Schumacher (2021)

So Schumacher was a nasty driver and had a terrible attitude with his opponents even when it was all his fault - check his accident with Jacques Villeneuve that led to his disqualification from the 1997 championship - because... he was a Capricorn? Jesus Christ, really? Never liked Schummy as a sportsman, but can't help to have sympathy for him and his family in these hard times. As a documentary, it lacks Kapadia's brilliance and audacity in "Senna", but, at least, it manages to show all his sides - including the dark ones - and to be fair about his career. His legacy is undeniable, and let's all just hope that he'll be able to get back to the paddock someday to cheer for his son.

Uhhh Barracuda!

Aftersun (2022)

Chato, chato, chatinho. Hora e meia do nada que muitos dizem ser tudo para quem tem um pai ausente, hora e meia que se arrasta sem qualquer acontecimento relevante à espera de enfiar duas cenas para gáudio da audiência, ainda que por motivos completamente díspares: a cena de dança na discoteca ao som da "Under Pressure" dos Queen e, claro, um plano do rabo do Paul Mescal, suficiente para catapultar o filme para o estatuto de obra-de-arte para incontáveis miúdas que não sentem a necessidade de qualquer explicação para as razões que levam um pai a dormir completamente nu num quarto de hotel ao lado da filha menor. Diria o Pedro Abrunhosa, um dia devagar, um caminho cansado, uma luz inquieta, um hotel numa esquina, uma rua perdida, uma noite encantada para o resto da vida. O tempo tem asas e o mundo é o momento. Sim, eu gosto de Abrunhosa, quatro minutos e sintetiza melhor a vida que a Charlotte Wells em cento e poucos. Academia, go home, you're drunk.

Sweaty Cinema

Beyond Fear

Barton Fink (1991)

The strange tale of a New York trending playwright who gets a debut job in Hollywood, the first movie ever to win all the three major awards at Cannes. I'm not a big fan of the Coens, but I really enjoyed all the aesthetic work Joel Coen did on this "Barton Fink", both visually - the almost Shiningesque hotel - but also storywise - all the doubts and questions that will never be answered, from mysterious boxes to possible murders. But let me focus on Michael Lerner's performance, now that we just lost him: nothing short of fascinating. A very well deserved Oscar nomination - Goodman should have bagged one also - as a larger-than-life studio executive as charismatic and arrogant as vulnerable and disorientated. Lerner conveys all the pressures of this ruthless industry, showcasing a range of emotions in an always exotic and unpredictable way. Haven't checked his entire filmography (yet), but hardly any other movie has allowed him to shine as much as he did here with just a couple of scenes. RIP Michael.

Não é um trailer, é um resumo.

Murder Mystery 2 (2023)

What was really shocking to me was to realize that Jennifer Aniston lost her mighty iron nipples that made us - both men and women - so happy along the past few decades. Either that or she used a bra for the first time in her career. As for the movie, silly as expected, with a couple of funny moments. Sadly, no mistery at all.

Primary Colors @ Mouthfilm

Boiling Point (2021)

An intense heart-pounding movie experience through the chaotic world of a high-class London restaurant. One impressive ninety minute take - the third out of four that were filmed in just two days -, nothing short of a triumph technically speaking, a testament of talent of everyone involved, from crew to actors. Much more than just a gimmick, the technique really immerses us in the frenetic energy of everyone inside the restaurant, from the madness in the kitchen to the rudeness of a racist group of customers. Under so much pressure, the tension never lets up, a sort of out of control poem about the restaurant's bustling environment. Great cast, believable/grounded characters and tense atmosphere for almost sixty minutes; the last third becomes a little bit anticlimactic, but nothing that diminishes the overall impact of "Boiling Point". Chef knives out!

Becky Wick

Halloween (1978)

I do appreciate "Halloween" for everything it means - and meant - for generations of filmmakers and cinephiles, its true influence on the future frames and perceptions of an entire genre. But I have to be honest with you: revisiting it now, I just felt it to be way too simple and predictable, with a despairing lack of substance and depth in its characters and plot. I feel that it doesn't even deserve to get close to get into my Carpenter's top five. But, anyway, hail to the original scream queen and to those simple piano notes by Carpenter himself that become one of the most recognizable and haunting themes in film history.

