fatcat-73450 Reviews

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002 TV Movie)

Entertaining but Empty

[5/10 · 1 May 2024]

If this were made in USA, it would be classified as "Oscar Bait."

It's about a beloved teacher a boy's school. We never exactly find out why he's beloved. The first day the students bully him but eventually he seems to gain control of the disciplinary situation. It's briefly mentioned that he believes in disciplinary techniques other than punishment.

And that's precisely the major problem with this movie. It's packed with plots. It is, in fact, a biographical movie covering most of the adult life of the so-called "Mr. Chips." And under this timeline, every scene is so brief and fleeting. Nothing is allowed to take root. Under those conditions it's really hard to warm up to any character.

Things are presented that are really quite tawdry attempts to rack up Oscar-worthiness points. It's about as subtle as the Very Special Sitcom episodes. There's bullying in the boys' school. The administration is rigid. There's discrimination (against Germans, though). Some war happens in the background. I'm not sure which war. Judging from the costumes it should be World War I but at some point some boys mock a German teacher with a salute from the World War II Germans (or so I thought - actually apparently it's a Prussian thing, but still).

It's one of those movies I thought the world would have grown out of by now, where you're supposed to fill in the blanks about how to feel about characters instead of the movie itself letting the characters' personalities unfold ("his students in the film seem to like him so I guess I should like him too even though I haven't actually seen him do much likeable").

It's entertaining, though, as a soap opera is.

Honourable Mentions: Ikiru (1952). The same actor plays the character in his twilight years. But it's quite a histrionic performance with him wheezing and barely walking. He channeled a bit of the decrepit "mummy" played by Kanji Watanabe in Ikiru. I do not approve.

Death Wish (1974)

Neanderthalic but I DON'T Care

[7/10 · 27 March 2024]

I saw this movie as a chylde and then as a teenager and I was well-impressed by it. Now I see how very simplistic it is. There's not that much nuance to it. Decent hard-working, even peace-loving, folks are being assailed in the cities night and day by roving bands of violent muggers in the cities who are not only threatening, but rude and operating with impunity.

Well, of course living in the city is annoying, but it isn't like that. Nevertheless, we know who this movie was made for - country bumpkins or shut-ins who are afraid to go into the city and get all their knowledge of the situation from crime statistics in the sensationalist media. It's clear this is a propaganda exploitation PSA piece for all the paranoid maniacs in the world clutching their guns in the middle of the night for dear life.

There's no grey area here at all. Paul Kersey is a conscientious objector, reasonable liberal, and overall fine upstanding nice guy, but all manner of bad things befall him. And it seems he can go out every single night and become a honey pot for muggers - so many are there and so brazen they are.

The one - perhaps - better thing from that perspective about this biased movie is that at least Paul is only getting revenge vicariously, as unlike the other movies in the series, he's not actually getting that sweet, sweet spot-hitting revenge against the people who actually wronged him.

Despite all this, and the fact that seeing Bronson trying to pretend to be a a nervous wreck actually comes out looking like comical overacting (who would've known he was actually a character actor with a narrow range), I like this movie. It's full of style and ambiance, whether it's on gritty New York winter nights or in barren places in Tucson. It's directed in a tidy manner. All of the actors do a fine job. And, of course, when it's a matter of acting like a hardened soldier, it's hard to beat Bronson. He might not have much of a range, but what he does best, no one does better.

Honourable Mentions: A Promising Young Woman (2020). The left-wing Death Wish - a woman goes out every night trying to trap men into trying to assault her so she can shame them on social media. Tsk, tsk. Very much also presents a crazy world full of dangers, with the victims, crimes, and solutions all more left-wing than Death Wish. Quite a well-crafted movie, but if I much prefer Death Wish, truth be told - dumb simplicity with a lot of style.

Acorralados (1976)

A Simple Hidden Gem

[8/10 · 24 March 2024]

The story is basic and predictable. The son of a wealthy hacienda owner wants to get together with the daughter of another, but a "distant" cousin of the daughter doesn't like that at all. It turns out this cousin is extremely mean-spirited and ambitious, so he stirs up quite the tragic series of events and comes to obtain power over both of the haciendas himself.

Something amazing about this movie is how smooth its simple story is. Every plot point is believable and fits into the sequence marvelously. It was very well-written. There's never any need to add deus ex machinae or to stretch the imagination to believe the events of the plot because they are integrated seamlessly into each other and the world created by the writer.

Of course, as usual in Valentin Trujillo movies, the casting is impeccable. It's hard to say who did this or that or embodied the character better. There aren't that many characters - perhaps only 8 or so (which may be what makes the movie so strong - simple but executed marvelously) - but they're all flawlessly cast and written. Even the minor characters, such as the girl's father embodies the embattled and concern landowner who doesn't want to give up his claims, but hopes a solution could be found.

One thing that left me shocked was the music. Often times these movies were just vehicles to showcase some cheesy ranchera songs. I think there are only three tracks on this film, of which one is a foreboding ranchera-corrido. The second is a very effective dark instrumental track. And shockingly the daughter sings a spectacular melancholy pop song in the middle of the film. A shame I couldn't find it reproduced anywhere.

It's predictable and the ending is rushed, but what a pleasant surprise to see a film so well-written and expertly constructed. I also appreciated the somber mood. While it's not horror, the instrumental track is reminiscent of theme songs from horror films and the ending is that classic horror ending where the characters have reason to feel relieved on some level, but they've lost so much on the way there that it's an ambivalent and not a happy ending.

Honourable Mentions: Great Balls of Fire! (1989). One unintentionally funny line of dialogue that I think pops up multiple times is when the evil cousin broaches marriage to the hacienda owner's daughter, she replies "but we're cousins!" And they have a little tiff. Jerry Lee Lewis famously married his cousin and the community's shock was portrayed in his 1989 biopic.

Child's Play (1988)

Dumb but Effective

[7/10 · 10 March 2024]

Crude criminal Charles Lee Ray transfers his soul into the body of an ugly doll on the brink of death and wreaks havoc on a single mother and her chylde.

The 90s was such a countercultural decade in art it's amazing. Just like action movies, horror movies went into a trend of being really silly - half violent, half comical - with comic characters and many one-liners. They had completely turned the formal horror genre on its head. The old gravitas of the horrific and pitiful deamonic possession of the 70s was long, long gone.

Here it's pretty funny to see a doll that looks like a little boy causing such a violent ruckus and spewing profanity and threats all the time. Chucky as a character is full of style if nothing else.

However, the film is full of irrationalities and plot holes that are very difficult to overlook for someone whose suspension of disbelief hasn't come into effect:

1) There's a scene where the cop is driving and chucky comes to life and tries to murder him but he doesn't stop driving for several minutes for no reason.

2) At some point Andy becomes afraid of Chucky, but up until then they had been friends? Why the sudden change of heart offscreen?

3) Chucky's voodoo mentor seems shocked that Chucky used what he taught him and that Chucky's committing violent acts. Uhhh... They seemed very close and Chucky was apparently an infamous criminal. Is this anything to be shocked about?

4) Many, many times the characters know full well Chucky's around and in an ornery mood and get distracted by some minor thing only to have Chucky somehow launch a surprise attack on them.

I appreciate that they didn't rely on cheap jump scares to accomplish the mission, though. I'll give them that much.

Honourable Mentions: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The comic partner of Rober Rabbit is a foul-mouthed baby named Baby Herman. Much of this movie's effect revolves around a chylde's toy behaving rudely and aggressively as well.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

Rather Tedious

[6/10 · 26 February 2024]

Perhaps it was because this film was steeped waist deep into the 1960's, I found it trite. It starts off with a documentary film maker and his wife going off to some new-age psychological treatment camp. Throughout the film you'll also be exposed to psychoanalysis (the prevalent psychotherapeutic modality at the time and beginning to gain traction among the middle classes), an argument over some sort of birth control, home-exercise regimens, and talk about the acceptability of hair that goes past one's ears in men. This movie is a time capsule. If you tried to make a movie parodying the 60s you'd find it hard to get more 60s.

And the whole movie revolves around the concept of general hippyism, specifically free love, but non-violence is also mentioned at some point. All we need now is some scenes of the Vietnam war.

Or perhaps it's not the dated quality of the setting, concerns, and situations of the characters so much as the fact that the characters are boring and most of their story arcs don't amount to anything. One guy's a bit shy, one woman's a bit rigid, the main male protagonist is a bit hippie. They're all bland and rather lifeless.

Now, I can't say the movie offers nothing. It offers an alternative perspective to the rigid sexuality of the 50s and how new-age ideas on sexuality can (or perhaps were beginning to?) seep into the prudish middle classes. There's also an exploration of the meaning of love, but it doesn't really feel sincere. Everyone just accepts things sooner or later. Perhaps that was the point - it was much more unnatural to put up the rigid structures in the first place than to break them down.

As for the treatment of sexuality itself, it now seems distant, dated, even jejune. Now the positioning of the very predictable climax of the film seems laughable. Too little, too late. These days it would come in the middle or the beginning or outright just be mentioned offhand as something normal in a film, whereas here it seems to have been the impressive finishing blow in 1969.

Honourable Mentions: Office Space (1999). In this movie the main female protagonist has her outlook on life changed by an odd psychotherapeutic retreat her. It's the same basic situation in Office Space, where the high-strung neurotic engineer changes his outlook on life and in turn experiences a very significant improvement in quality of life.

Alice's Restaurant (1969)

Now THIS is Art

[9/10 · 23 February 2024]

Some time ago I reviewed a film directed by Lars Von Trier called Antichrist (2009) and I laughed at it for its pretentious and inappropriate use of symbolism, sex, black-and-white scenes, and slow motion to utterly confuse the audience in a blitzkrieg-style assault (what he and some other European critics may call "art").

Here we have one of the few movies that actually does confusing modernist art right, but not in tawdry ways like less competent directors do.

It has, without a doubt, the most masterful use of subtlety I have ever seen. You often can't tell what's going on, but two characters looking at each other (or not looking at each other), in a tense way or at a critical moment just gives an impression that something important is boiling just under the surface and exploding behind the scenes.

The world these people inhabit would have been considered absurd and confusing just a few decades prior by the majority of the population in USA today and perhaps isn't even palatable to the majority today. Yet it's consistent and believable. And the way it accomplishes this environment is through sex, but unlike the pretentious and unskilled, it doesn't need to show stills of O faces or slow-motion genitals to do it. And again, delightfully indirect, without ever stating it directly. These people believe in free love, they eschew rules and order. They do what they want and who they want whenever they want. Sure, there are some hard feelings here and there, but freedom and love are paramount.

And it's not just the sex. When a friend needs help he has no problem asking for as much as he need and no one thinks to deny it him. The members of the group come and go as they please. Emotions are let fly loose. When a man strikes his wife, members of the tribe are upset, but all that happens is that he's told to cool it whereas this would be such a traumatic or dramatic scene in any other movie. But the subtext is that they're his emotions and he's entitled to them.

Arlo Guthrie gives one of the greatest acting performances I've seen as himself. He has the upper layer of that cool apathy of the confident artist that permeates the whole tone of the movie (and mirrors the tone of the song on which it's based), while still showing subtle sincere emotion throughout the film, as aptly in times of joy as those of sorrow.

Good work from Officer Obie, too, who also played himself and does the stereotypical gruff policeman to perfection. He's somehow a sympathetic character despite the film very clearly divulging that police are extremely unsympathetic to this long-haired communalistic subculture.

The film has some boring points and unnecessary digressions. Few of the characters are well-developed, but for the most part that works because they're just presented as typical humans with urges, desires, jealousies, stresses, ups and downs.

Unexpectedly sad, but not a surprising ending. I thought they had it all. Is it just that sadness is just a fact of life no matter what? Or was it that there was something missing in their lives?

Honourable Mentions: Simpsons Season 11, Episode 11: Faith Off (2000). Bart is a faith healer and the sailor character comes to him for help with his "crippling depression", which Bart says he can't cure. As he's walking away, Bart wonders aloud "And I thought he had it all." I got the same feeling as this film came to a close. They look like and usually act like they don't have a care in the world, but it's almost as if they've traded something valuable for freedom and community.

The Sterile Cuckoo (1969)

Realistic but Ultimately Boring

[5/10 · 21 February 2024]

We often tout realism in art or, perhaps more commonly, we conversely grouse about how this or that work of art is not realistic enough. Except for the initial setup of the romance, The Sterile Cuckoo is otherwise very realistic.

Pookie Adams strikes up a conversation with a random guy at a bus stop. It turns out they're going to the same general area for college.

She latches on to him for dear life, apparently at random because he doesn't talk to her much or otherwise even show any interest in her.

It turns out Pookie is an antisocial outcast while the guy is a normie who wants to have the normal college experience - have some fun, study to please his parents, meet new people, not get into much trouble, etc.

The guy relents at Pookie's stubbornness and the two keep clashing over many things, with Pookie clearly becoming attached to the guy and clearly needing that attachment in a pathological way.

Very realistic, with the needy and crazy Pookie really conveying that type of person well and the guy continually flabbergasted and nervous, sort of being swept away by her attention but also finding her and her immense amount of psychological baggage stifling and repellent. The romance between the two is also sincere. They behave awkwardly and they seem confused and innocent about many things.

Unfortunately, truth itself does necessarily provide the best sort of entertainment at all times. It's a long and boring film, with lots of pointless empty space. While all three of the principal actors (Pookie, boyfriend, and boyfriend's roommate) give great acting performances, neither pookie nor the boyfriend are very compelling. Pookie has a seething frustration and discontent that never quite goes anywhere except makes boyfriend a little uncomfortable. Boyfriend, is, of course, completely boring and normal and hardly does anything other than react uncomfortably to things.

Tim McIntire gives a great performance as roommate, even though he's on camera less than 10% of the time. In fact, I saw a website where he was lauded as one of the actors that should have been famous but wasn't (he died fairly young). And yes, I agree, he's good. I saw it from his first scene.

One of the realest movies I've seen, but also too boring and pointless to recommend. Although if you have a personal connection to the subject matter you'll probably appreciate seeing your life on screen much more.

Honourable Mentions: Down and Dirty Duck (1974). 8th greatest movie of all time. A bildingsroman about a lewd Duck teaching a lame guy how to be a man.

Bullet in the Head (1990)

That went Downhill Quick

[3/10 · 9 February 2024]

A Better Tomorrow (1986) was a tidy and stylish little violent action flick with an unforgettable soundtrack consisting of a single monstrously good city pop track.

Just 3 years later director John Woo has descended into Bullet in the Head (1990), an attempt at an action epic that turns out to be virtually a rehash of old ideas (even with some of the old actors) but done much more poorly and haphazardly.

The plot is as bizarre as the editing and the abrupt changes in tone. The film starts out as something that looks like a cheap greaser film or martial arts film with a group of three young(ish? - I think these actors are in their late 20s or early 30s by this point even though they act and talk like teenagers) friends beating up on some other group to a rock n roll classic. And I think that's the last of their fist fighting days or mention, for woo seems to have gotten nervous and later on reverts back to using gun violence to resolve every problem. Why not? It's more violent, flashier, sure.

Then they do some thing, do some other thing, there's a marriage, some pointless family drama that barely comes up for a few seconds... In short, for no good reason they end up in urban Vietnam and then the jungles of Vietnam during the Vietnam war on the set of Rambo and involved in an international conspiracy, aided along the way by magical Buddhist monks and the US military. Some new characters come out of left field and everyone acts like they know each other but it's terribly confusing to the audience.

All the while the villain from A Better Tomorrow goes into full one-dimensional mode and becomes obsessed with gold. By the end of the movie, having started out as a sort of labouring street rat he somehow goes on to become the CEO of a large corporation and is said to be an expert in financial law even though the events of this part of the film seem to take place only a few years after his adventures in the jungles of NAM. Kind of quick turnaround time for becoming a legal expert, respectable suit, and CEO.

Every part of this disjointed film is rushed and the plots and character development only make sense inside of the mind of John Woo, which, from the incomplete and jarring way the plot is written must have the mind of an infant. This is quite a terrible movie and a far cry from A Better Tomorrow.

Honourable Mentions: A Better Tomorrow II (1987). This is not, however, John Woo's worst film that I've seen. The direct sequel to A Better Tomorrow is somehow worse and even more chyldish.

Coming Home (1978)

Aimless, but Maybe that Was the Point

[6/10 · 6 February 2024]

The plot on this one is empty and kind of flimsy.

Nothing is well-developed and everything is manufactured. There's a pointless romance that springs up for no apparent reason (although the main female protagonist and her husband really don't have any chemistry) and people die or go crazy without any backstory. The moment where I knew I was watching an artificial tearjerker was when the female protagonist just happens to meet her friend who's leaning against a utility pole staring forlornly at the sea after a traumatic experience. How poetic, but how very posed.

It's about Vietnam war veterans, I suppose, but you hardly see any scenes actually set or Vietnam and certainly there's no violence at all to speak of.

It's clearly supposed to be an anti-war film but we frankly forget about the whole thing as we watch the protagonists kind of gently sway into a relationship and live a calm and pleasant life. And when we do get some scenes of people suffering because of the war, they're either short or just emotionally distraught guys vaguely stuttering about how the war was bad. There's even a PTSD scene that lasts like 5 seconds before the guy calms down.

Can't say it was boring, but it's very long and lacks any punch. It does have a sort of calming effect, though, like a Pink Floyd song.

And on that note, I will also add that the soundtrack was excellent. Lots of serene 70s/60s rock.

Honourable Mentions: The Beast of War (1988). Not everyone deals with war by responding with guilt and PTSD. The tank commander in The Beast of War is a very compelling character. War has clearly loosened some of his screws and the man seems to be suffering, but he's still participating with a joyless yet determined attitude of maximum cruelty and hatred. A great film about the most senseless of wars.

Black Rain (1989)

Stereotype Put on Film

[7/10 · 1 February 2024]

I've heard there's a movie called North (1994) where Elijah Wood travels the world encountering oversimplified and offensive stereotypes. Well, here we have North: Japanese Edition.

I always remember this movie because of its dark and gritty atmosphere. I can't fault it for that. This film is absolutely set in an obscure Tokyo of eternal night lit only by pale neon glows; Douglas eternally sports a black leather jacket and most of the other characters are dressed like industrial goths; even the daytime scenes, of which there are a few, look so cloudy and dirty that it looks like some post-apocalyptic world after the bomb was dropped and created a persistent nucular cloud.

But the film is unintentionally funny in its zeal to cover every single sensationalist stereotype skewed, exaggerated, and exported for foreign consumption. Geishas? Check. Psychopathic yakuza that cut off their pinkies? Check. Motorcycle gangs, Dekotora trucks, samurai swords, traditional martial arts - yeah, you got it.

Douglas' partner in a dashing Andy Garcia at the top of his game even suffers death by ethnic cliche number 22.

Then we have the final master stroke near the end that gives the film its title. You guessed it. As one Japanese character erratically informs us, it turns out that, in a shocking twist, that all of the events of the movie were caused by the butterfly effect stemming from the dropping of the BOMB on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. :O

Inane script and kind of dumb portrayal of the Japanese, but it's got a lot of good points, especially in the ambience, acting, and general artistic direction. At least visually you aren't likely to forget it any time soon.

Honourable Mentions: Black Rain (1989). This movie inappropriately highjacked this name for no reason other than to put a final cherry on top of the stereotype sundae. A Japanese movie with this name (and more appropriately titled, since it was actually about the nucular bombing of Japan) had the unfortunate fate of coming out the same year, so it makes it very difficult to find it in English. RIP Real Black Rain (1989).

First Blood (1982)

Art for the Masses!

[9/10 · 27 January 2024]

This film is one of those infamous pieces of popular culture from the 80s that actually deserves its popularity. It's one of the top action movies of all time.

The premise is simple - inappropriate policing pushes a man who probably wasn't in too great mental shape over the edge and he wreaks havoc on a small town.

Amidst the background of a beautiful mountain forest, you get some exciting scenes of forest guerilla warfare which then spill back over into the town. At first Rambo is dressed normally but he slowly begins to look like the movie poster and you barely even notice it. At some point you see him in full guerilla regalia and it looks absolutely outlandish.

But that highlights Stallone's "deer caught in headlights" style of acting for Rambo in what is the performance of his career. Less is more here and Stallone simply looking sullen and stubborn throughout most of the film speaks volumes. Much has been made of the tortured final dialogue that betrays a very mentally distraught man. I found it effective, but really a bit slurry. It suffered from the delivery. No, Stallone's best performance is conveyed in silence while looking dead inside.

The dialogue is a little bit cheesy sometimes, but honestly lots of bang for your buck.

Honourable Mentions: Lonely are the Brave (1962). I bet you didn't know First Blood was a remake. Well, surprise!

Jane Eyre (1970 TV Movie)

Brilliant Casting

[7/10 · 19 January 2024]

George C Scott sports his ugly mug and gruff demeanor expertly in another Victorian Classic (he aptly played Scrooge in a competent adaptation of A Christmas Carol). Although he looks a little older than Rochester's late 30's as envisioned by Bronte, I can't really imagine anyone doing her vision more justice. Leaps and bounds better than the 2015 adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd that sported some sort of male model playing Hardy's homely Gabriel Oak.

The actress playing Jane, while also visibly older than the teenaged Jane of the novel, is expertly cast; she's not exactly ugly as Jane seems to have been meant to be, but she does have Jane's restrained passion and she very much fills hearts with compassion, embodying that weathered but also lonely personality that you'd expect me an adult raised in an orphanage to have.

If you love the book, you'll love this version, no doubt. It's got the casting and the settings.

Unfortunately, if you're not just singing along to a well-known tune with knowledge of the source material, you might be confused. The whole novel is covered here, which means that the story is very much simplified and you have to already know what's between the lines to really see its brilliance as a supplement to the novel. We never see Jane fall in love with Rochester, nor vice versa. In fact, the movie just lunges from the initially prickly Rochester to the two protagonists' emotional proximity with little development or explanation. Along the same lines, Rochester remains a rather brusque fellow throughout and he doesn't really earn the audience's endearment.

If you know and like the book, it's a highly fitting companion, though.

Honourable Mentions: Hardcore (1979). Scott plays a father looking for his daughter amongst the pornographic rubble of a decadent Los Angeles. Along the way he develops a somewhat paternal fondness from a young working woman. I don't think it's an actual romance - perhaps he just sees his daughter in her - even though there are hints, but it's the same dynamic and I think makes for a very nice romantic story - an older man with a tough outer shell comes to fill the emptiness of a lost and lonely woman as they grow close to each other through the course of the work.

The Lost King (2022)

Diary of a Mad White Woman

[7/10 · 11 January 2024]

Why are people enabling this person?

A woman is absolutely obsessed with honoring the memory of Richard III and rehabilitating him, so much so that she joins a club to do it, raises a lot of money, and I think she even quits her job to devote herself to it. Those might be spoilers since no one would be able to make up such an insane plot, but this is based on a true story.

Anyway, lots of people are against her, as usual. Many people don't want her to pursue her "dream", so it's one of those movies: "nobody believed in me but I showed them. I did that thing they said I shouldn't or couldn't do. LOVE ME!"

The issue is that usually the thing which the person wants to do is.. I don't know... something people would find significant, useful, or interesting? Can't imagine too many people care either way whether Richard III was good, bad, hunchback, or straight as an arrow. Although given that like half the characters in the movie are named "Richard," maybe it's more important in England?

Anyway, this woman is not well. She makes up a disability called "chronic fatigue syndrome." Instead of working better or bringing new skills to the table she becomes indignant when she's passed up for a promotion for fresh blood. She insists Richard's body is in a specific point in the plot of land they're digging just because "she has a hunch." She turns out to be right by sheer luck. In short, she falls into a certain "type" of person. To wit, a person who is stubborn, irrational, and entitled. We all know someone like that.

Then someone else takes the credit for the discovery and this non-issue becomes a maudlin drama about justice because of that and... I don't know. This is just a movie archetype: nobody believed in her but she trudged on and people were mean to her but she won in the end. *claps*

I think that one guy in the Benz who she chastised for thinking Richard III was a villain had the right response to this woman. Stare at her in disbelief for a few seconds, roll up the window, drive away, and continue with your own life. It's not worth it to even engage.

Honourable Mentons 1: There was a series on documentaries PBS called "In Pursuit of Excellent" (2007) where they would showcase people with real hobbies, such as collecting corpses of ferrets. A marvelous idea and equally brilliant execution. We like to gawk at people who devote their lives to things that are not mainstream. This is basically In Pursuit of Excellence: The Movie and so I think it's great from a pitiful/comedic perspective.

Honourable Mentions 2: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007) is one of my favourite movies. It's documentary about two guys who are gutter wrestling to be recognised as the world champion on the Donkey Kong arcade game. Again, this movie is very much like that one despite pretending to be a serious drama, and so I was pretty well entertained by it.

Battle Royale (2000)

Funny at First but Gets More Serious

[6/10 · 10 January 2024]

I don't know if this film intended to be funny. Perhaps knowing Takeshi Kitano, if he was involved with it, it might have been intended to be some sort of action comedy. Perhaps it's just the cheapness of the 2000s scenes of violence, which look comparable to the production values of earl 2020s youtube videos by this time.

Anyway, a bunch of anime-looking junior high school students duke it out with an assortment of weapons. At first there are shockingly abrupt scenes of violence, which are actually funny because of how they're shot and the quality of the effects, then it becomes more somber and tries to go into tragic backstories and the like.

Is there anything else to it? I don't think so. Lots of characters say pseudo-profound things and complain about their lives. The Kitano character feels under-appreciated; some students are bullied; there's lots of shy half-developed romance. Really quite normal and banal stuff. It turns out to be something like a Japanese Breakfast Club by the end.

You try to piece together some meaning but ultimately there are like 40 students, most of which are only lightly covered and anyway have similar problems and plot lines. And that's not even mentioning the fact that they're all dressed the same. What are you going to do?

Honourable Mentions: It's a Mad Mad Mad World (1963). Ensemble comedy about a large and diverse set of groups of people on the hunt for a treasure. About the same general idea as this movie except each group gets a lot more screen time and is better fleshed out.

Germinal (1993)

Much more Simplistic than I Remember

[7/10 · 9 January 2024]

I saw this movie when I was a young lad and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Many scenes were so impactful that they stayed with me all throughout my life.

Well, I rewatched it and it can't be denied that this is an impactful movie from an artistic point of view. There are splendid scenes depicting violence, misery, and a sort of aggressive sexuality.

But it's a supremely simple movie, from a philosophical standpoint. The workers are hungry, they have an uprising, and violent and sexual things happen. It's like a very artistic exploitation movie.

Who is to blame for this? It's all very vague and not in a skillful or subtle way. It just felt like the director or writer didn't care. On the one hand, the workers work hard for little pay and come to suffer from hunger, but on the other hand many factories close because they are unprofitable and the poor have like a million chyldren. Can you really blame the rich here for this one?

Well, from the events of the movie, it's not clear the rich are to blame. So it's a balanced and realistic portrayal of both sides, right? Not exactly. The rich are quite rude and arrogant, so they still come off looking as villains.

Is the main character a communist rabble rouser? Well, at the beginning he's just a shy guy looking for work. By the end he somehow transforms into a revolutionary for no real reason.

Finally, the romance is hilarious. Near the end it's shoehorned in that there was a romance even though no such thing was built up throughout the movie except perhaps by the most subtle of mutual glances. I guess if you have two attractive young people in close proximity in a movie you have to assume they have to bang at some point?

The plot is compelling, it has many good gritty scenes of working poverty, and the music is excellent, but ultimately it's a simplistic movie that amounts to just stylized mob violence and rough sexuality.

Honourable Mentions: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914). A novel in English apparently written by a working class person that explains and dramatises the hopeless situation of the working class in very capitalist early industrialised England. I've yet to see a movie that portrays these matters skillfully.

My Blue Heaven (I) (1990)

Wretched but Memorable

[5/10 · 3 January 2024]

Steve Martin, perhaps the WASPiest actor in existence, does a gratuitously flamboyant impression of an Italian-American mafioso that is sure to offend every single member of the Italian-American Anti Defamation League.

And that discordant clashing of things is the order of the day in this very confusing and confused film. From the beginning, you see transition frames hinting in vague first-person statements what the Martin character is going to do. Pointless.

Then the film has a nonsensical plotline about the witness protection programme but the Martin character is completely open about where he is and who he is and surrounded by other mafiosi, so it's almost pointless to have a subplot about concealment at all.

The real plotline, however, is the female district attorney who keeps playing groundskeeper to Martin's Yogi bear. That is, a competent and frustrated professional constantly being emasculated and tricked by a pest determined to break the rules. Can we say it's brave to see this type of character played by a female in the 90s? She keeps being humiliated and thwarted by two men until they corner her into a romantic relationship with one of them like a baited bear.

This movie is a bit skewed in that way. The Martin character is mostly obnoxiously repugnant, willing to commit all manner of crimes and betray others time and time again even though people put their trust in him and the very system has given him another chance.

I saw this movie for Rick Morranis, but I can't really say much about his role. He plays the normal geeky procedural guy.

Honourable Mentions: My Cousin Vinny (1992). The Martin character's name here is Vinny. Great movie with a very positive role model for Italian Americans in the competent autodidact lawyer, Vinny.

The Castle of Purity (1973)

Just Set out to Sea to Drift on Its Own

[7/10 · 31 December 2023]

It's a sensational true crime story that tells itself. The seriously disturbed patriarch of a family decides to keep his wife and chyldren locked up eternally for the purposes of protecting them from a cruel and sexually deviant outside world. And this is perhaps the greatest depth to which the movie aspires, with the head of this family clearly shown to have a severely dysfunctional obsession with sexual matters throughout the run of the film.

Aside from that, it wisely sticks to the real life story it was based on very closely. The chyldren live together in solitude making products which the father goes out to sell. We see the punishments they have to endure, the bizarre educational system imposed on them, and their thirst for sexual stimulation and novelty that naturally increases uncontrollably in the adolescents.

Through the simple telling of the real story we can ponder the important philosophical questions. For example, why is dictatorship wrong? Because you might get a crazy and not a benevolent dictator who takes you down a completely skewed and unhealthy path. How far are people willing to go to excuse the behavior of a bad family member? What happens when you do your utmost to supress natural urges?

Beyond the obvious interest of the story, the plot is too simplistic to go much further. We see glimpses of how attached the chyldren are to their father despite all he's done and the madness of said father, but nothing is extremely well fleshed out. If you simply take it as a dramatisation of a crime story and use it as food for thought, though, it does its job well.

Honourable Mentions: The Girl Next Door (2007). A dramatisation of the real life murder of Sylvia Likens, who was tortured to death by her caretaker, a woman who was also obsessed with sexual issues of some sort. A good film with the same essence as this one although it changes up more details of the case than Pureza, which is a pretty direct adaptation of the story.

A Better Tomorrow (1986)

Aged Very Gracefully

[8/10 · 30 December 2023]

The wardrobe for this production is absolutely nothing like the very idiosyncratic look found in US 80s movies. Everyone here is basically dressed as they would be today, except perhaps for the fact that most men are wearing suits. Maybe men still dress so formally in Hong Kong, but I don't see it much elsewhere.

The story and action are standard but also timeless and relevant. One brother is in the police force while the other is a criminal who gets caught and wants to put his life back together after release. Lots of people are going to get shot. Not a surprise in the world and pretty much the pinnacle of the earthy realism of movies before the 2000s. It seems that action movies in the 60s had the same plots except that the body count was lower. It was only until the advent of superheroes in US films and innovations from Korean cinema in the early noughties and the like that supernatural and crazy complex plots took over the action scene. Before that it was mostly just highly exaggerated realism.

Three things take this movie to higher heights than its peers. First is the Cantonese language. It sounds absolutely beautiful and heartfelt, making this film immediately more interesting to me than it would have been had it used another language.

