Luis Carlos Barreto Movies

From the producers of Colonial House, this eight-part PBS miniseries took a family of contemporary California suburbanites and transplanted them to a reasonable facsimile of a "typical" Texas cattle ranch, vintage 1867. Patriarch Bill Cooke, in real life a hospital emergency-services administrator, donned the Stetson and buckskins of a 19th century Texas rancher, while his wife, Lisa, a part-time genealogist, laced herself into the corsets and calico of the standard-issue frontier spouse. Also going along for the ride were the Cookes' daughters, Vienna, Lacey, and Hannah, as well as Stanford University anthropology student Maura Finkelstein, who assumed the role of the Cookes' housekeeper. The ranch hands included a New Yorker of Puerto Rican heritage, a Mexican-American descended from a long line of "vaqueros," a cultural-diversity student, a journalist, a computer geek, a career soldier, and émigrés from Sweden and Great Britain. The producers saw to it that the denizens of the ranch lived under the exact conditions that they would have in the late 1860s, with all the hardships, deprivations, and insect infestations in full attendance. The menfolk were obliged to round up cattle and drive them to market, clear land, build fences, and break horses; the women were confined to the "traditional" household roles of the period, which led to a few flare-ups from the fiercely independent Cooke girls and budding-feminist Maura. There was even a Comanche raid in which one of the ranch hands was taken hostage -- with genuine Comanches reenacting the exploits of their ancestors (and griping about this latest encroachment of white people on their territory). Randy Quaid served as narrator for Texas Ranch House, which debuted in most U.S. markets on May 1, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second season of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition finds host Ty Pennington and his terrifyingly efficient team of artisans renovating the houses of even more deserving families than in Season One--all the while keeping both eyes on the clock, in order to complete their job within a very limited span of time. For starters, the team provides its combined talents to fix up the home of the motherless Wofford Family--and in the process encounters unexpected danger in the form of a gas leak. Next, the team comes to the rescue of the Garay Family, who have been threatened with a breakup at the hands of Social Services unless their dilapidated house is immediately repaired. The 12-year-old daughter of the Pope Family is allergic to sunlight, requiring the team to design a house that will not only accommodate the girl but be entirely livable for the rest of the Popes. Lee Ann Womack guest stars as the team fixes up the abode of the Woffords, who have been forced to spend all their money for their daughter's medical needs. The adoptive mother of twin sons needs the help of Pennington and company after the contractor she's hired skips with her money in the episode "The Ali Family", while a woman who has dedicated her life to helping those needier than herself is rewarded with a rebuilt house in "The Mackey Family." The one "normal" child in a family with deaf parents and a blind and autistic son elicits the aid of the Home Edition squad in "The Vardon Family", an episode featuring hearing-challenged actress Marlee Matlin; and next up, a widow who is having trouble raising her kids and making ends meet on her family farm is helped out in "The Elcano Family." In later episodes, the Burns Family try to put their lives together after being cleared of a false child-abuse charge (guesting on this episode is the one-and-only Mr. T; the matriarch of the Brodbent Family, though suffering from AIDS and cancer, wants to convince her children that life is worth living; a widow whose insurance won't cover fire damage wants to move her family out of their tiny shack and into a home with indoor plumbing a real bedrooms in "The Dore Family"; and PFC Jessica Lynch, subject of a spectacular rescue during the Second Gulf War, asks the team's help to fix up the home of the Piestewa Family, whose son was killed in Iraq. Arguably the most tension-filled episode of the season is "The Anderson Family", wherein for the first time in the series' history the team is unable to complete their renovation within the allotted time-frame. And undoubtedly the most frolicsome entry is "The Harris Family", featuring guest appearances by Florence Hendersonand The Muppets! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A father desperate to improve his family's circumstances takes them on an unusual journey in this drama from Brazil. Romão (Wagner Moura) is a truck driver who has fallen on hard times; illiterate and unable to find work at a living wage, Romão and his wife, Rose (Cláudia Abreu), decide to leave the Northwestern provinces of Brazil and head east for Rio de Janeiro, which is 2,000 miles away. With no vehicle at their disposal, Romão, Rose, and their five children make the journey on bicycles. Along the way, they face physical and emotional hardship and bear witness to the many ways in which the nation they knew is changing. Romão also finds himself coming to a crossroads with his oldest son, Antônio (Ravi Ramos Lacerda), a teenager who has become openly defiant of his parents. O Caminho das Nuvens (aka The Middle of the World) was the first dramatic feature from documentary filmmaker Vincente Amorim. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This Brazilian story is set in 1910 in a southern rural community populated by Italian immigrants. There average-looking but hard-working Angelo, a peasant, marries free-spirited and lovely Teresa. After the wedding he goes into business with the handsome Massimo. Massimo's wife is the plain but good-hearted Pierina. Their grain business grows into a major success and as they begin raising families, Massimo and Teresa find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. They end up having an affair and abandoning their less beautiful spouses. Fortunately, the two abandoned spouses discover that they too have fallen in love. The whole sinful situation becomes a thorn in the disapproving parish priest's side, and he threatens to destroy their business. But the business continues flourishing and soon both couples begin bearing more children. Happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The horror of life in a Brazilian prison from an inmate's view is chronicled in this drama based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Gracilano Ramos. The tale takes place in the 1930s when Brazil was run by dictator Getulio Vargas. It begins as the Marxist oriented protagonist is arrested with no explanation. Once imprisoned, the authorities allow him to write--provided he can find pen and paper. In the end, his writing has such impact on the public that authorities release him. Had they not, he would have died from their brutal cruelty. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this Brazilian film, an unlikely couple fall in love amid the violence of the sexual underworld. Sandra, the daughter of a police detective, is a stripper. She meets Toninho when he comes to her apartment hoping to discover a photograph which shows Toninho in the same picture with his lover, Sandra's roommate, a transvestite who committed suicide. The two of them experience love at first sight, and have a torrid affair. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this sequel to Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, Sonia Braga stars as a new wife who copes with her sexual frustration by sleeping with strangers she picks up on buses. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

