Movie Review : What's A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?

A Martin Scorsese Original! Student Film Now On Youtube!

Here it is.

Made in 1963, this 9-minute, Black-and-White, Eclectic Piece shows just what the guy is made of. A Dead-pan Dark Comedy, it follows the life of Algernon (Harry to his friends), an aspiring writer, and what happens to him after he acquires a painting of a boat. Well he gets obsessed with it, thats what happens! He tries to get over it, to reclaim what little life he had, to write at all, but to no avail. He goes to an analyst (Ah, the sixties,) holds parties, gets laid, gets married, goes on honeymoon, has children, but is still obsessed :(

Eventually, he becomes so obsessed, well, you can probably guess what's coming. Or maybe not. Watch the film. It's as funny as only the Dead Pan-est of comedians can be, has Excellent Avant-Garde Direction (lets see who can identify all the Scorsese fixtures!) Editing of the kind that can only be found in the fifties or very good parodies of Narrative-driven, documentary style films of the period, and the Script! This from Scorsese? Who knew!

Seriously, Watch It!

That link again, is.

Movie Review : Rhapsody In August

I finally popped my Kurosawa Cherry and I have to say, it was a little disappointing. Not nearly as long as I would have liked, no intensity, and I can't believe I had to wait half an hour before - Anyway, here it goes.

Rhapsody In August, 1991, is one of Akira Kurosawa's last films. It could be said to be one of his weakest films (just my luck) but is nevertheless well-made, and a good story. The film centers around an old lady, Grandma Kane, a Hibakusha, and her four Grandchildren one summer in her home in the mountains near Nagasaki. Kane is a Bomb survivor (that's what Hibakusha means) and a Bomb widow - her husband was teaching in a school near Ground Zero on the day. Forty-five years later, they get a letter from Hawaii, from someone claiming to be Kane's older brother, who moved away before the war and built a Pineapple Empire (Those Damn Imperialist Japs!) from scratch. The kids' parents go to visit them, leaving them with Grandma, who doesn't really remember her 10 brothers and sisters, and frankly, doesn't care.

Here is where you really start seeing what the film is about - The Generation Gap, their differences in viewpoints, the clothes they wear, things like that.

The kids (who wear jeans and t-shirts with American brands on them) have a difficult time adjusting to life in their Grandma's simple country home, where they are bored out of their skulls. Their primary concern is convincing Grandma to agree to go to Hawaii, because that would be so cool. They reconnect with the Nagasaki Situation, because earlier it was something they just read about in school. They visit Ground Zero, and their Grandfather's school, where a mangled, half-melted jungle-gym is left as monument to those who died on August 9 (Some critics have said this sequence, among some others, seemed to antagonize Americans and showed a very biased, one-sided view of the War; but personally I feel it was a depiction of the Aftermath of the War.)

Grandma, almost stereotypically, really enjoys taking care of her children, and telling them stories of her younger days - about the day of the Bombing, the Kappas in the waterfall, and her brothers. The children, though attentive, seem to have a hard time to actually connect to the situation (but the children were definitely weak characters and were mainly in the film to either listen to Grandma Kane or narrate about Nagasaki) The children are best seen as a representation of the third generation (Sansei, Look at me go!) after the Bomb, showing that they care, while still being hopelessly disconnected, and of course, still being kids from the eighties.

Kane's children return from Hawaii, raving about their new rich relatives; revealing something else about Human Nature, and (I guess) the Japanese equivalent of Baby-Boomers. They hadn't told the Hawaiians about Grandpa dying because of the Bomb, in case they offend them (and more importantly cause them to lose their possible Pineapple Plantation jobs), but they find out anyway, because of a telegram Grandma sent.

