Tomisaburo Wakayama – born Masaru Okumura in September 1, 1929 – despite having died almost thirty years ago, in April 2, 1992, at sixty-two years old, remains as one of the most important and relevant Japanese actors of all time. Highly prolific, Wakayama’s output encompasses several genres, despite the fact that he became more widely associated with samurai and ninja action films. Working in the industry as an actor, fight choreographer and stuntman, it’s impossible to define precisely in how many movies Wakayama was involved throughout his four decades long career, but speculations are as high as five hundred. 

Born into a family of actors, Wakayama already in his childhood followed his father’s footsteps, becoming involved in the kabuki theater. His younger brother Toshio Okumura also developed a profound interest in the profession, and became an actor. In adulthood, he would find fame and notoriety in the Japanese movie industry under the name Shintaro Katsu, becoming also one of the greatest actors of his generation. 

Eventually, though, Wakayama became more interested in martial arts. He started to study and practice judo, and acting became secondary. In the beginning of the fifties, though, he accepted an invitation to tour the United States with a theater company, for a series of spectacles that lasted nine months.

Nevertheless, his martial arts background opened doors for him in the movie industry, as a movie company, Toho, was seeking for performers with real ability to star in their action films. Wakayama, always looking for the improvement of his skills, studied several martial arts, like kenpō, kendo, bōjutsu and iaidō, to be able to achieve a degree of realism close to perfection. From then on – despite the fact that he was a very skilled and versatile artist – he became widely associated with the action genre, more specifically, period pieces featuring samurai and ninja stories. His fame, though, would be majorly consolidated in six movies, that were adaptations of the manga Lone Wolf and Cub, created by writer Kazuo Koike and illustrator Goseki Kojima. The first four of these movies – Sword of Vengeance, Baby Cart at the River Styx, Baby Cart to Hades and Baby Cart in Peril – were released in the same year, 1972. The fifth installment, Baby Cart in the Land of Demons, was released the following year, 1973. The last, White Heaven in Hell, was released in 1974. The second movie, Baby Cart at the River Styx – containing eleven minutes of footage from the first movie, Sword of Vengeance – was released for the American movie market in 1980 as Shogun Assassin. The third movie, Baby Cart to Hades, was released as a sequence, titled Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death. In 1980, Wakayama starred as ninja avenger Kaiketsu Kurozukin, in the marvelously fabulous movie Black Hood. His character was remarkable for the fact that, besides his skilful abilities with swords, he also used firearms, which was uncommon for a ninja.

Despite his reputation, though – acquired through decades of diligent and impeccable work – Wakayama was barely known outside Japan. He had roles in only two American movies: the 1978 comedy The Bad News Bears Go to Japan, directed by John Berry, and the legendary 1989 police thriller Black Rain, directed by Ridley Scott, and starred by Michael Douglas and Andy García. On this movie, Wakayama portrayed Sugai, a Yakuza chieftain, that serves as one of the story’s main antagonists. 

With a consistent and perfectionist style, that contributed substantially for the development of the action movie genre as period pieces quintessential for the consolidation of Japanese cinema as a major exponent of sublime art, it’s no exaggeration at all to affirm that – in the second half of the twentieth century –, samurai and ninja warriors portrayed onscreen were largely a definitive feature of Tomisaburo Wakayama. 

With a mordacious seriousness and a spectacular degree of realism that definitely surpassed the highest expectations, his legacy and proficient dramatic abilities had made him one of the greatest actors of his generation, and one of the most recognizable faces of Japanese action period movies. With a fantastic degree of density – and a passionate sensibility that allowed him to fully surrender to his characters –, Tomisaburo Wakayama has proved in hundreds of movies, though only a handful of these were necessary, why he deserves to be qualified as one of the greatest actors that ever lived. 


Wagner

Lee van Cleef – whose birth name was Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr. – was an American actor, active for almost four decades, from the late forties until the late eighties, retiring a year before his death, in December 16, 1989, at sixty-four years old. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, in January 9, 1925, Lee van Cleef achieved notoriety mainly for his prominent roles in Spaghetti Westerns of the sixties and seventies, of which the most famous is probably the now classic 1966 production The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where he shared the screen with Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. On this movie, Cleef portrayed the “Bad” from the title, a malicious character named Angel Eyes.

Lee van Cleef started his acting career in the late forties, after leaving the United States navy. After a series of roles in theater plays, he was spotted by a talent scout, who drove him to a renowned agency. His entrance ticket for the motion picture industry, though, came after a few years, when – after seeing him performing in a play in Los Angeles – famous Hollywood director Stanley Kramer invited Cleef to be part of his next film, High Noon, which would be the actor’s big screen debut. The movie – a western starred by Gary Cooper – was produced by Kramer and directed by Fred Zinnemann. Cleef had a very small part, as a character named Jack Colby. The movie was released in 1952. In this same year, van Cleef also debuted on television, appearing in shows like Sky King and Boston Blackie, as well as The Lone Ranger and The Range Rider. In these last two, he would be cast in episodes until the following year. 

While this period in van Cleef’s career was significant, given the fact that he had managed to break into the movie and television industries, despite being a terrifically skilled and versatile actor, he would very soon start to suffer from a terrible plague that frequently affects people in the business: typecasting. 

After portraying some villains – the most remarkable in this early period of his career was probably the one in the 1952 movie Kansas City Confidential, where van Cleef portrayed Tony Romano, a cold and selfish gangster that, together with three other men, robs a bank, after which the group manages to frame an innocent man for their crime, and eventually this man, Joe Rolfe, portrayed by John Payne, elaborates a highly intelligent plan of vengeance to redeem himself, successfully subduing his antagonists in the end – van Cleef unfortunately became too associated with criminals, offenders and outlaws. He hardly would manage to break out of this vicious circle. 

As time passed – more than a decade went by –, van Cleef managed to participate in moderately successful films, sometimes in good and relevant roles, sometimes doing minor parts in not so remarkable movies. His fortunes changed, though, when Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone decided to cast him in the 1965 western For a Few Dollars More, where he would star alongside Clint Eastwood. On this movie, van Cleef plays a character named Douglas Mortimer, while Eastwood portrays a tough individual that answers by the alias of Manco. Both are bounty hunters, that fight to survive the implacable ordeals of the old west. The movie also starred notorious German actor Klaus Kinski, in a villainous role. 

This movie – alongside with a handful of others – was the main responsible for giving birth to a subgenre of western movies, that would later be called western spaghetti: low-budget westerns, that were shot primarily in Italy. Lee van Cleef would star in several of these movies, eventually becoming an icon of the genre. In the following year, he starred again with Clint Eastwood in a Sergio Leone production, a western spaghetti titled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, already mentioned. This legendary film acquired cult status since it was released, in 1966, and became a highlight of the genre. 

After these movies, Van Cleef consolidated his reputation as a major celebrity, with his image closely associated with western spaghetti. He would star in several other movies in this particular genre – frequently in leading roles –, like 1969 Sabata, and 1971 Return of Sabata. Unfortunately, he became typecast one more time in his career, but now as an old west though type of guy, and would hardly find any work outside of it. Nevertheless, he found fame and stability, and became recognized as a good actor, that managed to captivate audiences in the big screen, conveying veracity to the characters he played. 

In the seventies and eighties, van Cleef worked on television only sporadically. On this period he concentrated almost exclusively on film, since he was rarely out of offers, though invitations to star in movies also started to decline. In 1981, he co-starred with Kurt Russell in the John Carpenter directed science-fiction feature Escape from New York.

Suffering from bad health – more specifically from a heart condition – since the late seventies, in the eighties van Cleef had to undergone a surgery, where doctors implanted a pacemaker. Forced to slow down, he acted in only a few more movies. With an exotic appearance that made him look easterner, in 1984, van Cleef was cast in the main role of John McAllister, a ninja, despite the American name, in the NBC television series The Master. The show was cancelled after only thirteen episodes, and was the last television show in which van Cleef had participated, and the only one he had done in the eighties. 

In the last decade of his life, van Cleef was featured in nine movies. His last film was 1988 Thieves of Fortune, a movie directed by Michael MacCarthy, on which he played a character named Sergio Danielo. The actor died in his home in California, in December 16, 1989, at sixty-four years old. Besides his heart condition, he also had throat cancer. With a legacy encompassing almost ninety movies, and more than thirty television shows, Lee van Cleef has left crime and western movie enthusiasts in a rapturous urge of passionate and belligerent grace, whenever he was on the screen. 


Wagner

Michiyo Kogure was one of the most relevant and talented Japanese actresses of the 20th century, having starred in approximately eighty nine movies, in a forty five years career, beginning in 1939, and finishing in 1984, with the climax happening in the 1950’s. She starred in several movies with the lead actors and actresses of her generation, including Kazuo Hasegawa and Raizō Ichikawa (whose life and career were analyzed on an article that I wrote, that you can read here). 

She starred with Kazuo Hasegawa in the 1951 drama film The Tale of Genji, an adaptation of the eponymous 11th century classic Japanese literary work, written by Murasaki Shikibu. 


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In 1955, Michiyo Kogure starred in the 12th century historic drama Shin Heike Monogatari, a movie on which she played Fujiwara no Taishi, the mother of Taira no Kiyomori (played by Raizō Ichikawa), a renowned samurai and military strategist of the Heian period, known for pioneering samurais as a government ruling class. 

Two years later, she starred again in a movie with Raizō Ichikawa, the 1957 film Freelance Samurai, directed by Kenji Misumi. Another period piece – though this time fiction – on this movie, Michiyo Kogure starred as Kosuzu Hanabusa, a woman that gets enamored of Momotarō (the character played by Ichikawa), a Ronin that discovers that he has a twin, the noble hereditary leader of a dynasty, and uncovers a plot from a rival clan to kill him. 

Her most relevant roles, though, were as Taeko Satake, in the 1952 movie The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, directed by legendary Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, and as Miyoharu, the main character in the 1953 film A Geisha, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, another virtuous talent of Japanese cinema.

These are two exceedingly marvelous and splendorous movies, that I think deserves to be highlighted, and meticulously analyzed. They are certainly among the best films that I have ever seen. Both are touching, humane, gracefully artistic and deeply poetic, and the performances delivered by Michiyo Kogure on these two majestic motion pictures display exceptionally fantastic, wonderful, consistent and discreet, yet monumental interpretations of vivid, intense, beautiful and fragile characters. 

In The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, Michiyo Kogure starred as housewife Taeko Satake, an unhappy woman, that gets bored and disillusioned with her life. She becomes unsatisfied and disappointed with her husband, Mokichi Satake (played by Shin Saburi); he is a kind and hard-working gentleman, but she eventually starts to despise him, becoming tired of his somewhat calm and serene nature, that she interprets as lethargic and condescending. She arranges all kinds of excuses to pass the largest amount of time possible with her female friends, going to spas and trips, and her husband – acknowledging her free-will temperament and indulgent personality –, let her do exactly what she wants. 

