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March 30, 2005
Mysterious Object At Noon on DVD, 3/30/05
I've never seen a Thai movie before and this one is a strange movie. The movie starts with a woman relating the very sad story of her life, before making up a story about a wheelchair-bound boy and his teacher. The narrative is picked up by different people and occasionally we actually see the story performed by some actors. At one point, a dance troupe performs the story. Old women on the bus, some deaf girls and even some kids during recess add their own elements to the narrative. We even see them filming the story.
It was an interesting way of making a film, but it seemed like it could have used more structure. At a certain point, the director stopped depicting his story and let his interviewees tell us what happens. Then even that disappears as we watch kids play soccer and swim. Finally, it ends with a short shot of a dog. Not sure what that means other than he ran out of film.
Posted by deaconmf at 07:05 PM | Comments (0)
Steamboy at the Arclight in El Ley, 3/29/05
The follow-up to Akira is enjoyable, but there's not much going on here. It's a movie about a kid whose father and grandfather are famous Victorian scientists who discover a way to increase the amount of steam power in tiny containers. I'm assuming they're like superpowered steam batteries. Strangely, there's a little girl who is the daughter of a weapons dealer whose name is Scarlett O'Hara. It takes place during the London Worlds Fair that the weaponeers turn into a demostration for their product. Robert Louis Stevenson is an inventor/spy master. Somehow, they discover a way to increase the amount of steam power in tiny containers. I guess they're superpowered steam batteries.
After awhile, the movie just gets silly. The action sequences aren't bad, but after awhile, as my friend Roddy pointed out, there's only so many ways you can watch steam blow up in a pipe. The sequence in London starts to look like one warped cross between Godzilla and War of the Worlds, but a lot of the sequences here simply echo one you've already seen. And everytime the plot slows down to expound on war or science, it just sounds non-sensical. I wished this were better.
The Arclight Theaters were amazing though. They're big and look a lot like the Sony Metreon. I wished we could have seen a movie where you could take in a beer, but guess that wasn't to be.
Posted by deaconmf at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
Bodyworlds II, L.A. Science Museum, 3/25/05
Wow. I'm not sure what to say about this display. Gunter van Hagen has perfected a process that turns the flesh of dead bodies into plastic, so he's used the process to make these crazy statues. It's not too disgusting at first because the process makes the body look rather waxy. Most of the displays show organs and explain function. There's also a sizable number of diseased and injured organs. After seeing so much that can go wrong with the body, I started to feel really fragile.
The really disturbing part of the display was the full scale bodies in all sorts of strange poses. I remember Vesalius's illustrations of the body in rather fanciful poses, but some of these are really scary. One of the displays is actually cubist. The artist has pushed cross-sections of the body forward through the skin, so you can see each layer of the body. The subject is actually opening up his abdomen with his hand pulling back his skin. This one was so disturbing because you could actually tell what this man must have looked like in life. Worse, there's still some tattoo on his hand which has to make him a recognizable human to someone.
The full body displays usually depict all sorts of fanciful athletic poses with some muscle or organ moving away from the body so you can see other organs underneath. I'm not sure why we need to see a body on skis or skateboard for all eternity. It's actually very unnerving.
Nearing the end were exhibits on pregnancy showing the fetus in various states of development. Apparently someone stole one of them later that day.
The very last display showed a lateral cross-section of a fat person. I guess he wanted to show what the body looked like with all those layers of fat. It was strange to have those sections so polished that it looked like slab you could use for a table. I'm sure most people wouldn't quite recognize what it was for a long time.
Posted by deaconmf at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)
Los Angeles, 3/24/05 - 3/28/05
So much to do. So little time. So much time spent travelling in cars. So much more time spent looking for parking. Because no one seems to be walking, L.A. always seems to be so much busier than here. Thing is, the people there all seem so much kinder to people they don't know then we do in San Francisco. Guess there's something to be said for an industry where people have to constantly interact with each other.
Posted by deaconmf at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
Balthus at the City College campus, 3/19/05
Well I went to a lecture about Balthus in French and think I understood about 2 or 3% of the info, but the slides were great. At best, Balthus is uncomfortable and "The Guitar Lesson" is a perversion of the Pieta that still sits uneasily on the side of childhood sexuality. He's also got a playful side but most of his stuff seems to be vaguely erotic positions of underage girls in awkward positions taking naps or reading.
