Category: Movies

L.A. Confidential

Perhaps this is due to the actors. I am a big fan of all three main protagonists now, and oh my God, has Russell Crowe ever been sexy like this? Hmmm. Unlike „Black Dahlia“, every single of the actors actually had some personality, their characters and the way they work and what they think about the world or their job actually matters in the story. I think that is one of the most important reasons why „L.A. Confidential“ exceeds „The Black Dahlia“ by… millions.

I also thought that Kim Basinger was really well cast. The first and only time I watched a film with Kim Basinger was „8 Mile“, ahaha. Before I saw that movie, I read an article in the „Spiegel“ that she wore an Escada dress that sold out immediately after she won an Academy Award. (I still remember that because I loved the dress back then.) It turned out she won it for „L.A. Confidential“, very deservedly so if you ask me. I don’t think she is a natural beauty and she doesn’t look like Veronica Lake all that much, but there is some sort of dignity around her that I really like somehow.

Enough ranting about Kim Basinger, no matter how great she was and how sexy and fatale she looks in this coat. Compared to „Vertigo“ and other titles, I can’t believe nobody has really mentioned this movie to me. Really, the only reason why I got the film was because the Special Edition DVD was only 3 euro. And now, it’s easily one of my favorite films in my collection, or so I think. Scary.

I think the last film that I have found so gripping was „One, Two, Three“. That was another movie that made me want to continue watching. I even thought I want to re-watch the film right away. You can easily imagine how rare it is that I would feel like that about a simple film that does not even hold any identification potential for me. No, „L.A. Confidential“ is nothing but an immensely very well-written adaptation of a novel. I could rant on and on about the film, but ultimately there is not much to say about it, except that I wholeheartedly recommend it unless you are on a „I want to see meaningful and deeply emotional films“ trip.

Vertigo

To make things clear first: This is different than „Requiem for Dream“. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching „Vertigo“ and I think it is a good movie, but ultimtately it just did not blow me away. Perhaps I have expected too much, but everyone seems to love this movie to an extent I do not understand.

Of course „Vertigo“ had a great story: it was mysterious, it had a shocking end, and most of all, I really love the „Vertigo effect“ and Alfred Hitchcock’s directing. I will probably never understand why he is so incredibly famous, and why he was the only director I have ever known until I was, like, 15. So, what is so great about „Vertigo“ apart from that?

For myself, the film had quite a few weaknesses. First of all, I don’t like Kim Novak all that much. I loved her in „Kiss me, Stupid“ because I like how she was the comparably less attractive, but funny and good-hearted prostitute. It was a role that fit her perfectly. Here, she is supposed to be the fine woman, who is supposed to have the charme of a femme fatale. For me, she doesn’t unfortunately. Her face is beautiful, but in a different way than your typical film noir actress.
Second, I found it a little weird that the end of the movie came so incredibly fast. Just two, three seconds there was this last shock and then it was all over. No single shot about what happened to the characters afterwards, sadly not even anything about this other woman who was in love with the main character. I understand that it is perhaps a little difficult to do some sort of epilogue, but was it really the best thing to suddenly end the movie like that?
Finally, my biggest irk with the story is that I don’t quite accept its „psychological depth“ or whatever. From what I saw, I think that the main character is just an obsessive idiot who was unable to love a woman beyond her surface. Perhaps there is more to it, but right now, I can’t see it, and that makes the latter part of the whole story incredibly sad and unnecessary. It is a pity because it is quite beautiful how Judy fell in love with that ex-cop. But I don’t think you were supposed to feel sorry for her or anything.

So, why do you like „Vertigo“?

Barry Lyndon

The title of this blog post is a failed reference to „Fanny and Alexander“. For some reason, I feel like there are lots of between them: Both are epic stories centered about the life of a man (or a boy), both movies are somewhat episodic, and finally Lady Lyndon barely appears in the movie just like Fanny does. XD Ultimately, both movies gave me a similar vibe, I don’t know why.

