About Chocolate Parfaits

Bullets over Broadway

My Woody Allen chronology works like this: There’s the Diane Keaton time, his early years which ended with “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy”, his middle years which, for me, go all the way up to 2005 with “Match Point” and then his late years until today. These middle years span quite a lot of time and have some sort of variation to them, but ultimately, for me, they mostly sandwich Woody Allen’s best times (for me, at least). But incidentally, none of the films during that times really stood out to me, and among those, “Bullets over Broadway” is my absolute favorite so far.

So, what did I dislike about the film in comparison to Allen’s greatest masterpieces? Perhaps the fact that, similar to most Woody Allen films around the time, nobody in this film is having a serious relationship – at all. Not even the brilliant John Cusack can make up for it. He is doing a great job considering his young age, normally you’d expect somebody to have the age of Larry David to give off a believable Woody Allen alter ego. But then again, the last scene sort of makes up for it. Just like when Woody Allen realizes through the Marx Brothers that life is worth living, or comes to realize that he is in love with a 17-year-old at the end of “Manhattan”, Cusack’s character got the lovely redemption when he finally realizes that he is no artist. It gave the whole film something like a meaning, a lesson for life which elevates it over these films like “Everyone says I love you” or “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” which were very funny, but less, uh, meaningful. I probably like “Everyone says I love you” because I find Julia Roberts absolutely perfect for Woody Allen movies, and adore Drew Barrymore swallowing her engagement ring.
On the other hand, however, I thought the film was a little less funny. Sure, I have thoroughly enjoyed it, but without an overly neurotic main character a Woody Allen film doesn’t live up to its potential; sadly, John Cusack is a mildly neurotic character who is mostly just confused about himself.

On a side note, I am amused that Woody Allen’s trademark line “I can’t believe this!” has been spoken by the most unlikeable character of the whole film, the girlfriend with the horrible voice (what was her name again?)

There was something I cannot quite pinpoint why I enjoyed “Bullets over Broadway” less than certain other films of the master, but is that due to high expectations? In general, it’s a wonderful movie, one that wins on almost every account except for the lack of Woody Allen himself, and I can see how it is a little bit like Annie Hall in how it gets better the often you see it. In fact, “Annie Hall” is the prime example of such a film, and maybe one day “Bullets over Broadway” will enter the list of these films too.

Catch me if you can

I used to be a fan during the times everybody was completely overwhelmed with “Titanic”. The scariest thing that happened to me during that time was when I gave a book about him as a birthday gift, and another girl said she wanted one too. When I offered to her to give it to her as well on her birthday, she replied “But that’s in 6 months! I won’t be interested in him anymore by then”. That was certainly the case, but I was shocked that this 11 year old slut already knew that at the time. I thought my love for Leo would last forever.
So it did, it seems. At some point, you’d realize that merely a pretty face doesn’t do very much to you, and later you’d realize that this person happens to also be an actor and not merely a pretty face. He has had his better times (in “Gilbert Grape”, “Departed” and, well, “Catch me if you can”) and his worse times (in “Titanic”, “The Man in the Iron Mask” and especially in “Romeo+Juliet”).

My interest for him lasted at least until “Catch me if you can” came out (a time during which I watched “Romeo+Juliet”, “The Man in the Iron Mask”, “Celebrity” and “The Beach” because of him), but when it came to this movie I heard too many bad reviews so I ended up never seeing it. Maybe it was because I was disappointed with “Road to Perdition”, a Tom Hanks movie I disliked for its silly morals (or so I thought). In fact, I had a hard time convincing my friends that I found the film to be shallow.

But perhaps now is actually the best time to see the film. I found it memorable, funny and downright lovely. Certainly Spielberg is playing with clichés a little bit too much, and I especially dislike the cheapness of certain shots – a piece of money flying through the floor, a man running but you cannot see his face to heighten suspense – but in general, I thought we had some real emotions here. The friendship between the main characters is developing in an absolutely beautiful manner: “Merry Christmas!” That was also sort of cheap, but it hit my heart directly. Even the divorce background and the portrayal of this insecure little boy who still loves his family came off as awfully lovely to me.

