Category: Movies

The Philadelphia Story

I am a little bit at a loss here. This is the strangest screwball comedy I have seen, or rather, it’s strange apart from the fact that it is a screwball comedy. So, granted, the protagonist has feelings for two men at the same time, and then there also is the fiance but he doesn’t quite count because, well, it’s pretty obvious she had no feelings for that guy whatsoever. But then there is this issue of morals – it is lovely and all that everybody (father, sister, friends) approves of her final decision to go for her feelings and not for some strange sense of morals, but the process of getting there was utterly strange. I don’t quite get this scene in which her father reproaches to her that her failure to love and to understand human weakness made him have an affair with a young dancer. Certainly we all should be a little tolerant, but why in the world would anybody want to tolerate an old lecherous man who goes after young girls so he can feel youth himself? That’s not weak, that’s despicable. The same principle goes through the whole film – Hepburn’s character is depressed because she does not feel human and in one of those other odd scenes, she apologizes to her father for not being “a disappointment”.

Ignoring the oddities of the film, I think I was quite delighted by Katharine Hepburn’s performance, who is not only as perfect together with Cary Grant as she has always been but even has some chemistry with James Stewart too – I think this made their love triangle quite lovely. Just like the brother in “Holiday”, my favorite characters were the little precocious sister and Liz Imbrie; her hair looked a little odd but her sarcastic tongue was an enhancement to every scene she was in. The only thing I thought was sad was that I mostly watched “The Philadelphia Story” because of Cary Grant and totally thought his role was too little! (In comparison to his other films at least.)

If I had a boat one day, I’d call it “True Love”. It’s too bad I don’t really like boats. Maybe an airplane, or a cat. Perhaps I expect too much from screwball comedies these days, but for one of its famous examples, “The Philadelphia Story” was not much more than good. Maybe on day I shall rewatch it.

Blood Simple

Today, Loris asked me to write this blog posting today and something smart on top of it. If I had not put “write blog posting on Blood Simple” onto the top of my to-do list today, I would normally have said that these two requirements do not mesh well. But I will give it a try so here we are. (Concerning the top of my to-do list you might be wondering what I have been doing all day, well somehow I worked some, did some homework, took a nap, watched TV shows, danced and wrote thank you notes. I love thank you notes.)

In the conversation, rule 34 also came up. So, considering that “film noir” exists, it’s probably conceivable to turn a thriller into porn. I wonder how often that actually happens – it’s a very specific esthetic, but it’s cheap to do (film noirs were cheap, back in the day) and your typical film noir has plenty of male-female interactions which could be re-written into full-blown sex scenes. That brought us to the question as to how “Blood Simple” is a film noir. Certainly there aren’t that many gangsters nor detectives in the film, and you cannot quite count a private detective whose incapability is almost funny. Frances McDormand is so, so cute in the film but she is far from being a femme fatale character. Nevertheless, I have doubted a single second that this is a film noir (though, not being black-and-white nor from the 40-50s, technically I probably have to say “neo-noir”); the premise of the film is the attempted murder because some wife had a new guy, and practically everything else in the film happens as a consequence to this premise (i.e. because of the woman), but also because of misunderstandings between the characters. The characters cannot trust each other, and that becomes the reason for their downfall. Even without being a traditional femme fatale, two out of three men in the film act because of their love for Abby.

One of the criticism against “A woman, a gun and a noodle soup”, Zhang Yimou’s quasi-remake of “Blood Simple”, consisted in the assertion that Zhang does not care about his characters in the film. That would make it an entirely different film from “Blood Simple” because I think the Coens really cared for these characters here. The way Abby is portrayed as weak, innocent-looking and afraid yet brave when looking into the eye of death, Ray as the guy in love who doesn’t quite know what to do but is smart in a similar way to the Dude since just looking at those fake photos he understood qhat happened and finally Morty as the jealous, painstricken man. Since I expected Frances McDormand to be giving a great performance and was happy to see her in such an important role again, I was most impressed by the character of Morty. Certainly his jealous anger seems run-of-the-mill but I have not seen such an emotional portrayal of such a man for quite awhile and the camera work with its close-ups of Morty certainly helps.

