I caught a couple of Japanese flicks at the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday that were pretty good. GATE OF HELL is considered a classic and it is basically a story of unrequited love set in the 16th century. Not bad, not great.

The find, though, was Shohei Imamura's INTENTIONS OF MURDER from '64. Unlike GOH, I had never seen INTENTIONS before, but had heard about it and had been curious to see it. Just a terrific film that was original and way, way ahead of its time. It was comedic, melodramic, said all at the same time. I don't even know how to describe the film. It reminded me a bit of Bresson's MOUCHETTE or at least the protagonist did.

i just saw Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, first in the trilogy that includes oldboy. It wasn't as good as good as oldboy, and a bit too gory if you ask me, but it had the same high caliber of acting from oldboy and was a good representation of the power of revenge

quote:

Originally posted by LordSmoogsbottomIII:
i just saw Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, first in the trilogy that includes oldboy. It wasn't as good as good as oldboy, and a bit too gory if you ask me, but it had the same high caliber of acting from oldboy and was a good representation of the power of revenge

I actually liked SYMPATHY a little more than OLD BOY, but enjoyed both films. I caught SYMPATHY back in '03 at a Film Festival and liked it quite a bit, though I didn't completely follow it. It reminded me of that Kurosawa film, HIGH AND LOW or the BAD SLEEP WELL. I can't keep those two straight.

In fact, SYMPATHY was only the first or second Korean film I'd ever seen. Korean Cinema has come of age in recent years and in the last couple of years I've seen a pile of good Korean films that are getting commercial, albeit very limited, releases in the U.S.

2 days ago I saw "Bad Education" (La Mala Educación). Hitchcock-like movie. Keeps you guessing and trying to figure out what the hell's goin on.

I also saw "Sex & Lucía" a couple weeks ago. Meh

The Return [Zvyagintsev, 2003, Grade:B]

This debut feature film from its director is so full of so much intense, universal, allegorical beauty that it's difficult to describe. First off, it's one of the most unique films I've ever seen. The thing that's weird about it is that it's so haunting, so accessible and so entertaining that it's hard to believe it's so unique.

Basically it's a coming-of-age film. You can accept it as complete realism, allegory or both. I deny anyone (who hasn't seen it) to predict what happens, and even more importantly, to tell me why and what it means. This is one of those unique flicks which is just a beautiful cinematic experience, whether you think you completely understand it or not. I know lots of people who think that it's normal to enjoy something incomprehensible. Well, trust me. This ain't incomprehensible. Maybe it's ultracomprehensible.

You guys, tell me what you think of this thing because I believe more movies should be like this, and maybe it will help you make something in a similar vein.

Sad Note: The kid who played the older brother mysteriously died on the lake where the film was shot shortly after its release. R.I.P. Vladimir Garin.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
The Return [Zvyagintsev, 2003, Grade:B]

This debut feature film from its director is so full of so much intense, universal, allegorical beauty that it's difficult to describe. First off, it's one of the most unique films I've ever seen. The thing that's weird about it is that it's so haunting, so accessible and so entertaining that it's hard to believe it's so unique.

Basically it's a coming-of-age film. You can accept it as complete realism, allegory or both. I deny anyone (who hasn't seen it) to predict what happens, and even more importantly, to tell me why and what it means. This is one of those unique flicks which is just a beautiful cinematic experience, whether you think you completely understand it or not. I know lots of people who think that it's normal to enjoy something incomprehensible. Well, trust me. This ain't incomprehensible. Maybe it's ultracomprehensible.

You guys, tell me what you think of this thing because I believe more movies should be like this, and maybe it will help you make something in a similar vein.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but I saw this film and while I found it interesting I didn't like it as much as you did. This was the film where the father takes his two kids on a journey, right? Kind of interesting, but a bit inpenetrable.

I caught on video last night a Chinese film from '94 called RED FIRECRACKER, GREEN FIRECRACKER from '94 that apparently was released in the U.S. commercially but that somehow I missed. It is actually a very good film about unrequited love between a rich Chinese woman, who can't marry because of the rules regarding her inheritance, and her lover, a painter who works for her. The film goes into all the things that drive them apart, including the heavy who works for her who is jealous when the painter comes into her life. A real sleeper.

2046 - Chinese. I saw In the Mood For Love , which this is the sequel to, and liked it, but this totally blew it away. The cinematography is fantastic, and the main character has become way more of a badass than he was in the first.

