Weekly Recap 7/30/10

8 Korean films this week. I understand about 20% without the subtitles.

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Memories of Murder, Secret Sunshine, Mother (2009), Oldboy, G.I. Joe:The Movie(animated), Kick-Ass
The Bad: Clash of the Titans, Tokyo Raiders, The Prestige, Vengeance, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Silmido, Shiri, JSA
The Ugly: Repo Men

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Kang-Ho Song, Do-Yeon Jeon(the Korean Naomi Watts), Min-Sik Choi
Directors of the Week: Joon-Ho Bong, Chan Wook Park

TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Green Hornet. International trailer.

Oldboy

Classic I've been watching a lot of Korean films lately. 8 since last Friday. There is the soapy mainstream fluff that the girls with bad eye surgery watch, but so much of Korean cinema is very daring. I don't believe they have a normal ratings system so R is pretty flexible. The subject matter in particular is very bold, from a relationship between two mentally disabled people that begins with one person raping the other(Oasis), to a group of parents taking turns exacting tortuous punishment on a man who kidnapped their children (Lady Vengeance). I'm not sure how popular they are over there, but the ones that I hear word of mouth on have slammed me in the gut.

The masterpiece is still Chan Wook Park's Oldboy, which I first saw back in 2004. I bought the Korean DVD on eBay. I had heard so much about it, it won the Grand Prix(2nd place) at the Cannes Film Festival when Tarantino was the jury president.

Oldboy is about Dae-Su Oh who is a middle-aged semi alcoholic who is one day taken off the street and locked up for 15 years in a low level hotel room. He has no idea why, he is not told anything. All he has is a TV and pot stickers every single day. He nearly goes mad and tries to make use of his time by writing a never ending journal and trying to figure out who may have done this to him. He starts by documenting every bad thing he has ever done. He also starts training. He punches the walls until his knuckles are calloused over. Then one day, for no apparent reason, he is released, and he has to find out why.

I think that premise is enough to intrigue anyone. It certainly did me. More than anything to me, the film is virtuoso movie making. There is so much to behold. The camera work is beautiful with desaturated lighting very similar to Se7en and Fight Club. It is subjective without being distracting. The editing is to a T, and particularly special is the striking score by composer Hyun-Jung Shim. It's a mixture of a lot of electronic work and classical strings. His rendition of Vivaldi's Four Season is piercing and aggressive. I guess anything played against a scene where someone is extracting teeth with the back end of a hammer is always aggressive. The entire film is a celebration of cinematic grammar. There can be simple films with cameras on tripods, but why not make use of all the tools of the medium as they so perfectly match this story. And I cannot not mention the 2.5 minute, one take, 25 vs. 1 fight that happens in the middle of the film. Dae-Su has a hammer in this small corridor and he takes on everyone at once. It's an astonishing sequence of fight choreography and stunt work. It took 3 days to film, 17 takes. Just that scene alone is worth a rental.

The story itself has a driving intensity that sucks me in every time I begin to watch it. Dae-Su's journey of vengeance goes down twists and turns that cannot possibly be predicted. Along the way we meet Mido, a sushi chef who befriends him mostly because she so empathizes with his loneliness. She is quite the plucky girl who radiates warmth and brings a lot of soul to the movie. Hye-Jung Kang gives a wonderful performance and she is so refreshingly atypical of Korea female movie stars. She seems like a real person and not a fragile pale waif. There are many great supporting characters from Dae-Su's best friend Joo-Hwan who runs an internet cafe, Mr. Han the scary white haired bodyguard, and the unbelievable warden of that prison with the gold teeth. How do I even describe him? Slimy and hilarious? What an amazing face. The whole movie is filled with amazing faces. It's hard sometimes keeping track of characters when you're watching a foreign film with an entirely different ethnicity. No problems here. Standing tall above all is actor Min-Sik Choi as Dae-Sue Oh who gives the performance of a lifetime. The Asian fro, the slow speech pattern, that montage of Chinese restaurants, and of course his insane act of mutilation at the end. How did he not win every award that year?

As for that ending with the scissors(shudder), the emotional outpouring that happens is almost too hard to take. The reason we are so affected is because we've been so invested. The director is really giving us what we want, but we don't want it. You want to see Dae-Su get his revenge, no you don't. You want the bad guy to get it, no you don't. You want him to forget everything bad that happened, no you don't. A lot of revenge films claim to be anti but we're really just enjoying the bloodletting. Oldboy reaches deep down to our most angriest and hateful desires and shows us how much pain they inflict on everyone. I wonder how the film works for non-Koreans? Director Chan Wook Park really taps into something primal, in particular Dae-Su's final gesture of sadomasochism. I think the idea of inflicting pain on oneself is embedded deep inside the Korean culture. Sin and anger and secrets and regrets and punishment and self-punishment. It's all there in the film. Visceral is not strong enough a word. Movies can be nice strolls, but great cinema can shake the hell out of you.

Please don't let me scare you. Haha. The movie is still very entertaining with surprisingly a lot of humor. So many of the characters are so inherently funny. Even Dae-Su in that stoic manner is hysterical at times. It'll be hard to stop once you've started it. Also beware that the movie is definitely not for the squeamish. The violence is at level 10 and the couple scenes of sexuality(especially considering the ending) is at freaking 11.

