Mud [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (J. Emerson) review

Mud [2012] (written and directed by Jeff Nichols) is a small well acted/crafted "indie" style film set in a small random hamlet in Arkansas along the banks of the (Great) Mississippi River.  As such, "small in scope" as the film may be, it immediately evokes the grandeur of  "Old Man River" and the legacy of America's greatest story teller, Mark Twain.

Does the film live up to such "Great Potentialities" if not "Expectations?"  Well Mark Twain / Huck Finn it is not, indeed, can not be, but IMHO the film's both small/intimate enough and its thematics universal enough to do quite well.  And certainly the film is worthy of the interests of actor Matthew McConaughey who can definitely ham-it-up in crowd-pleasing / blockbuster fare like Magic Mike [2012] or Ghosts of Girlfriends Past [2009] but also appears interested in taking on roles in IMHO far more interesting "Southern Noir"-ish projects such as in Bernie [2012], Killer Joe [2012] (a film that I do believe "crossed the line" but at least there was "a line to cross" ... ) and The Paperboy [2012].

The current film centers on two 14 year old boys, Ellis (played by Tye Sheridan) and his best friend nick-named "Neckbone" (played by Jacob Lofland) from said small hamlet who are growing-up with their parents/kin, living in houseboats perched along the River (hence the River necessarily plays a BIG role in their lives).  One day, while exploring along the river on their little motorboat, the two encounter a drifter (played by Matthew McConaughey). When asked by the boys for his name, the drifter introduces himself as Mud.  He's been sleeping in a boat that due to a previous flood is holed-up in a tree on a random island along the Mississippi.  Looking at him with one pair of clothing and small convenience store plastic bag of groceries to his name, one of the two 14 year-olds mutters under his breath "Bum."  "Excuse me, I'm a hobo.  Presently, I may be homeless but I work and pay for my keep!"  Indeed, one day, as the two boys progressively begin to trust / befriend the curious Mud, he has a cooler of already gutted and cut-up fish for them to take back to town to sell for him...

Okay, so what's a guy in his late 20s-early 30s doing living in a boat holed-up in the tree on some random island along the Mississippi River somewhere in Arkansas?   Well, there's obviously a story and the story's obviously, at least in part, rather seamy and not particularly great for 14 year olds to hear.  On the other hand, they're 14 and as long as they keep some distance from said "bum/hobo" named Mud, they get to learn a little about life ... life that they themselves, living in houseboats at the edge of a small Arkansas town along the Mississippi River, are already living somewhat "on the margins." 

Between what Mud himself tells them, and what they hear over time from others, the boys (as well as the viewers) piece together the (Mud's) story: There's a young woman involved, Juniper (played by Resse Witherspoon).  There's also a recluse/distant relation of Mud's, a retired former Marine sharpshooter named Tom Blankenship (played by Sam Shepard) who actually lives somewhat close to Ellis' family if "across the channel" (already on an island).  He knows Mud and has been "looking after him" if at a distance since Mud's teenage years and (for reasons unclear / I don't entirely remember anymore... ;-) the breakup of Mud's family.

Ex-marine sniper (and literally "uncle Tom" ;-) Blankenship thinks Mud's girlfriend has been "nothing but trouble."  He explains to the boys that Mud's been in love with her for years and that Juniper "kinda loves him back."  But then "she's flighty" hanging out with the biggest dregs of society (probably part of the reason she kinda likes Mud as well ...) and then depends on Mud to come along and "save her" from the mess that she's created.

Well, the last time when Mud came to clean-up a Mess that Juniper created, he ended-up killing a young man of Mud's / Juniper's age, a man whose father holds grudges.  Hence Mud's living in a "tree house boat" on a non-descript island along the Mississippi being helped by two 14 year olds, because he's wanted for murdering a well-connected a-h... who was hitting on a young woman who can't decide whether or not she loves Mud (or could love Mud) anyway.

What a murky/muddy Mess ... ;-).  Anyway, dead a-h...'s father has bounty hunters out looking for Mud and staking-out Juniper's residence as well.  Something has to give ... And, of course, it does.   The rest of the movie ensues ...

What a simple and yet great story about life-lessons and growing up!  True, this is not exactly a story for girls/young women as they not necessarily portrayed well in this story even if Ellis' mother Mary Lee (played by Sarah Paulson) is portrayed quite nicely/positively.  Still it's not necessarily a bad lesson for either boys or girls to least: Just because you like/are attracted somebody doesn't make them a good person.  At times, you have to step back and look at them for what they really are.

