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One Fine Spring Day

There is this very short, tiny scene in “One Fine Spring Day” where the male protagonist finds a picture of the female protagonist in which she is wearing a wedding dress (or rather, where she looks like she is preparing herself for her wedding), but afterwards, this scene completely disappears. I read somewhere on the internet that there is some revelation about the girl’s dark secret, but if the dark secret is that she has been married before, then it is completely inconsequential. He never brings it up, she never acts like this has any impact on her life and obviously a husband never shows up. I don’t know what the point of that scene was, but it certainly is no Chekhov’s gun. To me, this scene perfectly describes what is off with that movie – an essentially inconsequential story and nothing is ever explained. These people meet, and nobody ever knows why they like each other, why they separated and what the whole point was anyways. For all we know, he may have retained feelings for her, but as we saw throughout the film, it is a rather futile endeavor.

I’m not saying that the film is not realistic, or not beautiful. In fact, anything with Lee Young-ae must be by definition beautiful. Nevertheless, the true gem of the film is the male protagonist’s relationship with his grandmother who also has painful memories of a past love. That relationship was sweeter than anything the protagonists have and whose actions are sometimes irritable at best. I have to admit that I was painfully reminded of “My Sassy Girl” which also follows the formula “Pretty Girl(TM) ruins the life of Nice Guy(TM)” where the audience has to love the girl as much as the guy does simply because she is attractive. Even with Lee Young-ae this leaves a bitter aftertaste for me.

There is no doubt that “One Fine Spring Day” has many beautiful scenes conveying a very romantic, emotionally pure love, but the imbalance between the characters and the lack of communication between them is almost infuriating. I am very conflicted when it comes to how I feel about this film.

Gravity

Loris really wants to read about “Intolerable Cruelty”, but I will save the best for last. In essence, this means that “Gravity”, box-office topper and critics’ favorite, easily got beaten out by a screwball comedy by the Coens. Both feature George Clooney, but he is definitely more interesting in the latter.

In “Gravity”, Clooney’s character disappears too fast. When he made an appearance later in the film, I was relieved and amused for a second, only to realize that it was – of course – just a dream. The rest of “Gravity” is eyecandy and definitely very suspenseful, but it is mostly a suspenseful survival story. If “Gravity” had underperformed at the box office and been shunned by the critics like “Cloud Atlas”, I would definitely have defended its qualities, in fact, I even preferred “Cloud Atlas” as a film. Instead, the film is widely popular and people are raving about its visual impact. They even lovingly mention how it pay homage to greater science-fiction films like “2001 A Space Odyssey” and are generally thrilled with the film. Of course I am happy to see a modern science fiction film making 200 million dollars at the box office, I just can’t join in the general enthusiasm. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth seeing. The movie is everything these survival stories have to be – tragic, gripping and full of overblown emotions related to the main character’s fear of death. I especially liked the humor George Clooney’s character brought into the film, and wished the film had spent a little more time showing its two characters evolve together.

For me, “Gravity” is the kind of film that does all those important things right – pacing, character development, acting, cinematography, even the sweet close-up shots of Sandra Bullock’s butt – but then fails on small details. For one, we only have two characters to deal with, one male and one female. But is it really necessary to turn them into Walking-Dead-like gender clichés? The male is funny, flirtatious and courageous, and the female is tensed up, lacks self-esteem and is pissing her pants. Similarly, I wish they had at least made an effort to script proper, understandable Chinese – the “Warning! Warning”-style announcements were impossible to understand. It’s almost racist. With that said, I was also bothered by the fact that the Soyuz had a little icon and the Chinese Soyuz had a little buddha on top of the controls. I mean, come on, not everybody is religious and even if they are, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something related to their culture. Mexico may be completely dominated by Roman Catholics, but Chinese people are not all buddhists.

Actually, in terms of shooting the film, I was bothered by a detail. Sometimes, the characters get thrown around and then hit the camera, which makes them bounce back. When this happens, I understand that there isn’t much you can do about it from a technical standpoint, but in terms of the story, it doesn’t really make sense. The film has to look like there is no camera pointed at them, but bouncing off from the camera painfully reminds me that there is one.

Overall, yeah, “Gravity” is great and you must all watch it, in 3D if you can. It’s not really a film for the small screen, so off to the theaters!

Europa Report

Loris wants a posting on “Intolerable Cruelty”, but I am leaving that for last. First, let’s start with these films I don’t really care about. “Europa Report” is one of my attempts to get back into science-fiction, a genre I am always lamenting. I love the concept of science-fiction but when asked about good examples, only “Moon” comes to mind. This is strange because I feel like every single season of American TV and movies is crowded with sci-fi titles, but when looking at best sci-fi movies of all times lists, it becomes obvious that most of them are just not that great. “Europa Report” is sadly a perfect example of such a film – great premise, good story, terrible execution.

