Brazil

Rating:
Summary: Rent Disk 1
Review: I had never seen the film in any version before but bought the Criterion Collection based on reviews. The 142-minute version on Disk 1 is great. As someone who works in a bureaucratic organization I could appreciate what the poor hero was going through. I wouldn't call it futuristic since many of the design elements are so retro. Perhaps it would appear futuristic to George Orwell if he had been able to see it in 1940. The dark ending didn't bother me that much, but maybe I'm desensitized from years of bad TV. I watched the beginning and end of the "Love Conquers All" version on Disk 3 just for comparison. I thought the video quality was a couple notches below the Disk 1 version, and it's not widescreen. Also, there are extensive differences in the way the scenes are cut. Since I've never seen the European version, I don't know if it's just because of the shorter length. So, I would consider Disk 3 just a curiousity. I haven't gotten around to the extras on Disk 2 yet, but I suppose some lazy day I will. Rent disk 1 if you can, then go back in a few months and rent it again.

Rating:
Summary: Criterion rip-off? Nah, it's great!
Review: I reviewed this without seeing the entire menu of the documentary section, and after seeing it I've revised my review - The documentaries and interviews with Terry and the people of Universal are priceless. Great material if you like to think about that sort of thing. I still think the 94-minute hack job stinks, but what else is new? The film of course is brilliant.

Rating:
Summary: Always look on the bright side of life
Review: This is an outstanding film, smart and funny, and probably Gilliam's best work, a director justly renowned for his wildly imaginative visual style. The story, about an Everyman struggling to free his soul and find love within a meddling, maddening, bureaucratic society run amok, is indebted to _1984_ in many ways, but substitutes black humor and a non-stop barrage of the absurd for the grim and determined pessimism of the novel. Fellow _Python_ alum Michael Palin turns in a commendable performance, a mixture of subtle mischief and state-licensed sadism. I wish moviemakers would cast him more often, as he was, in my opinion, the best actor in the classic comedy troupe. At the time _Brave_New_World_ was published, Huxley said he feared modern civilization offered man the choice of either going insane or being a lunatic. _Brazil_ can't hold out hopes for anything better, but lets you know that at least it's okay to laugh. If you're a movie collector with a taste for cult classics and the bizarre, odds are you already know this movie; if not, check it out, it belongs in your library. Warning: count on the theme song to stick in your head for the rest of your life. (Good thing to hum while waiting in some insanely long line to get a form signed.)

Rating:
Summary: Brazil- A Beautiful Nightmare
Review: Brazil is in short a beautiful nightmare. It vividly shows the informatinal age in it's worse. This shows a age where where papers are needed for everything and everyone is a suspect.

Brazil Disc 1- Director's Edition

Brazil Disc 1 shows Brazil the way it was meant to seen. With everything including the real ending. The audio and video transfer is supreme. The widescreen transfer is flawless. This is also one of the discs that actually has worthwile commentary.

Brazil is one man's quest to break free from the information age. Fly out of the cabinets with papers like the cover art shows. It is a age where love is not allowed to interfere with efficency and suspicion is everywhere. He keeps having dreams of a woman. He ends up meeting her and a so called terrorist. He is caught in a mess of trouble when he himself, a employee of the Ministry Of Information, is suspected of terrorism.

Brazil Disc 2- Bonus Features

The bonus features on this disc are unbelievable. The documentaries and interviews give great info on the making and meaning of Brazil. Storyboards, trailers, and the other things are great also.

Brazil Disc 3- The Love Conqers All Version

All of the cuts that Gilliam refused to make are cut in this version. This is also the TV version. I really noticed all the things were cut and the Happy Ending is really noticeable also. Again, video and audio transfer is great. No widescreen though.

Brazil is one of the most amazing films of our time. It is a also a revelation for the future. That our future could become this. I suggest everyone buys this version. Criterion makes amazing DVDs. Bravo to Terry Gilliam for Brazil.

