About Chocolate Parfaits

Palindromes

Thomas advertised the movie as the most disturbing film of all times. And yes, the movie is completely batshit crazy. I don’t know why anyone would want to watch this film… OK maybe I do.

The film has a few good aspects. There is its craziness, the criticism towards everything and everyone in the world, and the pleasant blackness of its humor. Surprisingly enough, I actually thought that the movie was strangely entertaining – I wasn’t bored at all. But apart from that, it just blows your mind. It was not actually the strange concept that disturbed me the most, it was the way people talked. Especially Aviva sounds so incredibly dumb for some reason. Maybe she is, but then there is something about her which I thought was utterly human. Yet she is portrayed as a complete dimwit, and that kind of defies the point of the story.

Alright, enough complaining. My favorite part of the film is actually hinted in the title of this posting. I absolutely loved the portrayal of the mother. She is this modern, hyper-understanding and loving Gutmensch mother who strongly believes that whatever she thinks is so damn right, but she was unable to accept that her own daughter might be… different from her, and different from other people as well. I loved how Aviva turned her life into shambles, and her character exemplifies that the film has something worthwhile and very smart behind its apparent idiocy.

I don’t think I would ever have seen Palindromes if it wasn’t for Shii’s 30 favorite films list, and I would say that it was a valuable experience. But ultimately I guess that mindfuck is not really something I am the biggest fan of.

My Neighbors the Yamadas

I would love to say that I prefer slice of life Ghibli films, but then again that is not entirely true. It’s just that Ghibli has made a lot of shitty fantasy films (but so is Ocean Waves, their only slice of life for awhile) and so I am always happy to see a slice of life. I think “Grave of the Fireflies” has weaknesses (although it did make me cry), and I dislike “Mimi wa Sumaseba” whose original manga is also excrutiatingly stupid. In fact, amongst all the Ghibli films I have seen, I would say that only half of them were actually good movies, and amongst those good ones, only the best 5 were excellent (with Totoro having the problem of having an extremely, extremely long introduction). When we know perfectly that Ghibli can do smart scripts, it is a bummer when they chose not to.

The “Yamadas” are something in between. Since all of the film is composed of small episodes of life, some are amazingly good and some are just not that great. In general, the first half of the film seemed to be much better than the second half (I wonder why?) I thought that some of the stories, like the one with Nonoko getting lost, was extremely witty and then there were other episodes which just downright bored me. All in all, however, the Yamadas are living a fairly normal life, and their life problems are fairly reminiscent of ours. Many of the stories feature incidents beautifully picked out of life, and that is something your typical escapist Ghibli movie tends to ignore.

The art of the film is very unusual, but it suits the yonkoma-style stories very well. My favorite scene was the fantasy one in which the whole family travels under the sea – that was true Ghibli creativity for you! Oh yeah, another thing I noticed is that the older females in the film say “Ookini” but apart from that do not appear to speak kansai-ben. I thought this not-really-dialect-speaking makes the family even more realistic.

Style-wise and story-wise, I think “My neighbors the Yamadas” is definitely the Ghibli film which stands out the most. It doesn’t look nor feel like any of their other films, and so I wouldn’t recommend it based on its Ghibliness. But if you are into Japanese culture enough, you’ll probably come to like this film like I did.

How to murder your wife

With Mad Men and this movie, you’d think that the 60s were something like the pinnacle of all-time woman-hatred. As far as I know, clothing styles were much more conservative in the 50s, but in real life, the 50s were probably the kind of time when men were just about to recover from the war and women were the truly empowered because they were a generation that was able to show that they could do it without men. Heck even my mother (who actually grew up in the 70s) had an attitude like “What do I want with men if I am better than them in every aspect?” In the end, love conquered her defensive attitude and it’s still going strong. Kind of like the movie, just the other way around, huh?

So yes, of course the film is blatantly misogynist – but then again, it really is not. Just like how the ending of Divoce Italian Style ultimately criticizes the main character and turns him into a feeble-minded idiot, the ending of How to murder your wife is actually a love letter to marriage as an institution. Granted, that message is just as old-fashioned and dated, but at least the film is not actually all that chauvinist. In fact, chauvinism doesn’t really persist nowadays anymore. The gender problems have become much more complicated – with women finding new aspects to touch upon, now that most women are working; with men whining about the loss of their status, and how male privileges are supposedly a myth. None of it is in How to murder your wife. In this film, men are workers and women are housewives and the world is simple.

