Rain Man

Hello everybody, it's been awhile now, more then a month i should say but as promised i came back with a fresh movie from the 80's, and one of my favourites as well.

Rain Man is directed by Barry Levinson (in his good days) and interpreted by Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman which won the Oscar for Best Leading Role. The movie also won Best Picture, Screenplay and Best Directing.

It's a wonderful story about two brothers that never met eachother. The full summary of the story is like i use to say, simple.
A car dealer and hustler Charlie (Tom Cruise) is kicked out of the house as a teenager by his father. Nowadays he knows that his father has died and left him a only a car, a 1948 Buick convertible. At the same time he get's to know that not only his father left 3 million dollars in cash, but he left it to Charlie's brother, which he never met for his entire life. Charlie then goes to visit his new brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic man with the ability to make complicated mathematical problems in his head very fast and with accuracy. Raymond lives in a mental institution, living in his own world, in his daily routines, with his TV programs and his nagging acts.

It's then that Charlie kidnaps his brother with the selfish interest of course, of getting the 3 million dollars for himself. It's then that Charlie starts to see what his brother really is, a nagging person which doesn't fly by airplane, only by Quantas airlines, has programmed his food habits for each day of the week and has to watch his TV programmes at a specific hour of the day.
Charlie and Raymond start an amazing journey with his father's old car, through out the country. Charlie begins discovering love and understanding with a brother he never met, and puts his greed and selfishness aside to discover and understand the intriguing world of Raymond's mind.

Barry Levison delivers us a improbable but amzing heartfull movie which was a winner at it's time. With master direction, simple and storyline with great dialogues and portrayed masterfully by Dustin Hoffman with a little help from Tom Cruise, Rain Man is a shinning adventure of two brothers who never met but have a love for eachother, which with time will be discovered.

It's a must see for everybody, this powerfull Drama from the 80's. Time when movies were still dinamic, original and excelent.

Good movies to you all. See you soon.

I'm sorry if the trailer links of most of the posts here are now down. I will try to update them as soon as possible.

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Trailer

A Fish Called Wanda

As promised, this week i will review my personal oppinion about a wonderful comedy known to us all as "A Fish Called Wanda".

I always loved John Cleese, from Monty Python to, Fawlty Towers, to that horrible role he had in the last Pierce Brosnan James Bond.
Bu the man who shines in the movie is not John Cleese but yes Kevin Kline and should i say he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor with his role of hyperactive, dumb, jealous, aggressive killer. He's just brilliant in this character. The filme tells the story of a robbery and its consequences. Two English men, George portrayed by Tom Georgeson) and Ken played by another ex-monty python Michael Palin and two Americans, Wanda which is portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis and Otto (Kevin Kline), stage a successful heist from a jeweler's store. The fun comes afterwards when they start to double-cross eachother to take all the loot for themselves.

The movie flows beautifully in the comedy genre, as it mixes the macabre's gags and jokes of John Cleese and Michael Palin Monty Python's with the satirizing spirit of the tipical British humour. Its a classic English comedy with American actors in the middle.

Maybe for some people it's just a comedy but for other it's more then that, as there's little messages within. For example the character Ken portrayed by Michael Palin is of a jewel thief with a soft heart for animals and a terrible stutter. This for me is seen as a dark ruthlessly irreverent humour as it makes funny of stutters.

The point is this a top rated comedy of British humour, with a bit of American feeling in it. Is a movie not to be missed, specially if you want a good damn laugh. It's a wonderfully entertainig piece of art from the 80's. Don't miss it. Enjoy it.

As this will be my last review in my homeland for a while, that is Portugal and i'm going on a big business trip for 6 months, i don't want you all to be sad if i won't appear for awhile here with new and fresh reviews (from the 80's of course :) ). But don't worry because i'll be back faster then you think. Did someone said Rain Man. That's your answer. Watch movies, watch a lot of good movies.

