Last film I saw

When the movies started to talk, they  began to lose the open-eyed simplicity  with which they saw the world. "The  Brother From Another Planet" tells the  story of a man who cannot talk, but who  can read minds, listen carefully, look  deep into eyes, and provide a sort of  mirror for our society. That makes it  sound serious, but like all the most  serious movies, it's a comedy.  The film stars Joe Morton as a visitor  from outer space, who looks like a black  human being, unless you look carefully at  the three funny toes on his feet. He  arrives on Earth in a spaceship that looks  borrowed from the cheapest B space  operas from the 1950s, swims ashore,  and finds himself on Manhattan Island. At  first he is completely baffled. Before long,  everyone he meets is just as baffled. It is  strange to deal with people who confound  all your expectations: It might even force  you to reevaluate yourself.

January 1, 1984   |   0

The brother is not looking for trouble, is not controversial, wants only to make sense of this weird new world. Because his instinctive response to most situations is a sort of blank reserve, people project their own feelings and expectations upon him. They tell him what he must be thinking, and behave as if they are right. He goes along.
The movie finds countless opportunities for humorous scenes, most of them with a quiet little bite, a way of causing us to look at our society. The brother runs into hookers and connivers, tourists from Indiana, immigrant shopkeepers, and a New York weirdo who, in one of the movie's best scenes, shows him a baffling card trick, and then demonstrates another trick that contains a cynical grain of big-city truth. The brother walks through this menagerie with a sometimes bemused, sometimes puzzled look on his face. People seem to have a lot of problems on this planet. He is glad to help out when he can; for example, curing video games by a laying on of hands. His right hand contains the power to heal machines, and it is amazing how quickly people accept that, if it is useful to them.

"The Brother From Another Planet" was written and directed by John Sayles, who is a one-man industry in the world of the American independent film. His credits include Return of the "Seacaucus 7," "Lianna," and "Baby, It's You," and in this film -- by using a central character who cannot talk -- he is sometimes able to explore the kinds of scenes that haven't been possible since the death of silent film. There are individual moments here worthy of a Keaton, and there are times when Joe Morton's unblinking passivity in the midst of chaos really does remind us of Buster.

There is also a curious way in which the film functions as more subtle social satire than might seem possible in a low-budget, good-natured comedy. Because the hero, the brother, has literally dropped out of the skies, he doesn't have an opinion on anything. He only gradually begins to realize that on this world he is "black," and that his color makes a difference in some situations. He tries to accept that. When he is hurt or wronged, his reaction is not so much anger as surprise: It seems to him so unnecessary that people behave unkindly toward one another. He is a little surprised they would go to such an effort. His surprise, in its own sweet and uncomplicated way, is one of the most effective elements in the whole movie.

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no, I saw it on tv. On Robert Redford channel?

don't know but that one was a boring movie

pinhedz wrote:Many of my favorite movies are boring.

you mean you are bored when you see them?

I think it's more interesting to see 13 Tzameti without even looking at the cartel, so the trip appears in the movie like the trip is presented in the movie

But I don't know what movie most of the critics on rotten tomatoes web saw

I did like it. But many critics made partially or completely negative remarks of a kind that I did not find in the movie at all.
I came to read from two of them that saw the movie I saw

pinhedz wrote:The first one was vintage:

From the ad it looks like a happy-go-lucky fun romp, but it was actually kind of grim.

You talking like it's the first time you saw it ?

Maybe the ad was to catch the happy-if-you-live-like-this conception that Jack Lemmon has to step against (if I remember well)

pinhedz wrote:The internet sez: "A group of street teens from Dublin's inner city break into a house in an upper class suburb. The break-in quickly moves into a night of frenzy, scandal and consequence."

What's the verdict: thumbs up or thumbs down?"

thumbs up. It was interesting, catches you from the beginning as one of the girls observes what's in the house with quiet wonder and reflection