Category: Movies

My Week with Marilyn

I thought Eddie Redmayne wasn’t so bad. I thought Michelle Williams’ Marilyn Monroe was absolutely stunning. And finally, I thought that the film is giving Marilyn Monroe more depth than she probably deserved. You read so many things about Marilyn Monroe that I fear it destroys the film because everybody and their mother seems to have strong opinions on her. Truth to be told, it is not really that interesting as to who she really was. Just because somebody is a big star doesn’t necessarily make them all that much more interesting than, say, the cashier at your supermarket next door.

To me, Marilyn Monroe has never been a legend. Come on she’s just an actress! I really liked her in “Some like it hot” and I find her looks quite fascinating. After all, she was the first actress I have ever known by name, just like Hitchcock was the first director I have ever known. Yet Marilyn Monroe is a product of her time – in today’s ultraskinny world, her strangely shaped eyes and huge bottom would never have been that successful. I was disturbed to see people in the telling her that she is “the greatest actress in the world” because she isn’t and even more so when I read reviews in which some New York Times person complains that Michelle Williams’s breasts are not rocket-like enough. There is a reason why the AFI ranked her behind Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo – every single one of which is a better actress than her. She eclipses them with her fame, but that’s it.

Having Marilyn Monroe’s strangely enlarged reputation in mind, it is impossible to see the film as just a romance story between a whimsical actress and some young boy. It is and must be a film about Marilyn Monroe because of said reputation. Nevertheless, I had some inherent interest in the film. First of all, Michelle Williams’ portrayal of the Monroe look and talk and walk is absolutely gorgeous. It makes the Marilyn Monroe look so distinguishable because she is exactly what Michelle Williams normally is not. Second, and most importantly, Marilyn Monroe is not the only person in the world who perceives herself to be in the center of the world. Her low self-esteem coupled with the fear of failing makes her strangely likable and every one of her nervous attacks understandable. She longs to be loved even though she is uncapable of loving neither herself nor anyone else, and fears to be left alone even though so many people are surrounding her at all times. There is even a little bit more to that – I read awhile ago that Marilyn Monroe liked to read, and probably also liked to learn. Her capability may be limited, but she probably tried her hardest to make a mark as a person, not just as a sex object. This is nicely reflected in the biggest confrontation Marilyn Monroe has with Laurence Olivier in the film, in which he says something along the lines of “All you do is looking sexy.” I’d be appalled too. I don’t think the film portrayed her as a one-sided character (nor does it do so for anybody else except the young boy) and I was able to identify with all of them. Quite a feat considering how not a single character is really likable.

I don’t think I would place this film onto any favorite film list but it actually deeply impressed me. I’m not sure if “The Prince and the Showgirl” is worth a look, but I am quite curious about it now.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

I started into this film a few minutes too late, maybe 1-2 and it began with Rachel McAdams’s death. So shocking! I was excited to see a film with her for a second and then she died without myself ever finding out why. I also didn’t realize throughout the entire film that this was a sequel – I just thought it was some mindless action movie and that’s it.

My favorite aspect about watching movies in a public space is the experience of hearing other people laugh. When Holmes and Watson started to dance, there was this lady who was squeaking with laughter behind me. I loved it. Apart from that, the film didn’t actually provide that much comedic relief. It was indeed mostly a story with silly action scenes, a mystery to solve and many crazy scenes. I am surprised I didn’t find a plot hole in the huge mess of Sherlock Holmes’s scheme in which even the wife had a role at the end.

Perhaps the film could have been better if it had a stronger female lead, which Rachel McAdams could potentially have provided. There is a part of me who really wants to see the first film now.

The Artist

It is hard to approach the film as it is. When I saw that it was running at the Philadelphia Film Festival last year, I really wanted to see it and thought it was one of those curious underdog films, a piece of nostalgic candy I can indulge in. Sadly I was too busy to go to any of the films then. Now it’s still a piece of candy, but all of a sudden, everybody and their mother, including Mr. von Bothmer, has to say something about it. Most people probably haven’t even seen any silent films besides, say, Charlie Chaplin sketches. It’s so damn hard to escape these voices. In a year in which the Oscar people considered “War Horse” for a best picture Oscar, I am even more doubtful whether this Oscar business is a good thing for any film.

As a film, “The Artist” is quite great. The story is a little thin, just like “Hugo” was a little thin, but its execution and the likable plot make up for it. Concerning the content, everything in the film has been done (the theme of artist who is too old and/or unable to get into the new way of movies is as old as Hollywood itself and spruced some masterpieces like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “All about Eve”), instead it is rather the production details and the way it is shot that makes it special. I think it would have been amusing if they made this movie 20 years later, when the time they want to imitate is exactly 100 years ago, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. Silent movies were old 20 years ago too.