Despite her relatively good relationship with her niece, the young Setsuko (played by Keiko Tsushima), Taeko puts pressure for her to attend a matchmaking session. She is resistant at first, telling to a male friend of her that she finds this matchmaking social obligations an archaic and retrograde tradition, and – although she is young –, she wants to feel as an independent woman. Eventually, though, Setsuko agrees to participate, only to escape after arriving there, which leaves her aunt Taeko, that had accompanied her, severely distressed with her disappearance. Setsuko then goes to her aunt’s home, where she finds her uncle, and explains to him what happened. He advises her to return, but she refuses. When Taeko comes home, and finds Setsuko, she demands an explanation. Setsuko then tells her aunt what she really thinks about arranged marriages, and then leaves. Taeko tells her husband that Setsuko is too much of a carefree spirit, and needs to be reprimanded, to learn how to properly behave, and to follow costumes and tradition. Mokichi then tells her, in his characteristic calmness and serenity, that it will be of no use, since this could produce another couple like them. 

Eventually, Mokichi has to go to Montevideo on a business trip, but Taeko leaves, without informing him of her precise whereabouts. Mokichi sends a telegram to her asking her where she is, and asking her to join him, informing her about his immediate trip. She ignores his solicitations, though, and does not go to the airport to accompany his departure, nor to say goodbye, like all other families traditionally do. After a few hours, though, Mokichi comes home. He informs Taeko that was a problem on the airplane, so all the passengers had to disembark, and were scheduled for the next flight. He will be leaving tomorrow. 

More solicit and emphatic, Taeko asks Mokichi if he needs anything, and he says he is tired, but also hungry. She offers herself to go to the kitchen, to take some food, and she joins him in the meal. Both go to the kitchen together, to pick up all the necessary things to eat. Taeko asks forgiveness for her husband for leaving without informing him where she was going, and promises not to do that anymore. Then, in a very beautiful, touching and emotional scene, she says she feels guilty, and is profoundly sorry for the terrible and difficult behavior she has displayed lately, towards him. He warmly accepts her apologies, and the two reconcile. 

Later, Taeko is seen with her friends, very happy, saying that she is the most fortunate woman for having a man like Mokichi as her husband. She now values everything he does for her, and she says that – despite the fact that she used to see him as a very lethargic and complacent man – she came to discover that a woman never really knows what a man has to go through, in his working life, on a daily basis. Maybe he has to pass through great lengths and sacrifices to give her the good life that she has, and she never realized before that maybe she doesn’t know everything that he has to confront, to give her the prosperity that she enjoys. She seems peaceful and grateful for all the things she has, and now values the decent man to whom she is married, saying that she couldn’t ask for a better husband.     

In the final scene of the movie, we see Setsuko talking to her friend from earlier, the one upon which she complained about arranged marriages. It leaves the audience to decide if they are just good friends, or if they are – or will become – a couple. 

A marvelously fantastic masterpiece, The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice has a dense and consistent history, sidelined with profoundly dramatic, but gracefully humane elements. The impeccable direction of Yasujirō Ozu, that knew how to capture in detail – though with an expressively dynamic vivacity – the splendid dichotomy of relationships, exposed with veracity and formidable vitality the exceptional layers of the human behavior, in a very cohesive and sensible story. 

With an astounding cinematography, and exceedingly wonderful visual qualities, as well the phenomenal versatility of Michiyo Kogure – who inserted a subtle, though profoundly existential density into her character – The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice certainly can be considered one of the greatest movies ever made in the history of Japanese cinema. Its aggrandizing virtues display such a glorious level of excellence and refinement, both in the creative and technical elements, that its astounding perfection in all aspects is simply undeniable. 

In the 1953 movie A Geisha, Michiyo Kogure plays Miyoharu – the title character –, that accepts Eiko (played by a then young Ayako Wakao, which would later become another famous Japanese actress) as a maiko, an apprentice of Geisha. Eiko is seemingly desperate, because her mother recently died, and her father is a very negligent parent. She also has an uncle, that she refuses to live with, as he constantly demands sexual favors from her. Since she has debts related to her mother’s funeral, she is desperate to earn some money. Initially having doubts concerning her potential, Miyoharu eventually becomes sympathetic towards the girl, and accepts her as an apprentice. 

Initially, conforming the girl to Geisha standards proves to be a difficult task; Miyoharu becomes indebted by enrolling her in a prestigious school, and Eiko – who earns the apprenticeship name of Miyoei – gets drunk at parties, hardly behaving with any grace, elegance and sophistication. As the girl becomes somewhat solicited at parties and venues, her father tries to extort money and goods from Miyoharu. Eventually, she is contacted by a group of businessmen, that wants her to seduce a potential client – a man named Kanzaki (played by Kanji Koshiba) – in a deal that could bring her great prosperity. While this man becomes attracted to Miyoharu, another one, Kusuda (played by Seizaburō Kawazu) becomes fond of the young Miyoei.

Nevertheless, Miyoharu becomes disillusioned of the way the deal goes, and not interested at all in Kanzaki, subtlety avoids him. They never consummate, something that frustrates Kanzaki. To get matters worse, Miyoharu becomes severely worried when – at a party where all of them are – Kusuda stays alone with Miyoei in a room. The girl manages to avoid the man’s advances, though. Miyoharu never surrenders herself to Kanzaki, nor Miyoei to Kusuda. It becomes clear that Miyoharu wants to protect Miyoei at all cost, and does not want her to have sex against her will, and with such a young age, willing to go to great lengths to protect her from the vicissitudes of a life of geisha. Since the deal is broke, she starts to be sabotaged from venues, and all her other appointments are cancelled. Miyoei, eager to sacrifice herself for the honor of Miyoharu, decides to present herself to be taken by Kusuda, but this cannot happen without Miyoharu’s approval, that is not granted. 

Knowing that she has to do something to improve their situation, Miyoharu decides to sleep with Kanzaki, as long as they made a deal, that consists in Kusuda forgetting Miyoei. The deal is arranged, and after that, things return to normal. Eventually, Miyoei gets suspicious, and asks Miyoharu if she slept with Kanzaki, saying that she will be very angry and disappointed if that would be true. Miyoharu confirms her suspicions, but says that she did that for her own well-being. She doesn’t care to anything that happens to her, but she is very protective of Miyoei, desperate to prevent her from the traumas and afflictions that comes with the profession. Willing to preserve her purity and innocence, Miyoharu acted to protect her, and soon thereafter, pupil and mentor reconcile, rejoicing at their reacquired good fortunes. 

One of the greatest movies that I have ever seen – besides the marvelous, profound and incomparable acting abilities of Michiyo Kogure – this story of abnegation, altruism, love and sacrifice displays the preservation of innocence in a corrupt and lustful environment. We can easily think that the main character, Miyoharu, experienced hard times as a geisha, and never had anybody to defend her, to protect her or to stand for her. Exactly for this reason, she decides to protect the young Eiko at all costs, being a shield for the young girl against the miseries of life, determined to protect her from the horrible and disgraceful ordeals of existence, more specifically against the burdens, disillusions and disappointments inherent to the life of a geisha. So, she decided she would be to Eiko the protection that herself never had in her life. 

A marvelous movie with a groundbreaking degree of artistry, that combines a diligent and profound story filled with realistic historical elements, the characters are marvelously elaborated, and amazingly portrayed. A period piece that certainly has so many virtues as a result of the fabulous and exceptional direction of Kenji Mizoguchi, this majestic movie is one of those that deserves to be appreciated several times. Its formidable qualities have such distinct combinations – and so peculiar commonalities –, that this aggrandizing and masterful state of the art work certainly deserves to be vastly acclaimed as an unprecedented accomplishment of not only Japanese, but worldwide cinema.
 
Michiyo Kogure was one of the most talented actresses of her generation. With a versatile, but candid and sincere brightness, that transpired a mordacious, but at the same time exceedingly elegant vivacity in each one of the characters that she played, Michiyo Kogure deserves to be remembered by her splendorous and extraordinary talent, that so much glorious virtues and singular nuances aggregated to the movies in which she had participated. A lot of them displayed artistic vitality and extravagant beauty exactly because of her presence. 

Unfortunately, Michiyo Kogure never became widely known outside Japan. Nevertheless, her virtuous talent has proved to be one of the greatest triumphs for the cinematic arts in her home country, whose eighty-nine movies that featured her graceful appearance certainly makes a consistent legacy, especially to people that appreciate classic Japanese cinema. Michiyo Kogure was born in January 31, 1918 and died at seventy-two years old, in June 13, 1990. 


Wagner

Shima Iwashita is one of the most recognizable faces in Japanese cinema. With a career spanning more than sixty years, the actress was born in Tokyo, in the middle of World War II, in January 3, 1941. She started her professional career very young, at seventeen years old, in 1958.

With more than one hundred movies and forty television productions to her credit, the first film Iwashita landed a role was the 1960 The River Fuefuki, a movie directed by renowned Japanese filmmaker Keisuke Kinoshita. She became widely known, though, after starring in the acclaimed 1962 movie An Autumn Afternoon, a masterpiece made by legendary Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu. Previously, Iwashita had a very small part in Ozu’s 1960 film Late Autumn.

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In  this movie – An Autumn Afternoon –, Iwashita plays Michiko Hirayama, a twenty-four years old, that is fully devoted to her family, which consists only of her father Shūhei Hirayama (portrayed by renowned veteran Japanese actor and regular Ozu collaborator Chishū Ryū) and her twenty-one years old brother Kazuo (portrayed by Shin'ichirō Mikami). She also has an older brother, Kōichi (portrayed by Keiji Sada), who is thirty-two years old, and is married. He lives in another home with his wife. Michiko is the typical Japanese girl. She is subservient, diligent and very helpful, and takes care of basically everything at home. 

Shūhei – who is a widower –, attends regular meetings with several friends in a restaurant. In one of these reunions, his former teacher, Sakuma (portrayed by Eijirō Tōno), joins them. Eventually, the story discreetly reveals details that made clear that Shūhei is a war veteran; he had fought on the Second World War as a naval officer, as most of his friends, probably. After the meeting – that was full of nostalgia and memories –Shūhei and another friend leave Sakuma at his home. They eventually discover that now he is the owner of a cheap restaurant, that he administers with the help of his daughter.

As the story revolves, and Shūhei starts to frequent the restaurant of his former teacher, one day Sakuma laments that because of his selfishness, his daughter is condemned to a life of solitude, as she is too old to marry now, and is destined to an existence of solitary confinement and permanent hard work, having to take care of the restaurant mostly by herself, since he is too old. Eventually, Shūhei realizes that he is doing exactly the same thing with his daughter, Michiko. If she not marries soon, she will be condemned to a life of loneliness.

Shūhei realizes that, by maintaining Michiko at home, he is being selfish and negligent; like all other women, she probably wants to marry and to have children. So Shūhei talks to her daughter about a prospective marriage; at first she completely denies the possibility, but Shūhei decides to look for a potential husband for Michiko anyway.

Eventually, Shūhei discovers that Michiko has feelings for a man named Miura, a friend of Kōichi, and he asks his son to talk to him. Eventually, Kōichi discovers that Miura is already engaged. He confesses to Kōichi that he was smitten for Michiko in the past, but at the time, Kōichi didn’t give any attention to the possibility of a romantic relationship between the two. Miura reveals that if he was single, he wouldn’t disregard the opportunity, but since he is committed to someone, he does not want to break off the engagement. 

