Andrei Rublev, The Jewel in the Crown, The Picture of Dorian Gray, & the ends of Rome & Slings & Arrows

Andrei Rublev was a three and a half hour long film about a Russian 15th century icon painter. It's by Andrei Tarkovsky, who also did the original Solaris, another extremely long Russian film. That one, however, was far better than this one. There were some good scenes, scenes that I will remember far longer than the rest of this overlong film. Maybe if I cared about icons, or, say, Russians, it would have held my interest slightly. Eh. It's really just crazy topless witches and wandering around vast flat areas in storms. And some jesting. But a big eh to the film.

The Jewel in the Crown was a 14-hour long "limited series" about the end of the British Raj done by Granada Television for ITV, but it feels just as high quality as the best BBC production. Well, except for the occasionally muddled sound and soft picture, but that's probably because it's from 16mm film, which is basically all about that. The film itself is about a British officer, his grudge against a British-born Indian, and the many people touched by both, along with a lot about the Indian National Army (Indians who fought alongside the Japanese in World War II). It's quite good, and Tim Pigott-Smith and Charles Dance, along with Geraldine James do very well. It's quite worth the listing as one of the top British productions (although any list that has Pride & Prejudice at 99 is questionable). I do wish that it were a little less depressing of an ending. And a little less obsessed with homosexuality, but then, I guess British soldiers at the time were a little flamboyant. Or, at least, more accepting of it than say, we currently are. Somehow.

Speaking of British attitudes towards homosexuality, I finished The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I never had actually read before. I'd seen the BBC movie version with Peter Firth, Jeremy Brett, and John Gielgud, and was vaguely familiar with the plot before that. The problem I had with it was the typical Wilde-isms interspersed that seemed to serve little purpose other than social commentary. Then again, the whole book was commentary, so I'm not sure why those bothered me. Also, the subtext of homosexuality was ridiculously obvious throughout. It was nowhere near as good as his plays, but his best plays are pretty much perfect in almost every way, so it's a little rough of a competition. Oh well. After finishing it, I went by Second Story Books and bought my next six books. I look forward to filling in a couple more holes in my reading.

This weekend saw the ends of two show I watched. Rome suffered from being a little too bloody (especially all the decapitations and dismemberments) and sex-obsessed, along with playing fast and loose with history. I enjoyed it. And I'm sorry to see it end, but the thing had to have been extremely expensive to produce and never got as popular as the actual good shows on HBO. Slings & Arrows finished with King Lear and Sarah Polley. Along with lots of fun backstage shenanigans with the hooker and junkie musical. I know the series wasn't supposed to run beyond the third season, but the show was just very enjoyable, and I was sorry to see that they decided not to do another series. Although they did the three best tragedies.

Romeo Is Bleeding & Southern Comfort

Romeo Is Bleeding was actually made before Pulp Fiction. After watching it, I was shocked. It has all the hallmarks of an indie ripoff of Pulp Fiction. Wait, you're saying, Pulp Fiction was itself a ripoff of many other films. Yes, but the hyperviolent, time-shifting, slightly comedic, mob film really started becoming insanely popular after Pulp Fiction. This movie is only worth watching if you enjoy Lena Olin, who is outstanding. She's about the only good thing, with the possible exception of Gary Oldman, but he is not nearly as good as he was in other films of the same vintage.

Southern Comfort is the story of a female-to-male transsexual who is dying of ovarian cancer. What an unhappy story. He even says, "The last part of me that is female is killing me." It's difficult to watch, with the knowledge that he's having problems getting treatment because the doctors don't feel comfortable treating a transsexual. That doctors, of all people, can't handle something like that is disgusting. They deal with lots of crazy stuff, far more disturbing than a woman who has become a man because she wasn't comfortable in her body. It's a unique film.

