About Chocolate Parfaits

Play it again, Sam

This is such a Allen/Keaton movie, and oddly enough, it’s actually showing me what I’m missing right now. There is nobody in the world I feel really, really comfortable with in a similar way as Allen’s and Keaton’s characters are. Except for “Manhattan”, in which Diane Keaton’s character is a little crazier than usual, but normally, they are more perfect than Harry and Sally when it comes to the greatest character match-ups ever.

I miss 6451, did I already mention that?

Diane Keaton looks as good as ever, and for the first time, I realize that she’s actually pretty. Her hair style is weird, but strangely suits her (more than any other I have seen her in) and the classic somewhat-60s-style is amazingly wonderful for her. White feminine shirts, a stylish hat… I’m not sure if I prefer Annie’s masculine blazers or her comparably boring and old-fashioned but awfully elegant black coat? (Personally, I love both blazers and coats – but they always look somewhat feminine, I suppose. And I need to lose weight to fit into my coat.)

Story-wise, this is a very Woody Allen-ish film, like a foreboding of all of his other work (so many references to other movies!), but I can see how Allen is still young. He still has dreams, it’s a quite clichéd, typical story, in its setting merely a bad reference to “Casablanca”. But for the first time, Woody Allen is actually trying do something right instead of becoming the delightful relationship asshole he is in most of his other films. In that respect, this is perhaps not his funniest movie, but it’s one of the sweetest ones. Its bittersweet end reminds me a whole lot of “Manhattan”’s last scene, and I wonder if I ever will be able to re-enact a scene from my favorite movie. “To be or not to be…” better not. XD

District 9

I remember that “District 9” was the other movie besides “Inglorious Basterds”, which of course is absolutely incomparable. Ignoring IB for now, I think that “District 9” is doing a great job considering that I have expected something completely different.

What I expected was a stylish science fiction movie, somewhat Matrix-style, with lots of action scenes, perhaps a cute love story and the usual sociocriticism. I was so, so wrong. The biggest shock was the documentary style, I’ll be honest. Unfortunately I haven’t read about it anywhere, and it completely took me by surprise – it’s so unique after all, especially for the science fiction genre.
Mostly, hand cameras give me a headache, and I need some time to adjust to them; so after perhaps 30 minutes into the movie, I was okay.

Another thing I did not expect as much was the gripping emotions that came with the film: The talks with the wife, the moment when Christopher sees his dead friend… I think the film is wonderful at transporting yourself into the film, much more so than your average action and science fiction movie. This is the point where I have come to accept the weird documentary style and Wikus’ accent. (“FOACK!!!” XD)

Visually, “District 9” surely is brutal and gory (I was eating lunch while watching the majority of it, mind you!), but I think it contributes to the atmosphere. Kobo Abe would have much fun analyzing why the aliens look like insects, and the more the movie progresses and turns more into your 2009 action movie, the more I like the splashing dead bodies.

When I think about “The Dark Knight” or “Inglorious Basterds”, I can easily understand that “District 9” did worse, but I am still glad to see that mainstream films can be at this level. I only wished I had been able to see this film with somebody else, let alone in a movie theater. That’s what “District 9” was made for.

A Tale of Two Sisters

I think it’s been 6 or 7 years ago since I tried to watch “A Tale of Two Sisters” the first time, and I hated the cinematography back then. Why does it take 15 minutes to show two girls at a lake and their meeting with their stepmother? I was bored to hell and somehow the film put me into a bad mood. Obviously we didn’t go beyond that point in the film anymore.

Even if it takes that many years, I have a tendency to revisit films I haven’t liked before. “A Clockwork Orange” is such an example, and I ended up loving the movie. While my excitement for “A Tale of Two Sisters” is less strong, I definitely am glad that I have seen the film. It might not give you the creeps like “Ringu” does, but when it comes to its psychological horror qualities, it is rather close. There is something beautiful and scary about the whole film, and that impression only strengthens slowly until the shocking revelations at the end. This might be the way the whole horror genre works, but here we are dealing with an exceptionally well made example of a horror movie.

Another good point about the film is that the protagonists (mainly Su-mi’s actress and the stepmother) happen to be very good actresses, where acting tends to be amazingly flawed especially in horror films. I think Su-mi’s story would never have come off so strong if the girl wasn’t so good at playing the mad one.

Hailed as one of the best Korean horror films and a staple at the video stores (back then when I used to go to videotheques), I think that “A Tale of Two Sisters” is quite solid and I am glad to have seen it. I am still not a huge fan of the horror genre though.

The Awful Truth

It seems that Irene Dunne was a big movie star while doing this movie, while Cary Grant was just an inexperienced newcomer. To be honest, I couldn’t see that at all. To me, Cary Grant was at its best with his mannerisms and executed his dialogue perfectly, just like in “His Girl Friday”.

Very clearly, I preferred “His Girl Friday”. Rosalind Russell is the better actress in my eyes and has much greater chemistry with Cary Grant; plus the whole topic of the strong woman who tries to leave her husband but ends up finding herself unable to is so much nicer than the housewife who tries to do the same thing. This is perhaps the only weakness of the film: Dunne’s character. She comes off as a little naive, stupid and nothing more than a stereotypical woman. Especially her attack on Grant’s new girlfriend felt rather dull, in which she ruins his reputation by playing a slutty, unlikeable woman – surprisingly suited for her.

But, before these last slightly disappointing 30 minutes, the film was just plain wonderful. I laughed out loud a few times, especially at the beginning when the war was going on passionately. “Marriage is a wonderful thing” huh? Wahahahaha. A marriage comedy was exactly what I needed and the beginning of the film perfectly delivers that. I was delighted to see Ralph Bellamy as “the other man” again, who might be the best actor for these kinds of roles ever: Nice yet plain looking, with a great sense for non-intended comedy.

Perhaps “The Awful Truth” is not as infamous as other screwball comedies because of its (comparably) slow tempo and the way how structurally simple the film is. It can be too easily separated into they decide to divorce – he tries to win her back – she tries to win him back – they get together. But I had enough laughs with the film to thoroughly enjoy it, and realize yet again that classic screwball comedies might be my favorite genre ever.

In the Mood for Love

Pretty much out of nothing (more like an inexplicable rush of depression that I had nobody to talk to yesterday), I decided to start watching a romantic film for dinner. I knew that “In the Mood for Love” is partially about absent spouses and somehow I felt very close to that this day.

The problem is that when you start watching something really, really good, you cannot possibly stop. “In the Mood for Love” was that way. I had laundry to take care of and hated the interruption, but I had no choice and quickly folded my laundry so I’ll be able to continue watching.
“In the Mood for Love” is something for the evening, a film to watch alone when your heart is ready for the artificial emptiness of Maggie Cheung’s ever-changing wardrobe. As for myself, I am completely, completely in love with it; perhaps one of the reasons why the film strikes me visually is the incredible elegance – but for whom? For the husband who never looks at her? Or for the man who looks at her but she is not supposed to look at? There is a beautiful irony in how she, dressed up prettily, walks through dark streets and brings back noodles in a simple looking bottle.

No matter how weird Maggie Cheung’s hair looks, her wonderful self is absolutely wonderful together with Tony Leung, and I cannot imagine any two other actors who could have pulled off these roles so splendidly. Both of them seemed like they were made for this movie – or the movie made for them.

But for me, the most fascinating thing about the film was how the two characters talk to each other and re-enact imaginative scenes. At first, they play their spouses and how they met, but later they play scenes of their own lives, or how they would face their spouses. It’s absolutely beyond me why I have never seen this kind of “real life play” in such a relationship movie before, after all, I do that about every single day. I actually imagine scenes like “How would he react if I said this? If I were there and did that, what would he say?” and play them out in my mind. Showing how these two characters play these scenes is perhaps the most wonderful way of depicting their closeness – there is something amazingly beautiful in which Maggie Cheung’s slightly cold-looking character loses her composure when she is with this man, and only him.

I loved the movie, and I can imagine that I would place it higher than any Wong Kar-Wai film I am going to see… it was so much more impressive than Chungking Express already.

A Scanner Darkly

First of all, the animation of this movie completely killed my computer. The only configuration I was able to play this film in was Safari (of all browsers!).

The animation really is amazingly detailed and fast-moving. I could recognize Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder pretty much immediately. And there are so many small movements involved, making the characters look hyper-realistic yet difficult to watch at the same time. It seems like the motion-detection part of the video codec can’t really deal with it either – if the codec keeps ‘thinking’ that everything in the film moves, the video is bound to lag pretty much constantly.

There is something very special about this film, perhaps even more so than “Waking Life”. Unlike “Waking Life”, “A Scanner Darkly” has a very clear plot and background, and we get a good feeling what it all is about. Perhaps this is thanks to the fact that there is much less Linklater-ish existential talk and relationship tensions, but an intriguing plot which I heard is faithful to the Philip K. Dick book.

On top of that, “A Scanner Darkly” is much closer to the drug movie genre than any of his other movies are to any other genre (“Before Sunrise” really isn’t a love story, let alone a romantic comedy… it’s more like a relationship movie in a similar kind of way “Conversations with Other Women” is.) In general, I like these drug films (and was especially smitten by “Naked Lunch”), even though my life is as far away from drugs as it’s possible. Seeing films about people experiencing these crazy hallucinations and losing themselves at the same time is rather fascinating; as long as it doesn’t happen to yourself, the thin dangerous line they are walking on seems so exciting. Perhaps this is what makes this movie so intriguing.
The film itself does a good job at being relatively ‘neutral’ to drug use though. From the (extremely touching!) end quoting Philip K. Dick, I got the feeling that drug users are perceived as victims of their own immaturity, victims because they are paying a high price for such “child’s play” resulting in death or severe illnesses.

By the way, I have never seen “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by the way, and feel like I definitely should.

In the end, “A Scanner Darkly” was a nice experience which turned out less insightful than I expected from a Linklater. Nevertheless, I think it’s a good story well told, with quite a few funny drug-induced scenes, a bunch of shocking revelations and a good portion of society criticism. I think Philip K. Dick was happy.

Le salaire de la peur

Breathtaking. In fact, it makes me wonder if Godard should have switched titles with Clouzot. This movie is so suspenseful that I suppose you should never watch it a second time, but then again, who knows – maybe you’d see even more details about the film than before.

The details indeed are spectacular. From very few scenes, focusing on the characters’ faces or the angles from which dramatic scenes are taken or a sudden silence shortly before the storm, we get a feeling for how incredibly well thought out the film is.

“Le salaire de la peur” is a movie that starts slowly for the first 45 minutes, giving the characters a long exposition before we get to know what the film is all about. From there on, it’s facing death with exponentially growing intensity. Cowardice, friendship, team spirit and character development, all the elements are there to leave the place to a wonderful portrait of four men.

It’s completely impossible to write about this film without telling too much and giving away its best parts. I can’t even really describe my feelings about the film because they are so closely tied to these incredible scenes you cannot describe with words. But yeah, I felt sympathy, fear, agony, happiness and excitement with a slowly growing, gripping intensity I haven’t thought possible – this movie is a lesson in humanity more than any action film I have ever seen.

Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed

There are some movies in this world that mostly are for children or film buffs, and this film definitely is one of them: Lovely but rather childish story, a few somewhat racist elements and absolutely stunning visuals.

Today, I would say that there is one thing I prefer over films, which are operas. In some ways, “Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed” is an opera, because it follows certain rules (the ones of fairytales, that is), and because its looks are somewhat different from what we are used to. Personally, I found the silhouette style incredibly beautiful and the thought that they were animated as stop-motion pictures gives me the chills. It must have been so much work! (The same applies to “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, though it’s somewhat less beautifully done there.)
And oh my God, the backgrounds are SO Walther Ruttmann! They are the best and blend in perfectly with the cut-out characters.

I know that the story doesn’t have so much to offer, but perhaps that’s just because we are used to faster stories (see operas again). It’s a nice, generic “prince saves his princess” story, and whenever there was a seemingly pointless scene with random people dancing, I also enjoyed myself quite a lot. The whole thing lasts only about 60 minutes, so it’s a perfect film to watch in-between, or even better: in a film theater. The film must be so much fun with a great silent film pianist!

All in all, I would totally want to see this film again if it came in a cinema one day. It’s quite a pearl of animation (perhaps one of the first really good ones) and I think it deserves to be on Satoshi Kon’s list much more than many of the present ones. But then again, he seems to barely have watched any silents (how typical for a director really). Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton win in that department, I guess.

Shrek Forever After

The two greatest things about Lufthansa is that they have a very nice selection of well-made foods, and that you can choose your movie yourself. Sadly enough, there weren’t that many good films, but I was lucky to be able to pick out three. In the end, I wish I had seen either “Young Victoria” or this Jackie Chan film instead of “Shrek Forever After” (which ran on another flight as well), but how was I supposed to know?

I have seen the first two Shrek movies, and barely remember them at this point. I remember that he saved the princess by turning her into an ogre and in the second film it was the kingdom to be saved (or something?). I never saw the third film and heard that it was pretty bad. According to rumors, “Shrek Forever After” was another vain effort in milking the franchise, but less bad than Shrek 3. If that is the case, I think I might never complete the series, because “Shrek Forever After” was more an adventure action film rather than a comedy. It had an okayish story, a rather funny villain and it’s nice to see Shrek trying to win over Fiona again.

But that was pretty much it, there just weren’t many good jokes or interesting shorelines. I remember that Shrek used to shine as the funniest, most mature and most enjoyable of the computer animated films (now it has easily been topped by “Wall-E” and “Up” in my opinion). In comparison to Shrek’s old glory this sequel gives off a rather bland feeling. There also is not enough donkey nor the cat! I also hated how they put it the cat’s cute face surely because viewers expect it. Plus none of his character was further developed, ugh. As a Shrek fan, one should probably see all the films, and this one was actually fun to watch, but the rule “sequels are generally bad sequels” definitely applies here.

How to Train Your Dragon

Among the three film I saw on the Lufthansa airplane today, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, “Shrek Forever After” and this film, I can easily say that this one was my favorite. It touched my heart, and more than any other children’s movie ever before, it is relevant to my interests.

See, the main character of this movie is an engineer and scientist! Hiccup (epicly stupid name) is smart little boy who fails in terms of muscle power to everybody else; and muscle power is what counts when fighting the dragons. Of course, what he attempts to do (unsuccessfully at first), is to devise machines to fight the dragons more effectively. Later, he designs and constructs a tail contraption for the injured dragon he found, leading to one of the most beautiful scenes of him riding him. I found that scene so touching! Finally a children’s film that shows how technology saves the world! Or so I thought. XD Seriously, I consider this a rather good sign – a hero can just as well be somebody who is not physically strong nor cute or attractive, but gentle, sociable and sophisticated.

Unfortunately, in terms of content, this little film also has a problem. This is a spoiler, so don’t read this paragraph if you still want to see the film:
It is wonderful that Hiccup learns about the dragons and then tames them, so that they can finally coexist with humans, but did they really have to turn the dragons into pets? It has something imperialistic (to some degree), especially considering how smart the dragons are in the story. Perhaps I am overly sensitive about this point, but oh well. It’s a natural way to end the story, and so I accept it.

Luckily enough, I probably would never have seen this film if it weren’t for the airplane. I would totally want to see it again… Our children are going to have such an eclectic number of great films to choose from!