Archive for tag 'Not Hollywood'
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Violence begets violence, silence continues the suffering, vengeful catharsis only delays the problem. In this case, for the next generation.
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Cloudier Atlas. The same story, slightly tweaked through the ages, entwined between themselves.
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Nem mau nem bom, antes pelo contrário. How does this win so many awards?
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How to steal a newspaper from your wife between World Wars: force abortions in excess of 5 maids and assorted visitors, then accuse her of hysteria when she absconds with the driver.
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What the fuck is this? What the fuuu… No, life is too short.
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Oh my. The pretend edgy stuff. The pseudo-Robin Hood shtick. The cars wrecking cardboard boxes. The fade to black, oh god, so many fades to black.
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Silly people, worried about scripts written by AI, a random walk over random words. This is done here with the gall of having credits for “writers”. Words without meaning, effluvia of thought. Nearly as annoying as the reviews.
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The Cliff’s Notes version. Über-depressing, almost makes you weep for idle rich aristocrats.
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Fucking hell, another “Estado Novo“-adjacent film with main characters who do no speak Portuguese? Dubbing a General who had such charisma that he forced the regime to rig elections against him, and then bury him in a shallow grave? Enough with the dubs already!
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After being politically pressured into deviating the focus of his radio station from sensitive subjects to light and positive themes, the programming head sends a team to Portugal during April 1974, to report on the great Swiss cooperation. Little do they know there will be a coup d’etat followed by a revolution.
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One of those alleged faithful recreation betrayed by amateurish production values. There’s way too many boom mics appearing on the shot.
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The French version of Carnation Revolution. The director is Portuguese, but it’s completely French. The main characters are played by foreign actors and dubbed by Portuguese actors, without lip sync. That’s just folly.
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Filipe Melo does an Americana short. It deals with the fact that the death penalty is as American as apple pie.
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Roman Polanski tells the Dreyfus story, making it about himself twice. The second one is to cast Emanuelle Seigner as the hero’s wife. Still worth it, though.
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Jeunet (and Marc Caro) plant the seeds of The City of Lost Children. C’est magnifique…
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Meh, overplays its hand for such formulaic script.
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This is a very funny comedy, attuned to the Thunbergian times we live in (despite being done before that). Quirky, but full of heart.
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Simple but powerful treatise into Church sexual abuses in Lyon. Sometimes, just reading the allegations suffices.
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A seemingly faithful diorama of the 5 months in which Varoufakis lead the Greek finance ministry, until being ostracised by the European institutions that turned Tsipras into his own anathema. ευχαριστώ.
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Bait and switch. Starts off as a nihilist critique of Brazilian society before going off the rails into full blow fascism. Remarkable in every other way though, a true Triumph of the Will.
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A satirical look at the transition from late-stage decadent DDR into unified Germany, by way of complete exhaustion. Should always be accompanied by Das Leben der Anderen for a more complete picture.
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A surprisingly deep medieval Bildungsroman, comprising a lot of gruesome deaths but also mental thrashings: disappointment, grief, betrayal. Moving from defeat to defeat, until the final “victory”.
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A crazy premise leads to a massive tear jerker. Nuts! No cockups here, I was unable to maintain a stiff upper lip.
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The fictional biography of Ricardo Salgado, by way of Os Maias. Direct political answer to Raiva. Visually, it’s almost 3 hours of people chain smoking and gobbling litters of whisky.
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Alaaaarm! One of the greatest epic films, stands besides Seven Samurai and Saving Private Ryan as a eerie depiction of war.
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A batshit insane old-school Jackie Chan film, but with a larger budget. The freaking hovercraft…
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Shaolin Soccer meets Bourne, featuring Mediterranean refugees. Never thought that last sentence could ever make sense.
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Dreams are more addicting than any drugs. They can make a fat child-like slob believe he has a chance with Dr. Chiba, a hyper competent professional woman. And in the end, mind over matter. Suck it, police detective!
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An adult version of Ice Age. Three hobos who make for a strange family find an abandoned baby in the trash and go on a self-imposed quest to deliver them into her family. They eventually deliver themselves into their old estranged families…
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Better than I remembered. A classic noir tale of Egyptian gods meddling with human (and mutant, and alien) affairs, with the protagonists being jerked around, railing against the gods for free will.
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An actress tells her life story to a fanboy interviewer (and his cameraman), and the recollections are so life-like they are transported into diorama-like versions of it. In a stroke of genius, her story and her films are one and the same, and their plots span a millennium (hence the title).