There are good movies, and then there are the truly great ones. This one you won't forget. Do not even think of watching the dubbed English version. Chan Wook Park's other films actually aren't all that special to me, but this one was his master thesis. It's the best Korean film I've ever seen.

July 2010 Reviews 2 (Clash of the Titans)

Clash of the Titans 2 ½ stars It's no secret how much I don't like this genre. Swords and shields put me to sleep. It's that same armor, the same endless sword fights, the same group of soldiers that are always written like they're players on a football team. LOTR is an amazing achievement but that's more because of the story and the characters. All of the others are about white actors in faux British accents clanging swords together talking about honor. Didn't like 300, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Alexander the list goes on. I don't even like Stanley Kubrick's Sparatacus. I hoped Clash of the Titans would be different because of the fantasy angle, and some of it is fun (that enormous Kraken is very cool), but then you have to listen to the dialogue. Oh how I loathe the dialogue in these movies. The words always sound like something you would read not something anyone would say. Every time a scene where two people had a conversation came up, I groaned. It's so painful.

All of the actors in this are pretty bland including Sam Worthington as Perseus who looks exactly like he did in Avatar and Terminator Salvation. The only standout is Ralph Fiennes as big baddie Hades. The design and the effects for him are great. The soldiers however are a lame group with no personality. Who cares if any of them die. And the women are minor, minor players and the only thing really special is Alexa Davalos' beautiful face.

Most of all the script is very bad. I don't care about anything and it's all happening too fast. Before we can understand what is going on and what we should be feeling, the movie cuts to the next scene. The plot is on a rapid conveyor belt and for some reason the total running time is 1 hour and 35 minutes for this supposed epic. As for the emotional storyline, Hades killed Perseus' father and now he wants to kill him. Wow, that's something. I need to lie down.

Louis Leterrier is a good director and I've liked his previous films Unleashed and The Incredible Hulk with Norton. He also unfortunately directed the first two movies in that terrible Transporter series. I think this was just a bad genre choice for him. And overall the movie is such a mass produced product of Hollywood. The worst kind of corporate blockbuster. Clash of the mediocre.


Repo Men 1 ½ stars Wow this was bad. The concept is that in the future, organs are readily available to anyone as long as they don't miss their monthly loan payments. And if you're overdue, Jude Law comes over to your home, puts you under, cuts you open, and takes the organ back. Basically if you don't pay, you die a horrible death in your living room. This is really one of those screenwriter ideas that he brags to his friends about. "Hey I got this movie about guys who repossess organs. Isn't that cool?" The idea is mildly interesting but two hours of it is a horrendous experience. Eventually circumstances occur and Jude himself needs a new heart and of course he has a hard time paying the bills and his partner Forest Whitaker has to come after him. What irony! Along the way he starts a romance with Alice Braga(who is the Brazilian version of B-grade actress Zoe Saldana) and they go on the run to get to the headquarters of the corporation and blah, blah, blah. The future is such a piss poor ripoff of Blade Runner down to the unusual amount of Asian people on the streets, and there are way too many unnecessary fight scenes where Jude takes on 10 guys with a knife. It's amazing how times have changed. Maybe scenes like that would've been tolerable a few years ago, but I can't stand any movie that screeches to a halt for a long meaningless over choreographed fight scene. Bad fight scenes at that. As for the ending, another Shutter Island piss off. Why does everybody want to be The Sixth Sense? I have tried and tried to think of a reason why Jude Law did this movie. He's a smart guy. He's a great actor. I got nothing.


Mother 3 stars I heard a lot about it on aintitcool.com and thought I'd give it a shot. The movie is good, I don't know if it's great, but the basic theme of the movie really got to me. A 20 yearish borderline autistic young man is accused of a murder in a small Korean village and because of his handicap and general slowness he confesses to the murder and is put away. His somewhat overprotective mother, played wonderfully by Hye-Ja Kim, refuses to believe he is guilty and starts her own investigation. Mother is in her mid 60s and a herbalist/acupuncturist and really has no facilities for this type of investigation. That's part of the charm of it. What really got to me deep inside my Korean body was her absolute blind tunnel vision pursuit to free her son. And that might sound like this is some inspirational family movie but it is far from it. The son in fact may be guilty. We don't really know, but there is some evidence of culpability. But she doesn't care. Her "love" is so aggressive that she doesn't even consider what the truth may be. She doesn't care about that, she just wants her son out. And I don't want to give anything away, but her own behavior and methods do not stay within the boundaries of morality and the things she ends up doing are shocking. They're all motivated by her maternal love. And it doesn't feel like righteous revenge, it feels very conflicted.

The movie made me think a lot about my own Korean mom and about parents and their children. What if your son really did something terrible? Would it matter to you? What would you do to protect him? How far would you go? I think the movie elicits more thoughts after than during and it feels more like you're observing this mother in a psychological experiment rather than experiencing her in a story. Yet there are great cinematic moments and the beginning and the end sequences are really powerful.

The writer/director was inspired by an interview he once saw. A 60 year-old Korean man was adopting young Chinese girls, sexually abusing them for two years and then would send them back to China. He did this repeatedly, over and over again, and was finally convicted of the crime. And yet in this interview the 80 year-old mother refused to believe it. She became enraged and started screaming curses at these Chinese girls saying that her son was a good man who generously took them in and they should just be thankful. Apparently the son and mother lived together in a small apartment so she had to have known something. But still she defended him and was so blind to anything he might've done wrong. The whole thing is fascinating to me. I called my mom right after the movie was over.


