segunda-feira, 29 de abril de 2013

Dance is a powerful expression

 
 
"The emotions are stirred and take form in words.
If words are not enough, we speak in sighs.
If sighs are not enough, we sing them.
If singing is not enough, then unconsciously
our hands dance them and our feet tap them."
 
(International Dance Day)

domingo, 28 de abril de 2013

Cine Me

 
É o Amor
 
 
«É o Amor», em alguns aspectos, como «um ensaio para o próximo filme». Outra, a ideia de que, ficção ou documentário, representado ou não, o filme tem o mesmo objetivo de sempre: suscitar emoções em quem o vê. «A emoção tem passado, e estou contente por isso», conclui.
(João Canijo)
 
O amor, do fundo do seu lugar-comum, é isto. E é isto que a actriz Anabela Moreira quando colocada (a palavra sugere isso mesmo, uma experiência) uns meses a viver nas Caxinas com as peixeiras locais, acaba por sentir. Sónia Nunes, a mestre que trata do peixe e ensina Anabela a desempenhar a “obrigação” diz-lhe a dada altura: “só tu é que achas que o amor não é lindo”. E Anabela pensa, emociona-se, coloca-se em registo diarístico ante a câmara, em pausa na pretensa fluidez documental, e dá razão a Camargo: chora pela necessidade de ser feliz, de “esquecer-se” de si (que no fundo é o seu olhar cínico-urbano, mas também a sua condição exterior da profissão de actriz) e de se unir à realidade (obter a tal “alma transparente”) sem distanciamento, para poder questionar a felicidade.
 
No entanto, para além de dar a ver as piroseiras do casamentos, das músicas (que fazem o filme ser absorvido por elas, tornar-se, ele próprio um tanto piroso), para além da enhanced reality que Anabela crê que Sónia vive, para além das lições de felicidade no plano do carro perto do fim, não esqueçamos que É o Amor é um filme sobre o amor.

For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he

 
A ideia de viver a vida um dia de cada vez dá importância de mais ao dia. O problema não está nem no dia, nem na manhã ou na noite, mas no hábito de dividir o tempo em unidades fáceis de entender. Para mim, a vida é o que estou agora a viver mais o desejo - mas não a expectativa - que dure mais uns momentos, dias, meses, anos, décadas.O desejo do futuro, na versão mais alegre, da continuação do presente, ocupa sempre uma porção valiosa do presente vivido sem pensar em mais nada. Mas a estupidez é uma espécie de vida suspensa, pior do que a morte. Tanto o optimismo como o pessimismo - como demonstra com força Will Self na oleosamente autocongratulória edição centenária do New Statesman - são doenças da razão.
Ter uma atitude e gastar tempo com ela é capaz de ser a pior maneira de desperdiçar o tempo. Virão momentos em que nada se conseguirá fazer senão lembrar ou ter medo do que vai acontecer.
Agora não é a altura para nos pormos a adivinhar quando e como serão, com maior ou menor precipitação.
Quando volta o sol da Primavera e o dia começa a correr bem, a nossa tarefa principal deve ser reunirmo-nos a nós mesmos (collect ourselves) e estarmos todos lá, na nossa única pessoa, para recebê-los.
A preparação rouba muito tempo. O vaticínio é mais rápido mas predispõe-nos e ocupa-nos enquanto não for posto à prova.
O melhor é sempre o que está mais perto de nós no tempo, no espaço e na sucessão de acontecimentos: o futuro é hoje; já passou.
 
 
 
Miguel Esteves Cardoso
 
 
Público, 13/04/2013


 


sexta-feira, 26 de abril de 2013

Cine Me



Playing for Keeps
 
 
 
 
http://playingforkeepsmovie.com/

The early comic scenes with the soccer moms are the movie’s most promising, but the picture quickly drops the sexual byplay for more dreary scenes of father-son bonding and domestic turmoil. Like many movies these days, the film has half a dozen producers (including Jonathan Mostow, a formidable director in his own right), and the script was probably emasculated by too many interfering hands trying to juggle all the disparate themes. George’s character would have been far more interesting if he were a little more jazzed by all the female attention, but in a misguided effort to win sympathy for him, he’s totally passive as the women throw themselves at him and practically tear his clothes off. Since womanizing was what ruined George’s marriage, it would have been more honest to acknowledge a randier side to his character.
 
