Sympathy for Lady Vengeance & Save the Green Planet!

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is the last in Chan-wook Park's vengeance trilogy, although it is also known as Lady Vengeance here. I watched the Sundance Channel's version, which had the sympathy part added on to link it to Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance explicitly. The problem with that film was that it wasn't good. Oldboy at least had a lot of panache behind it, even if all the characters were just there upon which to be shat. This one, while still fairly mean to people (I really didn't need to see that woman with all of her teeth knocked out, nor that shot of rolls of fat during the oral sex scene), at least has the skill along with characters I didn't hate. Which puts it above both the earlier films, but not as good as JSA, whose female lead plays the lead here pretty well, gaining my sympathy with very little effort. My issue with the film is that I tend to agree with the first three paragraphs of the New York Times review, written by Nathan Lee, my least favorite reviewer in the Times (and, from people who know him, a snot), but I have to say that the killing of the dog didn't bother me at all. Then again, I am known to be exceedingly happy to have the dog die in films. Not that I condone killing animals or people in real life, but I still get pissed about the dog living in Independence Day. This film has a frequently annoying narration, not to mention that the subtitles were running at least a second ahead of the sound. Which is ok if you're watching something in English, but when you have to think about who just said something and whether it makes sense for the character you think just said it, it makes my brain hurt. I think it started out ok, but certainly by the end, the subtitles were running fast. So boo unto Sundance for that.

Save the Green Planet! is one of the strangest films I've seen in a long time. It pretty much defies description, although it's mainly about a clearly insane person who believes aliens from Andromeda are planning to take over Earth during a lunar eclipse, so he kidnaps a very rich chemical magnate who is the head alien. That's the first ten minutes or so. It's completely bizarre. There's slapstick, there's extremely dark comedy, there's torture porn, and of course there's a scathing satire on modern society. Which films like this pretty much have to have, or else they fall apart if you accidentally think about them. Interestingly, this is the second film in the past month that I've seen that has a character shooting insects out of the air with a gun. Well, normal sized insects, as there was that scene in King Kong as well. Unfortunately, I can't think of what the other film with shooting insects, although I'm pretty sure it was The Eel. The movie just was strange from the beginning, and the ending scenes were just fairly unexpected, unless you go in thinking that strange things will just be the norm. Then again, bizarre films don't always have a lot of characters that you genuinely care about. You have to give points for effort and originality, which this movie has in spades. And this time, Sundance had subtitles that worked fine.

Grudge Song, Sympathy for the Devil, As You Like It, & Bob Saget: That Ain't Right

Grudge Song, the fourth and last in the Female Prisoner Scorpion series, wasn't directed by Shunya Ito, the director of the earlier ones, and had a clearly lower budget. The first wasn't particularly impressive, but the second and third were quite excellent J-sexploitation flicks, with great visuals and a strong performance from Meiko Kaji. This one misses most of the impressive visuals, except for the final scene (with the black coat), and though it keeps the theme song, there's little else to recommend it. Unless you want gratuitous Asian nudity.

Sympathy for the Devil is a very interesting look at the creation of the best Stones song, starting from the much less complicated and building up. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the scenes about black power and the fascist porno shop can be skipped very easily. The other issue is the narration of a pornographic novel that frequently obscures the soundtrack. Also, pretty much every shot is extremely long with lots of camera movement and crane moves. But the non-Stones scenes were like Week-End without making any sense. I felt like I was in a Marxist lecture and had serious problems paying attention. Possibly had something to do with my warm apartment and my comfortable couch. May also have had something to do with its extreme boringness whenever the Stones aren't on screen.

