vintage lamina nanoreviews galore

s.e. hinton’s novel rumble fish was tailor-made to be filmed by francis ford coppola. the story of a boy living in the shadow of his great hero, his own older brother, had all the elements that coppola loves to tinker the most: family ties and the search of lost time. fourteen year-old russell-james — or rusty-james to friends, but never just rusty, it made he feel naked — was a boy not-so-bright looking for trouble. he was raised by downtown gangs that no longer existed save for the presence of an old leader — the mysterious and disenchanted motorcycle boy — rusty-james’s 20 year-old brother.

but fate intervened and made coppola read the outsiders first, s.e. hinton’s most famous novel. the plot and characters of the two novels are very similar and it is no surprise that coppola found in it an interesting potential film. but the time metaphors were not so obvious as in rumble fish, and it must have been a real disillusionment to the oscar-winning director when he found out about the shorter, more concise novel. that’s why he shot them both back to back, and it makes you wonder if the first film suffered because of it.

rumble fish is the quintessential coppola film from the 80’s: it was shot fast and cheap, it had some very experimental touches, like the percussion-and-clock-based soundtrack by the police’s stewart copeland, and, unfortunately, it made no money at all. coppola refers to the film to this day as ‘an art film for teenagers’, but it is perhaps more easily appreciated not by the rusty-jameses of yesterday and today, but by its motorcycle boys.

the joke in no shopping begins by its title: it actually means “in the mall” in brazilian portuguese, but can also have its literal meaning in english. this book was the first novel by brazilian writer simone campos, penned when she was only seventeen years old. like s.e. hinton in the outsiders, she took advantage of her young age to write about some of the fears and dreams of her own generation. and unlike s.e. hinton, she failed miserably in the process.

the story (god forgive us for using the word) centers on an upper-class girl from brazil who works on her father’s bookstore inside a mall. when she is not wandering around shoplifting to fight boredom, she organizes big parties and grabs the attention of every cute boy in the city. she is also the best student in her class and the most popular, because she is so cool.

no shopping is a fine example of the worst in contemporary brazilian literature: it has no plot, no character development and no classic structure. instead, in its feeble 72 pages, it brings forth “revolutionary” and “radical” use of spelling and punctuation (i.e. commas no more!), software-inspired chapter numbers — how about chapter 3.11 for workgroups? — and an incredibly idiotic choose-your-own-adventure finale. these were 60 minutes of reading i’m not getting back.

this first record by scarlett johansson is probably a leftover from lost in translation. she went to some karaoke in tokyo and met dj phil spector making some wall of sound versions of tom waits’ songs.the result is pretty much what you would expect from a karaoke bar: bad singing and a lot of embarassment. tom waits said he was flattered by the homage, but that doesn’t mean he liked what he heard.

steven shaviro says alan moore can’t plot. even worse, he finds this a good thing, since plots are boring and overrated. case in point: carlos reichenbach’s latest movie, falsa loura (fake blonde) has no plot whatsoever, it is all about character. it is all about a single character, acting the same way, making repeated mistakes, over and over again. in the end, you discover what you knew all along: working class girls are easily exploited by the new aristocracy — in brazil and everywhere — and it doesn’t matter if they are really cute or if they color their hair. pretty boring and overrated, if you ask me. redemption factor: rosanne mulholland beautiful body.

this 1986 documentary is from when cronenberg was still called the king of venereal horror. of course now he’s called the king of naked lord of the rings kings in saunas, and makes movies for iowa farmers.

 ”let’s cook!”

nice adaptation of an elmore leonard short-story (almost a non-story actually). batman is having some money troubles, despite being married to funbags ladymaster gretchen mol and decides to earn some cash by taking the gladiator to a train station. great duelons, warrant fun.

amazing 10-minute BBC documentary about the increase of parakeets in britain’s urban areas. ludicrous theories are discussed, such as humphrey bogart and/or jimi hendrix being responsible. some great questions remain unanswered. what are parakeets? are they birds? what are birds? we just don’t know.