Another drawback of this wavering tone is that most of the actors are stranded with one-note characters to play. Greer and Zeta-Jones are still fun to watch. Zeta-Jones in particular gives a delectable performance as a sexy minx who dangles her connections with ESPN to charm George out of his pants. But Thurman’s role is completely underdeveloped. In one scene she’s the imperious hostess at a neighborhood party, and in the next she’s a panting sex fiend who turns up in George’s guest house in black bra and panties. Most of the supporting players in this movie have way too little to do. Dennis Quaid brings flair to his early scenes as the cocky community big shot, but when he bewilderingly ends up in jail after a scene clearly left on the cutting-room floor, he virtually vanishes from the movie. The worst victim of this wobbly script is James Tupper as Stacie’s fiancé. He stands in the background looking supportive and barely gets to utter a line, so there’s no suspense about which man will ultimately win Stacie’s affections. Even Ralph Bellamy in The Awful Truth or His Girl Friday had more personality when he played the other man waiting to be dumped.

I came, I sat, I watched and... well that's about it.
Too many talented women making fools of themselves, and Dennis Quaid was thoroughly wasted as a philandering husband jealous of his wife. Outside of the main characters, all of the roles were flat and without much personality.

As a movie, it's not much. But it's the best showcase for his charm that Butler has ever had.
 
 


Semen

 
Já se esquecera a que sabia o sémen
de um estranho. E agora que voltava
sem querer às ruas vermelhas, quase se
arrependia de ter apagado tão depressa
o nojo e a indecência nos caracóis de

...
um menino que haveria de ser sempre
só dela. E como lhe parecia igualmente
viscoso e escorregadio o dinheiro que no
fim lhe entregavam dobrado e à pressa –
tão diferente do cartão limpinho com que

as senhoras lhe tinham pago vestidos ao
balcão, na loja que agora dava pena, assim
entaipada. Ai, se o menino soubesse que

era ainda nele e nas suas brincadeiras que
pensava quando agachada ali, durante de um
estranho, abria a boca e fechava os olhos.
 

Maria do Rosário Pedreira

 

quinta-feira, 25 de abril de 2013

Divine

 
E la mia forza supina
si stampa nell'arena,
diffondesi nel mare;
e il fiume è la mia vena,
il monte è la mia fronte,
la selva è la mia pube,
la nube è il mio sudore.
E io sono nel fiore
della stiancia, nella scaglia
della pina, nella bacca,
del ginepro: io son nel fuco,
nella paglia marina,
in ogni cosa esigua,
in ogni cosa immane,
nella sabbia contigua,
nelle vette lontane.
Ardo, riluco.
E non ho più nome.
E l'alpi e l'isole e i golfi
e i capi e i fari e i boschi
e le foci ch'io nomai
non han più l'usato nome
che suona in labbra umane.
Non ho più nome nè sorte
tra gli uomini; ma il mio nome
è Meriggio. In tutto io vivo
tacito come la Morte.

E la mia vita è divina.
 
Meriggio, by D'Annunzio

Freedom

 
"Ninguém é mais escravo do que aquele que se julga livre sem o ser"

Johann Goethe

 
 
 

quarta-feira, 24 de abril de 2013

Today's feelings

 
"(...) e ela sentiu toda a sua natureza inclinar-se como uma caravela numa ventania, a atravessar num disparo fervilhante os mares desconhecidos."

