The Wily Filipino

Movies!

- Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill
Finally got to see both parts in one sitting, and it was well worth the wait. It isn't Reservoir Dogs, but it's certainly his most entertaining film so far, with no apologies for his film-geekery. But now I'd like to see his next flick be a little more original.

- Georges Franju's Eyes without a Face
Seen this amazing movie a couple of times before, and the newly-minted Criterion edition blows the murky video version (from Kino?) out of the water. (The scene when the nurse looks up to see the plane in the cloudy night sky is finally clearer, and I still don't know what it means.) As for extras, there's the surreally beautiful The Blood of Beasts, but I can't imagine seeing it more than once: it's a documentary about abattoirs in post-World War II Paris. The gorgeous shots of the city rival Atget's (but the shots of decapitated lambs, well...).

- Ji-woon Kim's A Tale of Two Sisters
I really really wanted to like this, but its fractured narrative -- yes, I know, it makes total sense in the context of the film -- makes it difficult to like. Great acting (especially by the older sister), and a lush production design (the house, like the boarding school in Suspiria -- another disjointed horror film -- is practically another character). I couldn't tell, though, whether the Ringu / Ju-on references were tips of the hat or ripoffs...

- Stephen Hillenburg's Spongebob Squarepants the Movie
I actually rather enjoyed this -- no major departure from the 11-minute shorts, thank goodness. Still, I wonder what the kiddies of America get out of it, as the humor always seems to have an adult subtext. (Whether or not you find David Hasselhoff's breasts inherently funny is up to you.)

- Peter Davis's Hearts and Minds
Excellent -- so good I want my own copy. Amazing footage and interviews, particularly of Westmoreland and Ellsberg. It isn't a perfect documentary -- Davis makes some juxtapositions that could strike one as being somewhat intellectually dishonest unless the audience is given more historical context (which he doesn't). But the fact that this was made contemporaneously gives it a richer, more relevant dimension, i.e., without the benefit of hindsight (and its similarities with the current war makes it all the more fascinating -- and tragic).

- Ed Adlum's Invasion of the Blood Farmers
The possibilities are endless given the plot: hick farmers in upstate New York are actually part of an ancient cult of blood-worshipping druids. Some hilarious parts, and the gore is actually rather effective, even if it's made on the super-cheap, but it's still no comparison to Adlum's masterpiece of my boyhood, Shriek of the Mutilated.

- Joel Reed's Bloodsucking Freaks
Call me sick, but I thought this movie was excellent: a loving homage, I think, to Herschell Gordon Lewis. Nasty and hilarious.

- Shunya Ito's Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
Wow. Possibly the greatest women-in-prison movie ever made. While it's still pretty firmly in the exploitation genre, there are some elements -- a touch of Jodorowsky-like surrealism here, Masaki Kobayashi there -- that make it well worth seeing. No wonder Tarantino loved this shit.

- Takashi Ishii's Freeze Me
Unpleasant and pointless.

- Wong Kar-Wai's 2046
This was just about my most anticipated movie of the year, so I can't help but be a little disappointed with the results. It's essentially a sequel -- though in a more formal sense, it's really a remake -- of In the Mood for Love, and so all the familiar elements are here: the cramped hallways, an apartment building, the lush textures, the melancholy soundtrack, doors opening and closing, Nat King Cole, loving shots of cigarettes being smoked. But there are differences: it's a lot more claustrophobic, for starters (Wong literally uses only a third of the frame for a good amount of the film: people are half-obscured by backs, or curtains, or walls.). There's sex. There's Zhang Ziyi in an endless array of high-collared qipao dresses. And Maggie Cheung. And Gong Li. And Faye Wong. And -- there are androids. And futuristic bullet trains. And a set straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And a city straight out of "Blade Runner." And costumes straight out of Liquid Sky.

And, it should be said, a narrative that is, at least initially, almost as disjointed as Ashes of Time. If anything, the film is about different permutations of loss and memory, but it's a mood -- and in a way, it's the mechanism around which the film operates: an evocation, not an elucidation -- that's difficult to sustain for over two hours.

- Robert Zemeckis's The Polar Express
I'm always a sucker for movies that deal, even if only tangentially, with questions of belief and faith; therefore, anything from Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice to Shyamalan's Signs is worth a look. I haven't read the children's book on which the film is based, but I can tell you that the belief part occurs only in the first and last ten minutes of the film, and in between is an hour-long rollercoaster ride designed, really, to show off the wonders of technology. There's a jawdropping sequence involving a ticket; otherwise, this is the most soulless Christmas film I've ever seen.

- Joe D'Amato's Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals
The best cannibal films have anthropologists in them, and this film delivers: not only does it have an anthropologist, it also feature loads of cannibal sleaze and, best of all, Emmanuelle schlock. Someone goes full frontal every 8 minutes or so -- not even the nun is spared -- and this of course includes the stunning Laura Gemser, "famous reporter," who can't act her way out of a paper bag, but is featured in at least half the couplings (which involve almost everyone that has a speaking part). Everything about the film is suitably atrocious, and there's not much plot to speak of -- you sit back and wait for people to be converted into raw meat -- but at least it's great trash.

- Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ
Speaking of raw meat: previously on my blog I alluded to a past life in evangelical Christianity, and so I was probably a lot more receptive to this film -- or at least the possibility of some sort of spiritual experience watching it. My parents in the Philippines would report that their friends, and friends of friends, would, after seeing the film, repent and promise never to drink or cheat on their wives, etc., etc., so I was looking forward to giving something up. (I guess the fact that I was drinking a beer while I was watching it didn't help, though I did wonder whether it was appropriate.) The film is, in any case, a bloody exercise in torment; we see Jesus writhing in Gethsemane at the very start of the film, and only catch the quickest glimmers of the charismatic, gentle, wise, rebel leader -- the Christ I loved and worshipped. Not this Son of God being reduced to a side of raw beef, with every Station of the Cross signalled in tender slo-mo, and a soundtrack sounding suspiciously ripped off from Peter Gabriel.

There is very little for the actors to do except scream and weep; the most complex character is the Roman consul, who turns out to be a much nicer guy than those Jews, who mostly glower. Gibson misses the boat by not filming the coolest scene in the book -- the moment when Satan tempts Jesus in the garden is positively psychedelic -- but he adds a great, memorable one of his own: the Head Glowering Jew tosses the bag of coins to Judas... except that, unexpectedly, he throws it at the camera instead. Almost as good as those binocular shots at the end of Salo.

Posted by the wily filipino at December 21, 2004 10:48 PM