“Greta” is a Brazilian film, which made its debut at the Berlin Film Festival last February. Its first-time director Armando Praca took the ball and ran with a story about an elderly gay man who harbours a fugitive, and relentless sadness throughout a riveting journey.
There are a number of striking reasons for folks to check out this film, and among them are a mesmerising visual palette, powerful and brutal dialogue, as well as its unwavering lens.
Let’s Begin With How it Looks
Greta
I’m not a camera person, so I can’t speak to what technically made this such a vibrant and memorable watch for me. There was something nostalgic about it, perhaps they shot on film, or just did something to make it seem that way. Regardless, I didn’t know what time I was in, and that complemented the dreamy pace and progression of the narrative.
Another aspect of that made the visuals of the film so memorable, was the interesting looking cast, and brilliant set design. Our lead Pedro, played wonderfully by Marco Nanini, is an overweight, sweaty, defiant, and passionate man who bares all emotionally and physically. The fugitive he captures looks like a young, broken, Brazilian De Niro. Adding onto the cast, the lights and landscapes of this world of hospitals, night clubs, and sweaty-male sex scenes all coalesce in a unique, strange, and artful story for the eyes.
These Characters Are Harsh & Real
Greta
The film begins with Pedro taking his transgender friend to the hospital, where she receives news that she’s terminally ill. Though constantly being sidetracked with his own sexual adventures, and the harbouring the fugitive thing, Pedro tries to be there for her in his own way. Some of her reactions are brutally honest, and inform a tone carried by all the characters throughout the film. That tone read to me something like, we are going to stare the most glum aspects of life dead in the eye without wavering.
This Movie Stays Real In The Rarest Way
Greta
There are some long, tough sex scenes throughout Greta. For most mainstream tv watchers I know, they might be tough to watch. For one thing, gay sex is not depicted nearly as much in cinema as straight sex, and so it’s a brave move for the filmmaker to go for it. Also, gay or straight, these sex scenes are long and intense. And in my mind, that absolutely serves as a strength of the film.
These scenes are true cinematic magic, with visceral texture and passion and exhaustion and sadness. They stay true to the film’s well-accomplished allegiance to staring at this beautiful man’s sad and horny chapter of his later days.
Greta is a wonderful film and a true original worth checking out if you get the chance.
Documentaries have gained a lot of popularity over the last couple of years, largely to companies like Netflix and Hulu who offer a lot of variety in documentaries. It could also be that there are just a lot more people making documentaries these days.
While fiction can be just as educational, there is something to the realness of the 5 documentaries that grabs your attention and portrays any topic in a refreshing manner.
So if you are a documentary fan like most people nowadays, here are some of the most interesting 5 documentaries covering the variety of genres and topics.
Apollo 11 (2019)
This is an American documentary by Todd Douglas Miller. As the title would suggest it focuses on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission- the first spaceflight from which men walked on the moon. You might think that this documentary would be a recreation of the spaceflight with famous actors and special effects but actually, the movie exclusively consists of archival footage, including a 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public.
Todd Douglas Miller edited, produced and directed this movie. You won’t see any interviews, or hear any narration. This is an artfully assembled collection of raw footage from the original mission that will surely impress you with its overall feel and the unique, never before seen moments form one of the most well knows events from modern history. The movie was featured in IndieWire’s 2020 Oscar documentaries prediction and judging from the general response and review it could be on its way to getting that award.
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM
Plant (2009)
Now to go a little back in time, we have the Last Truck depicting the final days of the production site. This documentary follows the closure of the Moraine Assembly plant, a General Motors automobile factory in Moraine, Ohio on December 23 rd in 2008. It’s directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert.
Reichart and Boger documented the whole process and interviews almost 3000 workers at the plant who lost their jobs or were about to lose their jobs because of the closure of the factory. The documentary features a lot of footage taken by the employees through smuggled into the factory because the crew wasn’t allowed to film inside.
This way the documentary was able to feature footage of some of the final vehicles being assembled there. Whether you enjoy the vehicles or not this is an interesting documentary to check out. It really captures the spirit of the plat about to shut down forever.
Toni Morrison: Pieces I Am (2019)
Paying homage to the prolific author, this documentary has also gained a lot of attention. Toni Morrison died this year at the age of 88 leaving behind a legacy worth documenting. This documentary aims to highlight the author’s life and her contribution to the literary world, which no film has done before.
The film portrays Morrison’s multiple challenges in life from her upbringing to her time in Washington’s Howard University to her challenges in the publishing industry. Contrary to what you may think, Morrison actually, took part in the documentary, leading the film with her voice.
She tells us about her life experiences in her own words with some guest appearances from the legend likes Davis, Oprah Winfrey, and Sonia Sanchez, icons in their own right. These people also share their memories connected to Toni Morrison.