„Barry Lyndon“ is another one of those movies that took a little time for me to like. I barely knew anything about the story except that it’s about a guy who wants to enter the ‚noblesse‘ but fails, and that it is based on a book by Thackeray. That was everything I needed to know that the movie would be very, very boring. I could only hope that Kubrick’s gorgeous directing would make up for that, and luckily it did: „Barry Lyndon“ was rather suspenseful especially towards the end, it brought Victorian England to life in a very believable way and finally, I think that it did a good job at characterizing Barry Lyndon himself as an ambiguous, very human type of person. He is brave, yet cowardish, full of life, yet obsessed about getting a title. Most of all though, I felt sorry for Lady Lyndon: She really had a very small but sympathetic role in Barry’s life and her appearance made the film so much nicer too, heh. She was the only naive, pure-hearted character in the whole story.

All in all, I can easily see why „Barry Lyndon“ ended up becoming Kubrick’s least popular movie: It really is not suited for everybody’s palate. However, I enjoyed it and I think it was an outstanding movie. It just happens to be one of my least favorite Kubrick’s behind masterpieces like „A Clockwork Orange“, „2001“ and „Full Metal Jacket“.

A Clockwork Orange

It escapes my mind why I have not written about this movie earlier. In fact, I am nearly perfectly sure that I have started writing comments, but right now, it is absolutely unfindable.

The truth is that „A Clockwork Orange“ is one of those movies that is constantly on my mind (same for „Full Metal Jacket“ by the way). Both of them are easily my favorite Kubrick movies, before 2001 even. Aside from that, what can I say? It’s been awhile since I saw „A Clockwork Orange“, and I know that my thoughts about it were extremely chaotic. So my best guess would be that I have found myself incapable of writing this blog posting to the point of having forgotten it.

It’s pretty obvious that I find this film real horrorshow. There was this specific magical moment that turned the movie from something shocking via something random into a masterpiece for me: It was when the main character was spit into the face and smiled. In that moment, I thought that this smile was the deepest and most beautiful smile I have ever seen. Its ambiguity between evil and rebellious braveness, arrr. Starting from that point, the movie made perfect sense to me, and it fascinated me throughout its course.

It is sad, yet explicable why the movie is so immensely popular even today, especially among those who interpret it as a violence fest. There is so much more to the movie, and I love it for its controversy. As for myself, while I used to hate the main character when I watched the first 15 minutes of the film for the first time, I have come to root for him, I wanted him to triumph over the rotten society he is in and I loved the „one man against everybody“ topic.

Perhaps one of the reasons why „A Clockwork Orange“ is at least as epic and memorable as Lord of the Rings is the language employed by the characters. While Nadsat is far from being as beautiful as Elvish, it is easily recognizable that Burgess is a linguist who knows what he’s doing. As a fictional language, Nadsat is quite elaborated and it works. Plus, it sounds pretty cool, although I don’t think I will ever refer to my friends as droogs, let alone learn the language, heh. (I have always wanted to learn Elvish though.)

I find it satisfying how the movie ended on a rather open note, and I am a big fan of the original end of the book. I too think that it is perfectly realistic how the main character would ‚just naturally‘ decide to stop with his malicious actions and to build up a family and a real life.

All About Eve

There are quite a lot of genres you can apply to „All About Eve“: drama, comedy, tragedy. To me, the tragedy prevailed for some reason. Surely I was able to laugh and acknowledge how the film was full of extremely well-done jokes and deadpan witty commentaries, but for some reason, I could identify myself way too well with the tragic character of Bette Davis. I’m not even old, mind you. Her monologue sounded like it could have come right from my own mouth, although my situation is actually entirely different from hers, if I think about it. I could now go on ranting how I had to think about the movie a lot before I went to sleep, but that is ultimately not of importance.