As You Like It is seriously designed for me to love it. Except for Love's Labor's Lost, Kenneth Branagh's Shakespearean adaptations are quite possibly my favorite versions of those filmed. Much Ado about Nothing is the first of those I saw when I knew what the hell was going on (an early watching of Henry V was before I knew what was up), but Henry V, Hamlet, and even In the Bleak Midwinter (about the production of Hamlet) are all quite excellent. As You Like It is not a play I was particularly familiar with before watching, having only read it, and that back in high school, and I have never liked his comedies as much as his tragedies. I saw A Midsummer Night's Dream (in a park in England at the age of 8 which has forever colored my opinion as his best comedy) and Twelfth Night (the movie by Trever Nunn), and I find that this is fairly similar to the latter, due to the crossdressing. Of course, in this case, it was a red-headed Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind, who was about the only good thing in The Village. And she was absolutely gorgeous in this performance. Far stronger than Romola Garai (although with a far better character to work from), she was perfect, and enough for me to almost not notice the lack of Asians in the film (with the notable exception of Jade Jefferies, who has never done another film, but has done many plays). The conclusion was a little rushed, without making explicit the agreement of Phoebe to marry Sylvius if she couldn't marry Ganymede. Everyone in the film is quite good, especially Alfred Molina, Kevin Kline, and David Oyelowo. Certainly a highly recommended film, and I thank Branagh for making them, even if he did misstep with LLL as a 30s musical. The forest scenes were gorgeous, and the choice to film the epilogue, even with a woman playing Rosalind, was great, with Bryce wandering through the set and the trailers, and the final word from Branagh himself. I loved it, and it's a frakin' shame that this great film couldn't get theatrical distribution in this country when far worse "arty" films make it there. And I love that Branagh doesn't seem to be bothered by interracial relationships on film, but could that have had anything to do with it not being picked up for theatrical distribution here?

Bob Saget: That Ain't Right is a new standup special from him, and when he's actually capable of not going off on multiple tangents within a single joke, is quite funny. And some of his tangents are quite funny. But the problem is that much of his humor is about finger banging various people and having sex with animals. Funny the first couple times, but it kept going. Even the songs were constantly interrupted by tangents. And his constant harping on an audience member just got on my nerves.

The Agronomist, Au Hasard Balthazar, & Wishing Stairs

The Agronomist is a film I've been wanting to see for a year or so, ever since I did some research on Haiti and found out about it. It's an interesting look at the budding democracy there, from the perspective of Jean Dominique, the titular agronomist, journalist, film buff, and radio host. Jonathan Demme directed, and clearly was good friends with him, due to the interviews spaced out over years, and obviously very sympathetic to his message of both democracy and anti-corruption, as evidenced by a somewhat contentious interview with Aristide after his presidency. And, of course, as any documentary about a country torn apart by military coups and the like, the US is at fault. Apparently, the CIA supported the military leaders and Papa and Baby Doc, sometimes without the knowledge of the president. What a frickin' surprise. The CIA does a lot of crazy stuff. And as long as that stuff doesn't include removing not-widely-read blogs, I probably won't know about it unless I see another documentary about them screwing up another country for years. Anyway, the documentary is visually interesting, although the use of repeated scenes and sound effects (especially gunfire) occasionally got on my nerves. One thing that didn't was the soundtrack, by Wyclef Jean. You could occasionally hear bits that sounded almost like No Woman, No Cry, but it was an almost constant presence in the film, behind interviews in both English and French (or Creole, I know it was spoken, but can't tell the difference as I'm an uneducated American), but it adds quite a nice touch to the film. And Cowboy Reagan, another fake cowboy draft dodging Republican president, supporting the suppression of democracy just goes to show that the more things change, the more Republicans are a bunch of crazy assholes.

Au Hasard Balthazar is another arty French film that doesn't have an accepted English title. It sort of translates as Balthazar by chance, or something. Who cares? It's a film about a woman and the donkey who loved her. But not physically, although that was somewhat suggested at least once. Which would have made the film far more interesting. Donkey on woman sex is hilarious! Just look at how often it's mentioned when Mexico is! Bestiality, FTW! Just kidding all, I think it's dirty, dirty, dirty. Anyway, I didn't like the film, as the many scenes of human-on-donkey violence just made me uncomfortable. Another Bresson film, but since I'd just seen the great Pickpocket, he still stays in my Netflix queue. Also, the lead married Jean-Luc Godard. No, not the donkey.

Wishing Stairs is the third in the Girl School Ghost Story series, now standing at four films. The first two, Whispering Corridors and Memento Mori, were excellent films, although certainly Memento Mori was far better. This one is just a mess. Clearly a far higher budget, but little made any sense, nothing was done with any subtlety, I had serious problems telling characters apart besides the fat one with red hair and the lead, and it was utterly ridiculous. Not at all up to the standards of the earlier films, and unless the fourth gets good reviews, I'm not going to continue in the series. If I were interested in watching a bunch of schoolgirls in outfits, maybe, but this one had some crazy stuff in it, like stupid Asian horror cliché ghosts, a naked dead girl covered in clay, and ballet.

