From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 26 09:08:10 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!nntp.crl.com!news.pbi.net!cbgw3.lucent.com!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!not-for-mail From: rhodes_steve@tandem.com (Steve Rhodes) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: BRAZIL (1985) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.past-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Nov 1996 19:12:27 GMT Organization: Tandem Computers, Inc. Lines: 119 Sender: eleeper@lucent.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: eleeper@lucent.com Message-ID: <56qcer$1iv@nntpb.cb.lucent.com> Reply-To: rhodes_steve@tandem.com (Steve Rhodes) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtvoyager.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #06349 Keywords: author=Rhodes Originator: ecl@mtvoyager Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:5745 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1111 BRAZIL A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2 Welcome to "somewhere in the twentieth century." It seems that our future soon will be heating and air-conditioning ducts. Your walls will be filled with them like human intestines. Don't cut open the walls or the guts will spill onto the floor. Forget those LANs, you need pneumatic tubes. And that big monitor on your personal computer, get rid of it too. The future is an old typewriter hooked to a six inch TV screen made to look bigger by putting a magnifying screen in front of it. Yes, welcome to the wonderful world Terry Gilliam (TWELVE MONKEYS, THE FISHER KING, and the MONTY PYTHON films) created in 1985 and called simply BRAZIL. One week at the Science Fiction Festival at San Jose's Towne Theatre, I saw THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) and the next it was BRAZIL (1985). How visions of the future do change. To be fair, the former was a serious treatment, and the latter a black comedy. Very black. I am quite partial to the writings of George Orwell, especially his 1984. Although there is a lot to admire in BRAZIL, it plays as MONTY PYTHON VISITS BIG BROTHER. The technical aspects of the film are a delightful assault to our senses, but the script by Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard is too derivative, and it is a mess. The show is hard to follow and plays as if they are ad-libbing the plot as they go. Perhaps this is supposed to be the charm of it, but I think they should have concentrated more on structure and less on the bizarre happenings. Actually, one could argue that the show is nothing more than the sets (Norman Garwood) and the costumes (James Acheson). One day, through a glitch physically caused by a house fly, the government arrests a Mr. Buttle (Brian Miller) when they should be taking in a terrorist named Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). In this society based on forms, the police tell Mrs. Buttle (Sheila Reid), "this is your receipt for your husband, and this is my receipt for your receipt." Jonathan Pryce (Juan Peron in the upcoming EVITA) plays Sam Lowry. Sam is a low level government worker and big time day dreamer. He has great fantasies where he is a Lohengrin-like figure but with wings so he can fly through the clouds. His dreams have him battling both figures with doll faces and a large mechanical shogun. He fights them so he can save the love of his life, an unknown woman who turns out to be Jill Layton (Kim Greist - the mom from the HOMEWARD BOUND film series). Jill becomes a fugitive from the law, and he helps her on her escapades. Along the way, Bob Hoskins shows up playing Spoor, a member from the hated Central Services organization that is charged with fixing those ducts. Sam is befriended by Tuttle who is a terrorist and a rogue repairman. He quit Central Services because he refused to fill out the forms. Now he lives an existent on the fringes of society. He carries a gun and dresses like a Ninja warrior. Actually some of the customes are so outlandish that they look like rejects from WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. When Sam gets promoted, his new boss is Mr. Warrenn (Ian Richardson who was sinister prime minister Francis Urquhart in the TV series "House of Cards" and its sequels). Mr. Warrenn shows Sam to his tiny office with the congratulatory remarks, "There you are, your own office with your very own door." Working in Silicon Valley, the land of the cubicles, these remarks are easy to understand. In some parts of the country having your own office is no big deal. The newspaper cartoon character Dilbert could certainly understand it. Later Mr. Warrenn is not pleased with Sam's office clutter, and tells him, "What is this mess? An empty desk is an efficient desk." The best scene in the show is the one where Sam fights for control of his desk. To save money the government has given one desk to two employees with part in one office and part in another. Sam and the other owner of the desk engage in a tug of war to see who can get the larger half. I particularly liked the way the film dealt with security. Most buildings are so secure you have to get forms to get forms just to be admitted, but when he gets promoted to the most sensitive building, it has no security. This reminded me of my first job in the Silicon Valley. I worked for a successful company who had a receptionist by the front door. If you took equipment in or out of that door, you had to sign forms in triplicate. The backdoor was never locked so people totally ignored the receptionist. The movie is a cornucopia of images and events. It is Christmas time, and one person carries a "Consumers for Christ" banner through a department store. Next to her a little girl sets down on Santa's lap so he asks, "What would you like for Christmas?" The quick reply is, "my own credit card." Gilliam seems happy only when he is throwing everything he can think of into his films. Restrain is a word with which is not familiar. Since this is basically a convoluted remake of 1984, the eventual torture scene has the torturer threatening with, "Don't fight it son. Confess quickly. If you hold out too long, you could jeopardize your credit rating." Except for the pie in the face gag, Gilliam includes every other possible scene in this farce. Although the good outweighs the bad, the film is, nevertheless, one big muddle. BRAZIL runs too long at 2:11. It is rated R for a few bloody scenes, threats of torture, and a few expletives. It would be fine for any teenager. The gems in the film make it worth seeing, but it could have been a much stronger film. I give it a thumbs up and ** 1/2. ______________________________________________________________________ **** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable. REVIEW WRITTEN ON: November 15, 1996 Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's. From /home/matoh/tmp/sf-rev Fri Aug 22 16:17:45 1997 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jul 15 23:06:49 1997 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!pumpkin.pangea.ca!