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- Metropolis
- Wow, we finally saw this. And it was amazing, especially for its
time, but even for now. Except for the ending, which was cheesy.
- Hukkele
- This Hungarian movie which made me hungry for chicken paprikas(h?) (I
will have to attempt to develop a vegetarian version, either that, or find
a way to eat it that fulfills my cultural exception). The sounds were so
beautiful, and the cinematography was drifty and lazy (not in a
the-filmmakers-didn't-put-enough-effort-in way, but in a
laid-back-and-mellow way) and made the audience work at figuring out the
mystery of it all. And I loved the slow, fleshy-armed Hungarian women in
the village. So nice to watch.
- Chinatown
- Ooh, such noir! And the ending wasn't all happiness and joy, either!
And the sets were great and the story was complicated and hell, it's even
timelier than ever, what with Southern California's water woes and all.
Now I want to see The Two Jakes again so that it makes more sense.
- Winged Migration
- Oh man, was this movie wonderful. The birds were graceful and
beautiful and silly, all at once. Oh, the penguins! And the weird birds
that scuttled over the water! And the puffy birds that made funny noises
and bounced into each other! And the poor seabird that got devoured by
crabs! And the eeeevil bird that ate the penguin baby! And the parrot!
And, though we were totally anthropomorphizing, the birds did seem to have
an awful lot of emotions in them. D said he gained a lot more interest in
birdwatching after this movie.
- Comedian
- An odd documentary following Jerry Seinfeld, as the more veteran
comedian, and Orly Adams, as an up-and-coming (and somewhat annoying, with
his neuroses, though somewhat understandably so) comedian. Makes you
appreciate how much preparation they do for even a short gig. But their
fascinating with doing longer and longer sets (with more and more new
material) was a bit strange---like there's some kind of machismo factor
about it.
- Ringu
- The Japanese version of The Ring! Not as scary as the American
version, actually. But still really enjoyable. And I miss Japan.
- Dirty Pretty Things
- A little cheesy, but it was nice seeing a mystery from the point of
view of immigrants/refugees on the run.
- Runaway Jury
- So silly. But it was still fun. Except for the part where I kept
thinking, "Shit. I hope I don't lose the next time I'm in New Orleans. I
have such a good record so far. Oh look, there are all the places I've
been. Bye bye, city of victories."
- Tulse Luper
- I just saw the first part of it (Dave was sleepy and I wanted to spend
awake time with Dave and oh the movie was long). And it was fun, but not
as fun as I'd hoped. And we think Peter Greenaway has gone mad. You could
tell from the way he spoke (he was there), with his ideas of exponentially
expanding the project and stuff. A fun mad, yes, but I worry.
- Demonlover
- This movie was a lot darker than Olivier Assayas's other movie I saw,
Irma Vep. But it was fun, albeit somewhat predictable. But I do want an
I [heart] Gossip T-shirt (the first piece of clothing in a movie that made
me gasp and squeal with desire). Oh, and although the movie contains a
lot of physical violence, what got David most riled up were the antitrust
violations by the corporate criminals. Hah!
- Happenstance
- Yes, yes, Audrey Tatou is very cute, and the movie is adorably quirky.
But I did think Next Stop Wonderland did it all better.
- Bowling for Columbine
- The movie was definitely amusing. But some of the links Michael Moore
attempted to draw between Lockheed and Columbine were quite tenuous. And
I wish that people would recognize the role that the awful social dynamics
of high school played in the shootings.
- Lost in Translation
- Oh this reminded me of Japan, and of my time there. I especially
loved the ending of the movie, so amorphous and real. For some reason,
Charlotte reminded me of my friend Jen Y., her mannerisms, her tone of
voice, even her looks.
- 28 Days Later
- This movie did what a horror movie should do---kept me on the edge of
my seat and stuff. Therefore, yay, it is definitely recommended. Sarah
had some deeper interpretations as well (relating to how the movie
paralleled the evolution of London in World War II) and made a good
argument for it. Which means she's provided the bonus of being able to
think you're deep while watching it too.
- Stalker
- Gosh, what a beautiful film. Slow. But beautiful. The Zone was full
of growth and decay. How did Tarkovsky find these places? I mean, gosh,
I've never seen imagery like that in a movie before. There's this one
scene that's a long, slow pan over the shallow end of lake, where the
bottom is bathroom tiles and debris. Wow. Also, the conversations
between the Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor were wonderful. And
the tone---of hope dangling on the end of a long rope of emptiness---was
amazing. And it had a really great quote at the end: "I would rather live
a bitter happiness that a dull grey life." The negative part was that I
never felt any fear, which I think would've enhanced the movie-watching
experience. Oh well.
- Better Luck Tomorrow
- Okay. So it wasn't deep. So it had its flaws. But deep down inside,
many of us Asian American honor-roll kids dreamed of lives like this, as
badasses with guns. Helped that Ben the protagonist had cute sleepy eyes
("He's an East Asian Ross!" said Ed) and that the female love interest was
an Asian American chick named Stephanie.
- Identity
- So I loved it. So I have a thing for puzzles, twists (however
implausible), and serial killers. Whatever! It was great.
- House of a 1000 Corpses
- A little bit too self-consciously like the 70s slasher flicks (esp.
Cannibal Holocaust), but otherwise pretty amusing. The filmmakers must've
had great fun doing it. It was like they wanted to try out every single
possible filter available. Hilarious, and vibrantly gross, in that
slasher-flick way.