TV notes and lots of new music

John from Cincinnati made little to no sense. The acting was frequently terrible, even from normally talented actors and actresses. The cursing was nowhere near as good as Deadwood. I can't believe that I had a season of that rather than anything finishing off the story of Deadwood. That all said, I hate that it ended the way it did. And also a damn shame that Trixie and Wu were able to get in, along with Spiros, and that we didn't get more. I wanted to know what happened. Because I certainly didn't get anything remotely like closure on pretty much any plot thread. If I watched Carnivale I'd be pissed by that too.

Weeds is still pretty funny, and although I still don't like it as much as most I know, I certainly enjoy it enough to watch it. It does, however, fit very well before the very funny and surprisingly touching Californication. Which I highly recommend to anyone who has Showtime. It's like the promise of a male Sex in the City that Entourage was trying to do, but with far more talent. Duchovny is just hilarious, and there is more gratuitous nudity than you can possibly imagine. Although it isn't entirely gratuitous, I just like the word, and really, no nudity is ever gratuitous. It's the plot that's gone wrong without it. But it also has Natascha McElhone, an actress I will never ever give up on, due entirely to Ronin, a film for which I may have a slightly irrational love. And Evan Handler, a guy who looks fairly similar to one of my bosses. And Pamela Adlon from the late, lamented (by me, and possibly the three other people who made it through all the episodes of it) Lucky Louie. The guy who wrote this wrote for Dawson's Creek, so I have no idea what the hell is up with that. Maybe after a few episodes it'll stop working well, or something, but until that happens I'll keep watching.

If you haven't been watching the Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Feasting on Asphalt, you're missing out on funny and/or deliciousness.

Also, who the hell decided to release just about everything today? The New Pornographers (which I actually got yesterday in the mail in super duper amazingly awesome Executive Edition), the new Caribou album (the opening track, Melody Day, may be the best thing Dan Snaith's ever done, and maybe for a few other people as well), the new Imperial Teen (after a five year wait, anything is better than nothing, and Everything is far better than nothing), the new M.I.A (Paper Planes, based upon Straight to Hell, has to be completely awesome due to the music, but the song holds up to that need), new Rilo Kiley, a new Travis Morrison (with the Hellfighters), and for a few other people out there there's some other releases, like Architecture in Helsinki and Talib Kweli. It's August, and we all know you don't introduce new products in August. What's up?

And one final note: There was apparently another Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare adaptation made last year of As You Like It set in Japan? Is someone trying to kill me with pleasure?

Pickpocket & The White Countess

Pickpocket is a Robert Bresson film, although it was influenced by Pickup on South Street (interestingly, an early title of that film was Pickpocket), which is obvious from the pickpocket scene on the Paris Metro. Both masterful scenes of subway robbery, although halfway through this one there's the excellent series of sleight of hand tricks in the train station that's just a tour-de-force of balletic robbery. Surprisingly ostentatious from a cinematic standpoint, especially relative to the extremely limited aspects of Bresson in general. The two leads were actually better than some of his other models, and the woman is both Eva Green's aunt, and was apparently in the original Emmanuelle (which I've never seen). Weird coincidence there. The main accomplice is played by Kassagi, a real-life sleight-of-hand artist, and there is a 12 minute TV show with him showing off. He's restrained in the movie, but that show is full of flash and broad jokes. Still, watching it to try to see how he was doing it was interesting. The film is quite good, and recommended viewing for Freddie Prinze, Jr. Maybe then he'd stop smirking. Then again, if I were a no-talent hack having sex with Buffy, I'd probably be smirking too.

The White Countess is set in late 30s Shanghai, as a blind American former diplomat and a former Russian Countess try to survive the upheaval that occurs due to the whole inevitable invasion by the Japanese. They seem to do that a lot in movies about China in the 30s. You'd think it was a traumatic experience to some Chinese or something? This film is the last Merchant-Ivory film. Which is a damn shame, considering how many films they've made, especially ones like A Room with a View, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day, based on the Kazuo Ishiguro novel, and who contributes the screenplay to this film. It starts out quite good, but the final scenes don't keep up with the slightly restrained earlier scenes. I mean, SPOILER, it ended happily for the people who deserved it, mainly, but I just didn't think it deserved to. Plus, it was too long. The acting was quite good, just the ending was not right, and it didn't feel entirely right.