City Of Lost Children - French. Bizarre, surreal fantasy/scifi. Looks like something by Terry Gilliam mixed with The Triplets Of Belleville, but not a cartoon.

Le Samourai - French. The story is about a hitman, but the film is set on making itself less interesting than a bucket of sand. I know it was a deliberate stylistic choice to make this movie have no style and no characters. What a bullshit, ass way to make a movie.

quote:

Originally posted by Buck "Sweetie" McGuck:
Le Samourai - French. The story is about a hitman, but the film is set on making itself less interesting than a bucket of sand. I know it was a deliberate stylistic choice to make this movie have no style and no characters. What a bullshit, ass way to make a movie.

Wow. Different strokes for different folks. This film is considered a classic and was directed by one of my favorites, the very influential Jean Pierre Melville. This is kind of an existential thriller and was arguably Alain Delon's best role. The film really captured the French demimonde. You may want to take another look at this one.

I figured, since Le Samourai was a Criterion DVD and since Ebert loved it, that it's some kind of well respected film. But was this ever a transparently amateur pile. I stand by that statement.

Head On - German/Turkish. Two Turks living in Germany get married as a ploy to get the girl's parents out of her hair. At first they don't take their own marriage seriously, but the movie takes some interesting turns. Very much a European independent film, especially when looking at the amateurish handheld digital cinematography, and the beautiful urban European locations.

quote:

Originally posted by Buck "Sweetie" McGuck:
2046 - Chinese. I saw In the Mood For Love , which this is the sequel to, and liked it, but this totally blew it away. The cinematography is fantastic, and the main character has become way more of a badass than he was in the first.

Wong Kar Wai's 2046 is an awesome film. It is just too beautiful, like a sincerely read poem or an abstract painting. The colors are so striking, the future scenes are fantastic, and the acting is superb. Not enough credit is given to Faye Wong, the California Dreaming girl from WKW's Chungking Express. To me, she had the most interesting story: being torn between her Japanese lover and Tony Leung and her conflicts with her father, but also not being able to express her love in the future, or at least in the mind of the novelist, because she is an android. The whole movie is like a pile of snapshots randomly placed in line to create a spontaneaous story, or montage of stories. Still, 2046 is just a fantastic movie. Although I still think In The Mood For Love was better, as far as having a structured narrative and better developed characters. I read in Premiere that 2046 was done without any written dialogue or script. WKW just had them adlib their lines. That makes the intrigue of the movie even more interesting.

I finally finished the 4 movie,The Pinky Violence Collection dvd set tonight. Nothing like some Japanese female exploitation films to warm the cold winter night.

Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess has some reform school gals trying to adjust back into society. When the father of one such girl is being harassed by the yakuza (Japanese mafia), trouble is sure to follow. This film has groovy written all over it- from the music to the go-go dancers. If you like kitsch, you'll love this flick.

Criminal Woman: Killing Melody again has former prison chums reuniting for revenge against the yakuza. The body count is higher in this film- both bloody dead and beautiful living type. The top attraction is Miki Sugimoto who goes on to the "Zero Woman" series from here.

Girl Boss Guerilla- okay, now we're talking girl biker gangs, catfights galore! The fights and punishment (and recovery from punishment) are sometimes cartoonish but who cares with all these gorgeous girls fighting one another as well as the dumbest yakuza dudes in any of the three films so far.

Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom. This begins with a blood draining of some poor student in the reform school's science lab. No yakuza here, the bad guys are the school principals and the local politicians. Three new deliquent babes decide to take on the the corrupt administrators as well as the school's all-girl discipline squad.

I hope there will be a sequel to this collection, I truly enjoyed it.

Based on your review, I'm thinkin' that we must need an icon to denote major wad-shootin'.

I saw Cache in a theater twice, which is very interesting and effective. On video I watched Ballad of a Soldier, which is a beautiful classic Russian film set during WWII.

Belle De Jour - The wife of a rich doctor is bored so she becomes a prostitute. Or was it all in her mind? Spoiler: it was.

This movie was kinda okay, but it doesn't change my opinion that French movies from the sixties are quite bullshit.

Turtles Can Fly - Kurdish children in Iraq retain tremendous passion for life despite every reason not to. It's an inspiring film about the spirit of life.