To be honest, I don’t remember what exactly made the film so bad either. I vividly remember the terrible acting, there is no doubt about that. But besides that? The nonlinearity. Overall, the idea of a nonlinear storytelling and slowly revealing what transpired before and after a key event is a good one. But in my eyes, it mostly looks cheap and artificially creates an atmosphere of anxiety which did not convince me. Another thing that seriously bothered me was how it failed to adhere fiction-writing rule number 1: Show, don’t tell. For some reason, the characters spend an extraordinary amount of time to tell you how scared and anxious and horrified they are, without really showing it on their faces. I am also a little disturbed by the idea of people who are so excited and so willing to sacrifice their lives for a new discovery – surely such people exist, but I am not sure I want to see a horror movie about that. Maybe I am seeing movies with too much emotional baggage, but there is something needlessly heartbreaking seeing people die for a cause that is rather futile in my eyes. That is not heroic, it’s just pathetic and sad.

I am amused to see Anamaria Marinca in this movie. She’s the kind of actress who strangely shot to independent stardom but then practically disappeared (at least for me). Needless to say that I didn’t like her as much here as I did in “4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 days”, but then again I saw that film in a French movie theater and that was a great unique experience. The same thing applies to Daniel Wu (who really looks like Andy Lau, my goodness!), Sharlto Copley (who was great in District 9) and Christian Camargo, the Ice-Truck Killer. This movie had so many good actors but somehow their acting is terrible. What happened?

Silver Linings Playbook

I don’t know why Shii didn’t like the movie, nor do I know why the film got so many accolades. In my book, “The Fighter” was easily the better film. But, back to what we have at hand: A simple but cute film. Everything about the film is nice and lovable, yet at the same time I don’t really think anything in it stands out (not even Jennifer Lawrence who I thought was much greater in “Winter’s Bone”).

Lovable is the key word here. The main characters are so incredibly cute together, because they both are misunderstood underdogs. The way both of them are being looked down upon makes it easy for you to want to root for them, to desire for them to finally be together. It is certainly true that the film lives through its actors who do a decent job, but at the same time this is a Hollywood fairytale at its best. Start off with a guy and a girl hitting rock bottom and give them determination, love and hope – not to mention a final achievement which makes the entire cast falling into each other’s arms with happiness and go crazy with enthusiasm. Sometimes, though, Hollywood fairytales are exactly what I am looking for (especially on a long flight where I am not going to feel very well by definition), and “Silver Linings Playbook” delivers.

There is something special about Jennifer Lawrence. Like I said, I love love love her in “Winter’s Bone”. Of course I never saw the “Hunger Games” (and probably never will), but I am still convinced that “Winter’s Bone” is her most brilliant role. The tough but vulnerable girl – she does it so incredibly well in “Winter’s Bone”, even if the same description fits her Tiffany to the T. Strangely though, Lawrence is the kind of actress who I imagine is the exact opposite of everyone else – relatively down to earth but with a foul mouth and lacking anything remotely reminiscent of elegance. I am totally looking forward to what she will do next.

I think the main characters’s mental instability is probably what makes the film most interesting and leads critics all over the place to call the film ‘meaningful’. I have to admit that it made me thinking too – what is crazy, what is normal, how fucked up do you have to be for it to be too much? If you throw over a table out of anger, does that make you a mental case? If you ask me, most people are crazy and I only know few people who did not engage in questionable stalking activities. These kinds of thoughts were in my head when following the film’s main character throughout all those trials with his clearly loving and worried family, and for a similarly crazy girl to help him get out of it is obviously too beautiful to be true. Sometimes you want a film to do exactly what you want, and “Silver Linings Playbook” delivers.

Back to “The Fighter”: I liked that it was much rougher, and ultimately less textbook-Hollywood. Neither Mark Wahlberg nor Christian Bale were shy of showing their ugly sides, whereas Cooper and Lawrence were just immensely cute-looking together. Without the somewhat sappy love story, “The Fighter” was 100% about jumping over your own shadows and becoming something greater than you thought you could. Or maybe I just liked it more because I saw it first, and “Silver Linings Playbook” is so similar to it in concept that I figured they were by the same director even though I had no idea about it before the viewing.

If you don’t have a strong allergy against happy, inspiring Hollywood endings, by all means watch the film. It has Jennifer Lawrence in it. As for me, I thought about the film for a long time after seeing it, and felt inspired myself.

The Descendants

I have absolutely no idea why the film seems to be so acclaimed. Sure, it’s all artsy and stuff, but its characters are either boring or annoyingly self-indulgent. We have the man whose pride is hurt by the fact that his estranged wife ended up falling in love with someone else, his deliquent daughters who, for some reason, show absolutely no sign of deliquency after it’s been established after the first 15 minutes, a bunch of relatives who are ultimately faceless and irrelevant and finally the other man who has no backbone whatsoever. If anything, I cared about the daughters but they are basically just props to help their father. For most of the time, they are just being nice and supportive of this father who can’t get his act together. I am touched to see that the mother’s death brought the family closer together by the end of the film, but the father has absolutely no merit in achieving that, and that pisses me off.

