A Streetcar Named Desire

I think I really need to read the play (or see it) to really understand the finer details of A Streetcar Named Desire.  But man, isn't Marlon Brando great?

Today's deal on buywithme.com is 4 AMC silver tickets for $24.  Here's the math: that means $6/ticket.  Silver tickets are only good on movies that have already been out for 2 weeks, so this would be good for any blockbusters you might wanna see--I hate seeing popular movies when they first come out; too crowded/loud.  

You know I bought one!

The trailer for Potiche was played when I saw Heartbeats.  I'm pretty pumped up.  It's coming out next week~

Les Amours Imaginaires

I really liked Heartbeats, a film about a love triangle.  Marie ^ from the film  had such charming style.  This was the first French Canadian film I've seen, I believe.  Parts of it were a little too "hip people doing hip things" and by the third arty sex scene I was kinda over cello and close ups of body parts...but overall still really great.  Awesome soundtrack.  When I read that directer Xavier Dolan is only 22, I was shocked.  To have made something this good, so young~

poster is cool too.

Some cool tracks from the soundtrack:

The Philadelphia Story

Call me a player hater but, uh, The Philadelphia Story is a story that need not be told.  Dumb, capricious rich girl receives a bunch of unwarranted praise from a bunch of dudes who she all plays for fools.  Also, lol at how she straight up drove drunk in this.

霍元甲

Fearless  is kind of a random title probably chosen by marketing people.  In Chinese the film is just the guy's ^ name.  Beautifully filmed.  I kind of have a soft spot for martial arts movies.

Speed

I re-watched Speed  for some reasons.  Uh, yeah, what can I even say about this movie?


Apparently nothing.

Anyway, I remember when I was a kid seeing something on Entertainment Tonight or some similar such show about a lady who entered some kind of contest or raffle.  She was homeless, and she could pick between two prizes...a million dollars or the bus from Speed.


GUESS WHAT SHE CHOSE.

retail therapy.

I just ordered the House t-shirt from Criterion.

Footloose

Footloose isn't as bad as I remembered it.  It does drag as it goes on, though.  It was interesting to see young Sarah Jessica Parker...although at the end where the two dudes beat the other two dudes up, like really hardcore, and the girls are all like YEAH WOO HOO AWESOME...that was pretty terrible.  Like, do people really like seeing other people get the crap beat out of them? ...what?

Although, I must say that a prom with GLITTER RAIN would be awesome.

A lot of shots of feet being, uh, "footloose."  Not sure if they're were just trying to go with the flow on that one or if we had some foot fetish people on this crew.

It was the "special edition" DVD.  lol @ this movie having a "special edition."

Also, this movie is awesome for inspiring this:

Umshini Wam

OK, I read about Umshini Wam on the urbn blog.  Sad to say, but I really didn't like it (although I really love Korine's Gummo).  I guess this just wasn't funny.  Rolling around in wheelchairs and wearing pikachu/gloomy bear PJ suits is....stuff a teenager would find funny?  Something like that.  OH WELL.  If you want to see for yourself, it's on vbs.tv.

Emir

I really loved Emir in spite of the fact that musicals usually drive me crazy.  Maybe it's because I'm Filipino and so is this film.  I've been longing for a renaissance in Filipino cinema, but it seems to be a long way off... which is why I found this film so impressive, the production values and acting quality were quite good compared to most Filipino movies I've seen.

Filipinos have a flare for melodrama....I once saw a commercial for a Filipino TV show (it may have been a movie) that consisted of--I shit you not--a carousel turning in slow-mo, a guy running up to the carousel, looking around for somebody, not finding them, then a zoom in to the guy's face where a single tear rolls down his cheek.  It was 100% serious.  So yeah, Filipinos have a tendency to overdo the emotionality in cinema, and do what they call "OA" or "over acting."  The whole OA concept seems to just be a way of life...and we all know that corny overacting really lends itself to musicals, which is part of what really made Emir work, I think.

