Dark Knight

Walking back home from the movies tonight I must've thought of a few dozen ways to start this post. I've settled with stating that this movie will blow our mind away. It's really late and I'm lazy, so I'll probably not write as much as the movie deserves, but I'll say this: I probably watched both the best movie of the year and the best comic book-based movie ever made. It's that good. It's long, it's unbelievably tense, it's smart, it's disturbing, it's genius. Batman Begins was incredible, but Dark Knight is so much more! Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan are their usual, incredibly talented selves, as in the previous movie. Good ol' Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are still there. But now there's so much more to it...
I'm sure you've heard this before, but Heath Ledger is simply uncanny, he just got the Joker. And I think "getting" goes a long way in describing this movie: the writer got the characters. The story in itself doesn't come straight from any one book that I know. But, somehow, he just got the characters: he was able to distill all the decades of Batman, Joker and Harvey Dent in an amazing, brilliant, two and a half hour long story. I'm in awe, and I definitely will watch it again, this time in IMAX, before I fly back to Brasil. Summer has been good to us so far, making up for last year: Indy, Iron Man, Hulk, Wanted, Sarah Marshall, Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E. But we got a clear winner: just go watch it and then tell me what you think.

Wanted

Angelina Jolie is hot. Don't worry, I don't intend to just restate the obvious here, but it had to be said. Now that I got it out of my system, I can talk a little bit about the actual movie. I've been seeing trailers for this for quite a few weeks now, and it impressed me a lot. It looked so cool, may be even a new Matrix (only the "redefining what action looks like" part of Matrix, not the smart philosophical part). This, according to my good friend Diego, is the adaptation of a great comic book (as usual, the book is supposed to be less simplistic and all). The movie is great fun, it really is, it just fell a little short of my expectations.
First for the good things: have I mentioned Angelina Jolie is damn hot?! :-) Action sequences are awesome. That's it, but what else do you need, right?! (The ending is pretty cool too, but if I say anything about it, I'll probably spoil it.)
Bad stuff: story is simplistic and completely ill-explained. Also, it's just too much: there is no action sequence that is even remotely realistic, and a handful of them are so damn impossible that you're just seating there saying "What the fuck"?!?! By the way, they even use the Matrix trick of starting the movie with anmore-than-impossible action sequence that hits you in the face with a "people do impossible shit in this movie" warning. But, unlike Matrix, there is no plausible-in-their-universe explanation for why people can do such things, as here you're left with: heart rate goes abruptly up and everything slows down because they got some much adrenalin in their brain. Come on!!!!! There is not enough slow motion in the whole fucking world for that!!
Finally, that over-the-top unrealistic quality and the lack of any mildly interesting characters, aside from Angelina Jolie's and, maybe, James McAvoy's, is where the movie falls short. I don't think anybody will be remembering or copying this movie in a year or so from now, but it's definitely good, friday-night fun.

