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Amor Maldito (1984)
8/10
Pioneering movie
13 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Adélia Sampaio, first Brazilian black woman to direct a feature film, debuted with Amor Maldito ("Damned Love") in 1984. The movie starts with Sueli's suicide from Fernanda's apartment window. As the story unravels, we learn that they were actually lovers in a very tumultuous relationship and the entirety of the movie shows the trial which will judge whether Fernanda killed Sueli or not.

The movie is better than almost every other old Brazilian movie I have seen despite the clearly low budget. Posing questions of morality and virtue in society and how our perception of others can be distorted by our own vices and prejudices.

I think the movie would be infinitely superior if the director had left out the initial scene, which shows Sueli committing suicide without a shred of doubt and Fernanda sleeping. If the whole trial had taken place without us, the audience, knowing whether it was a suicide or not, it would have made our experience much more captivating and intriguing.
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Nick Kroll: Little Big Boy (2022 TV Special)
6/10
Mixed feelings
2 October 2022
This standup on Netflix is... hard to explain. It is sometimes boring, but when it is funny... you laugh so much! I feel like maybe I just wasn't feeling the vibe, so maybe I just didn't absorb it enough. But there were a few bits that cracked me up hard.

My favorite one was the one about how we are always so mean to our moms 😂 There is no one I love more than my mom but, as Nick says, there is no one I have a shorter fuse for than my beloved mom.

Besides that bit, there are a few other ones that are funny like the first boy-girl party and the Italy trip one, and some of them were just plain boring to me like the Karate one.
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Oh, Sun (1970)
9/10
Incomparable masterpiece
18 September 2022
This is, no doubt, one of the greatest masterpieces of cinema I have ever seen. It's certainly not your typical entertainment-focused movie, but if you are looking for something beautiful, poetic, artistic, and innovative? This movie is for you.

The camera work, the nonlinearity of the plot, the montage, and pretty much everything else here is done with mastery.

I have recently realized that I know near to nothing about African cinema and there are many obvious and non-obvious reasons for that, but the main one is just how neglectful the Western societies have been towards African history and culture in general. It is past time we give them the spotlight they deserve. This movie and Touki-Bouki are excellent examples of such high quality cinema that certainly deserve to be in those BFI, AFI, Sight and Sound top 100 movie lists - Touki-Bouki actually made it to one of them (at the bottom).
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9/10
Beautiful and poetical
4 August 2022
An outstanding portrait of Africans living in Paris. In a very short timeframe, the directors capture the beauty and contradictions of the Parisian society and its ideals when dealing with blacks.

The voiceover is surprising in its poetic essence; concepts like "calculated fraternity" are still so important in our society today.

I definitely recommend it!
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Lead Me Home (2021)
5/10
Accomplishes nothing!
2 April 2022
A very interesting topic that I have always wanted to learn more about and what are the potential solutions and key axes of debate. I've always wanted to know how daily life really is for them or how they get to be in such a position. This "documentary" does not help with any of that. As superficial as it gets!
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