Now Place Your Bets (2017)
Often hailed as groundbreaking, this documentary describes the dramatic rise of sports betting in Las Vegas. Sports betting is still just a minor part of the gambling industry but its the one that has shown the most growth over the past couple of years. Gambling has been facing quite a few challenges this year with regulators tightening their grip on online casino games, and UK MP’s requesting tighter regulations but despite this it looks like sports betting will be getting more and more popular.
The film features baseball legend Pete Rose,
Las Vegas oddsmaker and producer Denni Tobler, Pinnacle CEO Jessica Davis and
former mobster Frank Cullota among many other interesting people. The
docu-series consists of 6 parts and you should definitely check it out if
you’ve ever wondered about the world of sports betting.
True Cost (2015)
True cost is a documentary by Andrew Morgan that focuses on fast fashion. It has now become a cult classic and everyone who’s interested in knowing where those cheap fashionable clothes come from and under what conditions they are made needs to watch this documentary.
It discusses topics like the garment industry, exploring the lives of low-wage workers in developing countries but also explores the environmental damages caused by these fast fashion production brands, most of which cause diseases and deaths and rivers and soil pollution and contamination.
This documentary is a collage of interviews with different environmentalists, garment workers, factory owners and people organizing fair trade companies and promoting sustainable fashion. The idea to explore this topic first came to the director after the 2013 Savar building collapse, when a commercial building in Bangladesh collapsed and killed thousands of workers.
By Frankie Wallace. It’s no secret that some movies just make you fall asleep. But did you know, there’s actually a whole bunch of movies about there about sleep itself? From dealing with sleep disorders to trying to get out of a dream, sleep-related issues and events make for the plots of many different films, even if we don’t realise it at first glance.
Perhaps one of the reasons films based on sleep-related themes are so common is because they are so relatable. Almost everyone has faced some sort of sleeping issue during their lifetime — be it insomnia, sleep apnea, snoring, or even recurrent dreams and nightmares. Today, other disorders like Restless Leg Syndrome and Periodic Limb Movement Disorder are also considered sleep disorders, as they most often occur when patients are trying to fall asleep, or while they are already asleep. In the US alone, 50-70 million adults have a diagnosed sleep disorder.
As much as we take it for granted, getting a medically-approved “good night’s rest” is often a lot harder than it sounds. Sleep can be affected by everything from your diet and what you consume to your bedroom atmosphere and your pre-bedtime habits. Subsequently, changing these aspects can lead to improved sleep. For instance, it has been proven that blue LED lights negatively affect sleep, and so, powering down well before your bedtime is a recommended way to better your sleep quality.
Thus, with an increasing number of people
dealing with sleep disorders on an almost daily basis, it makes sense that
movies based around similar themes would resonate with most. Here are some of
the most famous examples of movies centered around sleep. Some of these
descriptions may contain spoilers, so if you haven’t watched any of these yet,
skip ahead!
Fight Club
Based on the 1996 book of the same name, this film features a protagonist, Edward Norton, who suffers from severe insomnia. Norton’s sleep disorder has various effects on his life, often confusing and bizarre. For one, Norton creates a second personality that only he can see. At the end of the film, we learn that Norton also suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, which explains these happenings.
According to this article on Sleep Education that lists various sleep-related movies, “… individuals who suffer from dissociative identity disorder tend to have more sleep problems and lower quality of sleep. This can partly explain his behaviour in the beginning of the film and why he experiences insomnia.”
Insomnia
Directed by Christopher Nolan, Insomnia is about two homicide detectives who are investigating a murder in a small Alaskan town. At first, this may seem like any other murder-mystery plot, but this town is special as it is one where the sun never sets. Due to this, a day can be as long as a full 24 hours.
The constant sunlight, as well as other
events, lead to one of the detectives (played by Al Pacino) suffering from
severe insomnia. Ultimately, insomnia makes Pacino’s character delusional and
affects the outcome of the investigation and overall story in various ways.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The first of many, but yet the top-ranked Wes Craven film, A Nightmare on Elm Street deals with how a woman is constantly tormented through her nightmares. Her dreams are haunted by her dead neighbour who was burnt alive as punishment for his crimes. The neighbour then returns to get revenge, by invading people’s dreams and killing them in their sleep; thereby killing them in real life, too.
This movie manages to make something as
regular as sleep into something scary and dreaded. As per the Sleep Education
article, even though the events in the movie are fictitious, the film is
inspired by sleep-related deaths of Southeast Asian refugees. Apparently, the
refugees would have terrifying nightmares, and many refused to sleep. Some of
the refugees would die in their sleep during these nightmares, and these
occurrences formed Kraven’s basis for the screenplay.
