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Lucky, for portraying the life of a World War II veteran, could have death as the main motive. However, what we see in the 88 minutes is life. It is the friends, landscapes, thoughts, and habits of this nagging old man who makes no effort to please or cared for himself. A resident of a desert city in southern California, Lucky, in a memorable rendition of Harry Dean Stanton, leads a methodical and frugal life. He lives alone and wakes up early, although we do not know the time because he does not set his alarm clock. He does five yoga exercises and drinks a glass of cold milk, the only content of your refrigerator, and smoke all the time. The routine, which includes a trip to the cafeteria for his coffee plenty with cream and sugar, and crossword puzzles, is broken the day Lucky faints. This fact, to which the local doctor does not give much importance, changes entirely the direction of the facts, from a mere chronicle of customs to a reflection on solitude and impermanence. However, this is done lightly. Memorable scenes happen: concerned about the elderly, waitress Loretta goes to his home, where they end up smoking marijuana and watching a Liberace show on TV. In a conversation with another war veteran, played with extreme delicacy by Tom Skerritt, Lucky, who was a cook on an ammunition ship, hears, heartily, the story of a little Japanese girl and her way of facing death. From that episode, Lucky decides to set his alarm clock. A song sung with mariachis at a children's party serves as a reminder that the protagonist did not marry or have children. That night at the bar, after hearing for the umpteenth time his friend Howard's complaint about the escape of his tortoise President Roosevelt, Lucky challenges the owner Elaine, lighting a cigarette. Rather, he reflects on the truth of life, stating that everything and everyone, including cigarettes, will disappear into blackness and void. In the final scene, Lucky smiles to his fate without noticing that the tortoise comes back sneaky home. #carrolllynch #review

The three ideograms of kabuki, the Japanese theater form depicted in Floating Weeds, signify singing, dancing, and skill. The movie is all this, and more: music, cinematography and art direction are so coordinated that the play resembles a symphony of the kind we usually hum for the rest of our lives. In the village of fishermen, where the plot takes place, there are no grandiose characters; it is as if they were people from the neighborhood living their lives day by day. The protagonist, Komajuro, is a middle-aged actor who leads the troupe of a decadent and itinerant theater company, artists known in Japan as "floating weeds." Called the master by the other components of the team, the old actor spends a lot of time in Oyoshi's saki house, with whom he has had a child in the past. Komajuro rejoices with the boy, a post office worker who thinks he is his uncle. The constant absences arouse suspicions, and later jealousy, of his current companion and star of the company Sumiko, who discovers the secret of the master, and, strongly rebuked by him, hires the young actress Kayo to seduce Kiyoshi, the son of Komajuro. This plot leads to unexpected consequences, as the two young people fall in love. Yasujiro Ozu conducts these disagreements in a peculiar way, far from Western drama and much more economical than the cyclothymic of romantic comedies. Empathy with the characters is conquered by a trick of direction: most dialogues occur without the characters looking at each other. The look is usually directed directly to the audience. The beautiful cinematography of Kazuo Miyagawa is made in a lower position than the actors. Among the scenes, the director inserts what he called a “pillow shot”, a short video of about seven seconds, which allows the viewer to "recover his calm". In the final scene, Komajuro, like many husbands, throws a tantrum at the boarding station. Gradually, it calms down, the train departs, and we get the wonderful music of Takanobu Saito. #ozu #review