Don’t get me wrong, “The Artist” was immensely enjoyable and strangely enough, it’s a feel-good movie. It’s also interesting to see how silent films are viewed with the eyes of today. Unlike “Larry Crowne”, “The Artist” is a good film in every aspect, but the film is a little bit overrated and I would only see it again if I hang out with somebody really wishes to watch it. Instead, I’d rather watch another actual silent movie.

Larry Crowne

Let’s get this over with quickly. This movie is a contender for worst Hollywood movie ever, next to “Ramen Girl”. It’s not even in the category of the Chinese “What Women Wants” which is somewhat hollow and stupid, but so endearingly enjoyable that I could almost recommend it. In comparison to that, this film is pure idiocy.

I don’t care if the film is merely supposed to be a vehicle for Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts to have yet another major role, after all “What Women Wants” does exactly the same thing with Andy Lau and Gong Li. But at least they could have made a nice story out of it. Instead, we have a Julia Roberts whose major conflict with her husband is the fact that he likes porn (hello how many men do not?) Now that husband is being an idiot about it, but it feels so constructed that one could feel almost brainwashed into thinking that porn viewer = asshole. Then, Julia Roberts’s character teaches this amazingly stupid class in which she begins by demeaning her students. When they are clearly doing their best at giving speeches, she interrupts them mid-sentence rolling her eyes. What teacher does that? The film clearly shows how by the end of the course, everybody is giving good speeches (totally unrealistic but oh well), yet they all get B’s and C’s in the class which in the real world is obviously all A’s. Tom Hanks’s character makes a little bit more sense, but he is so oblivious about love you’d wonder how he ever got a woman. The biggest problem about his character is actually that girl Talia. Her character is so random and pointless, and her interactions with Tom Hanks’s character is so unrealistic that it makes me wonder if anybody on the cast has ever been a college student.

I don’t have any qualms about the film being bland, being typical Tom Hanks fare à la “nice guy in nice story”. The film just annoys me as a story in a similar way as Hanasaku Iroha’s work ethics did. I hope Tom Hanks will make better movies again.

Knife in the Water

A labmate of mine put it like this: I am dating [my girlfriend] and I am dating [my advisor]. I was quite disturbed to hear that given how both he and our advisor are male and I am not used so-called professional contacts of mine making gay jokes, but there is some sad truth to that. I watched a whole bunch of movies lately, but there was absolutely no way I could have sat down for 10 minutes to clear my mind and write postings. (Speaking of said advisor, he wants us to think about what makes us proud in our lives. What do you think it is for me? :D)

In the case of “Knife in the Water”, it is surprisingly not a big problem. I read a few essays on the film, and it has extensive Wikipedia articles. Inexplicably, this is a film where not so much happens yet at the same time, it is touching upon so many different topics that one can exploit. It’s channeling a future Kieslowski? In other words, the film is beautifully subtle and amongst the very few Polanski films I have seen (Repulsion, The Fearless Vampire Killers), this one is easily my favorite.

On the outside, “Knife in the Water” is just about a young guy meeting some old guy with his wife, spend a day with them, talk some but not much, get into conflicts with them and finally seducing the wife. It seems like a boring love triangle, so it is surprising how there is more to it. In fact, the film barely contains any love at all – sexual tension at most – and none of the two men really interact with the wife that much. The remarkable aspect about the film is that every character has a second face. Krystyna appears rather dumb and submissive, but she is smart enough to look at aforementioned second face of both her husband and the young man. Secretly, the former is the older version of the latter, but neither wants to admit it even when the wife points it out to them. The film is not actually about a fight between two men; it is a fight between generations, between any man and their younger or older self, rendering the film one about humanity.

I found myself contemplating the film a lot after I saw it, and it certainly is not only because Jolanta Umecka looks surprisingly sexy in her bathing suit. (I want that bathing suit!) I don’t even really know why that is, but I thought it was a great display of manliness, and despite the standardized gender roles in the film I found myself very interested in the interpersonal dynamics. Unlike Godard’s and Truffaut’s fashion, in this film actually Krystyna owns them both behind her meek appearance.

Polanski’s films seem to have no common thread, and “Knife in the Water” is probably different from anything else he did, starting with the language. (Miloš Forman anyone?) For me, this film is a little gem. Very much like a Kammerspiel, and I love this kind of stuff.

