Seen in September 24

Regina and Valerio consider their options in Carnival is Over

A warm and welcoming beginning to the fall season led to more TV and more movies. I wonder if an earlier sunset, which of course means a longer night, gave me the impression of having more time to watch something? Fall may be the season for fashion, football and hockey, but it's a start to many longer nights and even more TV and movies.

Carnival is Over
TIFF
This was the only film we were able to catch at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Seated near us was someone planning on seeing roughly 40 films more. One of the best parts of seeing films at TIFF is the audience and they didn't disappoint (before each film a warning about "piracy" is greeted by the audience with a pirate chorus of "Aaarrrr"). The theatre was packed for this little-known Brazilian crime drama, which also was followed by a Q and A session with the film's director, producers and one of its stars. The film is about a couple, Regina and Valerio, who have returned to Rio to help run Valerio's father's business. That business is a shady part of an organized crime syndicate that operates gambling terminals throughout the city. It's assumed that Valerio's uncle, his father's twin brother, killed Valerio's father to take over his sibling's share of the business. The couple would rather be out of it entirely and return to their life in Europe. Regina eggs Valerio to "get rid" of his uncle to clear a path to his inheritance, but in a sort of Coen brothers twist, a poorly planned act of murder becomes far messier and only draws the couple down further into the sordid business they wanted to get out of. The film is full of Coens-esque dark violence and occasional absurd humour along with Shakespearean references from Lady Macbeth, Hamlet and Titus Andronicus. You know, all the fun stuff.

Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) is the hero of his own movie.

The King of Comedy
Crave
Martin Scorsese's prescient 1982 comedy about a psychopathic comedian, Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro), who decides the only way to get his big shot is to take the most popular late-night talk show host, Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), hostage unless his demands of appearing on the show are met. While the last act is where most of the action takes place, it's in the epilogue where the film's prognostications appear. It's a film about the comically high aspirations of someone with a medium-level talent. Celebrity isn't an American invention, yet they seem to have a near monopoly on the business of undeserved fame. Themes of celebrity and fame and our fascination with it are the real heart of this film. It was a nice touch in Todd Phillips' 2019 Joker that De Niro played the ill-fated talk show host to Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck (a name equally feckless sounding as Rupert Pupkin).

Read more »