In the past couple of weeks I've found myself with some time to watch a few DVDs from my own private stash. I've been trying to write some reviews but honestly it seems to be quite hard for me to write anything decent or at least to write something I'm happy with. Despite that negative feeling, I've managed to review a few flicks down at Pi (a blog I occasionally write in with a couple of friends, in Portuguese), but that's pretty much it. I guess reading quite a lot of Roger Ebert reviews hasn't helped my self-esteem on this particular department either, for obvious reasons. Anyhow, here's a quick recollection and a minute review for each of the movies I've seen this month on DVD (or on a variation thereof, *cough*DVD-rip*cough*):

Thirteen Days: This is a 2000 movie directed by Roger Donaldson of "The Recruit" and "No Way Out" fame (and, for that matter, "Cocktail" aswell but that's a whole different letter). Even if I'm not very literate on American history, this seems to be a quite realistic account of the October 1962 events concerning the Russian missile crisis in Cuba which directly affected the Kennedy administation at the time. Kevin Costner shines as one of the President's special assistants and Bruce Greenwood (who we can see these days on the big screen starring in "I, Robot") plays JFK himself. For almost all of the film's 145 minutes, the threat of a potentially apocalyptic war is hovering above the events and it depicts how President Kennedy tried everything under his belt to prevent it from happening. Fortunately for the interested viewer, the film never goes down the easy road of mindless and meaningless action so often taken in Hollywood. Instead, it strives for realism and almost never ceases to entertain and interest the audience. Strong performances are delivered by Costner (who stars for the second time on a JFK related movie, the other one being precisely Oliver Stone's "JFK"), Greenwood and also by Steven Culp as the President's brother and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, making this a quite enjoyable and historically important war thriller and drama.

Back to the Future: Blessed is he who decided to release the "Back to the Future" trilogy in a nice and quite inexpensive DVD boxset. I'm among the fortunate ones to have bought it and this way I could re-run these films which were among my favourites during my youth. For the record I'll only mention the first installment here as it pretty much applies equally for both parts II and III. Damn, I can only imagine how cool it must have to have seen this in 1985 when time-travel (despite very early H.G. Wells stories about it had already been released 90 years before) wasn't such a beaten subject. This is the story of a crazed scientist, Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) who after suffering a hit in his head has the brilliant idea of building a propulsion system which enables and transforms a regular DeLorean automobile to become a sophisticated and shining time machine. Brown, who uncannily resembles Einstein after whom he named his faithful dog, is helped by a young kid named Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) who travels back and forth in time only to find time travel is more dangerous than it might seem at first. But hey, why am I telling you all this? I'm sure everyone knows the "Back to the Future" saga so it suffices to say that director Robert Zemeckis simply achieved quite a breakthrough with this and the proof is that it lingers on as the McFly stories still sound fresh, original and funny today!

Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain: I must say right away that I've got mixed feelings for this movie. On one hand, from a directorial point of view this is certainly one of the most brilliant movies I've ever seen. Every detail on the way the story is presented to the viewer looks like it was taken good care of and every shot is just so original. So, congratulations and thumbs for Jean-Piérre Jeunet on this one. However, and probably this was influenced by whatever mood I was in when I saw this film, the story didn't touch me as it certainly should have. I feel I should have fallen in love and feel totally sympathetic with Amélie and the way she was sweet about things but the truth is I was quite indifferent to it to the point of feeling slightly bored. Either way, Audrey Tatou - as always - puts in a decidedly brilliant performance and so does every other major character in this motion picture. The soundtrack is quite pleasant aswell and suits the mood of the story perfectly. This is definitely a film about the good small things of life and in that sense I thoroughly enjoyed it. On the surface however, for me, it leaves something to be desired.

Ken Park: Director Larry Clark certainly seems to be obsessed with American youngsters and their erratic and problematic behaviours. Following "Kids" and "Bully", "Ken Park" (released in 2002) stretches the limits of graphical violence and particularly nudity to a new high. Not that it impresses me much, but having this one kid jerking off to female tennis players and nothing (I mean NOTHING) being concealed from the viewer's eyes not only does indeed stretch the concept of 'explicit' on screen, it also adds nothing to the point of the story and can easily be taken for mindless and cheap pornography. Having seen both "Bully" and now "Ken Park" (with "Kids" in my backlog aswell) I won't say Larry Clark is a pervert and a paedophile, though he'll be dangerously close to being one if he decides to make yet another feature film on the same subject. On "Ken Park" in particular I take it his message is to tell people that sexuality is a natural thing (even if he does it in his very own and peculiar fashion). The problem is, he seems to fail on actually showing it to the audience except in very short bursts, particularly in the final scene. Of course there's also all the usual child/parent problems and despite veement denial from American people in some message boards discussing the movie, I have absolutely no trouble believing this actually happens in some American (and elsewhere) families. That, of course, is thought-provoking. All in the all, I think Clark's greatest achievement is to get his movies released worldwide at all, nevermind his theories about American youths.

Raging Bull: Last but (definitely) not least comes Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull". I was meaning to see this for a very long time now and the DVD had been lying on the shelf for a good couple of months before I finally got off my arse to pick it up only to sit it again and watch this gem. Needless to say, "Raging Bull" is one of the films most featured in every film buff's top 10 list. Released in 1980, the film features Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta, a raging boxeur who "fights like he didn't deserve to live". After finally watching "Raging Bull" I can wholeheartedly enter the club of those which have it inside their top ten lists. I'll even go as far as saying this is the best 80's movie I've ever seen and probably one of De Niro's best ever performances (alongside with "The Godfather Part II"). So "Raging Bull" is a kind of documentary on Jake La Motta's career as a boxing fighter, the first guy to defeat Sugar Ray Robinson and eventually to become winner of the Middleweight championship later. La Motta's wasn't however the most straight guy in the block and here he is depicted as someone who is a terrible and possessive lover who takes his fears and frustrations with him only to unleash them on his adversaries. The movie is also famous by a brilliant ending passage where De Niro quotes Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront" and gives the famous "I coulda been a contender" speech to himself while looking at the mirror. This movie deserves to be seen over and over again as it is arguably the pinnacle of both De Niro and Scorsese's carreer as a filmmaker (as well as a great support role by the priceless Joe Pesci).