Blog Wars

Blog Wars was an hour of masturbatory congratulations by bloggers on both sides about how important they are. Haven't we gotten past that and just accepted that we're all people sitting around in our underwear making fun of all those people who think about actual reporting? Well, I'm generally not in my underwear when blogging. At least I'd look a hell of a lot better naked than most of the bloggers in this. I think. Well, at least the guys. Well, at least the fat ones. Really, it's nothing at all new for those of us who have actually been reading blogs since 2002. Yeah, I'm one of those early adopters. Most bloggers don't avoid having those archives available easily, allowing for quick reference on how to make fun of them. Because they all seem to love themselves, and, in the case of John Hinderaker, it's both too much and literally. Have you ever read his posts about Miss America? He needs to embrace his inner moppet and spank it a lot. Maybe he'd stop being so Republican. This has devolved. I was surprised by bits of it, mainly in the structure, but it just made me want to hurt Joe Lieberman and Dan Gerstein a lot. Self-serving pricks. And made me want to force Michelle Malkin to spend some time in an internment camp, just to see how she likes it. But this is all neither here nor there. It's a 60 minute long documentary mainly focusing on the Lamont-Lieberman primary and the blog reaction to the race along with a brief history of blogs. I couldn't help but notice that the right-wing blogs were completely unhinged, while the Democratic blogs were only slightly unhinged. Partisan bias? Not here.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8.1 & Heroes

Being such a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I couldn't really skip out on reading the comic of season 8 now, could I? It feels like a show, but on a bigger canvas, due to the new state of Dawn. It does feel like only half a show though, as it never really hit enough of a plot for a real episode. I love that I'm getting more of the show though, so looking a gift lion in the mouth is probably a bad idea. Not enough Willow or Giles, since they really only got a mention, but we did get some Xander, which makes me happy, along with an explanation for The Girl in Question Angel episode. That's one annoying thing down. Speaking of Angel, there's apparently going to be a 6th season of Angel in comic book form as well. I'm not sure about that, considering how perfectly that show ended. But it's Joss, so we'll see, because he can probably deal with it very well. I will continue to read these.

I finally broke down and embraced my inner nerd even more and started to watch Heroes. I spent pretty much all weekend watching the first 18 episodes. Basically, how can you hate a show that knows how to use George Takei and Malcolm McDowell, not to mention Eric Roberts (yeah, it's a joke...), Richard Roundtree, Clea Duvall, Christopher Eccleston, and Nicole Bilderback (ok, she was only a Cordette on Buffy, but still, she was instantly familiar)? Oh, and I will enjoy anything Greg Grunberg is in, far more than I should. It's really fun, goofy, and I want to be Hiro. Wait... No, I really do. I'm happy this show is doing well, because it is definitely doing something you don't see on TV. Even if that is more vivisections than I normally would expect. Quite a bit of gore on the show, which surprises me, considering it's on at 9. I mean, we can't show nipple but we can show many people split in two or worse, and heads sliced open? Even with that though, how many shows have me grinning like an idiot that frequently? How long until the next episode?

An Inconvenient Truth, The Idiot, Harakiri, & Sunday in the Park with George

An Inconvenient Truth was quite good, not that it presented all that much new information. I mean, except that we're all pretty much doomed to have to learn how to swim. The little bit of Futurama just reminded me of how great that show was. Man, that show was consistently the best cartoon ever. Mainly because it wasn't allowed to go far too long. But it also rewards intelligence, nerdiness, scientific and mathematical knowledge. The couple digressions about Gore's life don't entirely add that much to the story, except to show that the science around smoking was against it, and industry didn't want to accept those truths either. It's clearly an important film, and the message is essential enough that the Oscar win cannot be begrudged it, unless you don't believe in climate change. Which, if you do, shows a distinct lack of intelligence. I do want to point out what most people don't seem to understand: Al Gore didn't win an Oscar. Davis Guggenheim did. Al Gore is not an Oscar winner. Then again, he was elected president and people took that away from him.

The Idiot is Akira Kurosawa's love letter to Fyodor Dostoevsky, and it is outstanding. Depressing as hell, but that's to be expected. It was also, apparently, almost two hours longer in the original version. I've never read any Dostoevsky, but I have seen The Brothers Karamazov on the stage, and I saw Crime and Punishment in Suburbia (that's sort of a joke... well, the movie was). He always seemed like one of those depressing Russian writers discussing being depressed and horrible things happening for hundreds of pages. Weird how that is. Especially since I was right. There are only so many days in my life I can read utterly depressing Russian works of literature. There are many more hours I can watch great films of depressing Russian works of literature, so I was quite happy to watch this. Well, I liked that I was able to watch this, not that I was at any point happy watching this. Because all movies like this do is remind me of things I have messed up in relationships. I'm not quite sure whether that makes me associate more with Kameda or with Ayako. Either would be depressing enough. And I'm not suggesting that anyone I was attracted to was a kept woman. I don't think so, at least.