After leaving, Kōichi tells the news to his father. When Kōichi and Shūhei tells the unfortunate truth to Michiko, she pretends to be fine; the two men think she reacted nicely to the sad news, but then she retires to her room to cry, and later they realize her disappointment. 

Her father then proposes to her to go to a matchmaking session someone has arranged for her. Michiko agrees. Then the movie cuts directly to the wedding day. In the final moments, Michiko is seen in a traditional Japanese ceremonial dress, though the groom is never seen, and the marriage is never shown. She does not appear to be happy, but does not appear to be sad either. She looks like a woman perfectly resigned to her fate. 

A formidable, sensational and spectacular movie, full of a genuine and colorful vitality, its fundamental elements decipher the sincere and graceful density that emphasizes the most subtle and discreet aspects of the human existence; most specifically, how they are intrinsically felt and dealt with in Japanese culture. An Autumn Afternoon is a majestic state of the art work, a poetic and exceedingly harmonious motion picture, whose greatest virtues rely on the fearless combination of a cohesive storyline, the wonderful and realistic acting skills of the cast – especially on the parts of Chishū Ryū as Shūhei Hirayama and Shima Iwashita as Michiko Hirayama – and the formidable direction of Yasujirō Ozu, that definitely knew how to express a genuine drama in an exceedingly sober and proverbial perspective. An Autumn Afternoon was Ozu’ last film, before he died, in December 1963.

Her next remarkable movie was 1963 Twin Sisters of Kyoto, on which Iwashita played two roles, Chieko and Naeko. The plot centers around the character of Chieko, that one day discovers that she was adopted. She eventually finds that she has a twin sister named Naeko, and that she was probably stolen after she was born by her adoptive parents. As the sisters gets close to each other after a chance encounter, and starts to be involved in each other’s lives, Chieko has to decide if she stays with her adoptive family and carries on her father’s kimono business, or if she leaves to have a life of her own and possibly marry, since she feels urged to walk her own path in life. A very interesting story, the movie was based on the literary novel The Old Capital, by legendary Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1968. Despite all of its qualities, though, like a compelling and captivating storyline, as well as the efficient and dynamic direction of Noboru Nakamura, the double presence of Shima Iwashita – with all her grace, stunning beauty and profound, splendorous, realistic, but at the same time serene and soft dramatic skills –, was undoubtedly the greatest triumph of the movie.   

Beginning in the early sixties, Shima Iwashita rose to be an exponent of her generation in Japanese cinema, as she performed relevant roles in several major movies throughout a brilliant career, that grew to achieve iconic status in her country. Considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation – with a remarkable legacy in the big screen – Iwashita, seventy-eight years old now, is semi-retired since the early 2000’s, acting only in a sporadic basis.  

Undoubtedly having a charisma, a charm, a graceful beauty, a sincere, latent, tempestuous and vivacious disposition of soul and a natural talent that enabled her to display her formidable acting skills, one of the triumphs of Iwashita was the opportunity she had throughout her career to work with some of the greatest directors of her country, whose fame and reputation eventually grew, to achieve worldwide status. Definitely, the combination of a cohesive drama, skilful acting and sagacious directing – virtues that were always perfectly arranged together in the Japanese motion picture industry – inadvertently produced some of the greatest treasures of twentieth century cinema in Japan. Shima Iwashita is part of this legacy, since her contributions to the artistic development of the arts certainly deserves all recognitions. 


Wagner

Jing Tian is a prominent Chinese actress, that started her career a little more than a decade ago. So far, she has been in fifteen movies and eight television productions. Her talent – exacerbated by her looks of extravagant beauty –, certainly has made her one of the greatest triumphs to come out recently from the Chinese screen.

Probably her greatest role to date have been on the 2016 movie The Great Wall, a big budget production, directed by legendary Chinese director Zhang Yimou. Despite being a movie entirely shot in China, the stars of the cast were American actors Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe, something that deflagrated a heated controversy. 

The movie is about two obscure merchants, William Garin and Pero Tovar – portrayed by Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal, respectively – that are wandering through China to seek for gunpowder, expecting to make money out of this. They are initially part of a group, but they are attacked by a brutal and violent monster; most of them are savagely killed by the beast. Only Garin and Tovar survives, as Garin manages to fight back, even cutting off what appeared to be the arm of the creature. They are eventually captured by a group of warriors, members of the mysterious Nameless Order. 

Then they are taken to a great palace to meet the leaders of the order, and there they meet Commander Lin Mae (portrayed by Jing Tian) and Ballard (portrayed by Willem Dafoe), a foreigner that is somewhat being held captive, since he is not allowed to leave the order; there, Garin and Tovar learn that the creature that attacked them are Taotie, furious evil beasts that periodically attacks China, and the main reason behind the existence of the Nameless Order is to fight back these malevolent creatures.

When Garin reveals his fabulous skills as an archer, and hints at a possible weakness the creatures may have, that allowed him to cut off the arm of the beast that attacked his group – that he had brought together with him, and he shows it to the order’s leaders – the initial hostility and distrust that was present between them disappears, at least for a while. Eventually, the two foreigners are involved in an epic fight that soon ensues, when a gigantic horde of Taotie attacks the great walls. There, they testify the colossal military strategies adopted by the brave warriors to fight those evil creatures, as well as the technology the order has in its power to subdue the threat. All of the subsequent action present in the movie revolves around this premise.  

A marvelous movie at least in the visual aspects, as well as with Raise the Red Lantern and The Flowers of War, Zhang Yimou proved one more time why he is one of the greatest directors alive. An exceedingly formidable motion picture, that has everything to be considered a classic in the not so distant future, if the plot can be tiresome and even monotonous – following some generic formulas – at certain points, nevertheless, several other elements compensate its minor deficiencies, like the epic scale of the movie, the astounding, artistic and fantastic visuals, the characters – that are dense, multilayered, overall dramatic, realistically portrayed and convincing – and the sensational acting skills of everybody involved, are qualities developed high enough to satisfy the audience. 

Despite all of its virtues, though, the presence of Jing Tian in the movie is like a hidden triumph that discreetly embraces and revolves around the film, as her character always departed from a deeply graceful and majestic perspective, displaying an affable – though courageous and sometimes rude – personality, that added a cohesive density to the storyline, as well as for the motion picture in its entirety. 

Though Jing Tian is young and her career is only beginning, her marvelous potential was showcased in a greatest scale in this fantastic epic movie. Not only her fabulous acting skills could be highlighted in a greater perspective, her beauty, combined with the profound density of her character – aligned with the fact that she was one of the movie’s protagonists – certainly has enabled her to be projected as one of the greatest acting talents of her generation. 

Already acclaimed as a television favorite and a movie star in ascension in China, Jing Tian is a marvelous actress that has a fantastic future ahead of her. She certainly has potential to develop her sensational talent, as long as she manages to have relevant roles.   



​Wagner

I am a very devoted enthusiast of horror movies. Recently, I’ve decided to watch more frequently short films in the genre. For several inherent cultural reasons, we never see them with the same regularity we usually see full length features. And I’ve decided to incorporate – or at least try – into my life the habit of seeing short horror movies more frequently. And, to some extent, I’m being successful on this objective. 

I’ve already had done a selection of six short horror movies, that you can verify here. I also explain the pros and cons of seeing this type of film, but it’s never enough to reinforce the arguments. 

For constraints of time (and mostly budget), short horror movies – shorts in general, so to speak – are usually very objective, even if they begin with a sideline or background story. Moreover, if you watch a more extensive short, one that has almost thirty minutes, for example, the story evolves and develops as a cohesive unity, and you really don’t have time to get bored, especially movies that are very concise. On the other hand, there is a negative side: sometimes the movie is exceedingly good, and when you become profoundly involved in the story, the movie ends. 

It’s imperative to disseminate the culture of short movies – in any genre, not just horror – because there are so many incredibly talented people involved in this mostly independent projects – directors, screenwriters, actors –, that unquestionably deserves more exposure. And who really wins is the public, that learns how to appreciate not just an entirely exotic form of art, that is a majestic and marvelously singular form of expression by its own merits, but incorporates into its culture a more vast and wide conjuncture of creative possibilities. It’s interesting to observe how these movies – not just short movies, of course, this also applies to feature films – are incorporating elements of technology, especially social media, to create relevant plots and intriguing premises, showcasing the dark side of digital revolution and virtual progress. On the movies featured below, being home alone is also another common theme.      

Well, here are the movies selected this time. I hope you enjoy!

An interesting cyber horror movie, a young man apparently finds solace for his terrible grief with an online friend. His girlfriend has committed suicide – and the storyline implies that she had executed such an extreme act by his fault – and he is overcome by guilt. When he finally acquires strength to unfriend his dead girlfriend’s profile on social media, that he constantly visits, she suddenly appears on the chat. Then something drastically bizarre starts to happen.  

The story is not entirely original. There are many other movies with the same premise, even shorts. Nevertheless, the movie – almost nine minutes long – presents itself decently, as an involving, cohesive and intriguing narrative.  

A night radio broadcaster – “Late Hour” Tom Bower (played by Brent Black) – expresses on air his disdain for magicians. When the audience starts to call for the show, a magician, or someone posing as one, gets online. That’s when things starts to get inexplicably dark. Written and directed by Faisal Hashmi. 

A girl – that apparently has plausible reasons for not being alone at her house – after a pleasant night, is driven home by her boyfriend. She asks him to stay for the night, but he says he has to take care of his little brother, but they will be together again tomorrow. Later that night, she sends a selfie to her boyfriend, and then he sends a message asking her who was in the back of the picture. She replies writing that she is home alone. Soon the girl verifies the photo, and discovers that she is not as alone as she presumed. And the intruder is not an ordinary assailant, but someone of a far more horrifying nature. The Glitch has an interesting sequence, that is also available on YouTube.

An interesting short whose characters communicate entirely by mobile text messages. Kelly Morris – the main character – is texting with her housemate, when her former boyfriend starts sending messages too, compulsively. He starts to apologize and begs her an opportunity for them to resume their relationship. Then, her housemate informs her that her social media status has changed from single to a “relationship with Todd Powers”. Kelly then assumes that Todd hacked her account, but when she confronts him, he denies categorically that he is the responsible. 

​Todd is persistent and asks to talk to her personally. She refuses and then the doorbell rings, followed by a knock on the door. Kelly doesn’t answer, and Todd again sends new messages, informing Kelly that he has to say something to her, and has to be personally. Kelly then starts to eat a meal her housemate has prepared specially for her. Not too long after, she starts to feel bad and collapses. Despite the plot twist in the end, it’s not that difficult to figure it out the background story right before its conclusion.

A five minutes short, on this movie, a night watchman in his cabin finds a lost and found box, where he gets a laptop. On the laptop, he starts to read the story of a deformed and solitary creature named Larry. Suddenly he sees in the parking lot, next to the only car there something very bizarre, impossible to identify precisely in the dark. When he looks away for a moment because of the flickering light, and then looks back into the parking lot, the figure is no longer there. Assuming that what he had seen was just a hint of his imagination, the lookout resumes reading Larry's story on the laptop.

