About Chocolate Parfaits

25th Hour

There is a reason why I am only posting about 25th Hour now – I think the last time I was so overwhelmed by a film was Donnie Darko (but of course 25h Hour is nothing like Donnie Darko). So it took me a little bit more than one year to stumble upon a film that fascinates me so much again.
Consequently, I have pushed back writing about it until now because I find myself unable to find a beginning. I have just eaten something to be able to concentrate a bit better (actually I haven’t eaten anything before today ^^;), but I fail.
Oh, and now that I am looking at my own blog post about Donnie Darko, it dawn on me that it’s probably impossible to write about the best XD (Also I would always, always be insatisfied with my post ^^;)

First of all, I am really glad that Edward Norton took the role and not Tobey Maguire. (You all know that I’m the biggest Edward Norton fangirl in the world so no need to comment any further, I guess. XD)

Unlike Donnie Darko, 25th Hour does not really ‘look’ good in any ways; there also is no strong mysterious atmosphere whatsoever. However, there is some atmosphere, but I can’t describe it because I was so sucked into the film that I was unable to think. I lost ground under my feet so much that every time Prog has commented something, his voice sounded so far away and unreal and I felt like I was violently dragged into reality again. It sounds quite creepy and I believe that was the same for Donnie Darko back then – only that nobody ‘disturbed’ me.

When something appears on my favourites, it’s most likely something serious and handling my favourite topic ever, which is what we used to call “condition humaine” in french and philosophy class back then. It’s quite difficult to translate (“personhood” or “mankind” just sounds stupid and is absolutely not the same), but basically it raises the simple question what it means to be human, the source of all anthropological questions. This goes from interpersonal relationships and love to the interaction between men and society. 25th Hour fits perfectly into this scheme and it portrays those strong characters in such a fascinating way, arrr!

I used to really hate the gender studies stuff, but in this case, I really wonder how the story would have turned out with the genders reversed. It most likely would have not worked out: A woman would not deal drugs and if she did, it’s unlikely that her boyfriend would live on it. A female investment banker would have another character and she would not hit her best friend because of the provocations we see in the film. A female teacher might fall in love with her student, but she would probably not hope for more than a short and/or secret affair – and she would openly tell her (female) friends about it. Also, even if the same thing happened, it would make a completely different impact on the audience – if she looks like Philipp Seymour Hoffman, the viewer would probably think “Keep your hands from him, ugly woman” instead of “Poor guy!” and if she were attractive, the storyline would be pretty pointless. I won’t even comment on the difference on the dialogues and the nature of the friendship between the three – the way a woman behaves and lies to her friends is completely different from a man.
It shows that 25th Hour also has some clichés even though the characters are all so original and well-developed.

PS. I found Anna Paquin quite awful in this film. I mean, okay, she had this stupid role, but did she really also have to put up this annoying voice and tasteless clothes?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

God, this film is so incredibly mean! So gorgeous *snicker* Now that I have read up a bit about Roald Dahl, I understand why, but it was quite unexpected really. A children’s film involving chocolate is supposed to be yummy and cute, but of course that alone would not have done justice to the great acting skills of Johnny Depp, who was brilliant as Willy Wonka.
But… would I want my 10 year old child to watch this? XD Then again, it would be against human nature not to make fun of other people *tehe*

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the fourth film of Tim Burton that I am watching – aside from Sleepy Hollow which I’ve seen in the cinema back then, I have known nothing about him aside from quite a lot of DeviantArt pictures that all reference themselves to “Tim Burton’s style”. So I have come to like the style even before I’ve seen any film by him; but with Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, Corpse Bride and this one, I think I’m going to become a fan of his film too *hrr* (I did not really like Big Fish though!)

PS. I found it interesting to see that I did not suddenly feel like eating lots of chocolate while watching the film… I had that urge when I watched “Chocolat” back then, though XD

Dancer in the Dark

Ah, Dancer in the Dark. With a delay of four years, I have finally watched it XD Back then, I seriously feared to be not emotionally stable enough to watch it, but I guess I worried for nothing: The film was sad, but it was not as depressing as One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was (to me, at least).

My very first impression of the film might be a little bit unusual: I have known the cover of the film for ages already; and as you all know, the cover is pretty dark and gray with a little blueish tinge. In consequence, I somehow expected the film itself to be rather dark (similarily to “Wait until dark”) and rather blue/green than yellow. That’s it: The whole film looked so incredibly beige to me XD The walls of the houses and buildings, the ground, the not-so-green nature, the gray factory. Maybe I was just biased and had weird expectations (similarily to this article) XD However, the yellowness of the colour scheme matches the film very well – if I had to associate ‘society’ with a colour, it would be beige.