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed is a short-ish documentary about the 72 campaign of Shirley Chisholm, which has extra interest now, considering we have both a woman and a black running for president (although not both like last time), not to mention a Latino, a handsome man, two caterpillars, the plagiarist owned by credit card companies, a Leprechaun on acid, and Andy Rooney without the TV show. That's not even starting on the adultering cross-dressing racist, the terrible and lazy actor, the crazy racist, the even more crazy racist, the panderer, the former fatty who doesn't believe in evolution, the Catholic who wishes he were Evangelical so he wouldn't be hated by them, the insane guy who wants to abolish the federal reserve and thought that fighting the Civil War was a mistake, and the animal abusing Mormon. Unfortunately, I won in the liberal state of Virginia and My hearing aid stopped working when I was tired and had to go to the bathroom both dropped out. Man, I really should have just moved on after that first bit. Oh well, it's not like it's not obvious I'm a Democrat. Anyway, Shirley Chisholm was an impressive person, and I just wish the film were longer. It won a Peabody, so you know that it's good. Of course, I'm biased, due to being a huge politics nerd, but those long shot important runs seem a lot less bad when they happened before rather than now. If we could just get rid of He Who Tosses Rocks In Ponds, Democratic debates would have a little more time to focus on candidates who have a chance, so I can understand the desire to only debate among those who have a chance. However, I like that she pushed to get respect even though she was lacking the most important things that get you respect in this society: low melanin levels and a penis (with no breasts, because transgendered individuals don't get a lot of respect, just strangled and stuffed under a bed to be found four days later, from the fascinating documentary Paris Is Burning). Anyway (again), sure, the film glosses over her obvious personality conflicts with, umm, pretty much everyone in politics who wasn't working for her campaign, and her slight speech impediment, but it still paints a portrait of a strong woman who won't take "You're a black woman, just accept your third class position in society" and does something about it.

Neko Case & Eric Bachmann at 9:30 8/16

The night started with delicious Ethiopian food, and then a walk over to the 9:30 Club. We decided to go to the front of the club, someplace I hadn't been before, but was quite nice, as there were no tall people standing right in front of me. And there was the Asian girl from Virginia who was also at the Arcade Fire show and stood somewhere near us in the front, based on her pictures (which weren't supposed to be allowed, so shame on you!).

Anyway, we had a while to wait before Eric Bachmann came out. He had pants problems and threatened to flash us all, but really he just said that his zipper was broken and that he didn't mean to flash us, if he did. His set started with a Spanish folk tune, then he played quite a varied set, which I will just attempt to get right, although I really am not nearly as familiar with his solo album as his earlier bands:

Spanish Folk Song
Genie Genie
Devil's Train
Sleep All Summer
Dead Red Eyes
New Drink for the Old Drunk
La Malatea Fea

I know I missed a couple songs from the solo album in there, as I wasn't writing anything down, but I do wish that he had played far longer than he did. Because, and I've said this since the first time I saw Crooked Fingers back in college, Eric Bachmann is an immensely talented man, and has such a huge collection of amazing songs to play that he's always worth checking out. And this time, unlike the other times I've seen him play as Crooked Fingers, I got an Archers of Loaf song, and from White Trash Heroes at that. I was thrilled from the instant he said the next song was from a long time ago, around 8 years. Which made it pre-Crooked Fingers. The four Crooked Fingers tracks were all outstanding. I was never impressed with Bring on the Snakes until I saw them live on their 2003 tour. Earlier in the day before their show at Southgate House with Spoon (a great show in itself), they played a short set at Shake It Records. And they had to go get percussion to be able to play The Rotting Strip, and I realized that there are no weak Crooked Fingers albums. So hearing Devil's Train was awesome, hearing La Malatea Fea only released on the extremely awesome 3 disc Old Enough To Know Better Merge compilation, and of course, the best song that Bachmann's done in New Drink for the Old Drunk were highlights for me. New Drink is better with the full band, but I didn't care, as it was awesome. For Sleep All Summer, from the Spanish influenced Dignity & Shame, he had Neko Case and her slide guitarist out to help and provide the vocals needed to come close to the album version. After that, he acted like he should just stop because that was what everyone was there for, and I get the feeling that he was kidding on the square.

After he left, and I complained loudly that he didn't play longer, Neko Case came out to tune. And then left for another 30 minutes. She didn't come on until 10, and was wearing a fairly boring black dress that had bows on the back. Now, I'm not a fashion maven, but bows are silly. Her set was fairly well-described by both DCist and ummm... Katherine (that's her name on Last.fm at least), and I want to say that it was quite impressive for that voice to come out of her. And that Kelly Hogan stole the show, starting out with grabbing Neko's breast in an attempt to "wake her up", and then claiming the show was all a fantasy, taking it to discussing Burt Reynolds (which Neko brought to Gator, what is supposed to be a pretty bad movie), and claiming to be the band secretary keeping track of what requests were made.

