Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Saturday. 10h30 AM. A theater full of kids. Preview of Disney's "Winnie the Pooh". Sleepy, I wasn't expecting much. This was not the big Disney release of the year, this was a 69 minute film focus solely on appealing to a children's audience. Yet, quite honestly, I WAS BLOWN AWAY. This was an amazing picture. Funny, visually appealing, moral-giver, didactic, and highly entertaining. After an animated short-film, also very compelling for a young audience, about the Loch Ness Monster, the main picture starts. It takes an inventive format, the narrator himself (John Cleese on the original version) interacts with the characters, as they (literary!) jump out of the book, stumbling over the paragraphs and the letters (even using the letters to story purposes). In and out of the storybook, the illustrations come to life in another adventure of the hungry-for-honey cute little bear. Pooh wakes up and is very hungry, but all his jars of honey are empty. He searches in vain for more honey. At the same time, his donkey friend, always blue and down on his feelings, has lost his tale. All the friends decide that whomever finds the tail shall earn a pot of honey. Everyone, the tiger, the pig, the owl, the rabbit and their human friend, young Christopher Robin, go in search of the tail, but none more than Pooh, getting more and more hungry. Then Robin disappears, and leaves a note saying he will be 'back soon', and all the animals think he was kidnapped by a creature named Backson, and hence try to catch him! "Winnie the Pooh" is an incredible simple adventure for children, full of moments to amuse, delight and instruct (most notably on the alphabet and words), catchy songs and the usual notions of friendship and loyalty. The only thing out of place seems to be Pooh's own personality, as he seems only interested in finding something to eat, using the other characters to his own egotistic purposes... Anyway, it was a magical film. Take your kids to it, or go feed the child in yourself. Only Disney can give this, and more than 70 years later, their ability to reach still the very heart of children is mesmerizing. This type of film is what children need growing up, and at least one studio in the world still releases them on the big screen. Hurray for Disney!

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

When the writer of "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" steps into the director's chair, you can expect everything except the ordinary. Spike Jonze droped out of directing this picture in favor of "Where the Wild Things Are" (2009), so Kaufman had his chance to shine, and apparently he did, as critic Roger Ebert named this the best movie of the 2000s. Yet, despite having seen all the films writen by Kaufman, and being fascinated by the way he weaves together dreams and the mind in the ultimate metaphors of human existence, I was disappointed with this picture. Maybe because I am not a middle aged man. Maybe because it was too intellectual for my capacities. Maybe because I failed to connect. Anyway, the metaphor, the structure, all were understandable, and the idea, the metaphor for life of a middle aged man to his death at old age, seen through the eyes of a larger than life theater play, is original and compelling. Yet, I found it very difficult to accompany the lengthy scenes, I found it even more difficult to keep track of the quick shifts the movie has. In the end, all is justifyable as part of the metaphor, and the life of the main character (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is constructed piece by piece, as a projection on his own play, but was the path chosen the easy one? Could not there be a simple way to tell the story, or Kaufman complicated it on purpose because, well, he is Kaufman? It seems so, and the lyric and moving tale seems to hard to swallow amidst all that is thrown to the audience. "Synecdoche, New York" tells the story of a neurotic and disease-obsessive playwright who, having won an award, spends his earned money to create a true to life play in a massive warehouse, where he creates live size replicas of New York blocks and has actors playing the people he knows, those around him, and even himself. This is crossed with his personal life, his first marriage and break-up, with his wife (Catherine Keener) and daughter moving to Germany, his affair with the secretary (Samantha Morton) and various actrices along the way, and his ultimate thoughts of loneliness and growing old. As he gets old, life and fiction cross, and the boundaries become indistinct between the scenario and the real city, between the real people and the actors playing them, and between Hoffman's life and that of the never finished play, as more than 20, 30 years go by in rehearsals. Time and space lose sense, and in the end, Hoffman loses his own identity as he searches the meaning for his play, that is, the meaning of life. Described so it seems a marvelous picture. I am reading what I am writing and I can barely believe I didn't like it. But it is so. Maybe it was the inexperience of the director. Maybe it was too over my head. Maybe it was just the fact that I am young still and the thoughts of the meaning of life and old age have not struck me yet. There was something there that made it too much, shall I say, artificial. Yet it has a superb cast and keeps in line with the type of innovative screen writing that Kaufman has used us. To view again in say, 20 years. Maybe then it will blow me away...