The Hawaiian brother's son, Clark (Richard Gere), who is a Second-Generation Japanese American (Nissei, I'm getting really good at this) comes when he finds out, and expresses his sorrow over not realizing it before. There is a scene where he first meets Grandma Kane, and apologises for not doing much for his Aunt, to which she replies "That's all right" in Japanese, and "Sank You Bery Much" in English, which was again taken by critics to be depicting an American apologizing to a Japanese for the Bomb, failing to see it as a Japanese-American apologizing to a Family Member, for personal reasons. Clark's visit, Kane's children's dreams of riches, are stopped short when they receive a telegram telling him of his father's (Kane's Brother's) death. Kane feels deeply for this, apologizes for not meeting her brother one last time before his death, after which she starts reliving the past, braving the storm to go to Nagasaki to find her husband in the final scene.

I couldn't find any of the famed Kurosawa trademarks except for the use of the Weather to forward the story and reflect emotions, and the fine authenticity of the costuming and other 'minor' props. Not a single wipe, in other words.

The film contains some memorable scenes, such as the one where Kane's friend comes to meet her, to remember those who died on the day, and they sit across from each other, talking by being completely silent; When they hold the memorial at the Buddhist shrine Kane goes to, and the youngest grandchild sees a line of ants from the shrine to a blazing pink rose, referencing a song the children keep singing, Schubert's 'Heidenroselein'. And of course the final scene of the film, where Kane is seen walking into the torrential rain, with just her frail umbrella for protection, while her grandchildren run after her; the absolute final scene being Kane marching against the storming rain, her umbrella turned inside out by the wind, resembling a flower, held like a gun, with the strains of the Heidenroselein song heard in the background.

I still don't know what the song actually means, but it makes for one helluva scene.

Not exactly what I expected of Kurosawa, but still worth a watch. His older stuff is much better I've heard.

Here's a collection of better reviews for the film.

Book Review : The Manticore's Secret

I don't know why I do this to myself. This among other things.
Fool me once and all that.

The Manticore's Secret is the sequel to Simoqin (See the post on that if you want to know how I feel about that) and is just as dissappointing. I still don't know why I did this, I can't even read it for more than a couple hours each day, took me like a few to get through the whole, damned, 500 pages of black ink, self-indulgent, somyGodssoHollow I can hear the irrelevant echoes of Yuppie Git ringing through my head even now. I would die inside if it weren't for you Mama Cass.
You should ignore that last part if you aren't Mama Cass.

The plot follows Kirin, Maya, Asvin, Spikes, Djongli, Amloki, (introducing) Red and a myriad of Exciting! characters through what I'm sure the author would like to think is an intricate plot but is really just confused (too many loose ends, too much presumption, if X always knew A about Y, as stated on pg 376, e.g, why didn't they do something about it before, like say pg 10, or even when everybody was just lying around waiting? If J is possible, why hasn't it been seen before? If everybody is not to be trusted, in this labyrinthan exploration of political intrigue, why do they, even though they know what the other is trying to do to them? Do you really expect us to believe you aren't making this up you as you go along? and so on)

New characters introduced every few pages, creatures introduced as soon as the author can finish reading his 'reference' books (nudge-nudge wink-wink), an inherently stupid (and downright offensive, to me at least) mixture of High Fantasy and Pop Culture referential humor (Scary Movie 3, Epic Movie, and the like) (My Gods the Matrix most of all. And he didn't even take the good parts, just the fight sequences. Stupid Stupid Stupid.)

And I'm really not trying to get personally here (cause then the shit would really start flying) but Godssakes Man Read A Book! A Real One! There Is A Place To Experiment and Prolesytize, But This Is Not It! Collect Your Thoughts, For One. Everything doesn't have to be all or nothing, End-of-the-World, Meaning of Life shtick. Especially not stories stapled together from bits of your favourite books from when you were fourteen (or older perhaps, I dont this guy, but seems a lot like me) held together by people you made out of cardboard.

Or maybe I'm just upset I paid 300 bucks for it, I don't know.