Memories of Murder 4 stars Korean director Joon-Ho Bong wrote and directed Mother, and I wanted to look at some of his other work. He directed The Host which a lot of people have seen over here. It's about a mutant squid monster. No thank you. Another one I read up on was Memories of Murder and I was very surprised. This is the Korean equivalent of Zodiac and was actually made 4 years before that film. It follows the real life story of a serial killer in a small country town in Korea and a pair of detectives who become obsessed with finding him. It is not at all a mainstream thriller with shootouts and an easy wrap up. It's an intelligent, sometimes eccentric police procedural about these cops gathering evidence and formulating theories and trying to find suspects all set against the backdrop of this rural town. It's 1986 and they don't have much in terms of forensics. It bolted me in from start to finish.

Kang-Ho Song is an actor I'd seen in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and he also starred in the recent Chan Wook Park (Oldboy) vampire movie Thirst. He is a tremendous actor, the Korean equivalent to De Niro, and he is on fire in this movie. His casual naturalism is something to see. He's a simple veteran cop who is hilarious and swears a lot and always seems exasperated, particularly with the city cop who comes from Seoul to help played by Sang Kyung Kim(also very good). The case itself is completely engrossing all the way through and my emotional investment just continued to build and build as the movie went along. The script also has room for a lot of dry humor including a hysterical trip to a bath house. It's tastefully shot and not at all cheap like some overseas thrillers can seem. Every country has small towns with colorful characters and sometimes very bad people. And the knowledge that this was something that really happened (something I did not realize until after) makes it all the more frightening. Along with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this is the second extremely good murder procedural I've seen in recent months. I say put this in your queue right now. It's one of the best films Korea has to offer. Director Joon-Ho Bong. I gotta remember that name.

Weekly Recap 7/23/10

I think you look like me.

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: A Single Man, About Last Night..., The Departed, Seinfeld
The Bad: Ip Man, The Runaways
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: Inception

Actors of the Week: Colin Firth, Ellen Page, Jerry Stiller
Directors of the Week: Tom Ford, Ed Zwick



TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
TRON:Legacy. Feature trailer.


The Company Men. Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper.

July 2010 Reviews (A Single Man)

A Single Man 3 stars Fashion designer Tom Ford directed A Single Man. I don't believe I've ever seen a film directed by a fashion designer. I was actually not skeptical since fashion designers obviously have a sense of style, they are constantly around cameras, and I assume they have depths beyond their perceived shallow personas. Having seen the great documentary Unzipped with Isaac Mizrahi, fashion designers seem to be a lot like directors. They have to be leaders in charge of details. And he also co-wrote the screenplay.

A Single Man isn't a knockout but it is pretty good. George played by Colin Firth is an English teacher at a college in LA in 1962 and his lover of 16 years played by Matthew Goode (Watchmen, Match Point) has recently died in a car accident. The movie is about one day, the day he intends to kill himself. The day is like any other. He eats breakfast, he goes to work, but everything is much more vibrant. He and the film spend a lot of time focusing on countless little details like the green of a little girl's skirt or the beautiful smile of a young man. George doesn't see much of a future for himself and he believes it's time to go. This will be his last look at life.

A lot of the film is just like that with George in everyday situations observing everything. And although the first 20 minutes aren't very strong and feel a bit too much like a Calvin Klein commercial, once we get to know George and hear his very articulate speech about fear, I really started to identify with him. I think we all come to a point where we wonder if good things are going to happen anymore. Did they all happened in the past? George can't see what his future could be. George also has a friendship with Charley played by Julianne Moore. They're both Brits living in LA. He's gay, she's a divorcee passed her prime, and they have a close relationship. Her life must be the nightmare for a lot of women. Her beauty is fading and she's all alone in the house with nothing to do. Their scenes are good and are really an interesting look at the relationships between women and gay men. Moore's character is really an extended cameo and I wish she was in the film more. At 49, she is one of the best actresses around.

The movie does come up short from greatness in that the climax of the film with the student in George's home doesn't pack the power it should. George explains his revelation in voice-over, but if the film was really hitting on all cylinders, he wouldn't need to. I didn't quite buy the payoff. That being said, it is a good movie and certainly worthy of seeing if only for the immaculate costume design. The early 60s never seemed so polished. There has been some criticism about the focus on wardrobe, but if you're going to emphasize it, I say go all the way. Tom Ford is a man of fashion and any director needs to express the things that are most interesting to him.

I'm curious if Tom Ford will make another film. This one is obviously incredibly personal to him. You can just feel that as you watch it. I find him to be an intelligent and thoughtful person. And particularly amusing as the behind the scenes show him directing while remaining impeccably groomed. Most directors are in t-shirts and jeans. Tom Ford shows up in a pressed shirt, cuff links, and a waist coat. And if I didn't mention it, Colin Firth is pretty wonderful in a great dramatic performance.

Charlie Rose interview with Tom Ford http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10752



Cop Out 2 Stars Kevin Smith made two of my favorite films. Clerks and Chasing Amy. They are so specific, so hand made, so unlike other movies. What the hell happened? After Dogma it was all down hill. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is not funny, I liked Zack and Miri Make a Porno but it's ultimately a forgettable comedy. Same with Jersey Girl. Really, what happened? Maybe he just ran out of things to say. Cop Out is not funny and it would've been excruciating if not for the instinctual likability of Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. The story involves a rare baseball card that Willis has to sell in order to pay for his daughter's wedding. Doesn't that story excite you? Also, it's a cop buddy comedy. Even more exciting. Kevin Smith used to be such an auteur director. Good or bad, you always knew he directed it. I don't know who directed this one. And it's a shame that he skipped out on what he's good at, writing. He's apparently much more into improv these days which I think makes his movies worse. It's a bad one.