Maybe I would have been more comfortable if I had understood more of the lecture, but these paintings are a bit much. He was an attractive man and Man Ray sure made him look that way. Not sure what to make of these paintings, but it was still a great time eating tamponade and figuring it out.
I usually don't do this, but here's some links.
"The Guitar Lesson": www.nelepets.com/art/images/artists/internet-A-B/balthus%20the%20guitar%20lesson1934.jpg
"The Mediteranee's Cat": www.geocities.com/maroud_99/Balthus.jpg
Not sure what this one is called: www.audioplus-french-lessons-online.com/EXPO/Balthus_Les_beaux_jours.gif
The man himself, a portrait by Man Ray: www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1099/foxweber/jpgs/balthus.photo4.jpg
Posted by deaconmf at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)
Fighting Elegy on DVD, 3/20/05
Not as much fun as Branded To Kill, but there's still that crazy style going on here. This time, the director or screenwriter is implying that abstinance leads to war. It's really forced, but there's still some amazing scenes. My favorite one has the lead actor (who is obviously too old for this part) for high school playing a boy with a crush on a smart Catholic girl. As they walk around under the cherry blossoms, he sees the leader of the high school ruffians. At first, he lies and says the girl is his sister. He gets caught and gets embarassed. For some reason, consorting with women is seen as unmanly. The leader is obviously on a wall and the other two characters are seen from the head up around his feet. They look like soccer balls subject to his macho strutting.
Posted by deaconmf at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle on DVD, 3/20/05
Stoner comedies are usually stupid. This one is still rather stupid, but it's inspired at least. Harold and Kumar get the munchies and decide to go for burgers. This is story of their very long night to get to White Castle. Along the way, we get scary tow drivers with horrible diseases, their horny wives, beautiful women, underachieving Jewish stoners, punk, corrupt policemen and conniving co-workers. And that's it. That's the plot.
I'm not sure that casting two Asian men as the stoner leads counts as progress, but at least, it's different. The two leads are likeable and cute even. I kept hoping they would do each other. (Porn idea: Harold and Kumar Do Each Other!) I'm just glad a movie that's plotted like a laundry list came out a lot better than it might have.
Here's hoping Neal Patrick Harris is also this much fun in person.
Posted by deaconmf at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2005
Branded To Kill on DVD, 3/15/05
I can't believe I've never heard of this movie before. Why didn't someone recommend this earlier?
This is one of those crazy Japanese movies where the plot seems vaguely familiar, but there's some weirdness in the translation, so what probably seems sensical to a Japanese audience plays like one huge mess in America. It begins with the third best assassin in Japan taking an assignment to kill the second best. This actor, Jo Shishido, is most notable for his incredibly square jawline and his puffy chipmunk cheeks. He ends up killing what seems like an army of bad guys and gets involved with a mysterious woman who he fucks. He goes back to his wife and she leaves him when she finds out. He goes back to the mysterious woman who hires him to kill some foreign official, then she gets kidnapped herself by the best assassin in Japan. This new assassin starts tormenting our chubby-cheeked antihero, who begins cracking under the stress of being watched constantly. It all ends at a shoot out in some empty boxing ring.
The plot's definitely noir, but the style is some weirdo cross between noir storylines, German expressionist lighting and Man Ray photos. The violence is so stylized and over the top. The action sequences are inventive, but manic. Our assassin hero shoots a dentist from below through a drain in a sink. There's a lot of violence done to women, but even the men suffer in this mess. The characters do things that make no sense to nonsense and I kept wondering how they even managed to make this movie. The director, Seijun Suzuki, was apparently fired by his studio for deviated from the script. I'm sure the studio had no idea what to do with this twisted little thing, but it was worth it.
Posted by deaconmf at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
Shaun Of the Dead on DVD, 3/12/05
I'm not sure why no one's ever tried it before, but a zombie comedy makes sense. They move slowly, they seem rather dumb and there's all sorts of horror comedies out there these days. Oh wait. I guess Dead Alive counts. Well, anyhow, this starts with Shaun having a bad day at work and at home. His girlfriend breaks up with him. His jobs sucks. His mother expects him for dinner with the stepfather he can't stand. Anyhow, the zombie epidemic starts and, at first, Shaun and his best bud, Ed don't notice at first. Eventually, they come up with a plan to save his mom, step-father, ex-girlfriend and her flatmates. Of course, it goes badly, but at least the world doesn't end. Too bleak, you know.
