Escolha do Ciclo – Novembro

#9 – Ciclo Cidades

Sobre os filmes que compõe o ciclo:
1)Paris Je T’Aime
“In PARIS, JE T’AIME, celebrated directors from around the world, including the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, Walter Salles, Alexander Payne and Olivier Assayas, have come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined. Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators’ backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in oe of the city’s neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the ‘postcard’ view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen. Racial tensions stand next to paranoid visions of the city seen from the perspective of an American tourist. A young foreign worker moves from her own domestic situation into her employer’s bourgeois environs. An American starlet finds escape as she is shooting a movie. A man is torn between his wife and his lover. A young man working in a print shop sees and desires another young man. A father grapples with his complex relationship with his daughter. A couple tries to add spice to their sex life. These are but a few of the witty and serendipitous narratives that make up PARIS, JE T’AIME.”

2)In Bruges
“Colin Farrell and Academy Award-nominee Ralph Fiennes star in this edgy, action-packed comedy, filled with thrilling chases, spectacular shoot-outs and an explosive ending you won’t want to miss!
Hit men Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson, Harry Potter) have been ordered to cool their heels in the storybook city of Bruges (it’s in Belgium) after finishing a big job. But since hit men make the worst tourists, they soon find themselves in a life & death struggle of comic proportions against one very angry crime boss (Fiennes)!
Get ready for the outrageous and unpredictable fun you will have In Bruges, the movie critics are calling, “wildly entertaining” “

3)Manhattan
Nominated for two Academy AwardsÂ(r)* in 1979 and considered “one of Allen’s most enduring accomplishments” (Boxoffice), Manhattan is a wry, touching and finely rendered portrait of modern relationships against the backdrop of urban alienation. Sumptuously photographed in black and white (Allen’s first film in that format) and accompanied by a magnificent Gershwin score, Woody Allen’s aesthetic triumph is a “prismatic portrait of a time and a place that may be studied decades hence” (Time). 42-year-old Manhattan native Isaac Davis (Allen) has a job he hates, a seventeen-year-old girlfriend, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), he doesn’t love and a lesbian ex-wife, Jill (Meryl Streep), who’s writing a tell-all book about their marriage and whom he’d like to strangle. But when he meets his best friend’s sexy intellectual mistress, Mary (Diane Keaton), Isaac falls head over heels in lust! Leaving Tracy, bedding Mary and quitting his job are just the beginning of Isaac’s quest for romance and fulfillment in a city where sex is as intimate as a handshakeandthe gateway to true love is a revolving door”

4)Crossing The Bridge – The Sound of Istambul
“Fatih akin introduces an international audience to the diversity and uniqueness of musical creativity in the heart of istanbul ranging from modern electronic rock and hip-hop to classical arabesque. German-born Turkish director Faith Akin captures in his film the endless variety of the different styles in music and songs in Istanbul, a city that is a bridge between East and West, a city that is uniquely located on both sides of the Bosporus, in Europe and in Asia. Kurdish dirges represented by Aynur, who performs her own brand of Kurdish gospel music, passionate and melodic. We are introduced to Romany instrumentals, to Orhan Gencebay, who has been called the Elvis of Arabesque music – sounds of music are heard everywhere in the city as Faith Akin takes us into underground clubs, to the street performers, and to recording sessions. German bassist Alexander Hacke who comes to Istanbul to play and to learn about Turkish music quotes Confucius, “To understand the place, you have to listen to the music it plays”"

Escolha do Ciclo – Outubro

Sobre os ciclos em escolha:

Cohen
“For more than twenty years, the pair have written and directed numerous successful films(…) They are known in the film business as “the two-headed director”, as they share a similar vision of their films.”

Tim Burton
“He is famed for his dark and quirky films, such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which he co-wrote and produced. He is also famous for being the director of several blockbusters including Batman, Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”

Ron Jeremy
Um nome, um estilo, um marco

Cidades
Aqui visitaremos algumas cidades por intermédio de grandes filmes

Sociedades Distópicas
Ciclo dedicado a filmes cujo tema são sociedades distópicas e
governos totalitários, e nas lutas de alguns cidadãos pela libertação
e a procura da verdade. Pensem em Clockwork Orange e Matrix… (nota:
estes não farão parte do ciclo; surprise surprise…)

Vampiros
Ciclo dedicado à temática do vampiro

#8 Ciclo Kar Wai Wong

Sobre Kar Wai Wong:
“award-winning Hong Kong filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized films. Wong was listed at number three on the respected Sight & Sound Top Ten Directors list of modern times”

Sobre os filmes que compõe o ciclo:
1) In the Mood For Love – Fa yeung nin wa (2000)
“Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are polite and formal-until a discovery about their respective spouses sparks an intimate bond. At once delicately mannered and visually stunning, Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments in time. “

2) 2046 (2004)
“Hong Kong filmmaker Wai is such a visualist (Time magazine tabbed him as the “world’s most romantic filmmaker”), the images wash over with swirling smoke, neon lights, and the faces of his outstanding cast, all lovingly photographed and smoothly scored. There’s a lot more going on than the visuals, and Wai’s fans will certainly find more and more details on repeated viewings.”