With the simplicity out of the way, it is possible to distance yourself from the now outdated societal implications of the film, and enjoy the comedy as it is – as a really funny one. Everybody in the film is just incredibly amusing, and this is Jack Lemmon at his best. His role as the successful man and resisting lover is a little bit like in Avanti, yet he retains this lovable awkwardness which make his jerkish characters (especially at the beginning of the films) immediately likable nonetheless. Only Jack Lemmon could make it believable to be a playboy yet wear Bash Brannigan sweatshirts, and this crucial moment in which he meets Virna Lisi’s character for the first time is quite awesome. Obviously he was in love with her all along, he just had to realize it.

It doesn’t really matter how formulaic this film is, I think it’s a great romantic comedy in the style of Saks’ “Cactus Flower” and Wilder’s “Avanti”.

Eureka

There are very few situations in life in which I desire to watch an immensely slow film which – on top of everything – could very well be very depressing. But I recently saw my favorite Breaking Bad episode to date (“Down”) and that one was surprisingly depressive, so it might well be that I long for more different kinds of films than usual. Other people get random cravings for food, I seem to get random cravings for films. With that, one might even explain the choices of films I made lately, and the series will probably continue for another 1-2 days.

Eureka was one of the few films Shii reviewed when he was still blogging, and of course he loved the film. Nevertheless, I find long movies extremely scary so it took me forever to finally watch this. Recently, we spoke about the Monolith films, and after some 4 years still are a bunch I have not seen yet. Incredible.

In my eyes, “Eureka” is not a masterpiece like “Stalker” was. While the scenery and shots are very beautiful, they did not strike me as that beautiful. But there is something very special about this film. My favorite scene was definitely the one in which Kozue becomes sick, and when Makoto takes care of her, she puts his finger against his. So cute! This is even more so the case because beforehand they barely speak to each other, so every small gesture of human companionship is emotionally touching. The specialty of the film lies in how the characters practically communicate without speaking. It is pretty much the exact opposite of “The Newsroom” – for Aoyama, words are all vapid, and true feelings can only be transmitted by looks and actions, if at all. What these characters have experienced is unspeakable, and so their connection can also not be depicted with words. Therefore, we get to see landscapes and apathetic faces. It makes a lot of sense, and surprisingly enough, I see the emotional connection, especially in scenes like the one with the finger.

Shii said that the children just looked emotionless and didn’t have to do anything. After all, Aoi Miyazaki grew into a terrible actress, she was Hachiko in the Nana movie! They clearly picked the children because they were cute and looked alike (they are actual siblings after all), and pairing them alongside two extremely good actors was definitely a brilliant move.

“Eureka” might be a little film where it takes forever (3 1/2 hours) for things to happen, but actually it took me in. The film is indeed deeply emotional, and as clichéd as the concept “traumatized children are unable to deal with life” might sound, in “Eureka” it works amazingly. It is no “Brighter Summer Day” because that film never felt so excruciatingly long, but both share a sense of humanity which I appreciate.

Eat Drink Man Woman

Loris, who surprisingly saw the movie, called it “the Chinese Tampopo”. Indeed it is, although the structure of the two films are very different. “Eat Drink Man Woman” begins with the most scrumptious food preparation scene of all times. That alone made me want to go to China and eat food. French cuisine? Pah! This is what real mastery is. I think what I need is a good job in Taiwan. It might be a small island, but their food is so damn amazing.
When I started the film, I just began to eat my dinner, which was a mapo tofu dish from my favorite food stand – good for me! This is definitely a movie you cannot eat on an empty stomach. In fact, halfway through the film, other things came up and when I finished watching the last part of the film, I ended up feeling extremely hungry. There, the film really didn’t help!

It is amusing how everyone in the film is mostly a caricature (or, like Shanshan’s mother, relatively irrelevant) except for the two main characters, the father and the second daughter. The dynamics between those two is exceptionally developed and carries through the film really well. I know that my own father loves these movies in which father and daughter end up coming to an understanding, and this was definitely one of those. The last scene was quite cute.

The Sunday dinners are the stage for the biggest surprises and the best scenes of the entire film. Through the middle of the film, I thought that there were a few scenes dragging out too long, but towards the end, the multiple plot twists and revelations were very amusing. Sure, they might have been very predictable, but who cares if they are delivered with so much hilarity? The best scene was the one with the mother fainting, that was just too much.