- Cowboy Bebop
- Supposedly the television show is better, but we don't have tv! So
this is all we get. And it was great---the animation was wonderful and
the sound was superb. Problems: the goofy question-mark ending and the
annoying kid and her laughs. And there seemed to be a lot of unfulfilled
potential in the movie---I mean, the bad guy could've been really really
really bad. But he wasn't. Oh well.
- House of Music
- It reminded me of Dfan's House of Ten Dumb Guys (not a movie, just an
actual house). The best parts were about the house band, Tweezer, a
Weezer cover band. They were hilarious.
- Pancho the Bear
- Seen at Visions with Amy and David. Pancho the Bear was scarily like
Amy's Pierre. The resemblence between the bears and their behavior (and
even their human-projected voices!) was frightening. If you know Pierre,
this is a must-see.
- Spider
- I wish I could write crazy script. I think only geniuses and people
who are genuinely crazy can write crazy script. But it's too bad, because
I'd like to write crazy script too.
- That being said, I thought the movie was great. The twist wouldn't've
been predictable had I not known there'd be a twist, but that's my fault
for reading too many reviews. Ralph Fiennes's mumbling was awesome. And
the movie seemed to capture Spider's detective work on his own life
amazingly well.
- Donnie Darko
- Ooh! So fab! I like, of course, the time travel elements. Plus Jake
Gyllenhaal didn't annoy me as much as he did in The Good Girl. Plus
the acting felt just right. And after the end, I really couldn't get
Tears For Fears's Mad World out of my head.
- Modern-Day Racoon War Pompoko
- Again, courtesy of Paul and his dvd purchases. Tanuki, or racoons,
attempt to stop developers from developing the mountain on which they
live. It's goofy and sweet and sad all at the same time, with emphasis on
the goofy. The tanuki can transform, too, which made the animation
effects all the more interesting.
- My Neighbor Totoro
- Because Paul got all these movies from Kim's Underground Video from
New York. This I bugged him to watch because Yoshitaki-san recommended it
so much, and ooh it was fun. Not as much supernatural as I'd hoped, but
the girls seemed realistically screamy and giggly (amazingly so), and
Totoro and the cat bus were fab.
maybe
- Andrei Rublev
- On one hand, it was slow, and sooo looong. On the other hand,
it was well put together, with a fascinating depiction of early Russian
life. So.
- Little Nicky
- It was on at the bar we were at, so we watched it. D says it doesn't
count because we couldn't hear the sound, we had to read the captions.
But I say it still counts. And it was okay, meaning that---surprisingly
enough---it didn't suck. Though we are still embarassed to admit we
watched it.
- Red Dragon
- This is the remake, not the original, which I saw and thought looked
kind of dated. This one was not as dated, but also not entirely
thrill (as in sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat)-inducing. Alas! Because
Edward Norton is a hottie!
- Cremaster 4 and 5
- Okay. So all of us fell asleep at some point during one of these two
movies. But they were still beautiful. Like that whole underwater scene
in 5, with the nifty pool and stuff. And the costumes! Oh the costumes.
- The Italian Job
- Terrible lines, forced acting, and silly plots. Really, this was eh.
But it's a heist movie, and the heist formula can still be kinda fun,
despite terrible lines, forced acting, and silly plots. So. Anyway, Ed
and Andrea wanted to see this, so we did. They like the heist movie
formula.
- the Oscar film short nominees
- My votes are for animation, the one about the rocks, and for
live-action, the one about the guy on the cell phone. Not that they were
the most artistic merit (i.e., the best animation might've been the one
from Japan, while gosh I have no idea what you'd pick for live-action),
but they were the ones I enjoyed. Also, I have no critical facilities
when it comes to dogs. David rightly thought Inja, the one about the dog,
was simplistic, while all I could say was "but the dog was so cute!"
- Morvern Callar
- A lot more depressing than I thought it'd be. Or maybe it felt
depressing because I identified with it too much---felt like one of those
binging sprees that one goes on when depressed, when you're trying to do
anything to forget the root of the depression and never quite succeeding.
I've never done anything quite so mean on my binges, but I did relate to
the vivid disconnected images and stuff. Hmm.
no
- Hannibal
- Another movie I watched at home because my parents had it on DVD.
Predictable, even if I hadn't read the book, which I had (and felt bad
about too, like I ate a gallon of popcorn or something, because really,
that book was terrible as well). Yuck. But I couldn't stop myself
because I am fascinated by serial killer movies. I really should wean
myself off this.
- The Panic Room
- I don't know why I watched this, except my parents had it on DVD and I
think Jodie Foster is kind of hot. But ugh, this movie was pretty
terrible. What was the point? I couldn't figure it out.
- Bend It Like Beckham
- Ew. I mean. Really. Ew. I don't think it would've gotten good
reviews had there been no rebelling-Asian-British-youth angle. And the
good reviews, in light of the movie, are distasteful. They seem to be
premised on this belief that rebellion from the "Old Country" is de facto
good, which, sure, it can be. But I don't think it was here. I mean,
hell, the heroine ran out (temporarily) from her sister's wedding!
I mean, is it so unreasonable and hypertraditional to ask a sister to
attend your wedding? I'm not even a big supporter of the marriage
institution, and I still thought the protagonist was super rude! Argh! I
am surprised this came from the director of Bhaji on the Beach,
which I thought was pretty darned nuanced.
- ("And they keep playing how great it is that she's ending up with a
white guy," complains David, a white guy. Also, David didn't think much
of the soccer playing.) The one redeeming feature of the movie was that
the white girl, whatever-her-name-was, was pretty cute. Looked like a
younger, more tomboyish Winona Ryder.