Harakiri is Masaki Kobayashi's denunciation of the Samurai culture. I'd only seen Kwaidan, but man, he's very talented. The facade of samurai culture needed to be poked, and mocked, and more. Committing seppuku because it's honorable is a joke. Man, suicide is stupid. Ritualized suicide is even stupider. The script, by Shinobu Hashimoto, who did pretty much every great Kurosawa film of the 50s, is excellent, and Tatsuya Nakadai is suitably anguished and threatening as the vengeance seeking father. The scene of seppuku by bamboo sword was horribly painful. It's always nice to be reminded that bamboo can't cut very well.

Sunday in the Park with George is a Sondheim musical, so some of the songs are far too complicated. However, if you ever needed to be reminded of how talented Mandy Patinkin is, just watch this, as he's excellent as Georges Seurat, and Bernadette Peters is also quite good. The musical wasn't nearly as good as Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, or Into the Woods. Better than Pacific Overtures, though. Maybe I should see that one again, because I saw that one a long time ago, and the first time I saw Sweeney Todd, I didn't care for it at all. Sondheim is definitely not the easiest to appreciate, although I'd take him in an instant over Andrew Lloyd Sucker. Man, I hate him. Yes, I do. I love that there are options to watch the original Broadway cast performances of these musicals.

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Sherman's March, The Woodsman, & Othello

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib was extremely distressing. Depressing, as well. That Americans could possibly do the things that they did in Abu Ghraib is a permanent stain upon our country. The use of the Milgram experiment footage fits quite well with the concept of a government that not only condones, but encourages torture. Graner's commendation for his work at Abu Ghraib definitely suggests that it was encouraged. It's definitely interesting, even if there was nothing I didn't already know (except for the bits blurred out in the pictures available online, but I am familiar enough with the male anatomy that I didn't need them unblurred). That it is available really does make one wonder why anyone thinks that torture is a good way to do anything except turn people against you.

Sherman's March: A Mediation to the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation is both an interesting and inherently masturbatory look at one man's search for a woman to love in the 1980s South. It's quite long, but that allows for a slow rhythm to be created allowing the film to live up to that subtitle. Ross McElwee is an odd man, although I do wish that constantly carrying a video camera around would help you pick up women now rather than just have them think you're a creep. McElwee is clearly not a creep, since he seems to be genuinely nice to everyone, except possibly Burt Reynolds, but he deserves it. The biographical aspects of Sherman do work quite well with Ross's look at his love-life (and lack thereof). The survivalists who were building tennis courts don't really fit in well with anything, except the shambling nature of the documentary. Not quite as focused on Bright Leaves, but quite worth watching if you either enjoy 80s female hair or navel gazing. I do wonder if that exercise works to fix cellulite, though. Maybe I just need to watch more women do that to make sure...

The Woodsman bothered me because it was Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. Actually, it's mainly Kyra Sedgwick. Not a big fan of hers. It does deal with the important issue of how to reintegrate sex offenders into society without turning them into repeat offenders, but just eh. I didn't like anyone in the film, except Robin, so I pretty much was just eh. I didn't care. I guess it was good, and Mos Def occasionally was interesting, but eh.

Othello was the one with Orson Welles in blackface. Yes... sigh... I wish that it was just because they couldn't have a black man kissing a white woman, but it's really because it wasn't that big of an issue. It is more visually interesting than most of Shakespeare's movies, but I am not at all a fan of the play. Give me King Lear any day. It's just overwhelmingly depressing, with the innocents punished far too much, being unnecessarily unpleasant. I wish Welles had made a movie that didn't require him to wear blackface. It's good despite that, though.

