Criticultura em Portugal

Welcome to my culture blog. I enjoyed writing this when I lived in New York City (you can research my countless reviews in the archives). The abundant culture there gave me lots to think and write about. Sadly, Covid put a pause on that vibrant culture, at least for a while, and so ended my blog. But I am ready to return, now from the lovely beach town of Cascais Portugal. I moved here with Max the cat three weeks ago. Cascais is near Lisbon, which will provide an easy hub for me to report on the vibrant cultural scene there, but also throughout Europe. That's what I plan to do in this reboot of Criticulture , now called  Criticultura .   I will blog every 1-2 weeks. For those of you new to this blog format, the platform includes options for translation, as well as the option to subscribe using  a feed reader. The prior option to receive email reminders has, sadly, been terminated.  I hope you will be a regular reader, and offer comments as well. I tend to be opinionated, and may t

Die Bleirne Zeit ( aka The German Sisters, Marianne and Juliane, 1981) Directed by Margarethe von Trotta Starring Jutte Lampe German director Margarethe von Trotta (b. 1942) has made her name since the 1970s as a “feminist director”. The problem with labels like that is that they tend to stick and stereotype, especially for non-white, non-male directors. Would Spike Lee be engaged now to direct Titanic or Goodfellas? . Will Greta Gerwig, who was nominated for Best Director in 2017 (the last female so nominated) get to make something other than her two “women’s films” like Lady Bird (2017) or Little Women (2019)? Perhaps young directors always start with topics close to them culturally, but the best ones are allowed to branch out. We shall see. Von Trotta had to also break out of an additional mold, as the wife of renowned German director Volker Schl ö ndorff ( The Tin Drum ), who, by the way, got the chance to make a decent version of a “women’s film”, The Handmaid’s Tale (19

Little Children (2006) Directed by Todd Field Starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson   US director Todd Field (b. 1964) is an enigma. In the early part of this century he made two outstanding films that dissected and probed into the American consciousness, In the Bedroom (2001) and Little Children . Both have vividly written characters that have depth and resonance that lasts well after you have seen the movie. Like the great European directors, he writes his own screenplays, as a true auteur in the mode of Bergman or Lars von Trier. There is a unity of execution in these two movies that portended a brilliant film career, perhaps one to reach the levels of the greats. But then something happened. Field has vanished, with some proposed collaborations with major authors like Cormac McCarthy and Joan Didion never coming to fruition. Very strange, and quite sad, because these two films are superb, perhaps the strongest debut by any US director since Mike Nichols made Who’s Afrai

Stranger Things (2016-19) Written and directed by The Duffer Brothers Starring Wynona Ryder When I reviewed the compelling Donny Darko a few weeks ago, I read some articles saying how it had influenced many sci-fi and fantasy filmmakers over the start of this century, and particularly Spielberg-retro tributes like Stranger Things , a Netflix series that has now completed three seasons. Interested, I have binge watched it over the past couple weeks. It’s not something I would normally review, as it is wrenchingly popular entertainment. But I found it so staggeringly in-your-face imitative that I could not resist. So what is the boundary between a work of art paying homage or tribute to an earlier classic work, and simply ripping it off? This is probably a meaningless question. Composers and artists have copied themselves for years, especially after a big hit: in classical music Massenet’s Manon begat Le Portrait de Manon , Bach’s Mass in B minor reuses many earlier pieces fr

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