Archive for tag 'Not Hollywood'
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This was not what I was expecting for a “political allegory”. Surely not Tarantino-esque shootouts and actual characters saying “Wanna fuck?”. This is not Parasite, not by a long shot.
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The opening says it all: a tracking shot of a modern subway station cuts seamlessly to the same subway in 1931 Berlin, right in the middle of an election campaign.
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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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A mix of Saving Private Ryan and Full Metal Jacket, if they were both directed by Jackie Chan or John Woo. The action scenes are so over the top, it’s hard to take the rest seriously.
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Forbidden love in the 1700’s, remains mostly the same until about the 1960’s. You will be disappointed if you go in expecting Blue Is the Warmest Color.
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Epistolary look into the commissioned officer experience in the Portuguese Colonial War. A more mainstream affair, compared to Hotel Império.
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The missing biopic of a forgotten hero. Many civil wars were avoided by his charisma, calm and quietude.
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Some Irishman called Fitzgerald, a failed businessman, goes big or goes home. The crazy part is that it works, he goes big.
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Maradonna, Miss Universe and Leonard Nimoy enter a Swiss hotel… This script has incredible jokes, followed by cruel and mean philosophical meanderings into the Universe. Just like life…
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What’s this, I don’t even… That cold opening sets the tone, but it gets progressively weirder and weirder. Goes to very dark places, but never raises above voyeurism and gratuitous shock value.
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That’s fucked up. Slow burner, preps you you 90 minutes of romcom, for a final segway into trademark Takeshi Miike madness. The ending is very much anti-climatic.
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Heil Teacher! The simplifier in chief. Group dynamics do most of the work, it only needs a small push.
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Poetry that let itself be filmed. A very personal and fine arts take on familial loss. “Every frame is a painting” is rarely such an apt description, it is literally true in this film.
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Bit of a nun-binge, after Benedetta. This is the absolute opposite.
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An untranslatable avant-garde look at French mainstream society, Virgil-ed by a pop TV presenter. Brilliant, nobody ever done this before, magnificent.
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Boyhood, without the boy. Burn my shadow away…
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Oh, the humanity. It oozes from the screen.
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NANOMACHINES, SON! Akira for the younger generation.
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Cronenbergian body horror, Aronofsky-ish weirdness, and Halloween twisty serial killers, in a single esoteric package. It packs a noir atmosphere, with the requisite police procedural.
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An entire film dedicated to the common retort “Not even if you were the last man on Earth”. Shaun of the Dead meets The Hangover, with more dicks since this is a German film.
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“Ordinary, with a normal face”. I feel much was lost in translation here. This seems part police procedural, part period piece based on the background events that seem historically important, but my knowledge of contemporary Korean history prevents me from appreciating it more.
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Psycho Marple. Just like all criminal Bong Joon-Ho films, the whodunnit appears to be a very complex web of motives and suspects, but turns into a nearly throwaway situation, completely random and unpredictable.
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How to spin nothingness into a far-right nativist rallying cry against foreigners, courtesy of a pliant press on a summer weekend.
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Ah, the good old forties, when two foot-ball teams could all do roman salutes before the match. Heil, Füsball!
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This title resembling a YouTube tutorial hides a muddled bunch of nothing with some French music as soundtrack. That imagined osmosis could make up for the lack of everything else.
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Rashomon is the warmest colour. Surprisingly, this is based on a British novel which had already been adapted by the BBC starring Sally Hawkins and Imelda Staunton.
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High Rise meets generation ships, turning to ʻOumuamua. Did not know this is an adaptation of a sci-fi poem from the 50s.
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As he listens to the biggest lies used to legally support his actions, the fascist spook nods along everything and signs his name to the farce. He stands up, and “Truth and Justice” is written is big letters just behind him. Powerful images.
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Classic meta film about itself, where the characters fight with the meaning of the it all, with rants about advertising while containing product placement. The Madredeus soundtrack is appropriately eerie.
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A modest proposal to serve man. This is an adaptation of a story by Fernando Pessoa, in his Alexander Search heteronyms.
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That cold opening! Only slightly hagiographic history of the OG Bauhaus movement, brought to life in Weimar republic.
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Ironically an hagiography, considering the title. It’s a condensed part of his life, mostly exposition, a rookie TV movie.
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Jacques Tati goes crazy, with massive sets of massive office buildings, where masses of people mask their major mental disorders, and must make merriment in manic restaurants. I liked Trafic better.
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Man is the real monster, and moving from the big city to bumfuck reveals the seething problems lurking beneath the veneer of respectability.
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The protagonist is fucking in heaven. Fucking, and fucking, and fucking in heaven. I want to fuck more, I want to fuck more…. Beware of the unsimulated fellatios…
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Cloudier Atlas. The same story, slightly tweaked through the ages, entwined between themselves.
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Tati 4 life. One of the best road movies ever.
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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 an eerie depiction of war.
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Über hipster tale of real estate speculation, smoky clubs where not-hookers hook up, and massage parlous, with requisite happy endings. Fuggedaboutit, it’s Macao.
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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.