"It's a symptom of trying to pretend things are under control". Terry Gilliam To MovieMaker Magazine

Rating:
Summary: Gilliams Genious Gets The Right Treatment
Review: Terry Gilliam is a genious. He has yet to make a bad film. His works include 12 Monkeys, The Fisher King, and Time Bandits. Those films are all wonderful, But Brazil still stands as his masterpeice and the Criterion Collection of Brazil is the way to view it.

The film starts off with a TV screen in the window of a store. It is showing a commercial for a new duct design. The Camera pulls back a bit and a happy shopper walks infront of the TV while pushing a cart. The TV then blows up and the titles show. Right off the bat we get what Brazil is all about; how bad it has really gotten.

The clean up job that Criterian did with Brazils print is breath taking. For many years I've had to put up with an old (132 minute) VHS version of Brazil, that was batterd and was watched more than 30 times. And also the sound quality is up another notch from the original print.

Gilliam directors cut is the best version of Brazil that you can find. Alot of people have been complaining that the 142 minute cut does not add up to the greatness of the 132. I beg the differ and think it is great. The added scenes are some of my favorite parts.

My mouth wartered when I read the features on the 2nd disk, and they wartered even more when I saw them. The hour-long battle of Brazil documentry is by far my favorite feature on this disk. It really goes deap into it. The 30-minute documentry is very good as well. It's funny how the cast dosen't even really know what the films about.

The third disk shows how much a studio can change a film with a a snip here and a snip there, a close up here and a close up there. This is great to watch with a commentery. It is by a film historian who makes funny comments about the differences.

I'd say, only get this if your a big fan of the film. If you don't like it, or haven't seen it, rent it first and then see. But I love it, and it is the best Criterian Disk since Rushmore.

Rating:
Summary: Stabbing Bureaucracy
Review: In an interview shown on this massive Criterion 3-disc set, director Terry Gilliam -- incidentally, a pretty fun guy just to listen to and watch -- states that his inspiration for Brazil came from his imagining a solitary man sitting a beach of coal listening to the pop song Brazil, which the movie is named for. Visualize this image, and one can get an accurate impression of what the movie's all about. An alienated everyman, frustrated by corporate-like enslavement, has only his fantasies to rise above the paperwork that chains him down day-to-day. Sometimes characterized as a 1984 for pseduo-intellectuals, this movie shouldn't be taken as seriously as Orwell's novel, but still serves as an entertaining, colorful meditation on many of the same themes found in that book.
Right off the bat, the viewer might be stunned or taken aback at the amount of props, knickknacks, scenery and imagery that Gilliam stuffs into each scene. The possibility that this might overwhelm some viewers might account for why some people find the film difficult to follow. It really isn't -- I had a difficult time on my first viewing only because the deteriorated tape that I rented had such muddied sound that I could barely hear the dialogue. It's a godsend that a company like Criterion would take time out of their busy quest of resurrecting foreign masterpieces to put out such a comprehensive set as this. The amount of extras and supplemental material on this is staggering, but spending $60 on any unfamiliar film is stupid -- rent Brazil first and then decide if you want the royal treatment.

Rating:
Summary: My all time favorite movie
Review: Wow! I love this movie. My all time favorite movie. '1984' done with dark humor by Monty Pythonian Terry Gilliam. Beauracracy run amuk. Futuristic, yet 1940's technology. Paperwork and forms,forms,forms...Robert De Niro as terrorist/air conditioner repairman! Terrorism (the real kind, not the tongue and cheek kind of De Niro's character) that goes almost unnoticed by the well to do who can't be bothered by it, or are just so used to it that they continue with their meal/and the band, though injured, plays on....After Sept. 11th, this takes on new meaning: don't let terrorism become commonplace,as portrayed here,but fight it to knock it out so future generations won't know what it is (hope, pray, support our President and military forces in this most noble of Crusades!).I have seen this movie at least six or seven times, and every time I see it I learn something new or make a new connection or gain a new insight into this great movie. Billboards as scenery hiding the industrial waste, plastic surgery that gruesomely destroys, gazillions of miles of ductwork, mechanical assistance for stenographs (unbelievable what she is recording and is not affected by it,again the numbing of the emotions and mind),dream girl,action and adventure chase scenes, and finally escapism....ahhhhh...Brazil is found......This is a movie that you need to focus 100% of your attention on, ie. put the kids to sleep, grab a beer, and engage your mind. A must,must see!