Cache, it means hidden and it is truly an incredible film. A psychological thriller in the true sense of the word, it burrows into your sense of well-being and slowly but surely tears it apart. It centers around an upper-middle family being terrorized by an unknown person videotaping their house for hours at night. While this premise may seem trite, it is far from it in its execution. The father, an academic, believes the best option is for him to handle the situation himself but ultimately for all of his mental capacity and logic, he resorts to the most base and meaningless threats to get his way. The mother dispairs at her husband's secretive investigation of the matter to which she is in the dark over. Meanwhile their son is merely a pawn in all of this. Each scene is so filled with a sense of claustrophobia and foreboding that when a truly shocking thing happens the payoff is unbelievably haunting. The videotapes lead the husband to go back to a mistake he made in the past conscerning an Algerian boy he knew when he was a child and confront it but to say more would ruin the surprise. Ultimately the film works both as a statement on humanity itself and as an allegory to the French-Algerian situation. I recommend you watch the last scene in front of the school carefully, because it basically holds the entire key to the movie in it(look up and to the right).

for the past weeks all im doing is to watch some good foreign films that i know and i dont care if i stay up all night watching it...

the last one i saw was "ran" by akira kurosawa
this movie is 150 mins. long and i must admit i got soo bored while watching it i almost fell asleep! but i survived and finish it. it was boring on the first part, so boring that you could almost stand on your sit and go someplace where there is no tv and esp. ran is not the movie their watching. i know some for some people who seen and appreciate the movie might say "are you kidding?". and thats for sure.
but if your really going to focus on it the story is about the relation of a father to his three sons, i think the climax on the film was on the last part when saburo died and so as his father. and i must give credit to akira kurisawa, the fighting scene was so brilliant, so gory, he almost got me there. one of the best battle scene ive saw. to top it all up ran is a beautifully well made film. akira kurosawa prove it again that hes one the greatest directors film industry ever had.

I haven't actually seen Ran yet. I saw Le Parfum d'Yvonne for the second time recently, hadn't seen it in years. It's hard to say why I think it's some kind of classic. Not to be too elusive, but I think it's really all about the sense of touch, and the intense pleasure and pain that can cause us. That, and the fact that watching something too closely can be as bad as not watching it at all. Right, I feel the need for some mint tea...

The Shop on Main Street (Ján Kadár and Elmar Klas, Czechoslovakia, 1965, Grade: A-)

This is a deceptively-powerful film about a Slovakian town during WWII. The key protagonists are the elderly Jewish widow shopowner Rosalie Lautmann (Ida Kaminska) and the poor carpenter Tono (Jozef Króner), who's assigned by his hated fascist brother-in-law to be the "Aryan controller" of the woman's button shop. Most of the Jewish shops in the town are being co-opted by the authorities for their personal fortunes, but Tono's not so lucky since Rosalie's shop has been worthless for years, while the Jewish community has secretly supported her. The Jews agree to pay Tono to keep quiet and help out the old lady who seems a little funny in the head.

The film's sense of place is palpable through wonderful B&W photography with several unique subjective shots and some wonderful dream sequences. The use of sound and music is equally impressive. The acting of Króner and Kaminska is tremendous, as they convey the complete spectrum of human emotions while being caught up in something neither can comprehend.

If you come across this film, be sure to give it your full attention. When it begins, there's a long scene between Tono and his domineering wife, which, while well establishing their characters, is full of dialogue with subtitles flashed at high speed. I'm not saying that it's confusing or anything, but it could be a little frustrating, and it's completely different from the rest of the film. The first half is almost a comedy in the way all the town's characters conflict over the war and what they can or cannot get out of it. But this is one of the most-dramatically-haunting films you will ever see. The final 40 minutes where all the town's Jews are forced on their Sabbath to line up in the square for "processing and transport" is one of the most intense I've seen. Rosalie stays in the shop with Tono, who frantically tries to get her to go outside, not wanting to be considered a Jewish-sympathizer, or a "White Jew". All the time this loud totalitarian voice is booming in the background basically stripping away the last vestiges of humanity from the Jews.

I'm going to stop, but the film works on many levels. Obviously, it's a powerful Holocaust film, but it's also a social satire, a rich character study and will probably stay with you for a very long time. After I finished it, I had to immediately watch it again. Co-director Ján Kadár made other good films (my other fave of his is the underseen Lies My Father Told Me), but I think he made his most memorable with this one.