And now for something completely different . . .
Seemed like the appropriate way to start a post about a Terry Gilliam movie (he was a member of Monty Python).
I saw Brazil over the weekend. It was my first time seeing it in almost 20 years (eek!). I saw it in high school when it came out in 1985. I remember it being pretty and weird--and it is--but I was floored by the timeliness of the movie for 2004. The movie takes place "Sometime in the 20th Century" (there was still some 20th century left when it came out), and is a portrait of a dystopian society where everyone lives in constant fear of terrorist attacks. The goverment has used the terrorist threats to assume absolute power to arrest citizens suspected of terrorism, detain them indefinitely, and torture them into confessing to crimes they may not have committed. The rich in this society get richer and are obsessed with plastic surgery and cuisine, the poor live in dangerous slums, and a large central corporation controls everything.
Sound familiar?
Watch it. Let me know what you think. It's got a hell of a cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert Deniro, Jim Broadbent, Ian Holm, and many more. Tom Stoppard is credited on the screenplay, too.
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