(Lawrence Durrel in: Livia ou enterrada viva)

segunda-feira, 22 de abril de 2013

That kiss, it lasted too long

 
Aquele beijo. Aquele que não resistimos. Aquele onde nos entregamos. Aquele beijo que leva tudo. Aquele onde nascemos. Aquele beijo onde morremos. Que leva a alma. Aquele beijo que nos ruboriza. Aquele ao qual fugimos por breves segundos para o poder prolongar. Aquele beijo. Aquele que nos entreabre ligeiramente os lábios. Aquele beijo que começa tépido, calmo e termina quente. Explosivo. Aquele beijo que nos leva as forças. Fechamos os olhos para o sentir inteiro naquele único sentido que é o da alma. Aquele beijo desmedido e interminável. Aquele que é doce e levemente molhado. Aquele onde depomos o desejo de o querer para sempre. Aquele beijo sôfrego e que marca conquistas e momentos como uma bandeira. Aquele beijo que apetece. Aquele onde nos sentimos morar quando o corpo levita. Aquele.

(Aliciante)
 
P.S- And we probably shouldn't have danced to that song
          It meant nothing
          It meant everything
          It's really such a shame, it's so hard to explain, to you
          I know that I shouldn't but I enjoyed it.

It feels good to think about you

 
"She dares me to pour myself out like a living waterfall. She dares me to enter the soul that is more than my own; she extinguishes fear in mere seconds. She lets light come through."
 
                                                              Virginia Woolf


P.S- * when I’m warm in bed.I feel as if you’re curled up there beside me, fast asleep. And I think how great it would be if it were true.

Happy Earth Day

 
Earth from Above: Sometimes, we all need a reminder that the Earth is in fact rather beautiful. These satellite images, all acquired from Google Earth, highlight our planet’s natural fractal patterns, from the ice of Greenland to the waters of Spain.  (Flavorwire)
 
Recycling, Explained: Today, help save the Earth by recycling some stuff, then educate yourself on what all those cryptic recycling symbols and codes mean anyway. Actually, you may want to do that part first.  (mental_floss)
 
What Makes the Earth Go ‘Round: From cuddly koalas and huggable hamsters to sensitive sloths and considerate kittens, these animals know what love is. And as we all know, love makes the world go ’round. Also, cute animals.  (BuzzFeed)
 
The Earth’s Mass is 6 Sextillion Tons: And 14 other fun tidbits — plus one bonus fact — about the planet we call home. (Slate)
 
A Run Around the World: Looking for a great way to see the Earth? Try “ultrarunning.” Races can last for weeks at a time, and crisscross every corner of the world, from Colorado to Greece to Nepal. (The New York Times)
 
The Coldest City on Earth: Plenty of people are worried that the planet is warming up, but they’re probably not too concerned about that in Yakutsk, Siberia. Click here to see photos from what’s considered the coldest city on earth, although you might want to grab a sweater. (TIME.com)

And a Tribute to Space: We’re celebrating Earth today, but here’s a special shout-out to the zero-gravity parts of our universe. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who’s been tweeting photos and recording duets with the Barenaked Ladies from his post aboard the International Space Station, shows happens when you wring out a washcloth in space. A mundane activity on Earth, yes, but in space, the result is oddly enthralling. (The Daily What)

 

domingo, 21 de abril de 2013

Where did my baby go

 
I wonder where he ran off to
I miss my baby so
 
So if you see him out there, tell him it's not fair
That life's just not the same when he's not here.

I miss my baby so.

 
 

Roots

 
"Eu e a arte não sabemos ao certo quem somos
mas temos a certeza de sermos um do outro
e isto é tudo de que precisamos para a vida."
 
Alberto Carneiro
 
 
 
 

Me gustas

 
Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca

 

pablo neruda



She thinks



                                                       "It's all in your head, Alice."

Cine Me

 
Monsieur Lazhar
 
 
 
The subtlety and discretion with which the revelation is handled says much about “Monsieur Lazhar,” Mr. Falardeau’s fourth feature film, adapted from a one-person play by Evelyne de la Chenelière. The film, which was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film, picked up six Genies (Canadian Oscars), including best picture, director, adapted screenplay and actor. The title character is powerfully embodied by Fellag, an Algerian theater director and actor known for his one-man shows, who has lived in Paris since 1995.
 
