Our reviewers select and review the best independent and foreign films on amazon.com, cd universe, and netflix

Why is it that Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith make films extolling video rental joints, but nobody makes film about Kinko’s copies? Well, not actually Kinko’s (which doesn’t even exist now that it is Fedex), but copy shops in general. There isn’t a more ubiquitous small business in America. The Man Who Copied is not in America, he’s in Brazil, in the small southern town of Port Alegre (Port Happiness–no joke).

He’s broke, his buddy whose girlfriend works in the shop is also broke. They both wish they had a little cash to impress the girls. One wants to date Silvia and the other Marines. Solution: use the copy machine to print money. Not perfect forgeries but good enough for the supermarket. Next comes a bank robbery, then winning the lottery. And then the trouble begins. The story is fresh, youthful, and inventive. But will somebody explain to me why they need to put a live chicken in the refrigerator before blowing up the kitchen? Maybe this is a part of Brazilian folklore.

More importantly, this is a feel-good movie about four kids from nowhere finally getting to Rio and a chance to be in love and realize their dreams. Maybe that is folklore too, but it’s the kind we all would like to have working for us.

Every aggressor has his day, and the day usual ends with disbelief that empire is so fragile a concept. DOWNFALL marks off the last days of Hitler. Too bad the Bush administration couldn’t stay in power long enough for its last days. As the historians say, “The mills of God grind exceedingly slowly but exceedingly fine.” Eva Braun dances on the piano as the chandelier sways to artillery fire. Outgunned commanders try to hold their positions in the city against the tide of the Soviet army. One is ordered to the bunker where he is to be shot for dereliction; but after a hasty conference he is promoted to commander of Berlin. He remarks, “I would rather be shot.”

Gallows humor is bunker humor. Everybody knows the choices are death or fleeing fast enough to try and outrace the enemy at the gates. A good death or a bad death: here life is as short as tomorrow. When you see a movie this intelligent your own thoughts pace the screen. What brings an empire to the bunker is not a simple lesson. The fatal mixture is always grand ideas promoted by men who have no vision for the future save what they would will it to be.

Let’s go into Russia in the winter or let’s go into Iraq in the spring. We’ll build a gulag for our enemies so fearsome that they will bow to us. We’ll torture truth out of them that confirms our assumptions. I couldn’t help thinking through this excellent film that we’re marking time here in America towards the end of our own empire. We’re fighting wars for reasons we can’t define except they are going to stop foreign “terrorism.” Yet all the terrorists we now arrest are living among us.

The economy collapses but the rich are bailed out by the rest of us; and then the rich get even richer making money on the money we lent them. Meanwhile the nation starves. When our enemies become strong enough, all the great visions that put us here will be valueless.

This is an epic movie, and a great movie. What makes it epic? I recently read the remarks of several Spielberg type directors on defining epics. Not one of them got it right. It’s not the special effects or the big scenes. It is the importance: the big themes. DW Griffith had it right, and so do the filmmakers of DOWNFALL.

see the clip_http://www.moviewithme.com/?m=F:124::H:roberto

21st Century naming has co-opted the word for unlucky guys whose chutes don’t open and made it into the category name for all the devices that stream video from the internet to our TVs. Roku, X-box, Playstation, Vudu, TiVo, LG TVs, Samsung TVs etc. are among the “streamers.” And the big news is that most of the new, lower-priced models of Blu-ray players are also streamers.

Many people are buying Blu-ray players because they’ve included streaming capability as well as Blu-ray. With them you can access thousands and thousands of streamed movies and TV shows on Netflix and Amazon. You can also get the ubiquitous YouTube. (Why everyone who makes streamers believes that receiving fuzzy YouTube videos on a 42-inch LCD TV is important is a mystery to me)

My forecast for Blu-ray is that it will be important for games, but will have limited impact for movies until 3-D TVs become prevalent (at least a decade). In the meantime, we’ll use Blu-ray players as streamers; except for the occasional purchase of disc to see amazing details in tropical fish or the beads of sweat on Russell Crowe’s brow.

This is very interesting news for MovieWithMe.com because our approach to reviewing movies and providing services like Meet at the Movies and Premiere Event Nights is focused towards the coming era of instant access to all movies, all the time. A filter site like ours will be there to help you choose what to stream. But the source of the streaming (where the streamers go to fill up on content) already belongs to the dominant sellers like Netflix and Amazon and iTunes that have limitless resources to store and sell from massive libraries. By luck or pluck, they already own the future before it has happened.

Movie trailers have been around for almost a hundred years, but the Iguana has evolved faster. The reason they are called “trailers” is because they were originally ads for coming attractions placed after the first film in the days of double features. Today they don’t trail, they serve as the advance advertising for upcoming movies. Or at least that is the unquestioned assumption of the film industry. So let’s question it.

Today the shelf life of most movies, or at leas the ones anyone wants to see; is infinite. Internet businesses like Netflix and Amazon.com make everything available that has ever been available. “If you liked —- you might like —-” is a phrase we all know from online recommendations. And how do we familiarize ourselves with these films? We click on the trailer. Only what we’re seeing was intended to be a loud, brassy, slick advertisement to lure us into the theater. Does it have the same impact ten years later on YouTube?

My answer is: usually not. The viewing choice we make with our laptop is often different from the viewing choice in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn balanced on our lap. We want to stoke our own curiosity instead of being told this is “the most important film of the year” (what year?) and “critics agree” and “shockingly brazen.” To be fair, contemporary trailers have been toned down some, but they still try to lead our emotions, jump cut meaningless highlights, and impress upon us that the film is uniquely important.

But the “pull” advertising world of the net rejects all of this. One subtle scene that asks questions, or a short sequence that shows a unique dramatic turn, or an absurd moment everyone can relate to–are inducements we respond to on the net. At MovieWithMe.com we understand this and we spend a lot of time and effort (and money) trying to show you what might compel you to buy or rent the movie (from someone else, because we don’t sell you anything but ideas). Think we’re unique? Not a chance. Take a look at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart the next time Jon interviews a guest with a new movie. They will always show you a scene, never a trailer. They know what they are doing and they know their audience. Too bad the guys in the movie biz don’t know as well.