Category: Movies

Two for the Road

In case you don’t know REC, it’s a cute anime about a couple where the girl is a seiyuu and an Audrey Hepburn-fanatic. Therefore, all episodes titles are named after some of her most famous movies – and a lot of the episodes feature lines from these movie titles (at least, I’m pretty sure that they watched “Roman Holiday” in episode 1 and there was a line of “Sabrina” in episode 2).

Let’s see which of them I have already watched (in bold and with an asterisk, because you can barely distinguish the bold and the regular lines O.o):
#1 – * Roman Holiday (This is my father’s favourite movie of all time! *hrr*)
#2 – Sabrina
#3 – Wait until dark
#4 – Breakfast at Tiffany’s
#5 – * Love in the Afternoon
#6 – The Children’s Hour
#7 – War and Peace
#8 – * My Fair Lady
#9 – * Two for the Road
Not very much, huh? I am planning to watch all of them. We probably have “Wait until dark” recorded somewhere on VHS. But actually it’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “War and Peace” (Audrey Hepburn is SO not like I would expect Natasha to be! *haha*) that I’m looking forward to the most. (And I also want to see Charade.)
I actually disliked “My Fair Lady” (ugh, the songs >.< ) and I liked "Love in the Afternoon" (even though it's not exactly outstanding). I also love "Roman Holiday" even if it's awhile since I have watched it - I think it's really romantic and cute, even though I might find it a bit too kitsch if I watched it now. So where should I rank "Two for the Road"? This is not a very easy task, because I don't happen to really enjoy the movie. I watched it together with my parents and I wished I didn't, because it seems they were bored. The non-linear storyline, the movie's biggest strength, is a big burden to my parents because they find it rather difficult to understand what's going on now with the language barrier (old movies in german actually sound really weird, if you ask me). On top of that, the movie wasn't exactly funny - it's probably supposed to be, but most of the funny scenes were nothing but annoying (especially that family with the most obnoxious brat I have ever seen in a movie). I didn't quite like the end because I found it too abrupt and unnatural. You don't suddenly say "I love you" and everything is okay. They indeed have lost that feeling of love, but regained it somehow. However, the movie didn't really show how everything that used to happen between them affected the decision to remain together - or whatever reason it was for them to continue to love each other. But apart from that, the evolution in their relationship was skillfully portrayed through the non-linear storytelling. There were some scenes which blended in together perfectly and it was interesting to see what comes next. Apart from the storyline itself, the movie's best feature is Audrey Hepburn, of course. Actually I never perceived her as a really good actress: In "Roman Holiday", she did nothing but sparkle, in "Love in the Afternoon" and "My Fair Lady", she played a little, let's say, air-headed girl, but in "Two for the Road", she was able to play a woman - and a very attractive one in which she can reveal all her acting skills. Everything she does, laughing, crying, freezing, looking crazy, bristling with anger, looks so incredibly natural (especially for that time!) Well, I am more than ever fond of her and I cannot imagine one actress from her time to surpass her. Now somebody give me the score for "Rhapsody in Blue"!

Babel

Yay, that was a good movie. However, I can already warn you that I will most likely talk about the rather bad points of this movie.

First of all, we have Milkmaster who dislikes movies that talk about misunderstandings. Apparently he already has seen too many movies and TV series in his life who deal about misunderstandings (mostly shoujomanga-style lovey-dovey soaps, of course). As for me, I also don’t think that the misunderstandings and the many languages are the prevalent thing in movie. Those are rather superficial characteristics. I think it was more the different cultures than really the ways of communication. On top of that, I think most of them actually managed to communicate pretty well: communication problems because of language itself, not because of the culture, are different.

A propos culture, what annoyed me the most was how the japanese culture was portrayed. Shibuya is not the only place that exists in Japan and girls do NOT wear miniskirts at school. They should at least have shown that the girls shorten their skirts themselves or something like that, but how Japan was portrayed in this movie was just cliché and totally unrealistic. Because of that, I find it difficult to take the movie for serious actually. (Another cliché was the scene where the girls sat on the swings and looked like in trance… that was just SO unoriginal.) So when it comes to the story itself, I think this was the weakest of all of them. Especially since the movie gave the impression that japanese girls are defined by their sexual problems, or rather, that their problems always shows through their failure in having sex. (Another cliché, ugh.)
However, the best part of the movie was also in the Japan part: the soundtrack was fantastic especially in that part (Tommy!), the atmosphere and especially the actors were the best. Rinko Kikuchi had a gorgeous role in which she was able to show her acting skills – and the rest of them (the father, the policist, etc.) looked really authentic. Even though I think it’s logical that Rinko – after finding that her problems cannot be solved by her friends, or by a man – turned towards her father and (probably) found her happiness finally, it was still pretty cheesy. And I don’t think of it as a happy end because I see nowhere how she and her father might be able to understand each other. On top of that, the main thing she wants is not to get over the death of her mother, but to be fucked – it’s not like she can fuck him. (Or does she? *hrr*)