Avengers: Endgame is more than a movie. In its three hours of projection, what is seen is a parade of superheroes and visual effects, true homage to the legion of fans who, since 2008, as in a great TV series, have been following the saga. Who is a follower of the Marvel Comic Universe on film screens, knows that after half of humanity and most heroes have been "wiped out" by Titan Thanos, bets on a possible rematch between the survivors and the possessor of the powerful Infinity Stones was a matter of time. The remaining Avengers (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Combat Machine, Rocket, and Nebula), still without knowing the whereabouts of the Hawkeye, make a trip, with Captain Marvel, to the planet where the Titan is, where fight an unsuccessful battle for the recovery of the cosmic gems. Five years later, Ant-Man returns from his journey to the Quantum Realm, which began before the Thanos' crushing "snap”, and finds a world totally devastated, with abandoned ships and cars, empty streets, and a memorial named after thousands of dead, including his. Her daughter Cassie is alive, but she has become a teenager. Realizing that he traveled in time, Ant-Man presents the idea to the Avengers, at first rejected for being unlikely, though not impossible according to Hulk. The scientist explains that when we travel to the past, this becomes our future, while our present becomes the new past. With Captain America and the Iron Man as protagonists, the team travels back in time, where they will recover some fundamental concepts to heroism such as honor, sacrifice, and tragedy. The Avengers, as we shall discover over time, are susceptible to the strength of this element and, unlike what we have become accustomed to seeing in the old comic books, are subject to impermanence, as can be seen in the final battle, one of the most impressive scenes already seen on the screens. Among the losses, the saddest, certainly, was that of Stan Lee. #review #russobrothers

In A Fantastic Woman, we are at first deceived by director Sebastián Lelio to believe that the main character of the movie is Orlando, a middle-aged businessman who owns a textile company in Santiago, Chile. Shortly afterward, we are introduced to the woman with whom she is dividing her life: the young salsa singer Marina Vidal, who performs at the Galeria hotel club, but we will discover to be a waitress on a daily basis. After a romantic dinner, the couple dance, talk about a trip to the Iguassu Falls in Brazil and, back to Orlando apartment, make love and sleep peacefully, until, in the middle of the night, Orlando felt sick. Going to the hospital, he falls down the stairs and is supported by Marina who could take him, but not in time: the businessman dies of an aneurysm. Confined outside, in a restricted area labeled "Area Sucia" (dirty area), Marina is interrogated and investigated by the doctor before receiving news of the companion's death. The reason for the mistrust is that the girl is transgender and her ID still carries her male name. The issue of the movie is not Marina being treated "as it were" woman. She knows herself a woman, full of the love of Orlando (she had recently moved to the apartment), is in mourning for his beloved, and has neither the time, nor the patience, nor the desire to be questioned by issues that are absolutely irrelevant to her for your moment of pain. She will, however, discover to his despair that Orlando's former family, starting with his ex-wife Sonia, and his son Bruno, rush to take her away from everything that concerns the entrepreneur. At first with the car, then the apartment, and even the bitch Diabla that Marina prides herself on being a gift she received. Benjamin Echazarreta's camera is nervous, impatient, sometimes hallucinated, showing nuances of a reality that frightens us. In the end, something is returned to Marina. Dignified by her own conviction for the right to respect, security and sexuality, Marina finishes the film by singing an aria of Handel: Ombra mai fu (There was never a shadow). #lelio #review

Notorious is certainly Hitchcock's most elegant movie. It is beautiful because of the perfect Ted Tetzlaff cinematography, bellissimo by the unforgettable presence of Ingrid Bergman and, at the same time, simple by the Ben Hecht screenplay, and almost natural by the comfortable performance of Cary Grant. Although it has a background of international espionage, that is a Nazi plot in Rio de Janeiro, the script revolves around a love triangle formed by Alicia, a girl of doubtful reputation who, despite this, or perhaps because of it, is loved by two men. One is destroyed because it is forced to convince her to surrender to the other to unravel the mystery. The other equally destroys himself because he blindly trusts her, if he neglects the safety rules he should follow. What is most striking about Notorious is that, despite the perilousness of German spies, and the killings and attempted assassinations, one does not see a weapon, not even a single drop of blood. In addition, in the development of the plot, there are plenty of Hitchcock's tricks, the MacGuffins, elements of the script that the audience cares about, but that do not concern anything at all. An example of this is Agent Devlin's discovery of a radioactive substance hidden in a series of bottles from Sebastian's cellar. The existence of the substance in possession of Alicia’s husband, when it was not even known what the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were made of (the film is from 1946), is absolutely irrelevant. Other memorable scenes occur. Like the foreground closeup, from the point of view of an Alicia with a hangover, through a glass of Alka Seltzer. When Devlin tries to save his beloved, who is being poisoned by the Nazi mother-in-law, he climbs a staircase in a few seconds. As they descend, the number of steps seems to be multiplied by ten. In the end, when we expect a gunfight or some epic chase, a gentleman appears at the door of the mansion and invites Sebastian: "Alex, could you come in, please? I wish to talk to you” - and he goes. #hitchcock #review