I still hate Amy Adams with a passion.

“Catch me if you can” certainly is not a deep film, and it also is no masterpiece of film-making, neither in storytelling nor in cinematography. But I thought it had a good story, and I am enjoying it immensely like I enjoy certain TV shows. Maybe I should continue on with my quest of seeing all Leo movies of interest, which would be “Marvin’s Room”, “Gangs of New York”, “The Aviator”, “Blood Diamond”, “Revolutionary Road” and “Shutter Island”. Oh yeah, and I think he is the perfect Gatsby. I hope.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I have read a few movie reviews lately and came to the conclusion that I like the following: Short, informative and witty. When I go back to my own reviews however, I feel like I have been able to achieve shortness easily, wittiness on very few occasions and at this point, I have no idea how in the world I should tackle the “informative” part. My reviews rarely say much more than whether I liked a film or not; sometimes I actually have something analytical to say about the film, or comment on the director, but usually it’s just about feelings.

When it comes to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, the most interesting aspect about the film might not necessarily be the film itself, but its impact. I saw parts of it when it came out years ago, and it’s almost unbelievable that I have never seen it even after seeing “Hero”, “House of Flying Daggers” and other Wuxia movies which came afterwards. It is “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” that brought the genre to popularity in the West, although I have absolutely no idea why it was this one. To me, it seems like this is mostly a Wuxia film with slightly better characterization and, most of all, with better distribution and marketing. I do see why the movie was just moderately successful in the East – how does the movie stand out in comparison to other Wuxia films?

Well, there is one thing that this movie definitely stands out in: The film manages to convey real feelings, and the characters have a certain depth usually almost inexistent in Wuxia movies. At least the characters are not completely pointless; we are dealing with fairly strong female characters here after all. The faible for great character studies, which is like a red thread throughout Ang Lee’s movies, serves this film very well. The other strength of the film, its choreography, is good as expected, and perhaps a little better here than usual; a large production budget obviously helps. The visuals of flying people is probably what astonishes the western audience the most, while for me, only an eye-candy like “Hero” can impress me.

Furthermore, there are aspects I didn’t quite like about the film as much. The first one being Jade Fox who is practically the only evil character in the film. On the one hand, it is acceptable to be merely one-sided evil character, but on the other hand, she does mention the motives for her actions – she was played with but never taught. With that said, I feel incapable to hold that master, who ultimately is the reason for all misfortune in the film, in high esteem. It works within the film, but shouldn’t society have moved on from these kinds of misogynist aspects in film? The other part is the randomly inserted love story between Zhang Ziyi’s character and Desert Dude. Why the heck was that given so much attention anyways, only so she decides to not be with him for whatever reason? Oh, and to jump into the mountains? Again, it makes sense within the world of this film, but I can’t say I am big fan of this kind of absurdity.

All in all, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is a must-see. Perhaps it’s not necessarily the best introduction to the genre, but certainly one of its best films. Still, it is incredible that I have not seen it before, and the movie totally made me want to see more of its kind.

Still Walking

I read an article about how the film was about a dysfunctional family. So it is! You’d expect a “nice” slice of life story, a quiet get together in which characters are coping with their past and the loss of a beloved one, but this film was radiating so much hatred that I don’t really know if it really was about mourning at all.

In fact, I found it surprising how much hostility the characters managed to show behind their friendly exterior. Nothing ever happens in this film, and nobody ever gets into a real fight. They are just avoiding each other, bad-mouthing, complaining and outright lying to each other. In many respects, the messed up family made me think of French movies (in which the characters fight) or American comedies (which, unlike this film, are funny). I have absolutely no idea why all those reviews are talking about the family’s “love” – maybe movie critics are all idiots or blind or something. Where in the world IS the love in this movie?