Camera work is definitely what makes “Blood Simple” so great. People say “oh it’s pretty good for a first movie” so often, but when it comes to the art of film-making, I think that the Coens definitely have mastered it already. The way the story is told, with the audience always one step ahead of the characters, the suspense created by the fact that all these misunderstandings between them creates an incredible sense of danger, heightened by the fact that you never really know who is actually dead or not – it takes a great filmmaker to be able to produce something like this, first film or not.

But then again, there are these kinds of films that you think are great in every aspect but you cannot quite relate to them, especially with something as down-to-earth as “Blood Simple” which differs from a typical Coen film in how it does not try to inspire some intellectual meaning into a huge cast full of freak of natures, but depicts comparably normal people in an admittedly quite murderous conflict. Despite my great impression with Dan Hedaya as Morty, I was not really able to feel with the characters, whereas I strangely could with “Barton Fink”. This is even more impressive considering that Barton Fink was quite a wimp, heh. It’s the kind of story which I thought was very entertaining while it lasted, and I certainly will remember the enjoyment, but there isn’t much more to that. Most of all, “Blood Simple” stands as an example for well-made films with a well-told story, definitely a must-see even if it’s not one of my personal favorites.

I have an incredible craving for a Lubitsch comedy now, but sadly I don’t have any available. I might decide to go for another Hollywood comedy, but then I also discovered another random film I want to see, namely “The Crush” with a 15 year old Alicia Silverstone. It look so randomly interesting?

Knocked Up

I do understand where the complaints of sexism are coming from, but that is certainly not because the males in the movie make sexist jokes. Everybody and their mother would probably agree that they are being idiots, and the bad misogynist jokes they crack just show on what low level they behave. The problem is with the women – oh God, why do they all have to be so incredibly bitchy? Debbie is the worst, but Allison herself also has at least two major scenes in which she is, downright, a bitch. Number 1 is the instance where she complains about him not reading baby books, number 2 is the moment she was about to have a baby and calls him for help. She only calls him when she needs him, huh? There are some reviews which complain about how the female protagonist loses her individuality to become a “wife” whose sole purpose is to support her “husband” in becoming a better man; I thought it was the other way around: She made him turn into herself, in the most egoistic manner possible. Annoying.

Apart from the seriousness which I couldn’t ignore (I can’t help it, really) and the unbearable ensuing emotes, the movie was awesome. I only wanted to peek into it at first, but then ended up watching over an hour because I just couldn’t stop. The storyline is a lot like Juno adult version, but who cares? The characters have a lot of great, funny lines, the story is engaging and I especially enjoyed the clash of characters between Ben and Allison. Except for the aforementioned scenes (and Debbie), I thought all characters were likable in their own way, very amusing and human.

On a completely unrelated side note, I watched the deleted scenes of “Mean Girls” today – so many good lines! But actually it made me want to watch “The Notebook” again. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are so awesome together?

I think that “Knocked Up” is a witty and smart movie, in a very down-to-earth kind of way. And it was hilarious! But now, I feel like I need something more… artsy? Think a Tarkovsky movie. I really want to watch “The American” now, but I don’t really have access to it.

Heathers

But then again I admit that I have totally loved “Superbad”, but then again, “Superbad” was about guys and – that is its biggest plus for me – it was about nerdy guys in a 2000s setting instead supposedly popular, bitchy girls in an 80s setting.

“Heathers” could only lose – just look at that hair and the horrible, horrible blazers which, back in the day, made me think that blazers always make you look like a silly mannequin. Nowadays I love wearing blazers, although not like the ones the Heathers wear. My favorite aspect of “Heathers” is actually the color scheme: I love how Heather 1 is red, Heather 2 is yellow, Heather 3 is green and Veronica is blue. I especially love how the camera shows Veronica’s blue shoes and blue tights while playing cricket. It makes me want to dress up in a single flashy color too – but which one? My least favorite aspect of the film is the fact that the Heathers didn’t actually show up that much. Whereas “Mean Girls” heavily featured amusing antics of the Plastics, the three Heathers seemed awfully generic – you couldn’t believe it can get even worse. Instead, it was all about Veronica and her dude being all rebellious and murderous. First, I thought it was funny, then it turned a little bit into ridiculous blah blah, and it is only the style and the hilarious absurdity of the story that saves it.