The Losers 1 ½ stars You know, the title of your movie shouldn't be one that can be used to describe it. It's right on the money. I hate cheap action movies. This one is so low rent. From the director of Drumline comes The Losers. You know your cast is the B team when the big stars are Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Idris Elba. Do you know who these guys are? They're good actors, but they don't have the star power a movie like this needs. Just as bad as Adrien Brody headlining a Predator film. The action is lame, the story is... what story, and I'm sorry but Zoe Saldana is not a movie star. She may have been in Avatar, but she's no Angelina Jolie. She can't pull off being tough and sexy without it all seeming like a put on. And why oh why is the fine actor Jason Patric in this? I hope he got paid enough so he won't have to do a movie like this ever again.






The Runaways 2 stars I don't really like movies about rock stars. I just don't. The life is completely unappealing to me. I would never want to do what they do. There are very good ones like Sid and Nancy but at some point drugs always enter the scene and down we go. The Runaways is about Cherie Currie and Joan Jett when they were teens, way before I love Rock and Roll and Bad Reputation. They were the first all girl rock band, which is surprising since the movie takes place in 1975. The music isn't that great, and although she's going to be a very good adult actress, sweet faced Dakota Fanning can't really pull off wearing fishnets and singing Cherry Bomb on a smoky stage. Her voice is too awkward. One standout is the always creepy Michael Shannon who plays their manager Kim Fowler. It's a wacko character and a good performance. The film is shot like a 70s porn film with ass ugly film stock and filters that are supposed to be transporting but they only make the movie seem very dated. It's a bold choice that kind of fails. The movie is a bold choice that kind of fails.





Infernal Affairs 2 4 stars If you didn't know, The Departed was actually a remake of a Hong Kong film called Infernal Affairs. That movie was wildly successful there and it spawned two sequels. The second film is actually a prequel and I think it's the best of the series. I actually think it's the best film about Triad gangsters I've ever seen. We see a bit of the undercover cop and the undercover gangster in their younger years, but more than that we get a deep look into this Triad family, how it works, how power is passed down to the next generation, how the business is run from up top. Francis Ng is an actor I didn't know. He plays the elder son, a doctor who is suddenly given family power after his father is killed. My goodness his performance is just unbelievable. He avoids all of the bad cliches of the genre and chooses to quietly underplay each scene. He is polite, courteous and well mannered all the way through, while always remaining a step ahead of everyone. It reminded me a lot of Michael Corleone. The film emulates a lot of The Godfather Part II. The first film is a thriller. This one is a rich melodrama(yes there is such a thing). Also fantastic is Carina Lau who plays the wife of Sam(the Jack Nicholson character). She commands every scene she's in. It's an elegant performance, from the way she holds a cigarette to how she handles the young Lau Kin Ming who is in love with her. Also great are Eric Tsang and Anthony Wong as the Nicholson/Martin Sheen characters. Seeing these two veteran characters HK actors in scenes together is worth the rental.

The movie is a stand alone so you can see it without seeing the first. I sometimes frown on HK films as they can be a bit too flashy and sometimes go for the heavy cheese. There's always a pop song when you don't want one. Infernal Affairs 2 avoids nearly all of that and it's surprisingly classical in its style. Beautifully lit and edited at a deliberate pace. It's been in my blu-ray player for the past week. A great film.

Weekly Recap 7/16/10

So many Hong Kong films this week. I got Cantonese coming out of my nose.

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, Infernal Affairs I-III, Kung Fu Hustle, My Blueberry Nights, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Bee Movie, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo
The Bad: Greenberg, Cop Out, The Losers, Hero, Initial D
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Tony Leung, Carina Lau, Eric Tsang, Anthony Wong
Directors of the Week: Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, WKW


TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
The Town. Affleck's second film as a director after the very good Gone Baby Gone. Looks promising.


Welcome to the Rileys

The Social Network Full Trailer

I'm so excited I might throw up.

The cover of Radiohead's Creep is by the Belgian girls choir Scala and Kolacny Brothers.

Greenberg

Greenberg 2 stars. I wish the movie was called Florence because Florence Marr played wonderfully by Greta Gerwig starts off the first 10 minutes of the movie and those minutes are very good. She's a personal assistant to the Greenberg family in LA. Shy, wanting to please, a bit awkward, and her studio apartment is embarrassingly similar to my own, although I have a one bedroom. Then Roger Greenberg shows up.

I always thought Ben Stiller was a good actor even going back to Reality Bites. He's just been a lot of bad PG movies. He nails the character to a T, but Greenberg is an absolute self-righteous pain in the ass. What a tool. He's the kind of guy that doesn't mind repelling everyone. He isn't a yeller, but everything he says out of his selfish, self-centered pie hole is awful. It's unusual for a movie to start off so well and then slowly get worse as it goes along. Days later I like it even less. Florence really has no reason to like this guy other than the script dictating so. He's a 40 year-old unemployed carpenter who wears the same brown sweater, down vest combo everyday despite consistently sweating in very warm LA. And he spends a lot of his time handwriting writing letters of complaint to Starbucks and a Pet Taxi service and blah, blah, blah.