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Trailer

Full Metal Jacket

It's good to be back. It's been a while again, but better later then ever.
This time is another war picture with a fantastic director behind the cameras, which i previously idolized already - Stanley Kubrick.
Full Metal Jacket is an ok movie, is a good movie, is an extraordinary movie. It has all the movie symptons of Kubrick films; it's different, it's based on a novel adapted by Kubrick himself, great production design with huge war scenarios build up all in England, and it has the lunatic mind of Kubrick, the perfectionism of the dialogues, the movement of the cameras, the acting, the scenarios. It's a masterpiece.

In the beginning of Full Metal Jacket, we see the faces of several young men, having their heads shaved. These young men are new recruits of the US army, these recruits are going to be trained by Sergeant Hartman portrayed by the actor R. Lee Ermey and i must say, this guy is the best of the movie, his character speaks endless obscenities, destroys the recruits identity and makes them a fighting machine with no will of their own.
Within these recruits is the private Joker which is portrayed by the actor Matthew Modine which for me is his best work so far. Never heard of him again after this movie. Anyway private Joker is the narrator of the movie, and after gis trainning he is shipped out to Vietnam. After his arrival at the Vietnam he's now a sergeant, working as a reporter for Stars and Stripes to help keep the moral of the troops high. Joker and a photographer go with the troops on the front line to advertize an hipocratic propaganda to the troops, but soon in the destroyed town of Hue hell is about to start.

This movie was released a year after the movie Platoon which was already reviewed in the past. Oliver Stone movie has a different storytelling and perspective of the Vietnam war. As for Stone, his movie is more linear, direct and simple, the war is just a subject for the story.

In Kubrick's movie war is the story, it has a non-linear narrative, has it is dived in two parts, the trainning of the soldiers, and the second part is in Vietnam war itself. Kubrick's plays all his characters masterfully, instead of showing the day-today business of the soldiers, Kubrick goes directly to the point of an anti militarisic fundamentalist. His message in the movie is that, in every war the morale is an important tool for the soldiers, without it every battle is lost. In Full Metal Jacket that is evidentely shown, in the sequences of the sniper killing Us troops in slow motion showing the cruelty of war in a magic sequence. Kubrick is saying exactly that, there is nothing remotly heroic about the way soldiers are sent to their certain death.

It's not the best of Kubrick but it has all the ingredients of a great Kubrick movie. It's fresh, different war perspective, different has Kubrick got us used to that and its a very good directing, acting and the production designs are achieved with greatness here. It's a must see pearl of the 80's and a very good one.

I promise next week i will review another good movie. And don't worry, next time it will be not war, action with aliens, or any kind of horror. Did you ever heard of "A Fish Called Wanda"?.

See you soon

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Trailer

Aliens

How to start writing about a masterpiece like this it's a very dangerous job. I hope i'm worth enough to write about this major epic astonishing sci-fi action movie and the best of all time. Saying it's the best sci-fi movie of all time is in everyone choices. This choice is mine, and if you take into account the director is James Cameron and the tough actress who gives this fantastic movie a soul is Sigourney Weaver then maybe you should check it out. I think Aliens should be seen as an independent movie apart from the rest of the Alien saga. And In my opinion the best in this fantastic saga. It has the same main character yes, true but the movie evolves when new and powerfull characters let the movie flow with the same storytelling but always in a different background, different perspectives, visual, character development and astonishing methods of directing to take the same story and tell it all over again with never repeating the same which was previous done by the other directors before.

It seems easy to look back to this movie and say: "this is a very simple idea, and alien race, take some military's to kill the aliens, that's it you have some good action movie...". This is not all true, you've got to have the deepest imagination to write and to make this visual masterpiece.

James Cameron now is always known for his sci-fi and epic blockbusters movies: The Terminator, The Abyss, The Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic and Aliens.

He's the perfect guy for the job, great storytelling, imagination and creativity in sci-fi "world". The premiss for the movie is simple as i said before, Ellen Ripley portrayed by Sigourney Weaver is found 57 years in a survival capsule which came from the previous movie from a salvage team. In this 57 years she was in hypersleep, lot has happened, the planet she escaped from is now a colonist station. When the Company which saved Ripley lost contact from the colonist station, Ripley already knows what happened, but the company wants to send her with a full group of trained marines to find out what happened, is it a problem with the transmissions or is it something worse. Ripley is to find there her worst nightmare 57 years later.