My favourite character in the whole movie was Yussuf. Of course Milkmaster is right when he says that it really is a stupid thing to shoot a bus, but aside from that, he’s a rather sympathetic character: he’s strong, capable and brave enough to first shoot the police and then to give in to save his brother.
Oh! Now that I think about it, we were always talking about three scenes (Morocco, Mexico and Japan) but in fact, there should be four. I’d rather call them Yussuf, Amelia, Chieko and Susan. The Yussuf story and the Susan story both play in Morocco but actually they never meet each other, so that it’s basically two different stories.

The Mexico story was my favourite: Even though the scene wasn’t as good-looking as Japan, it was the most fun, and I also think that it’s the most realistic story (the nearer a country is to you, the less embarassing the prejudices become *cough*). The children were cute and Amelia was good. It also helps that the music was great in this part. But of course the main argument is an (unfortunately underachieving) Gael García Bernal. Oh well, who cares – the mere fact that he plays in this movie is already gorgeous!

The most annoying of the movie (and I think this is a compliment to the movie itself) were the horrible (english) subtitles. Except for the english-speaking part (without subtitles of course), I didn’t know any of those languages well (arabian, spanish, japanese, japanese sign language, but oh there was a tidbit of french in the movie). But from the little bit of spanish and japanese I’ve understood, you could easily see that the subtitles were crap. In my opinion, it was also a sign of mediocricy that there were some sentences they didn’t translate, even though they probably aren’t that relevant. This is just like Tokyopop not translating sound words.
Unfortunately we were also annoyed by an incredibly obnoxious cashier and stupid people in the cinema. However, I’m still very happy that we went to the cinema again *____* <3

So in the end the movie exceeded my expectations, but also was a disappointment. Without being overly meaningful (with that rather trivial message), it was a multi-faceted and extraordinary movie full of intense pictures. But at the same time, I can’t fully appreciate it mainly because of the cheesiness of the japanese part. With that portrait of Japan, the storywriter took away every possibility for me to think that the movie is meaningful in any ways. Well, tried too hard *hrr*
I still want to see Amores Perros though.

Wu Ji (The Promise)

Hell, this is probably the worst movie I have watched since months. Why did I even bothered (and finished!) watching this? Because my parents wanted to see this and because it actually is fun to watch this with them. But oh my god, this was unbearable! What made this movie so despictable for me can be summed up with one single word: unnaturalness. The story was unnatural, the actors were unnatural, the whole setting was unnatural (but that can be forgiven because of aesthetics). How can this world have produced such awful actors? The only good actor in the whole movie was Liu Ye, who in fact at least went to a film school. The worst was Cecilia Cheung – maybe it was the make up, but she also had those preposterous facial expressions that I simply couldn’t stand. One of the reasons why these actors talked in such a weird and unnatural manner might be that they are from Hongkong, but that still does not explain the totally unprofessional facial expressions, right?
All in all, this movie is like Hero, just worse in every single aspect.

In sum, if you prefer this movie over Hero, then you are just like those people who prefer Strawberry Panic over Maria-sama ga Miteru: I will not be able to take you for serious and thus cannot engage in a conversation with you about movies. *hrr* Pardon me this elitism.

The next movie my parents want to see is “Curse of the Golden Flower”. Let’s see if that one is better.

Ghost Dog

I cannot believe it. I haven’t written any posting since nearly 2 months. Which means that I haven’t seen any movie in these 2 months either. What a pitiful life I have. Tsk tsk.