Winona Ryder had some strange yet awesome roles, and this one is no exception. I think that “Heathers” is worth its hype, but at the same time, it didn’t blow me away.

L’amour en fuite

Colette is clearly my favorite Doinel woman. I find it amusing that she calls herself an “ancienne d’Antoine Doinel” considering that she never actually had a relationship with him. Back in the day, I also thought that her way of talking was really strange, very 60s French nouvelle vague-ish, but also emotionless and cold, basically indifferent. The “new” Colette is the exact opposite of it, I think the actress does a great job portraying her character, she is something like the ideal woman, who loves but also who suffers and feels compassion even for somebody like Antoine Doinel. She was ravishing especially in the one flashback scene where Antoine meets her with her husband and child. I want the coat she wears!

I think the Doinel cycle finds an awesome ending with “L’amour en fuite”. I thought that “Les 400 Coups” was mostly unrelated to Doinel’s later life, even if Truffaut largely explains it with his mother’s affairs. Instead, I think that “Les 400 Coups” is mostly about childhood and growing up, whereas all the others are about, well, Antoine Doinel being the same egoistic, ridiculous yet likable character who never ever changes. Truffaut criticizes this character tenderly and I am a total sucker for that. Indeed, Antoine feels emotions and suffers, but much more than that he makes other suffer, because that’s just the Schnitzlerian romantic he is. It was lovely to see flashbacks of the other films, and I cannot quite decide whether I preferred this film or “Baisers volés”. I liked “Baisers volés” for its lightness, its witty dialogue and its nouvelle vague style (oh God so stylish!), but “L’amour en fuite” has the complexity I have been looking for. Just because Antoine has proven to be unable to keep his relationships, the film is far from being a mere amalgam of the previous stories, trying to tie them together; instead, the film ambitiously portrays several of his relationships, past and present, at the same time – successfully so, in my opinion. The movie ends on quite a happy note, with the notion that love is worth it, despite all the suffering and injustice.

One thing I absolutely love about the two only nouvelle vague directors I have seen (Godard and Truffaut, whom I also obsess about) is their subtle humor, and the fact that their movies have these little scenes, like Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo striking poses, or Jean Seberg selling newspapers, or Anna Karina and whats-his-name insulting each other by displaying parts of book titles to each other, Anna Karina and the two boys dancing in the café, or literally any scene of Jules, Jim and Catherine together. “L’amour en futile” has such a scene as well, I think, namely Antoine Doinel at the train station with his son, sending him to some music camp:
– Be good and study your instrument. If you study well, you can become a musician.
– So papa, what if I don’t study well?
– Then you only become a music critic.
That totally cracked me up!

Truffaut is typically considered the nouvelle vague director who loved women, but is that really the case? With Antoine Doinel, the true enemy of all women, I am not so sure. And yet I cannot help but love the Doinel cycle.

Sleeping Beauty

With Jane Campion and this other lady whose name I have forgotten, Australia seems to be producing a lot of high-profile female directors. Julie Leigh is not exactly one, but style-wise her movie certainly tries to be.

I am not sure what to make of the film. More than anything, I thought the movie was strangely vanilla. While the premise is great and almost reminds me of Banana Yoshimoto’s settings, the movie practically lacks both death and sex. Banana Yoshimoto’s stories at least were never about how men mistreat women or look down on them, although gender was always an issue, namely with respect to gender identity. This movie has this extremely subtle feminism to it – the way they touch her, the shameless Salò copy in which somebody makes the main character trip and fall on all fours, and of course the guy who screams “whore!” into her sleeping face. Back in the day, when I read Banana Yoshimoto’s books, I strongly believed I was running into emotional disaster because I was young and hopelessly in love, not because I was a woman. I was fascinated with men (and humans in general), but – never having actually been abused by a man – I was never that interested in how women are sexually dominated by men until I realized how often it happens to others.