So I just found this film to be great.  It reminds us that a good story doesn't need a high budget / great special effects to sell.  In the tradition of the great story-teller Mark Twain, a good story can sell itself ... 


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Pain and Gain [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  S. Adams (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Adams) review

Pain and Gain [2013] (directed by Michael Bay, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely based on the magazine reporting on the case in question of Pete Collins) is about such a searingly crass (but unbelievably true) crime story that it probably justifies making some kind of film about it.  Yet the violence (again often boneheadedly executed) does get to such hard-R levels that the film is definitely not for the squeamish.

The film, set in the mid-1990s, is about Miami body builder, South Florida trendy fitness gym trainer Daniel Lugo (played in the film by Mark Wahlberg) who had always lived by a "no gain without pain" weightlifting ethos.  As a result, Danny gets sick of hearing a scrawny, balding, 60ish, not even close to benching his weight, 1/2 Colombian 1/2 Jewish businessman client of his, named Victor Kershaw (played by Tony Shalhoub) bragging about all the money, hot cars, hot boats and hot women he has.

After going to one of those those "Get Rich by Sheer Will" motivational seminars headlined by "Johnny Wu" (played hilariously by Ken Jeong), Danny decides that he's a "Doer" rather than a "Don't-er," and comes up with a "3 fingered plan" -- (1) come up with an idea, (2) execute (DO) IT and (3) "F-U all you suckers /  live life rich afterwards!" -- to (1) kidnap said Victor Kershaw, (2) get him to sign away ALL OF HIS MONEY (cars, homes and boats...) to him and (3) dispose of Victor. 

To help him kidnap Victor, Danny assembles a small crew, including himself and fellow gym-trainers Adrian Doorbal (played by Anthony Mackie) who needs some extra cash because his constant steroid use has finally made his (blank...) inoperative (given him E.D...), and a reasonably good-hearted but not even close to (or even in the same neighborhood as) "the sharpest tool in the shed," buff former ex-con named Paul Doyle (played by Dwayne Johnson).  Much, often involving stunning ineptitude, ensues...

So despite "almost" getting away with it all ... they don't.  Victor, survives his ordeal, hires a private-eye (played by Ed Harris) after Miami police, after seeing his Colombian background don't want much to do with his case ... and the three get caught, two of which Daniel and Adrian, finally getting the death penalty for their crimes (no kidding and by the end, they've racked-up enough of a list that by law they've more than crossed the threshhold...), while Paul, a good if stupid, stupid soul, gets 15-years and a life of forever saying that he's really, really, yes, really sorry.

If one isn't reminded -- at the beginning, in a key point in the middle and at the end of the story -- that this film really is based on a true story, one would simply not believe it.

Finally, I would say that along with the recent film Spring Breakers [2012], the film does remind viewers in a stark, indeed searing, sort of way, that "money isn't everything."  But are we so utterly stoned/desensitized as as society that we have to be reminded of this in such an utterly unforgettable sort of way?


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The Big Wedding [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O) I. Vishnevetsky (1 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (I. Vishnevetsky) review

It's approaching wedding season in the U.S., so "wedding" themed movies are to be expected.  However, honestly, unless your own wedding/marriage proved a disaster (over 1/2 the marriages in the United States end in divorce, and though domestic violence is at times a reason (and a justifiable one - if one beats or otherwise truly abuses one's spouse one obviously doesn't know what a marriage is supposed to be), the vast majority of the times divorce comes when one or the other party convinces themselves that their partner is simply a disappointment in one way or another - or just plain getting old - and convinces oneself that one could still "trade up" somehow) I wouldn't recommend  The Big Wedding [2013] (written and directed by Justin Zackham) to anybody.