I actually only watched Ghost Dog by coincidence – in my “must watch Jim Jarmusch movies” list, Ghost Dog actually isn’t really at the top. I wanted to see “Down by Law” and “Dead Man” much more. One day, the Jim Jarmusch box will me mine! Harr harr harr~ (It’s just horribly irritating that the price of the box rised from ~38€ to ~60€ O.o)

Anyways, Ghost Dog made me think… in short: it started as a slightly boring story because of Jim Jarmusch’s typical slow pace, turned out to be really funny and then ended in a pretty predictable way, but it still leaves me unsatisfied. I still feel kind of depressed that the guy absolutely did not want to escape from his ‘fate’. I also hated Louie. Aside from that, the movie was brilliant. I even liked the samurai feeling (and the blend in of the citations of the Hagakure) a lot.

I also finally understood why the face of Raymond looked so horribly familiar! He’s Timothy in Manderlay, one of the african guys in Coffee & Cigarettes, and the driver in Night on Earth (Paris)! Jim Jarmusch really loves his friends *hrr hrr*

This movie deserves a thorough analysis and should be re-watched. One day… ^^;;; Ghost Dog has gotten me into movies again. Aaah, what should I watch next?

Match Point

Even though I liked Everything you always wanted to know…, I hated Celebrity and these are the only two movies I’ve ever seen by Woody Allen. The reason why I watched Match Point was only a recommendation. I’m glad it wasn’t a wrong decision – in fact, I did not know what the movie was about at all.
In fact, it also did not turn out how I have expected it – which, in this case, was not a bad thing. The movie’s greatness consists in how the events turn it into a completely different genre, from some love-quadrangle-story to a slightly funny, witty murder story. Wow.

To be honest, I have liked Chris Wilton through the whole movie, and it’s definitely not because I’m hot for the guy for I am actually not. It’s weird, I think he looks okayish, but there is no attraction at all… very unlike Jake Gyllenhaal *hehe* I liked the way he was successful and that hypocritical politeness (What’s gotten into me?) And besides, even though Chloe was really lovely, I totally disliked her voice and I honestly can understand a guy who betrays his wife when she is obsessed about becoming pregnant and only has sex with him for that purpose. *ack*
Btw, I thought that the very first sex scene in the rain looked good, but the massage oil and the way she blindfolded him and then unbuttoned his shirt were just horribly cheesy XD

People have been referencing Match Point to so many movies and books, it’s unbelievable. The best comparison, if you ask me, is the one with Gosford Park. Even though its setting is in another time, I think the parallels are huge: they’re both about the british upper class, there’s both a murder in it… and it’s both american directors pulling out british clichés. Okay, Match Point isn’t that socio-critical, but you see that certain evilness in it, don’t you? *g*
Momo immediately thought of Felix Krull, which I think is very interesting. That one, and “The Talented Mr. Ripley” may be compared to it. But still, I disliked Mr. Ripley (the book, that is – the movie was okayish) and I think that Mr. Ripley did not have the charm of Chris Wilton, even less of Felix Krull.
Now let’s come to the comparisons I’m not particularily fond of: Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and A Place in the Sun. “Crime and Punishment” appears in the movie, but I do not see any similarity between Raskolnikov and Wilton, unfortunately. Wilton’s life is all about luck (and that’s what makes the movie interesting and great), Raskolnikov’s story is all about the “meaning of life” and how the world should be. Not to forget that Wilton got out of the whole thing while Raskolnikov obviously didn’t.
A Place in the Sun is, imho, an even worse comparison. Okay, the story is the same up until the murder – but it ends completely differently, Match Point is most definitely not a love story and even without having seen that old movie, I know already that the atmosphere and meaning of these movies are as similar as “The Fifth Element” is to “Lord of the Rings”.

Now, I shall bring the movie back and go to shower. I’ve got loads of stuff to do today T_T

Brick

It’s been awhile, isn’t it? Considering how much I love movies right now, it surely is not unusual not to watch anything these days (not to forget that I still have “Kill Bill 2” and “A Clockwork Orange” to watch – and new coupon for renting a DVD for 1€/2 days), but I’ve been drowned in exam preparations – and then, yesterday, when my worst exam was over *~*, I went to the movies *___*

“Brick” was a recommendation of Milkmaster, but from what I saw on some websites, it looked really promising. This site says people have referring it to “this year’s Donnie Darko”, which is pretty accurate, if you ask me. (Even though Donnie Darko is still better, because 100% original.) The review itself isn’t really worth to read though, the guy even confuses the characters Emily and Laura.
My expectations actually were fully met – the movie featured a lot of style (oh my god, the feathers on Laura’s head at the end! *lolol*), even without being monochrome; it was so entertaining and suspenseful that I didn’t feel tired at all during the 2 hours from 10pm to midnight; and in the end, I didn’t care about the fact that you knew from the beginning who was the culprit.

