The Secret Life of Words, They Live, The Burmese Harp, Pineapple Express, & Once

The Secret Life of Words stars Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins as people scarred by life. Polley is a former Yugoslav who is partially deaf and works in a factory in Northern Ireland. When she finds out about an oil rig that needs a nurse, she volunteers and starts to care for Robbins's scarred and temporarily blinded worker. And they tell each other secrets and learn how to live again. It's a kind of cheesy movie, but the acting makes up for it. Weirdly, I saw this the same weekend Elegy came out, which was also directed by Isabel Coixet.

They Live is a film that I've been meaning to see for far too long. But it was a Metafilter thread about Hollywood fight scenes a couple weeks ago that made me move it to the top of my queue. And I sort of don't regret it. Sure, John Carpenter has been mostly miss over the last twenty years, but this is twenty years old, after a string of enjoyable films like Big Trouble in Little China, Starman, The Thing, and Halloween, so I was hoping for something cheesy and fun. And this film is cheesy and fun. Rowdy Roddy Piper plays a drifter who ends up in a homeless camp, and finds some sunglasses which show that every rich person is an alien who have taken over society through subliminal messages. So he has to stop them. And toss out lines like, "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum." One of the best one liners in all of movie history. The long fight scene with Frank is ok, nothing nearly as amazing as I was led to believe, but the film itself was ridiculous enough in everything that I had to enjoy it. Also, for the record, about thirty seconds before the credits, there's a completely gratuitous topless scene. So add They Live to the list. Nothing is added, except a reason to make sure you keep paying attention during the denouement.

The Burmese Harp is an anti-war film by the Japanese. I think I need to watch a Mishima film just to see what a pro-war film from the Japanese would be like, since almost everyone of any talent in Japan basically makes anti-war films. This is about a platoon of Japanese soldiers retreating in Burma during the last days of WWII, and one of the soldiers has made the titular harp, and plays it when scouting ahead. After the war ends, they surrender to the British, but the harpist is sent to try to convince a group of soldiers who are still holding out to surrender. As anyone would expect, he fails and becomes a monk. It's a beautiful film, but it's depressing. Of course, now I have to see Fire on the Plain, which has been sitting in my Janus box for a couple of years now. And I'd like to point out that I saw the original, not the remake from the 80s.

Pineapple Express is a weed action movie. Emphasis on both descriptives. It's obviously a movie, and it's obviously about pot, but it seems like some weren't expecting the action. I wasn't expecting some of the gore. But it was enjoyable, and funny, even though I wasn't partaking of weed. It actually reminded me of a far more competent Dude, Where's My Car?, and now moves into first place on the weakly competed for "Best Pot Movie Ever Seen By Me" category. James Franco is just so dreamy. It's a damn shame that he had to go and do that James Dean movie after Freaks and Geeks, because otherwise he would have kept making comedies, and he's just very good in this. And David Gordon Green makes the film look pretty darn good. Some of the scenes in the forest were just beautiful. Also, since I haven't written up the last two concerts I've been to (since I wasn't particularly familiar with either band beforehand, but Regina Spektor and Statehood are quite good, and well-worth the no monies I paid to see them), a return of my favorite bit of concert going: douchebag of the movie going experience! No, not me for mixing popcorn and blue raspberry icee and feeling sick for the rest of the day. It was the two girls who walked up to the help desk at the Georgetown theater and asked "Is that new Ben Stiller film out yet?" And when they were told no, both sighed and walked straight back out the front doors. One: are there people that excited about the Ben Stiller film after seeing advertisements about it that they neglected to notice that the advertisements all say that it opens next week? Two: are these same people really able to go all the way to the theater and ask someone who works there before they realize that the movie isn't opening? Are these people Unaware of All Internet Traditions (like, say, google or yahoo or fandango)? I didn't realize there were people in this city that did stuff like wander in to a movie theater thinking that a movie was coming out one weekend rather than the next. Movies with enormous advertising budgets.

Once made me tear up. Falling Slowly deserved the Oscar. And I had to rewatch the best thing about this past Oscar ceremony. For the transcript, go here, but since the media companies don't understand the web, they don't actually have the video on youtube, but that first link has it. Basically, besides the touching speech, Jon Stewart is awesome. Anyway, besides Falling Slowly, there are a number of other great songs, and the acting is quite good, especially from two people who've never really acted before. Although Glen Hansard was also in the Commitments, a great movie about a blue-eyed soul group in Dublin, which I saw in the year without a blog. I actually think that the 85 minute run time was quite perfect for the film, even if I wish there had been more time to spend in their lives. But that ambiguity that exists, about a lot of the history of the characters, along with all that was said in Czech, works here, and I was touched. Sure, the budget is clearly tiny, there are a few times that the crowd looks at the camera, and you frequently see crew members and microphones on screen or in reflections, but the scenes of them making music together and separately are what makes the film magical. See this film.