P.S. - If anyone (who has read the book, although I strongly suspect the only one who reads this blog ever will be V) was wondering about the Chubbies (ugh) they're TeleTubbies crossed with creatures from Galaxy Quest (Alan Rickman, Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, you remember.)

Movie Review : The Simpsons Movie

Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig,
Does Whatever A Spider-Pig Does,
Can He Swing, From A Web?
No He Can't, He's A Pig.
Look Out, He's Spider-Pig

Now how can you not laugh at that?
Maybe if it was someone other than Homer Simpson doing it.
Well, a smile at least.
There you go.

The Simpsons Movie (Drumroll Please!) can be called the work of 17 years and many, many fine artists come to fruition; or, alternatively, another merchandizing shtick by the Fox Corporation to cash in on the Simpsons before people get too brainwashed on Family Guy.
Either way, It's about time! The Simpsons Movie is 87 minutes of Good Old Fashioned Irreverant DisFUNctional Family Fun! Also Including Thrills! Chills! Satire! Prophecies! Itchy And Scratchy! Self-Parody! Underage Frontal Nudity! The Environment! And Spider-Pig!
Spiderpig, Spiderpig....

Ha Ha Ha Anyway, the film follows roughly the same format for a regular Simpsons episode - The Family goes somewhere, which leads to something happening, either to, or because of them, which leads to something else happening (all of this takes about half the time of the whole show,) and the rest of the show is spent trying to fix what they did because of the first thing. In this case it was Green Day Concert, Environment-Protection Measures, Dome Put Over Town To Prevent Leak Of Deadly Mutanagenic Pollutants, Saving Town From Imminent Annihilation, in that order. I'm not going to go into details, I'm sick of that.

Well, OK, but just a few gags and thats it. You're gonna have to see the film to find out about Cargill and Boobie-Lady.
The film opens with an Itchy and Scratchy episode to end all I&C episodes, revealing the lust for power and glory present in the hearts of all mice. Later, we see Homer daring Bart to skateboard naked through the streets of springfield (and dares the universe to protect his modesty, so to speak) (Look, Just watch the film, OK) and Homer riding a bike in a 'Maut Ka Gola!' (if anyone remembers their Circuses right.) And SpiderPig of course.

But the gags are just the tacky highlights, the spit that really holds the hair together is the strain of Love and Family that form the back-current of the story - The complex relationship of a couple after years of marriage, the questioning of a father's love after years of alienation, and, uh, I'm sure Lisa and Maggie are in there somewhere as well.

But really, the film is a true embodiement (emfilmment didn't really sound right, so...) of the Simpsons Series. It's particular form of Satire, (which by the way, still hasn't been truly ripped-off. People have tried, but failed. Badly.) is still intact in the film (which is more than I can say for some of the newer episodes) all the while maintaining a timeless quality. The plot follows the usual arc for a half-hour episode, except on a much larger scale, but not enough to be considered a milestone (other than of course, being the First Simpsons Movie.)
According to sources, the film underwent almost a hunded script changes, many during production, which almost never happens in an animated film due to budget concerns. If anyone remembers many things from the older theatrical trailer were also cut from the movie. Matt Groening has gone on record saying that almost two film's worth of material was cut from the film, but would be included in the DVD (Sources linked on Wikipedia Page).

Last paragraph-ly, recommended for Simpson's fans who miss the older episodes, recommended for fans who like the newer ones, recommended for noobs who want to see what the big deal is about. Very little of the humor is Pop-Culture-Specific, and even then plays on the image of the US as held by the Right Minded People (who not long ago really were Right Minded People, but are now Left Minded People.) The subtle humor of the film (as opposed to Naked Skateboarding and Mutant Squirells) tackles the Simpsons' two favourite topics, Politics and Religion. But, to be more on the point, it takes on the Simpsons themselves, what they have put up with all these years, how they have grown, and how they will move forward.
As Maggie puts it in the Easter Egg over the credits - "Sequel."