La Dolce Vita

I really have no excuse for only having just watched La Dolce Vita.  I tried to a couple of times before, but couldn't get through the three hours until now.  I don't have much to say about it other than that the Sylvia ^ character really was a knockout.  A good old fashioned voluptuous beauty!

Dirty Harry

Finally watching Clint Eastwood's movies from his younger days, starting with Dirty Harry.  Sad to say I thought it was pretty boring.  Old police mystery movies from like the 70s&80s all have the same kind of dull storyline...

Total Recall

famous three-tit

Total Recall  isn't as well done as similar such sci fi movies, but it's still fun.  It's based on a Philip K. Dick story, and he's one of my favorite writers.  Anyway, if nothing else, this movie will always be remembered fondly for the three-titted mutant.

The Mark of Zorro

tight pants for real

There was a healthy sized crowd at The Stanford Theatre to see The Mark of Zorro tonight.  Many lols were had.  The costumes in this film were pretty good....really elaborate.  But damn did the men wear really tight pants.

悲愁物語

this was an awesome shot/scene. i couldn't find more pics from the scenes i loved, and i don't have screenshot taking capabilities

Story of Sorrow and Sadness was released by Cinema Epoch as "Tale of Sorrow", but I like "Story of Sorrow and Sadness" better...has a better ring to it and is a more accurate translation (as far as I can tell).  I may as well call it by whatever name I like, because their subtitles were pretty bad (sorry guys).

The opening credits are really great with just the shots of various interesting golf clubs and the cool old song. I wish I knew what song it was!  I also wish I could find a video of the opening online.  Oh well!  I need help with being able to make videos & screenshots...someday I'll work on that.

The film follows golfer and up & coming celebrity Reiko Sakuraba.  She's embroiled in some kind of golf rigging scandal...the explanation of the golf stuff wasn't very clear... Actually, the beginning of the movie was all boring golf stuff and I was kind of worried, but then the film got to the heart of its true subject--celebrity obsession and ruin.  A neighbor of Reiko's gets obsessed with and blackmails her, and that (along with the golf stuff) prove to be Reiko's ruin.  The film examines what makes and breaks a celebrity and why people are obsessed with celebrities but simultaneously anticipate their ruin.

The nail polish colors were an interesting theme.

This was a very unique Suzuki film because it was made in the 70s.  It isn't like his 60s yakuza flicks...the atmosphere is totally different.  It was just a contemporary movie about contemporary subject matter.  His films after this were period pieces, so this was really interesting and unique.  It was a lot less surreal than his other works as well.  I loved the ending.

^ as far as I know, anyway

PS: the spellcheck on here is pretty terrible

L.A. Confidential

So, why haven't I been watching movies for the past few days?  What could possibly keep a movie addict like me away?  Law & Order, SVU dvds...that's what!  I LOVE THAT SHOW.

Erm, anyway, I finished a bunch of SVU dvds so today I watched L.A. Confidential.  The mystery in the story wasn't too compelling...it was really the characters that made this interesting.  I mean, they were kinda stock characters, but kinda not, yknow?   I think it was the acting that really pulled the characters off.  And everyone had such interesting faces!  How did they make Russell Crowe look so young, innocent, and brooding?  

陽炎座

In watching Kagero-za, I finally finished Seijun Suzuki's  Taisho trilogy.  The Taisho is an interesting period in Japanese history, and Suzuki's take on it is just fascinating.  I'm glad he made this trilogy!  The Taisho is a great period to make a film about because there is just a lot of material available for great visuals eg. a guy in a suit wearing a tophat and a woman in kimono, etc...  Kagero-za is really good, along with Yumeji. Oh, the trilogy DVD covers are pretty funny, too.  Like 90s photoshop awesome.