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!ais.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!cbgw2.lucent.com!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!not-for-mail From: chandlerb@geocities.com (Ted Prigge) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: BRAZIL (1985) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.past-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 30 Jun 1997 23:53:04 GMT Organization: - Lines: 134 Sender: evelynleeper@geocities.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: evelynleeper@geocities.com Message-ID: <5p9gt0$2mh@nntpb.cb.lucent.com> ~Reply-To: chandlerb@geocities.com (Ted Prigge) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtvoyager.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #08036 Keywords: author=Prigge Originator: ecl@mtvoyager Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:7436 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1395 BRAZIL [Spoilers] A film review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge Director: Terry Gilliam Writers: Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Robert DeNiro, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Charles McKeown, Ian Richardon, Peter Vaughn, Gordon Kaye Terry Gilliam has a warped mind. We all knew he was a tad off-kilter when we saw his bizarre animation on "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and other brit shows in the 60s, but this is the film that separated him from the "Python" pack and established him as not only one of the greatest directors of our times, but as an intellectual, cryptic and bizarro individual. "Brazil" is a black, black, black comedy set in an alternate reality or a future (the film cryptically says in the beginning "Somewhere in the 20th century") probably in England. The world is ruled by "The Ministry" which serves as a place where everything is ultra-organized and superefficient. But everyone seems to be happy because everything is convenient. Every room has little TVs (without Big Brother's face - heh heh) and behind the walls are tons of tubes and wires. But things keep breaking but can't be fixed because you need a billion forms to even walk out of the office to go and fix it up. Our hero is the daydreaming Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce, pre-"Miss Saigon" days), a low-level government worker who has fantasies of him flying and saving a beautiful woman trapped in a cage. This dream sequence is shown intermittingly in the film. His mother, Ida (Katherine Helmond - you know, from "Who's the Boss?"), is a filthy rich woman who dines with her superficial friends, gets bizarre face-lifts from Dr. Jaffe (Jim Brodbent) - the coolest effect in the film, by the way - and wants her son to be a high-level worker with an office and benefits and the whole nine yards. But Sam seems content with his dreams. But it seems everyone wants him to wake up to reality and be shallow like everyone else. The plot of the film is set in motion when a government worker accidentally screws up an arrest form and gets the wrong man. The police break in in a hilariously ridiculous arrest scene, break all the windows, bust up the apartment above theirs and put a sack cloth over their man - a Mr. Buttle. The scene is handled perfectly, with satirical comedy, as the family is distraught and confused by what is happening and the big cheese walks in and coldly gives her forms to sign ("This is your receipt, and this is my receipt for your receipt."). We then meet Sam who has to sort this mess out for his nervous and slightly incompent boss, Mr. Kurtzman (the always amazing Ian Holm). But he is distracted because on his way to work one day, he sees a woman who is a dead ringer for the woman in his dreams. She turns out to be a butch truck driver/alleged-rebel, Jill Layton (Kim Greist), who wants nothing to do with him but is somewhat drawn by his kafkaesque ways of wooing her ("I love you...er, er, in my dreams I love you!"). Sam also gets into the rebellion thanks to an encounter with a renegade air-conditioner repairman (Get that for a rebel!), Harry Tuttle (Robert DeNiro, awesome as usual), who was the man the Ministry was looking for in the beginning and who quit the government because of too much paperwork. His interception of a phone call when Sam's air conditioning dies winds him in a lot of trouble with the Ministry of Works, represented by two weird repairmen, one being Spoor (Bob Hoskins). Sam ends up taking the big promotion his mother set up for him just so he can track down this Jill Layton easily, but finds himself overwraught with even more paperwork and a tiny, claustrophobic office where he shares a desk with a bizarre man named Lime (co-writer Charles McKeown). In possibly the best scene in the film, he has a Chaplin-esque war over who gets the majority of the desk with Lime. His boss is a quick-talking Mr. Warren (Ian Richardson), who shows him to his office and yells at him for having a messy desk since all he's doing is becoming obsessed with Jill. The film is a plunge into the deepening insanity of a man who is having a war between his dreams and the reality of a burdonsome world which is too uber-efficient for its own good. Soon everyone has turned