Frightened by the morbid story and the energy that suddenly goes out, the night watchman sees again the strange creature in the parking lot. Forced to accept that Larry is real and is watching him, he uses the laptop to help him observe the creature, until he loses Larry from sight. When he pulls away the laptop, he sees Larry right in front of him. When the lights return and he sees two customers returning to their car – the only one that remains in the parking lot – he feels alleviated, and begins to wonder if he was somewhat delusional. But to his distress, the horror was just beginning. 

With little less than four minutes, on this interesting short, a man discovers in the most terrible way that he is not as solitary in his home as he thought he was. 

Written, directed and produced by Marc Cartwright, on this short movie – a little less than seven minutes long –, the main character (played by Baker Chase Powell) arrives home, and starts cleaning the mess from a party he had done the night before. Then he showers and dresses a costume for Halloween. Shortly thereafter, when he goes to the kitchen that he had recently cleaned, he notices a bottle of vodka and a plastic cup near the sink. Then he sits in the couch and when he picks up his marijuana, the drug was almost entirely consumed. 

Assuming a friend had visited him when he was in the shower, he calls his friend demanding satisfactions, but his friend doesn’t take the blame. Saying that he had left a bottle of gin in the refrigerator, when he verifies, he sees that there is no bottle at all. In some brief passages of the movie, it is possible to see a dreadful mask in the wall observing the main character. When he sees a mysterious figure reflected in the mirror, he discovers too late a horrifying presence lurking in the dark. 

When her boyfriend leaves for the night shift, a girl (Maika Monroe) has the whole house to herself. Then she starts to wander, and the border between reality and imagination begins to blur. A very interesting psychological horror movie, the story allows the audience to submerge into the deeply surreal universe of the protagonist’s mind, in an attempt to discover what demons she has to confront. 

An old lady (marvelously played by Beatrice Howard) sees someone outside her house, late at night, and frightened, decides to call her son. She was diagnosed with a condition called Charles Bonnet Syndrome, that causes hallucinations. Her son tells her that she is probably seeing something that is not real, but she responds by saying that she used to see “shapes and patterns… this is a person”. Her son assures her that – according to the doctor responsible for her treatment – she can see anything with her condition. She then opens a window and talks to the figure, that does not respond. She tells that to her son, that assures her that probably she is hallucinating, and the individual is not real. After turning off the phone, she looks again at the figure outside, but this time she doesn’t see anything. 

Soon thereafter – when she is in the bathroom –, she starts to hear strange noises. Then someone bangs on the bathroom door. She opens the door, and her wheelchair bumps into a saucer with a cup on the floor. She calls her son again, but only the voicemail responds, so she leaves a message. After a few more moments, she sees the strange figure again, just for him to disappear in a matter of seconds. 

While in her bed, she tries to convince herself that she is only having a delusional experience. She lies down, and turns on the radio. Then the electricity starts to oscillate, and she hears disturbing noises. Then she listens a knock in her door bedroom. Soon after, the door is violently opened, and someone enters the room. For her relief, it’s her son, that became worried and decided to check upon her personally. To comfort his mother, he checks the entire house, including the basement. Unfortunately, while inspecting the basement, he has a terrible surprise. In desperation, the old lady begins to pray. Then she hears a child’s voice, and everything becomes more sinister than the night itself. 

A man eating his dinner alone at home is suddenly disturbed by persistent bangs on his front door. He opens the door, but finds nobody there. Then, an unknown person calls him on his mobile phone, demanding him to look outside from his balcony. When he does, he sees a mysterious unknown figure staring at him. The mobile phone rings again, the mysterious person disappears from sight and the somber voice demands the individual to go outside. 

After grabbing a knife in the kitchen to protect himself, the man goes towards the building corridor, where he sees the hooded figure. In fear, he returns to his apartment, in a moment where the lights fade away. He grabs a flashlight and his mobile rings again. After a brief conversation, the assailant says some words, where becomes implicit that he is seeking some kind of revenge. Unfortunately, for the young victim, his worst nightmares were just beginning.   

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Directed by Elias Benavidez, the movie begins with a boy a little terrified at being alone in the dark of night in his room. So, he goes to his mother’s bed, and lie down by her side. Not wanting to spoil him, she leads him back to his room, and looks under the boy's bed to reassure him that nothing is wrong. She calms him down, leaves a flashlight on the dresser, counsels him to think happy thoughts and kisses him. When she leaves, he hardly feels any better. When her mother awakes in the morning, she finds her son sleeping by her side, on the floor. 

Looking at a portrait, the mother begins to cry, probably grieving for her deceased husband, a navy officer. Meanwhile, her soon keeps drawing pictures of monsters and horrible creatures. She screams with him for using around his neck the military medallions of his father. Nevertheless, she warmly tries to connect with her son by telling him an apparently scary story, that was in fact an opportunist encounter she had with a raccoon, underlining the narrative with the importance of overcoming personal fears. After the end of the story, though, the boy seemed profoundly disappointed. 

At night, after going to sleep, the boy wakes up hours later, deeply disturbed. Hearing some noises, he illuminates his bedroom with the flashlight. The noise persists, and the boy gets even more anxious, and activates traps he had prepared with his toys the day before. When one of the traps apparently had caught something, the boy go to his mother’s room, and calls her desperately. 

His mother becomes angry when she sees the floor wet – as one of the traps involved water –, so she picks up a towel and gives to the boy to dry the floor; then she says there are no monsters in the house, and gets even more disturbed after seeing the medallions of her husband in her son’s bedroom floor. 

In an interesting turn of events, the mother decides to take part on what she assumes to be her son’s game. She puts the medallions around his neck, grabs the flashlight and says to the monster that both are now going after him. Then both act as if they were in a war zone, and the mother acts as very involved in the performance. Then she shouts that the monster is under the bed, and the boy shoots at him with a toy gun. 

After the play, she puts the boy to sleep. When she is about to leave, she hears a strange noise, then something grabs her by the legs, and pulls her under the bed.  

A young man moves to a house where strange things starts to happen, like taps and doors opening completely on their own, for no apparent reason. Despite the common ground premise, some amateur insights, the precarious acting skills of the lead actor and its homemade inferior quality, the movie manages to be a regular incursion into the supernatural subgenre of horror, if you are willing to ignore the fact that this movie is probably the most mediocre on this list. 

A forty-five minutes long British horror film, this short revolves around a group of three children – Max, Jacob and Sarah – attracted to a desert field in the countryside, upon which they have heard sinister rumors from their schoolmates. Finding the stories somewhat too supernatural and hard to believe, they decide to search for accurate information and to confirm the legendary folktales for themselves. Later, they hear from a friendly candy shop owner some terrible first-hand experience stories related to the field. Then they go to a house where a supposed witch lives. When Sarah – the most courageous member of the group – is about to knock on the door, a woman leaves the house and reprimands the children. Then she invites them to enter her residence, and they reluctantly accept. She offers lemonade to them, and they start to talk about the field. She has many cats in the house. Then she tells them a story of her childhood, about when she was a girl, and was near the field with her friends in a certain occasion, when she saw supernatural cat’s eyes projected from the field. From then on, whenever she closes her eyes, she sees those same cat’s eyes staring at her. This testimony somewhat discourages the children to accept the challenge imposed by their colleagues to go into the field. 

When the children leave, they go meet a man – an acquaintance of Sarah – that supposedly had an experience in the field. After persistently asking, he narrates them his personal incursion into the field, becoming a little distressed. Very curious and determined to fulfill the challenge, the children decide to go into the field anyway. The group split and decide to reunite at night. While eating lunch, Jacob, the youngest, tell his mother what he and his friends are planning to do, and his mother forbids him of going there. Later, she tells him a scary story that explains her fear about the location, and Jacob asks her if she has ever done the challenge. Soon thereafter, while trying to sleep, the door of his closet opens, and Jacob sees a pair of eyes staring at him. Then a mysterious creature attacks him, and suddenly he awakes, realizing he just had a nightmare. A little later, he goes on his bicycle to the place where he is supposed to meet Max and Sarah. When the three reunite, they finally go to the field. The first to get close is Max, that, after approaching the fence, returns screaming, though he haven’t saw anything sinister. Then Sarah goes next, and returns crying. She insists Jacob not to go there, but he goes anyway. After approaching the fence, he listens to somber and mysterious noises, and then he sees the cat’s eyes in the midst of a dense fog. Then many hands touch him. At first frightened, Jacob then feels relief, and jumps the fence into the other side. The narrative voiceover leaves implicit that Jacob has disappeared into another dimension, and then we see the other children desperately looking for him. In the aftermath, its early morning, and we see police officers with Sarah and Max, and a rescue team in the field, trying to find Jacob, along with his mother. Then one member of the rescue team finds a sneaker, that presumably belonged to Jacob.  

A man that collects sinister memorabilia runs a paranormal session with a Ouija board along with his best friend. Unbeknownst to them, they have summoned terrible ghostly creatures, that will transform the night into a living nightmare. 

When two women – Charmaine and Kira – discovers an occultist scripture near a wooden cross in the woods, they go to the supposed location where a witch was executed centuries before (as shown in the beginning of the movie). Apparently, the witch somehow managed to took revenge on her executioners. Suddenly, mysterious things starts to happen to both women. The front doors in their respective houses knock, but when they answer, there’s nobody there. Kira inexplicably develops bruises in one leg. Charmaine one night hear voices, before the bed starts moving inexplicably by itself, provoking a dreadful and fearful experience on her. 

As Halloween approaches, both women leaves pumpkins in the forest, near the wooden cross, while returning the book to the same place where they had find it, in the hopes that – whatever spell they had released –, may be dormant again. Suddenly, Kira is killed by the witch, just for Charmaine to wake up, realizing she just had a nightmare. After choosing Halloween costumes in a store hours later, both women start the night preparing a Jack-o'-lantern. After listening to mysterious noises in the house, someone knocks the door, frightening both women. After a violent knock, the door opens by itself. Charmaine closes the front door, then both women seeks refuge inside the house, as the noises increasingly become more atrocious and sinister.  

Soon, Charmaine sees the witch by the window. Kira decides to leave. She goes to her house, and there, bizarre things happen, like doors opening up, and a swarm of insects attacks her. As Halloween approaches, the two friends find each other near the wooden cross in the woods. Charmaine thinks that burning the book will free both from the witch curse, but burning the book proves to be a very difficult task, as all the matches that she lights fade out rapidly. Soon thereafter, both women are severely beaten by the witch. Nonetheless, one of them manages to burn the book. 

Charmaine’s mother sees her face severely beaten, so she demands an explanation. Then she makes a terrible confession to her daughter, revealing that she had known much more about the curse than what anyone could have possibly imagined. Charmaine then goes to Kira’s house, to tell her about the exceedingly complicated nature of the curse. She was a target from the beginning, because the witch wishes to kill all the descendants of the people who murdered her. This should have excluded Kira, since she is not a local, and her ancestors didn’t lived in the community. Positive that they are safe since burning the book, Kira urges them to enjoy Halloween. 

In the Halloween night, the girls go to a party, while Charmaine’s mother stays at home watching horror movies. Then, she hears a knock on the door, but when she answers, there’s nobody there. Then she hears someone whispering, and in the next scene, she lets the plate with candy fall to the ground, just to be viciously attacked by the witch. Then Charmaine tries to call her. Since she doesn’t answer, Charmaine gets worried, and decides to leave the party, to check upon her mother. 

