Days of Wine and Roses, by Blake Edwards (1962)

   Jack Lemmon plays a young alcocholic that gets in love with the secretary in his new public relations job. By his influence, she also starts drinking. The movie shows the destructive impact of the addiction on their lives.

   After a number of false starts, he finally can keep sober for an year and seems to be keeping good care of their daughter. Alcoholics Anonymous provides him a good support, but she never joins the support group. They are separated for some time when she comes to visit.

   The final scene is very moving. She comes to visit. She's been sober for a couple of days. They love each other. She really can't stop drinking. She wants

   ... "things to look prettier than they are" ...

   ... "If we only had it back as it was" ...

   She leaves and he looks at her walking out of the building. The neon sign at the bar next door reflects at his window. She walks by the bar. For how long?  

   Don't miss Edwards' comments included on this DVD. He has been sober for forty years and he is very straightforward about his alcoholism. His comic touches made this bleak story more palatable, without making it didactic or trite.

  

Office Space, by Mike Judge

   "Yes. We are in very, very deep shit.", nowhere else this phrase has been so funny as in Office Space. It's said by Samir, a Software Engineer that after beeing laid off associates with some coworkers to steal money from the company.

   If you've worked as a programmer (or any kind of office employee!) in corporate america, many of the jokes will have some bitter sweet flavor. But the movie is hilarious and relies on a really clever script.

   This is one of these movies that people will meet to see again and again and get to know the lines by heart. And if you start hearing about Initech and TPS reports and don't know what people is talking about, 'why don't you go ahead' and netflix the movie?

The grim reaper, by Bernado Bertolucci

   The first movie directed by Bertolucci, when he was 21 years old. The screenplay was written by Bertolucci, based on a story by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

   A prostitute is found dead near a park. The movie follows the interrogation process of the people that had been around the park at the night of the assassination. The interviewees aren't motivated to tell the truth, given their own misgivings.

   The story is told in a very poetic way, and Bertolucci had already published a prized book of poems when the movie was released.

Trouble in Paradise, by Ernst Lubitsch

   It's amazing that a movie directed in Hollywood in 1932 could be so daring in the themes.
   [TODO]

Close-up, by Abbas Kiarostami

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Tyson, by James Toback

   Documentary based on interviews with Mike Tyson. The great boxer is shown more intimatelly than you would expect in a documentary about a box player. There is no easy heroics on this movie.

   Tyson is very straighforwad on his life's twists and on how he has spoiled many oportunities. It's sad to see the effect of the imprisonment at the top of his career. It's moving to see this big man losing his voice's strenght and display some candor.

   He never expected to survive until his 40s. But he did.

In the Mood for Love, by Kar Wai Wong

   Hong Kong, 1962. A newspaper editor and the wife of an executive move at the same day to bedrooms on adjacent apartments. Their spouses are always off abroad and they eventually discover their halves to be having an affair.
 
   The two live in a really confined space and the movie shows this with amazing beauty. Her colorful perfectly fit dresses are amazing! But they resignantly stick to the decision of not acting as their spouses, and only meet to work on writting a serial martial arts publication together.

   I am looking forward to see other of Wong's movies, specially Chungking Express, also released on the Criterion Collection.