What I think is important, however, was what a surprisingly good movie it was. I got to know about it the first time when I watched „All About My Mother“, in which Bette Davis looked like your generic bitch. Plus, I wasn’t particularily interested in the premise, I didn’t care about how some young girl enters the stage world with her intrigues. To be exact, I still don’t find that particular aspect of the movie interesting, I have found the character development in Margo and her friends much more noteable.
If one has to compare Bette Davis’s and Anne Baxter’s performance, I’d definitely lean towards the former. I even had the feeling that Anne Baxter didn’t even get that much screentime, but there was this one scene was fabulous. It was the one where she confronts Karen and turns from her apologizing face to her evil face. However, Bette Davis played her role with such energy and honesty, it was immensely believable and attractive in some ways. I believe it is not my personal bias towards the Margo Channing character but also Bette Davis’s energetic acting that made me get into that character so much. Ultimately, I think it was a good ending for her. Even though she „lost“ the battle, she has gained a purer and much more honest love than Eve Harrington could ever have. That is where the movie stops being tragic and where it left me with a pleasant feeling: You might want to say whatever you want, but a ‚normal‘ relationship as the root of happiness is not that far-fetched. I liked how Margo has attained happiness while Eve is only happy on the surface, but in fact bound to a man she doesn’t love and who blackmails her.

Since I knew the majority of the story of „All About Eve“ before watching the film, I can definitely say that this is a movie where it’s all about the execution and the performance of wonderful actors. In the audio commentary they said something along the lines of „Cukor befriended women, Mankiewicz fucked them.“ That is fairly interesting, and I think the movie is a great example of the topic of womanhood, and far from being the low bitchfest I have feared it to be 3 years ago.

Barking Dogs Never Bite

On the website for „Take Care of My Cat“, the author of the film said that Korea is a dog country, while cats are just as neglected as the main characters in the film. When I look at „Barking Dogs Never Bite“, this totally seems to be the case.

So, what can I say. I have been anticipating this film for quite awhile, but I couldn’t play region 3 DVDs for all the time. Now that I can, I am glad to have finally seen the film, although it’s probably the first film in quite awhile that I have had too high anticipations for. After „Take Care of My Cat“ was such a pleasant surprise of a high quality film, I might have expected something similar for „Barking Dogs Never Bite“. Now, my expectations were not entirely unfulfilled, it’s more that it took me awhile to get into the film.

At the beginning, we just saw this guy being a louse and living together with his horrible wife, along with other characters from the apartment complex who were even less likeable. It took a long time until the first meeting of the two main characters actually took place: And what a scene it was. I think I have started enjoying the film heavily starting the very point when Bae Doona started running. She really is the light of the movie and her so beautifully natural :3 face makes me want to smile as well. I think she has a great chemistry with the other main protagonist of the story, and the very last scene with the two of them together was splendid. It also made the main character more likeable, and I approve of that.

All in all, one needs to appreciate the randomness that comes with this movie at times, but when you got into that, this is quite a little gem of a movie despite all the silliness. I think I would even want to watch it again in a some years. Somehow I even am really glad about the happy end.

The General

After writing the blog post on „Shiri“, I have dreamed of a rather long and suspenseful story in which I was among a group of normal people who had to fight (for whatever reason) with a bunch of armed professional killers. Does that mean that I would have dreamed of androids if I went to sleep after writing the post on „Blade Runner“? Hrr hrr.

„The General“ is a nice movie to dream about. I think I have never dreamt of trains, and this film is perhaps the greatest train-loving film ever – after all, the title of the film is named after the train, its true main protagonist. (Or not?)

So I bought this DVD on a whim. I have seen quite a few Charlie Chaplin movies but no single Keaton except for a delightful short film (whose name I have forgotten, it was about Keaton being a newlywed husband building his new house and encountering many funny problems with it). The DVD said that „The General“ was Keaton’s most acclaimed film and since it was only 3 euros at the Zweitausendeins in Leipzig, I had to get it. (You never get DVDs that cheap on Amazon, „The General“ for instance is 8 euros there.)

