Category: Movies

Dr. Strangelove

…but some movies are just too good! Actually I have a huge backlog of amazing films that I feel incapable of blogging about. Some films just leave you breathless, and “Dr. Strangelove” definitely is one of them.

Ever since I watched “The Shining”, I have been looking forward to this film that I have nicknamed “my last Kubrick” – among all the major, later Kubrick films this one was the only one I have not seen. In between, I randomly decided to watch “Paths of Glory”, and now, after another four months, I finally managed to see the title I have always been looking forward to. During this time, I announced this intention to several friends, all of whom praised the film and strongly recommended it to me. My expectations for the film, especially considering how much I love some of his other works, grew larger and larger.

Amazingly enough, they were completely fulfilled! The film was 2 hours long and about 15 minutes before the end I thought we weren’t even 1 hour into the film. It’s been awhile since I found a film to be this suspenseful, and that definitely was not because I was recently lacking suspenseful films. I also knew nothing about the story of “Dr. Strangelove” except that it was somehow about fascism. It was more a war parody than seriously about fascism, a mix of “Full Metal Jacket” and “Paths of Glory”, except much more stylish, funnier and even better executed. While none of Kubrick’s other films have been overtly funny, this one proves how incredibly well he is able to handle the genre of satirical comedy. I laughed out loud so many times! The Texan pilot! Bodily fluids! The lovely president! Merkwürdigliebe!

After reading Wikipedia articles and other secondary “literature” on the film, I think that I am very glad I didn’t know anything about the film beforehand. Besides some hilarious word plays, there doesn’t seem to be all that many hidden, subtle meanings in the film. Very much like “Rear Window” it shows very clearly what it wants to say without being blatant and vulgar, exactly the way I like it.

Ultimately I already have a feeling that “Dr. Strangelove” will hold a special place in my all time favorite list. Despite being a big fan of Kubrick’s other films, especially “Full Metal Jacket” and “A Clockwork Orange”, I am pretty sure that “Dr. Strangelove” has deserved the number one in my Kubrick ranking. It’s just that great.

Rachel Getting Married

I’m glad that I took a break from the film and waited… weeks until I resumed seeing it. It helped a lot, because for some reason, the film just didn’t click with me when I saw it the first time – I found the character quite self-indulgent, the story itself confusing and the music was getting on my nerves a whole, whole lot. Not to mention the weird disturbingly international and happy looking side characters who were all wearing crazy things. Ugh? Oh yeah, and I hated Sydney somehow. The only thing he ever does is a) this dishwasher contest, b) a bunch of annoying singing (I just don’t like bad singing in general?) and c) his wedding vow which brings us back to b). UGH.

But! On the second try, it was much easier for me to get into the film and to love it. Needless to say that Anne Hathaway is absolutely brilliant as Kym, and completely outdoes everybody else including the “I’m the forgotten one in the family” sister. Everybody in the family is a little bit sick and it’s quite lovely. The arguments and the sort of non-existing character development – even the drama with the mother – everything in the film feels extremely realistic and ‘authentic’. (Much more than Ms. Meyer-Landrut could ever pretend to be.) As a look into people’s lives, I think this movie does perfectly. Kym is probably one of the most interesting and well-characterized protagonists I have seen in films for quite awhile.

The style of the film is lovely and atrocious at the same time; I am absolutely in love with Kym’s hairstyle in the film and I like how everything in the film is designed in such an indescribable way. But let’s face it, most of it is utterly tasteless.

This film is probably one of the most special things I have seen for quite awhile; it’s great and nerve-wracking, yet I can’t see myself say any more about it, because it’s just too damn weird.

PS. 6451 is going to be here for two weeks in July. I am so happy! *_______*

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

Oh, Jacques Demy’s style is just too pretty. It took me about 5 minutes to get used to the singing, but then I was delighted by the incredible pinkness of the movie.

It’s a silly yet lovely story, full of ridiculous singing yet at the same time, I think there is a hint of innocent love transporting true emotions. Even her mother is so nicely stereotypical, I love it.

“A pregnant woman is always beautiful.” I am not so sure if I agree with that, but I want to believe it. In my flight from Budapest to Berlin, I saw a couple that I found surprisingly happy and sweet when they kissed. Shortly after it turned out that the woman was pregnant, and then I understood. Heh.