Particularly galling to someone like me is that the families in the film are supposed to be Catholic, not random religion, but CATHOLIC.  Okay, one of the families is racist.  Are there racists in the Catholic Church?   I can with ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE BASED ON MY PASTORAL MINISTRY SAY _YES_.  NO DOUBT, NONE.  There CERTAINLY ARE racists in the Catholic Church in this country AND A FAIR NUMBER OF THEM (certainly not all but far more than one really ought to be at all comfortable with).  But having said that, it gets "complicated": 

For one, half the Catholics in the United States are now Hispanic.  Add to those non-white Catholics, Catholics from Asia -- the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, a non-inconsequential number of Catholics from India and from the Middle East (Lebanon, Iraq, even more recently Syria), then Catholics from Africa (the Congo, much of West Africa), the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba as well as from some of the smaller islands) and then African American Catholics with family roots in Louisiana (which actually was the only predominantly Catholic slave state in 'the Old South') ... the substantial majority of Catholics in the United States are NO LONGER WHITE. 

Then let's go through what the Protestant majority in this country has called the various Catholic immigrant groups that have come to this fair land over its history:  The Irish were "drunks," the Italians were "crooks," the Poles (there isn't a building of consequence standing in Chicago that wasn't built largely by Poles) were "stupid," and, of course, the Hispanics coming over the Rio Grande or on boats from Cuba and Haiti are "crooks" (okay the Cubans are generally anti-communists, so we put a flag in their hands first and then call them "drug dealing crooks") as well.  That's why we have to build a wall between us and our southern borders.  Oh, yes, and young Hispanic women, like "Alejandro's sister" in this film are _also_ "sluts."

Add to this that while there are actually quite a few prominent Catholic-Jewish interfaith couples in America today, I can think of EXACTLY ZERO prominent Protestant-Jewish couples today.  Why?  My sense is that lived-out Catholicism is actually far closer to Judaism than Protestantism is to either: Catholicism is NOT MERELY theology/doctrine.  Like Judaism, Catholicism is a way of life. There are seasons, there are feast days, there are traditions and there are ALWAYS opportunities to celebrate key milestones in the lives of the (individual) faithful in the context (and with the blessing) of the Church. 

So Mr. Zachham, who my friend is being a racist?

And I honestly find it hard to believe that Robert DeNiro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Katherine Heigl, Amanda Seyfreid and Robin Williams (who I've liked for most of my life) would associate themselves with such a blatantly racist anti-Catholic picture such as this.


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Tlatelolco, Summer of 68 (orig. Tlatelolco, Verano del 68) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

Tlatelolco, Summer of 68 (orig. Tlatelolco, Verano del 68) [2013] (directed by Carlos Bolado, script by Carolina Rivera along with Luis Felipe Ybarra and Carlos Bolado) is an well written/crafted and certainly significant Mexican historical drama surrounding the events surrounding the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre [Wkpd-ESP]* of at least 300 possibly thousands of Mexican students in Mexico City, just 10 days prior to the opening of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.  The film played recently to repeatedly sold out audiences at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival. 

This tragedy, indeed Tiananmen-style crime, had been quickly buried (the blood quite literally hosed away...) by Mexico's authorities wishing to present a welcoming/peaceful (and above all "in control") face to the 1968 Summer Games even as the rest of the world (from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy in the United States, to street protests against the U.S.-led War in Vietnam across the United States and Western Europe, to the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia) seemed to be in chaos.

This was also an event like the Cristero Rebellion (that finally brought the chaos of the Mexican Revolution to an end) that was both KNOWN BY JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY IN MEXICO but NOT PUBLICLY DISCUSSED (let alone taught in schools...) until after the year 2000 (more than 30 years later...) when Vicente Fox became the first non-PRI candidate to be elected President of Mexico since the end of the Mexican Revolution in the 1920s. 

I first heard of the Tlatelolco Massacre [Wkpd-ESP]* from my teacher when I was in Guadalajara to learn Spanish back in the late 1990s.  She presented it to me as precisely a Tienanmen-style massacre that no one outside of Mexico knew about and no one inside Mexico was allowed to openly discuss.  Her parents were students, in Guadalajara, at the time... The lack of opportunity, indeed "permission" to discuss this event in decades past, help explain the sold-out crowds when the film was shown at the Latino Film Festival here in Chicago (Chicago having the largest Mexican-American population in the United States, second only to Los Angeles).  This was first film of its kind (other than a documentary made only a few years previous) about the massacre. 

The film makers for their part did IMHO a very good job in presenting the human complexities/tragedy of this story.  Thankfully they felt no need to further propagandize the story to promote any particular current agenda, as the tragedy of the story told itself:  Those who were massacred were students.  Hence, even though they were to some extent "elite," they also came from a broad base of society.  Mixed among those students protesting (and later being shot...) were sons and daughters of both those in power AND those who (like the world over) were the first ones from their families who've made it to college.