Things That Scare Me
That Teenage Feeling
Set Out Running
Maybe Sparrow
Dirty Knife
The Tigers Have Spoken
Star Witness
Deep Red Bells
Buckets of Rain (Bob Dylan cover)
I Wish I Was the Moon
If You Knew
Ghost Wiring
Hex (Catherine Irwin cover)
Favorite
Hold On, Hold On
---
A Widow's Toast
Tightly
Lady Pilot
John Saw That Number

For the last one, Eric Bachmann and Lucy Wainright Roche (ummm, so much more talented than Rufus) came out and pretty much didn't sing very much at all. I have this feeling they didn't know the song at all, as they seemed to miss out on a lot of the chances for them to fulfill their roles as backup singers. Still, Neko and the band played for quite some time, around 80 minutes including the encore, and I think I only heard a few marriage proposals for her. I was sort of surprised as I normally expect attractive female band members to be propositioned fairly frequently, unless they're married, and then it's usually only once a show or so.

Now comes my normal time to bitch about the audience touching me. Damnit, stop touching me. I understand an occasional jostle, but to continually bump into me for five songs straight on the beat means that you know that something is bumping you right back. And when I move over and you still bump me and I ask you to stop it and I know you heard me and you still bump me, it just means I hate you. Yeah, and loud, smacking kisses are annoying as hell as well, you PDA'ing mofos. And the whistling right next to my ear... Man, I hated them. And I also hated the large groups of people who were talking loudly during the Bachmann set. I know that he's only playing a guitar and you're there to sexually harass Neko Case, but couldn't you at least try to not be dicks? Yeah, it's DC, but <GOB>COME ON!</GOB> When you continue to talk throughout Neko Case (who is who you had to have been there to see, right?), you're just being douchebags of the liberty persuasion. As much as I like to bring up the people who used to go to punk shows and sit in the back and read Joyce, at least they're not disturbing anyone. I am quite capable of enjoying shows without bothering anyone else. Why don't you try that, DC?

The Twelve Chairs, The Passenger, & The Eel

The Twelve Chairs has a very early performance from Frank Langella. I never would have recognized him without the opening credits having the pictures of the characters along with names and who they were playing. Too bad the film is one of those that my dad recommended as hilarious years ago. For some reason, it doesn't work nearly as well as his other films of the time period, all of which are classics. This one is just minor. Partly because Dom DeLuise isn't funny at all. Ron Moody and Langella attempt the accent, but DeLuise doesn't even bother. It's like Joe Dallesandro in Blood for Dracula: that one non-attempt to do the accent along with everyone else at least attempting bothers me far more than if no one attempted it.

The Passenger is probably Antonioni's last great film. Not like he's going to make another one now, but that I haven't seen any of his later films besides the horrendous Eros segment. It also has Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider (Who doesn't get anally penetrated with the help of butter! Probably a request in her contract!). It's not as good as Blow-Up, but better than the others I've seen. Nicholson is actually interesting. Man, I miss when he acted. Yeah, he was great in The Departed, but there are so many films where he's just terrible. Anyway, that final shot was masterfully put together.

The Eel is another Shohei Imamura film, so it's about sex and Japanese society. This one also messes with what we believe, with the possibility that some of what we are seeing is not true. I was a little disappointed in that, because things presented as true and later turn out to be false break one of the rules of the relationship of the film and the viewer. Given that, at least there's evidence well ahead of time that it's not entirely trustworthy. It's also quite funny, is about a barber (like The Pornographers), and has an eel in it. That eel is not at all a metaphor for a penis. Also there was discussion of sushi and the title of the film is Unagi, so I just got a little hungry watching it. The two leads of the film, besides being in a combination of other Imamura films, they're also both in Shall We Dansu? one of the first Japanese films I distinctly remember watching in the theater. I loved it. Kôji Yakusho has been in quite a few films like Cure, Pulse, Tampopo, and even as Nobu in Memoirs of a Geisha. So he's actually one of those guys, mainly because I haven't spent any time trying to remember his name. But I will now. Anyway, it also had Sho Aikawa in it, who's been in a bunch of Miike films like the Dead or Alive trilogy, Gozu, and Rainy Dog and Ley Lines. Man, that's a lot of linkage. I also want to mention that the UFO guy was hilariously bizarre, and thank everyone involved for not making abortion a horrendous possibility or event. It's a quirky little film, one I'm surprised won the Golden Palm, due to it being a small film, and some of the competition that year (The Ice Storm, L.A. Confidential, Happy Together, and Welcome to Sarajevo, all quite good to great).

