1822 by Laurentino Gomes

This bestseller by Laurentino Gomes (the same who wrote 1808) tells us how our country became a country. Almost 50 years after the USA independence, D. Pedro shouted in Ipiranga's edge that we don't belong to Portugal anymore.
But it wasn't just a shout. The Brazil has been the most important possesion for Portuguese people up till now and, of couse, they wouldn't want to just lose it. Then the war began.
And the worst: Brazil was broke in 1822, 60% of the people were slaves and the rich people were few (and now very educated). There was not any faithful captain, because all of them were, of course, Portuguese. And just 3 states recognized D. Pedro as the leader.
One of the most important leaders of the independence was Jose Bonifacio. When D. Pedro was born, Bonifacio was one of the most respected scientists of that generation, but all he wanted was to live in a peaceful farm. This did not happen. Bonifacio was summoned against his will to be the minister when D. Pedro ruled the country.
Ms Leopoldina, Jose Bonifacio and Lord Cochrane had made the independence more than the most known hero, D. Pedro. And 1822 tells us how did this happen with the opinions of studiers such as Tobias Monteiro, Octávio Tarquinio de Souza and the biographers of the characters. It's an interactive way to study our history and read a book.

Our future

Now we need to stop our film reviews to talk about an decisive moment in the future of the country, which includes the election for president. The candidates are Ms Rousseff from PT and Mr Serra from PSDB.

Ms Rousseff was a warrior during the militar dictatorship. She seems to be doing better than Serra because she got the assist of the last president, Lula. But she doesn't get any experience in the range of politics.

Mr Serra has got the assist of many important politics like Aecio Neves, Mr Alckmin and Mr Anastasia, but he seems to be losing. Universitary teachers say FHC has "destroyed the universities", then they won't like Serra as a president.

It may be hard to decide who do you vote, but now it's harder to decide who you won't vote. The election is tomorrow and there is a short time. Ms Rousseff and Mr Serra are not the only polemic candidates in Brazil's elections this year, i.e., how could the clown Tiririca become a deputy?

And if Mr Serra and Ms Rousseff are almost in a draw, one single vote can make a big turn.

500 Days of Summer

Releasing year: 2009

Duration: 1h37'

Gender: Comedy, Drama

Director: Marc Webb

Staring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz, Matthew Grey Gubber.

Soundtrack: Mychael Danna, Rob Simonsen, Regina Spektor, The Smiths, Black Lips, Doves, Hall & Oates, The Temper Trap, Carla Bruni, Feist, Simon & Garfunkel, Wolfmother, Mumm-Ra, Meaghan Smith, She & Him.

"This is not a love story, this is a story about love"

Tom was a man influenced by English music. Since he's a teenager, he believed that he couldn't be happy until he meets his soul mate. He seemed a normal man with a normal job and a normal life, but everything changed when Summer began to work as a secretary in his office.

Summer seemed a normal woman, but she seemed to cause some kind of people's approach. Some would say it's a "Summer effect". But in a big city such as New York, how could Tom meet Summer? And would she be, after many girls, his soul mate?

Tom was almost sure of it, but as Summer said, true love, destiny and soul mates are fairytales. And with Summer, Tom spent the five hundred best (and worst) days of his life, thus learning many things about the real meaning of love.

This movie has a very good story, but the best in the film is the soundtrack, by The Smiths and a lot of artists. Very funny sometimes (Summer is quite crazy) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt acts well as a man in love (you can see him in "10 Things I Hate About You").

Supersize Me- You'll never see junk food as you used to

Releasing year: 2004
Duration: 1h40'

Gender: Documentary
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Staring: Alexandra Spurlock, Lisa Ganjhu, Daryl Isaacs, Stephen Siegel, Don Gorske.

This film is a documentary with so much impact, that shows us the success of fast food companies and turning the fun of eating two tasty Big Mac per week in a difficult question for your health. The challenge was to eat this food at the richest junk food company in the world-McDonald's-for 30 days. And Morgan Spurlock risked himself doing it. Spurlock's rules were:

1- He should only buy food at McDonald's. Even water.
2- He should eat three times a day. Not more, not less
3- He should eat everything in the menu until the end of the month (he did it in 9 days).
4- He should Super Size only when asked.