Alanis Morissette & M. Night Shyamalan

I'm sure you've all asked yourself once or twice, what do Alanis Morissette and writer/director M. Night Shyamalan have in common. Well, rejoice, for now I'll tell you exactly that. Both of them came out of nowhere in the '90s (this is sort of a half-true 'cause Alanis was a teen pop diva in Canada, but she had been kinda of forgotten by them... anyway, bear with me) and took the world b assault: Jagged Little Pill, Morissette's 1995 sort-of-debut (again, teen pop diva) was the biggest selling album ever by a female artist and got mostly rave reviews; Shyamalan's sort-of-debut, Sixth Sense, was the surprise hit of the year, got a bunch of Oscar nominations, and made him the rising star in Hollywood.
Then came their follow-up works: Supposed Former Infactuation Junkie (probably my favorite Alanis album, not very popular opinion though), Unbreakable, Signs, Under Rug Swept, MTV Unplugged, The Village, So-Called Chaos. With each new release, less and less people liked them; I, on the other hand, was firmly believing they were still cool, as I mostly enjoyed all of Shyamalan's movies (except for that stupid ending in Signs... what the hell were you thinking, Nighty??!) and it would take a lot to get me off Alanis... and then came 2008.
I've been reading about Alanis' new album for a few months now, and ever since I came to the US, I haven't been to one movie and not seen the trailer for The Happening. This, I thought naively, was it: finally they would return to their former glory and I would be proven right. To be honest, I wasn't that excited about Alanis' album, but the trailer for The Happening was really cool, I really thought it would be good. Then came the bombs... Flavors of Entanglement sucks. The Happening is one of the worst movies of the year, the year of Speed Racer and Vantage Point!! What happened, guys?!?!
Flavors of Entanglement is derivative and electronic-y, which seems to be the way Alanis is headed since Under Rug Swept. Honestly, the only good song of the album is Not As We, a piano ballad where there is basically no room for the over-production that haunts the rest of the album. The thing I always loved about Alanis was her lyrics, but the music in this album is so uninteresting that I haven't really gotten interested in checking out the lyrics (well, except for Not As We, that is). And even though I'm pretty sure Alanis can still write, I don't think I'll be looking at those lyrics anytime soon.
The Happening is bad. No, strike that, it's terrible. There's not one really good thing about it. Well, Shyamalan can still direct (sort of), there are some chilling moments, but that's it. The acting is horrible (can that be the same Mark Whalberg from The Departed?!?!?). The script is a joke. I know why all those people are killing themselves: they saw the damn movie!!!
So there you go: what do Alanis and Nighty have in common? They both showed up with masterpieces and took the world by surprise in the '90s. Then they both grew less and less popular, but kept me as a fan while losing basically everybody else. And now, in june/2008, they've both lost me. Pity.

Summer (or something like it) has arrived

So, I was supposed to have written this a couple of weeks ago when I watched Iron Man, but never got around to: summer (in the US, that is) has begun again, and with it some interesting movies are coming out, thank God!! Iron Man was pretty cool, fun enough a good start to Marvel Comics' new role as a full studio. This week I watched Speed Racer in IMAX (oh, yeah, I'm in the US right now by the way), and it was proof that size doesn't matter; it felt like it sucked twice as much because i was twice as big!! But today was a glorious day, Indiana Jones is back!!!! And he's got it for some weird shiny crystal skull, apparently. Indy is a classic, never matched by any other adventure movie. This last installment has everything that made it so: incredibly talented people, fast pace, great sense of humor, great action scenes, incredibly impossible scenes and legends. If anybody had any doubts about Harrison Ford's ability to do it again, think again: he's still great as ever. Shia LaBeouf is a pretty worthy successor to Indy's charisma, and is pretty cool in his James Dean persona. And, well, Karen Allen is Marion, period (actually I wish she had a little more screen time and got to show off a little more of her personality, like she did in Raiders... but nothing is perfect). I don't really know if I liked Cate Blanchett's weird Russian chick, but it definitely wasn't enough to put me off. On the directing front, Spielberg proves himself once again: the camera travels around the scenes perfectly, showing us incredibly creative and beautiful shots. Well, I could talk all day about how cool this movie is, and about the few details I didn't like, but it would be boring and I would probably spoil some surprise for the few brave ones that read through to the end: just go watch the movie and enjoy it, you're gonna have a blast!!! Oh, and for the curious, I'm in Seattle right now, will do a post about that sometime soon... cheers, guys!!