The best thing about this movie is that it keeps its tone relatively even. It's usually very funny although the zombies do tear people apart. The extras are great with this one. The best sequence has three comics explaining certain holes in the plot.
Posted by deaconmf at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
Written On the Wind on DVD, 3/11/05
Another Douglas Sirk film, another ridiculous melodrama done in all its Technocolor glory. This time out, Rock Hudson is the upstanding best friend of Robert Stack, a spoiled rich alcoholic son of a Texas oil man. They meet Lauren Bacall, the grounded secretary in some advertising firm. She's got some chemistry with Rock at first, but the one she ends up marrying after a single night is Robert Stack. For a year, he stays sober until he moves back to his hometown and gets jealous of Rock and Lauren's obvious attraction. Dorothy Malone plays the sister that's always wanted Rock Hudson. She's the real "spitfire" freespirit who drinks and manipulates everyone. Of course, Rock Hudson ends up trying to save his friend, but ends up on trial for his murder. And of course, it's no surprise that he gets off after one very spectacular character reversal. It's all too much, yet so much fun watching it happen.
There's this scene in there that really seems in love with editing. While Dorothy Malone dances like a hussy upstairs in the family mansion, her father dies trying to stop the music. Rock Hudson tries to save the man, but it's too late. You know that dancing manically to fast jazzy tracks always leads to serious consequences.
Posted by deaconmf at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)
March 08, 2005
Scrogg, scrogg, scrogging away
Ok, really, I'm still blogging. I'm just way behind. Sigh.
Anyhow, I just signed up for Audioscrogger, so now the whole world can know what I'm listening to. My account is under "deaconmf". This is the absolute proof that I'm cool. LOL.
Posted by deaconmf at 10:03 AM | Comments (2)
March 07, 2005
Ghost In the Shell II: Innocence on DVD, 3/6/05
I actually liked this one better than the first Ghost in the Shell. The story line is far more coherent, which always helps. It's still an interesting amalgam of I, Robot's machines-gone-wrong theme with Blade Runner's noirish visual style. This time, Bato, the detective's partner is investigating why expensive pleasurebots are killing their owners. There are all sorts of fun visual items and the backgrounds look amazing. I'm glad the translation this time out did a far better job of clearing up the plot mechanics. When I saw the first movie, it took awhile to figure out what happened to Major Kusanagi. This time out, it was all much clearer.
Posted by deaconmf at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
Purple Butterfly on DVD, 3/4/05
This was one very long movie. Zhang Zhi-Yi is part of some cell rebelling against the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. Turns out she was in love with some hot Japanese student who conveniently becomes the head of the spy network, so she conveniently becomes his girlfriend again. It's one of those movies where very little happens and there's so little talking, even when characters share the same screen. It's been a long time since I've seen so many characters walking around in the rain saying nothing. I kept thinking we could have edited this just to save us some time. It's Wong Kar-Wai influenced, with all the blue filters and leisurely takes, but without his sense of storytelling. We see every plot point in the this movie and each one seems to take hours.
There's a second storyline concerning a Chinese businessman gets who gets dragged into this mess when his girlfriend is shot during a raid at a train station. The two narratives collide and, of course, the movie ends with a shootout. The final coda takes place slightly before the end where Zhang Zhi-Yi and her revolutionary cohort/ex get it on. This would have been amazing if it were just a little shorter and less blue all the time.
Posted by deaconmf at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
All That Heaven Allows on DVD, 3/1/05
Rock Hudson movies are sometimes pretty silly things. Douglas Sirk movies always seem rather silly, yet in their overly melodramatic way, they make some sense. Unfortunately, they don't make Rock Hudson look like much of an actor. This time out, we get the former Mrs. Ronald Reagan playing the part of a woman who falls for her gardener. This is of course beneath her social circle. Her children's shame at this relationship makes her reject Rock, then when she leaves his place at an attempt at a reconciliation, Rock runs off a cliff trying to chase her car. Of course, she ends at his place in the end, pledging her wounded man her love as a deer hangs out just outside the window.
It's so absurdist but so over the top, it doesn't make much sense getting upset over it. Of course, Douglas Sirk's intense camerawork brings Jane Wyman some dignity. This is probably the primary inspiration for Far From Heaven, that homage to these Sirk melodramas. It even takes place in the same time of year and retains that "forbidden love" theme.
Strangely, Rock is a very handsome man, but he always seems awkward, so I never find him attractive. Maybe I just haven't seen the right film yet.
Posted by deaconmf at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)