Scream 4 (2011)

With so many sequels and modern horror films, or spoofs such as "Scary Movie", it's quite easy to forget how really good the first Scream movie was. It revitalized a slasher genre that was lost in horrible sequels of the main "killers" of the late 70s, early 80s (including those created by Wes Craven himself), by taking a fresh approach through characters that were aware of themselves and of the rules of horror films, hence allying humour and gore in a blockbuster in a way never seen before. Yet, after an interesting second movie and a very inferior third, the Scream saga seemed over, having itself been fully worn out. After a quick reboot in the early 2000s with the first Saw and one or two others, the horror genre now lives bad days again, with low quality, blood thirsty remakes of the original films. So, the scenario seemed set for another "Scream", which could use its own humour and insightful knowledge to criticize these brainless remakes. And for the first few minutes, "Scream 4" seems to be up to the challenge. The opening sequence, using the movie within a movie Stab (catch the cameo by Anna Paquin), sends its message loud and clear to the remakes, and Wes Craven shows the boys how it's done. Yet, a little latter, Scream seems to be a victim of the same lack of originality. Is Wes Craven skilfully making the greatest ironical coment of all? Or is the Scream franchise so worn out that it has no more original ideas? In good 2000s tradition, "Scream 4" seems to be a remake of the original Scream. Back in Woodsborough, 10 years later, the killings re-start. Neve Campbell, Cortney Cox and David Arquette are in the action, but the killing does not seem to be revolving around them, but actually around Campbell's nice (Emma Roberts). And surrounding her, all the characters that seem very familiar from the original movie: the hot best friend, the strange boyfriend, and the two film geeks from high-school. Also there is the oportunistic reporter (Scream 2), the cop (Scream 3), and pretty much the same type of characters that can be suspects. Events unfold in this film in a rather strange structure. The first half is full of killings, set piece after another of people alone checking out strange noises and looking where they shouldn't, instead of running away. Some actions seem strange, as the characters only the scene before new the rules, but once the killer is around, they seem to forget that they did know those rules. The second half gets more interesting, as the climax approaches, and when it does, it is, to say the least, surprising, at a first glance. It definitly takes you off guard, and seems to be give the ultimate moral of the modern movie-killer, and why does he kill - a brainless, fame seeking character, in a world where the 15 minutes of fame is all that seems to matter. And this false ending was appealing and seemed to send the movie into a whole different direction, but then there was another twist that blew it for me. Anyway, and without revelaing the story, "Scream 4" was perhaps based too much on a material that is completly worn out, so the movie had little to go on to be original. The ending twist is original, but to get there all the killing scenes were seen before, all the characters were seen before, and the "lame-character development scenes" get worse and worse by the minute. Even so, I take a Scream movie anytime in favor of any franchise reboots that are appearing every year. At least the characers are funny (sometimes), the killer is not death-seeking for no reason, and there is an awareness of cinematic history and technics that transpires to the public, that is always regarded with a kind eye. Scream 4 is nothing special, but at least is not mindless entretainment. But please, not a Scream 5. It's done with!

Rio (2011)

