Dolls, Josie and the Pussycats, & The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Dolls is the very melancholy Takeshi Kitano movie about the danger of love. And I was crying for around the last hour or more. Horribly sad. But absolutely beautiful and the Joe Hisaishi score was the same. That it follows perfectly from Kitano's earlier yakuza films is not nearly as surprising as some of the reviews have said. The people need to see more of his movies to have a reason to say that. Or maybe note that instead of having the violent parts, it's just the quiet ones. Mainly, there's a bit of violence. But it's the typical Kitano violence, with almost all of it happening off screen, and occasionally just the dead bodies to show for it. But the stories in this movie, of which there are three, in case you were wondering, are all heartbreaking. People who love beyond all reason, and who love so much that there's nothing left but love, even after losing something very important. And those people are loved by people who end up giving up everything. Everyone seems to do that. Unfortunately, the pop star segment isn't as good as the yakuza and the bound beggars segments. The best part of it is that song which is still stuck in my head.

Josie and the Pussycats was made by the same people who made Can't Hardly Wait, one of the best of the recent teen films. This one has a great soundtrack, with Adam Schlesinger (from the excellent Fountains of Wayne), the lead singer of Letters to Cleo, Matthew Sweet, Babyface, and Bif Naked, you know that there's some serious rock talent behind this movie. That the music is very good makes the somewhat disposable plot much easier to take is an added bonus. Having Parker Posey and Alan Cumming chewing the scenery was also immensely fun. And the boy band, Du Jour, is hilarious (Du Jour means Dr. Zaius was perfect!), and Mr. Moviefone, Carson Daly, Babyface, and Eugene Levy turn in great cameos. Rachel Leigh Cook is supremely hot, Tara Reid is hilariously ditzy, and, unfortunately, Rosario Dawson is by far the weak link in the trio. But the most interesting part of the movie was the bizarrely immense amount of product placements. I do sort of want McDonald's shower curtains and bathroom tiles though. Jerkin! Satire is the new comedy!

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was a very strange film. Good, but strange. Plus, characters were from Cincinnati. Woo for the crappy Tri-state area getting a shout-out! It has a very good cast, nice bits of disjointed timeline filmmaking, and looks very good. The humor in it is very dry, with the anti-freeze, the soap opera, and the coffeepot... well, actually the coffeepot isn't all that dry. I can recommend the film to anyone who is interested in a look into an area of the country that doesn't get that much unbiased press. Not an amazing film, but a worthwhile one.