Dylan & Reeves

It's been awhile, but what better way to get back to blogging than to talk about some movies I watched over the long weekend? :-)
Let's start with Bob Dylan's "unconventional" biography, I'm not there. To be totally honest, I was kind of under-impressed with it: I was expecting amazing, epic, timeless; all I got was pretty good. And, well, pretty weird too. The whole idea of telling the story through different characters representing Dylan's "personas" was really interesting, but the execution was a little too confusing for me, maybe I didn't know enough about Dylan to understand it all, maybe I just wasn't having a particularly smart day... But, confusing storytelling aside, the movie is very entertaining, filled with great music (how could it not?), with an amazing cast at the top of their game (kudos Cate Blanchet!!!), and, just to be sure I'd really enjoy it, the funniest Beatles reference!! Overall, it's a pretty good movie, real original, but just a little below my expectations.
Yesterday was a holiday, so what better way to spend it (in a beach-less city, I might add), then to wake up late, go to the movies and then go out for some beers? So that's what I did, pity nothing really good was on, so I has to settle for Keanu Reeves' latest flick, Street Kings. I don't like Keanu Reeves, he's probably one of the worst really famous actors out there. But, goddamnit, he is a lucky son of a bitch. He's been playing the same characters for a decade or so (except for trying out some Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing... hum, even I was embarassed for him on that one), but it seems to work with an unbelievably high frequency. This time around good ol' Neo has a slightly higher tendency to kill than usual, and he basically goes Rambo on a lot of sad bastards unlucky enough to be on his way (cheesy, hey?? Well, just so you get the feel of the movie :-) ). It's pretty cool to see Forest Whitaker try to yell some depth into the dullest character ever, but the best part by far was seeing Hugh Laurie (House, for the uninitiated) walking and not limping!!!! Now that was cool. The funny thing is, even with a lot going against it (lack of originality comes to mind), the movie is actually pretty good, some nice, forgettable entertainment, the kind Hollywood is so good at. Well, keep 'em coming.
On a sidenote, I finally have a home in BH!!! Will post some news/photos soon.

Psycho and Stanford Theatre

There's this very cool, old-fashioned theatre in Palo Alto called the Stanford Theatre. It's a theatre from the '20s that got some attention in the late '80s and since then only shows old movies, with great decoration and ambiance (if you haven't noticed there is a guy playing a Wulitzer organ in the photo on the right... it's very cool, he plays before and after the movie, and he did a part Psycho's soundtrack!!!). The main hall is all decorated with old movie posters, and there's always some cool memorabilia related to the movies currently playing. Particularly this past week they had the last days of a Hitchcock festival, featuring Psycho and The Birds.
Now, I'm not really fond of The Birds... I watched it a few years ago but couldn't understand what the hell everybody saw in it. Psycho, on the other hand, is a timeless classic: not even the bad memories brought about by Gus Van Sant's "version" (basically, a frame-by-frame copy of the original with the expection of picking a bad cast, using color, and of a unnecessary scene of Bates jerking off). I watched it last monday. Psycho has grown old a little bit... the countless times we've seen the shower scene takes the edge off it, but luckily there's dozens of other scenes just as good, but a lot less exploited... Everything is top notch: Anthony Perkins gives one of the most memorable performances ever as poor, lonely Norman Bates... Hitchcock is at his best, orchestrating one memorable scene after the other... the soundtrack is amazing... even the black & white photography seems perfect!! It's an amazing, memorable movie, and it was really cool watching it in the Stanford Theatre (and getting to listen the guy wailing Psycho's soundtrack at the end!).

Quick Note

A couple of quick notes:

1-) If you're thinking about watching Vantage Point, please DON'T! It's so bad it hurts, and it's giving 10.000 B.C. a decent run for worst movie of the year.

2-) One of the best nerdy jokes I've seen lately (from the nerdiest of all comics, xkcd):

A very bad year for movies

Hey, it's been a while, right?? Well, life's been crazy lately, haven't found an apartment yet, new job's been very demanding (end of quarter), I've been back and forth from Salvador more often than usual... oh, yeah, and my masters (similar to this blog) hasn't seen much action... but, one thing's still the same: I've been going to the movies! And, well, I've been mostly disappointed, with a few noteworthy exceptions. So, for starters the best movie of 2007 is Tropa de Elite, hands down (and kudos to the Berlinale for recognizing that!). I've seen most of the Oscar nominees, and they're no competition whatsoever. Actually, 2007 was such a bad year that any of the 2006 Top 5 would be the best movie of 2007. Both No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood are very good movies that will be forgotten in a few months. Juno is cute, but no Little Miss Sunshine. The comedies were pretty good, though... Superbad and Knocked Up are awesome!! Finally, the movie I enjoyed the most was Across the Universe,
I guess hundreds of people must've thought of making a movie musical with Beatles songs; if they hadn't, it should've come to them after Moulin Rouge! came out. That's exactly what they do here, they use 35 Beatles songs to tell the story of the '60s, of Jude and Lucy, Max, Sadie, Jojo and a bunch of other names right out of the songs we all love. Their use of the songs is amazing: some are obvious but very well done, some are surprising and some are amongst the most moving things I've seen lately (the gospel version of Let It Be is really amazing). The only one song I didn't enjoy so much was For The Benefit or Mr. Kite, but I guess 34 out of 35 is pretty good, right? :-)
The movie tells the story of Liverpool-boy-but-America-bound Jude and Ivy League-bound girl Lucy, who meet and (yeah, you guessed it!) fall in love. They happen to move to NY during one of the most complicated (and fun) moments in recent American history (late '60s, Vietnam, Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination, Psychodelia) and we live it all through their lives and the Fab Four's songs. If you're a Beatles fan you're gonna have the time of your life. If you're not a Beatles fan, well, you should just rethink a whole lot of things now, shouldn't you?