The film follows Amelia ^ a Filipino girl from the middle of nowhere that goes overseas to be a maid.  The story kind of both pokes fun at/is a tribute to the "OFW" or "overseas Filipino worker."  The story actually follows Amelia until she is like middle aged...they used the same actress which works, I guess, with Asians because you can never really tell how old we are, anyway...

Some of the ballads really dragged but the dancey numbers were really fun.  Oh and, Filipino names are awesome.  Sup, Boyong?

I brought my mom with me to see the film because she actually grew up in the Philippines and speaks good Tagalog.  I really lucked out that this film showed right here in my hometown of San Jose during the SJ portion of the SFIAAFF.  Unfortunately, after this film, all the festival excitement that's been brewing lately is over!

California is a Place

I heard about the California is a Place film series while at the Short Attention Span Environmental Film Festival.  I went home and googled the project and found that they're all posted on the website, so I watched them all today!  They look great in Vimeo HD.  For some reason, though, none of them but Scrapertown  (my thoughts on that short are here) are on IMDB.

Uppercut was actually filmed right here in Silicon Valley.  It's a short about a bunch of computer engineer dudes from Google and whatnot that all have a "fight club."  It kinda makes me wonder how many other similar clubs there are out there.  A lot of the rhetoric where the guys were talking about how fighting "makes them feel alive" etc was kind of like l-o-l to me...but still interesting.

El Rey is a short about the Mariachi scene in Los Angeles.  The guy they interviewed, who is a trumpet player, is obviously very passionate about mariachi music.  It made me jealous that this guy had something in his life that he loved that much (ha-ha).  It seems kind of judgmental to say, but I personally don't really like mariachi music and I would always wonder things like "who the hell are the people who listen to this?" so it was interesting to actually see those people in the film.

Honey Pie  is a short about the guy who makes real dolls...kind of a topic I didn't know I was interested in until I saw it.  There is also a cool documentary that I can't for the life of me remember the name of....that I saw online..about the users of real dolls and that was super interesting too..

Cannonball is a short about dudes who skateboard in empty swimming pools in foreclosed houses in Fresno.  Uh, yeah...I don't know, I personally think skating in a pool sounds fun, but not so fun that I'd want to clean out a bunch of dirty abandoned pools?  I mean, isn't it fun to get some skateboarding variety rather than swimming in empty pool after empty pool?  OK, forget it, what do I know, anyway?

Big Vinny owned car dealerships. He was livin' large...until the economy tanked.  This was sad...I used to work at a car dealership that is now gone too, so it makes me think about that...oh, and how the world is ending cuz gas is FOUR DOLLARS A GALLON NOW OMG.

I couldn't find any pictures of Borderland, but it's about a few people who patrol the California/Mexico border.  The wall shown in the film is pretty crazy looking...I've driven all around the country but I'd never seen it.  I guess it's a part of California that you don't really ever drive to unless you live there.  When I was in Texas, I didn't see any wall like this...actually, I was struck by how the "border" was basically just wilderness...so uh anyway yeah this was interesting.




I really liked this series because I am a proud Californian myself..but really, anyone would enjoy them...and you can watch them all online so there's no excuse.

Short Attention Span Environmental Film Festival

I went out to the Short Attention Span Environmental Film Festival last night at the David Brower Center in Berkeley.  When I heard about the festival, I was debating whether or not to go but after all the fun I had seeing films at Cinequest and SFIAAFF, I decided to make the 45 minute drive up to Berkeley, and I'm glad I did!

The very first short was a sort of documentary/infomercial for a nonprofit group, and at first I was afraid that the whole festival was gonna be like that, but thankfully it wasn't.

Pigeon: Impossible was the first film.  I'm usually a hard sell when it comes to CG movies, but I thought this was actually cute and really well done.  But hey! You can watch the whole thing online here:

Hairytale was the next short.  I can't find any pictures online, but it was a documentary about a guy in the UK who used to own a hair salon and realized how much hair gets thrown into landfills...so then he dedicated his life to finding alternative uses for discarded hair and made...a hair chair.  Had a funny final line.