“A classroom is a place of friendship, of work, of courtesy, a place of life.”
 
The silent dignity of exile may be a subject for memoir, perhaps, or for poetry, but, to judge from this tempered, overrefined movie, it requires an explosion or two to make it a subject for drama.

sexta-feira, 19 de abril de 2013

Pairing of legendary British jazz bassist and Spanish guitar virtuoso is unexpectedly better than the sum of its parts

 
Dave Holland is best known as one of the great jazz bassists of his generation. Pepe Habichuela is an awe-inspiring flamenco guitarist. The two of them together, with Josemi and Carlos Carmona on additional guitars as well as a pair of percussionists, prove to be a wonderful combination. Holland brings his own experience to flamenco, subsuming himself in the genre, his bass imitating a voice on the glorious "Camaron," and giving free rein to the percussionists on "Joyride." It's Habichuela's magical fingers that mesmerize, covering the scales as adroitly as any pianist and bringing a rich fullness and a stunning imagination to the sound. But what's really at work here is a group consciousness, an exploration of flamenco, and the listener shares Holland's journey. There's nothing here that's diluted -- this is hardcore flamenco, very much the real thing -- and the hard realism is one of the great pleasures. Even though it can be overwhelming at times, that's in a good way.
 


Hopefully, Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela will find some time in their busy schedules to tour with this project. There is so much room inside of each of the pieces on this album to improvise and expand on stage that it would be a crime if they didn’t hit the road together. Until then, people will have to content themselves with a truly thrilling set of songs that gets more interesting with every repeated play. Acoustic music doesn’t get much better than this.

quinta-feira, 18 de abril de 2013

Good morning & flowers

 
 
 
 
 You can not help but smile as the tiny, buzzing bees make their way from flower to flower, and you may wonder: is this is all a dream?

quarta-feira, 17 de abril de 2013

We spend so much time waiting

 
"We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright."
 
                                                             Ernest Hemingway

Because

 
Because the world is round it turns me on.
 
 

domingo, 14 de abril de 2013

Cine Me

 
The Deep Blue Sea
 
 
 
"Grade: A! Passion defies reason in The Deep Blue Sea." - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
“Haunting and hypnotic...Rachel Weisz is incandescent” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
“A sublime evocation of amour fou.” - Graham Fuller, Film Comment
“A somber and powerful movie.” - David Denby, The New Yorker

I think most people don't know where the title comes from. A song popular during the second world war (a recent event in this film), has the line "we're caught between perdition and the deep blue sea." This is an apt description of the three protagonists.
 
“I thought, I know what this one is about,” Terence Davies said at a recent screening of his new film, “The Deep Blue Sea,” adapted from a play by Terence Rattigan. He was explaining why, when he was invited by the Rattigan Trust to film one of that playwright’s works, he had chosen this 1952 tale of adultery and romantic despair. (It was previously brought to the screen in 1955, starring Vivien Leigh in a role performed, in Mr. Davies’s version, by Rachel Weisz.)
 
This compact rendering — at once feverish and meticulous in its calibration of wanton emotions — proves just how deep Mr. Davies’s knowledge goes. Like most good plays “The Deep Blue Sea” is about many things. It is, in the most literal sense, about England in the years just after World War II, a period of weary austerity and quiet hope that Mr. Davies, born in Liverpool in 1945, has returned to again and again in the course of his filmmaking career.
 
Rattigan was one of the dominant British literary figures of that era, though his reputation faded in subsequent decades, eclipsed by angry young men, kitchen-sink realists and a flamboyant avant-garde. Mr. Davies, an unabashed nostalgist for pre-’60s, unswinging England — he memorably trashes the Beatles in “Of Time and the City,” his 2008 love letter to Liverpool — lovingly recalls the dust, the chintz, the popular songs and the women’s fashions of the old days. He also has an intuitive understanding of the strong feelings that lie beneath the dusty decorum and constrained behavior before the language of sexual liberation and personal fulfillment (to say nothing of feminism) had entered the lexicon of the Western democracies.
 