Before Febuary Spurlock was about 84Kg and was 1,90m tall. His CM was about 23. His cholesterol and sugar levels was normal and he didn't drink smoke. In the first day, everything got OK, but in the 2nd day Spurlock ate his first Super Size supper. It made him sick

In his second weight, in the 5th day, he was weighting 88,5Kg. He needed only 2500 calories a day but in his McDiet he ate almost 5000 calories a day.

In the third weighting, it got down to 87Kg. Good? I guess he didn't think so. In fact, muscles weight more than fat. Morgan was losing his muscle weight and getting fat.

Some of the major fast food places were visited by him. The fattest city in USA, Houston, is home to many McDonald's. Only in Manhathan, there are more than 80 McDonald's. Experts concluded that obesity and diabetes in children are growing. If someone get diabetic at 15, she loses 23-27 years of life. It is said that 25% of the american people eat fast food daily.

Scary numbers? See those: 1 bagel used in hamburgers is equal to 5 slices of bread. A small McDonald's fries, the original size, has 200 calories, but a Super Size fries has 600. One DoubleGulp soda from 7-11 has 64 ounces, and 48 teaspoons of sugar.


In the 21th day Morgan was feeling too bad. His expert Daryl Isaacs told him to stop that ridiculous thing he was doing, but Morgan felt he could survive nine days more. And he didn't stop. In the final weight-in he has over 90Kg. It took 14 months to lose all the weight he gained. And Spurlock had doubled chances to have a heart attack, very high cholesterol and his damages in the liver and kidney were irreversible.

The documentary was released months after it. McDonald's cancelled the Super Size option and added other sandwiches with more variety. They said that decision had nothing to do with this movie. A lot of people has abandoned fast food in their lifestiles.

Everyone knows fast food has always been a danger to our health. If this is the way you want to go, see the impact it may cause: hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, gall blader disease, asteoarthritis, sleep aphea, respiratory problems, cancer (endometrial, breast, prostate, colon), steatohepatitis, dyslipedemia, insulin resistance, asthma, hyperucemia, reproductive hormone anormalities, POS, impaired fertility and adult onset diabates.

This documentary changes our idea of junk food drastically and became famous all over the world for it's impact and polemic.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Based in J.K.Rowling's Bestseller, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
"A journey over your imagination"- The Warner Bros. Company
Director: Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Barnathan, Duncan Henderson.
Genre: Fantasy (adventure and drama)
Rating: 10
Release date: 2002
Duration: 2h34'
Actors: Daniel Radcliffe as Harry;
Rupert Grint as Ronnie;
Emma Watson as Hermione;
Staring: John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths, Richard Harris, Ian Hart, John Hurt, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters.
Plot: In Harry´s 12th Birthday the Dursley were so selfish that everything Harry wanted is to come back to the Hogwarts School of Witchcratf and Wizardry. But in the time he's ready to go, a strange creature called Dobby came to give bad news and warns Harry can't go back because of a catastrophe.
And it really happens. He's got to stand by the arrogant teacher Lockhart, avoid Corin, ignore Gina Weasley and Moaning Myrtle's chush for him and so on. But the most horrible thing is the petrification of Muggle-born students. Who's causing this? Is it Draco Malfoy, more dangerous than ever? Maybe Hagrid, making clear it's misterious past attacking Muggles with a giant spider? Or the person attacking and causing fear, panic and pain in the school is the principal suspect of everyone... Harry Potter himself? How is he and his best friends going to discovery and finish this menace that scares all Hogwarts?

Based on JK rowling's novel this film is really fantastic and helps you to realze that every family has the same wealth: the love between it's members. No family is better than another and everyone deserves to live and be happy. We have to understand that we cannot suspect from faithful friends, too.
We can all se that it took a long time to do this movie. Most of the special effects are lights and bolts coming from wands. The flying can should have taken a long and annoying part of the work. Its was interesting to know about the production, made by the same directors and Richard Francis-Bruce. John Seale had to work with the photography, helped by Chris Columbus and Duncan Henderson. No one knows how did they make the car "fly".
Soon Duncan had the idea of creating stunning creatures, ghosts and persons, like Dobby, Almost Headless Nick, the Moaning Myrtle, Aragog, the basilisk and even Hagrid. Yes, it was hard, to not say it took MONTHS, annoying and frustrating months working. But now the film has finished, aii those characters are the greatest part of the Harry Potter saga.
All Harry Potter films can be compared to this one, but it turned out great. Harry Potter looks a lot like Eragon or Percy Jackson sagas. Every fantasy novel has a little piece of Harry Potter on it.
Hope you enjoy the movie!!!

