>Back under a different username a long, long time ago, I think
>Brazil was the first movie I ever made a post about (it was a
>reply, really).

nice. what was your previous alias?


>Basically my displeasure with Brazil boils down to this idea
>of having all the elements on hand for a good movie, but
>squandering them and making it all into a long-winded
>confusing mistake.

I could possibly co-sign on long-winded (it DID go on for a while with all of the endings ...) and even confuzing (especially if you've only seen it once. The first time I saw it I must admit I was left scratching my head a few times and struggling to follow the script, but it is truly one of those movies that, for me, gets better with every viewing. I'm still seeing new things that I missed and I've seen it dozens of times)


>You got De Niro and his character is
>basically the impetus for all the action,

This is debatable. For me, he was a minor character, and utilized well for what Gilliam wanted the character's purpose in the movie to be.


>Then you got these mammoth and spectacular
>sets, but they never really transcend their physical size.

not sure what you mean by this. Care to elaborate?

>The
>budget, the Orwellian ideas on hand, all are squandered for a
>dank and boring look at would could have potentially been
>enthralling.

but the if the feel of the movie was "enthralling" we would have missed the point of Gilliam's vision of the future being an overbearingly "dank and boring" one. This was precicely the effect he was going for. That we (or at least those living in the British world paradigm) had become slaves to bureaucracy, mediocracy, and had basically become like machines in a vast grey wasteland of inefficiancy and psychic pollution.