American Gangster

I seriously think that, after The Godfather's, only Martin Scorcese should be allowed to make gangster movies. There it is, I said it. I doesn't matter how talented the people involved are (and you don't get much better than Denzel Washington, Russel Crowe and Ridley Scott); it doesn't matter how good the story is; it doesn't matter how much money goes into the production, how many awards it gets... it always feels like it's lacking something. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good movie; it's just not good enough to stand up against Casino, Goodfellas, The Departed, and so on... it's the story of Frank Lucas, a nice fellow with a tendency for sudden fits of rage (he's specially fond of banging people's heads against stuff) that became the most successful drug dealer in the US during the Vietnam years. It's also the story det. Richie Roberts, the most honest cop ever, who is gonna spend the better part of the movie trying to catch Lucas (actually, he first has to find out who Lucas is...)
The movie is a bit too long and still manages to have kind of a sudden ending... it's weird. Some parts of the story aren't really clear and I think that there isn't enough violence and tension to keep the mood for 157 minutes. Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe are both very good, as we've come to expect, but this isn't a carrer-high for any of them. We've seen they play this before.
All in all this a very good movie; just not the classic I was expecting. And since last year's The Departed is still fresh in our memory, I think American Gangster is gonna have a tough time this awards season.
On a sidenote, a very promising thing to come out of this movie might be the "unofficial soundtrack" released by Jay-Z; apparently he watched the movie and got so inspired he just had to write an entire album about his own experience as a street hustler.

Hairspray [Movie]

I've already seen a few movies I'd like to talk a little about since I last posted. Let's see if I get to talk about all of them this time. First of all, there's Hairspray. This movie musical is just sheer, old-fashioned fun. The best part is that it isn't that silly kind of comedy... it's actually a really sarcastic (thus, funny) criticism of a big part of american society. It takes place in the '60s, the beginning of the end of all the segregation between black and white people. Basically it follows Tracy's story, a chubby teenager that dreams of being a dancer on a "cool kids" TV show in Baltimore. As in any musical, the soundtrack is of utter importance, and this one gives a lot of fuel to the movie: funny, bright, cheerful songs about some dire times; songs about pride of being black and/or fat (the two groups of people that fight against discrimination in the movie). When you're first introduced to the nicest kids in town they sing:

[The nicest kids in town] throw off their coats
And leave the squares behind
And then they shake it, shake it, shake it
Like they're losing their mind
You'll never see them frown
'Cause they're the nicest kids in town
...
Nice white kids
Who like to lead the way
And once a month
We have our "negro day!"
...
So every afternoon
Drop everything
(bop-bee-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, bee-ba)

Who needs to read and write
When you can dance and sing?
(bop-bee-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, bee-ba)

Forget about your algebra
And calculus
You can always do your homework
On the morning bus
Can't tell a verb from a noun
They're the nicest kids in town

When I heard that song I immediately got excited and thought: OK, this is gonna be good. And good it was. This song sets the tone for most of what's to come; not so subtle, very sarcastic critique of a society about to be swept by a big wave of change. Just great!!! I couldn't not mention one particular song, , that goes something like:

...
but i won't ask you to be color blind
'Cause if you pick the fruit
Then girl, you're sure to find...

The blacker the berry
The sweeter the juice
I could say it ain't so
But darlin', what's the use?

The darker the chocolate
The richer the taste
And that's where it's at...
...now run and tell that!!
...