When she arrives home, she finds a lot of Jack-o'-lanterns, and her mother dead. Kira is then taken and killed by the witch. Charmaine sees the witch coming down the stairs, and tries to run away, but the front door is locked. She flees to the living room, but is surprised there by the witch, that is everywhere to be seen. She is then imprisoned in a pentagram, surrounded by pumpkins. The witch then stabs Charmaine with a knife, but even mortally wounded, she manages to escape. Then, in a surprising turn of events, Charmaine reveals herself to be some kind of sorceress, thus successfully subjugating the witch.

A family is packing their belongings to move, ready to leave a house that is apparently haunted. The couple occasionally argues for no coherent reason, and soon the wife suspects that her husband, always in denial, is concealing something from her. All the mysterious noises and shadowy figures that she sees he insists the raccoons are to be blamed, and builds traps to catch the animals, persisting to deny the paranormal phenomena. Conflicts increase as the woman claims she saw something in the basement, and her husband insists on denying it.

As she is troubled by her visions, she decides to investigate, and uncovers evidence of a crime related to Satanism. When she finally confronts her husband, he admits that he has otherworldly visions too. Soon thereafter, ghosts from the past return to torment the couple. 

A reclusive writer, John Stramen (played by David Clarke, in a great performance), wakes up from a nightmare – one where he was in a dark forest, working as a woodsman, when another man points a mysterious shadow close to him – and he goes to his desk to draw the horrifying creature of his dream. The darkness that revolves outside shows that his apprehensions can be more real than his imagination would ever be able to guess.   

The writer lives in relative isolation. When he wakes up in the morning, and walks outside with his dog, he sees that someone has messed up with one of his windows. Minutes later – deeper into the forest –, he sees in a tree the mysterious shadow that appeared in his nightmare, but it disappears as fast as it came. Then he stars to cut trees with an axe, to relax, and later he tells a friend what is happening to him. His restless nights are filled with extreme anxiety, and he always wakes up at dawn waiting for something to happen. In one occasion, someone bangs on the door violently. He goes outside, and sees some figures moving behind the bushes. 

When he pulls out a manuscript from his desk, titled Dark Strings, by Angela Stramen, we speculate that this woman is probably the lady that appears by his side in a portrait that he constantly looks upon, and that his book by the same title was indeed written by her, a work that she dedicated to him. In one single page, there is this picture of a horrible creature, similar to the one he constantly draws. 

Soon thereafter, John burns a doll over a barrel in the forest. Then, someone with a creepy voice starts talking to him. Taking courage, he turns around his head, just to see the abominable and dreadful shadow of his nightmares, that horrendously multiplies. When he turns his eyes again after a few seconds, the creature had disappeared. John lives his days stuck in this uninterrupted cycle of intermittent hauntings. 

In one occasion, confiding his problems to his friend Beth, John says he made a terrible mistake and now he's paying for it. He explained that he “took something from this person”, and used for personal benefits, probably referring to his book, that he plagiarized from his deceased wife. His friend asked “did the person it belong to find out?” to which he responded “she can’t… she’s dead”. 

At night, he wakes up with the noise of his favorite portrait falling into the ground. Then he sees an enormous radiance by the window. He goes outside, and sees that someone has thrown his car into flames. By this point deeply paranoid, John gets suspicious of everybody around him. 

In another night, John wakes up, and misses Baako, his dog. He gets up, sees a lot of paper scattered in the floor, and then searches for his dog, to find only the collar, along with a trail of blood in the grass. He then calls 911, only to hear in the end the voice of his friend in the place of the attendant’s. He sees also the colossal shadowy creature observing him from a distance. Then he sees other shadowy creatures. 

He then enters a shed, and with an axe decides to confront the creatures. He sees there a man hanging from the ceiling. In another lodging, he sees miniature dolls, and hear nefarious steps. He hides behind a staircase, and down the stairs appears two masked men dressed in black. Both call him by name, and one has a female voice. Then John attacks one of them with his axe. Then his friend, Beth, takes off her mask, and tells John that they were just kidding. Then she says that the man John attacked is dead. 

Soon another man appears – a neighbor John had reprimanded earlier –, and John attacks him too, accusing him of having murdered his dog. Beth says that his dog is with her, and his neighbor says they were just trying to help. Beth explains to John that they were trying to help him find inspiration for his next novel. Then the shadowy creatures appear from the upper ceiling, and John loses his temper, screaming with the ghostly creatures. Beth and the other guy doesn’t see anything towards the place John is staring to. Then John starts to cry. 

In the final scene, we see John locked in a mental institution, working in a sequel to Dark Strings. He still listen to the voices and sees the dark creatures. 

An excellent movie directed by Sean van Leijenhorst – that displays perfectly what a profoundly disturbed and guilty conscience can do to a person –, Woods is probably the best movie featured on this list.  

Alistair, a somewhat discreet and reclusive scientist, is working in a secret assignment, apparently serving as a guinea pig for an undercover project. He has a terrible scar on his neck. When talking to a friend in a cafeteria, she gives him the newspaper, saying that his boss is on the news. So he sees a headline informing that Roman Grady (played by notorious actor Daniel Roebuck), a leading figure in the scientific community, responsible for cancer research, is missing. Alistair then gets profoundly disturbed.   

When he goes home, he sees his neighbors agglomerated in front of his residence; one lady says that someone has heard strange noises coming from his basement. When he enters his house, he sees a neighbor fixing his refrigerator, and saying that noises came from downstairs. Alistair says that possums made a nest there, and he will have to call an exterminator to solve the problem, but they doesn’t have to worry about it. Alistair rapidly expels his neighbor, while another one enters unnoticed by the front door, willing to experiment a key she found on the front yard. Apparently, they heard her entering; the neighbor persistently try to make his way into the house, saying that the noise they are hearing certainly isn’t made by possums.

The women experiments the key in the door lock; it matches, but Alistair manages to interrupt her, saying that she cannot go there. Alistair then expels his two neighbors for good. The woman says that she felt like something was calling her. Alistair then calls someone by the phone, but without saying anything, turns off after a few seconds. While resting near the basement, he suddenly has an anxiety attack, and hides himself in the bathroom. Apparently, he is seeking refuge from a dangerous person.  

He rests in the bathtub, and suddenly gets delusional, before recovering reason. In the next moment, he starts talking to his boss, Roman Grady, that says to Alistair that he wants to talk about what he had done to him. Alistair then replies, saying that he had took everything away from him. By the way they talk to each other, it is implied that Alistair had cancer, but was cured. Grady also knows about crimes and felonies committed by Alistair, and demands Alistair to stop saying to everybody how he had ruined him. He says that Alistair took great advantage in being fired, because he associated himself with an obscure organization. Grady continues, saying that people are chasing him to put their hands on what he has on the basement. Then Alistair asks Grady where he had been for the past couple weeks, and Grady responds by saying that he is exactly where Alistair had left him, “buried in the backyard”, leaving implicit the fact that Alistair probably had killed him, and he is delusional again, something that is confirmed in the next scene, as we see Alistair completely alone in the living room. 

Someone then calls Alistair, and says by the phone “its time”, and then he enters the basement. There, he stops in front of a camera, knowing that he is being observed. He see faces being projected in a white screen. Then he enters into a special chamber, and a voice transmitted by a loud speaker starts communicating with him. Meanwhile, his intrusive neighbor enters the house incognito, and she goes directly to the basement. Anticipating this, Alistair surprises her, and kills her with a shovel, after she screamed in panic, for seeing something horrendous off-screen. 

While contemplating an aquarium, Alistair has apparently pleasant reminiscences, that becomes more sinister, when the beautiful woman that is accompanying him gives a severe bite on his neck; so this was the reason behind the bandage that Alistair had on the neck the entire time, as well as the stitches, seen when he removed the bandage. Then Alistair takes off the aquarium a bizarre creature – that appears to be an alien –, with explicit orders of how taking care the little monster, having the obligation of showing him the pictures in the projector every twelve hours. He then starts to act like a father to the nefarious creature. An unknown person, that can be seen from behind, as well as from some other angles, gives orders to Alistair uninterruptedly. He also says that the creature is only the first of its kind, “soon there will be many more”. He also urges Alistair to move, for there will be hunters trying to prey on him and the creature. 

Alistair receives in his home his friend from the cafeteria. He deliberately lets the creature gets out of the cage, to kill the woman. In the final scene, Alistair is seen in his car, leaving the city, with the creature in a little cage, by his side. Beyond the Basement Door was written and directed by Jason Huls.

The movie begins with a woman walking disoriented into a forest. Six months later, a man named Kyle is coordinating a task force to find several people who had mysteriously vanished into the nearby woods, including one friend. Then he presents slides of some people found dead, with a bizarre dark substance within their mouths. They don’t know what it is. As he is speaking, some people begin to leave, until a woman approaches him, and says that a few years ago, she was found in the forest, in the same exact circumstances, with the black substance coming out of her mouth. She gives him a paper with her address, saying that her house is near the forest, and then she leaves. Her name is Mary Grey.  

A few weeks later, Kyle goes to her house in the forest with two more women, his girlfriend Sadie, and electronic technician Rachel, for further investigation. Initially they think no one leaves there, because it is possible to see that there is no furniture in the house, but then Mary appears, and welcomes them. 

She leads them to a corridor, where they start the investigations. The place strangely looks more like an abandoned school than a residence. They rapidly install the equipment, after which Mary starts to behave in a very eccentric pattern. Sadie then sees a mysterious dark figure, that disappears as fast as it came. Soon thereafter, they find strange paraphernalia in a wicket; among the miscellanea, there is a camera with recorded footage. It registered scenes of a team of paranormal enthusiasts, that investigated the same place where they are now, in an earlier occasion.    

Then they find the file of a psychiatric institution, with information about Mary Grey, soon discovering that her real name is Mabel Green. She suffers from several distressful mental conditions, including paranoid schizophrenia. They discover that they are in an abandoned psychiatric facility. Kyle wants to find Mary, but Sadie and Rachel stop him. 

They manage to go outside, but they discover that their vehicle is gone. Entering the building again, they see Mary, and Kyle tries to confront her. She confesses that all his friends died there, and expresses a nefarious, unstable and erratic behavior, taking pride of how haunted the place is. Then she asks them if they don’t want to be part of her collection. 

The trio try to run away. They end up in a run, after which Rachel closes the door, and demands that Sadie and Kyle save themselves. She is immediately killed by the malevolent entity hunting them. Outside, Kyle asks Sadie to save herself. Behind him, the evil entity involves Kyle in a black smoke and kills him; so Sadie becomes the only survivor of the group, running for her life.  

In the forest, Sadie touches a vase, and soon thereafter, the evil entity appears close to her. Nevertheless, the sensitive energy of Kyle – along with the previous victims of the entity – manages to avenge themselves, and kill the malevolent creature. Sadie gets near the evil entity, pulls the mask off, and sees Mary Grey dead. 

Then the story jumps to fifteen years later. Two teenagers are talking, and one of them gets a Ouija board, that she said she found on her mother’s wardrobe, and belonged to her father, or to his friend that disappeared. She then picks up a picture, where it is possible to see Kyle with another man. Then her friend asks if they would use the Ouija board to contact him, a possibility that the girl confirms.   