Indeed the two central protagonists in the film were (1) Maria Elena (played by Cassandra Ciangherotti) who was portrayed as coming from a rich family and the daughter of Ernesto (played by Juan Manuel Bernal) portrayed as a significant if still upper-mid-level government official at the Ministry of the Interior and whose grandfather Flavio (played by Juan Carlos Colombo) had been a hero of the Mexican Revolution and (2) Felix (played by Christian Vasquez) who was an architecture student at the Instituto Polytecnico in Mexico City, the first from his family to make it to college and whose older brother Paco (played by Armando Hernández) was a plainclothes policeman in Mexico City.  BOTH Maria Elena's father and especially Felix' brother warned their idealistic kin to avoid/stop participating in the student demonstrations that were growing in Mexico City during the summer of 1968, telling them these demonstrations could only end badly.  Of course they didn't stop participating in the protests, and of course their more informed kin were right ...


It's a real tragedy and those who did die deserve to be remembered.  To be honest (and writing now with the perspective of a 50 year old ... ;-), I'm not sure what the students would have necessarily accomplished if they had succeeded (it's one thing to protest the way things are, it's another to actually know how to fix it...).

On the other hand, for the sake of a "calm" Olympics, Mexico's authorities decided to have them as "tranquil as a cemetery ..." and what would it have really mattered if they had just let the students protest?  Mexico would have been "just like every other place (free) at the time."  Instead, Mexico's authorities showed themselves, at least for that generation, as "unable to bend."  And one wonders what contributions to Mexico's society (and indeed to the world) were lost among all those students (300 to as many as 3000) who were shot dead... so that the 1968 Olympics could be "calm" (even as the world's athletes themselves made protests against both superpowers anyway...). 


* Immediate machine translation of foreign (in this case Spanish) language links are generally best viewed using Google's Chrome browser.


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Florbela [2012]

MPAA (UR would R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

Florbela [2012] (written and directed by Vicente Alves do Ó) is an award winning biopic about Florbela Espanca [PT]* (played in the film by Dalila Carmo) an early 20th century Portuguese proto-feminist poet with a typical for artists of the time difficult/troubled life.  The film played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The film begins in 1925 with the beginning of her marriage (her third at still only 30) to Mário Lage (played in the film by Albano Jerónimo), the reason for the dissolution of her first marriage unclear but the second being because her husband beat her.

Needless to say to have been married three times in the 1920s in a traditionally Catholic country like Portugal would have exposed her to a great deal of social criticism.  Yet, from the beginning, her life was a tormented mess.  She was the daughter of a maid-servant and though adopted by the family for whom her mother worked, her actual paternity remained unclear until after her death.  

Mário Lage's estate was in the countryside by the sea.  She would have been largely sheltered from the social criticism that she faced if she stayed there.  However, she was close to her adoptive brother Apeles Espanca (played in the film by Ivo Canelas) and thus returned back to Lisbon to be with him after the tragic death of Apeles' fiancee.  It also allowed her to go back to some of writing, even though, as a tormented introvert, she didn't allow most of her work to be published while she was still alive.

After Apeles died tragically in a plane crash (was it suicide? no one ever really knew for sure) she returned back to her father João Espanca (played in the film by António Fonseca) where she twice apparently tried committing suicide as well (in the film, one attempt is shown as she tries jumping down a well).  Eventually she died, on Dec 8, 1930 (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and also her 36th birthday), officially of tristeza (sadness).

Yet today, her works, tormented/sad, are considered some of the most significant Portuguese poetry of her time.  Some of it is available (in Portuguese) online.  Those who read some Spanish or Italian could probably understand some of it.  What I've read is quite lovely, if also very, very sad.

So Florbela's life seemed to have been tormented mess.  And yet, this seems par for the course for many artists and intellectuals of the early 20th century.  The film, a "period piece," certainly shows the sounds and styles of the time exquisitely and even hints at the foreboding nature of the time.  After all, these were the years between the two World Wars and just a few years before the beginning of the Spanish Civil War which took place next door.  Florbela appeared to be completely apolitical but as someone more or less obviously prone to depression certainly had to be effected by the atmosphere around her.