Ó pai ó is a characteristic expression of the city of Salvador, Bahia, which can be translated as "look at this". And what you look at the screen is a parade of urban stereotypes on the last day of the carnival. However, what was to be expected is surprising and, through music and the ubiquitous sensuality, the characters gain their own definitions, they dignify themselves, and here and there they take flights always certain, albeit short. Residents of a tenement in Largo do Pelourinho, the characters have a common characteristic: when they act in the horizontal plane, they are tourist representations: the reveler, the baiana, the stallion, the transsexual, the cowrie shells clairvoyant, the believer, the Bonfim's Church. On the vertical plane, they are citizens who survive in an unequal society: the unsuccessful artist, the receptionist who wants to go to Europe, the European "wife" returned, the clumsy swindler, the vigilante policeman working "overtime" for the traders. Although there are no protagonists, the painter Roque, who is also a singer, composer, and dancer, participates in the best moments of the movie, the first one at the beginning, when a carnival block formed by almost every one of the cast decides to parade through the streets of an empty Pelourinho. Expelled from the bar of the funny Neusão, Roque sings the beautiful "Come my love" in a truly epic moment. The second striking scene, also involving Roque, is a discussion of him with the huckster Boca (which seems to encompass all the vices of the movie). Neurotic and racist, Boca decides to offend the painter by calling him "negro", but Roque makes a passionate speech in defense of blackness. The only person who does not align herself with sensuous-carnival normality is Dona Joana, an evangelical woman who owns the tenement and, for revenge (divine?) against "sinners, witchers and potheads", closes the water of the building, leaving the locals driving mad. In the end, joy, sadness, tragedy and romance blend into the streets flooded by the participants of the Araketu block. While the other block, Olodum, protests. #gardenberg #review

Pulp Fiction is perhaps one of the clearest examples of fuckastic film. Iconoclast, revolutionary, poetic and intelligent, this is one of those rare moments in which the director makes cinema for moviegoers and for everyone who enjoys a good gangster story, or noir, mafia, and perverse one. In the manner of Hitchcock, Tarantino inserts dialogues that have nothing to do with the plot. Unlike most scripts, the movie does not speak of itself, it is not explained, and rarely what is said relates to what is done. The narrative is divided into three stories that connect each other, but the weave does not respect the limits of temporality, so the first one, called "Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's wife" has a prologue that corresponds to the final part of the movie, called "The Bonnie situation". The middle story "The Golden Watch" features points of intersection with the other two and shows the saga of boxer Butch who, even receiving good money from Marcellus to throw a fight, decides to betray the gangster and bet the money received on himself. The question now is to get away as fast as possible, along with his French girlfriend Fabienne to try to survive and spend the dangerously conquered fortune. In the episodes that opens and closes the movie, there are the adventures and misadventures of Vince and Jules, Marcellus' hit-men who discuss different subjects like a foot massage, hamburgers, filthy animals, divine intervention, while fulfilling their "missions." In one case, when they are to retrieve Marcellus's (with its mysterious content) famous briefcase held by a bunch of students, they discuss extensively the Amsterdam drug laws and the name of the Quarter Pounder sandwich in Paris, until Jules remembers what they were doing:─ Let's get in character! ─ and invade. Tarantino, who also stars in the last episode, is able to get unforgettable performances from Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman. A masterpiece of humor, terror, adventure, and action. All together. #review #tarantino