The girl calls her father. Then they hear a strange noise. Sadie and another woman, the mother of one of the girls, reprimands Sadie for letting the Ouija board accessible to the girls. She picks up her daughter and then leaves. Then the audience realize that the girl in the room is Sadie’s and Kyle’s daughter, and she never managed to know her father. Before Kyle had met his tragic fate, Sadie had confided to Rachel that she was pregnant, and was looking for the right opportunity to tell him, but given the circumstances, she never had the chance.  

In the final scene, the girl goes out of her room in the middle of the night, and sees a vase over a wood structure, similar to the one her mother had encountered in the forest fifteen years before, and touches it. Then, from the dark emerges an evil entity, ready to prey on the girl. 

20 – Downstairs 

A marvelously fantastic movie made by The Boxleitner Brothers, Downstairs is a golden treasure of short horror fiction, and certainly one of the best movies on this list. The plot revolves around security officer Flip Schubbers (played by Sam Boxleitner), who by the beginning of the movie, is calmly reading a book, while doing his shift in a regular condominium. He sees in the computer a note where Rhonda, the security employee from the previous shift, wrote “Don’t go downstairs!” When a psychotic couple goes bother him about the putrid smell of trash coming from the garbage duct, he politely reprimands them for their hypocrisy, as – for what he had observed –, their hygiene and recycling habits in their art studio are incompatible with their demands.  

Some minutes later, the tranquility of the night shift is disturbed when, inexplicably, music comes from a room that is empty, and the door of a storeroom opens by itself. While checking the other rooms, bizarre things starts to happen. Suddenly, Flip hears a terribly dreadful voice, and gets profoundly scared. He then decides to investigate what is going on, and courageously heads towards the direction where the voice came.  

Perceiving a putrid smell coming from downstairs, Flip wants to discover what is causing such a stench, but the door to the subterranean pavement is locked. When he goes away, behind his back a mysterious figure dressed in a hospital apron can be seen passing by, and easily opening the door; Flip turns around, get a glimpse of the figure, and sees the door open. A little frightened, he grabs a flashlight, and goes down to investigate what is going on.  

Down below, the security officer calls for the person he believes he saw upstairs. Disturbed by the dark, Flip gets nervous when he sees a knotted rope hanging from the ceiling. Soon, it is possible to see someone chasing him. Perceiving that someone is after him, Flip runs upstairs, but the door to the first floor strangely closes by itself, and he is unable to open it by the inside. Although he is desperate, he has no other option, but to return to the subterranean. 

Very cautious, he illuminates the darkness with his flashlight. He gets really scared, though, when a children’s toy ball run to his feet. Then a ghostly apparition suddenly comes from behind. The security officer runs away in desperation. After finding a hideout, he hears a girl crying, and illuminates with his flashlight the place from where the sound is coming. Then he sees another ghostly creature, and runs away one more time. Then he sees an enormously dangerous man (played by Lee Boxleitner) lurking in the dark, and again runs away for his life. Flip luckily crossed a gate that he managed to close. But his good fortunes lasts only for a few seconds. Soon he is encircled by three ghostly creatures, and is hanged by one of them. 

In the morning, the artist that bothered Flip in the beginning of the movie with his wife is seen entering the building. He gets a little distressed when he sees the door of his studio opened. Then he has the fright of his life when he comes across a zombie version of Flip. 

​Wagner

Tim Roth – whose complete name is Timothy Simon Roth – is a notorious British actor and director, born in London in May 1961, active since 1982. After gaining exposure playing a skinhead in the made-for-TV movie Made in Britain, Roth managed to consolidate himself as a promising young actor. For the remainder of the eighties, he was able to become a rising professional star, securing roles in several movies and television productions. 

His first major movie was the fabulous 1990 dramedy Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, written and directed by Tom Stoppard, based on a play written by Stoppard himself. Marvelously funny, on this movie the two main characters, Guildenstern (Roth) and Rosencrantz (played by Gary Oldman) – originally Shakespearean characters that are featured on Hamlet – decide to find the real meaning behind their mundane existence, when they are not needed in the plot of Hamlet.  

When the nineties came, Roth’s output increasingly expanded, as he started to participate in several American productions. In 1992, he starred in Jumpin' at the Boneyard, along with Samuel L. Jackson. On this movie, Roth played Manny, a character that surprises his younger brother Dan (played by Alexis Arquette) stealing his home. Then both brothers – forced by arbitrary and turbulent circumstances – starts to walk by the neighborhood of their youth, and slowly reconcile, only to succumb to a drastic fate, becoming victims of a sordid fatality. A beautiful movie with a virtuous and melancholic intensity, Jumpin' at the Boneyard is a marvelous, yet defining drama, where all necessary elements, from dialogues, to setting, to characters and competent direction, were perfectly combined altogether, to create a sensible and dense picture of the vulnerability of the human condition. 

In 1992, Roth had a major role on Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, initiating a partnership that would result in three more films. In 1995, Roth played villain Archibald Cunningham, in the epic drama movie Rob Roy, opposite Liam Neeson, that plays the title character Rob Roy MacGregor. A historical biopic, the movie narrates the story of a Scottish clan chief, Rob Roy, who clashes with a terrible and unscrupulous nobleman, Cunningham, that is desperate to subjugate the Scotsmen to his sordid interests.  

In 1999, Roth made his directorial debut, with The War Zone. In 2001, with the blockbuster Planet of the Apes, Roth managed to become a select member of Hollywood, consolidating his reputation as a viable actor, as well as his mainstream stardom and celebrity status, distancing himself a little from independent cinema and art house pictures, that were until then his primary sources of revenue and exposure, the means by which he became a notorious actor, in a similar vein to Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and to a minor extent, Edward Norton.  

In 2005, Roth played a character named Jeff Platzer, in the horror movie Dark Water, starred by Jennifer Connelly and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles. In 2007, Roth starred as George Farber in the movie Funny Games. Directed by Michael Haneke, this pungent and aggressive drama was a remake of a homonymous 1997 movie, directed by Haneke himself. The plot revolves around a couple, George and Ann Farber (played by Naomi Watts), who are terrorized by two psychopathic individuals, Peter and Paul, played by Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt, respectively. The story, that has a dense and cruel premise, shows two hostile and nefarious youngsters, who amuse themselves by torturing physically and psychologically a decent and friendly couple.

In 2008, Roth participated in another blockbuster – The Incredible Hulk –, playing the hero’s antagonist, a character named Emil Blonsky, that transforms himself into a villain known as Abomination. With a budget of US$ 150 million, the movie grossed US$ 263.4 million at the box office. In 2012, Roth played Detective Michael Bryer, opposite Richard Gere, in the fantastic drama-thriller film Arbitrage.

From 2009 to 2011, Roth portrayed Dr. Cal Lightman, in the Fox Television Show Lie to Me. In a rare incursion into a TV series – the actor until then had participated only in four –, Roth portrayed for three seasons a man specialized in reading and deciphering facial microexpressions of people, instantly acknowledging if they are telling the truth or not. His company, The Lightman Group, was frequently employed by police and security agencies to interview crime suspects, to discover if they are telling the truth or concealing relevant information. 

Since 2017, Roth stars as the lead in the British-Canadian Television Co-production series Tin Star. In January, premiered in Sundance a movie titled Luce, on which he has a role. The movie stars Naomi Watts, his screen partner in Funny Games. In July, it will be released the movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, in which Roth has a small role. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, the movie features an ensemble cast that includes Bruce Dern, Al Pacino, Dakota Fanning, James Remar, James Marsden and Michael Madsen, amongst many others. 

As the decades passed, undoubtedly, Tim Roth has managed to become one of the best actors of his generation, doing complex roles in relevant movies. In a career spanning almost four decades, Tim Roth has participated in over eighty movies (including televisions films). We sure wish him to continue, hoping to see him in eighty more productions or so, according to his professional ambitions. 


​Wagner

Richard Gere is an amazing and terrific actor, unquestionably one of my favorites. Having started his career in theater in the late sixties, in the mid-seventies the actor started doing films. His first movie was the 1975 cop thriller Report to the Commissioner, on which Gere had a small role. The actor started to gain profile and fame in the eighties, with romantic and dramatic movies, that would ultimately consolidate his reputation as a viable leading actor in Hollywood and a seductive gentleman, somewhat appellative to female audiences. From then on, the actor became a major star in the American movie industry. 

His better-known movies in the romantic and drama genres are American Gigolo, An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, Mr. Jones, Runaway Bride, Unfaithful and Nights in Rodanthe, amongst others. 1982 An Officer and a Gentleman increased Gere’s profile as a Hollywood star. 1990 Pretty Woman – on which Gere shared the screen with a then rising Julia Roberts –, significantly consolidated his place of honor in the industry, besides propelling Julia Roberts to Hollywood stardom. Richard Gere and Julia Roberts would again play a romantic couple in the fabulous 1999 movie Runaway Bride. 

In 2002, Gere shared the screen with the marvelous actress Diane Lane, on the brilliant drama film Unfaithful, a remake of 1969 La Femme infidèle, by notorious French filmmaker Claude Chabrol. On this movie, Gere plays Edward, a man that discovers his wife Connie (Diane Lane) is cheating on him with another man, Paul (played by French actor Olivier Martinez). When he acknowledges his wife’s infidelity, he decides to meet under a false prerogative his wife’s lover. When he sees in the man’s home a snow globe – which he gave as a gift to his wife –, Edward kills Paul in a mortifying explosion of rage. 

This is a formidable drama film, that puts all the correct elements into place to deliver to audiences a solid and drastic panorama of marital infidelity. An impeccable, cohesive and intense drama, Unfaithful is a marvelous movie, with a very involving, consistent and dense story. The movie was a box office success, that generated seventy million dollars in profit. Richard Gere and Diane Lane are radiant together. They had previously collaborated in the 1984 movie The Cotton Club. In 2008, they again played a couple, in the film Nights in Rodanthe.

Despite some romantic and drama movies that are astoundingly marvelous, in my modest opinion, what Richard Gere really does best, with exceptional capabilities – and with exceedingly proverbial acting skills – is to play law enforcement agents, government investigators and police officers, whether they be morally sensible or depravedly corrupt. Like Al Pacino, Richard Gere really knows how to perfectly play a cop by all means. On this genre, his most significant movies are Internal Affairs, The Jackal, The Flock, Brooklyn's Finest and The Double. 

On the 1990 movie Internal Affairs, Richard Gere’s character is Dennis Peck, a corrupt police officer, who built a misguided façade of impeccable conduct and role model for the Los Angeles Police Department. Nevertheless, he falls into the radar of Raymond Avilla (played by Andy Garcia), an Internal Affairs detective, who is willing to hunt and to eliminate police officers that are evil and corrupt. On The Jackal, Richard Gere played Declan Mulqueen, a former Provisional IRA member, that has to hunt a professional assassin known only as the Jackal, played by Bruce Willis. 

