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Scare PewDiePie (2016)
BRING BACK SCARE PEWDIEPIE SEASON 2
Dear Youtube,
#BringBackScarePewdiepieSeason2
Yours truly,
Eduardo Ramos.
Internet: O Filme (2017)
Watch it as a new experience
I could write an ironic review of this movie, like I did with "É Fada", Kéfera Buchmann's 2016 movie, but I won't this time.
I went to the movies expecting something on the same level, I already had the jokes ready even before I had seen it, but I ended positively surprised. It's no Clint Eastwood, but it's very solid.
There are various stories that line up in one, which is an internet celebrities' party, but it's 50/50. The best plot lines were Cesinha's, Fabiana's and Zika's, and pretty much every single other was lame.
I have seen Rafinha Bastos' stand up comedies and noticed a pattern: a Jerry Seinfeld pattern. Yes, he has adapted a lot of Jerry Seinfeld's jokes, specially in "A Arte do Insulto", and to be quite frank, I don't see a problem in that, as long as it's funny. But in this movie I not only see a Larry David-like plot (in Cesinha's and Fabiana's plots more strongly), but I see direct references from the show. Adalgamir is Crazy Joe Davola, and his Elaine is Cesinha Passos. His room is exactly like Davola's apartment: a sanctuary to the person he's obsessed with. And not only that, his scream after the death of Adalgamir "eu sou muito cuzão" is not only identical in performance to George's iconic "Khan!" scream, but even the camera work is the same: it goes higher and higher, spinning around, as the character shouts a single word as loud as he can.
That apart, let's talk about Fabiana. She's the only reasonable human being in the entire movie, Cesinha apart. She understands what youtubers do and is morally firm and coherent, when she becomes that monster she so despised, she tries to undo it all, because that's a nightmare to her. Even when the watcher is induced to think she's trying to take advantage out of her new fame, she actually isn't.
Zika's line is a clear mocking of Anonymous or people like that. Internet users who think they have more power than they actually do. And somehow, in an ironic and brilliant way, it speaks about most ideology struggles we live nowadays. Be it violent protesters who say destroying property is all right as long as it's a protest or ideological hipsters who think they live in XIX century Japan, having delusions of being greater than the modern world, and don't accept how time's positively evolved almost everything.
Overall, if you try to watch it thinking it's a movie of a polemic internet celebrity, you'll not understand the best of it, because you'll deny it. But once you understand that you can point what's good and what sucks in the movie clearly, seeing that it's overall pretty good, you can enjoy it and have an epiphany or two that helps you understand a little of some groups' behavior.
É Fada! (2016)
The best Brazilian movie ever made
I could simply make a reference to Seinfeld's episode "The Chinese Restaurant", in which Jerry talks about Plan 9 From Outer Space, and calls it "the one that worked: the worst movie ever made", but I won't. The groundbreaking movie "É Fada" deserves a lot more, doing that isn't just wrong, but it's also to disdain such a great piece of work of Brazilian Art history.
If one knows Aluísio Azevedo (a Brazilian naturalist writer), one clearly sees the references to the book "O Cortiço" (literally it would be "beehive", but it's called Cortiço because that's the name of poor -- but not miserable -- people's popular living in Rio de Janeiro in the XIX century). Julia, our protagonist, is a contemporary version of Pombinha, "Cortiço's flower", because in the degenerate and degraded means (her new school), Julia contrasts for having such a strong personality. There's also a film version of Léonie, responsible for not only taking Pombinha's virginity but also introducing her to the world of prostitution, which would be her PE teacher, who insists that Julia should dance (remember, it's not having sex because it's a kids movie) in front of her class, even though the girl didn't want to. That role then goes to Geraldine (interpreted by our star Kéfera), who always forces the girl to adapt to the means (just like Aluísio Azevedo believed, since he was a strong determinist). In the book "O Cortiço", it's prostitution. Here, it's becoming a degenerate teenager. Just like Aluísio Azevedo's Jerônimo (another character from "O Cortiço"), Júlia's father is an honest and hard-working man who ceases to the sensuality, sexiness and carnal desires. In Azevedo's book, it's Rita Baiana, and in the movie, it's the protagonist's mother, divorced from him. The school baker's son is clearly a little Pombinha, too, but since determinism is pretty much criticized nowadays, he does not get corrupted. Geraldine (Kéfera) not only is the reflect of Julia's searches for desires and borders of pain and everything (which is not a theme for this review right now). The Fairy is also an extremely complex character with many, many influences. For instance, her catchy phrase about "three choices" is no doubt from Janus, the Roman deity, in which each of the possible choices opens up a new path, a new cycle.
I'm also led to see many Seinfeld references. Geraldine's boss is not very different from the classic Soup Nazi. Always strict and methodical, he is talented and ends succumbing to his small mistakes. In the Soup Nazi's case, he left a couple of recipes in the closet, and and in the case of Geraldine's boss, he let her sexy words and voice go up to his head. Júlia has a lot of Kenny Bania's traces, as in the scene in which, like Bania insists to have a dinner instead of a soup (which he did not consider dinner), she insisted in have an specific bracelet to enter in a party (which was Geraldine's idea). Geraldine's personality is also a mix of the four Seinfeld's main characters, which, as the sitcom, are brilliant.
I went to watch the movie expecting nothing much different from what Jerry expected from Plan 9 From Outer Space, and I ended seeing one of the all-time best movies and no doubt the best Brazilian movie ever.