Branded to Kill

These days I have been awfully busy. Two days ago I started working from roughly 11am, went to class in the middle and watched half of a movie for dinner, but then continued until 1am in the morning when I finally got done with that part. Yesterday, after working again from 11am to about 4pm, I finally decided to take the rest of the day “off” to organize my life, but since there are several problems I have not been able to solve, I couldn’t sleep well.

The reason why I am watching these movies despite a relatively busy schedule is the Netflix-expiration effect. Now that I don’t have Netflix anymore, I started watching movies on Hulu, where Criterion has uploaded all of their movies to. (Amazing, really. I am seriously contemplating getting Hulu Plus now.) Every week they have a bunch of new movies which are free, and these particular films are going to be taken down soon.

This “stress” about wanting to watch these movies is sometimes a blessing in disguise. “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” was brilliant, “Monsieur Verdoux” was too, but the biggest surprise was “Branded to Kill”. Nobody ever recommended it to me, I watched the film solely based on the fact that it is in the Criterion Collection. We all know that they have a few awful films in their line-up (“Un Conte de Noel” anyone?) but just like “Metropolitan”, my gut feeling told me that I want to see this. Indeed, it was right.

“Branded to Kill” was extremely controversial at its time, and its director is mentioned in the same line as David Lynch when it comes to craziness and absurdity. Personally, I don’t think the comparison holds that much. Suzuki is not that absurd, in fact his stories are absolutely entertaining, and the characters make perfect sense within their world. Most of all, I am impressed by his Japanese noir style. It’s so amazingly 60’s, somewhat avant-garde and reminiscent of French films like “Alphaville” and “Irma Vep”. Everybody is looking extremely stylish, and despite the misogyny (I accept that given the age of the film) every scene with a woman is hauntingly erotic. This is essentially a film noir Nouvelle Vague mix in which, of course, everybody dies at the end.

I think that “Branded to Kill” is a black comedy. There is this scene in which the main character sleeps with his wife, and they are shown copulating literally anywhere – on the staircase, in the bathroom, on the floor. And in-between these scenes, Suzuki presents these short shots of the neat, empty bed in bird’s view, clearly indicating that they never actually have sex here. I thought it’s these details that make the film really amusing.

Suzuki appears to be extremely beloved amongst critics, as it is not hard to find essays, analyses and fansites about his movies. As for me, I might already become a fan too – at least “Branded to Kill” was a lot of fun. I might be biased due to my immense love for butterflies, but even without that the film is a weeaboo-must-watch. I mean come on – Jim Jarmusch loves him.

Monsieur Verdoux

Let’s try forget that this is a Charlie Chaplin movie. Especially at the beginning, without Chaplin’s Tramp character “Monsieur Verdoux” feels like anybody could have written and starred in it. The story itself is much more serious and overtly realistic than “A King in New York”, the only other Chaplin movie I know which does not feature the Tramp, and cinematography and style just feel so not like Chaplin. But the bittersweet black comedy elements cannot be unseen, or the way Chaplin uses a lot of pantomime and body language to get the comedy across. It’s a film that feels so different from everything Chaplin yet you cannot get him out of your mind.

For the first hour at least, “Monsieur Verdoux” is funny, deep and beautifully written. I was quite smitten with the premise of the film, and I loved the way Verdoux was moving throughout life, with a sarcastic mouth but a lot of love in his heart. Whereas typical Chaplin films only have rather one-dimensional characters, this is perhaps his only film with some really great side characters. Annabelle is amazing and even Lydia is quite wonderfully characterized. I am not surprised that Chaplin calls this his best movie, you can feel how much work has been put into this film, like the Coens with “Miller’s Crossing”.
Later on, I was actually quite a bit confused. So… he didn’t “lose” his wife and child by killing them, didn’t he?

I also think that this was actually Chaplin’s most personal film. His relationships with women – I am surprised nobody has made a movie out of this. The Wikipedia section listing his relationships reads like a black comedy itself. Almost every cliché is in it – the first (true?) love at young age, several divorce fights, rumored affairs, a short but highly publicized love story with another famous actress, relationships which turned into friendship, and finally one last wife who he spent the rest of his life with, though it took him 30 years of amorous escapades to find her.

On a less bright side note, I find Chaplin’s later talkie movies strangely painful. In “A King of New York”, for the longest time I thought Chaplin’s character was in an incredible distress because didn’t realize how absurd the film was. As a result, I almost panicked and thought that he’ll ever get out of that mess – which he did, in the most amusing way. Perhaps a re-watch of the film, knowing exactly how it will end, will help me get over that case. “Monsieur Verdoux” is even worse – you know exactly that Verdoux must fail, get arrested and so on, and it is not funny but just painful to wait, and wait for when he will fail. It is great that one cares so much for these Chaplin characters (as always!), but on a personal level, I find it hard to enjoy the comedy under such circumstances.