King Kong, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, The Pornographers, American Dreamz, & Memoirs of a Geisha

King Kong is three hours of boring action scene after boring action scene, with a strong hint of extreme colonialism liberally sprinkled throughout. Maybe Peter Jackson loves the film and has been wanting to make the film for years, but that only comes out at all in that the film is indulgently long. Not a bad film by any means, just utterly unnecessary.

The Trials of Henry Kissinger makes me sort of like Christopher Hitchens. Which is saying something, considering what a drunk-ass former commie war apologist he is now. But Eugene Jarecki, director of Why We Fight does a very good job with an extremely biased film, pointing out just how evil Kissinger is. Because he's really, really freaking evil. It's a well-put together film, plus frequently funny, as well as frustrating. That anyone can think of Kissinger as anything other than a war criminal who cost thousands of American lives, let alone the Vietnamese and Chileans killed due to his manipulations, is one of the worst aspects of the right. Trying to rehabilitate all those criminals from Watergate, Vietnam, and Iran-Contra is offensive.

The Pornographers is based on a novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, who also wrote the novel Grave of the Fireflies (made into one of the best non-Miyazaki animated films ever made). It's directed by Shohei Imamura (Dr. Akagi, 11/09/01, and Warm Water under a Red Bridge), and consequently it's all about sex in Japanese society. The book is episodic, but extremely hilarious, and I don't entirely agree with some of the changes to the story (I liked the pornographic novel writer who only knew if what he was writing was good if he got himself off, the sex doll section was far more important, and the intimations of father-daughter incest are far more restrained, and I'm not sure why there needed to be a son in the family as well). Much was excised for length reasons, but adding the son seemed to be more about social satire. Given the changes, the film still skewers the hypocrisy inherent within Japanese society effectively. I do wish that there were actual extras on the disc, as just a trailer was disappointing. Just because I've read the book doesn't mean I don't want to listen to anyone talking about the film. Unfortunately, the film just doesn't work as well as the novel. The extra characterization possible allows for the episodic nature to gain added resonance because of the extra emotional connection available. We're just a little too detached from Ogata in movie form.

American Dreamz is a little satire that should have been better. Yeah, making fun of Bush and American Idol is funny, but the film dragged quite a bit. I wish that everything had been better, and that Adam Busch had gotten more scenes. I am all for more Jews getting play from lots of women on screen. Good cast, though.

Memoirs of a Geisha is one of those films that, were I really an Asian fetishist, I would have loved. With Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, and Youki Kudoh, four of my personal favorite Asian actresses, I should have liked it. But the whole "We can't find any Japanese actresses (besides Kudoh), so we'll put a bunch of Chinese (and a Malaysian) actresses in the main roles, and no one will ever know the difference" is just so offensive to so many people. Plus, the film is absolutely gorgeous, clearly very expensive, and deserved the Oscars it got. If only the film itself were better. I imagine the book is quite good, based on reputation, but I just kept thinking about how this was all a lot of money spent on a film that was never going to do well. Hire a bunch of people who can't speak English to speak English and you'll get some stilted performances. Also, far too long.

Maborosi & The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief

Maborosi is an earlier film from Hirokazu Koreeda, who did Afterlife, one of the best Japanese films since Ran. This is not as good a film, although it also deals with memory, in a slightly less obvious way. A woman had her grandmother disappear when she was a young girl, and her husband (played by Tadanobu Asano, a great Japanese actor, even if he doesn't have a particularly big role here) also disappears, so she goes off to live in a remote fishing village with a new husband. This village reminded me of the west coast of Ireland, which, if you've ever been there, you know that it means it was breathtakingly beautiful. In fact, the film was so amazingly well-put together that I'm actually having problems thinking about what I could have possibly not liked about it. It's heavily influenced by Ozu, with long static shots, very few close-ups, and a slightly slow pace, but that's life in a fishing village or in an apartment where entertainment is listening to your neighbor's radio blare through the thin walls. The title, Maborosi is something of a translation of mirage or a light that may or may not be there, an interesting choice of a title for the film, considering it's about trying to understand something that may be impossible to understand.