All in all, for a comedy the film might appear a little slow at times, and the Asian 90s look might not help (although I think that the second daughter looks absolutely stunning), but “Eat Drink Man Woman” is a classic showcase of human relationships almost like “Tampopo”. Maybe I am biased because of my closeness to the culture in the film, but if Loris thinks so too, then there might very well be something universal to these kinds of films.

The Magnificent Ambersons

Whatever is wrong about the film (oh God, that hospital ending, what in the world) can probably be attributed to the evil editors who cut the film. But similar to Stroheim pictures, in this case you have to take a guess at what the film could have been. I read somewhere that the ball scene was supposed to be a single long take going through the floor and showing many people conversing with each other on every floor. I imagine that it would have been quite marvelous. But no, of course we did not get to see that.

Maybe I watched Citizen Kane when I was too young, but I strongly doubt it. I consider it very likely that the Ambersons are the better film, the Buddenbrooks of film, so to say. The slow decline of the family cannot wholly be attributed to George’s malicious character, more than anything else, the times just called for families whose offspring did not amount to anything useful to go down. Even if they were capable of something and worked hard, the glory of past times are over for many of these families, and I have a personal weakness for such stories. Even “Downton Abbey” could be construed as such, where all daughters ultimately got a worse match than they should have by pre-WWI standards (Matthew was originally of “lower social standing”, Edith has no dude yet, and Sybil ended up marrying some commoner). But there are much better examples than “Buddenbrooks” and “Downton Abbey”, and while most of them take place around WWI or between the wars, it is surprisingly contemporary. After decades of prosperity, our generation has a good chance of losing the privilege our parents had – that hard work would turn into a good job, good earnings and a better life. Like George, we might also soon walk around a city which has changed into something we don’t understand anymore. But in our case, it might be less tangible than the belated industrial revolution in the US.

Is it strange that I really disliked Lucy? She was also the only character who I actually disliked, I even had sympathies for old Fanny whose crazy psychotic scene was quite great. But Lucy just appeared so surprisingly dumb? Sure, she did a good job by ultimately rejecting George, but we all know that Anne Baxter can do better (Eve!) and bring much more into her role.

Apart from the “great family gets ruined” concept, the film was mostly very good drama. Angsty, love-filled, juicy drama. On top of that, the film was also ridiculously good-looking and quite funny at times. Unlike Citizen Kane, I was certainly never bored by this film, not even for a single moment. Gorp was perfectly right telling us that we should watch this film. You should too!

The Truman Show

I think I knew about the film ever since it came out. I remember “Titanic” and “You’ve got mail” as some of the first movies I saw in theaters, and I was actually interested in contemporary mainstream Hollywood flicks ever since then. By 2001, I practically saw everything that came out, it was the pinnacle of my movie theater experience with perhaps 1-2 movies per week, plus there were movies I saw on TV too. Of course it was only later that my movie addiction really took off, with the internet and Netflix and what not. But nonetheless, I have seen a whole lot of movies at the time. But for some reason, “The Truman Show” always escaped me, even though I have always had some interest in it.

Jim Carrey might be a major factor. I have always disliked him in movies, and I thought that “The Truman Show” would be no exception. In fact, I don’t think I would have paid that much attention to the film back in the day either. It might have an interesting premise, but ultimately the film is executed as very standard Hollywood fare. Without a doubt it never reaches the depth of “Pleasantville” from the same year, and for a change, Jim Carrey is not to blame. I think he goes through his role quite marvelously, but a relatively bland (albeit suspenseful) script keep the film up from being truly interesting. I agree with Jonathan Rosenbaum that the film is both smart and dumb at the same time, and the dumbness probably keeps me up from really liking the film.

It’s definitely a classic worth seeing, there is no doubt about that, but there is no reason to expect an epiphany.

To catch a thief

I have this strange habit of confusing “To catch a thief” with “Cat on a hot tin roof”. This is probably due to the fact that “To catch a thief” is literally about a burglar, the Cat, who runs on roofs. It’s silly. But I know that much, Cary Grant and Paul Newman are as different from each other as Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor are, and the tone and storyline of the two films could also not be more different. But since I have not seen the latter (maybe I will soon), I still confuse them.

The film was largely a typical Hitchcock until Grace Kelly’s speeding through the mountains scene. Coupled with Cary Grant’s uniquely funny scared face, this was easily the funniest scene of the entire film, and one of the reasons why I think that this is one of the better Hitchcocks. Amusingly enough, I think that Hitchcock is really great at comedy (evidenced by my love for “The truth about Harry”), and “To catch a thief” is one of these great amalgams of amusing scenes with suspenseful detective story.