Va Benne Denzel

Blue Steel (1990)

Jamie Lee Curtis with her back to the wall, The Movie. It's early Bigelow, more thriller than high-octane action as she would later on prove to excel, with some great acting but kind of predictable narrative, full of genre cliches. Kudos to Clancy Brown - I still believe we lost a genius to a mediocre career along the way - and praise to the werewolf character of the late Ron Silver, getting the curse and impulses from a gun instead of a bite. His weird motivations and purposes make the whole story wander in some illogical narrow streets, but as a movie nostalgic experience, it's definitely worth a shot.

Palm Springs and The Meaning of Life

Mad Knight

Brian and the Boz (2014)

Boz: swashbuckling outspoken personality, controversial behavior and some really wild hairstyles. Brian: a cool thoughtful adult/dad. Boz got lost in time, in between injuries that cut short his professional football career and some disastrous movie experiences that followed his sporting retirement - except, as I've written many times before, "Stone Cold"; Craig R. Baxley crazy action blast is really stupendous. Brian remains now out of the two, with a packed small warehouse full of memories - his famous National Communists Against Athletes original T-shirt that became a symbol of rebellion against the NCAA's strict regulations included - and the desire to still make it as an actor. Overall engaging documentary, even for a total ignorant of American football history as I am. Just felt they should have exploited his movie career a lot more and also, why not, his brief professional wrestling cameos in the early 1990s. Brian, got your back, buddy!

Tulsa King (S1/2022)

What a gripping crime thriller debut television experience for good old mobster Sylvester Stallone. Taylor Sheridan ("Sicario", "Hell or High Water" or "Wind River") as the mastermind behind the show - and that means some serious writing quality - and Sly doing almost all the heavy lifting around the drama without blinking an eye. Love to root for a character whose goals and means to achieve them are as fishy as they can get - to say the least. It almost feels nostalgic nowadays. Power. Corruption. And fuc*ing loyalty. If loyalty doesn't come first with Dwight Manfredi, you're screwed. Some intense and well-executed action sequences and some stylish visuals. Let's hope season two - new showrunner and different set locations, due to extreme temperatures in Tulsa that made the cast uncomfortable - doesn't screw it up.

Wes City

True Romance (1993)

"True Romance" is a celebration of American crime cinema, a shameless exploitation of everything that made us fall in love with it, from violence to sex, from drugs to exquisite romance. Tarantinoverse meets Tony Scott frenzy directorial style driven by the overpowering xylophonesque score by Hans Zimmer. It's a wet dream, balls-to-the wall, cult classic that finds the right balance in almost everything, from the grotesque absurdity around Gary Oldman's pimp character to the timeless engaging Sicilian showdown between legends Walken and Hopper. Patricia Arquette fighting Gandolfini during five days of shooting, Val Kilmer as Elvis, Brad Pitt improvising most of his lines, Samuel L. Jackson and so many others - Penn, Sizemore, Rapaport etc. - adding efforts to an overwhelming cast and that kind of mexican standoff at the end. Absolutely loved it. And don't forget: "when you're tired of relationships, try a romance!".

Fall (2022)

Tits for clicks, ChatGPTesque technology to alter on-screen mouth movements to dub more than thirty F-bombs out of the original dialogue to make it an acceptable PG-13 for Lionsgate. We're doomed, someone please call Sarah Connor. Extra half star for the gross vulture meal and another extra half star for using a body as a cushion for a cellphone. Everything else was way too predictable, from the dead boyfriend love affair to charging the drone through the lamp - just like in the restaurant.

Duplass anytime!

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Let's talk about those initial twenty five minutes of "Saving Private Ryan". What a masterful depiction of the horrors of war and the courage and sacrifice of those who fought in it. Both heart-wrenching and inspiring, one of the most intense and pragmatic portrayals of war ever captured on film. Spielberg does not shy away from showing the gruesome aftermath of the battle, with soldiers missing limbs, bleeding out, and crying out for their mothers. Visceral and realistic, Spielberg reproduced perfectly the gritty and chaotic nature of all the madness around the battlefield. From the desatured color palette to the remarkable sound design - bullets whizzing past the viewer's head and explosions rattling the ground -, it's almost thirty minutes of cinematic excellence. I would even dare to say, the best cinematic opening sequence of the nineties. Damn it, wait. Of all time. Done.