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The bog standard story of a high-class prostitute who hoodwinks her clients and the cop to run away with a suitcase full of cash to Brazil. Her real name is Mary, surname had to be Sue.
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The distillation of all fame-related works mixed with a psycho-thriller, and there’s even time for a story within a story.
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A failed attempt to make a sort of remake of Braindead, without the budget or the script. It has heart, but no guts.
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A crappy no-budget The Hangover years before that. Just like that popular “film” devoid of content, it spawned a franchise. Yet another proof that there is no God.
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Really puts a human face into the so called “economic migrants” we hear so much about. If this can’t shift policy, nothing can.
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Oily western that doesn’t let its amateurish CGI brighten its dark soul. Nearly everybody dies, and the living are left broken beyond words.
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A faithful adaptation of the seminal XIX century story, but poor in production values and plot. The important plot beats are presented in a matter-of-fact way, for such emotionally powerful moments.
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Cinema veritè, in 1930’s Alentejo. Structured like a revenge plot, mostly against metaphoric leeches represented by literal landowners.
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The accidental Bonnie and Clyde, except complete cretins. Reaches Nathan Barley levels of idiocy.
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The men with a name that drags a coffin around.
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Flash Gordon meets Braindead, but not as developed as any of those.
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In this “fake” single-shot film, the fascist is never seen up close, only the victims matter. Fuck fascists, you will not replace us.
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Standard “drugs are bad” flick. Despite being about heroin addiction, everybody is happy, and after a brief “Kum ba yah” all is good.
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An ultra depressing film about lowlife Blockbuster Clerks / drug dealers that bite more than they can chew and get their lives kicked down a notch.
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A demo reel for Hot Jesus. A box ticking enterprise. Not even worth it to finish the
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The good remake of The Toxic Avenger, with added anime referenced for good measure.
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Ensemble parody of action films in general. Low budget doesn’t mean low quality, but in this case that is not completely off the mark.
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RealDolls are people too (Incredibly NSFW, you have been warned!).
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Simple investigation into a murder that might have political connotations. Turns out it was a crime of passion and the political police are clutching at straws trying to extract meaning where it doesn’t exist.
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Hipster bullcrap. A low rent Spring Breakers.
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Even man-child Fritz Haber deserves love.
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Some films show all their ideas on the title. This one does it on the synopsis.
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A great film for our times. Paranoia leads to witch hunts which lead to wrecked communities. A great companion piece to Doubt.
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Dadaist CGI cow roams an urban setting, like the subway, restaurants, offices. Cow-a-bunda!
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A scathing satire of Portuguese society. The script writer was a classy troll, and the fact that this was greenlit by the biggest broadcast network only makes it even funnier.
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The anime with an unpronounceable name in most Romance languages. That joke is inherited from Gulliver’s Travels.
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PTSD-ridden ex-soldier goes insane after a partner kills himself.
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Engaging for a very long time. War never changes.
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A road movie set in the Age of Discoveries. The main character travels through Asia in search of wealth and prestige and ends up shunned by the royalty.
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Made for TV simplistic take on the colonial war.
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That’s Pinocchio, all right.
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Steampunk Wizard of Oz, set during the Great War.
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One of the representatives of golden age of Portuguese cinema, it’s still hilarious. There’s an overarching plot of silliness and hilarious smaller bits which betrays its origin as vaudeville-esque popular theatre (known as revista).
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High concept horror film without a budget. Focuses on the dynamics between characters. Blows Saw off the water.
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Light drama meets tourism postcard with murders.
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Yimou Zhang goes minimal and makes a film with only three characters, a nuclear family.
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Came for the lesbian sex, stayed for the Bildungsroman.
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After 3 or 4 views, you can see the speed up scenes, but it’s still very suspenseful to see the last chase scene (and the rest of the film too).
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Puts the ‘fun’ in ‘paedophilia’
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This is a remake of Open Water 2: Adrift. It’s better than it sounds, but I haven’t seen the original.
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This is a story about a group of fisherman from the outskirts of Lisbon that sink their boat in the mud in viewing distance from the shore, but since some are weak, old and/or injured, can’t get to safety before tragedy happens.
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Boxing is life, and so is debt collection.
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Yesterday was Halloween, so I watched Braindead. Peter Jackson’s love letter to his favourite films: King Kong, Raiders of the Lost Ark and schlocky gory stuff.
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This is just amazing. Should really be called Secret Service Story.
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Weirdly great.