The movie is long and it passes so fast, for me this always means one thing, when something is good the time always fly. It's a wonderfull pearl of sci-fi action, beautifly production designs, great visual effects for an 1986 movie, strong hand of characters and great directing by James Cameron, who knew to re-invent what was already amazing in the previous Alien film. He direct Sigourney Weaver and the all cast into a new world and gave to the 7th Art another iconic movie for all the generations to come. If you're not a fan of sci-fi see it as just another action movie, the only difference it's in space, but if you are a fan of sci-fi, love it like the astonishing magic it delivers. Stay tooned. 7th Art will be back sooner with another great review back to the 80's.

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Trailer

The Shining

Why is it that nowadays the horror genre has gone soft, light, boring, why is that the masters of horror of many decades ago cannot re-invent the genre with originality, or even do a good adaptation from books, why is it that the horror genre has it was is not anymore today?!

The answer is simple, time; time took everything from an era which branded us with such relics from the masters of horror genre, such as John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hoper, Dario Argento. It's amazing and disapointing that this moguls of the horror cinema have gone soft while producing bad quality pictures, what happened to movies like "The Thing", "Halloween", "Nightmare in Elm Street", "The Hills Have Eyes", "The Exorcist" or my favourite horror flick of all time "The Shinning". The 70's and 80's were the peek of the horror genre and as time went by, horror movies entered into the modern era of horror cinema making, new pupils beyond the chairs worked as directors to re-invent and ressucitate the horror genre, like the masters before them, but they didn't re.invented anything with their lack of originality, they only invented what was already invented, the new modern era of horror making is an updating of the past. Full of remakes, sequels and copycats of a past age of pure horror cinema making.

Let's put the best director in the world beyond cameras, an amazing adaptation screenplay from a horror novel writer aka Stephen King, Jack Nicholson and that's it, the most horrific, psychological horror thriller of all time.

The plot summary of the movie is at it follows: A man, his wife and his son, move to an hotel in Colorado during the winter to became the caretakers of the hotel in that period. The father played masterfully by Jack Nicholson takes the time while in the hotel to write his novel, but while in the hotel is son starts to see horrific and disturbing, violent visions of what previously happened there, this gift his son have is called "The Shinning". As time goes by Jack - the character portrayed by Jack Nicholson begins to slowly passing from the thin line of sanity to the obscure line of insanity. The effect of cabin fever and loneliness strikes Jack. He starts to see ghosts and worse, talks to them. One day a ghost convinces him to take care or correct his family has they are needing it. Danny the son and his mother have only one chance to escape from the insanity of the father - "The Shinning".

Stanley Kubrick was a master in all the movies he made, and this one is no exception. Kubrick was known as a perfeccionist. His movies, independently of it's genre were always as real, completly detailed and portrayed as he wanted and for me it was one of the best people who could make us experience THE cinema magic in the making. The movie is beautifuly filmed, the production, directing and the sets design are masterfuly well done. Jack Nicholson is amazing as a recovering alcoholic, insane father and husband. It's a perfect movie for the horror genre as it was. It's mandatory for those who never watched it. Enjoy and i'll be back again this month with the review of another genre, Sci-Fi (Aliens).
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Trailer

Platoon

Oliver Stone who previously was a US soldier fighting in the real Vietnam war in the Pacific before starting his director career, has delivered us with this powerfull and realistic movie 23 years ago.

In my perspective Platoon has a very simple storyline, about a conflict which divided United States of America into three groups, the politicans, the men fighting abroad and the "people" fighting in the streets to end the war which was a in my point of view, a war about ego, and very little about deploying freedom into another country, it was about which position and ideology had more "fire power" - The Communists or The Free Government Democracy which USA always stands for, or whatever you want to call it.