Salt (2009) was next, not to be confused with the Angelina Jolie movie of the same name.  This film followed photographer Murray Fredericks (check out his photography on the website, it's amazing!) on his journeys to literally the middle of nowhere in Australia.  He explained the concept that the place where he was going, he could see NOTHING anywhere on the horizon for 360 degrees.   CRAZY.  I had no idea places like that still existed anywhere in the world (other than the ocean).  It raised a lot of questions for me...   This film has a lot of breathtaking shots. As I understood it, Fredericks shot all the footage himself over several years and then later it was edited down into the film.  He had a really great eye for the shots, but I guess that makes sense because he's a photographer.  In the end, though, the film was a bit long for my tastes...I'd rather go see an exhibition of the photography.

Scrapertown is a documentary short from a series about California called California is a Place (I will definitely be watching these later).  It follows a group of kids in East Oakland who are part of the 'scraper bike movement', where people fix up their bikes with interesting paint, decor and decorate the spokes.  The bikes are pretty cool.  The organizers of the festival told us that they were gonna try to get a kid from the film to come speak at the festival, but he didn't show.  Boo!

The Crab Revolution , was an awesome, adorable French animated short.  I loved it!  French just seemed to be the perfect language for this story.  Or maybe the voice actor was just really good?  Watch here:

I didn't see Fat Tire Fury on IMDB.  It's basically footage of a mountain...bike...unicycler.  The ultimate rush??

I couldn't find any suitable pictures of Living Lightly.....chronicles of a farming cult with a scythe (yes, scythe) fetish.  I don't mean player hate here but uh...yeah.

A few photos of the evening:

cool kinetic sculpture at the Brower Center. I wish this were video!

 DEEP FRIED PIZZA at Sumo Grub--not a bad spot to grab a bite after a late showing in Berkeley as they are open late.  They have tons of deep fried desserts...for the heart attack in you

our friend KJ wore awesome bright gold shoes.

Jodorowsky Posters

So, there is a really interesting post over at 50 Watts (a really cool design blog) featuring contemporary Jodorowsky posters from Poland.  Peep game, it's way cool.


For more Polish posters.

Fish Tank

Hooray for women directors.   The overall mood of Fish Tank is TENSE.  Like, really tense.  For me anyway. I kept waiting for crazy shit to happen.  It was kind of...hard for me to watch, especially alone without anyone to share the emotions with.

It was really interesting that this film wasn't in widescreen...a lot of people on IMDB weren't feelin' it, but I didn't mind.

Fish Tank is good. Like, really good. It follows troubled teen Mia in a slum somewhere in the UK.  She likes to dance.  etc etc.  It was one of the few films I've seen lately that made me actually want to see what people were saying about it, so I went to see what the chatter was like on the IMDB board (even though the boards on IMDB are populated by trolls and morons).  There were some people comparing it to An Education, and I totally agree.  Fish Tank is a good An Education.

Lincoln Lawyer groupon

So, today on Groupon they have tickets to The Lincoln Lawyer for $7.  UH, LOL?  Does anybody else find this kind of hilarious for some reason?  Still..not a bad price if you were planning on seeing it anyway. I considered purchasing the groupon after seeing that the film is doing OK on Rotten Tomatoes...but really, I'm not much of a Matthew McConaughey fan.  If anything I guess I'll see it on Netflix...but the deal is out there for those who want it!

Ladri di Biciclette

Bicycle Thieves.  Is pretty sad.  A down on his luck guy chasing all over Rome trying to find his stole bike.  All before the bike gets stolen in the beginning of the movie you know it's going to be stolen and you have all this anxiety about it as an audience member.

This may be a blaspheme, but I think a loose remake in modern day NYC might be kinda cool.

