Mixed Blood

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Claudio C Mixed Blood (1984) Not Even Marília Pêra Saves This Amateurish and Ridiculous Film by Paul Morrisey (11,799 – 01 Jul 2025 – by Claudio Carvalho) In the derelict and poor Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Brazilian Rita La Punta (Marília Pêra) is the leader of a teenage gang of drug dealers and hookers named Maceteros. Her son Thiago (Richard Ulacia) is slow, and Rita protects and sleeps with him in the same bed all the time. When the Puerto Rican gang commanded by Juan the Bullet (Angel David) starts a war against the Maceteros, several casualties happen in both sides. “Mixed Blood” (1984) is an amateurish and ridiculous film by Paul Morrissey that not even the magnificent Marília Pêra is able to save. The first ridiculous point is the name of Marília Pêra’s character (Rita La Punta) and her gang, Maceteros, which are not Brazilian names. The music score has only one Brazilian old song from the 50’s sang by Marília Pêra that many Brazilian young people has never heard. The rest is composed by annoying Latin music and rhythm and there is no Brazilian music or rhythm. The locations in the American slums are very poor but probably adequate for the storyline. The amateurish actors do not have Brazilian biotype but are typical from Latin American. Thiago is one of the most important roles in the story, but Richard Ulacia is not an actor; therefore, has an awful performance and is impossible to be understood by no native viewers that speak English. Most of the amateurish cast is hard to be understood by no native viewers in English, and the worst is that the DVD released by Image Entertainment does not have subtitles. In the end, “Mixed Blood” is a turkey indicated for fans of Paul Morrissey. And it becomes a comedy with the awful performances of the cast. My vote is three. Title (Brazil): Not Available. My Blog: https://maniacosporfilme.wordpress.com/ Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 07/02/25 Full Review Audience Member Likely my favourite movie. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Outrageous Paul Morrissey cult film is weird, funny and violent. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Andy Warhol's regular director, Paul Morrissey, brings this unimpressive attempt at black humor in a comedy of manners, telling the story about two street gangs in a turf war in "Alphabet City" on the lower east side of New York City. What's meant to be funny and clever simply comes across as amateurish and condescending to it's subject matter. Weak! Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A gritty farce about gang warfare which does for "West Side Story" what director Paul Morrissey's later masterpiece "Spike of Bensonhurst" did for the "Rocky" and "Saturday night Fever" inspired Hollywood fantasies. Featuring a beautiful and distinctive cast (Richard Ulacia is framed exactly like Joe Dallesandro) of mostly non-professionals, artful Bressonian blocking. The opening sequence establishes a rhythm of exchanged and stolen glances which sets the pace for the music-of-looks that underline the characters relationships and suspicions of each other. Marilia Pera's mother figure/Brazilian gang leader is analogous to Ernest Borgnine's joyous mob boss in "Spike of Bensonhurst," and this is a similar social criticism and humored depiction of the triangulations necessary to maintaining a family amidst a crumbling social order and the strange and timeless relationship between race and the family unit ; also similarly racist (i.e. honest by today's standards) and moving as the latter film.The major difference is that with Mixed Blood Morrissey is more firmly tied to the formal design of his exacting blocking, as his young gang members march across the beautiful ruins of the lower east side tenements of 1984. The uplifting Carribean pop provides the hopeful frame to Morrissey's pessimistic and sardonic social view. A major sequence take place in a real nyc store devoted entirely to Menudo merchandise. The difficulty for critics to wrap their heads around Morrissey's work has much to do with how deeply permeating liberal humanistic truisms have become film culture. The final shot and exchange between mother and son is a perfectly articulated and poetic moment of abrupt limbo. Highly recommended. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member I am a great fan of Marilia Pera and she did not disappointed me at all in this movie. I really believe that some lines she delivered in Portuguese should have been translated, because they are really good and funny. The movie itself is tragically funny, but it is quite interesting to watch the East Village when it was a colored neighborhood. What a change... Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Mixed Blood

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