In 16th-century Brazil, indigenous people of all sorts far-outnumbered Europeans, and the natives had difficulty in sorting out the different varieties and politics of Europeans. Even though the Americas were divided up for colonization by the Pope himself, at this time the French tried to challenge the Portuguese for domination in Brazil. This film follows one Frenchman (Arduino Colessanti) who has been captured by a native tribe. He is not badly treated, and is even given a woman to sleep with. However, it is made very clear to him that he is being kept as a cherished item on the menu for an upcoming feast. Despite some successful efforts to postpone his fate, not least by being useful to the tribe, he is not able to avoid it. This Portuguese language film has extensive, though appropriate, nudity and some quite gruesome footage. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Filmed with a strong sense of compassion for the impoverished and an underlying hatred for the injustice which forces them into the lives they must live, this is one of the first works from Brazil's Cinema Novo. A poor Brazilian family struggle to earn a living when they take a job overseeing the livestock of a wealthy rancher. They move into an abandoned house, and their fortunes begin to take an upward turn. The father is duped into a card game with a crooked local policeman. The ranch hand protests, and a fight ensues that results in his beating by the cop. Despite being the victim of injustice, the man believes there should be some semblance of law and order and makes no protest about the incident. A severe drought has the man moving on from the ranch with his family to earn their living elsewhere. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

1962 is known as the year of Cinema Novo -- the year that the Brazilian film movement broke. Roberto Farias was the author of an influential essay that laid the groundwork for the movement's profound economic model and later became the head of Brazil's national film distribution agency Embrafilme. As a director, Farias produced a number of compelling films in the Cinema Novo style -- loose, edgy editing coupled with stories that reveal the contradictions of Brazil's society. Train Robbery Confidential takes the stock plot of a train robbery a turns it to serve the ends of social commentary. Tiao Medonho is an easygoing gang leader with big ambitions but few plans. After stumbling upon a group of fellow petty criminals, they let Tiao in on their plot to rob a mail train carrying a month's worth of pay out to Brazil's rural areas. The robbery comes off without a hitch and the group splits up each to live the lux life. It doesn't last, however, (when does it ever?) and the police begin to zero in on Medonho. At the film's climax, his partners execute a kind of justice which serves as a revolutionary allegory and as a critique of a society that drives its poorer members to crime. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide