Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) DirectorTakashi Miike Written by Takashi Miike, Masa Nakamura Produced by Masato Ôsaki,Nobuyuki Tohya Starring Hideaki Ito,Masanobu Ando,Takaaki Ishibashi,Teruyuki Kagawa, special appearance by Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis (by Leila)
old school style western, but all japanese-like, except it was in english. two warring gangs take over a town hoping to find gold. revenge plots abound.
MOster
FINALLY, a movie with real evidence of pathos at every stage in its production. (I do kind of wonder if this actual originality skewed my opinion.) I don't know how much of the direction was "innovative," but it was there; and if there was a checklist of shots it was handwritten on a series of cocktail napkins, not cribbed from someone's Film 101 textbook. Many items were intentionally over the top. It got serious when it needed to and the crazy stuff was not silly.
Production wasn't A+, but it wasn't supposed to be. Various levels of polish were applied to various settings with great effect; and there was even artistic purpose in the way seemingly random items were placed within the frame. Music was used very well.
This was a great ride, with plenty of nice moments. The plot was by no means complicated but it was by no means the typical one record in a jukebox of 20. Hands down, my favorite thing about this movie is that with maybe three exceptions all the characters were equally despicable. While I was a little bit let down by one detail of the big reveal, it was a necessary element in the remainder of the film.
Acting and stunt work were just fine. While there are no Oscars here, again that's really not the point of the movie. The point of the movie was to take a smooth ride over an intentionally bumpy track. It made its point and I had a great time.
the Woman
cool movie. it was a little hard to follow at times, but i think that is because i was doing something else at the time. we were also interrupted nine hundred times by our offspring not napping, and there is a lot going on in the movie. i enjoyed how it played on the similarities of westerns and kung fu movies. costumes were awesome as well. i think it was a movie made entirely of subplots, which is totally interesting. and every character with the exception of two, were bad guys. it's definitely not a movie i've seen before and it gets mad credit for that.
In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
Dir: David Sington
Synopsis: Documentary about the US efforts to reach the moon. Archival footage supports a TON of first-person accounts by those involved (mostly astronauts but also some of the support guys).
The Woman
eh. the music was a little out of control drama, drama, DRAMA, but it was cool to hear the stories from the people who actually lived it. i think it's pretty special to realize just how insignificant we actually are. on the whole though, i've seen better documentaries. they glazed over the difficulties and extreme problems that occurred with the apollo missions and tests. that kind of irritated me. i want grit and gore. i don't want all triumph and roses. the ending was a little out of control as well. american heroes disappointed in the way humans have treated the earth with our pollution and addiction to oil. MESSAGE.
MOster
I enjoyed this, and I learned about non-technical things in a pleasing manner. The thread of the narrative could have been better though: They spent most of the beginning in getting up to 11, then they got 11 to the moon and went on to talk (far too briefly, especially with 13) about the other missions. But then they went back to some of the highlights of the missions leaving. And then the epilogue annoyed me.
But the information was great. The gentlemen speaking were all engaging and well-spoken and their personal takes (one particular item misted me a bit) were really neat. The archive footage was also quite moving. It included plenty of time with them actually inside the vessels as well as news footage (including the stock Cronkite) which made me feel closer to the civillians who experienced it. Plenty of footage of launches and actual time on the moon was of considerably higher quality than I expected. I would think the film would be grainy, so there must have been some restoration going on. There are many shots where the utter clarity of the vacuum makes it look fake. I also got the impression that many of the people involved in these endeavors are much more humble than I expected.
Starring: Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid, dude who played the guy who killed mischa barton in "the o.c." and the bad vampire in twilight....no, not the black vampire, he played the black mormon on "house" the other one, Antje Traue, and Cung Le
Synopsis: Space horror/thriller with evolved human zombie cannibals, and darkness, and the continuance of the human race. spaceship with the last remaining humans on a mission to a planet extremely similar to earth. something happens, two crewman are brought out of hyperspace sleepytime. they suffer from memory loss and space dementia. spaceship is dying, so one of them must reboot the nuclear reactor, while contending with really fast creatures that will gut him and eat him. all this while in the dark.
The Woman (only): i wouldn't say this was a good movie, but it kept me going for however long it is. suspenseful for me, but i'm pretty easy about that stuff. it doesn't take a lot for me to be suspensed. the plot has been done before like alien, or stupid event horizon, or any other deep space scary movie, but i enjoyed myself. there were a couple twists at the end. one was pretty obvious, one was not so much. it appealed to me because i've been watching pretty much anything with ben foster in it because i used to watch flash forward on disney in adolescence and he played tucker james and it's just really nice to see little tucker james has made a name for himself. along with jewel staite who played his best friend becca who has now starred in such greats as firefly/ serenity, and a little syfy original sequel to mothman. suweet. oh and a totally awesome teen drama that had like ten episodes about a troubled teen schoolycamp called higher ground costarring the oscar worthy actor hayden christensen! it used to be on the family channel back in the stone ages. anyway, sorry i got side tracked....um.
pandorum... titled after the subplot. the space dimentiaaaaa.
the way the plot unfolded was interesting. the viewer finds out information about the plot as the characters slowly get their memory back. i don't know. i thought it was entertaining for what it was. i'm sure others would highly disagree. i find darkness and space and loneliness and vastness creepy. the end
Synopsis: documentary about avid middle income art collecting couple. collecting since the early sixties.
The Woman (only)
great documentary! it was nice to be around art and the art world again, in an unjaded way. the vogels are totally awesome. and they were there before the art world became "the art world" so even if art dealers don't like them, the artists do. they almost restored my love of cute little old couples. it was fascinating to see them interact with artists in the artist's studio space, looking at unfinished works, and the influence they have on the artist themselves. one scene in particular reminded me of art school critiques, just the discussion over the development of a piece. there was no bullshit blahbitty blah, even though most of the art they collect is conceptual. i also think the idea of collecting from a plebeian stand point is important. they aren't rich. they live in a one bedroom apartment in brooklyn, i believe. they aren't exactly on the outskirts of the elite clique that is the "art world" but the way the documentary portrays them they are sort of oblivious or indifferent. they befriend artists and maintain relationships with them i.e. calling once a week just to chat. they don't collect for resale value, yet respect people who do, because "the artist has to make a living somehow". awesome people knowing their stuff and infiltrating the art scene because they love it.
Director:Peter Segal Writer: Tom J. Astle &Matt Ember
Mel Brooks & Buck Henry (characters) Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, the Rock, Terence Stamp, and a whole bunch of other people you've
heard of and needed a paycheck
Synopsis: control agent maxwell bumbles his way through a mission with agent 99. their convoluted mission is to find nuclear bombs that were stolen by nemisis organization kaos. they fail. the bombs turn up in los angeles at the disney concert hall. in an assassination attempt on the dim witted president. shockingly, along the way agent 99 falls for max, and the rock is jealous, and fat joke, gay joke, poop joke, nerd joke, fat joke.
MOster
OK. We watched this movie. I have a feeling that these two reviews will be pretty well in agreement.
The entire thing was overworked. Beginning with an opening sequence which stretched a good joke from the TV show well past its breaking point, few scenes were of the right length. There is no fucking way that this should have been almost two hours. There was probably some post-credits joke that we missed, and I'm OK with that as there was exactly one laugh-out-loud joke.
I also have a problem with an entire spy agency full of incompetence which just happens to stumble upon the truth. Steve Carrell's aspiring-analyst-turned-agent-by-improbable-events would have rang true if he were surrounded by talent when he made the jump, but outside of the chief (an underused Alan Arkin who got to deliver the only truly funny line) what's-her-face's Agent 99 was the only character with any competence, though she's less attractive than Barbara Feldman. One could argue that the (spoiler alert except the milk stunk through the whole thing) incompetence of The Rock's character was due to his double-agency, but this argument is undermined by his introductory sequence. While the other analysts (those couple of dudes from movies like, "Anchorman") and the tech department ("Superbad" fat kid[the woman interjects here.. this was not the kid from superbad] and the time traveler from "Heroes") were just dipshits, I suppose you could say that the Cone of Silence gag was marginally funny. Similarly, KAOS was just as disorganized and just as incompetent as Control to the point where you have NO IDEA how they could have gotten so much uranium or all the necessary bomb parts. And the ending with the music was just fucking dumb. When a scene is elevated by an exposed-ass joke little more needs saying. This movie also had a gay joke which was just GAY.
Acting in general was unterrible. Carrell could have done more with better material, and I think The Rock was exactly in his comfort zone (granted, I haven't seen his work with children or animals so it's possible that I'm underestimating his range). The rest of the supporting cast was also better than the scripts, with Terence Stamp a particular standout and Arkin stealing the show with the only line probably written by Mel Brooks (another spoiler, but now you don't have to watch the movie):
Seriously, I can't remember the last time we watched a movie where the production staff even tried to look like they gave a fuck. Except for the editors (who didn't even get past junior high) this was another Dawson Leary Film School exercise. Direction was by-the-numbers, and production was exactly what you'd expect. Effects, too, were right where they should have been given the budget. Consisting of little more than a distorted-guitar "update" of the theme song, the music was so rote as to take you out of the action.
You don't have to watch this movie. Just click on the video above and send me what you would have paid.