In my opinion, the weirdest point of the film is actually the appearance Catherine Deneuve. I mean, oh my god, La Deneuve just looks so weird as a factory worker with a headscarf. Technically, she was great in that role, but it just does not match!
By the way, she was so funny when she made the dog barking sounds though *hehehe*

Have I ever mentioned that I dislike musical films? I found “My Fair Lady” and “Moulin Rouge” quite dreadful and there is nothing worse than Grease, West Side Story and all that crap; on the other hand, there is a handful of musical films I like (“Singin’ in the Rain” and “Chicago” for instance). In this case however, I liked the musical inserts even though I did not really like the songs themselves – they were all very well done and did not have this ridiculousness of other musical songs. I also would not call this an anti-musical film because it does not parodize musicals, but is rather an hommage to musicals (“anti” always has this fiendish connotation for me).

And of course, without the songs, the ending would not have been so great. I was quite shocked by that scene – not in the “wah she’s dead” emotional kind of way though; actually I rather thought: “Oh wow, the script is so great!”
The point where I was nearly moved to tears was the scene before, when Kathy runs over and puts her son’s glasses into Selma’s hands while she cried and shivered. I found that really touching, and at the same time relieving because we get to know that her son (most probably) really got cured and that she had not died for nothing. This is also the reason why “Dancer in the Dark” did not left me sad in the end, because at the end of the day, she actually got what she wanted even though she paid with her life.

PS. About the title of the post: I can’t quite believe that “Dancer in the Dark” and “Idiots” are supposed to be a trilogy with “Breaking the Waves”. Since I have not seen “Breaking the Waves”, I can’t say anything (but I believe it works well with “Dancer in the Dark”), but how does “Idiots” fit in? Ah well…

Yesterday, I have finished reading the second Kino no Tabi novel. (I skipped all the stories that have already appeared in the anime though; except for the story of episode 13 which was again so horribly tragic and touching in the book *snif*.) There was a land with lots and lots of books, but the inhabitants only read and didn’t write any. That reminded me a lot of myself who is not creative enough to write or make a film. It makes me feel pretentious and question my ability and rights to criticize and review the works of others who can ^^; But oh well, most of the times I’m just ranting anyways.

Fargo

I realized that even though I have heard about Fargo quite a long time ago, I don’t remember who recommended it to me and I knew absolutely nothing about the story before. I didn’t even know that it was a comedy so the funny characters basically fell onto me.

Luckily, even though it was not a Ha-ha-comedy (you know, films such as “Some like it hot” that make you laugh out loud), I found the film thoroughly enjoyable and I loved the character of Marge – this woman just has the greatest facial expressions *ahaha*

I have to admit that I find myself a little bit unable to rant about the film, because it does not raise any deep questions, it was funny without having any really strong in-your-face-funny scenes and no really noticeable details except for the way they talked: They have a nice way to abbreviate everything they can (“hon”, “jeez” – haha). And if I had to play a drinking game with having to take one sip every time they say “yeah”, I would probably die of alcoholic intoxication.

I have finally re-vamped the pages on this blog: “Pyramid” is some kind of about page, you will see what I mean; “Links” is deleted now; “Places” is what originally was “Forums” since I barely are on forums anymore. Harr, I am so proud of myself XD Now onto my huge backlog of film reviews:

(By the way, have I ever mentioned what a pain backlogs are? My list of manga series I have to read exceeds two A4 pages. I won’t even talk about books…)

Stranger than Paradise

The great thing or the problem with “Stranger than Paradise” is that it is a typical Jim Jarmusch film. Actually I only realized that there are “typical” and “atypical” Jarmusch films while watching this film – Ghost Dog and Coffee & Cigarettes are rather atypical, I think that Night on Earth is too overtly funny to be a typical Jarmusch too; the others (Stranger than Paradise, Permanent Vacation, Dead Man, Broken Flowers) are the rather typical ones. So while watching “Stranger than Paradise”, I always had in mind that it is a Jarmusch film and can’t help but see it as a piece of a bigger work (Jarmusch’s oeuvre, so to say).

However, it’s those jarmuschesque elements that make the film so gorgeous: The slow pace creating a strong atmosphere, the nonsensensical talk about trivial matters, the beauty of triviality and of course the subtle humour (“Don’t speak hungarian with me!” Haha XD). It’s also the hilarious and smart ending that made the film so great: My favourite scene obviously was the Deus-ex-machina scene with the black drug dealer, ahaha, that was so good!

Now my expectations for “Down by Law” are even much higher ^^;;; But I have heard from many voices that it’s funny and good, so I’m quite positive.

