Twentieth Century & Uzumaki

Twentieth Century was an early Howard Hawks/Ben Hecht film, one I'd been wanting to see for a while. It hadn't been out on DVD for too long, so it took longer than I wanted. It felt very stage-y, and Barrymore was overacting the entire time, which felt like a weird combination of stage acting and silent movie acting. Sometimes early sound films just have that serious issue. Sometimes they don't. Also it suffered from my comparisons with His Girl Friday, which are both about men trying to convince women to stay in the (man's) profession of choice. And His Girl Friday is one of the greatest films of all time, so naturally a merely good film can't handle comparison with it. Damn shame too.

Uzumaki is a great premise, a small Japanese town where people start to become obsessed with spirals and then turn into snails, and excellent film until the ending. Which just becomes completely bizarre. When I discussed the film with a friend, and she brought up that no J-Horror films end particularly well (not for the characters, but as a film), I had to agree and really, only Pulse ends strongly. Very strongly in that case, although it's still a little shocking. I find that most J-Horror is good about the premise and building tension (except Ju-On, which didn't make any sense at any point), but trying to actually make sense wasn't a high priority. Uzumaki had some great effects and built tension very well, but there really is no explanation for almost anything in it. WTF, Japan? I clearly need to learn Japanese and the read the mangas. I hear they're insane. Might make more sense, too.