3) Chungking Express – Chung Hing sam lam (1994)
“What Chungking Express does have is loads of energy and a gorgeous visual style that never gets in the way of engaging with the charming characters. The movie was shot on the fly by hip director Wong Kar-Wai (Happy Together, Ashes of Time), using only available lighting and found locations. The movie’s loose, improvisational feel is closer to Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless than any recent film–and that’s high praise. Quirky, funny, and extremely engaging, Chungking Express manages to be experimental and completely accessible at the same time.”

4) Fallen Angels – Duo luo tian shi (1995)
“this is antic, stylish, and oddly touching, all at the same time (…) is fragmented and oblique to the point of occasional incomprehensibility…but then suddenly something wild or wonderful happens, such as the moment when the killer leaves the scene of a spectacular shooting and is promptly waylaid by a cheerful old school chum on a public bus. These coups–whether lyrical, violent, or simply “how on earth did they get that shot?”–are tossed off by Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle with all the cool of the hired killer, as though the movie were a cigarette dangling from a pair of oh-so-casual lips. This is exactly why so many otherwise calm critics fell all over themselves in hailing Wong Kar-Wai as one of the most exciting filmmakers of his generation.”

Escolha do Ciclo – Setembro

Sobre os ciclos em escolha:

Brasileiro
“Ciclo dedicado a explorar o cinema Brasileiro. Fernando Meireles e Walter Salles (entre outros) serão realizadores a conhecer”

Jean Luc Godard
“Many of Godard’s films challenged the conventions of Hollywood cinema, and he was often considered the most extreme New Wave filmmaker. His films often expressed his political ideologies as well as his knowledge of film history. In addition, Godard’s films often citedexistential and Marxist philosophy”

Tim Burton
“He is famed for his dark and quirky films, such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which he co-wrote and produced. He is also famous for being the director of several blockbusters including Batman, Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”

Sociedades Distópicas
“Ciclo dedicado a filmes cujo tema são sociedades distópicas e governos totalitários, e nas lutas de alguns cidadãos pela libertação e a procura da verdade. Pensem em Clockwork Orange e Matrix… (nota: estes não farão parte do ciclo; surprise surprise…)“

Mulher
“Ciclo dedicado à mulher e à adoração do universo feminino (Almodovar,…)”

Kar Wai Wong
“award-winning Hong Kong filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized films. Wong was listed at number three on the respected Sight & Sound Top Ten Directors list of modern times.”

#7 Ciclo Peter Sellers

Sobre Peter Sellers:
“His ability to speak in different accents (e.g., French, Indian, American, British, German), along with his talent to portray a range of characters to comedic effect, contributed to his success as a radio personality and screen actor and earned him national and international nominations and awards.”
“known for his roles in Dr. Strangelove, as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, as Clare Quilty in the original 1962 screen version of Lolita, in comedy films such as The Millionairess and The Party, and as the guileless man-child Chance in his penultimate film, Being There”

Sobre os filmes que compõe o ciclo:
1) Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
“Arguably the greatest black comedy ever made, Stanley Kubrick’s cold-war classic is the ultimate satire of the nuclear age. Dr. Strangelove is a perfect spoof of political and military insanity(…) With dialogue (“You can’t fight here! This is the war room!”) and images (Slim Pickens’s character riding the bomb to oblivion) that have become a part of our cultural vocabulary, Kubrick’s film regularly appears on critics’ lists of the all-time best”

2) Lolita (1962)
“When director Stanley Kubrick released his film adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel about a hopelessly pathetic middle-aged professor’s sexual obsession with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, the ads read, “How did they ever make a film of Lolita?” The answer is “they” didn’t. As he did with his “adaptations” of Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, and, especially, The Shining, Kubrick used the source material and, simply put, made another Stanley Kubrick movie–even though Nabokov himself wrote the screenplay(…) Perhaps not a Kubrick masterpiece, or the provocative film many wanted, Lolita still remains playfully fascinating and one of Kubrick’s strongest, funniest character studies”

3) The Party (1968)
“Though this film is a relatively minor one in the massive canon of Peter Sellers, it has moments of absolute hilarity. Written and directed by Blake Edwards, one of Sellers’s most fertile collaborators, the film stars Sellers as a would-be actor from India (let them try to get away with that today) who is a walking disaster area. After ruining a day’s shooting as an extra on a film, he finds himself unintentionally invited to a big Hollywood party. That’s pretty much it as far as plot goes, but Edwards and Sellers know how to milk a simple idea for an unending string of slapstick gags. The result is a film that is episodic and sketchy, but also frequently loony in an inspired way”

4) Being There (1979)
“Thanks to an extraordinary, delicately balanced performance by Peter Sellers, Being There received mixed reviews during its theatrical release in 1979, but has since become a celebrated comedy with a loyal following. It’s one of the most unusual black comedies ever made, simply because it stretches a simple premise over 130 minutes of straight-faced, strangely compelling commentary on politics, media, and celebrity in media-savvy America(…) His simple phrases about gardening are misinterpreted as anything from economic predictions to sage political advice, and under the sharp direction of Hal Ashby, Sellers has the audacity to take this comedic conceit to its logical extreme. Being There is not for all tastes–especially not for those who don’t appreciate comedic subtlety. But as a showcase for the daring genius of Peter Sellers, this is a classic movie in a category all its own”

