cdirani Reviews

Woman on Top (2000)

Surreal vision of a Country

[10 December 2003]

It doesn't matter if you had fun or not, or whether are you interested or not on the charming gifts of Penelope Cruz, as she's the star of this odd film. Trouble is: the whole script is basically an amount of nonsense. Which makes all of these reasons absolutely useless.

The screenplay has a distortive view of Brazil. Of course, the natives of Bahia state are very much into African religion. But to assume it as a rule is completely pointless. The Worst thing: the leading actress speaks English throughout the whole tale, which adds to it more "Alice in Wonderland" thoughts on the factual points of the motion picture. Even more surreal and almost impossible. Even worse is that it's not written by Lewis Carroll.

The soundtrack uses the bossa nova as the main musical style. Okay, it's retro, cool, although barely Brazilians listen to this kind of music through a day-by-day basis. The Axe music, as it's called over here, has been the main flavour since before 1997.

It would have been all right, though, if that sound track had been kept on the Brazilian bit of the film. Troubles again come up: the songs are heavily used when the action moves to the United States of America, when she becomes, fastly, an important TV star. Quite odd.

To sum up, that was a failed attempt to make an artsy film mixed with comedy. If you got this DVD to enjoy Cruise's girlfriend you'd better pick another one.

1 and a half stars out of 5

Let It Be (1970)

The first "reality show"

[9/10 · 6 November 2003]

The Beatles were not only a group that challenged the recording industry, and of course, the world of entertainment. They acted also as avant-gardè multi-media artists.

Not only they helped improving the pop music marketing with their innovative LP packages and stuff but also created new kind of media that would become a mania in the XXI century: the reality show. Yes, almost 100% of the scenes shown on Let It Be are cine realitè - the bare truth captured by the lens of cameras directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.

In fact, although the band was working on the edge of their break-up, almost 90% of the scenes are cheerful and enjoyable. The main bulk of the footage shows Paul McCartney trying to find ways of enhance the Beatles performing and figuring out what to do in the future. Although John Lennon seems to be distracted by his future wife presence, Yoko Ono, he also looks to be happy playing and having fun - even dancing around to the sound of I Me Mine, sung by George.

By the way, George Harrison the most "unhappy" character also appears on the film having a ball singing rock and roll tunes. The lowest point (or highest, depending on the way you look at it) seems to be a row he had with Paul, but it only consumes about 5 minutes of the whole picture.

At last but not the least, Ringo Starr is shown for the first time ever playing a song - Octopus's Garden - that would later take part of Abbey Road - the LP that marked the end of the Fab Four as a group, but the begining of the Beatles as an universal legend.

Turbulence (1997)

Nerve racking

[9/10 · 6 July 2003]

I saw it for the first time on TV because I couldn't make it on the theater. Well, it's not a magnificent film if you analyze it from the point of view of the "screenplay building". Anyway, if you are found of thrilling and nerve racking stories, don't blink. I mean, you won't blink from the first second the aircraft is going through the most dangerous times.

Going back in time, it'll remind you of the classic catastrophic films of the Seventies, such as Airport and Tower Inferno.

My rate (for the fun of it) is 9/10 or ****