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.

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.

A Canterbury Tale

I haven't read Chaucer, so any references in A Canterbury Tale are lost on me.  This is a mystery story about a man in a village in England who puts glue in women's hair.  Weird premise.  OK, well, that's not what the movie is really about, but that is the main driving plot point.  The film is really more about the characters.  The story is set against the backdrop of WWII.  How did I like it? Wellllll....OK.

Traffic

Traffic  is really great.  Great cast.  I love the color scheme as well.  While I was watching, I was thinking that it should've ended at the press conference, but the actual ending was so much better and much  more uplifting.  Oh, and one of the ugliest Criterion DVD covers I've ever seen.

The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

I almost didn't make it to one of the screenings of The Importance of Being Earnest.  I'm glad I did, though.  This is the last movie on the current calendar for the Stanford Theatre that I will likely go see.  The Importance of Being Earnest is funny. And damn are the dresses absurd ^  

Heaven can Wait (1943)

they really used to dress male babies like this, i guess

This evening I was lucky enough (very lucky!) to see a special nitrate technicolor print screening of  Heaven can Wait at The Stanford Theater.  This was exciting, and a lot of people came out for this screening!  The place was packed.  The colors were, of course, beautiful.  I really enjoyed this movie.  It was funny  (actually, very funny) and touching.

There's a new burger joint, Workshop Burgers, newly open next door, too.  Hopefully I can check it out next week when I go to see The Importance of Being Earnest.

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.

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Awesome poster, too:

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.

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.

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.  

拳銃は俺のパスポート

I def. watched this while wearing my snuggie.

So, I've finally finished the Nikkatsu noir boxset & A Colt is my Passport (cool title, eh?) was my hands-down favorite.  If you watch one movie from this boxset, watch this.  The other movies are really only of niche interest...the boxset is a great gift for any hardcore Japanese film fans or noir fans, but otherwise they're not of general interest.  

Anyway, this movie is one of Jo Shishido's best.  The film has a lot of beautiful shots.  I also liked the music--kind of a lonely Spanish/western sort of soundtrack with a lot of horns.  The final shoot out is great and shot in an empty landscape so the action speaks for itself.  It's a nice change of pace from the usual shootouts where people are hiding behind things and it's just bullets ricocheting everywhere.

main theme:

poster:

Cruel Gun Story

Watching more of the  Nikkatsu noir box set.  Cruel Gun Story was my favorite thus far (I have one movie left to watch).  I really liked the film's ending.  It starred Jo Shishido, who is a personal favorite.  He's the guy who got the cheek implants to make his face more interesting:

And interesting it was!  Also interesting:  Jo Shishido's official website, DIRTY JOKER (in Japanese).

This t-shirt is for sale on his website.  I need to figure out a way to buy it!!

錆びたナイフ

Rusty Knife.  Another one from the Nikkatsu noir box set.  My complaint about the box set is that the stories kind of all have the same ending...bad guy who you thought was a good guy that gets killed by some deus ex machina device.  Yujiro Ishihara has some fucked up teeth and sometimes it makes it hard to understand his facial expressions...is that a smile? A snarl? Hrm.  There are some cool scenes in this.  Worth a watch for noir fans.

その護送車を狙え

Take Aim at the Police Van was directed by Seijun Suzuki, my favorite direct of all time.  ALL TIME.  It's a lot more straightforward than his other works (read: it makes sense).  It's just a standard noir story, but Japanese.  If you like noir and you like Japanese cinema, this is the flick for you!  I own the DVD--got it with the Nikkatsu noir box set when Criterion was having one of their sales.  Now to watch the rest of the set!

宮本武蔵

Musashi Miyamoto was a famous Japanese swordsman.  Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto is the first in a trilogy about him...the origin story.  Miyamoto is played by the great Toshiro Mifune.  I thought all the actors did a great job with facial expressions.  Example:

Now to see the next two movies!

二十四の瞳

Twenty-Four Eyes is a sentimental movie following a woman who teachers in a far-flung island of Japan and her first group of students as they grow up through WWII.  The movie has many scenes with children's folk songs, and those really elevate the film and made it one of my favorites.  There are so many songs it's almost like a musical.  The look into rural Japanese life is interesting as well.  I am not sure what the status of this film is in Japan, but it has all the makings of being something like a Japanese It's a Wonderful Life or The Sound of Music ... just a classic remembered fondly by all.  A must for all fans of Japanese cinema.

one of the songs:

晩春

Late Spring is the usual Ozu family drama with his usual actors.  I thought it started off too slowly and too quaint (even the music is terribly, gratingly quaint), but the story eventually captured my interest.  The "drama" involved surrounds a woman, Noriko, who doesn't want to get married and the pressures the people around her are putting on her.  This is something many young women (myself included) should be able to relate to, but the Noriko's motivations are never really made clear, making her a borderline unlikeable character.  The story also centers around her relationship with her father, played by Chishu Ryu, who is a delightful actor with a happy face.  There are many subtly filmed moments of the father's story that were done extremely well.  There are also some "Japanese slice of life" scenes that are of interest (eg a noh performance, tea ceremony).  All in all a must for fans of Japanese postwar stories.  I enjoyed this more than Tokyo Story.