The big concern of movie reviewers, which is to play spoilers, seems inevitable in Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (To Live), which begins with an x-ray of the story's protagonist's stomach and a warning that “at this point, he still doesn't know he has cancer". In fact, Mr. Watanabe, head of the public relations department at Tokyo City Hall, does not seem to realize what is going on around him. Obsessed with the task of applying his stamp to authenticate the documents that pass through his hands, what he actually does is do nothing, ignoring or solemnly giving runaround to taxpayers who come to the section to make complaints. Absent from his work for the first time in many years, Mr. Watanabe receives the news of his illness, and despairs, less for the doctor's evasive announcement, but for the exact description of his symptoms by an inopportune man in the waiting room who gives him less than three months to live (the doctor does not speak, but believes the man would live at least another six months). Returning home early after nearly being hit by a truck, the old boss kneels in the dark until he inadvertently overhears the talk of his son and daughter-in-law who unknowingly plan to use the father's inheritance and savings. The scene that closes the first half-hour of the movie is very sad and striking: the old man cries under the blanket for no one to hear while the camera shows on the wall a twenty-five-year award for excellent service. Alone, the bureaucrat decides to drink and, in a bar, meets a writer who decides to guide him through places where the man had never dared to live until that moment: pachinko parlors, the red light district, and dance halls. Watanabe asks a pianist to play “Life is short, fall in love, dear maiden” and sings the song himself, causing everyone, including the movie audience, to fall into utter bewilderment. Here, Takashi Shimura is unforgettable. Wanted by a coworker, who is resigning and needs his stamp to authenticate his resignation, Watanabe starts dating the girl for dinner and outings and has with her the great insight of her life: something meaningful can always be done. Returning to his work, the boss decides to fulfill an old claim of residents of a neighborhood: eliminate a pool of stagnant water, building a playground there. The last fifty minutes of the film take place at Watanabe's funeral, where successive flashbacks are told of their epic by the city departments to do what they are paid to do. Accomplished, the master solemnly sings “Life is Short,” sitting on a park swing under a blizzard, and dies softly. #review #kurosawa

In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh strikes limit situations within an emotional universe that intends to be predictable. The truth is that controlled or socially correct behaviors exist only in the imagination or scripts of movies before the 1970s. The attachment, however, remains and it is common if we become surprised by the hatred within the protagonist Mildred Hayes, a mother from a small town emotionally torn by the brutal death of her daughter Angela, raped while dying. Frances McDormand gives a human, all too human, tone to a woman who decides to throw all the pain she feels internally into the external environment: she rents out three billboards to charge Sheriff Willoughby for the murder investigation, which she deems "cold" seven months later. The sheriff, played by Woody Harrelson in a way we are not used to seeing him, is a compassionate person, experiencing the cancer drama himself, an illness that will soon kill him. Thus, the antithesis of Mrs. Hayes is represented by police officer Dixon, drunk, violent, able to throw people out the window and still be considered slack by his biased mother. Within this scenario of pain and violence, there are rare moments of tenderness, as when, arguing with Mildred, Willoughby coughs up blood and is called by her "babe". In another scene, Mildred receives an unexpected visit from a deer fawn and jokes that it is an attempt to simulate a reincarnation she knows doesn't exist. But cry. The sheriff decides to take his own life, which piques the spirits of the small Ebbing community where, as in most inland cities, hate and pain seem to be bad words. At the end of the movie, what seemed impossible happens and antagonists Dixon and Mildred join forces to eliminate a possible, but unlikely, suspect. From the uncertainty itself, but especially from the certainty of a violation of the law that Hayes assumed unknown, comes Mildred's first smile. #mcdonagh #review

One of the best films ever produced, The Rules of the Game, 1939, begins with a reception for pilot Andre Jurieu who arrives from a trans-Atlantic solo flight just ten years after the crossing of the famous Charles Lindbergh. Although welcomed by a crowd and authorities, the then-national hero whines in his radio interview because his beloved has not come to greet him at the airport. The beloved, for him but not his, is Christine, wife of Marquis Robert de Las Chesnaye, a millionaire who loves small mechanical toys. As she and Jurieu spent many moments together, the pilot believes that the right thing to do, by the rules of the game, is to communicate to the husband that they are together. The Marquis, in turn, is parting ways with his long-time lover, Genevieve, because he also wants to follow the rules of the game with his wife. From Paris, the action is transferred to Robert's hunting station at La Colinière, where everyone is staying: husbands, wives, lovers, suitors and even a poacher, Marceau, who is hired by the marquis and soon becomes intimate with the marquise’s chambermaid, Lisette, wife of another character who is also a follower of the rules, the gamekeeper Schumacher who looks more like a German military commander. With so much affection in full blossom, it would be inevitable that farce scenes would occur. In any movie, the director puts on a character that causes encounters and mismatches. In this movie, the director himself is the character who transits between all novels and dialogues: he is jolly and plump Octave, a friend of the pilot, wife, marquess, chambermaid, lover, and finally also in love with Christine. When a murder (or accident?) happens at the end of the movie, the audience is hardly scared, as in an earlier scene they witnessed an impressive massacre. All the guests walk happily through the forest, each armed with hunting rifles, and kill dozens of rabbits and pheasants. However, as much as the death of a human being causes is a warning that all guests return to the castle so as not to contract any illness. #renoir #review