The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief is an award-winning documentary about male host bars in Japan available on Google video and lead to me watching it with a friend and chatting about it with her at the same time.

female friend: hot bars
female friend: er. host bars.
female friend: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6186147595582048109
me: i was hoping for some burning pub action
female friend: good luck
me: and I don't have enough time for this now
female friend: watch it later
me: it's good?
female friend: it's funny thus far
female friend: strange and disturbing
female friend: the boys are...strange
me: you mean, they're androgynous in the finest final fantasy tradition
female friend: the culture of make pretend
me: I can't figure out if these are all men or not
female friend: heh, that's a common problem
me: the pictures are basically the same...
me: is this only about the male hosts?
female friend: yes.
me: something I didn't even know they existed
female friend: well, there are hostess bars
female friend: why not host bars
me: I'm sexist?
female friend: no, they're rare
female friend: (shrugs)
me: I'm not actually sexist
me: just never struck me as something that existed, even if I know that male strippers and prostitutes exist
female friend: there's disneyland for kiddies
female friend: porntastic androgynous!guyland for girls?
me: yeah
female friend: didn't you say that you didn't have time for this?
me: well, umm,
me: yeah
me: this is so disturbing
me: these women are so clueless...
female friend: idealistic?
female friend: hopeless?
me: they have to know he's a host, which means that he's getting paid to do this
female friend: yes, but still...
female friend: check out the guy at 12:23
female friend: eep
me: got two minutes
female friend: distuuurbing
me: nothing in this hasn't been disturbing
me: except for the hot!ness of the hosts
female friend: nobody doesn't like Sara Lee?
me: pretty much
female friend: 10 000 - 50 000 USD a month
female friend: eep
me: the semi-sexual aspects of their interactions are weird
me: plus, the whole wanting to get them to want to have sex, but not have sex is a bizarre goal
female friend: it makes sense
female friend: disturbing, but it makes sense
me: oh, I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, just that it's bizarre that this is the whole setup
female friend: Sigh
female friend: the attraction of stuff like this is...
female friend: sigh
me: well, there are a lot of lonely people
me: I'm just far more realistic than these people
female friend: yes
me: how do they have this much money?
female friend: a lot of these women probably still live at home
me: do they have jobs?
female friend: probably OLs
female friend: most likely OLs
me: OL?
female friend: office ladies
me: ah
female friend: not yet married
female friend: not yet moved out of their parents' houses
me: well, i certainly had far more spending money when I was living with my parents
female friend: yay rent
me: yeah
female friend: heh, the great ivy league nude posture photo scandal
me: ?
female friend: NYT mag article
female friend: very interesting
female friend: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7D91131F936A25752C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
me: if by very interesting you mean how the hell did these people allow themselves to be photographed
female friend: ask the salarymen on Drunken Businessman
female friend: or Human Tetris
me: I was referring to the mag article
female friend: erm
female friend: well
me: well, at least they're prostitutes, so they know just how fake it all is...
me: argh, issei is just saying it's ok that the women are prostitutes because it allows them to have enough money to spend time with him
me: well, that's extremely depressing
female friend: sigh
female friend: champagne call
female friend: narcissists
me: it's just so wrong
me: i'd have less of a problem if it were just about sex
me: but they're paying for fake emotional attachment
female friend: even hostesses get lonely
female friend: ugh, soap girls
me: i'd never heard the term before
me: what's the etymology?
female friend: soap
female friend: on girls
female friend: so, soap girls
female friend: and not OLs
female friend: but OLs go to these things
me: so they're basically just clean prostitutes?
female friend: yep
me: bizarre
female friend: who comforts the pretty boys.
me: i thought that most people wanted to have clean partners
female friend: um, no
female friend: the girls soap themselves
female friend: and then they rub themselves on the men
female friend: ...
me: oh, so no penetration, just sumata and tekoki?
female friend: if I knew what they meant, sure, maybe
me: masturbating the men with their labia and handjobs, respectively
female friend: I see.
female friend: maybe? not like I did a lot of research into this
me: well, someone has to do that sort of stuff to make those terms known to me
female friend: okay.

In case you were wondering, those two things may be involved, but it's actually in reference to Soaplands. Wikipedia can tell you just about everything. The movie is quite interesting, and if you have 75 minutes, there are far worse things you could do online. More info about it is available here.

