Film reviews | Fifth about The Seventh

Whiplash

January 4, 2015 by Felipe Rosa

Whiplash: Damien Chazelle presents a film that is a great joy to watch, from beginning to end; a crowdpleaser, in the best sense. It’s thematically intriguing, equally cruel and sound. Acting by the central pair is superb; J.K. Simmons gets more attention for having the lion share of the great lines (and reading them beautifully), but he also displays nuanced, quiet moments; Miles Teller is pitch-perfect as well, mixing all of his character’s traits with great energy. Great camerawork by Sharone Meir […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama

Big Hero 6

January 3, 2015 by Felipe Rosa

Big Hero 6: Don Hall and Chris Williams present a typically polished and entertaining (if not completely inspired) animated movie; the story is touching and funny, but not fully earnest. The animation, by the other hand, is spotless; the environment is rich and great to look at, while the character design is varied, making each one of them unique. In particular, Baymax is a great character, with his looks greatly complementing his personality traits. The accompanying animated short, Patrick Osborne’s Feast, a lovely and great-looking […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: adventure, animation, sci fi

Leave a comment

Locke

January 2, 2015 by Felipe Rosa

Locke: minimalist experience that it is, Steven Knight’s film is also a very engaging one, thanks to the strong acting of Tom Hardy. It is a simple, no-frills human drama, easy to relate to. Given the single (of sorts) location, Justine Wright’s editing make great use of Haris Zambarloukos’s varied images. However, there’s no denying that Hardy is the main reason to see this; he has limited instruments to use (his voice’s modulations, his posture and his eyes, mostly) but even so […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama

Leave a comment

Federal Bank Heist (Assalto ao Banco Central)

January 1, 2015 by Felipe Rosa

Federal Bank Heist: despite being based on actual events, Marcos Paulo’s film presents itself unashamedly as a derivative work. However, the tone never settles, swerving between gritty and funny without doing either very well. Furthermore, the characters are uninteresting and hard to relate to. The large, interesting cast is wasted and acts too broadly (furthering the idea that the characters are mere archetypes) and unappealingly. José Roberto Eliezer’s camerawork is slick and polished, but also generic.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: crime, thriller

Leave a comment

Ida (2013)

December 31, 2014 by Felipe Rosa

Ida: Pawel Pawlikowski tells a simple (but far from simplistic) story; it also tells it rigorously, ponderously. Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza, as the central characters, interact beautifully, even if only the bare minimum is known about the characters. What truly sets this film apart, however, is the amazing cinematography of Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal; every image is nicely (and expressively) framed, and the lighting is always beautiful.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama

Leave a comment

Kill the Messenger (2014)

December 24, 2014 by Felipe Rosa

Kill the Messenger: Michael Cuesta tells a powerful, interesting story; the sort of fact-based tale that should be too hard to believe, except it’s not. The pace, however, is somewhat uneven, which degrades from the overall experience (in particular as the first half of the film is the most memorable one). Jeremy Renner is solid as the central character; the rest of the cast, attractive as it is, doesn’t have all that much to do.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: biopic / historic, drama, thriller

Leave a comment

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

December 24, 2014 by Felipe Rosa

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: there’s no denying that Peter Jackson’s film is a grand visual spectacle and makes great use of the picturesque locations, character, set and costume designs; however, perhaps underlined by the High Frame Rate 3D format, there’s a great sense of artificiality to some of the special effects and patterns. The storytelling is heavy-handed (which naturally affects the acting as well; Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman are the only members of the large cast […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, fantasy

Leave a comment

Nightcrawler

December 22, 2014 by Felipe Rosa

Nightcrawler: Dan Gilroy’s film greatest asset is the central character, at the same time despicable and absolutely interesting. Jake Gyllenhaal is absolutely superb, oozing charm and peril and fully dominating the particular speech patterns (which define who and what the character is, therefore not gratuitous). The plot is hard both to watch and to turn away from; in that sense, the levity that permeates underscores the absurdity of it all and makes it more engaging. Robert Elswit’s camerawork captures the dark underbelly of Los […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: crime, drama, thriller

Boa Sorte

December 13, 2014 by Felipe Rosa

Boa Sorte: Carolina Jabor tells a story that is neither new nor interestingly told (for better or worse, any examination of mental institutions is mostly avoided); furthermore, the story feels overstretched, with many scenes that neither advance the plot nor enrich the underdeveloped characters (or the mood, for that matter). Acting is uneven; Fernanda Montenegro, in her few scenes, is typically great, but the central pair (Deborah Secco and João Pedro Zappa) is uninteresting at best.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama, romance

Leave a comment