Welcome to Belo Horizonte

At first in the blog, we'd like you to see our city. It's not as known as Paris, Londres or Ontario, but for us it's the most wonderful city.
It's a long way to arrive here (I hope you have slept well), but there are many things you should see. Minas Gerais is about 3000 feet over the sea level. Many roads like BR-040 lead to the town. Be warned, it's very big, you might get lost there if you don't have a guide or map. Here is a map from the town.
There are many interesting things in Belo Horizonte, that makes the city a good place for you to travel in the holiday and vacations.
Personally, I think if you want to know the whole city you're going to take an eternity. The best places to visit are Pampulha, Praça do Papa and Mineirao. This photo shows Praça da Liberdade, a well-known place in BH, near Palácio das Artes. I hope you like it.

If you are looking for a place to stay, you should visit Hotel Mercury. Trust me, it's the best hotel you can find here.


If you are looking for a place where you can eat, I suggest you Macau. Fish and rice here are the best food you can find (that's a little odd, because we have no sea in BH). Every shopping here has a good restaurant.
Now if you want to go shopping, you went to the right place! The best shoppings here are BH, Diamond, Patio Savassi and Woods. When you feel like buying food, the best place you can go is Carrefour. Electrodomestics are on sale at Casas Bahia and Ricardo Eletro shops.

The language here is Portuguese. It may look hard to learn, it might even take years, but you can always find a Portuguese teacher or a dictionary. The best dictionaries are Oxford, Collins and Michaelis, but the best overall is Longman.

I hope you have a nice trip!

One year without the King of Pop

All of us lived a sad long moment waiting for the tour "This is It", from Michael Jackson, a show that was supposed to happen in 2009, but didn't happen. It's really painful to accept that the most wonderful (or strangest, perhaps) popstar of this generation.
There were a lot of polemic about his life, for the example, he'd got an awful reputation of a pedo after Gavin Arvizo's judgement. It is said that he was born black too, and that's just a half of it. We don't believe Michael was a pedo or has some kind of prejudice against black persons, but some people still think that it's the truth.



This is the greatest Michael Jackson's album and the best album ever in selling: more than 54 million copies! After it comes Back in Black from AC/DC (42 million copies), Greatest Hits from The Eagles (39 million), Bat out of Hell from Meat Loaf (37 million) and Dark Side of The Moon from Pink Floyd (36 million). The difference between Thriller copies and the 2nd placed, Back in Black, is about 12 million copies.
Thriller had two great hits: Beat It (such an awful videoclip, but the music has a very good beat) and Billie Jean (the Eternal Moonwalk). Rede Globo was receiving videos of people trying to make the Moonwalk with feet, hands and even Moonwalking animals!
Thriller itself has an awesome videoclip (it was more sucessful than the music itself).
And than the Bad and Dangerous ages began. Bad was the last album Michael recorded uninjured.
With the percussion party Olodum in Salvador, recording the vidoeclip in Rio de Janeiro, the artist recorded the song "They Don't Care About Us". It's videoclip, in our opinion, is almost as bad as Beat It's but as it the music is well-crafted (not enough to get into history).
Other minor records were HIStory, Blood On The Dance Floor, Invincible, Number Ones and The Essential.
Finally he recorded Thriller's 25th Aniversary in 2008 with his greatest hits. Injured, polemic and with a strange behavior, his debits were millions of dollars.
About a year past he suffered a heartbreak in his own home (LA). He was in Brazil three times: the first time was in 1974, he was 16 and the Jackson 5 were making a tour around South America, the second one was in 1993, he had two shows in Morumbi, and the third was in 1996 during the They Don't Care About Us records.
This is It shall be done by an orchestra in memory of him, but without him it won't be the same thing.