Amarcord, Vincent & Theo, & Kamikaze Girls

Amarcord just tells me that I need to stop watching Fellini movies until he is responsible for more of his earlier films, and less of his later films. I just don't like them much. I think I'm going to go avoid watching anymore Fellini for a while.

Vincent & Theo has a great performance from Tim Roth. It actually doesn't really feel much like an Altman film. Very strange that, since it is. There're some shots that are clearly Altman, with zooms on tracking shots, but there aren't so many overlapping dialogue heavy scenes. There are some gorgeous shots based on Van Gogh's paintings. So it's generally a great and beautiful film, but it doesn't quite reach past the biopic aspects. It's a little more about the creation of the paintings rather than the biopic, but it still is one.

Kamikaze Girls is a crazy full film. There's some crazy ideas, crazy shots, and it has some really terrible jokes in bad taste. It's also very alive, funny, and covers an interesting and not completely freaky group of fashions in Japan. I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure about the title change, since Kamikaze Girls sort of fits, but it also just sounds like an attempt to create a vaguely Japanese sounding title. It does feel very Japanese, and the Kamikaze aspect sort of describes Momoko's actions near the end of the film, but it also has a connotation for most Americans of Japanese pilots flying planes into ships. Doesn't really fit with a story about two 17 year old girls trying to find their place in a society that seems to ignore them. Well, except when they're not staring at their strangeness. It's strange that I entirely agree with Manohla Dargis's review. It's a movie that's just immensely satisfying. Even being someone who has no experience with either Lolita or Yanki culture, having just seen pictures of some of the Lolitas in Harajuku, linked as examples of how crazy the Japanese are. Then again, this does have Universal-Versach (yes, that is misspelled, and Universal and Versach are bleeped in the film) shirts, jackets and hats, which just adds to the ridiculousness for anyone who finds Engrish silly.