Second is the music. I think the film almost exclusively employs different segments of one five-minute instrumental synthesizer track. But what a song! It's City Pop/Smooth Jazz that sounds at once foreboding and stylish.

Third is the acting, which is astounding from most of the cast. The villain starts out as inexperienced wide-eyed young apprentice under the wing of the criminal brother and you hardly recognise him as the arrogant and devious kingpin that he becomes later in the film. The police brother channels anger and frustration perhaps better than any other character I've ever seen. You feel how he is incapable of forgiving and how frustrated he is when his plans are thwarted.

The plot is weak and at the end of the movie you feel like it was nothing more than empty violence; also, while stylish and violent, other movies have provided these elements more skillfully before and since. Nevertheless, still a strong movie for its good points and still worthy of a watch for action fans.

Honourable Mentions: A Promising Young Woman (2020). I always remember how the boyfriend suddenly shifts within an instant from charming nice guy to disdainful and odious jerk without losing an ounce of credibility in either role.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008)

Chyldish in its Simplicity

[5/10 · 28 December 2023]

Apparently made for geeky adults, it's jejune in its simplicity. All the characters are archetypes and the plot is extremely standard. Granted, in the final "episode," the direction makes a jarring change, but we can't say it's in good linear form.

It's a musical and the songs are all right, although all the actors sing in their own voices and it's clear that the acting profession is more appropriate for them than the singing one. Don't quit your day job, guys.

Ultimately, it's chydlishly simplistic little story with a few adult bits of dialogue peppered here and there. I think a major draw is that it has several moderately famous sitcom actors of the day. Will it be remembered in 20 years? Probably not. In 40? Definitely not.

Honourable Mentions: Megamind (2010). The plot is very reminiscent of megamind, except megamind really had more style and thought and much, much higher production values.

Donkey Skin (1970)

A Chylde's Dream Come True

[10/10 · 27 December 2023]

This is real hard medieval fantasy with, at all times, something off kilter in the directing. From the haunting discordant music the princess plays at the beginning, to the whole setup involving a corrupt king using his power to try to force his own daughter into surrendering herself to him, the whole production is askew.

Visually, I don't think I've seen a single movie that does the fairy tale better, with outlandishly ostentatious costumes, makeup, and sets.

The artistic direction alone is almost enough to propel this film to the top. You feel absolutely drenched in the fantasy world. It would have almost been as good as a silent film (but not a black-and-white film since colour plays such a central role in the production).

Yet this odd plot and dialogue, everything just slightly oblique from both reality and fantasy, really adds to the wonderful and extremely odd world the director creates. Did it better than Disney.

Honourable Mentions: Super Mario Bros: The Movie (1993). It's another movie where the artistic ambiance leaves makes an impression big enough to awe on its own. Unlike Donkey Skin, though, the critical consensus is that the rest of the movie is very weak. I don't know. I saw it a looong time ago, so I don't remember anything about that. (I know this was actually a descendant of Bladerunner, but I've never seen Bladerunner, so this one it is.)

An Unmarried Woman (1978)

Well-Worn Paths

[8/10 · 26 December 2023]

Jill Clayburgh gives a great performance as a wife jilted after a very long marriage.

The plot plays out extremely predictably. At first she's terribly hurt, she recovers, has some wild times, then comes to settle into a meaningful, if reserved twilight of grief.

The director is skilled at leading the viewer through the experience, which is impressive. At first you feel for the female protagonist and the marriage, given her complacent and unsuspecting adherence to it. By the end, all feeling for the husband has drained away, whether indignation or a sense of loss; in fact, by the end, even though her apparently new long-term partner is charming, brave, and committed, there's a sense of apathy towards men and romance in general. If it's there, it's fine, if not, it was a lot of trouble, wasn't it?

Women's liberation? Some might see this message of doing away with a burning need for a mate as empowering. In fact, that was probably the meaning the director/writer wanted to impart. As for me, I saw it as a little sad. The fantasy of love was broken, a lukewarm marriage finally snapped, and innocence was lost. It's perhaps not a little depressing that the price for freedom and independence was change in personality to a jaded cautiousness. And Clayburgh really goes through the motions masterfully.

Honourable Mentions: The Umbrellas of Cherbourgh (1964). Unmarried Woman ends up giving us a biting prick with realism, but I think Cherbourgh does it best. What's done is done, and while the expression goes "for better or for worse," it's usually for the worse.

Modern Times (1936)

Funny Jumble of Plot Lines

[6/10 · 23 December 2023]

Charlie Chaplin is certainly funny enough. In this movie he shows off his talents in slapstick and acrobatic humour as well as the masterful use of irony for shock value.

Unfortunately, the stoccatto changes in plot and setting didn't help it much and it feels like a collection of shorts featuring this "tramp" character strung together.

At first he's a factory worker where automatisation goes awry, then he's a jailbird, then some sort of burglar, and, most significantly throughout the second half of a movie, a romantic character.

He's not a stable character, either. At one funny juncture in the movie, he threatens to acquire a house by "any means necessary, even if I have to work!" which would be funnier if he'd been established as a lazy slacker, but let us not forget the movie opens with him hard at work in full factory worker's habit in the first vignette. Really the only trait that accompanies him throughout is his tendency to get swept into situations against his will.

It's also very difficult to make constant slapstick funny, especially in a live action movie. And this style of humour comes to have a necessarily patchy laugh factor when it's strongly relied upon in a film.