I love the movie! Even though it was no life-changing experience like Donnie Darko, the movie made me think for quite awhile, because it takes you awhile to fully enjoy the cool dialogues that feel like they are passing by you at light speed. *g* The camera angles, the gorgeous characters, the hot girls… arrr!
A propos hawt girls, Nora Zehetner reminds me of Rachael Leigh Cook, only that Rachael Leigh Cook looks better while Nora Zehetner has more style, while Emilie de Ravin looks like Cate Blanchett, only that Emilie de Ravin looks better XD

I have never watched any Film noir movie, but I read “The Maltese Falcon” and I immediately recognized the parallels. I found out that “Brick” is supposed to be tribute to “The Maltese Falcon”, but even then, I still think that all Film noirs are pretty the same *haha* Everything in the movie just screamed Film noir to me… especially the gorgeous cinematography and the Mushishi-like soundtrack which contributed a lot to the noir-ish atmosphere. An atmosphere I didn’t even know about, but I thought I immediately recognized it. It’s the same with Kafka, by the way. Very interesting.

Verdict: Me wants on DVD.

PS. Oh by the way, the script of the movie is online. Yay.
PPS. The next movie we’ll be watching is “The Science of Sleep”. That was my idea and I wonder if we’ll like it as much as this. I think “The Science of Sleep” is also a hit or miss thing, just like “Brick”.

2LDK

How random! XD Direction and cinematography were gorgeous and the idea is pretty good as well – but in my opinion, the story is slightly lacking. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything in “2 people fighting each other in one apartment”.

Problem no.1: There isn’t anything particularily funny in this movie. I usually only enjoy exaggerations and satirical stuff when they are funny – this movie, unfortunately is not funny at all (if you take apart the good ending which made up for it a bit *g*).

Problem no.2: The characters. For some reason this movie reminds me of Joushi Kousei XD But I love the girls of Joushi Kousei – unlike these XD The problem with these two characters, and thus the movie, is that they are *too* unlikeable. Seeing flames of hatred coming from two totally detestable persons throughout the whole movie simply isn’t a really enjoyable thing. To me, who puts fun in watching movies at the very top, I can easily say that this movie isn’t something for me.

All in all, this was worthy to watch and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to people who, unlike me, don’t have a huge backlog of movies to watch.

No funny title for the movie today either. It’s not a *funny* movie after all.

In fact, this movie is not really what I have expected… First of all, my first encounter with this movie was the Oscar awards when No Man’s Land got the Oscar and left out my beloved Amélie! (Back then, it was my beloved Amélie – today I would say that both movies have both huge flaws and are incomparable). I was pretty furious and wondered what’s so good about this weird bosnian movie. Later, I heard a lot of recommendation for the movie which arised my interest. Another weird impression of mine was that I have always thought this movie would be black and white. Don’t ask me why.

Anyways, I had high expectations for the movie, and I especially didn’t expect it to be so slow-paced, since it’s just 1 1/2 hours. That’s its major flaw, imho – it wasn’t really suspenseful, it didn’t made me build up emotions (except for emotions against useless UNO and pretentious reporters, but that’s another issue which I will touch later.) The second flaw is that you don’t really come to sympathize with the people there besides Ciki maybe, even though you obviously like them more than the UNO guys. (I especially hated the ones who just declared all of them as “mad” without even trying to understand their situation.)

The second flaw (in my mind it’s a flaw) is the clear position in the script which leans towards the bosnians and putting the serbians in a negative light. Even though the accusations against them because of their inhuman behaviour against civilists are right, I don’t really think it’s that clever to make one serbian totally stupid and the other cruel, while the bosnians are loving friends and strong.

On the other hand, the characterizations are perfectly done though. Everybody was stereotyped, but not in a simple-minded way, but so… true XD The frenchies are so… french, the UNO just as useless and ignorant as they always are, the journalists as moralizing and meddling as they truly are. They’re doing their job, and they’re doing it good, but that’s the problem of the whole thing. Oh by the way, I liked Marchand. Even though he wasn’t able to do anything… at least he tried. The stereotypes also permitted the movie to be funny.