Enough ranting: Bottom line is, the movie feels otherworldly, sometimes I even feel like the main character has never actually talked to a man. The premise of the film is so, so awesome and it’s unfortunate to see it ruined by this rather weak storyline. The film failed at showing me anything interesting, except for one scene: I liked the moment when Claire, the madame, showed genuine interest in the well-being of her girl (in real life, I assume that’s a very unlikely thing to happen), which was very different from Salò. Apart from that, I remember the somewhat Sofia-Coppola-like clothing design which I thought was pretty lovely but rather unsexy, almost frigid.

One more detail: One of the men describes the storyline of “Das dreißigste Jahr” by Ingeborg Bachmann. This is a little ironic, because I have a backstory with it. Back when I just turned 15, there was this school event which our biology teacher organized, a trip to somewhere in France. Anyways, during that trip I sat next to this guy who was one class level higher and read “Das dreißigste Jahr” out loud to me. I completely forgot the story by now, but only remembered the character Moll. It was through him that I realized it must have been the same story. At any rate, listening to the charaterization of Moll, I thought that Ingeborg Bachmann’s writing style was very male. She details things about this man which, well, normally only men would realize. With that in mind, I think the gender identities in “Sleeping Beauty” are even more screwed up.

If the mere looks of a nicely shaped girl arouse you even though the paleness makes her look like a corpse, then “Sleeping Beauty” might be the right thing for you. Otherwise you’d probably be bored, and you might be even more bored than I was, because I am a sucker for these kinds of pastel-colored, stylish prostitution films.

One Million Yen Girl

Many comments on the movie were about how the film is “merely a generic self-finding trip”. Is that really true? Maybe this “go out to different places and find love” thing is a typical theme in movies, but it certainly is not in other fields. Literature has its Bildungsroman but those types of coming of age stories are rarely related to travels, in anime I remember one single title with something like “self-finding”, namely “Honey & Clover”. Here is what I think: Every road movie is somewhat special, and “One Million Yen Girl”, by virtue of being a Japanese road movie, is rather different from most movies I have seen.

Most of all, I think the premise is lovely. The first and second stops she makes (beach and peach village) were very interesting, although I wished they had shown more of it. In fact, I think I wished they had shown more of it. Why did she not like the beach? What exactly did she get from the next place? The movie is a little bit like “Lost in Translation” where all we see is that the main character is lost, and I don’t actually feel like she grew that much, except at the very end, which is witty and great but feels almost out of character. Unlike “Miryang”, another movie heavily focused on the main character, I didn’t actually get the impression that we learned so much about Suzuko. Specifically, the story could have been more developed, perhaps into a miniseries and it could have turned into something like Kino no Tabi.

I love Aoi Yuu, especially with this movie, I have to say that she is one of Japan’s best actresses, and I think she also is much better than Rinko Kikuchi (who, I think, is overrated). Sure, she always gets these awfully Japanese roles where she has to smile awkwardly and look demure – but in many ways, she reminded me of Scarlett Johansson in “Lost in Translation”, which can only be a good thing. Aoi Yuu is amazing at looking gentle and sweet and so incredibly lonely, and she needs to get more appreciation for that.

Unfortunately, however, I don’t really like the idea of the movie. I have been thoroughly annoyed at the last part of the story, which was supposed to be some love story, but with an awfully boring and generic guy. I much preferred the guy from the beach shop! So what if he had blonde hair? He was cute and seemed so serious and honest and genki. The last part of the film was just painful, and it also didn’t help that I was thoroughly bored by the storyline of her brother. I felt sorry for him but this “I will go to an idiot child’s middle school to confront my bullies” crap was painful to watch. It’s ridiculous beyond belief and enough for me to question the point of the film, because it turned Suzuko’s eventual decision to go home (that is how I interpreted it) into a ridiculous endeavor as well.

This is a movie entirely for Aoi Yuu fans. If you don’t like her as an actress, or have no interest in these somewhat pointless, modern Japanese movies whose direction and quality are closer to live-action TV shows rather than movies like “Departures”, then stay away from this.

Miryang (Secret Sunshine)

There were only two reasons why I watched this movie: Jeon Do-yeon and Song Kang-ho. Okay, I have to admit that there is a secret third reason, which is that Criterion picked up the film. I set myself the secret goal of watching all Criterion movies, and while my rate of completion is steadily increasing, rising from 10% to nearly 18% now, Criterion is unfortunately having more and more films where I would just go “What, why this movie?” It will take me forever to watch all those films for the simple reason that my tastes are evolving, and they certainly are not always Criterion tastes.