One of the best movies I have seen with Richard Gere was 2007 The Flock, on which he played Erroll Babbage, an astute, but brutal employee of the Department of Public Safety, responsible for monitoring registered sex offenders. He is about to retire, so he has to train his replacement, the somewhat idealistic, but persistent Allison Lowry (played by Claire Danes), on how to deal with violent abusers. Initially distrustful of the young woman's potential and determination, Babbage eventually becomes aware of her competence and dedication, and the two cross together professional challenges, upon which both learn a lot about themselves and the human nature in the process. Babbage’s approach to his job is one of deep commitment; he regularly visits a family whose daughter is a missing person, and her case was never solved, something that leads him to a feeling of failure and debt.

This movie is absolutely amazing; people who love relentless thrillers – with a lot of fear, demise and suspense –, will definitely appreciate this one. With an incisive and coherent plot, as well as impeccable performances by both Richard Gere and Claire Danes, The Flock is one of those movies that you definitely doesn’t wish to end; its marvelous qualities were all perfectly arranged in a dramatic, sensible and cohesive structure, that undoubtedly extracts the best storyline ever for this genre of movie. 

In 2009, Richard Gere played New York City police officer Eddie Dugan, in the   Antoine Fuqua directed cop thriller Brooklyn's Finest. On this excellent movie – the very best in Gere’s career, in my opinion – the actor played a cop about to retire (yes, in a similar vein to his character Erroll Babbage in The Flock); he has only one week left of service, so he is designated to oversee newly hired police officers. He executes a relatively mediocre work, and his first partner, after a coward attitude on the part of Dugan, that refused to interfere in a couple’s argument – upon which the husband became violent – under the pretext that they were in another police district zone, asked his superiors to change the mentor. In the next day, he was killed in action. Then Dugan, with a new partner, was implicated in a store discussion, over an attempted robbery. His partner had fired his gun, leaving the supposed assailant, a teenage boy, deaf, which puts Dugan in a controversial position, in direct conflict against his superiors. His only comfort in life is a prostitute whom he regularly visits, and he plans to ask her to run away with him when his retirement begins. 

This awesome movie also stars Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle as police officers. All of them cultivates a very different relation to their jobs. The storyline has no central plot, and keeps interchanging between the major characters. Wesley Snipes also stars in the movie, as a notorious criminal, that has a somewhat close relationship with Clarence Butler, Don Cheadle’s character. Vincent D'Onofrio does a small part in the beginning of the movie. 

A formidable movie, one of the best cop thrillers that I have seen, Brooklyn's Finest has a spectacular and exceptional storyline that revolves around human dilemmas, the general uneasiness of life and the problems brought about by police corruption. A great work of art that definitely delivers a sensational and suspenseful color of density, apprehension and drama into the plot, this astoundingly marvelous movie has everything to please enthusiasts of the genre.  

In 2011, Gere played retired CIA agent Paul Shepherdson, in The Double. The plot concerns a dangerous mission that requires consistent investigation. Shepherdson is summoned by his former superior, Tom Highland (played by Martin Sheen) to investigate the homicide of Dennis Darden, a politician, whose M.O. resembles a professional assassin he tried to catch in the Cold War, but failed – a mysterious soviet agent known only as Cassius. After positively assuring to Highland and his former co-workers that the killing was done by a copycat murderer, Shepherdson is assigned to work with a young and skilled agent, Ben Geary (played by Topher Grace), an enthusiastic and intelligent professional exceedingly determined to catch the killer, to bring light to the homicide. Geary is also a talented criminologist, and has done research and written a dissertation about Cassius.  

After the proper investigations, Geary eventually discovers, and reveals what he already suspected from a long time: that Shepherdson was in fact Cassius. In the end, when confronted by Geary with the information, Shepherdson confirms, and reveals that, likewise, he discovered Geary to be himself a double agent, a Russian spy, who was carefully chosen and led to this precise circumstance by his superiors in the Kremlin, to capture him and to put a definitive end to the Cassius dossier. He even killed Dennis Darden using his M.O. to attract his attention. In the end, they unite forces to capture a dangerous criminal named Bozlovski, a long personal feud of Shepherdson, who later dies from injuries sustained in the resulting confrontation, after killing Bozlovski using his typical M.O. as Cassius, slicing the throat with a wire hidden in his wristwatch. When authorities arrive, to protect Shepherdson’s reputation, Geary lies, and says that Bozlovski was Cassius. He also decides to stay in the U.S., with his wife and son, abandoning the idea to return to Russia.

A great movie that definitely fulfills the expectations for a decent spy thriller, some things in the storyline where relatively obvious, given to the title of the film, that already delivers a clue. Nevertheless, the “double” to which the title refers is ambiguous, as can refer to either Shepherdson or Geary, the two main characters.

On these three final movies that I want to comment, Richard Gere haven’t played cops or law related roles, but likewise, they were all morally deficient and cynical characters, aggressive to some extent. In 2007, Richard Gere played unscrupulous and egocentric journalist Simon Hunt, in the movie The Hunting Party. On this movie, his character reunites with a former partner, known only as “Duck” (played by Terrence Howard) to catch war criminal Dragoslav Bogdanovi
, nicknamed “The Fox”, a depraved villain loosely inspired by real life Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadži
. Together with freshman Benjamin Strauss (played by Jesse Eisenberg), they embark on a sinister journey, to find the most dangerous men in the Balkans. 

Somewhere in the movie, the plot reveals the motivation behind Simon’s obsession for Bogdanovi
. Several years previously, Simon and Duck were work colleagues covering the Bosnian War. Simon in the capacity of a reporter, and Duck as a camera operator. Eventually, Simon became enamored with a local woman, and began a relationship with her. She got pregnant, and they were seeking a future together. Nevertheless, she died when the armed militias commanded by Bogdanovi
 completely destroyed the town where she lived. When Simon saw Bogdanovi
 for the first time, enraged, he felt tempted to attack him, but was prevented by Duck, as it was too dangerous, given the fact that Bogdanovi
 was surrounded by armed men. Therefore, Simon, fulfilled by hatred and bitterness, swore to track him down someday. From then on, because of his depression, Simon’s career as a journalist started to sink, and he never properly recovered. Simon was in fact seeking personal revenge.

On their way to catch the criminal – beloved and considered a national hero among the people in Republika Srpska, inside Bosnia and Herzegovina –, they encounter several problems and nefarious obstacles in the pursue of their objective. They even make their way into a UN office, who suspects them to be CIA agents, and eventually, they act like they were, when this proves to be a smart move. As the local villagers’ gossip spread, Bogdanovi
 discovers that he was being sought after by a group of foreigners, and, in anticipation, orders his henchmen to capture the three individuals. They are eventually captured, and when Srdjan, one of the most ruthless of Bogdanovi
’s bodyguards, is about to start killing them, he is surprisingly shot by a member of a CIA squad team, who arrives to save Simon, Duck and Benjamin in the last minute. 

After being severely reprimanded by authorities later, Simon, Duck and Benjamin are ordered to leave the country immediately. When they are in a hangar to board a plane to the US, they decide to run away, to track down Bogdanovi
 for once and for all. Having investigated his habits, they eventually discover his whereabouts, and find him hunting without his bodyguards in a forest (he had earned the nickname the Fox due to his habit of hunting foxes). They capture him, and leave him completely unarmed and helpless in the busiest area of a village full of people related to the victims of his cruelty, leaving them to do justice with their own hands. They recognize him, and Bogdanovi
 fruitlessly try to run. 

The movie ends with Simon and Duck reaffirming their friendship. In the closing credits, real life information about the characters based on real war criminals – Radovan Karadži
 and Ratko Mladi
 – are displayed, though they are now outdated. Both war criminals are serving life sentences for crimes against humanity. The movie also greatly espouses the hypocrisy of both the US and the UN about their attempts to catch war criminals in the Balkan Peninsula, since they in fact knew where they were, and openly engaged in exchange and negotiations with them in shady, immoral and obscure political interests. 

The Hunting Party is a formidably great and spectacular movie, full of action, suspense and drama, as well as elements of apprehension and anxiety. With a tremendously great and sensational storyline, this movie is an awesome tip for everyone who enjoys an impeccable and fabulously conceived international thriller. Certainly, this is a masterpiece, that can be included among Gere’s best movies. 

In 2012, Richard Gere played Robert Miller, a respected and successful business executive, in Arbitrage. Nevertheless, things are not what they appear to be. Miller’s company has been involved in fraud by his own initiative, and he has an affair with a woman. He has been leading a double life, and concealing it from his family.  

In a certain occasion, he gets involved in a car crash when he was with his mistress, and she dies. Miller becomes desperate to leave, and disappear from the scene. He then calls Jimmy Grant (played by Nate Parker) the son of an employee – that is somewhat indebted to Miller, since he helped him in the past with the authorities, when he got involved in illicit activities – to pick him up on the spot and take him home. He arrives late to his residence, and his wife (played by Susan Sarandon), unbeknownst to him, was awake in bed, and starts to get suspicious of him. 

When investigations about the accident starts, police detective Bryer (played by Tim Roth) rapidly becomes distrustful of Miller, especially after discovering a connection between him and Grant. Meanwhile, Brooke (played by Brit Marling), Miller’s daughter and his business associate, discovers the fraud, and confronts her father. 

Bryer eventually takes forward the case against Grant, while trying to arrange evidence against Miller. Facing the possibility of jail, Grant begins to press Miller to confess the crime to the police. Staring at the moral and ethical consequences of his actions, Miller knows that turn himself in is the right thing to do. Nevertheless, Miller is about to sell his company in a multimillion dollar deal. He cannot confess the crime in the moment, because he will lose the deal, provoking a major scandal in the financial market, ruining himself, his family and all his group of investors. He tells Grant that they have to wait, until the deal is properly closed.    

Nevertheless, Miller manages to arrange circumstances on his behalf to avoid prosecution, and accuses detective Bryer of falsifying evidence to implicate him in the accident, which is believable enough to convince authorities. Subsequently, the law official is forbidden to get near Miller. Even the case against Grant is dismantled. But things are not going as well as Miller thinks. His wife knows everything and wants the divorce; she openly tells him that she was awake the day he arrived late at home, and will tell everything to the police if he doesn’t sign the papers. In the end of the movie, Miller is seen receiving a homage in a luxury social dinner. 

This is a spectacular and unforgettable movie, that highly exposes the hypocrisy, so normal in the society of appearances that we live in. With a decent, intelligent and cohesive plot, the storyline departs and evolves from the axial point of a debatable and suspicious circumstance, questioning what really hides behind the façade of a respectable man. All the four major characters in the movie were marvelously displayed by the dynamic, gracious and vivid performances of Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling and Tim Roth.  

The Dinner, released in 2017, is one of Gere’s most recent films. He had done only one other movie after this, titled Three Christs, that was released in the same year. On The Dinner, the plot is very simple. Two couples, Stan and Katelyn Lohman (Richard Gere and Rebecca Hall), and Paul and Claire Lohman (Steve Coogan and Laura Linney) meet at an exclusive restaurant. Initially, everything is unclear, and things develop gradually and surprisingly. Stan and Paul are brothers. Stan is running for political office, and Paul did not wanted to go. It’s difficult to understand what they have to discuss so urgently, as tensions are clear, especially between Paul and Stan, although Paul is hostile and exceptionally rude to everyone.