Come on, that's just awesome!!! :-) Besides all the great music and sarcasm, the cast is really good too. The girl they found to play Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) is perfect: just about with the right "chubbyness", charisma, smile, voice and dancing skills (for the part, that is)... and what can one say about John Travolta playing her 300 hundred-pound mom?? Just brilliant!!!! It's not often you get such a plain fun movie addressing such important topics... I don't know how they did it, but it's an amazing mix of great music, great cast and relevant storytelling... unless you're seriously prejudiced against movie musicals you should try and watch this.

Tropa de Elite [Movie]

I have only one thing to say about Tropa de Elite: Fuckin' Awesome!!!!! I don't remember the last time I was this blown away; I seriously think it's the best movie of the year so far, and a definite candidate to hold the crown all the way through. It tells the story of a captain of Rio de Janeiro's special ops division who's having a baby and wants to quit the force but first has to find and train a worthy successor. It's raw realism in depicting the urban war in Rio is shocking, and to know that it's actually based on a (n apparently very badly written) novel by a former captain of the special ops just enhances it's effect. The cast is amazing, and Wagner Moura, I'd say along with Lázaro Ramos, Selton Melo, Rodrigo Santoro, is definitely firming his position as one of the most important actors of his generation. The movie is violent, funny and real, it's a slap in the face of many, many people.
By now everybody's seen Cidade de Deus (City of God) and the comparison is unavoidable: I honestly don't know which is the better one: it'll take a few days and another go at Tropa de Elite before I can make up my mind. Tropa de Elite is that good.

Knocked Up [Movie]

This weekend I went to the movies to see the surprise hit of the season, Knocked Up. With the atrocious translation to portuguese of the title (something like "Somewhat Pregnant"... what the hell does that mean anyway??!! You're either pregnant or not!! It's not like being somewhat hungry...) and all, it was pretty hard to convince anyone to come with me at all, but I guess since we were late and there was almost nothing else to watch I got lucky and everybody settled for Knocked Up. I really didn't know what to expect: on the one hand, something told me, perhaps how silly that guy looks, this was going to be a pretty silly comedy; on the other hand, it was a huge hit (yeah, even with critics) and was rated 7.9 in IMDb, which is unbelievably high for a comedy. So we went and I think that even my grumpy-hate-silly-comedies friend liked it (yeah, Nanda, that's you!!!). First of all, it's not that silly at all, it actually gets somewhat serious approaching the end... I won't name names, but there was some crying going on around me!! :-) Basically, the story is about this amazingly beautiful girl, who just got her break as an on-camera reporter and goes out to celebrate. She meets this very charming, curly-haired guy and, well, after a few drinks gets pregnant. Most of the jokes are about their (very different) worlds clashing, and you get some pretty good laughs off it all. Of course, he's gonna grow more mature and all that shit, and that's when the movie gets more serious. I shouldn't tell more about the story, don't wanna ruin it for anyone, but Paul Rudd's characters (the girl's brother-in -law) is just awesome, and some of the best scenes of the movie are due to him. It's definitely an unusual, worthwhile comedy, written and directed by the same guy from 40 Year Old Virgin, and with two of the four main actors. Keep an eye out for Superbad, already out on the US but far from it here, it's by quite a few of the same guys!!!! Who knows, may be we're seeing a (well overdue!!!) renewal of the whole comedy scene...

Closer [Movie]

A couple of days ago I put a quote here, saying it was from one of the best-written movies of the decade, a movie that I love!! The movie is Closer, and it's written by Patrick Marber, adapted from his own play (also called... yeah, you guessed it, Closer!!). I was blogging about it 'cause I finally bought the DVD last week, and watched it over again... it's an awesome movie, anyone who hasn't seen it should definitely give it a shot. I've already mentioned the script, it's a character-driven impressively well-written drama, with dialogues that will leave you wondering for quite some times... it's really raw, with people so fucked-up you're left wondering whether you know people like that, or who knows if you're a little bit like them too... another great quote from the movie is

Dan: I want Anna back.
Larry: She's made her choice.
Dan: I owe you an apology. I fell in love with her. My intention was not to make you suffer.
Larry: So where's the apology? Ya cunt.
Dan: I apologize. If you love her you'll let her go so she can be happy.
Larry: She doesn't want to be happy.
Dan: Everybody wants to be happy.
Larry: Depressives don't. They want to be unhappy to confirm they're depressed. If they were happy they couldn't be depressed anymore. They'd have to go out into the world and live. Which can be depressing.