Back to the actual film: I was impressed and surprised. Originally, I was expecting some very good acting performances (which I totally got) and a rather painful story. Husband dead, son dead, woman turns towards mad religiousness – not really the kind of story you expect to be uplifting. Not to mention that the guy who falls in love with her is stuck in one-sided admiration for this miserable main character (what in the world does he see in her?) You’d expect a Korean melodrama, and my last experience with a Korean tragicomedy was disastrous. With these low expectations in the film, I had no idea that it would end up being so funny. The film just has so incredibly many scenes which make me chuckle, carefully dispersed throughout the film so that there always is some uplifting moment even amidst the saddest events.

As mentioned, the two actors make the film. My love for Bae Doona and Lee Young-ae will never waver, but Jeon Do-yeon is just brilliant – a well-deserved third, but not because her acting is worse than the other two. It just so happens that the other two came first. In terms of acting, she’s perhaps the deepest Korean actress out there, so powerful and talented. Wow. But Song Kang-ho is shining even more, in my opinion. It’s the polarization between their two characters – tragic and comical – that the film becomes really great. He is the exact opposite of her, and even though none of what he ever does affects of helps her at all, it seems like, for the movie, his presence is extremely crucial. It contrasts her dreaminess and her self-centered desperation with the down-to-earth character of the guy who is strange yet completely normal, clumsy yet smart, and totally good-hearted.

I also think that the ending, which deviates from the original novel in which the woman kills herself, is very hopeful. Whereas we see the sky in the beginning, the camera points to the ugly trash on the ground at the very end, but it is the confrontation with the ugly reality that will the main character will find true salvation. She is taking matters into her own hands by cutting her hair, which also might be a symbol for some sort of change, and she lets him help her, which might mean that she wants him in her life. Perhaps, after going through all those stages of grief, she is gradually going to get some character development, and allow the possibility of a new relationship. I thought this interpretation of the end would be lovely. (Is it too naive? Hah.)

Despite having written so much about the film, I am not sure if I would recommend it. It’s not my favorite Korean movie, but I think it’s a great example of a good Korean film, and totally underrated. Well, I know only 3 people with a special interest in Korean films. Person 1 has watched the film with me, and person 2 claims “One fine spring day” to be his favorite Korean movie. So “Miryang” is probably not for him.

Tropa de Elite 2 – o inimigo agora é outro

I loved “Tropa de Elite” and the sequel reminds me of why that is. The story probably had less of an impact and in many ways, despite Matias’s death, it was less tragic. Whenever I write a blog post on sequels, I tend to re-read what I wrote on the first part back in the day. Especially my favorite films get such treatment, during which I realize over and over again how lame my old blog posts where. Whereas I tend to remember the respective films vividly, the posts I write on them do not reflect that at all. In this case, all these things I wrote about “Tropa de Elite” back in the day still hold true. But actually, it was much more than that. “Tropa de Elite” made me think, it made me cry and – most of all – it gave me a fresh perspective on the world that rarely another film did. In comparison to that, “Tropa de Elite 2” is much smarter yet at the same time, maybe it’s a little too smart. Nascimento obviously had to grow up some, and we all know that it’s the system itself that is wrong; that corrupt politicians and police are the reason why the slums in Rio de Janeiro is a horrible place.

I was actually really sad at Matias’s death, although I saw it coming. I thought it was really touching how Nascimento called him “André” all the way until the end, and how serious he remained about their friendship. I also really enjoyed Fraga as the likable antagonist. The dangerous mix of Nascimento’s work and family life was what made this film so different from the first, even though direction, atmosphere and storyline were largely similar. The film might be mostly a “more of the same” kind of sequel, but in this case it’s more of the same awesomeness.

I doubt they will make a third movie out of it. If they do, it’s pretty much bound to become inferior to the previous titles like “Infernal Affairs 3” or “Godfather 3” which I still have not seen. As just a sequel, “Tropa de Elite 2” did almost perfectly in reviving my love for the franchise.