As the movie develops, we learn that their teenage offspring, Michael Lohman, son of Paul and Claire, Rick Lohman, son of Stan and his ex-wife Barbara (played by Chloë Sevigny) and Beau Lohman, adopted son of Stan and Barbara, had committed a vicious, sadistic and brutal crime together: they had burnt to death a homeless person inside an ATM. Therefore, the couples have to decide together what they will do. Stan favors telling the truth to the authorities, while Claire refuses to surrender her son, and to accept that they did what they did on purpose, trying to convince herself, as well as the others, that everything was a terrible accident. Which evidences left clear, wasn’t at all. Nevertheless, Claire do everything in her power to protect her son, and prevent him from facing the consequences of the horrendous ordeal he committed, and for which he was the major responsible. 

Although this movie is much more frozen and slow – predictable and monotonous to a moderate degree – compared to the other movies mentioned above, even so The Dinner has strong qualities. The plot is cohesive, afflictive and dense, the dialogues are intelligently displayed, and the general storyline is very apprehensive, credible and genuine. The fragile relationship between the characters alludes to the difficult and complex dramas of reality, and the hostility that arises among them expresses the natural conflicts that exists within a family. Definitely, The Dinner is an interesting movie, competently directed by the exceedingly talented Israeli-American filmmaker Oren Moverman.

With more than fifty films in his curriculum, Richard Gere has conquered his place of honor in the American movie industry. In the current year, he stars as Max Finch in the BBC television series MotherFatherSon (written exactly as it is, altogether), which marks a drastic shift in Gere’s career. This is the first time he stars in a television series. Gere has scarcely done any television work in the past. 

Observing his career attentively, we learn that it is possible to see two different versions of Richard Gere. One that is more charismatic and serene – almost fun, depending on the film –, present in romantic and drama movies, and the other that is more brutal, hostile and ferocious, that is possible to see in cop thrillers, although more aggressive, serious and dense characters share these same features in movies that are not necessarily police-related tragedies, but delves deeply into the dark underground of the nihilistic and obscure paths of the human nature, like the last movie mentioned, as well as several others. 

Richard Gere, who is sixty-nine years old, is deeply involved in humanitarian causes throughout the world. He is a practicing Buddhist, and supports the Tibetan Independence Movement. As to what concerns his professional career, he will certainly continue his memorable contributions to cinema, the big screen and the dramatic arts, as audiences surely expect to see him in many more movies and roles in the future. 



​Wagner

Actor Luke Perry – whose birth name was Coy Luther Perry III – better known as the character Dylan McKay on the Aaron Spelling produced Fox television hit show Beverly Hills, 90210, has died in the beginning of the month, March 4, in Los Angeles. He had suffered a stroke in February 27, and was immediately hospitalized. He then suffered a second stroke. Apparently, after not regaining consciousness, his family authorized the medical staff to turn off the life support machines.  

The American television industry is in shock that such an icon and a gentleman – a professional loved and respected by everyone who knew and worked with him – had passed away so soon. His family and work colleagues, from both past projects and the present day, are currently dealing with the pain for having lost so suddenly someone they love so much.  

Born in October 11, 1966, in Mansfield, Ohio, Luke Perry moved to Los Angeles when he was very young, in 1984 – he was only seventeen years old – to try a career in show business. After auditioning for 256 acting jobs, without positive results, Perry decided to relocate to New York City, where he finally had better luck, acquiring roles in the shows Loving and Another World.

His persistence was nevertheless rewarded. Perry’s big break came in the end of the decade, when, in 1989, famous producer Aaron Spelling was casting young actors for his next show, Beverly Hills, 90210, that became a popular hit. Perry initially auditioned for the role of Steve Sanders, but actor Ian Ziering got the part. Eventually, though, his talent and dramatic skills impressed the casting agents, and he got the role of the restless and rebellious Dylan McKay, one of the most iconic characters within the show.

The show run for ten seasons, from 1990 to 2000, producing effectively 293 episodes. Luke Perry was a series regular until 1995, when he left the show, determined to search better acting opportunities and more challenging roles. However, he returned in 1998, and remained until the show’s cancellation, in 2000. For the remainder of the series, Perry was described in the credits of every episode as a special guest star, though he was in fact a regular. In total, he had participated in 199 episodes. 

In his three years absence from the series, he starred in several films, with moderate degrees of success. He starred alongside Eric Roberts and Jennifer Tilly in the movie American Strays, released in 1996. He then played a cop in the movie Riot, released in 1997. Based on real-life events, the movie depicts the Los Angeles riots that took place after the beating of late Rodney King. 

After Beverly Hills, 90210 ended its run, Perry had established a reputation and a name in the business, and easily landed acting roles in series and made-for-television films. He found difficulty however, to distance himself from Dylan McKay, that remains his most iconic role, and the one he will be probably mostly associated with. About that, Perry has said: "I'm going to be linked with him until I die, but that's actually just fine. I created Dylan McKay. He's mine".

Perry developed a close friendship with several of his 90210 co-stars, especially Jason Priestley, who played Brandon Walsh. Priestley, that is also a professional motor racing driver, suffered two accidents while competing in a circuit. The first in 1995, and the second, in 2002. The second accident was a serious one; Priestley suffered massive injuries, and had to be hospitalized for treatment. Luke Perry visited him regularly during this period. The two remained close friends until Perry’s death. When hearing about the sad news, Priestley published a personal eulogy in social media, lamenting the precocious passing of his beloved friend. 

Riverdale – a show that had Perry on its main cast –, had its shooting schedule suspended upon hearing the news of his death, though now they are back to normal.   Although he died too soon, Perry’s legacy as a TV icon and professional actor will remain. Besides Dylan McKay, other memorable roles the actor has played was Jeremiah, in the eponymous TV series, and Reverend Jeremiah Cloutier, in the prison television hit show Oz.


In total, Luke Perry had credits to his name in thirty movies, five direct-to-video films, sixteen television films and thirty five television series – upon which eight had him as part of the main cast –, in a career that lasted almost thirty seven years. Perry unfortunately enters the select hall of famous actors who died too early, like James Gandolfini, who died at 51 years old in 2013, and will always be remembered as the iconic Tony Soprano, the patriarch of a mafia family in the television hit show The Sopranos. 

Luke Perry left a mark in the television industry, with unforgettable characters that will remain loved by the audiences. He may have died too soon, but his artistic legacy will stay, being widely appreciated by old and young generations of television series enthusiasts, for years to come. 


​Wagner

American actor Wentworth Miller became famous in 2005, by playing Michael Scofield, the lead in the Fox television drama Prison Break; with an exhilarating premise, the show followed Scofield as he commits a crime deliberately, to go to the same prison where his brother, Lincoln Burrows (played by Dominic Purcell) is serving a sentence for a crime he did not commit. As his brother was facing a death sentence, Scofield had tattooed a large, complex drawing on his upper body, that contained effectively in a concealed design the plant of the prison, to help his brother escape. The show was an instant success. I personally watched several seasons. The first season followed Michael in prison, meticulously executing his detailed plan. The second season saw the brothers – with several other inmates – as escapees from the Fox River Penitentiary, while a subplot displayed how Lincoln Burrows was a scapegoat to a federal scale-conspiracy, that would persecute the brothers for the remainder of the show. 

The following seasons saw Michael arrested in other penitentiaries for similar purposes, with effectively well-designed premises, while the side story also developed consistently.  I personally haven’t followed the show religiously in all of its seasons, because eventually my interest was gone. But the show was quite a success. Having ended in 2009, it was revived in 2017 for an additional season. But after the show, Wentworth Miller’s career has stalled. And apparently, by his own conscious decision, fueled by personal difficulties. 

With only ten movies in his filmography, he has done mainly television, and even then, sometimes his work is mainly sporadic. Miller has revealed that he suffers from depression – as well as suicidal tendencies – and it’s difficult for him to deal with his illness. The actor is active on social media, and is known to be very open and sincere about his condition and personal life struggles. In 2016, the LAD Bible’s Facebook page published a meme mocking his weight gain, by which Miller frankly responded: "I've struggled with depression since childhood. It's a battle that's cost me time, opportunities, relationships, and a thousand sleepless nights”. The actor explained that he had gained an excessive amount of weight because he found solace consuming food. The actor was also semi-retired at the time. After his response, the LAD Bible staff immediately published a post apologizing for their drastically deceitful behavior.   

Nevertheless, Miller is a multifaceted individual, with a great array of talents. He is also a skilled and sagacious screenwriter, and his ability on this field has been slowly achieving modest degrees of recognition. He wrote the screenplay for Stoker, a 2013 mysterious suspense drama film starring Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode. On this movie, India Stoker – Wasikowska’s character – gets profoundly disturbed after her father dies in an automobile accident, and suddenly her enigmatic uncle Charlie (Goode), whose existence she was not aware of, starts living together with her and her mother Evelyn (Kidman). Although I can’t remember precisely the general storyline – I saw this movie several years ago – I recollect perfectly that I have liked very much seeing it. Miller submitted the story to studios using a pseudonym. Eventually, the script was integrated into a Hollywood blacklist, of the best unproduced screenplays circulating throughout the movie industry at the time. Miller also wrote the screenplay for a related story, titled Uncle Charlie, that would serve as a prequel to Stoker. A movie based on this screenplay remains unproduced.   

Miller also wrote the screenplay for the 2016 movie The Disappointments Room (that I personally evaluated, and you can read here), starring Kate Beckinsale. A real disappointment, this movie is so ordinary that you certainly cannot afford the luxury of wasting your time seeing it, though Miller remains cohesive as a storyteller. Currently, Wentworth Miller is reportedly in the works to write the screenplay for an adaption of a literary work titled The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, though this is not yet confirmed.

The most recent work Miller has done on television was as an incarnation of super-villain Captain Cold, on two different series, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. Apparently, his work was concluded on these shows, and the public doesn’t known precisely what he will be doing in 2019, or if he has already plans for 2019. With his mental state and general health being a primary concern, the forty-six year old (yes, he looks younger, but he was born in June, 1972) actor and screenwriter doesn’t have to justify each move he made, though he frequently does – very gently and kindly –, though it is not his obligation.   

His most relevant movies to date has been 2003 The Human Stain, an adaptation of a novel by Phillip Roth – where he portrays a younger version of Coleman Silk, the character of Anthony Hopkins –, 2010 Resident Evil: Afterlife, as Chris Redfield and 2014 The Loft, an English language version of a 2008 Belgian movie titled Loft, both directed by Erik Van Looy, where he plays an exceedingly malevolent character named Luke Seacord. His last movie to date is the 2015 short 2 Hours 2 Vegas. 

Miller is also involved in charities and humanitarian causes, like the ManKind Project and Active Minds. As his relevant and voluntary work helping people consumes his time, his professional activities will proportionally slow down. He also attends several events throughout the world – like Comic Con and WonderCon –, where he interacts directly with fans and admirers. Miller certainly deserves happiness and success in whatever projects he gets involved, whether it would be in his personal or professional life. We miss seeing him in movies and television, but everyone has the right and the freedom to redirect energy and resources to pursue the correct priorities. With his positive and mature outlook on life, though, Wentworth Miller definitely has everything to succeed and overcome the challenges that might get on his way.  


​Wagner