Which brings me to my last point: I loved the humour. How the french came out of their tank, saying “Parlez-vous francais?… English?” is just so gorgeous XD While watching the movie, I was telling Pochi that it really reminds me of “Waiting for Godot”, but on the other hand, it looked like such an abstruse idea to me – but then I read on Wikipedia that people actually really refer No Man’s Land to Godot. That was surprising, really XD I can’t really say what the parallels are… of course, the three soldiers in No Man’s Land are waiting in the trench, but it’s not a really absurd story – it’s rather really realistic. And their dialogues are not mad at all, but desperate and human. But for some reason, both stories give the same feel, imho.

PS. The night after watching this movie, I couldn’t really sleep well and dreamt about the story over and over… just with different endings every time. Apparently I was trying to alter the story desperately in my dreams (finding another method to save Cera etc.)

I guess since the subtitles are so crappy, I have no other possibility than carefully listen to the dialogue which uses up my whole concentration so that I can’t comment about it at the same time anymore *sigh*

Oh my, I love the style of this movie *____* The slightly horror/gothic/victorian style, the lovely characters… especially Emily, hach *~* (I love the eye! Harr XD) And that english accent… arrr!

I have always been wondering what the so-called “Tim Burton”-style is. I have the impression that Tim Burton is the Kafka of the movies… everybody talks about the “Tim Burton”-style just like everything is kafkaesque, but you can’t really say what it’s exactly supposed to be. I guess the style is a mix of Nightmare Before Christmas and this movie – slightly dark, with those Burton-type asymmetrical characters and edgy spirals…

Hm, I liked Wallace & Gromit which was really, really funny – but I preferred Chicken Run… and I think that Corpse Bride deserved the Oscar more than Wallace & Gromit, even though it’s a close race. (Back then, I was glad that Wallace & Gromit got the Oscar though *hehe*)

By the way, I don’t see in which way Victor resembles Johnny Depp… I just can’t really imagine an overly shy and clumsy Johnny Depp XD

Number of movies waiting for me: 14.

I admit it, I am horribly late. Not only with the blogging today (because I watched the movie yesterday), but obviously with watching the movie.

It was a difficult task to watch this movie actually… 5 days before my 18th birthday, I invited a friend of mine to my place and we went to the video store. The only movie we were both interested in was Kill Bill – but I was not allowed to rent it! Aaaaah! We ended up watching some weird bad horror movie… which was so bad that he was jokingly guessing the dialogue – and guessed 100% right. I was totally impressed.
This time, I was at a meeting with my parents’ friends and their children. After playing cards and Scotland Yard for awhile, we decided to watch a movie… but couldn’t decide on which one. Kill Bill was the only movie of all of them that I actually wanted to watch (the rest was just some pretty unknown stuff and King Arthur) but they both already saw the movie. After a few subtle emotional blackmailing, I got what I wanted in the end *hohoho*

The movie itself… obviously was gorgeous. So far, everybody I know likes this movie and I apparently am no exception. Of course there isn’t much of a plot and sometimes the blood fountains are a bit too unrealistic, but all in all, I had a good time watching it :]
My favourite scene was the little girl in the seifuku (my God, they really couldn’t leave out any japanese fetishes, eh?), and the bad points in the anime were a. the excessive use of japanese, b. the fact that after Gogo, the high school girl, there was a (way too long) black and white massacre which wasn’t really enjoyable to watch and c. the fight with O-Ren Ishii herself was simply boring – she just stood there for ages doing nothing, bleh.

Uma Thurman is so thin! Damn, that’s scary… by the way, I have read some article about models being “disqualified” from some spanish show because they were too thin *hrr* They had some BMI index > 18 rule. In this case, I am only allowed to lose 4 kilograms O.o XD

O-Ren Ishii’s animated background story was absolutely great, obviously. In fact, I think that the animation looked more comic-like (and americanized) than an anime… at least I think it’s more similar to Superman than, say, Kamichu. My very first impression of that scene was “Oh, this looks like a Linkin Park video”. *hehe*

PS. I had an interesting dream today. In fact, I woke up 3 times. The first time, I “woke up” from my dream no.1 which consisted or something I have forgotten now – the second time, I was consulting some map with my boyfriend. Then, I “woke up” again, and found myself making out with my boyfriend in the subway. I even talked to him and told him stuff like “Hey, you know what? I dreamt that I woke up from a dream and thought it was reality, but in fact I was still in another dream! Funny, eh?” And then, I finally woke up for real, and realized that he wasn’t there *snif*