Of course I understand that family stories are rarely happy ones, but this one seemed extraordinarily sad to me. The relationship between old and young people are indeed strongly reminiscent of Ozu (except in this film, the old ones are not just victims), but maybe that is precisely why I disliked this film? Ozu at least had a few great comedic dramas like Ukigusa, but with this and “Nobody Knows”, I don’t think I ever want to watch another Kore-Eda anymore. “Unfortunately” for these kinds of stories, I don’t have dysfunctional family, and if those stories don’t make me laugh, they need to make up for that with some sort of meaning. As far as it goes for me, these kinds of movies don’t even come close to the problems in my own family – so far as I exist. Finally I end up being bored.

Unlike “Nobody Knows”, this film has a few funny scenes, culminating in the scene which gives it the name “Aruitemo Aruitemo”. I thought that particular scene was quite a masterpiece and shows a little how great the film could have been – if I wasn’t so bored with it.

So, you will love the movie if you are into artful films full of quiet, well thought out shots and incredible subtlety – so subtle that I was bored even though I was able to pick it all up. On a scale of family melodrama, where 10 is the highest you can get, “Still Walking” is probably -50 and the ideal for my taste would probably be something like… 2? If you want to see a good modern Japanese film about modern Japanese life, “Departures” is the way to go.

My Life as a Dog

In my book, “My Life as a Dog” seems to be the perfect predecessor to “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”. In both cases we are dealing with a child who is not exactly in the happiest family conditions, in both cases he is having a hard life for one reason or another; and a certain degree of mental challenge is involved in there as well.

Not too surprisingly, the feeling “My Life as a Dog” gave me turned out to be very similar to “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”, I find both of the films nice but not much more. On top of that, a certain suburban depression lies upon both films. In “Gilbert Grape”, the performance of the two main characters is outstanding whereas nobody really shines in this film. Compared to that, “My Life as a Dog” is nicer when it comes to the story-telling style in general – it took me a little while to get into it, but when Ingemar started living with his uncle and met all those strange and slightly quirky people, especially Saga, I warmed up to their “small Swedish village” lives.

Ultimately, there is not very much to say about this film except that it is a little boring, not exactly pretty yet strangely interesting. It’s one of those underdog films I usually don’t like too much, but in this case I felt good about the slice-of-life character the film turned into, and the sweet ending.

No Country for Old Men

Ever since watching “The Ramen Girl” recently, I have developed some sort of fear of bad movies. The kind of bad teenage movie that I used to watch back then when I was 14 years old, ditched school almost every day and tickets to the movie theaters were so cheap that I easily got my 6th stamp to get to go to the cinema a 7th time for free within something like a month. Most of what I watched at the time wasn’t exactly bad though, just comparably less good.

I would most likely have hated “The Ramen Girl” at that time already. But I would never, ever have liked “No Country for Old Men”. I can see two situations in which you can like a film such as this one: You like violence, or you like screwed up stories. In the first case, you must be somewhat perverted and in the second case you are even worse because you want to be screwed up. Oh, there might be a third case: You are a fan of the Coen brothers and like their crude yet intellectual style. As for me, I probably fall into the third case and that is more or less the only reason why I found the film to be memorable. I am extremely intrigued by the scene involving the wife who appears so incredibly dumb (“Llewelyn~!”) at first and then ended up getting the perhaps most meaningful line in the film. Typical for the Coen brothers, there also were some wonderfully funny scenes, like the one in which Llewelyn managed to get through the American-Mexican border solely based on his participation in the Vietnam war.

I thought Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin well-cast in the film but nothing is comparable to Javier Bardem’s crazy man looks. He is the one who turns the film into something special. Nevertheless, I thought the characters were lacking something, and preferred even “Burn after reading” over this film. It’s again a movie without Frances McDormand after all!

At the end of the day, I don’t think this was the Coen brothers’ best movie, and it surprises me that it was this film which garnered all the attention and love of both the critics and the people. I might be weird like that, but that’s the impression I got. What do you think?