I respect writer/director Noah Baumbach, but I haven't liked any of his films. The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding. His films are indicative of the very sad state of independent cinema today. The movies spend so much time trying to be unconventional and atypical that they end up alienating the audience. It's as if they don't want us to like them. Movies are still about emotion people. We have to care. Roger Greenberg may be a different and unsentimental character and look at how different I am by making a whole movie about such a character, but F you I don't care. I don't want you to grow or to come to any realizations. I just want to be away from you. There's a scene Greenberg has with his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Jason Leigh(she's still great) that epitomizes my experience watching the movie. They dated over 10 years ago, he thinks they are reconnecting and that she likes him, but she doesn't and he doesn't get it. He just keeps talking and talking. Maybe she's not so great since she is given a Story By credit. No, she's still great.

The thing these independent films want to embrace and think we should admire is all of the hipster nonsense. The clothes, the irregular-sized plastic eyeglasses, the hole in the wall bar where Florence sings(of course every 20 year-old has musical talent), the forgettable music by LCD Soundsystem, the non-Hollywood look at LA(look at this street no one has shot before!), 40 year-olds wearing hoodies, and of course dogs. A certain generation of white people seem to love their pets more than human beings (Why bother dating? Sex I guess). A major subplot in the film involves a sick dog and trips to the vet and who cares about that. And of course we're self-aware so occasionally we'll take jabs at the clothes and the cliches but that's just a cliche in and of itself. It's Urban Outfitters: The Movie.

Florence is the character I liked and all she gets is pissed on. The script indeed takes her to places female characters usually don't go to, but I don't believe abortion and irrational, mentally retarded affection toward this supreme a--hole misanthrope are great destinations. Greta Gerwig has a nice career ahead of her though.

You're movie can be different. Be different. Be unconventional. Just be something I care about. Like Adam Sandler and Rob Reiner, I'm done with Noah Baumbach.

First 2 Minutes of Chungking Express

Again, start the movie at 42 minutes in. Skip the first half.

Wong Kar-Wai

If you love cinema, you have to see a film by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai. That being said, either you will love them or you just won't get them. From experience, talking to friends and reading critics, those are the only two reactions. You may appreciate what he's trying to do, you may even admire his ability, but either you will love them or you won't. It's something elusive, ephemeral, it's a feeling that can't really be articulated but I'm gonna try.


In the Mood for Love (2000) 4 stars If you want to start, start with this one. This was the first WKW film I saw. In the Mood for Love is set in 60s Hong Kong where two neighbors played by Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung have spouses who are often away. They start a friendship, mostly eating meals together, and soon they suspect that their spouses may actually be having an affair with one another. And yet they do not want to be like them, to stoop to their level, and they choose not to have an affair themselves. Instead they speculate on what that affair might be like. How did her husband meet this woman? What do they when they're together? And in a brilliant stroke, they act out what it might be like to actually confront them. Would there be screaming and yelling? What do they want them to say? All the while, their relationship is growing closer and closer.

These are the points of the story, but like any film by Wong Kar-Wai, the story is not all that important. It's the mood, the gorgeous lighting, the tailored suits, the high maintenance hair styles, and I don't think there's a scene where Maggie Cheung isn't in high heels. I don't know if Hong Kong was really this lush 50 years ago, but I sure want it to be. In the Mood for Love is indeed about mood. And yet out of all of his films, this is definitely the most contained. They don't express, they hold everything in, and the romantic tension happening between the two characters is sometimes unbearable. And everytime I watch it, when I get to the end, I am always blindsided by how much emotion has built up over the course of the film. Both Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are unbelievable and they are a wonderful onscreen couple. He took home the best actor prize at Cannes back in 2000. Kar-Wai took a year filming this movie, no concrete script, discovering it as it went along. Although not my personal favorite, it's probably his best, most accessible film.




Chungking Express (1994) 3 ½ stars The movie is split into two parts, two disparate storylines that have nothing to do with each other. Forget about the first half. I do. The movie really starts for me 42 minutes in when Faye Wong shows up. Faye works in a fast food snack bar, helping her cousin out while Tony Leung is a beat cop who comes by every night for black coffee and a chef's salad. She's an odd girl who listens to California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas over and over again at a very loud volume. She says it keeps her from thinking too much. He has just been dumped by his flight attendant girlfriend and the girlfriend leaves a Dear John letter at the snack bar along with a key to his place. Faye decides to take the key and begins this strange game of coming over to his apartment while he is away, cleaning it, and rearranging his things. He knows she is doing so but he plays along. Their relationship is timid and shy and neither is willing to take a bold step. They're lonely kids in adult bodies. Wong Kar-Wai captures beautiful moments of music and image and this exciting French New Wave energy that pulsates through every scene. I can't say enough about Faye Wong. She's a huge pop star in Hong Kong and she's only done about 5 films, 2 for Kar-Wai. I don't know if this a performance or if this is her or both, but her character is unforgettable. Her behavior, her choice of wardrobe, her spirit is a complete original. Her Cantopop cover of Dreams by the Cranberries ain't bad either. Tarantino brought this one to the states under his production company and I'm very glad he did. It's not realistic, it's not insightful, but it's pretty great.




