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 ...

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 ...

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Directed by John Frankenheimer Starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury The Manchurian Candidate (2004) Directed by Jonathan Demme Starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep The 1962 classic film The Manchurian Candidate points out that no matter how anxious we feel about the present era, it’s better than living in 1962, when nuclear missiles were being installed nearby and the world seemed on the brink of destruction. This edgy, tense film ably reflects its era, and projects a nervous forward motion that few films succeed at. And that includes the 2004 remake, quite nicely done with a director skilled in action and suspense movies (e.g. The Silence of the Lambs ), and an all-star cast including Denzel and Meryl. But it just cannot quite make us as nervous as that earlier version did. The plots of both versions are very similar. A soldier is kidnapped in battle, and is released as a hero, winning the Medal of...

Election (1999) Directed by Alexander Payne Starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick Leading up to the presidential election, I will focus on several election-oriented films of different styles. The first, Election , is a comedy I admired when it came out, but enjoyed even more now, as it seemed to foresee things like millenial-generation overachievement, the Bush-Gore hanging chad controversy, and even our own president’s campaign style. The director Alexander Payne (b. 1961) is known for his dark humor in films like Sideways (2004), and this one is certainly in that genre. This film stars the 23-year-old Reese Witherspoon near the start of her career, when she was just getting bigger roles. This one led to numerous awards. She plays Tracy Flick, an intense high school student determined to bulldoze her way to success, starting with winning the high school student council president election. Her opponents are a football hero Paul (Chris Klein) known for his terminal niceness...

La Camarista (The Chambermaid) (2018) Directed by Lila Avilés Starring Gabriela Cartol Roma (2018) Directed by Alfonso Cuarón Starring Yalitza Aparicio These two 2018 films from Mexico seem superficially similar, at least regarding plot. Both deal with the travails of a maid, and starkly contrast the differences between the classes. These are not just differences in creature comforts, education, and priorities, but contrasts in opportunity and the ability to survive setbacks. Both star Mexican actresses whose physical short stature and indigina appearance contrast with the more light-skinned and taller people they serve. And both lead actresses give ultra-realistic, natural, unforced performances that make us pull for them. However, the two movies could not be more different in approach, appearance, and emotion. When I reviewed Roma in 2018, I marveled at the complexity of construction, including sound design, visual metaphors, and virtuosic camera work that captured the Mexico of ...