Movies watched

"Greek" (series), season 1 and season 2. Mindless fun.

"Boy A" (2008), John Crowley, UK. (7/10).

War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005): 4.0/5.0

This movie is such much fun that people tends to condemn it because of its abrupt ending. Spielberg tends to do travelogues ("Saving Private Ryan") so we can experience all the range of phenomena that the concept has to offer. Maybe he could be director of educative documentaries. In 2005, many of the things going on in this film looked ludicrous, such as the relationship between Ray and its son, but it seems pretty logical now, how people reacts to danger and some let its "patriotic" impulses to take over intelligence. Note that the aliens could have been attacked by guerrilla warfare, taking down one by one from the inside, by martyrs. Yep, its Baghdad all over again.

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Part 2

The subject of this chapter is about the things we must do in life to survive. In some period in German history, a lot of people needed to join the Nazi ranks, even in strange ways, to go by. This is probably the best interpretation of that phenomena that I have seen. Our hero simply sells Nazi newspapers, and is not very interested in the hatred they spill. Interestingly, in this chapter Fassbinder makes us sympathetic to somebody that "sells" himself to the worst political movement of the 20th Century and has a verbal fight with the communist sympathizers that were probably to be killed some years after.

"Grand Tour: Disaster in Time" (David Twohy, 1992) - 3.5/5

By now David Twohy should be a trademark. A kind of Spielberg for B movies. But it isn't. Not yet at least. This man has been directing consistently good genre films for some years now ("The Arrival", "Pitch Black", "Below", "Chronicles of Riddick") so when I found that its first one was still there unwatched, I immediately took to find the piece and give it a go.
What a nice story! Full of logical holes if you have mastered your Doc Brown technique, but what a nice tale nevertheless! Jeff Daniels plays an Inn owner that receives the visit of tourists from a strange place, that came just to be witness to a big event. That's enough information for you. Enjoy the tone of the story, its little town that looks from Capra seen by Spielberg or Dante, that nice orange-yellow glow that pervades so many 1980's films (despite this being done in 1992). Next Twohy movie, I will be in line at the theater.

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Part I

As it is, "The Punishment Begins" could stand as an excellent portrait of the first days in the life of a newly released prisoner, his attempt to stand up in its mind, to become a normal person again. Franz makes an oath to become honest, to make a life, finds a girl, and cut ties with its trouble past. At the end of this chapter Fassbinder trick me into despair, only to give Franz and the viewer a new glimpse of hope. I started watching this film with doubts, now I'm more hooked, as I was watching a similar monster film: Egdar Reitz's "Heimat".

The Punishment Begins

I started watching "Berlin Alexanderplatz". The title of the first chapter is funny. So the punishment begins, nice way of welcoming people into your 15 and half hour movie. Watched already the first hour. Why there are so many references to impotence? Is it how our hero feels? Impotent against society? Some camera movements are masterful, but I could do without that glitter on the screen (you know, the fuzzy look from the late seventies).

Red Belt (David Mamet, 2008): 3/5

A good first part act with potential to show the corruption of characters under the power of money gets squandered by unlikely conspiracies and a third act that belongs in the Rocky series. Fun and somewhat sexy, nothing else.