For what it’s worth, all the actors in the film are doing very well. I especially liked Alex’s actress who looked fabulous in the film. I hope she makes it to more good movies.

PS. In case you are wondering about the subject of the film – somehow the film gave off a vibe of rich people with pools having nothing to do, and a generally pointless idleness. Nope, Hawaii is not the place for me.

Barbarella

Recently, I started watching Altman’s “Pret-a-porter” and gave up after 20 minutes. It promised to be a disaster like his “Nashville”, even the buzz and the tone of the characters were exactly the same. (Think Woody Allen – throughout his 40-something films his characters have the same way of talking too.) I hate the vapid ranting of Altman characters with a passion, and that is unfortunate since I really liked “Short Cuts” and “Gosford Park”.

Luckily “Barbarella” was not like that. It was kind of vapid and extremely campy, but at least it was visually interesting. I would not blame anyone for watching the film solely for the pleasure of seeing young Jane Fonda changing outfits a million times in the film and be half-naked for the rest of it. Even though I would probably never have chosen to see the film by myself, it carried enough enjoyment for me to see it all the way to the end. So yeah, sure it’s a cult film that doesn’t make sense most of the time (that Pygar character! Oh my goodness!), but I am glad I saw this strange little thing. They talked about a sequel with Sherilyn Fenn, that would have been absolutely awesome.

Brave

Whenever I used to revisit an old blog post, I tend to be sad and upset that I didn’t actually write enough. When I think of a great film and wonder what my first impressions of it were, I am disappointed by two measly paragraphs of almost pointless rants. That is the main reason why I desire to write more in-depths reviews these days. However, I don’t actually revisit that many of my old blog posts. Most of the hundreds of reviews I have written are never to be seen again, neither by me nor (probably) by anybody else. By this logic I should probably not blog about films I didn’t like, but what if I like? The simple solution is to just keep myself short with films that didn’t really make much of an impact.

“Brave” is one of those. Actually I was surprised about the plot. There is no big adventure, no kingdom to be saved, no faraway home to be found. All the film was about is the egoistic self-realization of a little girl who was being a brat and reconciled with her mother when the mother finally changed her mind and gave her what she originally wanted. I am not sure what kind of message this gives to children – parents must throw away their tradition and ultimately abide by their children’s modern life to be loved? Note that Merida never understood her mother’s position, all she knew was that she had to ‘forgive’ her and reconcile, but she never compromises her own position, not by an inch. How convenient that Merida is the one with the opinion the audience will relate to.

Personally I love stories dealing with parents-kids relationships, and I was surprised that “Brave” truly was all about it. But unfortunately the overall dumbness of the story kept me up from fully appreciating the fun the movie could have presented with all its lovable side characters (such as the brothers). I wish the first Pixar movie with a female lead had been less ridiculous, but oh well. There are enough Disney movies to make up for that (Mulan!) so it’s okay.

The Last Days of Disco

The longer a writer’s block lasts, the more difficult it is to get out of it. Just looking at that huge backlog of films is daunting! But somehow, a writer always come back to writing, huh? This is ironic since I just recently changed up the format of my writing in the hopes of being able to write more, and more deeply too. Today’s postings are another step to get rid of this

What better film there is for it than “The Last Days of Disco”? I purchased the Blu-ray for it on a whim and even though it was “only” 20 dollars, I still chose it over other favorites like “Paris, Texas” even though my incredible love for “Metropolitan” is the only indication that I may like this film as well. I saw “Metropolitan” 1 1/2 years ago and it has always had a special place in my heart. This is probably because it’s the biggest random Netflix discovery I have ever had. Of course it’s a film in the Criterion collection but many, many films are in the Criterion collection and not all of them are great (I am looking at you, Charade). Ever since “Metropolitan”, I was also convinced that I am absolutely in love with everything this director does, and I was surprised that nobody else in our illustrous little film group liked him or has even seen his stuff. Maybe this is because he didn’t make many movies (none of you guys are into Jean Vigo either, right?) but hey we all watch Sofia Coppola or Inarritu films so that’s probably not it.

The discovery of a director by myself is so immensely joyful. The same thing happened again about a month later with Seijun Suzuki’s “Branded to Kill”, and it’s another film I purchased on blu-ray. Maybe it’s because I enjoy the element of surprise which can only come without a recommendation and the expectation of greatness. It is even more wonderful when I see that not only the film is amazing, but the directing and the scriptwriting is too. In that case I know that I have another bunch of films by the same person to look forward to, and that’s the best feeling ever.