Dead Like Me, Gate of Flesh, Story of a Prostitute, & The Yakuza Papers

Dead Like Me was Showtime trying to do Six Feet Under but without the pot. Well, a lot less pot. It's quite fun, and probably would have gone to a very interesting finish, had it really been allowed to finish. That was sort of frustrating, because I wanted to know what happened to these characters. They're pretty interesting, because just when you think one's gone too far, they are able to do something interesting with them. Without resorting to something that completely changes their entire character randomly. Which I hate. I really did just associate myself with George, showing that Bryan Fuller can create great female characters (Crap, I didn't even realize he was working on Heroes... Damnit, gotta start watching). Man, I miss Wonderfalls. And I would have missed Dead Like Me if I had Showtime and would have watched it. I do wish they had taken a little more advantage of having Mandy Patinkin, with maybe a silly Spanish accent, or more than just one song. Drunkeoke! And I know the producers were upset with Rebecca Gayheart, but they couldn't have brought her back for an episode or something to explain what the hell was up with that? I mean, what a dropped plot thread right there. I wish that they'd figure out what was going to happen and then let me know.

Gate of Flesh begins a Japanese prostitute minifest. Well, a Seijun Suzuki prostitute minifest. Don't get to have too many of those. Unless I were to rerent the same films. Gate of Flesh was a typically abnormal film, focusing on five prostitutes and the soldier who comes in between them. Plus, there's a rape of a priest, black market penicillin, and did I mention that it was filmed on huge indoor sets that were interconnected and the four main prostitutes wore clothes of the same color. It's insane, although not as good as Suzuki's more famous films, but it's one of those films that no one else could have made. The use of color presages what would come in Tokyo Drifter, but he still kept it somewhat under wraps, even if the women generally weren't. Although there was only one actual nude scene, there were many artfully staged scenes. I enjoyed the canned pineapple bits, but that's entirely due to my love for Wong Kar-Wai.

Story of a Prostitute is a film about comfort women (the Japanese Joy Division) in Manchuria. One falls for a soldier and tries to get him to become less of a typical Japanese soldier, kowtowing to the adjutant with whom the comfort woman was forced to sleep. There's some philosophical aspects, along with a bit of Suzuki-madness, but overall, it felt more conventional to me. That it delt so clearly with some of the bad aspects of the Japanese wartime experience does make it noteworthy for that. The anti-militarism of the film is also striking, as clearly Suzuki had this on his mind, pointing out the absurdity of war both here and, far more obviously, in Fighting Elegy. The Suzuki touches were mainly plotwise, although the scene where Harumi runs for Mikami during the battle was just impressive no matter who had directed it. The tracking shot of her running among the tracers and explosions worked beautifully. Interestingly, this was a remake of an earlier film written by Akira Kurosawa, but that one was more of a romance, plus the comfort woman were "entertainers". Doesn't entirely make me interested in watching it. This film is a typical melodrama made great by the artistic decisions. Which could describe pretty much all of his famous films.

The Yakuza Papers were five Yakuza films made in 1973-4 by Kinji Fukasaku. It's fairly hard to keep the extremely complex loyalties clear, even if there are recaps at the beginning of each film, along with introductory graphics for most people, along with when they inevitably die. Because there's an insane amount of death in the films. The overarching plot thread of a group of former soldiers starting in the Yakuza right after World War II and then going through the post-war years works as a sort of Japanese history of the same time. The single movie plots work to a varying degree, with my personal favorite being the second one with Meiko Kaji as the niece of a Yakuza boss and the man who she loves, which is heartbreaking. Each boss, subboss, and footsoldier shows that they will do anything to survive, even as they attempt to keep up the idea of "honor". Of course, none of them have any honor, although Hirono Shozo has some, and is, for what it's worth, the Michael Corleone character. The Godfather analogy is intentional, considering it was made so soon afterwards, even if it is far more complex and very Japanese. It feels more like a miniseries rather than a series of films, although there is more violence and occasional sexuality. Not that much, though. The third part, The Proxy War, is a metaphor for Vietnam and the Cold War, while the choice of locating the series in Hiroshima never really seems to be mentioned within the films themselves, except for the opening shot of the Atomic bomb, the opening of the last film, and the final shot of each film of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The self-destructive nature of the gangs, though, suggests the choice of location was intentional, with the title of the first one (Battles without Honor and Humanity) clearly showing just how Fukasaku feels about the Yakuza. The series is outstanding, even if the last film feels a little too much like they were talking far too much and had too many plot threads hanging. The constant need to introduce new characters to replace the old ones detracts more as the films continue. I do have to appreciate the movement away from pure Yakuza towards dealing with the police and the political parties though. It allowed the series to keep my interest, even as I had to pay attention due to my lack of Japanese knowledge. I might need to find a copy of the box just to marvel over the family tree and see if I missed anything.