Another blaspheme, but I also did find this kinda slow.  I don't much care for older Italian cinema (SHOOT ME), I guess I don't "get" it.  I do watch it anyway, though.

The subtitles on the netflix streaming version of this suck.

The French Connection

The French Connection is basically a movie about a couple of cops who tail these drug dealers around NYC or as the boss dude in the film puts it, they "go all around town jerking off" (paraphrase)...and yet it is so much more than that.  There is something really interesting about the camera work in The French Connection, like how they filmed a hat in the back of a car or a girls feet peddling a bicycle.  There is also  a very subtle humor in the film that I really liked.  My favorite scene was them tearing the car apart looking for drugs.  Somehow, that was really fascinating.  Oh! And the "Tailing Frog 1" scene was funny, too.

PS. More pictures of Chickenproof at SFIAFF have come to light.  Here is me, director of Chubby Can Kill my homie Kevin Ung & my homie Kathleen at  the Chickenproof screening @ New People. Yep, great pose from me, eh?  That's what I look like.  I am the most photogenic person on the PLANET.

OMG BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Drag me to Hell

Drag me to Hell was OK.  I'm not really a huge Sam Raimi fan, although I did enjoy the first of The Evil Dead.  The ending for Drag me to Hell was kind of...bleak.  I kind of thought angry gypsy lady was like, awful.  YOU WON'T GIVE ME A FREE PASS WELL DIE...!  Uh, what?

Also, am I weird for thinking Justin Long is kinda hot?

Pink Floyd the Wall

Amidst all the excitement lately I made it to a midnight showing of Pink Floyd the Wall at Camera 3. I probably won't make it out to another midnight movie until Rock 'n' Roll High School in July.  I'd never seen The Wall, but I am familiar with Pink Floyd's music in a cursory way.  I actually think Dark Side of the Moon is a better album, but what can you do?

I thought the animated sequences were really great.  You can really tell that animation director Gerald Scarfe worked in political cartoons....the animation from the film had the same sort of drippy, evil looking feel that political cartoons get.

The whole concept is kind of overwrought, but I think that anyone who's ever felt really sad can get understand what Roger Waters is trying to get at... "The Wall" as a metaphor seems almost too easy, but at the same time you can't think of anything more apt.  It's something insurmountable, uniform, soulless...it is the problem, but we're all a part of it.  And blah, blah blah.

Cinequest 2011

WELL, Cinequest is over once again!  A friend was gonna hook me up with a pass to encore day, but they weren't really showing the programs I wanted to see.  Boo!  I missed The Dead and Madly in Love and, of course, the showing of Nosferatu (1922).  I really regret that one the most. It's one of my favorite films of all time and I really should've made time for it!  Well, for the Cinequest events/films I did attend...it was real.

Chickenproof

On Friday I headed out with a couple of friends to the Chickenproof shorts program at the SFIAAFF to see my friend Kevin Ung's short, Chubby Can Kill.  The program was at New People, a sort of gallery-cum-cafe-cum-shop-cum-cinema in San Francisco.  I'd been before, it's a cool spot, but I'd never had the chance to see anything at the Viz Cinema (they show Japanese films!) prior to this event.  I hope to catch more in the coming months.

The theme of the night as I interpreted it seemed to be unlikely heroes and surprise endings.  

cool poster

Masala Mama was the first film; a funny little comic book themed short.

Next up was Junko's Shamisen.  This was filmed with an interesting mix of live action, stop motion and animation...it looked really cool.  The story was a sort of Japanese fairy tale (not sure if it's a real one).  It was a kind of a cool Japanese/Canadian vibe with parts in English and Japanese.  This one showed at SXSW too!

Hang in There was a stop motion using paper dolls...it looks a lot cooler in motion than it does in the above picture.  It was cute/disturbing...I think this was a music video, I can't find it on IMDB!  

For some reason I couldn't find Gophers in Space on IMDB, either.  At first I was like "eh" about this, but the surprise ending was funny enough to win me over.  It feels like something that probably started as a joke between friends and became a movie.