I am not sure if I agree with Charlie Chaplin’s sentimental vision of life, and I thought the second half of the film felt a little dragging at times, but I too agree that this is one of Chaplin’s masterpieces.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Gorp says (I love mentioning him in my reviews these days, huh? XD) that this movie is best seen when you are half-asleep. As for myself, I watched the film in little pieces over 4 days, each time starting watching it after 10pm. Every day I was really, really tired. And strangely enough, the later it got the more I enjoyed the film. It’s amazingly moody, beautiful and it has a few scenes where simple facial expressions is all the scene needs. It really makes me curious about how the movies with Gena Rowlands are – I have extremely high expectations considering that John Cassavetes must love her.

Apparently there is a rather different, longer version of the film which is rarely shown in the U.S. Reportedly, Ben Gazzara disliked the longer version saying that the club scenes were too long. But the club scenes are precisely what I loved about the film! That is where the moodiness comes from, where the girls could become more than lovely side characters. Right now, all of them are sidekicks except for one who serves to show how the main character experiences love.

I am not sure if I would recommend the movie. It’s the kind of film where I’d understand if you say that you loved it, but I’d also understand if you said you hated it. But in the latter case, I’d think that it’s a shame.

Never let me go

Considering that Keira Knightley is in this, I now realize that “Never let me go” is a lot like “Atonement”. Gorp really loves comparing movies to other movies, where “Inception + Before Sunrise = Copie conforme” is my absolute favorite. In the same veins, “Never let me go” is a mix of “Atonement” and… something sci-fi?

Actually there really is nothing really sci-fi in this film. No spaceships, no aliens, nothing. But the only sci-fi element in the film is crucial. The premise of this film relies upon an alternate reality in which clones exist purely for organ donation purposes. There is something hauntingly realistic about that, and I thought that makes this film surprisingly beautiful.
At the end of the day, they are people, and by that logic, life expectancy has not grown. Actually they just made a few more slaves with the difference that these slaves prolong your life. Mankind is fairly scary. If you consider how people find Hatsune Miku creepy, then I wouldn’t be surprised if clones (much more creepy after all!) would be ostracized and mistreated, fueled by the belief that they might not have “souls”.

If I knew that I am going to die, fully healthy at around age 30, I would most likely do things very differently in life. That is why there is something beautifully haunting about these characters’ lives. They don’t have to worry about anything like a career, or the meaning of their lives, because they are not allowed a career and the meaning of their lives is an extremely sad one. They don’t have to survive, but instead their early death is predetermined. Is this a blessing in disguise or just plain sad?

When you have lived a life long enough to love, it really is incredibly sad. Especially in this movie it was. Sure, the characters have their flaws. They are incapable of pursuing their love for each other until their love rival (of all people!) pushes them to. That is kind of pathetic but you know, so are Tengo and Aomame in 1Q84 for over 20 years. It is a sweet and pure love, and you want to root for them the entire time.

I loved the movie for its incredible sadness, because it’s a great “what if” type of sci-fi story, and because Andrew Garfield is cute enough to be parts of a triangle story. I can’t believe I have not yet seen this film before considering how relevant it is to my interests.

The Producers

How come I have only seen this film now? I know about it for years, ever since I saw an ad in the Berlin subway for the musical version. I thought it was really strange, and dismissed it as one of those silly things they typically play at the theaters in Berlin – one of the reasons why I have never actually seen a play in Berlin.

At that time, I had no idea that “The Producers” is such a classic. But now that I saw the film, I have mixed feelings about this fact. The film is just very, very silly. Not so much the oh-so-offensive Nazi stuff, but more like the way the rest of the story was handled. I loved the film all the way up until “Springtime for Hitler” premiered but the aftermath seemed a little silly to me. They got to jail (which was unfortunate because I actually rooted for them) but nevertheless, they did not attempt to become better people at all but proceeded to use the same scheme again. I also think that last 20 minutes of the film were that funny, except for the crying old ladies perhaps.

It’s not as bad as I make it sound though – this is my only complaint. Apart from that, the film is comedic genius. I especially liked the beginning when the main characters met each other, their interactions are perhaps my favorite aspect of the entire film, and I wished they had fleshed out those characters even more. A delightful display of American humor, “The Producers” is totally deserving its cult status despite its silly ending.