The Woman
was this a summer blockbuster? i can't remember that far back. it reeks of summer blockbuster. the plot is, i think, trying to be mysterious, and twisty, but just ended up being confusing. i had a hard time using steve carell to counter my disdain for anne hathaway and the rock. all the bits that were supposed to be funny just turned out stupid. mel brooks can somehow always turn stupid, base humor funny, but seeing as how this was not written by him, and he was only a "consultant" it seemed like someone trying to rip his style off, but failing miserably. there were some mildly funny bits, but nothing too memorable. terence stamp is so awesome and yet in this, he was a sort of a bit part portraying the main villan. how does that work you may ask? well, it doesn't. the action sequences were too long. i found myself not paying attention halfway through them, which once again is kind of the antithesis of the term action sequence. the only funny part where we actually laughed out loud, was when steve carell in a car chase scene slams through, among many other things, a golf shack with a swordfish on it , and the swordfish statue spears the car. after this is all over, steve carell asks alan arkin, who was sitting passenger "are you thinking what i'm thinking?" and alan arking says " i don't know. were you thinking holy shit, holy shit, a swordfish almost went through my head..." there. now you don't have to suffer through two hours for one funny line.
my final thought about this was it's one of those movies where hollywood just likes to throw away tons of money on a "new contemporary" version, and all that really happens is otherwise funny actors come together in a big sad mess, that probably banked on the draw of said actors, and not the content of the movie. this truly sucked. not "indiana jones and the condom for george lucas's anus" sucked, but close.
Belle De Jour (1967) Starring: Catherine Denueve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli Directed by Luis Brunel
Synopsis (by MOster)
Due to some vaguely-defined childhood traumas, a sexually-confused upper-class housewife has fantasies which make her uncomfortable around her husband but which require some other outlet of exploration. Gleaning some information from a sketchy friend, she ends up taking up afternoon job in a whorehouse (hence, Belle de Jour, "woman of the day"). Her beauty and class make her very desirable very quickly; and one particular client's obsession yields dire consequences.
Woman:
i didn't get it. maybe i am just foreign filmed out, but i didn't care about anyone or any thing in this one. there was some vague resemblance to ethan frome, where a life of penance is served for "sins" committed, but eh. who cares. chick won't sleep with her husband, but becomes a whore. too deep and philosophically french. dream sequences made it all the more confusing too. i couldn't tell what were dreams, until some sort of sadomasochistic thing happened. maybe she could only express her true desires as a whore because she thought they were too dirty for her dr. husband? they didn't even sleep in the same bed. then she punishes herself because she was too dirty, and her dirtyness got her husband maimed, so she must repent, repent, REPENT. i don't know. who cares.
MOster:
This film's linear nature and lack of subplots don't leave too much to discuss. But as usual with the foreign ones, I think I found this movie to be a little more interesting than Leila did. There were certainly some interesting shots, and while the themes (and the sex acts themselves) probably carried more weight 40 years ago I found myself able to empathize with most of the characters through most of the movie. That said, the consequences of Belle's actions are overplayed, yielding irony that I found to be too heavy.
The flashbacks did provide some motivation for her actions and her feelings, but I think they also came from a place where less was known about the psychology of sexually-abused children. It was unclear to me how much of the VERY end of the movie was in her head but by that point I was hoping that something would buck my preconcieved notions. Despite its apparent fame, I don't know that I'd actually recommend this one outside of the arena of study.
Synopsis: documentary that follows a 15-16 year old outcast through highschool and awkwardness, and girls, and rock and roll and trailer life in maine.
The Woman only
this was another shmeh. it was ok. billy was one of those kids who you want to take home, and teach things to. his home life is very messed up, i.e. mother was smacked around by dad, and he talks about it almost incessantly. he is also somehow mentally challenged. he was incredibly awkward, and yet totally awesome in his awkwardness. he likes cats, and kiss, and he ends up mildly obsessed with this girl, who he dates for about a millisecond before she breaks up with him.(which totally devastates him). it made me sad for the days when my kid will have to go through early teens, and the constant reassurance one needs from people to be yourself at that age. the school parts were almost exactly how my middle school worked, socially. i sort of had flashbacks throughout. admittedly i was knitting through this documentary, and i sort of didn't realize the end had happened. nothing was resolved. it just sort of ended. i hate when that happens. at least follow the kid for a year, or stop when something comes together. i know this is not how documentaries work, but there was no endpoint. there was a weird epilogue of sorts, where the mother just said that her and the stepdad were getting a divorce, and billy sang in the chorus for a concert, but that was it. i guess if you have nothing better to do with an hour and a half you could watch this. it certainly wasn't bad.