The Machinist
No list of movies about sleep would be complete without the inclusion of The Machinist. Starring Christian Bale, this movie is perhaps one of the most telling when it comes to the effects of common disorders like insomnia. In the film, Bale plays a man who hasn’t slept well in a year, resulting in the loss of his ability to determine what is real. Not only does he doubt his own sanity, but Bale also questions the intentions of his coworkers — convincing himself that they resent him and are trying to drive him mad.
The only romance-genre film on this list,
Sleepless in Seattle is an oldie but goldie. The film stars Tom Hanks as a
grief-stricken widower, who relocates to Seattle to distance himself from the
place of his wife’s death. Due to his overwhelming grief, Hank’s character Sam
Baldwin is unable to sleep.
While sleep (or lack of it) doesn’t have a huge effect on the plotline of this movie, the movie does shed light on the very real link between loss, grief, and disruption of sleep. Ultimately, Sam Baldwin falls in love with Annie Reed (Meg Ryan), and the movie ends happily ever after, leaving the viewer emotionally moved yet content.
Inception
If you’ve watched Inception, you can’t deny its major connection. Also considered a heist film, Inception stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a thief of different sorts — one who steals information via dreams. A Movieraiders article on Top 5 Sleep Movies of All Time states, “Inception is the process of entering into someone’s dream state and placing an original idea there. It is the opposite of extraction, which is the process of stealing an idea from someone while they are in the dream state.” Thus, the film Inception deals with things that can happen in the dream state and explores the, albeit fantasy, possibilities of moving through any given person’s dreamscape.
So there you have it — the top movies. Remember, don’t watch them right before going to bed, lest you want your own sleep cycle to be negatively affected!
In celebration of Joker hitting $1BN, I thought it’s only right to marvel…get it..(DC) at one of Mr. Scorsese’s classics, Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver was one of the main inspirations for Todd Philips’ creation of the critically acclaimed Joker.
Now bearing that in mind, I haven’t watched Joker yet – (what!?)
Yes.
After binging on many reaction videos and tweets regarding the film, I think I’ll need to check myself in for rehab as I’m suffering from a case of ‘Jokerhypeitis’.
For those, like me, who haven’t watched Joker yet I would HIGHLY recommend to avoid scrolling to the comment section of reactions to the film on Youtube. Matter of fact, don’t watch any reactions or reviews, PERIOD.
Otherwise, you’ll end up sporting a fleece, cigarette in hand somberly telling a therapist ‘All I have, are spoiler thoughts’.
Similarly to Joker, 1976’s Taxi Driver is a character study that focuses on a central protagonist for the duration of the film, and it’s arguably one of cinema’s most iconic. Please welcome to the stage, Travis Bickle.
‘You talkin’ to me?’
In one of Robert De Niro’s best roles ever, he plays Travis, an isolated and depressed Vietnam veteran, who lives in New York City as a night shift taxi driver, observing the deterioration that has plagued the city.
I’m sure you can already picture the similarities to Gotham City.
The frosty treatment Travis receives during his encounters leads him further down the rabbit hole, pushing him to address matters into his own hands with potentially devastating consequences.
With that being said, Travis has an underlying desire to do what’s right, even though he fails to realise, his approach towards certain circumstances goes against societal norms.
From what I’ve heard (remember don’t look at the YouTube comments for those that haven’t seen Joker) there is a heavy emphasis more so on Taxi Driver, than The King Of Comedy. Apparently, it almost ‘copies’ Taxi Driver scene for scene, and that you could essentially drop Joker or Arthur Fleck, in that grimy world of 1976 New York.
Well, they do say imitation is the biggest form of flattery, and with Taxi Driver being widely regarded as a classic film along with the high praise Joker’s received, it’s clear to see why Taxi Driver has been an integral influence during its production.
If you’ve seen Taxi Driver, you can pick out the references shown in the trailers. In particular, the scenes of Arthur holding the gun and sitting at the diner with Zazie Beetz. Very subtle, but cool references.
I think the reason why people are so compelled with ‘character study’ films is that we either see a little of ourselves in the lead character or are in ‘admiration’ of what they stand for. Even if it’s not morally right.
Think of all the hip hop references and pen pal letters written to the fictional character Tony Montana AKA Scarface, played by Al Pacino. Tony’s words are seen as gospel and the mantra of ‘Money, Power, and Women’ still rings clear in the ears of many rap artists.
Even with all his flaws, he does not go without his sticking to his moral principles or more to put more bluntly, sticking to his ‘balls’. None so more evident than in this scene.
It’s no surprise that these iconic characters in these solo driven films are played by some of the greatest actors of all time. Al Pacino. Robert De Niro.
And of course, Joaquin Phoenix.
Personally, I do hope we see more films that follow the ‘character study’ aesthetic, as long as they’re done right. The problem with the massive success of a film like Joker is that other major studios may try and replicate their formula, only to end up with a sub-par film.
