The Bank Job, Never Forever, The Savages, Joy Division, Honeydripper, & The Fall of Fujimori

The Bank Job basically exists for one scene and one scene only: near the end, Jason Statham kicks ass. Sure, the parts before it are a pretty good based on a true story heist film. It's really not clear how much of it is remotely true, and my suspicion is that vast majorities are not remotely true. It's a slick film from a lot of people who have been in the industry for years, plus, huge amounts of gratuitous nudity. Yay?

Never Forever is a film about an American housewife who is married to a bigshot Korean lawyer, but they can't have kids, so she starts having sex with a Korean immigrant so they can have a kid. Of course, they fall in love and complications ensue. Also, Koreans+religion=crazy religious. Weirdly, abortion is portrayed as an acceptable alternative for the baby. Vera Farmiga is weirdly attractive and is topless in many scenes. Other than that, there's really very little to recommend the film to anyone. It's not a bad film, but it wasn't really worth my time. Should've just looked for the naked video clips online and watched Hiroshima Mon Amour. Which is the top of the five movies tagged with Asian Man White Woman Relationship on IMDB. I've seen three of the other four, but there have to be other movies that need this tag.

The Savages is a depressing film about a teacher and his writer sister whose father is suffering from dementia. Acting is good from everyone and really it's just a little too depressing to enjoy at all.

Joy Division is the documentary counterpart of Control. As such, I really knew so much of what was going to happen, recognized video, and few things were remotely new. Still, it's good to finally get the versions of the stories from the people who lived them. I don't think that I need to explain how much I love Joy Division. I'm happy that I don't have to wallow for another 90 minutes in depression for a little while though.

Honeydripper is John Sayles's latest film. Somehow he's gone two years without releasing a new film. Of course, Silver City wasn't all that good. This one wasn't all that good either, although the soundtrack was full of blues and early rock 'n' roll. It's disappointing to think of how he's such a great director, and to see him just make a not worth much film is worse than if it hadn't been a Sayles film.

The Fall of Fujimori is about the former president of Peru, an agrarian engineer son of Japanese immigrants who ended up serving as president for about ten years until he stepped down due to being horribly corrupt. Well, his family disagrees, but he did some good, taking down the Shining Path. He comes across as a guy who is completely disconnected from the reality of what he has done, using a loophole in Japanese law to hide there until after the release of the documentary. Of course, he's since been arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru where he's serving maybe 40ish years? He's had at least four trials, so I think that's right. He's also had to deal with running against his ex-wife in the 1995 presidential election, and his daughter is currently in congress, with his ex-wife a former member of congress (after she lost her title of First Lady (given by Fujimori to his daughter)). Seriously, just a weird story.