I understand some attributed communist leanings to the film. A stretch of the imagination indeed. I wouldn't try to draw much deep sociopolitical commentary from this one. Nor do I agree that it deserves to be placed amongst the greats. It's a light entertainment piece that features a respectable comedic performance from Chaplin, namore, naless.

Honourable Mentions: The Hour of the Pig (1993). A scathing critique of medieval society as judicially inefficient, irrationally superstitious, and corrupt. And it just so happens that this is also a valid critique of modern times.

Amour (2012)

Decent Drama, but not True Love

[7/10 · 22 December 2023]

I wouldn't say this specific display of "love" has reached the level of cliche, but I have seen it in various productions for at least a couple of decades now. Granted, it's an important right that really ought to be achieved broadly in the modern society, but for some reason various factions are resisting freedom of choice and progress.

Anyway, I did not find the treatment of the eponymous theme compelling here. The two elderly leads don't seem to like each other all that much. The male is affectionate toward his wife and almost unwaveringly polite throughout the film, but it's almost a matter of habit and duty. The wife is quick to criticize him. It would appear this is a functional but long stalemate of a relationship involving two parties that sometimes like each other but very much appreciate having their independence.

And this seeps into their daughter. The interactions she has with the pair are almost businesslike, with the slightly arrogant reports of her life since last meeting similar to information one would give a biographer or a well-funded therapist. The episode of power struggle between the father and the daughter near the end was piercing to watch. The veneer of respect and familial affection collapses rapidly under pressure.

But perhaps that was the intention? Showing how there is no love in the contemporary world. How people just have to or decide to stand each other. It's a meaningful message, but it wasn't really pushed sufficiently.

The performances, especially that of the male lead, are strong, but the movie is slow and rather boring at times. Especially when third parties come in and describe their mundane lives in detail.

Honourable Mentions: Up (2009). In a matter of minutes, we see a real septuagenerian love that has lasted for decades in the form of the short at the beginning of the movie. A serious and inhibited male comes to have his life genuinely enriched by his contact with a warm and idealistic woman and truly comes to appreciate her only to be crushed by her eventual absence.

A Man Called Ove (2015)

Effectively Deal's with Men's Issues

[7/10 · 22 December 2023]

Ove is a grumpy old Swedish man who is laid off from work early on to make way for more automatisation (he was almost retired - they could have waited a few years?). From that point on, he seems to find no point in life other than waiting for death while trying to keep his environment as orderly as possible.

It is a well-known tendency for family men of a certain age to come to feel useless when all their chyldren have left the nest and they don't have any other place to expend their fatherly energies.

However, the whole town seems to come together to give Ove more meaning, in particular a family where the matriarch, an Iranian immigrant, has a talent for only seeing the good in Ove, despite his rigidity and foul mood. She knows him as an experienced and handy man of a more classic mold who can provide support in times of need and fix things around the house. Not only that, this is coupled with a saintly patience and the perspicacity to see that Ove needs others to need him despite all of his grumblings.

And this despite a thorny disposition from birth exacerbated by a tragic backstory, Ove is rehabilitated and ultimately comes to take his place as a sort of wise grandfather figure for the community.

Another focus of the movie is showing certain quirks of Scandinavian lifestyle and quirks, which I appreciate.

Lots of the drama is manufactured and not developed in a very elegant way. For example, the villains of the movie, the "white shirts" are antagonists apparently because of their extreme and even inhumane adherence to rules and procedures; yet one can argue that Ove, despite being our hero here, exemplifies exactly the same qualities in his own community as head of the homeowners' association.

Yet it's a charming and very entertaining movie with strong performances and a good eye for men's issues.

Honourable Mentions: Always Sunset on Third Street (2005). The first of a much worse Japanese film series with a similar concept. Show humorous or interesting bits of historical Japanese culture among the backdrop while displaying manufactured melodrama in the foreground.

A Taxing Woman (1987)

A Celebration of Feminine Power

[10/10 · 21 December 2023]

This is an exciting thriller about catching a major tax evader, Gondo, who devotes a great deal of his creativity and intelligence to besting the tax authorities.

The methods he uses to hide his profits, from destroying documents to setting up shell corporations to even resorting to partnerships with local violent gangsters to intimidate those who won't comply are fascinating; on the other side of the coin, the cerebral way in which the tax authorities insistently push through barriers and meticulously comb through records to get at their target, despite the fact that they obviously have much more limited means of taking on these criminals than, say, the police force itself, is also interesting.

As a thriller, it's full of all you'd expect. Violence, deviously clever criminal minds, tenacious law enforcement officers, lying, cheating, stealing, and the jilting of ephemeral lovers.

Yet beyond that, there's an important demonstration and celebration of feminine power to enact change in the world. Ryoko, the protagonist and agent of the tax authority, does not come in kicking and screaming with guns blazing. In fact, she's often threatened, physically, and verbally, by far more physically imposing people. Even for a woman, she is rather physically small. Yet she is able to leverage her skills of determination, knowledge of the law, and creativity to fight crime and bring down much bigger foes.

Ohh, and points for showing gameplay of Super Mario Bros. Good times.

Honourable Mentions: The Untouchables (1987). Can't really tear it apart when it has such strong performances from the likes of Robert DeNiro and Sean Connery, but it's a whole different sort of movie even though the story of taking down Al Capone for not paying taxes is very reminiscent of this one. The IRS in this movie literally comes out guns blazing and it's more of a straight action movie. It's not a very deep or meaningful film, but with the performances and the strong 1920s sets and costumes, it certainly does charm.