Golden Slumber

Sometimes you can feel the cheapness of a film. No doubt this film was not actually that cheap – I am sure they needed quite a lot of people for the action scenes and there was quite a lot of firework involved as well. What I am talking about is the relative badness of the actors, the holes in the scriptwriting and ultimately the lack of anything that you’d expect from an “indie film”. There are no smart dialogues, no deep or psychologically troubled characters and nothing about the direction or the cinematography suggests anything grand.

All this is not what “Golden Slumber” is about. The premise is simple – our innocent and naive anti-hero is being framed for having killed the prime minister of Japan. While police forces are working against him and trying to catch him, he is getting help from his friends, new and old: His ex-girlfriend, the friend who was coerced into framing him, another common friend a pop star, a co-worker, a serial killer (no joke!), an old hospitalized yakuza etc. etc. Of course it’s not surprisingly that this film is highly unrealistic and most characters except for the main character and his ex-girlfriend are rather crappily characterized, but again, this is not what the film is about. What’s left is a beautiful action story. It’s a little fairytale of friendship, and, unlike so many other films, was able to move my heart. (I almost cried when the lovely serial killer died – that was so sudden and sad!) In many ways, I think this film is a little like Ai no Mukidashi with its sort of bad characters, very energetic yet unrealistic storyline and extreme love for weird characters.

The worst thing about the film is how incredibly unknown it is. It doesn’t even have an English Wikipedia article! None of the actors are particularly known and the director also didn’t really do anything of note. It didn’t seem to have gotten anything like a release within the English speaking world. Nobody knows this movie! I think that’s extremely sad, and I get the impression that there are so incredibly many more movies out there which deserve greater attention but would never get it. It also makes me wonder how I should find these kinds of films if I don’t want to dig myself through the myriads of crappy films at festivals.

Ultimately I cannot help but to a) point out this film’s weaknesses and b) emphasize on how much I liked it personally. Maybe, once in a while, we all love our fairytales and the mystery of friendship is perhaps the one we nourish the most. So, with low enough expectations, this film is a beautiful little gem and a sweet way to spend 2 hours of your life.

True Grit

…for this Coen brothers film which is totally not a Coen brothers film. Where is the absurdity, where is the over-the-top black humor, where is the desperation in the human condition, where is Frances McDormand? None of these things are to be found in this movie and surprisingly enough, that makes it great. The Coen brothers still love their characters and portray them in their usual deep fashion, and perhaps the combination of Mattie and Rooster is more brilliant than any other Coen brothers character because most of them had to act alone (think of the Dude or Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”) whereas we get a rare glimpse of constant interaction and something like character development, fairly unusual in these Coen brothers films.

Apart from that though, “True Grit” is probably the most ‘boring’ one of their films – it’s based on a relatively generic book and is some sort of remake of a popular old movie, what can you expect? I don’t even want to delve into why the Coen brothers would make a “normal western” at this point in their career and will definitely not want to blame them for reaching a larger audience. In fact, I couldn’t care less, because “True Grit” left me with this amazingly good feeling after watching a film that I haven’t had for a long time. Since I have a tendency to watch films that are either just entertaining (and thus often lack artistic merit) or films that are just smart or artsy (and thus are, almost by definition, not very happy), I rarely have a film where I’d think “Wow this was good” at the same time as getting this giddy happy feeling that feel good movies like “Golden Slumber” would provide. Somehow that makes me want to watch “Good Will Hunting” now. At least it used to be a feel good movie for me – I have no idea what I would think today. Perhaps the film would bore me?

The rather unexplicable feel good factor coupled with the Coen brothers’ great filmmaking are what make this film so special, almost a miracle for me. It makes this film outshine all those movies like “Fargo” or “No Country for Old Men” or even “Burn After Reading” which have many great characters, wonderful dialogue and in general a much greater depth than “True Grit”. At the end of the day, I would say that I am a simple person after all, and I like these simple, almost generic stories which entertain me. It seems the mixture of Dude x Western genre was exactly perfect in this film.