That artists are often very sensitive (and rather sad/tormented) people is an insight that Italian director Paolo Sorrentino recently applied in his film This Must be the Place [2011] to help understand some of the strange and rather depressed behavior of some of the 1960s-80s era Rock Stars: Why did some of these "Rock Gods" write so many lyrics that were so sad?  Well, Sorrentino's insight was that artists throughout the ages were often very sad, sensitive people.  In anycase, Florbela's life appears to be a clear testament to this view.

Now someone who was married three times (and later tried committing suicide at least twice) could not have been at that time particularly religious in the sense of that time.  (Yet, the film indicated that after the death of her brother, she did put herself in front of an altar to Mary offering her a flower).  When considering  someone who's endured so many difficulties in life (and add to that had a sensitive disposition to begin with) it honestly becomes very hard to judge.

In any case, this is a beautiful if often very, very sad film.


* Immediate machine translation of foreign (in this case Portuguese) language links are generally best viewed using Google's Chrome browser.


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Speechless (orig. Sin Palabras) [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

Speechless (orig. Sin Palabras) [2012] (written and directed by Ana Sofia Osorio and Diego Fernando Bustamante) is a small yet poignant full-length feature Colombian film that played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Raul (played by Javier Ortiz) is a young artist studying at the University in Bogota, Colombia.  To make ends meet, he works at a small store front hardware store.  When business is slow, he draws.  He's also mourning the departure of his girlfriend, who had departed some time earlier (and perhaps with bigger plans) for Germany.

Well one day, after opening-up shop and chitchatting with the owner, who wants to get over said girlfriend and set him up with a niece of hers, Raul notices a young Chinese woman (played by Xuan Liao) about his age (late teens to early 20s) sitting quietly and rather sadly on a bench across the street by a Chinese owned store that was apparently closed for inventory. (At least that's what the placard on the door indicated). 

After some time, noticing that she didn't seem to be going anywhere, he asks his boss' permission and goes over to her to see if anything is wrong.  She doesn't speak any Spanish, and he doesn't speak any Chinese.  By signs, however, he asks her if she's hungry  -- she indicates no -- and introduces himself as Raul.  She nods acknowledging his gesture but also indicates that she'd like to be left alone.

Well a few more hours pass, it's about lunch time and she's still there.  So Raul goes over to her, smiles and through signs, asks her if she's hungry.  She indicates no, but also responds to him saying "Raul" and then pointing to herself says Lian. 

In the conversation by signs, he convinces her to get-up with him anyway.  So they get up and start walking.  Above all, he thinks of taking her to a Chinese restaurant where he could find somebody to talk to her so that he'd better understand what she needs.  Alas, as we would quickly remember here in the United States as well, the restaurant is run by a Cantonese family (from Southern China) and she's from the north hence speaking Mandarin rather than Cantonese.  However, Raul gets a number from them of who to call to get her some help.  He also is told by one of the family members running the restaurant that Colombia is actually a transit point for Chinese trying to enter into the United States illegally.  (The director Ana Sofia Osorio explained after the movie that a lot of Chinese travel from China to Paris (because France doesn't require a visa for Chinese travellers) and then to Ecuador (because of all of the countries in South America only Ecuador requires no travel visas).  Then the Chinese would sneak into Colombia and then be transported by either boat along the Pacific Coast to California or perhaps by plane/boat across the Caribbean to parts in the Eastern United States).  Raul is told that the men taking this journey are generally put to work in Chinese restaurants across the United States, while the women work either in restaurants, or, often enough, work as prostitutes.

Why was she suddenly on the streets alone?  Well something must have happened.  It becomes, however, clear that Lian really wanted to go to the United States.  As they walk back to the hardware store, they pass by a travel agency.  There's a picture of the Statue of Liberty there.  She stops, points to the statue and smiles.  Then pointing to herself and then to the Statue of Liberty again, she says in Engish: "America ... everybody happy."

But Raul knows that she's probably going end up becoming a prostitute there.  Does she know that?  Does she care?  Is she willing to accept that as the price of going there?  Neither he nor the audience ever really know.

The number that the person at the Chinese restaurant gave him was for a group of Chinese cayote's (smugglers) who'd take her (for the money that she had or would owe) to America.  The question then becomes: Should Raul take her there (to those people)?  And then does Lian really know what awaits her if she rejoins the group (or perhaps another group) to take her to the States?