As far as I can tell, "kagero" means "mist" or "fog"--a reference to the ghostliness of the story and characters. The film is really surreal and that's what I love about Suzuki (my favorite director of all time).  This film makes more sense story & theme-wise than some of Suzuki's other surreal films, and that's what really makes this work.  The acting in the movie is really deliberate; every action was taken so delicately, it was amazing.  The actors were all just great.  Most of them moved (or held still) like professional acrobats or dancers.   They were all really good at portraying sadness as well, it was so real and palpable.

The film had interesting themes as well...the man with two wives, one Japanese and the other German masquerading as Japanese...classic East vs. West themes?  I wonder...

drag geisha

super arty sex scene

this scene was just amazing...filmed using reflections in water.  ghostly.

ok ok another amazing scene

in closing: an awesome picture i found of my favorite director

I Walked with a Zombie

Tonight I went down to The Stanford Theatre ♥ to see I Walked with a Zombie. There are some old cheesy horrors on the upcoming program and a double feature would make a great date for any movie buff couples!

Anyway, I Walked with a Zombie is a different kind of zombie movie....it's a sensitive, romantic zombie movie.  A rom-zom if you will.  It was alright...the face of the guy above ^ was pretty crazy...I can't believe I was the only person i the theater who lol'd

Friday

Uh, so, Friday is a terrible movie.  Chris Tucker is annoying.  This movie is one unfunny racial stereotype after another.

Teeth

I really liked Teeth.  I thought it was well done.  I love girl power fantasy type movies like this.  The mis en scene  and foreshadowing were good.  The kid from Nip/Tuck was in it too.  I used to watch that.  The skinhead look really matches his face.

A Woman Under the Influence

OK, OK.  I have no excuse for not having seen A Woman Under the Influence until now.  It's amazing.  The acting was so on point that I felt like I was watching a reality TV show.  Gena Rowlands is just amazing.  The camerawork is amazing. I like the silhouette scene toward the end when husband & wife are having a conversation and the part where Mable is dancing on the couch but you can just barely see parts of her arms moving and just everyone's reactions.

alkdjflkjslfjs

Awesome poster, too:

The Italian Job (2003)

Ah, The Italian Job.  The movie that made mini coopers famous.  I admit that after watching this, mini coopers seem super cool and sleek and easy to park, haha.  I've seen the original 1969 film and I remember the heist part being like a really boring game of red light green light.  This had cooler action and car stunts.  The cast was great and the movie was actually shot really well.  This is one of the better heist films.

The Babysitters

I saw a trailer for The Babysitters and it looked like a fluffy titillating movie, so I caught it on Netflix instant.  It's a movie about a bunch of teenage girls who form a babysitting/prostitution ring.  Eh, it was alright!

White Men Can't Jump

I saw White Men Can't Jump at the library and randomly picked it up to watch.  The 90s fashion is pretty amazing...especially Wesley Snipes's bicycle caps.  It's pretty funny to think of Wesley Snipes as a street b-ball playin' funny guy...when I think Wesley Snipes I think about...like...Blade.  This movie is a lot of people talking fast and some funny stuff that pops out at you.  The basketball playing scenes are kind of boring unless you're super into the sport. There was a Jeopardy! scene too!  I love Jeopardy!

Coco avant Chanel

My sister really wanted to see Coco Before Chanel, so we netflixed it.  Unfortunately, it turned out that Coco's life pre-fashion designer was pretty uneventful and not really worth making a movie about (even thought I have a personal interest in fashion).  She had a couple of boyfriends.  She was headstrong.  And so on.  Yawn.  Audrey Tautou is charming as ever, though.  Does anybody else think she looks kind of like a French Anne Hathaway?  Oh, and the shots with the mirror staircase in the last scene ^ were cool.

No Impact Man: The Documentary

When I first heard about the premise for No Impact Man, like many people, I thought it sounded crazy.  And it kind of was, but it's impossible not to like these people because they are just an earnest family that want to do right by the environment.  This movie was pretty inspirational...I wanna start growing tomatoes now!

No Impact Blog

Raiders of the Lost Ark

"love you" scene

I recently had the urge to re-watch all the Indiana Jones movies because I don't remember them too well.  My boyfriend's roommate happened to have Raiders of the Lost Ark on DVD so I caught this one the other day.  I remember the other movies being better than this one!