I still think that “The Big Lebowski” was the best Coen film, among the ones I have seen so far, and if I had to give a recommendation, that would definitely be my first, as I also doubt that “True Grit” will ever attain the cult status despite or maybe because it was so popular at the box office. Ultimately this is a film that is somewhat less meaningful but tells a good story. In that respect it’s a shame, but I enjoyed it very much.

The Hurt Locker

Sometimes I feel like watching these films which got rave reviews is like taking the easy way out. I pretty much have a guarantee that this will be a well-funded film which can’t be all too bad. “The Hurt Locker” is the perfect example of such a case. (I love how my spell checker just turned my typo “p erfect” into “p erect”.)

I was going to rant on how much I liked the film: it’s been awhile since I saw a war movie and while I grew up seeing an innumerable amount of trash films that were just glorifying war and violence, I now love my healthy dose of war films, thanks to Kubrick et al. But while “The Hurt Locker” is wonderfully down to earth in some respects and mostly shows the actual cruelties of war, at the end of the day, I realized that the film lacks one major thing – the emotional impact such a film typically makes on me. I am not talking about pathos which is the exact opposite as that makes things feel fake. What I mean is the depiction of that would touch me like, say, “Cool Hand Luke” would. Or the death of the Vietnamese girl at the end of “Full Metal Jacket”.

I do feel sorry for those people who are in this job and will see a film that describes it as dramatic and filled with psychopaths. Now I am rather curious how “Jarhead” is doing when it comes to that. Without having any sort of experience of my own, that one just feels more realistic. My esteem for the film is indeed so high that I dared to mention it to soldiers whom I had a conversation with during a long wait at an airport.
But really, imagine you have one of the world’s most dangerous jobs and then somebody goes out there and makes a movie that makes everything spectacular in the way they want to. It would probably not be for me, and in the case of “The Hurt Locker”, where it really is about life and death, I personally deal much better with realistic films like “Jarhead” or, much better even, with satires and parodies such as “Dr. Strangelove”, “Full Metal Jacket” or “Paths of Glory”.

The main character was too much of a crazy psychopath for me to be able to relate to it, even though I was majorly touched when he bonded with this Iraqi boy, and then did his best to save this civilian. As much as I liked these very human parts of the story, I had a hard time not thinking about how much he put his colleagues in danger. I adore brave and hate reckless people, and obviously the line in between is extremely thin.

Whenever I read the critical reactions on “The Hurt Locker”, I totally feel like it’s about some other movie, but indeed, it was a good film and perhaps one of those movies you should see. In terms of personal enrichment however, I probably gained less than I expected.

Mother

Today, an old man walked up to me and asked me for directions. As usual, I expect people to speak Chinese to me, but he didn’t. My first thought was that this language sounds familiar so it must be Japanese… but no, then he went on asking me if I was not Korean! Wahahahaha. I have officially turned into a kiwiaboo now, though the number of Korean films I am watching is still nothing compared to the many Japanese series I have seen.

The small number of films ensures that I end up watching great films most of the time, and “Mother” is no exception. The story is dramatic and I don’t even want to go into the details because the plot twists are pure brilliance. At the end of the day, the solution to the mystery was amazingly simple and loaded with fore-shadowing, but the revelations along the way are what makes the film so suspenseful and gripping. Personally I thought the beginning of the film was a little bit slow and I was just waiting to know more about the background. But when the mother has finally started investigating on the right track, I was all excited and from there, the speed of the film grows exponentially until the very last scene, which beautifully ties back to the first scene. (A scene that made me laugh, by the way.)

Personally I enjoyed “The Host” more, but to some degree, these two films totally cannot be compared. Whereas “The Host” is designed to please a large audience and be both suspenseful and funny, “Mother” has had its funny moments but is mostly a fascinating character study and mystery film. Well done, now I really have to see “Memories of Murder”.