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Reviews
Lincoln (2012)
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That's a pretty bad film all-around - except for Daniel Day-Lewis' part which is simply amazing.
Apart from that, it's a typical Spielberg'ish shenanigan.
Trust me - if, like me, all your interest in this film had purely to do with the lead role, it's not worth the 2 hours and a half.
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If you're interested in the historical details, everything is pretty much spot on (besides the Conneticut voting). As an European citizen though, I confess I'm a bit tired of hearing stories about "the land of the free and oh-so-great US of A" as often as I do. It all ends up sounding like lame propaganda with a very distinct diferenciation between good and evil - the good being the ones who history deems victorious. I dunno... not a huge fan of mr. Spielberg's simple way of dealing with the complexities of inter-human relationships.
The Hunger Games (2012)
Pretty good film...
First of all, as someone else said in a review, I still make of point of surfing through IMDb before watching a film in the hopes of knowing whether it's worth watching it or if I should stick to waiting for a DVD version of some sort.
True, the scoring is not at all bad here on IMDb but then come the reviews... the first 15 or so rating the film very poorly, claiming 'twas the new Twilight saga or a rip-off of Battle Royale. If you've read these reviews, take them with a hint of salt.
Granted this is pretty much setting itself to be the next money-making Hollywoodesque saga. It has a lot of the usual elements that get teenage groups to fall in love with the franchise, throwing their money - and tear-jerking awe's - its way. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad film.
As for the comparison to Battle Royale, I'd much rather, if feeling the need to compare this to something else, compare it with The Gladiator - fighters from whatever part of a given world, mostly poor or slaves, are pitted against each other in an arena of death. Ring a bell? In fact, human nature, human history... humans in general, were definitely the inspiration for this story. Comparing this to Battle Royale is the equivalent to comparing 1984, a Brave New World and The Trial because of their descriptions of a "future dystopian society" - for anyone who's read them, you'll know how impossible this comparison is.
To wrap it up, go watch this film. I was expecting little and came out well impressed, if not a bit disappointed about how people are analyzing stuff these days. I'm a huge film and book fan, I watch films on a daily basis (being quite picky and critic of most of the stuff Hollywood sends out this way) and also read plenty of books, and I would find it very hard to compare the two franchises, BR and Hunger Games, let alone call the latter a ripoff of the former.
Please, please, please, just stop reading stuff online before watching a film if you know it will bias your opinion... You'll have a better time at the movies and you'll be thinking about them by yourself.
Kosovo: Can You Imagine? (2009)
Very biased film... very weird reviews.
I tried watching this film an hour ago and have to say it's probably one of the most biased films I have ever seen. I say "tried" because I didn't bother watching it through... I just left it.
The film portrays the situation in modern-day Kosovo from a Serbian perspective. Granted it talks about a situation which is a reality, with the little Serbs remaining in the country left to deal with abuse on their own whilst being governed by a prime-minister known for its criminal ties, but very conveniently hides facts which led to the end of the former Republic of Jugoslavia.
If you ended up wanting to watch this after having watched the BBC documentary "The Death of Jugoslavia", look elsewhere - there are a lot of good books out there about this topic which are a lot less biased.
That's exactly why I thought the last reviews were strange and why I decided to lookup their authors - who, surprise surprise, wrote nothing else on IMDb. Weird, no?
Terra Estrangeira (1995)
Totally disagree with Russ Karlberg's comment... Watch it.
I have read the last comment made on this film and have to utterly and totally disagree with it.
You see, I am of Portuguese nationality and even though this film may say little to someone coming from Boston, it surely says something to both Portuguese and Brazilian people, as well as immigrants everywhere.
And why, you may wonder? Well, firstly, this film deals with two sibling nations: Portugal and Brazil. Brazil gained its independence in the early 19th century (by the hands of the heir to the Portuguese throne)and since then relations improved greatly.
However, meaningful as this may be, there is still a lot of prejudice. Because of the economic climate in Brazil during the 1990's, immigration to Portugal grew massively. You see, Portugal is not only a country sharing a similar language, culture and beliefs as Brazil but is also a gateway to the rest of Europe. Some people were thus forced to make the decision to cross the Atlantic and look for a better life and Portugal was the first logical place to try to immigrate to.
As it happens still with a lot of immigrants, they were paid averages below the minimum wage and were treated like "dirt" - only in this case, because the language is similar, they were constantly made aware of their status as immigrants.
Another curious thing in this film is the idea it conveys of how a man so knowledgeable of the history of his own country still tried to make a quick buck through exporting coveted national resources. It is exactly people like this that keep Brazil in a constant state of arrested development, as the country is well endowed in natural resources and could easily climb the economic ladder should it be given a fair opportunity.
In a sense, this goes to show how colonialism still exists - Pablo representing the exploited people, Igor the man whose status as a "nobleman" (or at least rich or "well off") is assured by the foreign colonialist power which is in turn represented by Kraft.
If you have seen other films by Salles you will recognize this as a recurring topic - the struggle against an oppressing power. I do not mean to lecture or be patronising as to teach anyone history but I thought this film was, symbolically speaking, very powerful. I am not saying there wasn't room for improvement (as there always is) but I think the last comment written on it was not only narrow minded but hands down ignorant.
One last thing to be said on this, I have to assume you have watched this film with the eyes of an "American film watcher". No harm intended by this remark but I mean "foreign" films cannot all be about "beautiful scenery" - Art deals with the problems of its time. You would not expect Otto Dix, for example, to paint all the lovely places in Bayern and the Black Forest... Why should you expect a film maker to focus exclusively on scenery when he feels there are more relevant issues to attend to?
In a nutshell, do not judge films lightly and with only two or three criteria in scope. This film is very interesting, its photography is quite good and even the idea the black and white colouring conveys goes hand-in-hand with what it deals with. I believe the image is purposefully grainy... like reality, no? :)
Watch it and reach your own conclusions...