2001: A Space Odyssey

This is another one of those great films. In my opinion, there currently are three great films in history (“currently” because I think Lord of the Rings or Titanic or whatever might get included as a fourth some day): Citizen Kane, 2001 and The Godfather. They appear on every big film list at the top places and it’s likely for some critic to say “This is the greatest movie of all times”.
I have not seen The Godfather, but I see some similarities between Citizen Kane and 2001. I agree with the listings saying that those are great films, but for some reason, both fail to stir up emotions in me O.o I would never put these films in my personal favourite film lists because the distance between myself and this films are too wide that their artistic, historical and intellectual merit could never compensate it. It is quite weird because Citizen Kane’s topic and story was actually interesting and touching (especially the end) and 2001 had immensely beautiful and well-chosen music which contributed perfectly to the slow-paced atmosphere of the film.

A propos the music of 2001, I read about how much time Kubrick took to decide on what music to choose… my god, he’s such a diva, but I am very pleased with the result so I will shut my mouth.
However, the slow pace of the film is something I really cannot overlook. I used to hate slow-paced films, but that was a long time ago and I feel like 2001 is the slowest film I have seen in years. Generally I also find that the pace contributed to the atmosphere of the film, but I don’t think it was necessary to drag is *so* long. Maybe that’s just me, but I haven’t seen so many critics complaining about the boredom of a film – not that I agree, but the complaint of boredom surely comes from the slow pace.

On all other aspects, I totally approve of 2001. Even though I knew what would happen to HAL, I have thoroughly enjoyed the development of his behaviour and… obviously he’s my favourite “character” because actually he’s the only one with any character and “Jupiter Mission: Eighteen Months Later” was my favourite part of the whole film. The german dub is interesting, but I wonder how HAL sounds like in the original. I think the way he (and the other) speak is quite important to the meaning of the whole film, in case one wants to get into all those symbolic allegories and deep analysis in the film.

Sakuran

I really have a problem with films I actually like and want to write a lot about, but then end up not knowing where to begin and pushing back blogging about it for the longest time. In this case, Sakuran is not some masterpiece, but extremely good. Quite a few months ago, I have seen this posting on the Manga Jouhou Blog and even though I really dislike Anna Tsuchiya, I immediately fell in love with the colourful backgrounds and the fact that Shiina Ringo provided the music. Look at the screenshots and see for yourself, because the beauty of the film cannot be described by words alone. I also have read that the director is a female (!) photographer who made her debut with this film. You can easily see that – every screenshot looks like a photographic composition.
Therefore, I expected am extremely good-looking film with even better soundtrack. I was right with my expectations, but Sakuran is more than that.

The whole story is chronological (unlike the manga, which starts with how Kiyoha became oiran and then becomes chronological) and it is more faithful to the manga than I have expected. A lot of scenes and dialogues are taken out of the manga, of course with an original ending (an end which Moyoco Anno herself would never have written, by the way – that is so NOT her). But since she stopped drawing the series, the film had to include a proper ending. (She is rather slow anyways, it seems. Hataraki Man seems to moving on rather slowly too, even for a monthly magazine.)

Because I was so amazed by the film, I ended up reading the manga again today: It’s rather difficult to compare the manga to the live-action, aside from the story, they have nothing in common. The atmosphere of the anime is marked by the director’s unusual background settings; the character and personality of Kiyoha is very well-portrayed by Anna Tsuchiya, but nevertheless, she looks totally different from the manga’s Kiyoha. Also, I don’t consider Moyoco Anno’s characters sexy in any way, and Anna Tsuchiya (even with her punch-me-face) does those ‘sexy” glares quite well in my opinion.
On a side note, I really, really dislike Anna Tsuchiya. It annoyed me how she got to do the first OP and second ED for Nana, I really dislike her face and voice, but I have to admit that she’s a good actress. Much much better than the lolita girl in Shimotsuma Monogatari (whatever her name was). The worst is her (natural?) smile though – she does much better as mean and ill-spirited Kiyoha *ehehe* That’s also why I think that this role suits her so much – I could not imagine any other japanese actress to play this kind of role so well. Unlike her, those all give off that “nice girl” feeling.
(And did you know that she’s half japanese, half caucasian? I totally have not expected that – I mean, she doesn’t even look half as good as Olivia *tehe*)

Oh, but there is a scene where Anna Tsuchiya actually looked good in! It was the point where she went to see her lover and her face was covered by rain, her cape and hair so much that you barely saw her face. So what was left was her desperate, glaring look without any make up which made her much more natural and beautiful than in any other scene of the film.
It’s not like I really disliked the make-up though. I love the outfit (cast aside the hairstyle which I whole-heartedly find ugly) and especially how there is a little bit of red eyeshadow applied on the outer corner of her lids.