Strangely enough, I did not think that the two had very great chemistry, but I rarely think so anyways. Grace Kelly is just too perfect? She is fun, confident and even grabs the guy she wants by asking him out openly. She is quite beautiful and yet, I do not know what it is that makes me dislike her. In “Rear Window” she also had the role of the independent, strong-willed, happy, educated, dashingly beautiful woman who takes action to get what she wants. Something is just off with her, and it might well be that – for once – I think that an actress could be too perfect.

I also don’t know why that French girl was portrayed as so strangely nasty. There are a million beautiful French actresses out there, but they had to pick one who could obviously not rival Grace Kelly in beauty, and give the role of a tomboy who is too full of herself.

In the end, however, “To catch a thief” was an amusing and well-crafted story, typical for Hitchcock. I think that it looked very pleasant and was even more entertaining than his usual films (I think this one is better than, say, “39 Steps”). Nevertheless, it does not compare to my favorites of his films.

Rango

We have been noticing how “Puss in Boots” had a bunch of Mexican clichés (and so does “Frida”!) and we so were not surprised how “Rango” was similar in that. In fact, clichés about Mexicans are actually the only ones left which are still kind of okay to do – why is that?

“Rango” is the kind of film you watch because there is nothing else really good on Netflix. A highly acclaimed animated film is probably the easiest way to use Netflix to discover something nice again. I probably would never have stumbled upon “Rango” if it wasn’t for Netflix, because I don’t actually follow animated movies anymore. I don’t even watch anime films, because most of them are bombastic but vapid blockbusters. (Luckily, “Kokuriko-zaka kara” was an exception but I wasn’t counting on that.)

When I told Loris about the film, he positively commented on the fact that the characters were not cute. Indeed, it surprisingly helps when characters are not designed as eye-candy but as, well, characters. It almost feels like they put more effort into turning the characters into something serious when they are not very pleasant to the eye. In this case, I am almost surprised that “Rango” is filed under children and family movies. I mean, sure, animation always gives off this childish vibe, but we all know how pointless that is. Of course you could watch the film just for its action-laden story, but “Rango” is also an hommage to the western genre (with that said, I think 314 really needs to watch this movie), and one cannot fully appreciate the film without noting all its references. Hell even I understood the spaghetti western references, even though I have not seen a single one of them. There just were too many parodies with them.

On a side note, my biggest praise goes to Isla Fisher, who did the farm girl accent absolutely perfectly. She is actually Australian and previously only played in terrible movies. But as a voice actress, she was so damn awesome. How did she do that?

“Rango” does not feel like a big-budgeted film, even though its production values were quite awesome. I am happy that it did well both with critics and with the box office, but it is not on the level of “Paprika” (nor of “Up” or “Wall-E”). For an animated film, “Rango” misses what I would call ‘original creativity’, but just like “Puss in Boots” it’s definitely good entertainment.

Network

Thinking about it, “Network” is the only film which was disappointing lately. I really liked “Weekend” and I also really enjoyed “The Dark Knight Rises”. Considering that, it seems like the badness of “Network” was perfectly enough for me to feel very meh about films these days. It took me awhile to finally write a blogposting about it, and it strongly made me wonder if I want to see a movie at all these days. I feel about “Network” in as similar way as I did about “Nashville”. A part of me really enjoyed the craziness of it, another part of me absolutely does not understand what it all is about. In my review about “Weekend”, I have recently lamented about how nothing I watch has heart, and “Network” is a perfect example of it. It has no heart whatsoever, which is unfortunate because it is built upon a very.

I have recently started watching “The Newsroom” (though it also heavily disappointed me at episode 4), and I can easily see how “Network” influenced the show. Unlike “Network” however, “The Newsroom” has real idealism behind it (unfortunately depicted in a very lame and explicit way) and almost every character on the show is truly likable. “The Newsroom” is ultimately trying to make a show about humans in the strong belief that people are smart, whereas “Network” is a show which ultimately makes fun of humans in the strong belief that people are stupid. I have absolutely no idea how Aaron Sorkin drew his inspiration out of the “Network” film, and I probably never will. I still find it unfortunate that the great premise and some great scenes turned into chaotic rants showcasing how literally all the characters are workaholic idiots (or one of the two).

Oh by the way, “Network” had its funny moments, but unfortunately it was not funny enough. Someone else who watched the film with us also fell asleep twice. We stopped the film to watch it the next day… and she fell asleep again.