Now, I have finally gotten the opportunity to watch it, and indeed it was a lot of fun. While I wasn’t a big fan of the story itself (Locomotive driver tries to impress his wife by saving her from evil yankees and becoming a war hero), the execution was extremely enjoyable and downright funny. It was less ha ha ha funny as Chaplin’s films and none of it was touchy (in fact, the female character was surprisingly stupid, although she was far from being your average damsel in distress). While Keaton really has a very sophisticated, strong and subtle humour, from what I can see, I understand why his movies are less memorable. Chaplin’s film have this little bit of emotion and cuteness that I am missing in „The General“. All in all, right now, I’d say it’s a tie for them, and I definitely need to see more.

Shiri

But this is probably going to be one of the nicest blog postings in quite awhile. I am not saying that “Shiri” is a bad movie, it’s just that it won’t be difficult to comment on the film without this nagging thought of not having portrayed it in the way I would like to.

Watching “Shiri” was indeed very relaxing, if it is even possible to watch a thriller with a relaxed mindset. Apart from some rather bloody scenes, this is quite a straight-forward storyline borrowing a lot from Hollywood James Bond-type thrillers and Hong Kong action movies. By the way, I am never going to understand why the violence scenes in Asian movies always have to be so incredibly explicit, I was eating lunch when the first scenes of the movie and those hacked off heads were rather ‘disappetizing’ to look at.
I can easily understand why “Shiri” was so popular, and I have enjoyed it myself a lot as well, especially since the love story of the main characters was actually very sweet. The end was just perfect, it was just tragic and bittersweet without any touch of kitsch. However, I think the film cannot compare with “JSA”, “Welcome to Dongmakgol” or even “The Host”. Those movies were still a few levels higher in terms of meaningfulness, sadness and humour. Plus, I simply could not understand why the two policemen were not able to see how the woman they looked for was the same person as the girlfriend. Dark lipstick is not enough to make you look completely different after all. What the heck. XD

Finally, I think that this is the first movie in quite awhile I am definitely not going to recommend. It is just “not that bad” and enjoyable for me (because I have a weakness for Korean movies), but I am most likely not going to see it again anytime soon.

Blade Runner

I am aware that this is the type of movie that I should rant endlessly about. This is merely a movie, but similar to A.I. and other science-fiction work, there is a large and fascinating world around it, and many questions revolving androids are raised. Perhaps the huge following of the movie is injustified, but I rather had the impression that the movie only had two hours to show things that have enough potential of filling up easily a 52-episodes TV show. The characters’ past, their relationships towards each other, their inner conflicts, a lot of these things could have gotten better treatment in my opinion. Perhaps I should have read the novel to kill my thirst for more background information, but this is not the point. It’s just rare that I see a movie where I think the time frame of a movie is too restricted to do justice to the story.

Apart from that, there really are myriads of information about the film. Imdb, fansites and Wikipedia have enough reading for you to spend five times as much time on the reading than on the film. I read about the different versions of the film, and find the differences rather striking, although the main story was not changed, of course. I find it rather meaningful that they made the white pigeon fly into a dark sky instead of a light one (at the very end of this post) in the final version. I’m not sure what I would prefer actually. Apart from these details, there are also a lot of essays about the film, its different versions and its impact on science fiction.

Style-wise, Blade Runner is not exactly aesthetic. The dark cyberpunk film noir mix in it is rather creepy, but stylish at the same time, and all in all, I think I actually like it for its unique and distinct characteristics. I loved J.F. Sebastian’s toys, and perhaps he is generally my favorite character, because he was the only one of all of them who acted out of some sort of humanity. In general, I felt I have seen the style many many times in newer works; it looked very Battle Angel Alita-ish to me at least. Of course one cannot deny this movie’s influence.

Blade Runner is yet another movie that was not popular at its time, both at the box office and among critics, but became a classic later. Vertigo, Donnie Darko, Citizen Kane, One Two Three, A Time to Live and a Time to Die – there seems to be a lot of these cult films that had this “inpopularity in its first run” problem. (What are movie critics worth anyways? Sometimes I wonder about that…) Sadly, I rarely stumble upon films that were met with enthusiasm among critics at their times, but are now basically forgotten.

This is yet another one of those titles that I have bought because I felt bad about never having seen this classic. It is deservedly one, and I am curious both about the book and about “A Scanner Darkly” now.