The rest of the film ensues...

It's a fascinating film and one that I'd recommend to anyone who's been interested in the topic of human traficking.  Finally, after the film I asked the director how/if the film will become available in the United States in the future.  She answered that sometime in May 2013 it should become available through iTunes.

Again, this is a very simple film but with a very clear message.  Good job! ;-)

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Did You Score? (orig. E Ai... Comeu?) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13/R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Adorocinema.com (AdC)* listing

Did You Score? (orig. E Ai... Comeu?) [2012] [AdC]*(directed by Felipe Joffily [AdC]* screenplay by Marcelo Rubens Paiva [wiki-pt]* and Lusa Silvestre based on the stage play by Marcelo Rubens Paiva [wiki-pt]*) is a well-written/well-crafted, often very funny, popular Brazilian comedy and one that (North) American viewers (still my primary readership) would immediately understand as it is centered around three 30-something friends Fernando (played by Bruno Mazzeo [AdC]*), Honório (played by Marcos Palmiera [AdC]*) and Afozinho (played by Emílio Orciollo Neto [AdC]*) who get together in the evenings at a small open air neighborhood bar (somewhere in Rio de Janeiro) called "Bar Harmonia" (Harmony's) whose name even basically means Cheers [IMDb].  While clearly different from the North American sitcom (and the current film is based on a Brazilian stage play), it should also be clear that if one sets a story around three young men regularly getting together at a bar anywhere in the world the potential for comedy is almost endless.  And indeed the film-makers (story-tellers) here do not disappoint ;-).

So it doesn't surprise me that the film, which played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival, recevied much popular acclaim [AdC]* back in Brazil, if interestingly not necessarily particularly high critical acclaim [AdC]*. The film is therefore also a reminder to me that popular comedies are often the most difficult to review, and then especially for someone like me, a Catholic priest after all ;-).

Comedy is in good part about "letting go" about saying things "with a smile" that one may not be able to say without that smile.  In reviewing other "problematic" comedies (No Strings Attached [2011], Friends with Benefits [2011], et al) I've noted that there's often a (to quote the Beach Boys song) "Wouldn't it be Nice?" quality to romantic comedies.  Indeed, this day-dreamy "wouldn't it be nice" quality to romantic comedies has been around since at least Shakespeare's comedies Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well that Ends Well and Much Ado about Nothing.  So often, romantic comedies go off in a direction that a Church official like myself would not particularly like, but SOMEWHERE in the film, reality would set in, and the plot would return closer back to earth.  The "dream" would come to a close, and "all would be well" at the end.

A second device that's often used in comedies has been to make the central characters obviously "stupider" (amiable but ... not particularly bright...) than the audience.  The North American Hangover [2009+] films obviously use this second device.   After all, who'd be so stupid as to get so drunk as to pull out one's own tooth (with a set of pliers) somewhere "out on the town" and then not even remember doing so the next day?  No one.  And that's the point.  We're given permission to relax/laugh because those telling us the story are telling us:  WE'RE JUST TELLING YOU A STORY. IT'S NOT REAL.  To be honest, I saw the first Hangover [2009] movie a couple of years before I began my blog and have basically refused to see the others because IMHO they are just too stupid.  Yet, I have to also admit that the Hangover films have been incredibly popular among parishioners at my parish.  And I have to say then that these films clearly speak to them (and tens of millions of others across the U.S.) no matter what the Church (or other, more high-brow critics) may say.

These two devices are used in all kinds of North American comedies, and are clearly coming to be used across the globe -- one thinks of the wildly popular (in Poland) romcom Letters to Santa (orig. Listy do M.) [2011],  the Czech offbeat but funny "romcom of sorts" (based on an English script) Perfect Days (orig. I ženy mají své dny) [2011], the again wildly popular (in Spain) comedy Cousinhood (orig. Primos) [2011] and now Did You Score? (orig. E Ai... Comeu?) [2012] [AdC]* from Brazil as well.  All these films have proven competitive to North American comedies in their own markets, all clearly borrow from North American scriptwriting techniques and yet all in their final product feel quite native to the applause of local audiences (and to the financial success of local film-makers). 