I think the colorful mise en scène is the greatest merit of the film, even more so than the cheerfulness that always comes with any musical, even when the storyline is comparably serious (such as here). It’s just so, so, so stylish, albeit in a completely different way than, say, Godard’s films are stylish. Demy’s flashy color choices are so unusual and I think I have never seen a ponytail as beautiful as Catherine Deneuve’s in this movie. XD I am inexplicably drawn to these colors and am looking forward very much to “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort” because I am expecting it to be even more lovely and cheerful.

The Women

Somebody I know says that you are only friends with someone when you have been drinking with him. I think you are only friends with someone when you know how much milk and sugar he puts in his coffee. In both cases, these friendships seem awfully male – what about the theory that women are just not really friends? Ahem.

In the same way, this whole movie really, really is all about men. Not that I complain, even after all these years (now don’t I sound old, ha ha ha), men are still my favorite subject and jokes about relationships are probably my favorite. Well, this film is sooo full of them! There is no single actress in the film that I am a fan of, and I seriously despise the actress of Peggy, so… what can I say? The film lives with its dialogue, and I loved it to pieces.

Of course there is no way the 2008 version could potentially match up to this amazing example, but out of fangirlness for the original film, I absolutely need to see it too.

Rudo y Cursi

“The Host”, “Die Legende von Paul und Paula”, “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis” and “Rudo y Cursi” have one major thing in common: They are all extremely funny movies, highly acclaimed in their own countries – and not exactly successful internationally. In the case of “Rudo y Cursi”, I would probably never have noticed it if I wouldn’t be such a Gael García Bernal fanboy and attempt to watch every single one of his movies.

And boy, I am glad that I watched this. Mostly a citizen of the Old World, I am a huge soccer fan, of course. If I recall correctly, there are more good anime about soccer than films with it; and I personally find it quite curious that such a nice soccer film happens to have come from Mexico of all places. There even is nobody dying in this movie! (That’s the most amazing thing about it.)

As it is with most funny films, it’s difficult to write about it. The weirdest thing of all of these is the fact that the confrontation of the brothers was not even a real confrontation, considering that they were aiming for the same thing! And managed to fail at it! Everything else was just filled with the most amusing jokes, especially when it comes to the brothers’ characters. Diego Luna’s character has such a delightfully bad personality, contributing the second most to the hilarity of the film (after the absolutely amazing lines by the off screen narrator – a soccer ball is like a woman indeed, hahahahaha).

Interestingly, I think I am slowly losing interest in Gael García Bernal, possibly because his roles are good but don’t make him stand out that much anymore. How sad!

Story-wise, I think that Carlos Cuarón did a much better job than in “Y tu mamá también” and for fans of the Mexican cinema, this film is an absolute delight. I am definitely going to watch the other films Cha Cha Cha Films are going to do (it’s only two so far anyways, “Mother and Child” and “Biutiful”).

The Boss of It All

This is definitely his best movie! Okay, it’s not, actually there is nothing that could potentially surpass Dogville. But! This is one of his best accomplishments and I can’t believe I haven’t seen this earlier. With “Adam’s Apples”, the humorous parts in “Festen” and Lars von Trier’s own, absolutely wonderful “Occupations”, I should have known that his first comedy must be gorgeous.

Back then, I was upset that Lars von Trier did not continue the America trilogy. It’s too bad that “Manderlay” was such an incredible flop; although it was not as good as “Dogville”, I still think it’s a great film. But if “The Boss of It All” is a reason for which he put “Wasington”, then I wholeheartedly approve. The premise is lovely: A company boss is unable to tell inconvenient truths to his employees, so he pretends there is a “boss of it all” who decides over what he does. But one day, he wants to sell his company to people who want to see this “boss of it all”, so he has to hire a friend who has to pretend to be this particular person. Unfortunately for him, his employees suddenly see their “boss of it all” and now want to talk to him. In the hands of Lars von Trier, this setting florishes to a wonderfully hilarious black comedy, with many twists and quite an unforeseen end. I especially love the Icelander who hates Danish people and to some degree I am actually glad that he got what he wanted in the end. Such a great, unpleasant old grumpy man! Hahaha. His outbursts of hatred against the Danes were hilariously refreshing, in the context of this film.

More than anything else, I am watching this film with the eyes of someone who has seen “Idioterne” and “Festen” and a bunch of other films that share this weird sense of humour. I have yet to see somebody who disliked “Adam’s Apples” yet at the same time I don’t really understand why it’s funny. “The Boss of It All” made me laugh out loud quite a few times, and I couldn’t even explain why! So yeah, if you like “Adam’s Apples”, I wholeheartedly recommend “The Boss of It All”. It made my day!