Amazonia was another CG short.  It was cute and entertaining and it's clear that a lot of work, heart, and soul went into this short!

To Wander in Pandemonium  was cool in spite of the slightly overwrought title.  This was one of the two most professional looking films screened that night.  I discovered during the Q&A that the director, Edward Kim , went to UCLA (my alma matter, although I did not study film).  COOL~?

The Godmother was a sort of action-comedy-parody-homage to both The Godfather and Jersey Shore (from what I could tell).  This was a USC thesis film...they always say that film students at USC get a lot of money to work with, and it really showed with this film, I think.  It looked really professional and I enjoyed it. We actually had a chance to converse with the director and the producer after the screening and they were both really cool.

Finally, my friend's film Chubby Can Kill was the last film screened.  It's about a fat guy ^ who decides to take control of shit, etc.  It was funny and I really liked the color palette in the scenes in the video shop.  I thought the acting was all quite good too and that "Chubby" did particularly well/was funny.  It wouldn't have worked out without him, I don't think!  I was really glad to finally see my friend's film!  It's crazy to think that we all pretty much grew up together.

Some shots of New People--

my camera sucks. this is my friend Tammy, who was kind enough to drive...but my camera made her the same color as the orange walls ^^;

the theater interior is pretty snazzy with light decorations.  a bit much for a theater, but still cool.

Q&A after the screenings.

cool chandelier detail.

極道恐怖大劇場 牛頭

Somehow during the past few busy days I found time to watch Gozu (cow's head).  I've seen many of Takashi Miike's other films and have usually enjoyed them...and I really loved Gozu.  The film is like a weird dream or trip on mushrooms...the hero just keeps meeting weird person after weird person and strange thing after strange thing happens.  But in a good way. I think that in the last few years Japanese cinema has gotten to weird for its own good (Gozu came out in 2003, though).  Trying to top the last bizarre thing with something even more depraved gets old, but Gozu is genuinely like "WTF LOL."  Terrible, but accurate review.  Awesome.

PS: If I were the type to pray, I would about the earthquake in Japan.  So sad :'( ugh

SFIAFF Opening Night Gala

I was last minute invited to the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival opening night gala by an old friend, Kevin Ung (you can read about Kevin's thoughts on the gala here), whose short, Chubby Can Kill, is playing at the festival.  I'm super thankful that Kevin invited me, because I'd never really gone to an event like this.  It was...interesting.  We met all types...directors...wanna-bes..."been there done that the world is so passe" types...everyone.  

The event was held at the Asian Art Museum.  A great museum and a logical choice for an Asian Am film festival party...but I'm not sure the small foyer is the best place to cram so many people!  The whole museum was available for perusal as well, though.  There were plenty of free drinks and  hors d'oeuvres, and it was fun.

sponsored by Toyota

some museum shots. a great time to get them because it wasn't crowded with regular patrons.

We me this guy, James ^ who was really interesting. I saw a man leaning against the wall in overalls not talking to anybody and I was thinking he was an employee or something.  We walked up to him and struck up a conversation and it turned out that he is just a dude from San Francisco that loves Asian cinema.  We spent a lot of time talking with him about film and he was really interested in Kevin's short.  I am so glad we talked to this guy.

After they told everyone "party's over, get the hell out of the museum", I bummed a cigarette from some people who looked in-the-know outside and figured out where the afterparty was through them.  Seriously, bumming a cigarette is my best social tactic.  I'm not really even a smoker anymore but it's a great way to strike up a conversation.  The afterparty was at Passion Cafe, a bar kinda straddling the Civic Center/sketchy Tenderloin district.  There we met and conversed with many interesting people.  It was great.

A blogger revealed.  This is me with one of the actors from West is West, the opening night film that we unfortunately did not make it out to...! I loved his look, I think he has an intense face so I really wanted a picture.  Me, on the other hand...I just looked faded in this picture (hence the pound sign).