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edlewisjr
Reviews
Lovable (2007)
I don't want to be in the sequel
The movie is a collection of interviews of women who are single at later stages of life. The interviews are intertwined with the filmmaker's own thoughts on his extended bachelorhood.
The movie has little fanfare, it lets the emotion come pouring out. Not in a bloodletting way, more of "let's look at this rationally" way. The style and tone of the movie really lets the depth of the concerns of single-too-long people really come to the forefront.
The movie feels long. At first it seemed funny - like that silliness one gets when they realize they are about to be emotionally exposed - but then the humor was overcome by the length. At 101 minutes, it isn't long by many standards. The tempo isn't tedious. It just seems long and endless.
But this is for good effect. It emphasizes the burden these people feel and the pointless emptiness of being alone. It's not like they are suffering a disease and the race is one for a cure, it's not like there is redemption for the missteps that led them to their state.
The most curious element of the film is that the filmmaker is always in a mirror because he's always behind the camera. There seems to be some kind of commentary there, nevertheless it seems like there's a wall between he and all of his female interviewees. (There isn't a lot of dialog in the movie - it's nearly all monologues.)
It's a documentary, not a drama. It is plain but not "raw." It states the obvious, there isn't a discovery. It's certainly not a first date movie, it isn't something you want to watch after a breakup.
I hope I don't wind up in a sequel but there's a woman or two in my past I'd nominate for a role in it. ;)
Hakase no aishita sûshiki (2006)
Cute little story
English title "The Professor and His Beloved Equation"
On the first day of class a young teacher enters an unruly room and begins his first lecture. To gain the students' attention he relates the story of what probably led him into a life of mathematics.
Told via flashbacks, the young teacher goes back to a time, probably 20 years earlier, when his mother was hired to look after a professor who suffered brain damage in an auto accident. The brain damage didn't harm the personality of the man but limited his short- term memory to 80 minutes. The accident occurred 10 years earlier, in about 1975, up to that point the professor has a clear memory of events.
The movie is tale of the relationship that follows, a simple and straightforward tale. The story is well paced, the mood upbeat. There's quite a bit of baseball in it, a good plot device through which the young boy becomes a friend of the professor and earns a lifelong interest in mathematics.
A central event in the movie is a no-hitter by Yutaka Enatsu of the Hanshin Tigers on August 8, 1973. He pitched 11 innings and, according to the movie, hit a walk-off home run to win the game. (The no-hitter and length of the game have been verified on Japanese baseball sites.) In the movie, the professor asks the boy what Enatsu's ERA is, the boy replies that "he has retired." In real life, Enatse retired in 1984 which fits with the estimated time span in the movie. That's the kind of attention to detail you'll find in the movie.
A good way to pass a few hours - especially when you are trapped in an airliner for 12 hours. (It's better than that, really.) The story is so entertaining that by the time you learn the beloved equation, you'd already forgotten it was coming.