Anyway, Charlie Sheen followed the footsteps of his father Martin Sheen as he also played a US soldier in the very acclaimed movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola "Apocalypse Now". The story is simple, as it was based in the first-hand experience of the director Oliver Stone when he went to fight in Vietnam; a young soldier named Chris Taylor quits college and volunteer himself to go abroad to fight in a brutal war scenario which he will find out later on. After he arrives he discovers that he is just another insignificant men to the "slaughterhouse", his presence is nothing to the other veterans soldiers who are fighting there a lot more then him. As time goes by Chris notices that his own Platoon which is commanded by two officers, Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes and Sergeant Elias Grodin, is divided into two groups, the Barnes group and the Grodin group. One day when his platoon is on a mission on a village the thin line between those two groups in his platoon is broken when soldiers commit illegal killings in that village.

With a fearfull direction Platoon delivers a punch in the stomach with it's brutal, powerfull, intence violent context, and it reminds USA of the mistakes of the past.
The movie won 4 Oscars and was nominated for a bunch of more awards.

Stone directs Charlie Sheen and the rest of the cast with a steady hand when it takes to character direction. Every detail of his own experience is in the screen, the arrival at the war scenario, the fighting, the psychological meltdown of the soldiers, the jungles, the traps of the North Vietnam soldiers, the exaustion, every single detail Stone wanted us to see is there.

Very well filmed, excellent interpretation from the all cast which includes, besides Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Williem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, John C. McGinley, Keith David and Johnny Depp.
With a great cinematography, sound, editing, script, direction, cast is a wonderfull war movie for those who are willing to watch good quality cinema even though it's not for everyone stomach.

Its a powerful piece of art which will always be in our 7th art history. Don't miss it. Watch it, this one and a lot more. 7thArtFor7 sees you soon with another great review. Don't miss it. Ciau

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Oscars Good Or Not ?

Hello everyone, it's been a while since i wrote anything for you. But as they say: "Better later then never". Two weeks passed since the oscar season. That's it 2009 Oscars are over, but the real question remains: Were 2008 movies nominated for the academy awards well choosen, are the oscars changing, are the oscar being liberated from the american movie machine business ?

I think yes, "The Academy Awards" are changing, say it's because of this new modern Era of the 7th Art, say it's because there are now less good american movies then there was before, say it's only some good movies which hit the cinema screens because there's no money for marketing and therefore those movies don't even are in nominated list. I just don't know, but one thing for sure, i think the Oscars are more liberally then ever before, "Slumdog Millionaire" is a pretty good example. English movie - YES but with a Indian background, actors, language, Asian culture. It was a very good bet who thought that Slumdog would win, i did. I don't say the Oscars should change but as the american constituion say, every person should be consider equal and my position is that the "Academy Awards" cerimony should be for all 7th Art industry mainstream and should get away more and more of the american/european productions and convert to a globally cerimony.

Talking of the Oscars delivered this year per si i had only one suprise actually. The Second academy award recognition for Sean Penn in his movie "Milk". I really thought Mickey Rourke would beat the competation that night. But he has time now that he "assumly" got on the right track again with his life and carrer. Sean Penn would be my second choice. Those who disagree with me and think that Brad Pitt should won, i have to tell you that he will when he gets more older.

Kate Winslet won uhhhhhhuhhhhhh, finally, come on she was deserving, 5 times nominated, give her a break, The Reader is a very good movie and very good interpretation given by Winslet. The postomous award to Heath Ledger was being expected too. He gave a very good performance and his death helped the movie a lot even if it's not a happy ending for an actor but it was a happy ending for his family to receive the award. Penelope Cruz won with no competition in my opinion. When i saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona i was expecting a nomination and For Barden too.

But the best moment of the night was definitly for "Slumdog Millionaire" who delivered 10 awards, including Best Director and Best Movie. I was expecting that too has it is the best movie of the year 100%. Thank you Warner for refusing to take the movie to the theaters and thank you Fox SearchLight for delivering the movie to the theaters and not directly to DVD. That would be a major loss to us all and the 7th Art.

In summing it was a medium 2008 season regardding to movies, Clint Eastwood hasn't competing in the major categories, but this is just my personal taste.

See you next year for more Oscars and see you soon for the new review of the movie "Platoon".

Good movies and keep enjoying the 7th Art as much as possible.