49th Parallel, Where the Buffalo Roam, Vice Guide to Travel, & Virtua Fighter 5

49th Parallel is another Archers production, this one a propagandist piece trying to stir up anti-Nazi feelings in both America and among the dirty, dirty Québécois. Those dirty, dirty Québécois were pro-German because they hated the English. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend, apparently. Plus, who doesn't love the Vichy government? Anyway, it has Laurence Olivier playing a French trapper with a bad accent. Were they just trying to piss off the Québécois? Because that would have done it for me. The story is that a German U-boat gets sunk off of Canada and the six German survivors have to get home somehow, fighting through Olivier's accent, Glynis Johns's naivete, Leslie Howard's smugness, and Raymond Massey's desertion. Or something like that. It's quite impressive, but ultimately, it's just a well-done propaganda piece that runs a little too long. Really, that's about all you would expect from it. Powell and Pressburger were consummate professionals, and they did a fine job.

Where the Buffalo Roam was a sometimes worthwhile, but mostly worthless "adaptation" of Hunter S. Thompson's writings. Really, it just didn't work. Fear and Loathing worked, because it actually felt like it was a story and was trying to keep (internally) consistent, but this was just far too episodic, and far too slapdash, to be anything but Bill Murray's Thompson impression for 90 minutes. Plus, the soundtrack on the DVD wasn't the same as the original, which always pisses me off. Stupid recording artist organizations don't understand just how much better something is when it's allowed to be how it was originally planned. Just like Tour of Duty had Paint It Black taken off the opening credits to the show on DVD, it messes with how the film feels. I bet it worked much better with the original music. The Neil Young musical parts were at least effective.

Vice Guide to Travel is a trainwreck. The few shorts that were interesting (Pakistan, Bulgaria, Beirut, and Paraguay) were more than outweighed by the terrible choices that ruined what could have been worthwhile ones (China, Rio, Congo, Chernobyl, and the extra of the crazy guy rambling on about nothing). Well, that last one never could have been worthwhile. I do wonder why Spike Jonze was even included on the DVD. He added nothing except as a sort of audience that could have been done by actually having the correspondent address the issues in an articulate manner. That would pretty much have improved all of the shorts, actually. And I liked the Bulgarian one in the booklet about running from gangsters after winning money in a casino rather than going over just how easy it is to purchase a nuclear warhead, which really is disturbingly easy, and that could be why so many films since the fall of the Soviet Union have dealt with that. Chernobyl was ruined by their inability to do anything other than be very very drunk and look at a Geiger counter. Thanks, that was... boring. Maybe if you had actually found any of the mutated animals you were obsessed with, then it would have been better. Rio was terrible due to "Trace Crutchfield" and his asshole persona he put on. Basically, the ones that actually tried to deal with issues were better than the ones that just had people get trashed and try to look at crazy things. What a surprise: getting drunk does actually change your performance. I felt dirty almost the entire time I was watching, and it actually made me feel dirtier than any other time I've been exposed to Vice and their media empire. They have managed to put out some good music on their record label, but there is not that much else to recommend them.

Also, the lack of movie watching was due to three things: 1) I held off on watching a movie for much longer than normal from Netflix (it's all good though), 2) I have almost finished watching Dead Like Me (look for my half-assed comments on that when I finish it later this week) and 3) I bought Virtua Fighter 5, and have been trying to unlock lots and lots of stuff. It's a fighting game, and I have at least two characters I'm acceptably good at, so that makes me happy.