That too is what “The Deep Blue Sea” is about: a woman’s attempt to live by the dictates of her heart rather than the expectations of society. It is also, for both Terences, about a gay man’s sympathetic identification with such a woman — a vicar’s daughter, a gentleman’s wife and a soldier’s lover who suffers like an operatic heroine. And so, to put the matter perhaps more abstractly than such a sensual film deserves, it is about the fate of untameable, irrational desire in a world that does not seem to have a place for it.
 
Rachel Weisz is incandescent, even buried in swooning, romantic despair. Maybe that's why the Oscar winner (for The Constant Gardener) partners up so triumphantly with writer-director Terence Davies in The Deep Blue Sea, a haunting and hypnotic tale of love gone wonderfully right and wrenchingly wrong.


In the face of Weisz's magnificence, it's impossible to dismiss The Deep Blue Sea as dated and creaky.
 
 Weisz makes it timeless.



I dare you to

 
"She dares me to pour myself out like a living waterfall. She dares me to enter the soul that is more than my own; she extinguishes fear in mere seconds. She lets light come through."
 
                                                                  Virginia Woolf

sábado, 13 de abril de 2013

Cine Me

 
The Company You Keep
 
 
 
"Redford's ninth film as a director and one of his knottiest and most involving...a welcome mixture of juice and grit...Evoking the government-chase thrills of Three Days of the Condor, the questioning of journalistic ethics in Absence of Malice and the radicals-in-hiding premise of Running On Empty - in other words, movies for thoughtful adults -...a pulsating drama of a man who goes on an intricate, often interior journey to outrun his past."
-Mary Corliss, TIME
 
Robert Redford's best film in years. He manages to infuse so many ideas and passions into an engaging thriller.
 
Based on the Neil Gordon novel of the same name, the film stars Shia LaBeouf as a young journalist on the trail of Jim Grant (Redford), a former anti-war radical who hid from the FBI for more than 30 years. Terrence Howard plays the FBI agent on the case, and Susan Sarandon is the recently-captured fugitive who was part of the same organization as Redford’s character. The all-star cast also includes Julie Christie, Nick Nolte, Anna Kendrick (who stars in this fall’s Pitch Perfect and may be joining the cast of Captain America 2), Brendan Gleeson, Stanley Tucci and Chris Cooper.
 
Although it's based on a novel, this film could easily be based on fact.
 
Screenwriter Lem Dobbs, who worked with Steven Soderbergh on “Haywire,” “The Limey” and “Kafka,” has fashioned a script that’s propulsive, while allowing for plenty of breathing room. The themes of aging, atonement and the death of idealism alone add layers of complexity and richness to the tale. But on top of that, Dobbs digs deeply into the question of terrorism and its definition. What’s the difference between the Weather Underground and al-Qaeda? The film asks this through Ben, a character who wasn’t even born by the end of the Vietnam War -- a war that some of Jim’s colleagues considered itself a form of terrorism.
“The Company You Keep” looks at the notion of morality -- both the shifting, relativistic kind and the more inflexible variety -- from more than one angle, and without obvious judgment. It has a story to tell, not an ax to grind.
It also features a splendid depiction of real, 21st-century journalism as practiced on the ground: crippled, idealistic and more than slightly desperate. Stanley Tucci is great as Ben’s beleaguered editor.
In the end, there’s a love story at the heart of “Company.” In fact, there’s more than one. It offers no apologies for the old act of violence that precipitates its action, but it holds a deep affection for the gray areas of dissension, debate and disillusionment that sometimes leave blood on the floor.

 
How far would you go for your beliefs? How far is too far? When does being apolitical become an act of cowardice?
  All issues worth raising, even in a deck as dramatically stacked as this.
 
Highly recommend.

sexta-feira, 12 de abril de 2013

Moon appears to shine and light the sky

 
"It feels good to think about you when I’m warm in bed. I feel as if you’re curled up there beside me, fast asleep. And I think how great it would be if it were true."
 