….trend of ensemble casts like from the likes of Marvel, to more focused films on a single character that we can ride in the passenger with. If ‘DC Dark’ does actually become a thing, this wave of ‘character study’ films should continue, and we should be in for a treat.
Frozen fans have been anxiously awaiting the new Frozen 2 which, for the under-12 set is as good as the online casino South Africa is for the over-21s. There are many other great films in the theatres this Christmas vacation from the fun-filled Spies in Disguise to the ever-silly Scoob.
Check out the best of December 2019’s cinema releases:
Frozen 2
1 of 8: Frozen 2 picks up where the original Frozen left off as Anna leaves Arendelle to set off on an epic journey along with the fearless mountain man Krisoff, his loyal reindeer Sven and other friends from the Frozen 1 to find Elsa whose icy powers have trapped Arendelle in an endless winter.
The two sisters encounter an Everest-like chill, the delightful snowman Olaf, Sami the iceman, mystical trolls and more as they race to save the kingdom. The subplot is as compelling as the main plot — Elsa, who seems so poised from the outside, is quaking on the inside with the knowledge that she was born with the beautiful, yet dangerous power to create snow and ice. Elsa struggles with the memory of how she almost killed Anna and now must break out of her isolation to harness the magic that could destroy, or save those that she loves most dearly.
Star Wars IX: the Rise of Skywalker
2 of 8: The latest in the Star Wars series sees the Resistance face off against the First Order once again. The conflict between the Sith and the Jedi moves into new territory but brings with it quite a few surprises. Fans will remember that General Leia’s Resistance barely survived its last encounter with the First Order. Now there are only a few dozen soldiers still standing in the battered hunk of the limping ship.
Finn, Poe, Rose, Finn and the rest of the gang must now rebuild the ranks as they work to rally the galaxy against the First Order. Fans remember that Luke Skywalker died after his final confrontation with his nephew in The Last Jedi but now he’s back mentoring Rey in Force Ghost form, guiding her in her Jedi ascension in the same way that Yoda and Obi-Wan once did for him. You can also expect to find out whether Kylo Ren will be pulled back to the light.
Playing with Fire
3 of 8: Clueless males falling into situations in which they must take care of kids is not a new storyline but it’s always a popular one. In Playing with Fire, a straight-laced fire superintendent and his team of elite firefighters rescue three siblings and are then faced with the task of caring for them until their family can be found. The fire station is turned upside down as the wild and unpredictable kids take over the station and the firefighters’ hearts.
Spies in Disguise
4 of 8: Scientist Walter Beckett and spy Lance Sterling are true opposites — Lance is suave, smooth and debonair while Walter is…..not. But Lance must learn to work with Waler whose ability to create inventive gadgets gives Lance the tools that he needs to get his job done. When an event throws the two together, Lance and Walter are forced to rely on each other and work together for the good of their own lives and of the entire world.
Onward
5 of 8: Two teenage brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, set out on a journey of magic and discovery as they spend one last day with their father — who died when they were youngsters. Did we mention that Ian and Barley are elves? Along the way, the adventurers meet unicorns, trolls, gnomes and more.
Trolls World Tour
6 of 8: Trolls are big this Christmas season with a second troll-themed movie, Trolls WorldTur. In this light-hearted flick, two trolls, Branch and Poppy, discover that they are a part of a troll-tribe that has five other branches scattered over six different lands. Each branch is devoted to a different type of music — Funk, Techno, Country, Pop, Classical and Rock.
The trolls find themselves defending their way of life against Queen Barb, a member of Hard Rock royalty, who, along with her father King Thrash, believes that in order for their preferred music to reign supreme they will have to destroy all the other kinds of music. The movie follows Branch and Poppy as they set out to unify all the troll-tribes to create a harmonious world where all different types of music (and trolls) can co-exist.
Scoob!
7 of 8: The ‘70s Saturday morning animated series, Scooby-Doo, has become an unstoppable franchise for Warner Bros. Animation group. Scoob! is the latest in a series of live-action films based on the fun-loving pooch and his band of teenaged caretakers. An all-star cast gives voice to the 3D computer-animated adventure comedy in which, once again, Scooby Doo and his buddies are called upon to solve a mystery..
The SpongeBob Movie: It’s a Wonderful Sponge
8 of 8: In It’s a Wonderful Sponge, which is set in the years before the SpongeBob TV series took place, SpongeBob goes on a trip to Kamp Koral (a setting that reveals how the SpongeBob characters met as children) where he meets new friends. His vacation is interrupted when Poseidon kidnaps SpongeBob’s pet snail and takes him to the Lost City of Atlantic City. SpongeBob and his new friend Patrick must rescue the kidnapped Cornu aspersum and save him from Poseidon’s dastardly plan.