Jaws 3-D (1983)

Beer: champagne of the working classes! Dennis Quaid on really short shorts in this campy fun cult classic that, at least visually, didn't age that well. A lot of unnecessary 3D shots that become really cringe in 2D - maybe even more so in 3D, will probably never know - and a hell of a premise that wasn't exploited to its full potential. Let's just imagine an enormous white shark on a killing spree inside Sea World with an audience in the stands. Brody's son to the rescue, dolphins saving the day and you even get to see an angle from inside of the shark's mouth as it swallows a guy. Good enough for me.

The Thing still getting jobs after Wednesday!

Dreadnaught (1981)

The ugliest Chinese masked cockroach lover motherf*cker I've ever seen. Too bad that a cool villain, so much energy and some really cool kung-fu choreography is wasted between all the slapstick, funny faces and silly moments. I know: it's a traditional kung-fu flick from the eighties, but even so. So many guys grabbed by the nuts and lifted into the air, enough flowerpots smashed on heads to plant a forest and one dead guy with a big wood. Literally. Wanted to love it, but honestly got bored most of the time.

CineMagia: A História das Videolocadoras de São Paulo (2017)

A crítica mais recorrente a este documentário sobre o passado - pouco presente e praticamente nenhum futuro - dos videoclubes na cidade de São Paulo é de que é demasiado informativo, pouco aberto à magia do cinema, dos filmes, da arte em si, do cheiro e do toque daquelas caixas grossas de plástico que pareciam, nas nossas mãos, o santo graal que o Indiana Jones outrora procurou para salvar o pai. Verdade, mas também é essa perspectiva factual, esclarecida e fundamentada através das vozes daqueles que deram vida a tantos videoclubes que o diferencia de tantos outros documentários repletos de lugares comuns sobre este tema, um pouco por todo o mundo. Diz-me pouco São Paulo, mas disse-me muito em termos de paixão a dedicação destas pessoas, as dificuldades que atravessaram, os desafios que enfrentaram, os saltos de fé que deram sem saber se o negócio ia funcionar ou não. Das que se aguentaram até hoje e das que se aguentaram enquanto puderam. De como a pirataria foi primeiro Deusa salvadora e mais tarde diabo destruidor. De como perdemos a magia da procura e descoberta e, principalmente, do tempo que já não temos!

G.I. Lopez

Virus (1996)

I have a recent action fan movie crush on Brian Bosworth and so I'm on a Letterboxd quest... and it's starting to look like it will be a harsh one. So on "Virus" - or, as i like to call it now, "On Undeadly Ground" -, Bosworth is an ex-football star geologist turned secret service agent slash best friend with the President of the USA. Cheap feeling production on almost everything except that scene with a big truck hanging off a cliff and the most medical/logical inconsistency ever seen on screen: initially the virus proves to be deadly - scientists in a lab die in a gruesome way. Later on, it just makes Bosworth and friends bleed from their eyes and recover later on as if nothing happened. Oh well, I'll just rewatch "Stone Cold" again.

The Menu (2022)

A cinematic dish that left much to be desired. The ingredients were there, but the execution was lacking, as it all felt undercooked. The story was a thin broth, lacking in flavor and depth and the characters were like wilted greens, lacking in vibrancy and texture - except for some salted moments of Gordon "Fiennes" Ramsay and big eyed Anya Taylor-Joy. The only saving grace of this meal was the visual presentation, a beautifully plated dish, appealing to the eye but ultimately lacking in substance. Everything may have looked good on the menu, but it certainly failed to deliver in the kitchen.

Demónios das Caraíbas

Domino (2019)

I can't believe the same mastermind behind "Scarface" or "Carlito's Way" was responsible for this mundane amalgam of vapid shots - drone and first person perspective ones included, these last completely done in an unskillful and uninspired way to cover a film festival shootout scene. A tasteless terrorism plot with Jaime Lannister and Melisandre, a failure on every level that cannot be justified by De Palma's criticism of the difficult Danish production conditions - financing and movie sets. There's none of his directorial trademarks to be seen here and "Domino" lacks any kind of thrills and suspense. Easily the worst movie of De Palma's career.