against him, including his best friend, Jack (a memorably menacing Michael Palin, who gets to don the coolest mask in 80s cinema). And by the end, he has won - he is totally numb and lives inside his mind, flying in the clouds with his dream girl and humming the cool latino song "Brazil." The film is deeply satirical, almost as much as what seems to be its big inspiration, "1984." For one thing, everyone but the rebels and Sam are superficial twits. In one scene, he attends his mother's party ("Simply everyone is here!") and meets some of the weirdest people. There is also a running gag about plastic surgery - his mother has been getting it and as the film goes on she's getting younger and younger. Meanwhile, her one friend has been getting complications to her complications to her complications and by the end, is wrapped like a mummy being pushed in a wheelchair by her shallow daughter (one scene, he meets her while she's lingerie shopping, prompting what may be the funniest joke in the film). And the end prompts a huge action sequence which is set into motion after a frightening torture sequence where Sam is strapped into a metal chair in the middle of a huge dome. There are many explosions in the film since there are terrorists who are always trying to get people to realize how horrible society is but they're too wrapped up in things to even notice. In once scene, Sam has lunch with his mother at a fancy restaurant and in the middle of the meal, an explosion takes place but they don't even look and the Matire D' sets up a block and has the orchestra keep playing. This also features several brilliant tracking shots. The most menacing one is when Sam is strapped down before the torture sequence and the camera pulls back from his face to show how small he is in the dome. Another one - the best one - shows an office full of people running around and the camera quickly zooms from the back up to the front with people running in front if the camera but never hitting it and then zooms right up to Ian Holm. This is possibly one of the best films of the 80s and one of the most cryptically brilliant films ever made. Terry Gilliam's image of a superficial society where dreams have become scarce is perfectly done the way he wanted it, even though he had to fight a company who wanted to manufacture it for the masses, even though it's more of a cult film nowadays. But never has Terry Gilliam's direction been more on target. He perfectly bullseyes who he wants to get and makes the film hilarious if not totally bizzare. Indeed, this film deserves multiple viewings just to get everything. The Oscar-nominated script is wonderfully biting. It pokes fun at everything and contains some of the most clever lines ever. It also has some of the most eccentric characters in all of cinematic history. Terry Gilliam's masterpiece so far would be "Brazil" since it perfectly shoots at what he wants and gets right on target. Besides, it's just so damn cool. MY RATING (out of 5): ***** Visit my homepage: http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/hills/8335 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 10 12:51:36 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news-raspail.gip.net!news-dc.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!wn3feed!135.173.83.25!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: syegul@cablehouse.dyn.ml.org (Serdar Yegulalp) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Retrospective: Brazil (1985) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 20 Jul 1998 04:22:16 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 42 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6ouglo$jdu$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer21.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 900908536 19902 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #13338 Keywords: author=yegulalp X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer21.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:12588 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2035 Brazil (1985) * * 1/2 A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp I admire a movie like BRAZIL for what it tries to do, but as I've said many times before, I can only review what's on the screen. BRAZIL is a cluttered, jumbled, overlong and underfocused movie that has many moments of inspiration -- and little else. The story takes place in a dystopian future where everything is mechanized and yet somehow nothing works. Terrorism is commonplace. Sam Lowry (played with mousy insouciance by Jonathan Pryce) is one of the worker-ants in the big machine, and fantasizes about epic struggles to save a dreamlike beauty from the clutches of an evil techno-samurai. By plot complications too weird to reveal here, he gets involved with a terrorist cell (who alternate between blowing things up and repairing them) and is eventually branded an enemy of the state, but not before enduring a whole slew of near-psychotic adventures. In the abstract, it sounds great, but on screen, it doesn't come together. What's wrong here? The set design is astonishing and inspired -- there's one tracking shot inside a really, REALLY big room that may almost be worth the cost of the ticket alone -- the actors do fine jobs, and there are many flashes of brilliantly ugly wit (as when a criminal is persuaded to give himself up so his credit rating won't be too badly slashed). But... some larger sense of an overall design is missing. There's no sense that Gilliam has something really cogent to say about a world like this, or even about Lowry's place in it, other than the usual platitudes about the Individual vs. the State. Terry Gilliam makes movies that are crammed with ambitious, eye-attacking power, but are also frequently confused or meandering. In BRAZIL, Gilliam is less concerned with a coherent plot than with an overall mood, a sense of rushing madness and overarching, indomitable paranoia. And sure, he achieves it. Trouble is, a movie like this could have used a more focused story to make it really stick, instead of just making it a series of good-looking but splattery meditations on the same vague subject. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Aug 22 06:08:57 2000 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!arclight.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Brian Matherly Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Retrospective: Brazil (1985) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies,rec.arts.movies.past-films Date: 20 Aug 2000 18:46:01 GMT Organization: The Jacksonville Film Journal - http://www.jaxfilmjournal.com/ Lines: 95 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <8np919$iq76$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer24.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 966797161 616678 (None) 140.142.17.35 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #25761 Keywords: author=matherly X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer24.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:24627 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2781 Brazil (1985) Rating: 5.0 stars out of 5.0 stars See this review as it was intended at: http://www.jaxfilmjournal.com/ Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Griest, Bob Hoskins, Robert DeNiro, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Michael Palin Written by: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown Directed by: Terry Gilliam Running Time: 142 minutes One of the most talked about films of the 80's, Brazil is one of the most stunning (but also the most bleak) films ever to be produced. Part of the trilogy of science fiction genre films (including Legend and Dune) which were torn apart, re-edited, and rescored by then Universal head honcho Sid Sheinberg, Terry Gilliam's piece de resistance has garnered the largest amount of press. This is due mostly to Gilliam's determination to have the film restored to its original version and his willingness to discuss the situation to anyone who will listen. Gilliam also had a full page ad taken out in Variety magazine after the film was released asking Sheinberg when he was going to release his complete edit. It has taken almost twelve years, but Gilliam's final cut has finally been released on both laserdisc and DVD. In an eerily ironic twist, the film's incredible narrative parallels Gilliam's battle for the proper treatment of the material. Jonathan Pryce is featured as an everyman that dreams of a life outside the Metropolis-like bureaucratic hell (known as the Ministry of Information) he is trapped in. His life seems to turn around when he gets a promotion within his company and literally meets the girl of his dreams. Everything appears to be working out until he suspects that the girl he is in love with is a terrorist. When he pursues her, he is singled out as a terrorist as well and must fight the same system he once worked for in order to restore his life. His dreams quickly turn to nightmares as his world comes crumbling down around him. Despite its futuristic setting, Brazil echoes many of the problems felt by any modern day person who feels trapped in their current job. The film has been released in three different versions since it originally appeared in 1985: the 131 minute theatrical version, the "Love Conquers All" 94 minute TV version, and the 142 minute director's cut. Of the three, Gilliam's 142 minute cut is obviously the most magnificent. I had only seen the film in its truncated 94 minute television version prior to this recent release and had originally found the movie hard to understand and uninvolved (a problem which is more than solved with the director's cut). In fact, I don't think I had ever made it through an entire viewing of the cut film before finally seeing Gilliam's original vision. If I had never read any information concerning Gilliam's wishes for the film, I may have never bothered watching the complete version years later when it became available on laserdisc. I'm glad I did though, because Gilliam has constructed one of the most incredible films I have ever seen. Brazil is especially remarkable on a visual level, thanks to Norman Garwood's impressive designs. Not only do the cities feel oppressive on an Orwellian degree, but also every indoor set is claustrophobic enough to lend the feeling of being trapped in a job where death is literally the only escape from the rut. The dream sequences are very imaginative and grow steadily darker in tone as the film progresses until they become the stuff of nightmares. No film Gilliam has made before or since has had the incredible visuals that this one contains. Brazil is definitely his most personal work and an obvious labor of love. The full director's cut special edition of Brazil was initially made available on laserdisc and has recently made its way to DVD, both courtesy of The Criterion Collection. Split onto five discs for laser and three for DVD, the Brazil special edition is one of the most detailed box sets ever released. The film is presented in its original 1.82:1 aspect ratio with a commentary track recorded by Gilliam, two documentaries detailing the making of the film and fights that Gilliam went through in order to get his film released properly, storyboards for all of the dream sequences, production and promotional stills, and trailers. The most impressive inclusion on the two sets is the "Love Conquers All" 94-minute version. After watching the director's cut, seeing the chopped-up version (that was originally intended for theatrical release!) is a disturbing experience. Gilliam's entire message is nearly lost or severely altered thanks to the wishes of Sid Sheinberg to have a film that ran under two hours and included a happy ending. A commentary track by film historian David Morgan is also included, which details all of the changes and inclusions the editors made and how they affect the original narrative. For those who don't mind spending a little more cash than they are normally used to, the Brazil special edition is well worth the extra money. Reviewed by Brian Matherly - bmath2000@hotmail.com AOL Instant Messenger: Widescreen25 The Jacksonville Film Journal - http://www.jaxfilmjournal.com/ -- Chuck Dowling Editor - The Jacksonville Film Journal http://www.jaxfilmjournal.com/