25th Hour & Kanto Wanderer

25th Hour is Spike Lee doing the post 9/11 film, and it's quite excellent. Possibly the best Spike Lee film in the last fifteen years. Ed Norton has a day to seemingly get his life in order until he goes to prison for seven years for heroin dealing, and he has to deal with unresolved issues with the Russian mobsters who he worked for (including the worst thing in the movie, Tony Siragusa), his girlfriend (Rosario Dawson), his father (Brian Cox, his typical great self), and his two best friends (Barry Pepper and Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Really, only the Goose is not excellent. The scene in the bathroom of the bar, where Ed Norton just goes off on everyone and everything in New York, is just outstanding. And how can you hate anything that has Isiah "Clay Davis" Whitlock Jr. saying "She-e-e-e-it"? You can't. It's not possible. Also, as any good film about a post-9/11 New York City must have, it finishes with a song from The Rising, one of the many completely awesome songs written about 9/11 and its effects. This one is The Fuse, not my favorite track from the album, but it is perfectly fitting in the film. Also anything that has Anna Paquin is pretty much a must watch for me. I was talking with my parents about the film, and when I said I had just seen 25th Hour, my dad asked if it was that film with Anthony Quinn and Virna Lisi. Apparently 40 years ago, they made a film called The 25th Hour. It's weird how some films are remembered by my parents.

Kanto Wanderer is a Seijun Suzuki film, but although it was slightly insane, it wasn't insane enough to get him fired. There were some really neat lighting effects, like the scene where slicing a few people with a sword led to the walls falling down and big red walls replacing them. And the scenes of gambling are also done quite well. The last one made me want sushi. Plus, the use of color throughout and close-ups in the earliest scenes just make it clear that it's a film. I can't believe that they didn't see this film and say, "This guy is going to continue to go crazy with the films, and maybe we shouldn't allow him to do this." Then again, if they had, we wouldn't have his later films. It's crazy, but it's just a typical yakuza film, but Suzuki can make anything worth watching purely by sheer talent. And I want to commend Homevision for putting out a quality DVD, with no horrible subtitles, and a clean image. Nothing much on the special features front, but putting out a clean print is enough for me.

Becket, The Story of Qiu Ju, & The Isle

Becket is something of a prequel (even though released earlier) to The Lion in Winter, about Henry II's relationship with Thomas Becket (I keep wanting to use two Ts in Becket). It has Peter O'Toole as Henry II, and Richard Burton as Becket, along with John Gielgud in a fairly minor role as Louis VII of France. Both Burton and O'Toole are excellent, and the film itself is fascinating (even if it keeps the inaccuracy of Becket being a Saxon rather than the Norman he was). My main complaint was that beyond the top three, most of the cast did nothing to stand out, and those playing the women tended to be absolutely horrendous. Especially Pamela Brown as Eleanor of Aquitaine, played so superbly by Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter. Also, the later film just seems better to me, although that could be because of the martyrdom of Becket just bugs me immensely, as I disagree that the church should be above the law of the land. That's just me and my crazy wacky anti-organized religious ideas. The film, though, is very worth watching.

The Story of Qiu Ju is a film set in some unnamed small village in rural China where a very pregnant Gong Li lives and whose husband is kicked in the nads by their chief after a misunderstanding. She then tries to mediate with the chief, but has to continue to go higher in the government bureaucracy as all she wants is for him to apologize, and he seems insistent upon not doing so and just buying her silence. Clearly, the administrative law and the government as a whole cannot quite figure out what she wants when she says that she wants the "right thing" to be done. It starts out pretty funny, but quickly becomes extremely sad, when you realize just how expensive everything is to these poor chili farmers in the quest of getting a simple apology. The last few minutes of the film are even worse. Thanks Zhang Yimou, for making me so exasperated with the Chinese bureaucracy that I am happy that I don't live there, and haven't been kicked in the balls.

The Isle is a fairly early Ki-duk Kim film, apparently his fourth, and it again has very little dialogue. My problem with the film, besides the POV shot of someone leaving a dump (something that I never needed to see), is that it's extremely disturbing from a violence standpoint. Lots of anti-fish violence, and also some very disturbing fishhook on face, on hand, and (most squicky) on vagina bits. The film was beautiful, but I really just found it completely bizarre. Especially that last metaphor, which seemed to suggest the reeds were her pubic hair. I think. Kim's later films are better. Well, at least the two I've seen, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring and 3-Iron.