In this case, my expectations were perfectly fulfilled. “The Last Days of Disco” is about just as wonderful as “Metropolitan”, but it features Hollywood’s prettiest face Kate Beckinsale and Hollywood’s most gorgeous actress Chloe Sevigny. (At least in my book, that’s what they are.) I admit that “Metropolitan” is a little more subtle and “Disco” actually hits one of my pet peeves – the abominable situation in which all male characters are into the same woman when another gorgeous lady is just as available too – but my goodness it’s a Whit Stillman movie: It’s wittier than two-thirds of what Woody Allen has ever made and just so immensely well-written. I get the feeling that Whit Stillman made the film just so he can indulge in his favorite 80s songs, that is how much love he poured into the portrayal of this society he is ultimately mocking in his film. I wished somebody would make a movie about our society like that.
Unfortunately, it seems to be unlikely. Our generation is not so good at Selbstironie and takes things way too seriously. You could never imagine a scene in which a bunch of friends gather at the unemployment office and muse about their future as if they weren’t really that worried about it. We are precisely the opposite of that. We may not have gonorrhea and herpes (thank goodness for that though), but we are barely alive ever since Facebook replaced our social lives.

Actually the first part of “The Last Days of Disco” was a little difficult to catch, but in the end we actually only have the main love triangle, the one night stand, the other girl, the other girl’s boyfriend, the roommate and the roomate’s boyfriend. It’s really not as bad as, I quote from my review of “Metropolitan”: “Charlie likes Audrey who likes Tom who likes Serena who broke up with Rick who sleeps Cynthia who slept with Nick who probably offended Jane with that”. For those of you who counted and ended up with the same number – “Metropolitan” has two more characters besides those mentioned. But in “Disco” this also means that the relationship between the characters is worked out in more detail, and the film has significantly more plot with the ongoing crime investigation. I am not sure how much I like the fact that every male character is virtually exclusively attracted to the likable lead female, but at least these people come off as very plausible. This is a film in which you just have to see the interaction and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

I suspect that Stillman’s lack of popularity comes from the fact that Europe has not yet discovered him as a gem of wittiness in perfect Lubitschian tradition. At least I totally want to rewatch “Metropolitan” now.

This is a film that necessitates a long, long hail of bullets… one day.

The Road

We laughed and scoffed when the line “Other families are doing it!” came around. The mother’s death made no sense whatsoever. The scene itself actually made sense, and I probably would have desired to die rather than run the high risk of being raped and killed by somebody else. Death is one thing, but at the hands of these people? And if I had the choice between killing my own child and seeing it being raped… in that perverse and extreme situation, it would a tough but definite decision. Nevertheless, walking out and killing yourself is certainly not an option for any reasonable person. It’s not like she was crazy, she was in her full capacities and decided to kill herself without killing her child. Wouldn’t any mother in this world stay alive to protect it? Either protect it while it’s alive or die with it, but dying without it? Impossible. Wouldn’t anybody know that two adults protecting a child is better than one adult with that job? The whole world of fiction has too many mothers that make no sense (I am looking at you, Downton Abbey season 4). Perhaps too many men or childless women are writing these scripts or something. Only GRR Martin seems to get it right, if you ask me.

With that said, the film itself is a slightly sentimental but still beautiful ode to humanity, and to the future, our children. The blatantly sappy love the father feels for his child almost makes you forget how bleak and depressing the film is. If you ask me, the film is actually very hopeful and even provides the possibility for the child to have a happy ending with a new family. Amongst all the terror the world could have become, there are still a handful humans who preserved the ‘goodness’ in the world that the film is always talking about. This goodness is like a small but bright light within the endless darkness, a little reminiscent of the infamous people who helped their Jewish friends in Nazi Germany.

Nevertheless, the film is positively creepy. I closely felt the fear which is omnipresent for the characters, and while lucky things are happening to them all the time, I sat there in front of my TV with my emotional shields up at 100% (if I may use a Star Trek/Big Bang Theory joke here). There is an inner automatism that keeps me up from breaking down in tears even though I really wanted to, which lets me retain a certain emotional distance to the film. In some cases (like “United Red Army”) I am completely unable to maintain that distance (until today just thinking of that film makes me shudder) but in “The Road” it worked really well. Emotionally I have an almost fond memory of the film due to the father-son couple’s tender love, whereas my head tells me that I was actually frightened whenever they were close to being caught by cannibals.

Overall, I am not sure whether “The Road” is too depressing because it wasn’t really like that for me. The film definitely is not an easy one to swallow, but thankfully it’s so much more than just depressing.

A short hail of bullets:

• I am amused by the fact that everybody seems to have seen the film or read the book before me. Maybe because the book is short? I need a good book to read next.

• The mother at the very end of the film is so overly motherly, I think the feminists in the world wouldn’t like that either.

• Is “The Proposition” actually any good?