Rating:
Summary: Food for thought, and laughs (albeit some very grim ones...)
Review: One thing you can be sure of, when seeing a Terry Gilliam movie: beautiful art direction, complex and dark sets, tongue in cheek humour, often in the details. A bewildering strain of events in an ever more intrigueing story.
See how Sam Lowry, a humble but efficient public servant, tries to find the woman he's fallen in love with in the maze of a Kafka-esque and 1984-like society. Deeply unsettling notions of Big Brother government style are mixed with hilarious scenes ("there was a slight complication of the complication"). And finally, it's a very moving story too: just like a modern Oedipus, Sam Lowry only wants to do good and thereby conjures up the demons of doom to ruin and destroy his own life and that of others.
One of the best movies ever - because it's dramatic, hilarious, well shot, impressive, thought provoking. And still it's great entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, depressing
Review: The viewer can not avoid being struck by the incredible genius of the filmmaker. The lavish visuals are not only outstanding in their own right but also carefully support the plot of the story.

That said, I found this movie deeply depressing and don't ever want to see it again. It is the blackest of black comedy and I really wasn't prepared for it when I sat down to watch it: now that I know what it's like, I'm quire sure I'm not prepared to see it again.

Rating:
Summary: THE Greatest Movie of All Time
Review: If you look through the reviews you'll see a lot of high and a lot of low ratings. You might wonder how there can be such a bimodal diversity of opinion over a movie. I think it may depend more on the viewer than the movie itself, but let me start by saying something about the movie:

It is perhaps the most literary and complex movie I've ever seen, yet once you catch a glimmer of what is really going on, you will be entralled, and want to see it again-and-again-and-again. (I've probably seen it, critically, over 30 times). There is a lot packed into this movie, and not all of it is immediately accessible at first viewing.

First, to give a rough idea of what the story is like: think of something like 1984, crossed with Catch-22.

The movie makes a number of comments about society, filmmaking, itself, government, relationships, etc. but not all of these are immediately accessible because of the hilarious capture of an ordinary man in a system that proves Murphys law, and does so only because he tries to move beyond being just a cog in the machine to one who tries to acheive his dream.

And dreams are extremely important in this movie. Not only are dreams intercut between normal scenes you'll also find that much of the material in the dreams actually preceeds their appearance in what purports to be Sam's waking life. By the end of the movie, where it's clear that much of the last twenty minutes or so MUST have been a dream, one is left wondering how much of the entire movie was in Sam's head, or if not Sam's, whose?

By the end of the movie you'll not only have had every "normal" way of living lampooned, but you'll also be left wondering just how sane YOU are, when viewed by those who aren't actually part of the system.

Ever wonder about the incredible silliness of rituals like obtaining driver licenses, buying Xmas gifts or worrying about your complextion? Gilliam looks at the travails of day to day life from the point of view of a complete alien, and then brings them all home in our own language. It's pure genious that he was able to do this, and that he could do so
in such a visually compelling manner is simply astounding!

Will you enjoy this movie? Perhaps. If you prefer the physical comedy of Monte Python or Mel Brooks, perhaps not. If you loved Citizen Kane, you'll probably hate this movie. If you loved Atkinson's Black Adder, reread Phil Dick stories every few years to revisit his insights, and reread Doug Adams to find the jokes you missed the first time around, you'll have a great time!