                                                     Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

quinta-feira, 11 de abril de 2013

I miss talking to you



"Breathe in and breathe out,
and the more of you I see,
the less breath I hold."


Love is a burning thing

 
"Tell him yes. Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no."
 
                                          Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

quarta-feira, 10 de abril de 2013

Words

 
 
“She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.”

    Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
 

A song



for you.

Close to you

 
 
I walk along the city streets
You used to walk along with me
 
And I can't help recalling
How it felt to kiss and hold you tight.

segunda-feira, 8 de abril de 2013

Boops

 
Fascinatingly attractive,  in a mysterious or magical way.

Farewell

 
Farewell to the Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)
 
 
That she overcame obstacles of class and sex to rise to power tempered her resolve but it isn’t the reason she will be remembered as one of the most significant leaders of the 20th century.

domingo, 7 de abril de 2013

Cine Me

 
Safe Heaven
 
 
Nicholas Sparks, the great romdram master, is back – his novel Safe Haven has been adapted for the screen, directed by Lasse Hallström. Even though I have had a grudging respect for Sparks's knack for ingenious popular fiction in the past, this latest gushing, smouldering love story is just too ridiculously cliched; his tropes are beginning to look a bit threadbare, and the massive twist at the end is outrageous – and not in a good way. Julianne Hough plays Erin, a beautiful, troubled young woman escaping something or someone. She winds up in the town of Southport, North Carolina, and finds herself befriending Alex (Josh Duhamel), the manager of a convenience store, a widower with two adorable children. Could it be that hunky, sensitive Alex is the safe haven that Erin is looking for? But of course. As ever with a Sparks story, the action takes place in a sugary vision of small-town America that does not correspond with the real world at any point.
 
 I got to see the early screening of Safe Haven, and I enjoyed it very much. The Notebook is still my favorite NS movie, but this one comes very close. It makes a great date movie or a girls night out movie. Bring your tissues!

Sunday morning



Nothing compares, nothing compares to you.


 
 
 

Hello Dear


Love is a burning thing

 
Lembro-me agora que tenho de marcar um encontro contigo, num sítio em que ambos nos possamos falar, de facto, sem que nenhuma das ocorrências da vida venha interferir no que temos para nos dizer. Muitas vezes me lembrei de que esse sítio podia ser, até, um lugar sem nada de especial, como um canto de café, em frente de um espelho que poderia servir de pretexto para reflectir a alma, a impressão da tarde, o último estertor do dia antes de nos despedirmos, quando é preciso encontrar uma fórmula que disfarce o que, afinal, não conseguimos dizer. É que o amor nem sempre é uma palavra de uso, aquela que permite a passagem à comunicação; mais exacta de dois seres, a não ser que nos fale, de súbito, o sentido da despedida, e que cada um de nós leve, consigo, o outro, deixando atrás de si o próprio ser, como se uma troca de almas fosse possível neste mundo. Então, é natural que voltes atrás e me peças: "Vem comigo!", e devo dizer-te que muitas vezes pensei em fazer isso mesmo, mas era tarde, isto é, a porta tinha-se fechado até outro dia, que é aquele que acaba por nunca chegar, e então as palavras caem no vazio, como se nunca tivessem sido pensadas. No entanto, ao escrever-te para marcar um encontro contigo, sei que é irremediável o que temos para dizer um ao outro: a confissão mais exacta, que é também a mais absurda, de um sentimento; e por trás disso, a certeza de que o mundo há-de ser outro no dia seguinte, como se o amor, de facto, pudesse mudar as cores de céu, do mar, da terra, e do próprio dia em que nos vamos encontrar, que há-de ser um dia azul, de verão, em que o vento poderá soprar do norte, como se fosse daí que viessem, nesta altura, as coisas mais precisas, que são as nossas: o verde das folhas e o amarelo da pétalas, o vermelho do sol e o branco dos muros.
 
                                                          Nuno Júdice

sábado, 6 de abril de 2013

Shh

 
                                                                        Just go with it.

P.S- But in the end, I will be still here.