Babies

When I first saw the trailer for Babies I really wanted to see it, but as it would turn out there is no dialog in this film.  And as it would turn out a documentary with babies running around and nobody talking about anything is pretty boring.

The River (1951)

The River  is sort of a pains of adolescence film following a British girl living in India.  It's based on a novel and a lot of the story is told via narration from the text...that gets pretty grating.  The story is kind of boring, but seeing the slice of life in India stuff is interesting.  I like the films I've seen by Stayajit Ray, so to see a film he worked on before directing his own movies was really cool.

Also...when you think about Indian cinema today, you really think about those Bollywood musicals...but even in old movies like this, there is a lot of singing in music...it's a lot more organic than the big productions today, though...it's really interesting.

A Serious Man

A Serious Man is a new favorite! A well-done, hilarious nihilistic take on the 50s.

I just got a part time job so I expect to be watching fewer movies :'(

Being unemployed sucks, except for having tons of times for movie watching.

ゴジラ

Today I finally watched Gojira, AKA Godzilla.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Takashi Shimura in the film!  Liked the music.  Liked the eye patch guy.  Thought overall that the film is more engaging than most old monster flicks.  It's pretty amazing that they made 20+ of these movies.  The scene where the guy is reporting his own impending death was pretty bleak.  It's really fascinating to see the Japanese post WWII mentality through this film (re: the atomic bomb).  It's pretty funny/interesting that Gojira goes down in a cascade of bubbles rather than something more dramatic like a laser beam.

Mission: Impossible

After watching Lethal Weapon  I figured I was kind of on a roll and I watched Mission: Impossible, too.  ...don't ask. They're connected somehow in my mind.  I actually remember watching old reruns of the Mission Impossible TV show when I was a kid.  I don't much remember them, though.  This movie was whatevz.  The music was sometimes too "tell the audience how to feel"-y.  But epic scenes on the top of moving trains? They may never get old.  Don't think I'll end up watching the other MI movies.

Lethal Weapon

I'd never seen Lethal Weapon, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  It was...a cop movie.  Lots of helicopters.  Lots of bullet holes in cars.  Mel Gibson was shirtless for so much of this, I guess this was back when he was maybe a stud rather than a creepy nutjob?  MEL GIBSON WITH A BLOWN OUT MULLET?!  The big wet fight scene at the end was ludicrous.  

...I kind of can't believe they made four of these

Meet me in St. Louis

For my second trip to the theater in 2011, I saw Meet me in St. Louis.  There is an awesome restored old movie house called The Stanford Theatre  that I have been going to for years and I caught this there.  Nice to see it on the big screen.  Judy Garland had an amazing voice! She even made Christmas songs sound nice.  She looked really pretty if not borderline tranny at times because of weirdly shaped eyebrows...

There were some interesting costumes.  Like, there's no way people actually dressed like that.

What was the movie about?  Who even knows.  It's not really about anything. Just a bunch of trivial stuff that some family gets into (ballroom dance drama, etc).

WE'LL DANCE THE HOOCHIE COOCHIE

Stanford Teatre's restored interior, complete with Wurlitzer organ~

The Last Emperor

I'd been wanting to re-watch The Last Emperor  for a while now and I picked up when I saw the DVD at the library.  Well, this movie is depressing!  Modern Chinese history is pretty depressing in general.  The score and appearance of Ryuichi Sakamoto (a personal favorite) in the film are a plus.  The film has all the smut to keep people interested like the threesome scene or the breastfeeding scene.

キャシャーン

Casshern  is a movie about post-apocalyptic Japan...and the apocalypse has evidentially turned the world steampunk.  Some of the steampunk visuals were cool...they reminded me of animation sequences from a Final Fantasy game or something.

The movie is based on an old anime...