Blu Sky studios have given us the Ice Age trilogy, "Robots" (2005) and "Horton Hears a Who" (2008), all of which, except this last one, had the handling of brazilian born Carlos Saldanha, who this time around chose his own home town for the setting of an animation picture. Yet "Rio" gives nothing new entertainment-wise, and it's own vision of Rio de Janeiro seems a soap opera one, or one that is given by a rich-born person. Curiously, it was last week that I saw "Tropa de Elite 2" and the two films seem set in two different town entirely. Of course that I know that this is an animation feel good movie, yet there are some liberties you can't take. You can't have the main (human) characters going up and down the "favela" all the time! Anyway, "Rio" presents a story of the Bird Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), who at a very young age was captured and sold. He found a home in Minessota, as a pet to a young and delicate young girl named Linda, who becomes a delicate and shy book store owner (voiced by Leslie Mann), whose best friend is this house broken bird. Therefore, Blu never learned how to fly and is perfectly happy with all house hold comforts. But one day a Brazilian scientist, Tulio, comes and says that he is the last male of it's kind, and is needed back in Brasil to mate with the last female, Jewel, (voiced by Anne Hathaway). So of goes bird and owner to Brazil, where the real adventure begins. Basically, Blu and Jewel are stolen, the bad guys try to sell them, Linda and Tulio try to find them, as all the while the birds try to escape. Blu learns to love the outdoors, and will eventually learn how to fly when it's really needed, and both couples (the birds and the humans), will gradually fall in love. The humor is worn out material: chases, falling, funny talking characters, making the animals do human things such as dancing to rap or Lionel Ritchie (actually that scene is pretty funny), and the constant ramblings of Blu (Eisenberg almost repeating his facebook experience). The rest is pretty much standard and the plot moves where it should. Yet there are inexplainable things, such as why are all brazilian birds voiced by african-americans (such as Jammie Foxx and Will.i.am), with cliche african-american expression such as "y'all" or "bro", how can the characters walk around Rio's favela at ease, and why, yet again, the evil bird (working for those who steal the birds), speaks with an english stage accent? A lot of cliches, little jokes (I don't find it funny a will.i.am bird rapping), and nothing new on the plot. Enough to entertain? Sure, go and see and have a nice time. A milestone in animation? Certainly not. Animals again following the same formulas of hate turn to love, dilemmas and stubbornness that melt into conquering fears at the end, a strong headed female character that also fall in love, and side characters that exist to be voiced by famous people and not the other way around. Nevertheless there are great scenes, as the climax at the Sambodromo, in Rio's Carnaval, or the opening (the only scene worthy of the 3D). Much talked about, you may say it's a disappointment, because it's just another animation movie with animals, of no special value than its superficial entertainment. And Saldanha gives the postcard view of Rio, which is true for Copacabana, and not for the rest of the city...And by the way, not even the "bird near extinction" message is given any thought, which just helps to enhance the feeling I had through all the movie: the elements were there, the plot was just not explored.

Moon (2009)

For a modern low budget sci-fi film of a first-time director, "Moon" is surprisingly good. Yet, it helps again to prove my theory that the good ideas for movies today are so scarce that a movie that has them presents them in isolation and that's it. "Moon"'s plot twist is very interesting but the movie has only that to show. In the hands of a master, in the hands of Kubrick, it would have been a masterpiece of sci-fi. Like this is just a good modern movie. Speaking of Kubrick, "Moon" starts as a Shinning in 2001's space, but after the twist is revealed, at 45 minutes into the film, the remaining 45 minutes go after a thing that the audience knows sooner or later will happen. The surprise ends. What remains is a brilliantly handled film, with superb performances (or should I say performance, as there is only one main actor), and great space set pieces, that make it hard to believe how cheap this movie was. Directed by David Bowie's son (!), Duncan Jones (his second film, "Source Code", is now in theaters), the story is set in a not so distant future. A corporation extracts green fuel from the moon's underground, and places a man there every three years to supervise operations. Sam Rockwell, plays that man, and we see him just as there less than 2 weeks to go on his contract. Alone for almost 3 years, he has a routine to keep sanity, and his only companion is Hal-like computer, voiced by Kevin Spacey. But what has been a quiet 3 years suddenly turns to sci-fi frenzy, as strange things start to happen. Then, driving a tank on the lunar surface, he has an accident, but wakes up again (not knowing how), on the base, where suddenly there is another man there, who proves to be the identical of himself... Who is this man? A clone? A figment of his imagination? How much does the computer know? What are the real plans of the corporation? (oh, how sci-fi loves corporations!) The movie is not very good in disguising the true story behind it, so the thrill is not on the unraveling, but on the way it is done, specially by Sam Rockwell's double performance. Funny, melancholic, and at times beautiful and hopeful in the space sequences with classic music in the background, it's a sci-fi film to see, if you are a fan of the genre. A pity they stumped on the same idea over and over again, that makes the paranoid parts easy to bare. More dilemmas and plot paths could be added, but for an inexperience writer/director, it's a hell of a good start, and a good nod to Kubrick!

