About Chocolate Parfaits

(500) Days of Summer

Sappy british pop music! Hahahaha. I actually hated the girl ever since it started. So pretentious, uff. XD I hate the girl’s actress (perhaps I would have hated her less if she was Scarlett Johansson, or Kirsten Dunst, or Natalie Portman!) But, I mean, hey, it’s about a boy who is romantic (nothing wrong with that) and a girl whose parents are divorced and thus has a screwed up view on love (annoying). On top of that, her actress is amazingly annoying – I think I have seen her in a bunch of other shitty chick flicks and have always disliked this kind of actress. She blew up every single passable scene, I can’t believe there are actresses this bad.

On top of that, the style of the architecture in the film is atrocious. His “building design” looks like a child’s drawing (which is still sort of acceptable because he is supposed to be a bad architect), but when he takes her around to show her buildings, I could barely believe how amazingly boring and crappy those buildings are. No half decent architect is into 1900’s skyscrapers; I don’t know what’s wrong with the writers there. It all ties into my impression of the film being very smitten with boring, conservative values – old, inoffensive rock music, 50’s dresses and unartistic architecture. Sad.

A propos the 50’s dresses, I guess this is a good time to admit that I actually love everything else about the film. The dysfunctional yet natural love story, the character’s clothing style, especially hers, and the very lovely way they depict how he falls in love with her so earnestly that you cannot help but hate her. It is the type of a different view on a love story this film is providing that would probably have made it a more importantNo film in my life if I was younger. However, I have never had a love story that was remotely close to this. Every single person who I felt serious about most likely felt serious about me as well; so ultimately, there is basically no connection between me and the general setting of the film.

I mean hey, just look at those awesome Nouvelle Vague and Bergman references! Pure brilliance, oh my God!

There IS a good female character in the story, of course. The sister! She is everything a girl really should be. She’d make a great engineer, wahahaha.

The final question is: Would the movie have worked if the genders were reversed? Apparently not at all.
Come to think of it, every single man I have been very, very into has never, ever complained to me about another girl.

Beetlejuice

It took me something like a month or something to finish the film. It’s one of the rare cases when I have a hard time going through the first half hour or 45 minutes of the film, and then get into it so I finish it with a great feeling. That exactly happened here.

I liked the first ten minutes until the main character’s death and subsequent weird situation, and found it very painful how they really were not helped at all. The whole universe was rude and I found myself rooting for them because I felt so sad for them seeing their lovely house demolished. I also didn’t really get why Winona Ryder’s character was so odd at the beginning, and why she failed at supporting them as well.

Later on, however, I have come to enjoy the character’s weirdness, even the crazy mother. By the time the dinner party was dancing around, I was wholeheartedly enjoying the silly choreography and had a good laugh. I had a vague idea beforehand that the whole story would turn into something good, and the end actually did leave a feel-good impression. I like these stories in which things come to a wholly good end, and in this case, it felt believable. The events actually shaped the characters and turned them into more understanding humans. Very touching and, well, lovely.

Almost everybody I know finds the film odd, and really, the blatant 90’s style of the film coupled with Tim Burton’s weakness for weird things really IS odd. But then, it gave me a nice surprise to see how much I ended up enjoying the story despite its dragging beginning.

My perhaps favorite movie blog, always a source of inspiration especially when it comes to modern unusual gems, has finally put up an archive of their films, both sorted by year and by title. The one by year is particularly interesting, as it shows how immensely lacking this list is for silent films. Oh my God. But, there are a few on the list that I have not seen, and for films up to the 60’s, their archive provides a nice “must sees” list.
Most of all, the Movies in Frames kids are probably my age with a similar taste for weird, modern movies but appreciating the old classics. The only difference I can easily see is, in fact, my stronger love for silent films. (Maybe I should propose some screenshots some day! I mean oh God: No Stroheim, no Pabst, no D.W. Griffith?)

Here, as an example, is what I find interesting from the list up to 1960, but have not seen. In fact, I was surprised at how much I actually have seen from there:

• 1922 Phantom (Murnau)
• 1923 Safety Last!, The Balloonatic, Coeur fidèle
• 1925 The Gold Rush
• 1927 Wings
• 1928 The Patsy, L’étoile de mer
• 1930 L’age d’or
• 1931 The public enemy
• 1932 Grand Hotel, Scarface, White Zombie, Freaks, Love me Tonight, A Farewell to Arms
• 1933 Queen Christina,
• 1935 Top Hat, A Night at the Opera, The 39 Steps, The Bride of Frankenstein
• 1936 Reefer Madness
• 1937 Pepé le Moko
• 1938 Marie-Antoinette
• 1939 Gone with the Wind, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, The Wizard of Oz
• 1940 The Philadelphia Story
• 1941 The Maltese Falcon, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, Ball of Fire
• 1942 Cat People, Now Voyager
• 1943 I walked with a Zombie, Les anges du péché, Ossessione
• 1944 Double Indemnity, Arsenic and Old Lace, Ivan the Terrible
• 1945 Brief Encounter, Spellbound, Roma Citta Apertà, Christmas in Connecticut, I know where I’m going, And then there were none
• 1946 The Big Sleep, Notorious, It’s a wonderful life
• 1947 Monsieur Verdoux, The Bishop’s Wife
• 1948 The Bicycle Thief, The Red Shoes, 3 Godfathers, Rope
• 1949 The Third Man
• 1950 Harvey
• 1951 The River (Renoir), The day the earth stood still, Strangers on a train
• 1952 Ikiru, Moulin Rouge (Houston), Monkey Business
• 1953 The moon is blue, The wild one, How to marry a millionaire
• 1954 Senso, Johnny Guitar, Seven brides for seven brothers, Gojira, On the water front
• 1955 To catch a thief, Rebel without a cause
• 1956 The Burmese Harp, Forbidden Planet, The Searchers, Dial M for Murder
• 1957 12 Angry Men, Nights of Cabiria
• 1958 Touch of Evil, The Hidden Fortress, Gigi, Bell Book and Candle, The long hot summer
• 1959 The Nun’s Story, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, Ohaiyo
• 1960 Rocco and his brothers, Ocean’s Eleven, The Magnificent Seven, Jigoku, Psycho

Dune

You definitely need to read the book to see the film, there is no way one can see this film without knowing a lot about its universe beforehand. The film is indeed just as confusing as everybody says, and I remember very well why I dropped it after 15 minutes the first time I saw it. Nothing gets a proper introduction; heck most of the storyline becomes completely pointless! (Why is this Duncan character in there? How the heck did the main characters actually in love? Why is Princess Irulan a completely irrelevant character in the story and why did Sting never do anything at all besides this random duel at the end?)

Basically, the story is all but confusion, unless you know what is happening. Even then, I feel like David Lynch is merely a bad replacement for Jodorowsky. The cast Jodorowsky has brought out (Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Mick Jagger AND Pink Floyd for music) is so scarily good that I cannot help but wish *that* movie had been made instead. So if it were to be 10 hours, it would have been 10 hours of artistical goodness, not this half-hearted, horribly edited crap.

I believe Lynch has a good original cut and there would have been much more interesting scenes if the film were not shortened to 2 hours something. The Lynch style, which unfortunately also makes the film more confusing, is actually the best thing about the whole film. Dune, strangely enough, fits this sort of 80s, sort of steampunk odd style which is supposed to be noir, or something.

In the end, I am very glad for having seen this classic which I have been meaning to see for a long time now – but apart from that, there really is no reason to see not this, not even as a Lynch fanboy. I am still lamenting the loss of Jodorowsky’s version, after all. This is a serious case of “Read the book.”

The Great Dictator

This movie is absolutely wonderful and brilliantly funny, if only this strange feeling would not be there. For some inexplicable reason, I feel very disturbed when I see this image of people looking up and talking about a better world in which “nobody hates us”. (This gesture is just so Russian propaganda somehow?) Chaplin’s speech at the end was just too much. Maybe it’s the German synchronization, the tone just gives me weird associations.

Apart from that though, this film is a wonderful depiction of humans, society and all that. Typically Chaplin-esque romantic, sure, but the comedic elements make you laugh because they just nail those characters (Hitler! Stalin! Wahaha).

Is this Joseph Tura? Oh my… he actually is NOT! But their faces are so similar…a little bit like John Cleese, just seeing this face makes me want to laugh. Thus Schultz is my favorite character, but then again, I must say that I also liked Goebbels Gorbitsch very much, ahahaha.

With this film, xx get s a whole new meaning. XD I can’t believe I watched such a funny classic this late (before, I have only seen parts of it but never got the whole story). I am still primarily a Keaton fan, but this film makes the decision more difficult yet again.

L’Aile ou la cuisse

La cuisse, bien sûr! I love love chicken thighs, though when it comes to a whole chicken, I prefer wings (they are typically more crispy and tasty somehow?). Today’s dinner is rice with two different types of bok choy sautéed in the grease of bacon, ahhh! So nice… it’s incredible how great simple meal can be – though unfortunately I am perhaps the only Asian in the world who does not own chopsticks.

I was happy to have immediately recognized “Duchemin” as Dumont and Michelin, both of which I have never paid attention to. In fact, I barely know anything about high quality food at all, and ultimately I think I prefer home-made or simple everyday food after all (well prepared, of course!). So for a comedy the premise is absolutely wonderful and almost impossible to beat. The only part I found a little weak was the son whose circus endeavours feel quite ridiculous. (Okay, there is another aspect I disliked: Marguerite serves no single purpose but to be a pretty face – even her actress is pretty shitty here.)

The part about taking down Tricatel is a lot of fun though; I mean, hey, factory food IS atrocious unless it’s lasagna, ahaha. The storyline is full of plotholes (how the heck did he get his taste back so randomly?!) but Louis de Funès’ funny faces absolutely make up for these kinds of details.

I think, my favorite experience of watching somebody cook was in a Waffle House at an intersection in North Charleston. A couple was taking care of the store, and while I was waiting for my chicken sandwich (a midnight snack), I had the pleasure to sit at the bar and watch the old man prepare one of those 6 dollar breakfasts: Eggs, hashbrowns etc. Everything was freshly made! I was fairly surprised and pleased… It totally made me want to have breakfast there but unfortunately I did not have an opportunity to.

All in all, it’s a very enjoyable film, very French. As a comedy, it worked wonderfully and I can very well see myself become a Louis de Funès fan now.