In a Victorian-style house, secluded in a valley surrounded by forest defined as “paradise”, lives a couple in intentional isolation. Since the movie does not name its characters, we can say that "mother" is "his" young wife, a poet who tries to rewrite a work that leads him to previous successes. She is in the midst of the restoration work of the old house, practically destroyed by a fire that only left a small gemstone, which the poet keeps on his desk as a relic. Like traditional housewives, Mom! goes up and downstairs, often barefoot, doing everything from cleaning the house to paste the walls. We connect our perception with hers, because, except for two scenes, it is through her that the whole narrative of the movie occurs. A doctor comes to the house, followed by his wife and, a little later, by his stranger children. Mom never gets an explanation about who those people are or why they are there in her home, breaking all the rules and the integrity of the house. At first, we thought it was a farce, by the heat of the discussions and the nihilistic acting of man and woman, lived brilliantly by Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. When the first violent death happens, and the kitchen sink comes down, we know that something inexplicable will happen in the movie than a simple psychological drama. After a brief lull in which, for the first time, the husband fulfills a mother's desire and get her pregnant, everything seems to flow smoothly, and the poet completes his other creation, an overwhelming poem. The end of the movie is packed with action that even the wildest spectator could not foresee: crowds invade and destroy the interior of the house, rival groups clash, armed struggle, anthropophagy, and chaos. There are disconnected apocalyptic symbols everywhere. This is no longer an account: they are just sensations, lived with horror, bewilderment, and agony. But realizing that there is no more salvation amid the unruly mob, the mother goes to the basement of the house and completes (or begins) a life cycle. #aronofsky #review

Filmes Fodásticos (Fuckastic Movies) motto, taken from a phrase by Roger Ebert, states that films are windows in the space / time boxes in which we live. Therefore, when looking through these windows, we will be out of the box for a few moments. Jean-Luc Godard's My life to live is a classic example of out of the box movie. Released in 1962, at the height of the nouvelle vague of French cinema, the work can be considered a kinematic experience rather than a cinematic one. The big thrill comes from Raoul Cultard's nervous camera that throws the viewer into the scene. Based on a trite screenplay that would be considered extremely prejudiced these days, the film tells the story of Nana, played by Godard's then-wife, model Anna Karina. It is her face that opens the film as if posing for portraits, in profile and front, to the sound of Michel Legrand's music that, according to the director's wish, simply stops, and reappears in the next scene. There are twelve chapters, with long titles that reveal in advance what will happen. It's said that they were filmed in single takes, which means that takes were transformed directly into shots without any editing. Nana is a young Parisian girl who has just split from Paul with whom she left the couple's son, from whom she asks for photos, in a scene filmed at a coffee shop counter behind the characters. That is, we only see their napes and a blurry reflection in the mirror. Although nothing is known about his motivations, the narrative focuses on Nana. She plays pinball and works in a record store, but has financial problems that force her to try to steal the key from her apartment, held by the concierge possibly for lack of payment. Passing a street where prostitutes work, Nana accepts a man's invitation and begins to prostitute herself. At first she refuses to kiss the client, but then we follow her progress, narrated as if it were a documentary about prostitution in Paris. When enchanted by a young student, the woman decides to leave "life" (the name given to prostitution in France), but her pimp certainly does not agree with that, and takes drastic measures to regain his marchandise. #godard #review