Then there's the direction. Mike Nichols is a genious. I mean, he actually has more bad movies ('80s and '90s) than really good ones (his first few movies, and Closer); but he's still an amazing director... The performances he gets from each of the four main actors in this movie is unique: I've never seen any of them nearly as immersed and convincing as in Closer. Specially Clive Owen and Natalie Portman, nominated for the supporting actor/actress Oscars (why the hell "supporting", I mean if there's a main character, it's definitely Alice), for whom I cheered a hell of a lot, but not enough to turn the head of the Oscar-voters... Portman's performance is specially meaningful because she is a great actress that needs good directing... she's given us great performances (such as this one, V for Vendetta, Garden State) but anyone who's seen the new Star Wars trilogy (and who hasn't, right?) knows that she needs good directing and that George Lucas is no good for that.
All in all, a movie that is so well-written, brilliantly directed and enacted couldn't go wrong. It certainly is sort of disturbing, really raw at times, but is a worthwhile experience, a peek into a very pessimistic view of relationships and how unexplainable and unavoidable people's behavior is sometimes...

Little pearl of a quote...

Dan: Didn't fancy my sandwiches?
Alice: Don't eat fish.
Dan: Why not?
Alice: Fish piss in the sea.
Dan: So do children.
Alice: Don't eat children either.

This is a quote from a movie that I just love... probably one of the Top 5 best-written movies of the decade... anyone knows what it is?? Come on, I even left the names of the characters there... just don't Google on it 'cause it's not fair!!! :-)
I'll probably post about it on the next couple of days, but if anyone knows what's the name of the movie, comment on it...

Movies on Sunday

Yesterday, being a Sunday and all, I woke up pretty late, had a lazy lunch and watched a movie, The Good Shepherd... later on, after some goofing around, I went to the movies and watched I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry... it was a pretty eclectic Sunday, movie-wise... pitty none of them was particularly good... The good Shepherd is a loooong drama about the "birth" of CIA, so it starts right before the US gets into WWII (when Matt Damon's character is recruited) and goes until the Kennedy era... it's a solid movie. Robert DeNiro is actually a really good director, and the cast is good too... but the movie is just too damn slow and confusing... I'll admit: I didn't get the ending at all... of course I won't discuss it here, if you want to know about it, you too have to go through the 3-hour-process of finding out, but if anybody out there got it, please let me know... I have quite a few questions I wish someone could answer...
As to I Pronounce You... what can I say??? Well, If you've seen any Adam Sandler movie at al you know the drill (except for 50 First Dates, I love that movie!!!!) it's pretty much same ol' same ol'... pretty funnyy at times, dull some other times... stupid ending (that Goddamn "Dead Poets Society"-effect again!), but good enough for a Sunday night overall... if you like that sort of silly movies, that is...

Marvel Movies

OK, so yesterday I wanted to watch a movie and have some pizza, so I went to the video store. The thing is I stumped my foot really bad, and walking around the video store forever (as I usually do) really hurt. So after a few minutes of not finding anything good I hadn't seen yet, I saw The Ghost Rider... I know, I said something good, right?? But, let's face it: I'd have to watch it eventually anyways, so I just thought "what the hell, I'll take it!" I had very low expectations for this movie (as would any sane person), but even then it was bad. It's an ugly movie, the effects kinda suck, the action scenes look like cartoon (which is sort of what they are), and it is stupid as hell. I mean, I won't even go over the shred of a script that it has, it's just not worth the trouble... but I gotta mention one quote, so you know just how stupid it is... at one point of the movie, Johnny Blaze (who sold hist soul to the Devil and thus got the whole plot of the movie going by being turned into the Ghost Rider) says: "He may have my soul, but he doesn't have my spirit." Come on!!! That's just embarrassing...
So, even though I wanted to blog on this stupid, stupid movie, I didn't think it deserved a whole post of its own. So I decided to do a quick and dirty retrospective of Marvel Comics-based movies which became really huge business in the last few years... OK, even though movies and cartoons based on Marvel characters have been made before, only in 1998 did things begin to get serious with Blade. I mean, I don't even think they themselves took stuff like Nick Fury or Captain America seriously... but Blade rocks, and it showed everybody that the house of X-Men, Hulk and Spider-Man could maybe compete head to head with the house of Superman and Batman (which was going through a really rough period in the '90s too, with the whole Batman & Robin fiasco...) Well, a couple of years after Blade, in 2000, we got to watch X-Men, and, well, the rest is history... two more X-Men, two more Blade, three Spider-Man, two Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra and this Ghost Rider thing afterwords, Marvel Comics actually got enough money to start its own studio and, from now on, is gonna make movies about their characters by itself (well, at least the characters that aren't already sold to other studios as most of the aforementioned). So, if they steer away from fiascos like Ghost Rider, Marvel is bound to become a pretty strong force in the movie-making business, with as of yet unexploited characters such as Iron Man, Hulk (let's face it Ang Lee, your Hulk sucks), Captain America, Avengers, Dr. Strange, and many many more...
So, to end this (already pretty big) post, my rank of Marvel movies so far:

1. Spider-Man 2
2. Spider-Man and X-Men 3
3. X-Men 2
4. X-Men
5. Blade (1, 2 and 3)
6. Spider-Man 3
   
7. Fantastic Four
   
8. Daredevil
9. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
   
10. Hulk
11. Elektra, The Ghost Rider
    

And I'd say my threshold is Daredevil: anything below that isn't worth the price of admission.

Bourne [Movies]

So, last Tuesday I finally watched The Bourne Ultimatum. I'd heard wonders about it, which includes it getting 10/10 from Set magazine (the biggest movie magazine in Brasil, albeit a not very good one) and it being rated 8.5 in IMDb as the 20th best movie ever to include "action" in its genre (the list includes movies such as The Matrix, Fight Club, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, Apocalipse Now, The 7 Samurai and The Good, the Bad and th Ugly). So I had my hopes very high for this one, specially since the first two Bourne's were pretty cool. A couple weeks ago I re-watched both The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy, just to be sure the whole "Bourne dilemma" was fresh in my mind. And there I went. First of all: God bless Paul Greengrass, he really is an amazing director (well, at least for action/thrillers). He really has a unique style, the camera is always moving, and very nervously so. And the best thing is he perfected that technique in the third part of the trilogy: what was a little sloppy and annoying in Supremacy (I mean, it was pretty hard to understand any of the fights), was perfectly done in Ultimatum. Second, you have to praise the cast, specially Matt Damon; his presence holds the whole thing together. And I even liked Julia Stiles in this one!!! All the fight scenes are really impressive and raw, and the fight between Bourne and Desh is as good as any I've seen, reminding me a little bit from the very beginning of Casino Royale (but in full color). In the end it's movie about Bourne's quest for knowledge of himself, and when he finally gets it (in series of pretty shocking flashbacks), he must fight to cope with it all. Besides being one of the best "action/thriller" movies I've seen, it's a great movie period. It's so seldom you see a true trilogy that actually makes sense and finishes on a top note that it's refreshing. And in a year as weak as this one has been, it's probably on my Top 5 list so far.

The Simpsons [Movie]

OK, The Simpsons used to be the one exception to the rule about never dubbing stuff: I don't know where the hell they found the guy, but whoever did Homer in portuguese was just freakin' hilarious, far better than the original guy!!! I didn't quite understand why, but they got someone new to do it for the movie and it's not the same. That aside, the movie is pretty good, maybe like a good Simpsons episode, not one of the best though... I don't know why the hell these cartoon scriptwriters can't live without that dull part of the movie where everything kinda gets screwed up for the main character and he's forced to realize how wrong he was the whole time, repent and live happily ever after (in this particular case, all this happens in Alaska, which doesn't help shaking off the whole dullness of the moment)... and if they really need it, why does it have to be so mind-numbingly boring?!?!!? Those lonely walks, sad song on the background... it's like wasting 10 minutes of the damn movie... and Simpsons is no exception to that rule... it starts off great, maybe for the first 40 minutes or so it's the funniest thing... then, it kinda gets stuck for 15-20 minutes, and almost manages to recover (but not quite) by the end... sorry, but in my book South Park did far better than the Simpsons on the big screen... (even though, South Park too had the whole repent scene, but it takes like a minute or so...)
It's still pretty funny, much better than your average comedy... but after "18 year in the making", I kinda expected better from these guys...