Congratulations if you have kept up with my long ranting until now. There is even more what I want to say about it, but I have forgotten it… aaaah!
Oh, while searching for a movie poster, I recalled what I have forgotten: The german poster says something like Sakuran is just like “Memoirs of a Geisha” mixed with “Marie Antoinette”. Well, there are several voices comparing Sakuran with Marie Antoinette (unrealistic history film with modern soundtrack), but even though both films are directed by women and put an emphasis on looking good, Sakuran looks like thousand times better and the music, no matter how modern it is, matches the atmosphere perfectly unlike that pseudo-poprock crap in Marie Antoinette. All in all, Sakuran has a much higher re-watch value and didn’t bore me for even one second.

Monster

So I finally got myself to watch this film, after pushing it away endlessly because I feared it would depress me too much. After all, I knew that she’s going to be sentenced to death. But now… I don’t mind! Her character (even more in reality) was absolutely despicable in my eyes, I don’t see any reason for her to have done all that, except for the first and maybe the second guy. But when I saw her needlessly killing the policeman off, I ended up really disliking her; even more at the point where she tried to convince Selby how she’s innocent and did nothing wrong *heh* Obviously she does not understand anything about society. What I understood the best was how that lawyer person felt offended because she wanted something that other people work hard their whole life for. I can totally relate to that – I admit that she has worked hard in her life too, but “working hard” is not enough, you have work hard on the right thing.
Oh, and even though Christina Ricci looked cute – her character is even more despicable than Wuornos’. I mean, a little stupid girl who expects her girlfriend to continue prostituting herself and pay for her life? And then doesn’t have enough and wants to meet her “new friends”? And then end up accusing her of murder? My god, what a bitch.
But whatever, from what I can see from Wuornos’ biography, the happenings in the film are far, far away from reality, so bleh.

The most shocking experience was actually when I looked up the real Aileen Wuornos on Wikipedia: Look at her picture! Charlize Theron’s make-up, facial expression and hair in this film is so perfect, for one second I thought that the picture of Wuornos is actually taken out of the film O.o Pochi even said “if somebody is courageous enough to display so much ugliness, she fully deserves an Oscar” and I can’t help but agree. Charlize Theron is beautiful and graceful, but I never really see her as a good actress – of course, this film has totally changed my mind. She will probably never play such a role again, because playing it once proves how incredibly versatile she is.

Roman Holiday

Did you know that the german title for this film is “Ein Herz und eine Krone”? Pochi always says “Ein Herz und eine Knolle” and that is also how he came with the title of this post. Lucky! *hehe*

The reason why we have watched this film is very simple: The german issue of Vanity Fair is having a 1€ summer special with a free DVD included – and I just couldn’t resist at this price. Aside from the fact that the Vanity Fair is so pseudo-upper-class that it hurts my eyes, the DVD alone was worth the money. I have expected the version to only have german dubs, but in fact, it has the original version with english subtitles and the german dub AND the german subtitles! That’s quite incredible and proves once again that Vanity Fair is horribly rich. But I feel very lucky that it is like this *heh*
Who knows, if the magazine brings out some other good nice film, I might want to get them too.

Content-wise, this film was totally a winner for me too. I have watched it ages and ages ago – Roman Holiday is my father’s favourite film of all times and he showed it to me by saying that the ending scene is the most romantic he has ever seen. It isn’t surprising considering how sparkling and beautiful La Hepburn looks in it. Unfortunately, the ending scene was also the only one I really remembered well. And this time, I could finally enjoy it in its full length.

What I really liked was how Pochi pointed out that Paprika references to the film with the girl beating some of the ‘gangsters’ with a guitar. Oh, how much I love Paprika – but this isn’t the place to say it.
Back to Roman Holiday, I think I kind of understand why this is probably Audrey Hepburn’s most successful film (despite the slight lack of humour). Her chemistry with Gregory Peck is just much better than with every single of her other film partners. However, I don’t think that her performance is better or worthier of an Oscar – it also is nothing compared to “Wait Until Dark” which was so much better, imho. In my opinion, it is a role that makes it impossible to really stand out with your acting. Ah well…

This is a film I could continue to rant about for ages, and it is a worthy no. 3 in my list (with Wait Until Dark and Sabrina as only films that surpasses it).

Million Dollar Baby

I started watching this film with the strong conviction that it would be “overrated”. But then, the story became quite touching when she started to become successful. Before, it was merely an “american dream” Hollywood movie for me; afterwards, everything became more interesting. I didn’t care for the fights (I never liked boxing), but I cared about the characters, their relationship and the overall atmosphere of the film. In the end, the last scene surely was sad, especially because they left it quite open. I would have wished to know a little bit about what became of the others afterwards.

Aside from the slight sadness of the end, I have to admit that I was quite right to assume that the film wouldn’t do all that much for me. I think that Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman are great actors, however I don’t particularily like Hilary Swank (she always has this same face, my my), so there is nothing outstanding really. However, I do think that it was a nice experience to have watched this film and noticed that it met my expectations exactly – it’s not like I wasted my time.