Okay, the techniques work, but are they good (morally acceptable)?  I haven't beaten-up the films that I've listed above, so I'm not going to beat-up this film either.  I would also note that the alternative would be to create a level of censorship that still produces reasonably good films (one thinks of the excellent, but self-evidently "limited in scope" recent Iranian film Meeting Leila (orig. Ashnaee ba Leila) [2011] about a nice/responsible soon-to-be wife who just wants her lively/smiling soon-to-be husband to "just quit smoking ...").  However after a while such limited subject matter inevitably becomes boring as it is further and further separated from actual lived experience.

So then, what is this current film about?   Well it's about these three friends Fernando (played by Bruno Mazzeo [AdC]*), Honório (played by Marcos Palmiera [AdC]*) and Afozinho (played by Emílio Orciollo Neto [AdC]*).  They are all middle class, indeed arguably at the lower end of upper middle class.

Fernando is a journalist of some sort.  He's married to Leila (played by Dira Paes [AdC]*) who also works outside the home and actually seems to have more regular hours than Fernando.  Together, they have three young daughters.  Perhaps because he's surrounded by all those women during other times of the day, Fernando likes to get out of the house in the evening to go to the bar to meet with his friends.

Honório is an architect who's wife Vitória (played by Tainá Müller [AdC]) just left him for reasons unclear, but perhaps because she found him a bit of a schmuck (boring).  Yes, he carries around boxes (models) and charts all the time, but he works in a small office in a high rise for some larger architectural firm and it's clear that he's probably not going to outshine many others where he's working.

Afozinho is single, a writer, who makes his living writing crossword puzzles, but like any writer, dreams of publishing "his novel."  Indeed, he has about 20 different versions of it in his apartment.  His big problem appears to be that he's been largely writing about life rather than living it.  His book is supposed to be a romance/love story, but ... he himself, sitting a lot in front of the computer, is addicted to cam-sites and (presumably) internet porn.  A potential publisher tells him as much: "Your book is supposed to be a romance, but the romance seems to be far more researched rather than lived."

So when the three get together, all three have steam/frustration to blow.  Fernando, who seems a little bit older and certainly more mature than the other two, would perhaps like to live vicariously through Honório and Afozinho.  But one's getting divorced and the other spends his time looking at internet hookers or perhaps hooking-up with a real one (this is Rio after all...) but doesn't have a clue about how to get a real date (even if the bar's got plenty of women in it, also meeting-up with other women to talk / let off steam.

Fortunately, there's the waiter/bar-tender (played by Seu Jorge [AdC]*) who Fernando hits up each evening to give them some sage advice. Most of the women in the bar, and there are several groups of regulars, who meet up at the place to chat with friends, think that the three, especially the two younger ones, are a bunch of cretinhos (cretins...).

As the story goes on, Honório (the one dumped by his wife) finds that he's caught (actually much to his dismay) the eye of Gabi (played by Laura Nieva [AdC]*) an attractive (but still morally if perhaps not absolutely legally underaged) 17 1/2 year old from his apartment complex.  At one point, he tries to tell her once and for all that she's just too young.  But she argues with him saying that by "state statute number..., article..., section ... ... it'd be okay," adding, "I researched it.  My dad's a judge." (Yes, that's even more wonderful...).

Afozinho in the meantime, trying to take the advice of his publisher (but clearly in the wrong way ...) to "actually live life" tries to meet-up with one of the cam models (from Rio de Janeiro) that he's been talking to (paying for ...) over the internet.  (Yup, that's got a big chance of working ...)

And Fernando, after spending so much time with his two (let's face it, kinda problematic and often inert) buddies starts wondering if his wife's now cheating on him ... ;-)

So there it is.  The film begins with "all" being (more or less) "well."  Then "all's" definitely "not well."  Obviously, by the end, "all's well" again. 

It's not a super comedy.  But honestly, it's not a bad one, reminding a (North) American viewer a lot of Cheers (remember that in that series the Ted Danson character Sam was something of a lech and a lot of the women thought he was an idiot too).  And then, despite often coarse language and various sexual situations, there is actually no nudity in it.  Much more is said, again often with a smile, than shown.  All in all, like comedies are supposed to do ... it gives a good laugh.  And a foreigner would perhaps get a sense of what a bunch of "regular guys" in a "regular bar" in Brazil would sound like.  And I do think that this is kinda cool ;-).  Good job!


* Immediate machine translation of foreign (in this case Portuguese) language links are generally best viewed using Google's Chrome browser.


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