Just to finish off on a good note, here's a pretty cool version of the title song... you reckon this guy

From Russia with Love [Movie]

So this is my first (guest) post on Demian's blog. As my Hesse-inspired friend wrote, we've started a James Bond marathon (a marabond if you will). From Russia with Love (1963) might be considered one of the best Bond films but I wasn't terribly enthusiastic after watching the movie.

Yes, I do agree that the plot is better devised and enacted than Dr. No's. And yes, Daniela Bianchi, the Bond girl, is definitely a better actress than... oh wait, Ursula Andress (Dr. No's Bond girl) shouldn't even be considered an actress, so no comparison here. Apart from this, I don't know... Dr. No was the first film of the series, so there's an inherent charm to it. We forgive everything because it was the first, it started an era, it created an industry. It defined Bond. However, I didn't end up with the same fondness for From Russia with Love. I found the action scenes choreographically (is this a word?) poor, I didn't like the oh-so-stereotypical portrait of Turkey and the gypsies (should I say travellers?), I didn't like the casting, and I was quite fed up with those cliché Bond lines that seemed too excessive, including the ending scene. But then again, I might have been in the wrong mood.

Of course there are good things about the movies, and the second in particular: the opening scene that's a distinctive feature of James Bond's movies, the gadgets we all love, the spy story that captivates so many of us... and, ha!, the famous hand petting the cat that Mike Myers perfectly mimics in Austin Powers. Ok, I admit I don't have much to write. It was an ok film and I'm tired of writing about it. Let's wait for the next movie.

One interesting note: Tatiana Romanova's (Daniela Bianchi's character) voice was dubbed by another woman.

One odd note: while I was watching the film I wondered if Margaret Mead had the opportunity of watching the first Bond movies, or reading the novels. Weird thought.

Dr. No [Movie]

I am starting, together with a couple of friends, a James Bond Marathon. We intend to watch all 007 seven movies in the next couple of weeks... I just hope I can survive it. I haven't really seen any of the 007's before Pierce Brosnan came along in Goldeneye, so this should be very educational. We started yesterday with Dr. No, the first time ever on the big screen a martini was asked "shaken, not stirred". This was in 1962, with an appallingly young Sean Connery accompanied by a bunch of hotties that are probably grandmas nowadays... but, what the hell, they looked pretty good in 62, I must say... specially that Taro chick and, of course, Ursula Andress... OK, but what about the movie? Well, it's kind hard to analyze it... it's a pretty good movie, that's for sure. And even though by now you've seen it all about a hundred times, you still gotta give credit where credit is due... Sean Connery is awesome, more cynical than I thought possible... all the girls are incredibly bad actresses, except maybe for Moneypenny... I mean, horrible actresses... but Connery more than makes up for it, he certainly takes over anytime he's onscreen (nothing like, for instance, that 007 movie with Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry where I would constantly find myself wondering "Bond, who?")...
The whole movie feels 45 years old many times, you're hard pressed not to laugh when "The Dragon" appears... Dr. No is not really the scariest of villains, I guess that somewhere along the next couple of movies they learned that, even though the big villain (Dr. No in this one) should be surrounded in mystery (and he is), you need a very nasty-looking goon to be on the movie from the beginning and antagonize Bond... and the closest they get to that is a pretty lame attempt (whose name I shouldn't say to avoid the risk of spoiling it for you guys)... but it's almost all there, everything that made Bond the icon it is, the women (I remember him sleeping with at least 3 different chicks, not counting the ones that wanted to but he unfortunately didn't have the time to do...), the weird villains, the world-domination plans, the not-killing-Bond-until-he-finds-a-way-to-escape, everything Mike Myers so brilliantly makes fun of in Austin Powers... but it's certainly a worthwhile movie, it's pretty cool to see where it all started and how good it was since the beginning... let's just see if I actually last the whole 21 movies... wish me luck!!! :-)