2046 (2004) 3 ½ stars Some people said he went too far. 2046 is an oblique follow up to In the Mood for Love, following Tony Leung's character Mr. Chow as he returns to Hong Kong after several years in Singapore. He has changed, becoming more of a playboy and less of a reserved man. He begins a relationship with Zhang Ziyi's character Bai Ling but he ends it as soon as she gets too attached. He runs into old lovers in Hong Kong, and he spends most of his time writing a futuristic novel called 2046 where characters that parallel the 60s storyline play out their stories on this train that is headed to a place called 2046. It is there that they are told they can recapture old memories. I'm sorry for the confusion but the movie has very little to do with its plot. It is about old memories, lost loves, and painful regrets. Every character seems to be trapped in the past, trying to correct or re-live a relationship that didn't end well.

The best stretch of the movie for me is the one involving Tony Leung and Faye Wong (Kar-Wai loves to use the same actors) where she is a daughter of a hotel manager. She's fallen in love with a Japanese man and her father forbids them being together. Tony Leung befriends her and they try to write a martial arts novel together. It's another magnificent performance from Faye Wong. Her character spends a lot of time re-enacting the last conversation she had with her Japanese boyfriend. She walks around empty rooms in the hotel trying to imagine what would've happened if she had said yes to him. Her strongest scenes are the ones where she says nothing. The life of emotions inside her is heartbreaking. This one may baffle you, but to me it's an amalgamation of all of his films. All of their themes and all of his motifs are poured into it. It's also his most beautiful film, with so many striking images. A favorite is a hyper slow motion shot of Faye Wong smoking a cigarette as opera plays over it. The cigarette smoke coils up to the ceiling and at that moment we feel exactly what she is feeling.

Tony Leung (Hard Boiled, Infernal Affairs) is one of the best actors in the world and he is De Niro to Kar-Wai's Scorsese. He is an absolutely elegant actor and I don't think any Western actor comes close to capturing his qualities. Also great performances from some of Hong Kong/China's best actors including Carina Lau, Gong Li, Chang Chen, and Japanese actor Takuya Kimura who is pretty amazing in his dual role. Wong Kar-Wai took four years off and on to film this.




My Blueberry Nights (2008) 4 stars His first American film but the style is still so specific - lush colors, shooting from behind glass and reflections, songs that play as motifs, so much romance. And there's always that longing. All of his characters are plagued with it. Norah Jones is a wonderful choice as the lead whose boyfriend has left her and she decides to go cross country to get away from everything. It's not a road trip movie, more of a destination movie. She's in Memphis for a while with Rachel Weisz and then in Reno with Natalie Portman. I honestly don't know why I love the film so much. I can't quantify it, I just know I do. The ticket stub from 2 years ago is still up on my refrigerator. I love those opening 30 minutes in Jude Law's cafe where they talk about pork chops and blueberry pie. I love the innocence of Norah's character. She doesn't want much. She's just saving up for a new car. And that Cat Power song is the best song ever for when you want to drive around and be depressed. Yet this is one of his more positive films, with romantic hope instead of tragedy. This was my #2 of 2008.


*He also directed a BMW short film, The Follow with Clive Owen, Forrest Whitaker, and Mickey Rourke. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNoYLm3a-nI

Weekly Recap 7/9/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Brooklyn's Finest, 2046, Chungking Express, Peanuts 1970s Vol. 2, Twilight, tons and tons of Seinfeld
The Bad: Triage, The A-Team Season 3
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: The A-Team(2nd time, still a hell of a lot of fun)
http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2010/06/a-team.html

Actors of the Week: Richard Gere, Jason Alexander, Faye Wong
Directors of the Week: Antoine Fuqua, Wong Kar-Wai



TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
See below.

The Social Network Teaser B

In-tense. "The internet isn't written in pencil... it's written in ink."
Opens 10/1/10

Heist - Bible Speech

My word what a brilliant speech from David Mamet.
No one can construct dialogue like he can.

Twilight Reviews

Not going to watch Eclipse in the theater. No! But I did review the first two a while back.
For those of you who are secretly or not so secretly interested.


Twilight 3 stars (Review from 3/20/09) You know what, it's not half bad. It's an overblown teen romance, but it's a good overblown teen romance with two incredibly likable lead actors. Robert Pattinson (Harry Potter 4) is good, Kristen Stewart (Panic Room) is appealing (although she needs to stop shaking her head so much and moving her eyes left and right during her close ups). The cinematography by Elliot Davis (Out of Sight, The Lords of Dogtown) makes this probably one of the best looking teen movies. Lots of nice medium shots and Washington state is a great locale (although probably shot in Canada). And it avoids a whole lot of teen movie cliches. No group of bitchy popular girls or parties with plastic solo cups or the color pink. Shockingly the dialogue is palatable dare I say good. Bella and Edward are smart, fairly articulate and that goes a long way. Even the vampire stuff is somewhat interesting despite the fact that vampires usually put me to sleep.

It's far from perfect. Some parts are downright silly such as the 'evil' vampires and the baseball scene which is ridiculous. Then again one could argue the entire concept is silly. But on its basic appeal it works. It's really true, abstinence and restraint are so much more interesting on screen than the other thing. I think if you want to see it, you'll like it. If you have no interest, you probably won't have any interest. Believe me, I had no intention of enjoying it, but I did. Just promise me ladies, don't make your boyfriend/husband watch it if he doesn't want to.


