man is even more dark than The Manchurian Candidate . At least in the latter, it was a foreign government trying to bring us down. The Best Man critiques the U.S. political process itself, ironically using big heroic stars like Henry Fonda to do so. The movie tells the story of William Russell (Fonda), a candidate for president in an unusual year when there is no clear favorite going into the convention. Fonda plays him as a flawed, cynical guy whose marital infidelities (post-Kennedy, pre-Clinton) and sham marriage are