Author: bernardovillela

Mini-Review: The Inheritance (A Partilha)

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Based on a hit Brazilian play the screenplay also co-written by Miguel Falabella is wonderful. If you can get a hold of this movie it’s really worthwhile. Glória Pires, Lilia Cabral, Andrea Beltrão, and Paloma Duarte interact as real sisters do and it’s great fun watching them try to steal scenes from one another. The interesting thing about this film is that it was filmed with all master shots and it’s incredible how well it works in a comedy. The performances truly shine in this film which is funny and often touching. This is a film that is universally funny and appealing and I’m surprised it didn’t get wider exposure

10/10

Mini-Review: Shun Li and the Poet

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Shun Li and the Poet

Any look at different immigration patterns worldwide will pique my interest to an extent. However, what’s most compelling here isn’t just insight into Chinese émigrés but the characters they play and the performances delivered. This is a warm, moving film that is beautifully photographed.

8/10

Announcing The Wonderful Grace Kelly Blogathon!

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I will be covering The Swan for this one!

Virginie Pronovost's avatarThe Wonderful World of Cinema

grace_kelly_wallpaper_by_vollha-d6q7hhk

Do you like blogging? Do you like blogathons? You think November is a boring month? Well, join me and participate in The Wonderful Grace Kelly Blogathon! After the success of The Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blogathon, last August, I felt like hosting another one. I was thinking of waiting a little bit, but I couldn’t. The Wonderful Grace Kelly Blogathon will take place on November 11 to November 12, 2015, on Grace Kelly’s birthday. She won’t be celebrating her 100th anniversary or her 80th, just her 86th, but don’t we deserve to be celebrated at any age? Of course, Grace WOULD have been 86, because she tragically died in 1982 at the very young age of 52. 😦 Well, we’ll celebrate her heavenly birthday!

Grace Kelly is almost my favourite actress. She’s the first classical actress I discover and I’ve seen all her films. I just LOVE her and I’m quite…

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Updates: November 3rd, 2015

Posted on by bernardovillela

As you can confirm here on this Letterboxd list this year’s 61 Days of Halloween was a bust in terms of achieving the implicit movie-a-day quota.

As time goes on things change, and one thing that has definitely changed is in a desire to get scheduled ahead of time on the blog. This desire to allow myself more freedom to pursue longer-running projects and write the new content I want to write when I feel up to it, has made it more easy for me to view films in an eclectic manner.

This is not to say that the categories of 31 Days of Oscar, March to Disney, Poverty Row April, 61 Days of Halloween, Thankful for World Cinema and Year-End Dash will cease to be. It only means that they will not be wall-to-wall (as previous updates already indicate) but they will also not always be exclusive to the time period. Mind you, I will likely not change the names so they’re all still searchable for you.

Halloween (1978, Compass International)

Should new themes make sense for upcoming months that would be unique and make sense for short runs they will happen.

Stay tuned. In the meantime, I have new blogathon contributions to come. Which you will be able to see on upcoming reblogs.

Mini-Review: Klown (2010)

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Klown (2010)

This film is unapologetically inappropriate, and most definitely not for the faint of heart as it one-ups many of the recent raunchy American comedies. It also manages to be a good deal funnier than most if not all of them. The film is expertly performed and cast.

10/10

2015 BAM Award Considerations: October

Posted on by bernardovillela

Eligible Titles

Invisible Sister
Goosebumps
The Martian
Trojan War
Crimson Peak
Bloody Knuckles
Hotel Transylvania 2
Pan
Little Glory
Goodbye to Language
Robot Overlords
Children of the Night
Gone with the River
Hell & Back
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Picture

Bloody Knuckles

Best Foreign Film

Goodbye to Language
The Boy in the Mirror(O Menino no Espelho)
Gone with the River

Best Documentary

Trojan War

Most Overlooked Picture

As intimated in my Most Underrated announcement this year, I’ve decided to make a change here. Rather than get caught up in me vs. the world nonsense and what a film’s rating is on an aggregate site, the IMDb or anywhere else, I want to champion smaller, lesser-known films. In 2011 with the selection of Toast this move was really in the offing. The nominees from this past year echo that fact. So here, regardless of how well-received something is by those who’ve seen it, I’ll be championing indies and foreign films, and the occasional financial flop from a bigger entity.