Tropa de Elite 2 - O Inimigo Agora É Outro (2010)

Yesterday morning I had the pleasure to go to my shelf and pick up the DVD of the original "Tropa de Elite" (2007) to see again, a fabulous action movie that shows the perspective of an elite squad of the military police of Rio de Janeiro. It was a more wholesome movie than "Cidade de Deus", not taking an overblown perspective for the dramatic sake of the movie, but instead being a really eye-opener of the power structure inside the Brazilian "favelas", aided by kick-ass action scenes lead by the powerful presence of Wagner Mouras as Lt. Nascimento, the narrator of the film and leader of the squad. Three years later, the sequel was inevitable. Opening in Brazil last fall, it only reached Europe this week, and it was with eager anticipation that I saw it in a half-packed house last night. The first film had the squad tackle the enemy inside the favela, focusing on the low scum of drug dealers and the innocent by-standards affected by their actions. This second movie, as the tittle so aptly suggests, tackles a different enemy indeed - a political enemy, and the system itself, to which is allied a more emotional side related to the family of Nascimento. The first was more of a head-on action flick, but whose head had a well developed brain. This second outing was much more of an epic saga, following the rise of three or four characters over the course of a half a dozen years, including the corrupt cop that reaches mob like status, the small time politician that ends up being a big time one, etc, etc. Nascimento himself rises, from the command of the special forces to an office job supervising all operations. Good guys and bad guys, all are part of the system, and can't escape from it, for better or for worse. You can use the system to combat evil, but in doing so you will become a part of the system itself. And that system will always be corrupt. "Tropa de Elite 2" shows us this to perfection, and that the corruption of the political and police spheres is way higher than those of the petty drug dealer of the first film. And caught in the middle, Nascimento's growing up son, his ex-wife and his ex-wife new husband, a left-wing political rights activist, who wants to combat evil, but also rise politically (the only "coincidence" that seems forced in the film). The characters of Matias and Fabio are also back, each with their own rise and fall from grace. Director Jose Padilha, initially known for his documentary Onibus 174 (2002), only directed 2 films, the two "Tropa de Elite", the rest of his work being social documentaries. But he not only achieved the greatest grossing Brazilian film in history (and the most seen in Brazil, surpassing "Avatar"), but he created a worthy complement to the first film, an epic which rivals many mob-epics from Hollywood, and taking a much more political and social stand that must have stroke a chord in the Brazilian high spheres, but without leaving the breath-taking action sequences and the cliff-hangers that grip the audience to the next scene and the next and the next. The fight goes on, and the "Tropa de Elite" films keep up with the struggles of the brazilian society, at the same time as they present solid entertainment. A great action film with real social awareness, what more can you ask?

Arthur (1981)

In a time when remakes are all that Hollywood can produce, it is always a pleasure to go back to the more recent classics that, unfortunately, are bound to be transformed into something worse by the sheer sell out of their concept to modern audiences. “Arthur”’s remake will very soon hit theaters with none other than Russell Brand on the starring role that once, in a not so far away 1981, belong masterfully to Dudley Moore. The story of “Arthur” is nothing original in itself. It tells of Arthur, a childish man heir to a large fortune, who never worked a day in his life, who instead prefers to drive fast cars, pick up hookers, and drink a hell of a lot. One day he meets Liza Minnelli, a poor-fast-talking-waitress from Queens, they both click, and he suddenly finds a focus in life. The problem is that if Arthur does not marry the girl his father wants, he will be disinherited. He has to choose between love and money, and the end comes as no surprise. Yet, what makes “Arthur” a gem, is not this standard-easy-to-guess storyline, but rather the chemistry of the performances. Dudley Moore (Oscar nominated) is hilarious as Arthur, when he is sober, and hysterically funny when he is drunk. His chemistry with both his sarcastic butler John Gielgud and Minnelli are the heart and soul of the picture, with priceless pieces of dialogue and one liners. Gielgud won the Oscar for his portrayal of the all-british butler with a twist, with a poignant witticism allied with a tender soul when the occasion calls for (although his ultimate fate seems a bit forced). His first encounter with Minnelli is priceless with both acting geniuses measuring wits. Steve Gordon wrote and directed (his only film as director) this simple comedy with brilliant performances and tongue in cheek screenplay, that is well worth checking out. It also won Oscar for best music, for Burt Bacharach. The only thing that it’s unexplainable is the 3 out of 10 rating on imbd!! There is a lesser known sequel, 1988’s “Arthur 2: on the Rocks”. As for the remake, one may, as Mel Brooks would say, hope for the best, expect the worse. Come what may, one thing is for certain. Helen Mirren can try and mimic Gielgud’s performance, but Brand can never achieve Moore’s brilliance playing a drunk. Actually I don’t think no-one can, with the exception of Chaplin, and that’s saying a lot!