(Re-review from 3/25/10) Watched the sequel last weekend, decided to watch the original again. Man is it better. I forgot how much Bella narrates this first film and her narration takes us straight into her head as she moves to a new town, to a new school, and to a new relationship with Count Chocula. She’s the lead character and we are feeling what she is feeling. We aren’t at a distance watching a whiny girl mope around about her break up. The movie has a nice sense of a real high school that isn’t over-lit or cliche. The kids seem real. Or at least they are people we don't mind spending time with. I particularly liked the scene where they go surfing. No one’s wearing a bikini and actually the sun's not even out. This isn’t an Abercrombie ad. Bella is sitting in the van talking with some friends. It’s the kind of simple hangout scene the second movie is lacking. Another good scene is Bella and Edward’s first date where he explains that he can read other people’s minds. He’s funny and witty and they really do have a nice chemistry. Nothing like the dead with lead conversations of New Moon. Edward is 10x more fun in this one. What happened over the summer?

There’s also more room for supporting characters like Bella’s mom and Bella's friends, which makes the world of the movie more complete and much more interesting than a random trip to Italy does. The story moves at a swifter pace and has a nice feel for what it would be like to be a teenager in this small Washington town. Even a melodramatic scene with Bella in the hospital telling Edward he can’t go avoids feeling too WBish. Or is it CWish? I really felt her desperation at the idea of them not being together and I cared about that. That seemed to capture the core of what this love story is about. Why didn’t that occur when Edward leaves in #2? What happened? I think we haven’t given director Catherine Hardwicke(Lords of Dogtown) enough credit for all of her strong decisions in that first movie. This first Twilight is a good movie about high school kids and vampires. New Moon is a drudge about trying to make teens act like world weary adults which they cannot pull off. I’ve never read the Stephanie Meyer’s books, and Lord willing I never will, but I have a feeling the sequels will go further and further away from being something I like. However, Father forgive me, this first movie is pretty good.

New Moon 1 ½ stars. (Review from 3/19/10) Do girls really scream in pain uncontrollably night after night after they've broken up with a boyfriend? Many months after it hit the theaters, I finally saw New Moon on DVD. Twilight is a lot of things but most of all it's this juggernaut box office phenomenon. Bella, Edward, and Jacob. I bet my mom's heard of them by now. For all of my doubts, I actually enjoyed the first movie. I enjoy a good teen romance just as much as the next giggling girl and the budding romance between Edward and Bella was sweet and likable. They themselves were incredibly likable. Now comes New Moon which should've been subtitled New Moon: The Break Up. It's a movie cliche, but there's a reason there are thousands of movies where two characters fall in love. That is an enjoyable thing. However, it is not enjoyable for anyone to spend 2 hours with people who have split up. It's no secret by now that early on Edward has to leave with his family and Bella is beyond crushed. More like life threateningly devastated.

The first 20 minutes are strangely very awkward as Bella worries about aging(as so many seniors in high school do) and Edward worries about Bella liking other guys(aw, vampires are just like us). But for all their talk, there isn't much fun in this relationship. Can't we have some time where they enjoy being together? I guess it's hard to go get ice cream when one of you can't eat. They don't give into their physical passion(vampires just say no) but they aren't having many laughs either. One might ask the obvious, what is so great about this relationship? They both mope around about the impending doom of the future and argue about why Edward won't turn her into a vampire. All of their conversations are so heavy with long pauses and way too much seriousness. It's a whiny, angsty slog, and I was relieved when he left. Bella is then depressed for many months and starts a friendship with Jacob the Native American werewolf. I kind of like this guy. He's nice to her and treats her well. He's actually around, and he's not 109 years-old. Edward is brooding, distant, and always whispering. Be a man! Speak up!

Now to digress.

A couple of things that stick in my craw about Twilight in general:
1. If I was a vampire and was 109 years-old, I would not bother going to biology.
2. I would also not go for someone 90 years younger than me. Talk about cradle robbing.

The middle of the movie sags into tedium and this idea of vampires vs. werewolves and Bella in the middle isn't handled in any way that is exciting. It's all so soapy. CGI wolves growl and snarl at Jamaican vampires but that comes off as silly. Although thankfully nothing is half as silly as that ludicrous baseball game in the first movie. For my money I want the werewolves to win. They're the good guys. Bella on the other hand spends a lot of time looking like a deer caught in headlights. I think 3/4 of the movie she has no idea what is going on. A damsel in distress in a love triangle is not much of a protagonist to stick by.

The first movie is fine by itself. Girl falls in love with vampire and they end up going to the prom. That's a nice ending. That could've been it. This second part ends up in strange ancient vampire territory and eventually ends up in Italy with men walking around in bright red robes and everyone speaking in some formal middle ages English. Boo! One nice addition is British actor Michael Sheen(The Queen) who arrives to show these actors some real acting. Everyone's taking everything way too seriously. He knows he's playing a vampire and that should be a little fun.

Sorry if I dumped on your love of Dracula's Creek, but this second part is just no good. I still like the Washington state setting, I still like the look of the movie, I still like Kristin Stewart who is lovely(she's particularly well lit in this one) and getting better as an actress, and the very last moment is admittedly very well done. I bet theaters across America were filled with young and old women shrieking. I just didn't want to spend so much time with this painfully serious teen couple while they moan and whine and make promises about forever. I think it can all be summed up by Bella's friend Jessica played by the much too talented to be in this Anna Kendrick.