Goosebumps
Bloody Knuckles
Pan
Little Glory
Hell & Back
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Director

The Martian
Bloody Knuckles
Little Glory
Goodbye to Language

Best Actress

Odeya Rush Goosebumps

Best Actor

Dylan Minnette Goosebumps
Matt Damon The Martian
Adam Boys Bloody Knuckles
Cameron Bright Little Glory

Best Supporting Actress

Jillian Bell Goosebumps
Jessica Chastain The Martian
Hannah Murphy Little Glory

Best Supporting Actor

Jack Black Goosebumps
Ryan Lee Goosebumps
Kasey Ryne Mazak Bloody Knuckles
Dwayne Bryshun Bloody Knuckles

Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Leading Role

Rowan Blanchard Invisible Sister
Isabella Blake-Thomas Little Glory

Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Leading Role

Karan Brar Invisible Sister
Levi Miller Pan
Lino Facioli The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Supporting Role

Paris Berelc Invisible Sister
Giovana Rispoli The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Supporting Role

Ravi Hood The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Cast

Goosebumps
The Martian
Bloody Knuckles
Little Glory
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Youth Ensemble

Invisible Sister
Pan
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Original Screenplay

Bloody Knuckles
Little Glory
Goodbye to Language
Hell & Back

Best Adapted Screenplay

Goosebumps
The Martian
Pan
Little Glory
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Score

Goosebumps
Crimson Peak
Bloody Knuckles
Pan
Little Glory
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Editing

Goosebumps
The Martian
Bloody Knuckles
Goodbye to Language
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Sound Editing/Mixing

Goosebumps
The Martian
Bloody Knuckles
Goodbye to Language
Robot Overlords
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Cinematography

The Martian
Crimson Peak
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Art Direction

The Martian
Crimson Peak
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Costume Design

Pan
Crimson Peak
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Makeup

Crimson Peak
Bloody Knuckles
Pan
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Best Visual Effects

Goosebumps
The Martian
Bloody Knuckles
Pan
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

NOTE: For lack of actual known-to-me titles this month their are reminders of what the songs are. Should they be shortlisted and/or nominated I’ll hunt them down.

Best (Original) Song

Pan
Hell & Back
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

I commented last year that there was a film that had me reconsidering the soundtrack as a potential category. It’s happened again so I will be tracking it and seeing if it’s worth re-including this year.

Best Soundtrack

The Martian
Bloody Knuckles
Pan
Little Glory
The Boy in the Mirror (O Menino no Espelho)

Mini-Review: Kai Po Che!

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Kai Po Che!

Kai Po Che! (2013, UTV Motion Pictures)

I took a Bollywood film course which got my feet wet in the style of popular cinema that emerges from India in college. Since then I can’t say I’ve taken many forays back there again, though both Netflix and certain multiplexes make it a distinct possibility. However, what I’ve noticed in my last few forays (Namely Zokkomon and Chillar Party) is that there are stories that have featured aspects of subgenres and tales tied together by approximately a half dozen montages throughout a two-hour-plus film.

This film is about three friends who want to start a cricket supply store/training academy. The motivation for each to get involved is different and there are different narrative threads throughout. There is the assisting the underdog plot which leads into the sociopolitical commentary the film has to make, that eventually becomes a factor in the friendship. While there are not non-diegetic bursts of song there is source music during said montages. There is a romantic subplot, which links its way into the interaction of these friends and so on.

While the sports theme is always there, and as tends to happen I picked up a bit more about cricket through this film, it never becomes a sports film per se. It essentially remains a slice-of-life drama with much fenestration throughout that charts many years in the lives of this group of friends.

The film through judicious editing tells a lot of story in not a lot of time and handles its tonal shifts fairly well and it is very capably performed. It’s an entertaining film, and I hope to be able to catch some more recent titles from India before the year is out.

7/10

Free Movie Friday: We Are Now (2015)

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Usually when I’ve had cause to post  free movie it’s been an older film in the public domain. Well in the YouTube age, that is not always necessarily the case.

I had the distinct pleasure of attending the premiere of this film in the summer – as I know the two young filmmakers who masterminded this venture. As many who have gone to events to support their friends you can know the trepidation this is joined with. Not only was I, and many of those in attendance, pleasantly surprised by its acumen, especially when you consider it being a shoestring budgeted, tightly-scheduled, skeleton-crewed, amateur venture. However, we were impressed overall without taking those things into account.

Anyway, without further ado enjoy We Are Now!