Thirst

In sum, “Thirst” is more of the usual, yet extremely powerful and fun to watch. All in all, it appears much less yet much more disgusting than what Park Chan-wook did before, and it definitely caters to all his fans when it comes to the visuals. It’s a dark tale with no happy end and has just as much stylish gore as literally all of his other works.

Aside from that, I can only say that “Thirst” perfectly met all my expectations and caught me a little bit by surprise with its ending. Without really showing all that much, the ending felt like a showcase of what Park Chan-wook’s films are to me: The way Tae-joo was hiding beneath the car was very humorous and even looked somewhat cute, and the music of the last scene coupled with the main characters’ cries made me want to cry myself. The same visual beauty and the inexplicable grippiness of the last scene can be found in about every one of his films, and I am glad that this one delivered it as well.

Curiously enough, this is probably the most evil female character Park Chan-wook has created so far. Or more like, she is more than just sick (like certain other characters); while it was always men who were responsible for the evil-doing so far, this film is much more concentrated on the femme fatale-ish erotocism of the woman – and boy how evil she is. I completely forgot about how unmotivatedly cruel film characters can be!

Without noticing, I have ended up seeing literally every one of Park Chan-wook’s major films, and I wouldn’t really recommend the film to anyone who is not already a fan of his. “Old Boy” is probably the most suitable gateway drug… except it’s quite an extreme one, I guess.

Beautiful

It’s a conspiracy! The long dresses, her actually beautiful looks despite all “tried” crazy looking uglification… the wonderful acting by the main character so incredibly focused on her faces – This whole movie just looks, feels and smells so incredibly japanese?

I am not really sure what this portrait of men as monsters is supposed to do, most of all it makes me want to hate stalkers. But even without having all that much of a meaning, the making of the film itself is right up my alley. I like its style a lot, even the fact that all those men who want to rape the main actress are awfully attractive themselves. The film sounds crazy, in fact, it is very intense and doesn’t seem to have a single sane person in its scarily realistic looking, yet stylized world. (See the coffee pot, which I am totally in love with!)

I knew about the end, and the whole film was not suspenseful in a traditional way, because I knew what was happening. Yet I think that Eun-Young’s actress wonderfully played the terrorized girl (bearing a lot of similarity to the main character in Bin-Jip) and the story was gripping nevertheless.

I find it sad that such an amazingly well-made film has only grossed a total of about $9000, which probably didn’t even cover a single actor’s work. It feels like the internet has more reviews about the film than people who have seen it. However, as weird as it may sound now, I don’t think I would recommend the movie. No matter how much I like its style and directing, there is a certain pointlessness to the film that makes me vary of ever wanting to watch it again.

Indiana Jones and the last Crusade

I admit I have never seen him in another role, which by extension means that I have also never seen an Indiana Jones movie before. Especially in direct comparison to “The Notebook”, it is striking how different guy flicks and chick flicks are. What amuses me the most is how in these girlie films, it’s all about men while movies for men typically only feature women as a sidekick – and in a mostly rather unappealing way. Either the women die or get mad or are just playthings. Tsk tsk.

Apart from that, the film was so extremely enjoyable! There is not much to a story that mostly features dramatic action and a few amusing riddles, but I am now much more interested in seeing all the other films from the franchise! (So there are a total of 4 of them huh.)

I would still choose Sean Connery over Harrison Ford any day. Even though Indiana Jones’ father is this ridiculous figure. But most of all, I need a good gender-neutral film now. XD

The Notebook

But then again, I saw “Bride Wars”. And in comparison to that one, “The Notebook” is the sweetest, most romantic and lovely story I have ever seen. I guess.

So this is a chick flick, but not an utterly pointless one. It shows a certain romantic love that is not entirely beyond what is realistic, and I especially loved the part where the movie differs from the book: I think that the beginning of the two people’s love is a very crucial one, and while Allie’s tsundere-ness was a little bit exaggerated, they do show Noah in about exactly the kind of way that a girl images her future husband-to-be. Not exactly good looking and without much to show except for a charming, dedicated and slightly forceful character. I am completely in love with the scene where they were lying on the street, and their youthful love was depicted like a dream.

Another scene I liked very much was how the mother told Allie that she too used to be in love with a worker but then has decided to give up the relationship. Nevertheless, the movie lies on the thin line of kitsch and sweetness, and I don’t make fun of romantic stories when I actually find them touching.

Apparently both the book and the film have quite a lot of fans – deservedly and exclusively female I assume.