Purity, Song, Jade Miike has a pretty solid pattern. He makes films for a distinctly Japanese audience, teasing out some issue or two that seems culturally rooted. This is his context. He shifts it into a magical, cinematic world and imagines scenes as episodes within this containing structure. So we get impressed by the big… Continue reading The Bird People in China (1998)
Tag: p2010
Comments first posted in 2010
Billy Elliott (2000)
Battle Dancer This is a replacement comment. Though the dance was passable here, the story is so vapid and unembellished, I sat there looking for another movie. And I found one, battling to get out. It was clever and true, overlooked because of the mediocrity placed in front of it. You can find the tragedy… Continue reading Billy Elliott (2000)
So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
Green Haggis Sometimes a movie only develops worth after a subsequent movie worked. I myself disliked “Shrek” because of the underhanded attempt to undermine the Disney/Pixar alliance, and the smarmy Bill Gates strategy. But some people did like it, largely because of the voices and key to that was the Scots’ version of Shrek. Apparently,… Continue reading So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
Better Living Through Circuitry (1999)
Honest Music, Dishonest Business Social trends are often shaped by strange overlaps in market forces. You have to have a steady stream of “artists” who are compelled to do their thing, driven primarily by an urge to express. We have that in this music, because the barriers to entry are exceedingly low, so any untrained… Continue reading Better Living Through Circuitry (1999)
Before Midnight (1933)
The Written Mystery The early thirties was a time of great experimentation with the detective narrative, leading eventually to noir. This is one of those experiments, and a rather fine one. It has a framing device where an old cop is telling a young one about the famous case from some time back and how… Continue reading Before Midnight (1933)
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Chicken Out Herzog is important to me. He seeks out situations that have recoil, he takes chances and makes honest choices. His being is broken, and that means the choices and the power of the situations affect me. But sometimes he works with a situation that doesn’t have psychic danger. Sometimes he makes bad choices.… Continue reading Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
Space There are from time to time successful presentations in the sense that the characters work. You understand them well enough to have some genuine acceptance of their reality as humans, but that means you realise that there are things going on that do not have straight-line causal mechanics. This inscrutable humanness gets you past… Continue reading Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
Beautiful Losers (2008)
Slacker Art Here is a wonderful little niche genre. Movies are essentially striving to art. Few qualify. Almost no one can manage the complex juggling act that it takes. It just involves too many people, too many risks, too many dependencies on happy accidents. But the fact that film CAN BE art is what underlies… Continue reading Beautiful Losers (2008)
Beautiful Kate (2009)
Writer’s Blocks In the last year, I saw a film (“In My Father’s Den“) with much the same themes. In that New Zealand film, a man, a celebrated war correspondent returns to his rural home on the death of his father. There are significant unresolved frictions between father and son. The returning man had sex… Continue reading Beautiful Kate (2009)
Bad Taste (1987)
The World as Hamburger Sometimes, if we are lucky, a film plants itself deep in our souls and thrives there. Other times, a film is something different: an invitation to a party in the world of the filmmaker. In that case, it cannot touch you and as long as you know there is no danger… Continue reading Bad Taste (1987)