#6 – Junho – Ciclo Stanley Kubrick

Sobre Kubrick:
Kubrick was noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism and his reclusiveness about his films andpersonal life.(…) Kubrick is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative, influential and intriguing directors in the history of cinema. In fact, he directed a number of highly acclaimedand often controversial films that have often been perceived as a reflection of hisobsessive and perfectionist nature. His films are characterized by a formal visual style and meticulous attention to detail –often combining elements of surrealism andexpressionism with an ironic pessimism, while also being among the “most original,provocative, and visionary motion pictures ever made”.

1 – Paths of Glory (1957)
“it was the 1957 antiwar masterpiece Paths of Glory that catapulted Kubrick to international acclaim(…) one of the most powerful films about the wasteful insanity of warfare(…) In the wake of some of the most authentic and devastating battle sequences ever filmed, Kubrick brilliantly explores the political machinations and selfish personal ambitions that result in battlefield slaughter and senseless executions.“

2 – Clockwork Orange (1971)
“quartet of droogs, a vicious group of young hoodlums who spend their nights stealing cars, fighting rival gangs, breaking into people’s homes, and raping women. While other directors would simply exploit the violent elements of such a film without subtext, Kubrick maintains Burgess’s dark, satirical social commentary(…) Clockwork Orange works on many levels–visual, social, political, and sexual–and is one of the few films that hold up under repeated viewings. Kubrick not only presents colorfully arresting images, he also stylizes the film by utilizing classical music (and Wendy Carlos’s electronic classical work) to underscore the violent scenes, which even today are disturbing in their display of sheer nihilism.“

3 – Shining (1980)
“is an existential Road Runner cartoon (his steadicam scurrying through the hotel’s labyrinthine hallways), in which the cavernously empty spaces inside the Overlook mirror the emptiness in the soul of the blocked writer, who’s settled in for a long winter’s hibernation.(…)The Shining gets under your skin and chills your bones; it stays with you, inhabits you, haunts you. And there’s no place to hide…“

4 – 2001 – Space Odyssey (1968)
“In keeping with the director’s underlying theme of dehumanization by technology(…)2001 a film like no other, though dated now that its postmillennial space exploration has proven optimistic compared to reality. Still, the film is timelessly provocative in its pioneering exploration of inner- and outer-space consciousness. With spectacular, painstakingly authentic special effects that have stood the test of time, Kubrick’s film is nothing less than a cinematic milestone–puzzling, provocative, and perfect.“

Nuno Ferreira

Escolha do Ciclo – Junho

#5 – Maio – Ciclo Emir Kusturica

O ciclo escolhido para este mês foi o Ciclo Wes Anderson.

Os filmes a ver serão:

7 Maio – Dom za vesanje (Time of the Gypsies) (1988)
“luminous tale set in the area around Sarajevo and in Italy, Perhan, an engaging young Romany (gypsy) with telekinetic powers, is seduced by the quick-cash world of petty crime, which threatens to destroy him and those he loves.”

21 Maio – Crna macka, beli macor (Black Cat, White Cat) (1998)
“Grga Pitic and Zarije Destanov are two old friends – and rivals – who haven’t seen each other in years. But a series of events beyond their wildest dreams leads to a raucously funny reunion filled with gypsy mobsters, dirty deals and shotgun weddings”

28 Maio – Zivot je cudo (Life is a Miracle) (2004)
“What could be better for the village than a scenic railway to bring in the tourists? What could be worse for tourism than war? Luka builds the railway and shuts his eyes to war. Then Luka’s wife runs off with a musician and his son is called up to the army. Luka’s life is a war zone. Then he meets Sabaha..”

Nuno Ferreira

Escolha do Ciclo – Maio

Sobre os ciclos em escolha:

Emir Kusturica
“With an impressive string of internationally acclaimed features, Yugoslavian filmmakerEmir Kusturica became one of the most creative directors in cinema during the 1980s and ’90s.(…)Known as much for his political activism as his filmmaking in his native country, Kusturicaspoke out against the Serbian right/ultranationalist movement on many occasions.

Irmãos Cohen
“For more than twenty years, the pair have written and directed numerous successful films(…) They are known in the film business as “the two-headed director”, as they share a similar vision of their films.”

Brasileiro
“Ciclo dedicado a explorar o cinema Brasileiro. Fernando Meireles e Walter Salles (entre outros) serão realizadores a conhecer” 

Os Piores Filmes de Sempre
Eu diria que o nome normalmente diz muito,  mas aqui diz tudo.

Chan Wook Park
“One of the most acclaimed and popular filmmakers in his native country”

Woody Allen
“Allen’s distinctive films, which run the gamut from dramas to screwball sex comedies, have made him one of the most respected living American directors.(…)Allen writes and directs his movies and has also acted in the majority of them. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, sexuality,philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, European cinema and New York City”

 
Nuno Ferreira