...and the story follows a young man named Tetsuya who through a freak accident is "chosen by the lightning" (whatever that means) to save humanity--already in dire straits--from complete annihilation.  Pictured above is Tetsuya's faithful anime dog, Friender.  WHAT AN AWESOME NAME.  Friender names a cameo in the film...but the name is romanized as "Flender", which is whack.

OK, so what then is "Casshern"?   Well, Casshern is the peace-loving god that people worshiped before war broke out.  

When I first saw the trailer for this film back in 2004, I was pumped up for it.  However, since then, I'd heard a lot of terrible stuff about it.  I'd have to say that the movie isn't as bad as some of its detractors say...but it isn't that great, either?  The visuals are nice but the action sequences are really boring.  I don't know if it was just the DVD I had, either, but the timing on the subtitles was late and even with an only basic understanding of Japanese I could tell they were kind of crappy/left stuff out.

I did love the casting, though.  Everyone in the film was beautiful!

^ Mayumi Sada, who is hapa and therefore gorgeous

I also thought the blue eye contacts were great!

Away we go

When I first saw the trailer for Away we go I thought it could be one of those annoying bourgie movies, but it really wasn't.  I found this at the library and gave it a shot.  It was genuinely funny at times in a "real life can be funny lol" kind of way.  At other times it was a little too zany, but I'm not complaining.  The people in this movie are a lovely couple.  This is a good movie for expecting parents.  Oh, and Maggie Gyllenhaal looked so pretty here!  I also just realized this was directed by Sam Mendes, who directed Revolutionary Road, which I just watched...this one was much better.

Also I can't be the only one who thinks Maya Rudolph looks like half black Lisa Kudrow.

WHOA

Raging Bull

Well, I've gotten my fill of cable TV & I'm back to movies!

Ah, boxing movies.  I don't like boxing movies.  I don't like boxing.  Boxing is boring.  The best people never fight because of all the fight promotion company bullcrap.  All of said bullcrap is always the political intrigue in these boxing films...I just find it dull.  Raging Bull was OK, though.  The best part was the dialog.  I couldn't help thinking though that this was basically a movie about a guy who was a bad person.

Spartacus

I've just had Direct TV installed at my house, so I expect to be watching more cooking shows than movies in the coming days!

However, I did finish Spartacus, the film about the leader of the Roman slave rebellion.  It was...really long.  Just over three hours.  Kind of weird to think this was directed by Kubrick.  Kirk Douglass, the star, had an incredibly stoic face and a weird chin dimple.  I enjoyed the scenes in the Roman senate and the alluding to the future Julius Caesar...but I do like history.  The "oysters and snails" scene was also pretty intense.

The close up of the dude in the above scene was pretty harrowing.  

Milk

When Milk  first came out, I wasn't too interested in seeing it, in spite of all the praise it got.  I didn't much want to see a movie about recent history and a bunch of stuff I already know.  Well, as it would turn out, Milk is about events in the 70s that we already know about...and really should never forget.  Seeing it on film like this really drives it home...people were actually treated like this.  In the 70s.  That wasn't so long ago.  This was such an important film.  The Proposition 6 in the film reminded me a lot of the recent Proposition 8 here in California.  Society has a long way to go, eh...

Anyway, Milk has a great cast as well.  Sean Penn won an Oscar and all that, now I know why.  Joshn Brolin is also kind of a sleeper...he's not a movie star but he's also a good actor.  He has one of those chameleon faces so a little styling can make him look like anyone...

Anyway, whatever, the whole world needs to watch this movie.

True Grit (1969)

Happy new year!  I'm starting 2011 off right with some movies.  The very first was the original True Grit.  After thinking that I would like to see it, I just so happened to find it at the library.  I must say that the remake is much better, though.  It updated the western classic and made it truly timeless. Some of the quick witted dialog is in the original, but it just isn't as funny (and the humor is the big reason why I loved the remake so much).  I do like Mattie's boyish hairdo in this version, though.  But otherwise, when it came to the styling, things looked so 70s (although the film was made in '69).  I know John Wayne is supposed to be a legend, but I also found his delivery kind of...campy.