we didn't watch much in august because we went on vacation so most of the things we did watch were related to our trip somehow--i.e., they were set in or about brazil or argentina.

30 days: season 2 - i enjoyed the first season so i wanted to see the second season. i think the segments on immigration and prison life are worth the rental. after that would be the episode on abortions. all of these are hot issues and the episodes do make you think a bit. actually, these issues are too hot for me to even really go into. i'm still in vacation mode. you should just watch it if it interests you.

behind the sun - this is about a family feud in rural brazil 100 years ago or so). it's about family for most of the picture but it's also a little bit about other things like love, which usually gets thrown into a film somehow. not particularly a great movie but i'm realizing now that i've seen the main actor rodrigo santoro in a few films already.

four days in september - this is based on a true story. it's about the first kidnapping of an american ambassador. it took place in brazil. one of the members of the group that carried this out wrote a book and the film is based on the book. this is during the period of dictatorship so the group had been trying to get their messages across of how bad things are and for change but they needed to send a bigger message to get through the media's censorship. that's when they came up with the idea of kidnapping the american ambassador. it's actually a very interesting story and film.

kiss of the spider woman - i watched this one because i read the book earlier this year in preparation for the trip. i had wanted to read authors from brazil and argentina to get literary sense of each country. while i had difficulty finding brazilian authors at the library i went to, this film makes up for it because the book is written by an argentine but the film takes place in brazil and is directed by an argentine-born brazilian. it's hard to say if the film captures the book because i wasn't that enthusiastic about the book. i'm also not sure if i see in this film what others saw when it was first released. i was a kid but i remember it was a big deal. maybe if only for the gay prison sex which is nothing worth noting for me.

discovery atlas: brazil revealed - discovery has a series on countries and my friend mentioned watching several of them so i decided to check out the one on brazil. it should give me another overview of the country, right? well, not really. i was able to watch some of the segments before my player completely gave up on it. the disc is just too scratched. there was no time so i went on my trip without finishing it. when i returned, i couldn't get it to play further on the computer either. it wasn't exciting enough to request again therefore i can't exactly recommend this unless you like the discovery series. this was the first one i've seen and netflix doesn't have very many of the series. perhaps not many are available on dvd yet. i haven't bothered to research why netflix doesn't have many countries available.