Scooby Doo! Ghastly Goals, on Tubi

While they are in Brazil, maybe the Scooby gang can solve the mystery of the missing light-rail. They started construction to service the 2014 World Cup, but it remains unfinished. At least you can see long stretches of rail going nowhere. That is more than the state of California has to show for the $15.7 billion spent on its light-rail boondoggle. However, Mystery Incorporated has a more pressing monster to unmask in Victor Cook’s Scooby-Doo! Ghastly Goals, which premieres tomorrow on Tubi.

If ever there were a man and a dog who could appreciate Brazilian churrascaria, it would be Shaggy and Scooby. Instead, they partake of that famous Brazilian street food, pancakes-on-a-stick. Seriously? Frankly, every Brazilian who visits America wants to have a big lumberjack stack of pancakes because they believe (not unfoundedly) that is a very American thing to do.

However, there is plenty of soccer/football. Ghastly Goals was an original episode-length Scooby mystery commissioned for a sports-themed boxset to tie-in with the then upcoming World Cup in Brazil. To be fair, they do a decent job recreating the sights and colors of Rio. The monster, the Eshu, is of Yoruba origin, which does indeed have a place in Afro-Brazilian tradition and lore. Perhaps the lab they visit, thanks to an empty test-tube clue, also appears to be somewhat inspired by Oscar Niemeyer’s flying saucer-looking Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum.

Obviously, this is a cartoon featuring a talking dog who likes to eat, so you should judge it by those standards. However, screenwriters Eric Maher & Kay Reindl’s ultra-frenetic caper, involving a missing autographed football injected with a dangerous super-bouncy formula, lacks the spookiness of the best Scooby episodes. It also ignores the best of Brazilian cuisine, like feijoada, coxinha, pao de queijo, and picanha. They can blame the Eshu, but Scooby and Shaggy do Brazil all wrong.

They Shot the Piano Player, the Bossa Animated Doc

It is a Bossa Nova mystery that technically remains unresolved, even though it is pretty clear what happened. Francisco Tenorio Jr. (who was simply billed as Tenorio Jr.) could have been the great piano improvisor of the Bossa Nova movement, even though a lot more bop came out in his solos than most of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, he disappeared off the streets of Buenos Aires when he went out looking for cigarettes or a sandwich (stories vary slightly in this respect). That was on the eve of the military coup and he looked like a scruffy musician, because he was. Years later, fictional magazine writer Jeff Harris sets out to tell his story in Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal’s animated hybrid documentary They Shot the Piano Player, which opens Friday in New York.

It all started with a magazine article about Bossa Nova. Would it be fair to ask someone to sum up punk rock in 2,500 words, because Bossa Nova would be even harder. Regardless, it was apparently all new to New Yorker readers. Indeed, the article is such a hit, Jessica offers him a contract to expand it into a book (by the way, if there are any interested editors out there, I’m available and kinda sorta speak Portuguese). Soon thereafter, Harris is back in Brasil, conducting interviews with Bossa Nova legends, arranged by his old friend, Joao.

However, Harris soon falls into a Tenorio Jr. wormhole, having discovered the pianist’s only session as a leader. Of course, Joao enables him, helping secure interviews with Tenorio’s widow and close musical collaborators. Inevitably, the trail leads him to Argentina, where the government’s human rights commission is always more than happy to discuss the Dirty War.

In Chico & Rita, Trueba exposed the oppression of Castro’s Cuba, so maybe it is only fair he takes aim at the Brazilian and Argentine military coups this time around. Both films look and sound incredibly cool, because they combine jazz and animation. They also have one happy constant: the late, amazingly great Bebo Valdez, who appears (animated) as himself, playing one of Tenorio’s tunes.

In fact, the music might even be better in They Shot the Piano Player. We hear classic selections from Joao Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Vinicius de Moraes, and, obviously, Tenorio. Plus, there are rotoscoped (live action translated into animation) interviews with the likes of Chico Buarque, Joao Donato, Edu Lobo, and Milton Nascimento. Yet, perhaps the most emotionally resonant segment features Bud Shank (who sold an awful lot of collaborations with Brazilian musicians in the 1960s, but never truly got the recognition he deserves), who apparently learned Tenorio’s tragic fate during the interview.

Coming Soon: Manda Bala

Americans essentially have two cinematic views of Brazil. One is the lush romanticism of films like Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus and Bruno Barreto’s Bossa Nova. The other is the grittier naturalism of Fernando Meirelles’ City of God and Carlos Diegues’ Orfeu. Jason Kohn’s new documentary, Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), is definitely more in line with the latter, giving audiences an inside glimpse into the rampant kidnappings, widespread political corruption, and frog farms of contemporary Brazil, arguing they are all connected.

As Bala opens, it announces itself as “a film that can’t be shown in Brazil.” Whether that is true or not, it certainly was not produced in conjunction with the tourism board or the chamber of commerce. It introduces us to São Paolo through its luxury skyscrapers, each with a heliport, to facilitate the only means of travel considered safe by many residents. Kidnappings are literally a daily occurrence. The practice of slicing off ears to send as proof of life is so widespread it makes plastic surgeon Dr. Juarez Avelar wealthy and famous for his specialized reconstructive technique.

We also meet Jadar Barbalho, the former President of the Senate and governor of the Para province. He was implicated in the plundering of literally billions of dollars from SUDAM, the state development agency for the Amazon region, but remains immune from prosecution by virtue of holding national elected office. In the ending credits he is billed as the “corrupt politician” (the filmmakers do bring an attitude to bear on their subjects). As part of the SUDAM scandal he allegedly embezzled $9,000,000 earmarked for building a $300,000 frog farm. It is that frog farm that provides some of the more surreal images interspersed throughout the film. For instance, the audience is shown the inner workings of the frog slaughterhouse, and it is not particularly pretty (you may never eat frog again after seeing the film). However, the most disturbing images come from kidnappers’ videotapes.

A woman called “Patricia” represents those legions of victims. She endured a harrowing ordeal that required Dr. Avelar’s services for both ears on her eventual release. We also meet a kidnapper, called “Magrinho,” who tries to justify himself as a Subcommander Marcos style class warrior. Despite his claims of using ransom money to pave his neighborhood, the streets we see him walk show no sign of pavement or maintenance of any sort. He is simply a sociopath—one of many, evidently. The heroes of Bala are people like Camila, and the entrepreneur who calls himself “Mr. M,” whose work helps drive the engine of the local economy, but lives in fear despite his love for his city of São Paolo.

In spite of the widespread crime and corruption Bala documents, it cannot fully escape the romantic appeal of Brazil. Heloisa Passos’ gorgeous cinematography captures the color and vibrancy of Brazil’s architecture and landscapes. While no original soundtrack was composed, a wide selection of Brazilian music was licensed creating an impressive cross-section of the country’s music. Artists represented include: Jorge Ben, Baden Powell, Tom Zé, Tim Maia, Egberto Gismonti, Trio Mocoto, Os Mutantes, Jorge Mautner, Alceu Valença, Gal Costa, and of course, Caetano Veloso.

While Bala can surely tie the crooked Barbalho to the frog farm, it does not explicitly connect the dots between the national political corruption and the endemic street crime terrorizing São Paolo’s citizens, as the filmmakers intended. Still, it remains a consistently fascinating film that is always a pleasure to listen to, even when it presents bizarre and disturbing images. It opens in New York at the Angelika on August 17th.