"You're depression thing, I get it. I'm totally, totally worried. But after a while it's like, you're still bumming? And I'm going through stuff too."

That's absolutely right. Team Jessica.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Trailer

I don't play video games, not in a long time, but look at this trailer. It's insane.
If this was a movie I'd go see it.

Brooklyn's Finest

3 stars. I love a good cop movie. More than gangster movies or spy movies, I love a good cop movie. It's strange since the genre has been definitely done to death. Resurrected and then killed again. There are tons of bad ones (Righteous Kill!, Street Kings!), and there are so many bad cop shows on TV, but every couple years, a really good movie comes out. That's a pretty good batting average as genres go. Heat(1995), L.A. Confidential(1997), Cop Land (1997), Narc(2002), The Departed(2006), We Own the Night(2007). The basic subject matter is filled with rich stories and characters. Different cities, different states, no matter how many stories are told, there are seemingly endless ways to tell them again. There are Samurai movies, westerns, knights in shining armor, and cop movies.

Brooklyn's Finest is not in the same category as the great ones, but I think it's pretty dang good. Better than American Gangster, not as good as We Own the Night. The movie starts with a very well written opening sequence with Ethan Hawke (Sal) and a fantastic bizarro cameo from Vincent D'Onofrio sitting in a car at night by a cemetery that looks like a miniature city with all of these lavish headstones that appear like small skyscrapers. It's a quiet, funny scene of two guys talking and it sets a nice mood and tone of authenticity for the rest of the film.

There is a lot of violence in Brooklyn's Finest, but it's not an action picture. It's unexpectedly a character piece, simply following the lives of these three cops. Three great characters. Sal(Ethan Hawke) has 5 kids and twins on the way and he's desperately trying to put the money together for a down payment on a new home. He can't cut it on his salary and he has an interesting speech in the middle of the film about how a cop's family gets $100,000 if he's killed in the line of duty. Only after a cop's dead, can he provide for his family. I don't know how cops survive. They work crazy hours for little pay and they have families just like anyone else. In New York no less. Tango (Don Cheadle) is deep undercover, selling drugs in the BK projects, running a drug business for Casanova Philips (Wesley Snipes) while he's in jail. The undercover cop is a movie cliche, but Cheadle brings such urgency and intelligence to his performance. He always does. He's one of my favorite actors and his conviction in everything he is doing sells the role. He seems New York born and bred with that accent.

The surprising storyline is Richard Gere's. It is the best of the three stories and oddly so since Eddie is the most passive of the three cops. And because Richard Gere is a strange choice for a movie about blue collar police. Eddie has one week left to retirement, no more anger left, no more judgment. He isn't fighting anyone and he doesn't really care to. He's seen too much and doesn't say much. It turns out to be a great performance from Gere, who every once in a while reminds us why at 61 he's still working as much as he is. He's a seasoned actor and every one on one scene he has whether it be with a rookie cop or a prostitute he sees regularly, he's so locked in you can't take your eyes off him. He knows that silence is sometimes a whole lot more interesting. It's one of his best performances.

Brooklyn itself is magnificently shot by director Antoine Fuqua. He has a great eye (King Arthur, Training Day). I'm so tired of the punishing barrage of films set in New York, but the New york presented here is brimming with menace and a lot of history. Real locations, real homes, real projects. Generations of cops, generations of bad guys, they have been there for one another since beginning of time. The movie has nothing to do with Manhattan or 5th Avenue or even Harlem. I love movies that are all about a specific place and this is Brooklyn.

The third act isn't as satisfying as the first two and ultimately the screenplay gets a B from me. It wants to be and is real and compelling, but it doesn't really want to break out of the traditions of the genre. I know that sounds vague, but cop movie endings are never really all that original. The dialogue however is strong all the way through, which is commendable since cops and gangsters talking tough is almost always bad. It was very nice seeing Wesley Snipes acting again without throwing kicks and punches, but Casanova is so underwritten that he becomes more of an extended cameo. Snipes is a good actor with good presence, and he holds his own with Don Cheadle in all of their scenes together. There are other good supporting performances from Will Patton as Cheadle's boss, Brian O'Byrne as Ethan Hawke's partner, and a lot of good work from African American actors, mostly in small roles, but as a whole they add a lot to the world of the movie.

Antoine Fuqua's last film was the terrible Shooter with Mark Wahlberg. Embarrassing. I think he should stay with films that are dark and gritty and about the street because that's where he shines. A brutal, sweaty fight/struggle toward the end is set to Hey Love by the Delfonics and what a great melding of music and moment. And there is a sequence in the middle of the film that intercuts between the three characters that builds just an amazing amount of tension. This film reminded me how bad CSI is. That is such high tech Hollywood crap. Brooklyn's Finest is about real lives, real cops, real blue. This isn't Sidney Lumet, but it's pretty dang good.

Weekly Recap 7/2/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hot Tub Time Machine, Green Zone, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Seinfeld Seasons 4-9
The Bad: The Greatest, The Warlords, Pretty Bird
The Ugly: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, She's Out of My League

Trips to the Theater: Toy Story 3

Actors of the Week: Noomi Rapace, Joan Cusack, Jerry Seinfeld
Directors of the Week: Lee Unkrich, Niels Arden Oplev(you need a new name)




TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I and II


Let Me In. The American remake of Let the Right One In.