Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread II

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Jevo

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Battles without Honor and Humanity (1973) dir. Kinji Fukasaku

In the wake of WWII there's a power vacuum in the Japanese underworld. The film follows Shinzo, who starts out in the open air black markets, but soon becomes one of the leading men in a newly formed Yakuza family. Over the next ten years there's fights, murders, wars and more in the Yakuza underworld.

I wanted to like Battles Without Honor and Humanity a lot, but I couldn't. It has a great energy and is fun. But the movie was also moving so fast that I could not keep up with the character gallery, changing alliances and more. I admit that I had some lapses of attention along the way, but it really feels like once you get a little bit behind, you get way behind the action, and there's no way to get back up to speed unless you start over. I considered going back to the movie and watching it again. But considering I never got around to watching it again, it probably means my interest in it wasn't as high as I had hoped.

I think this could be a very fun film if you really stick with it, but you can't watch with half an eye for long before you get lost in the action. And then it just becomes more confusing than fun the longer it goes on.
 

kihei

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Roger and Me (1988) Directed by Michael Moore

Director Michael Moore's first documentary focuses on the destruction wrought on his hometown, Flint, Michigan, by the decision of General Motors CEO Roger Smith to first downsize and then later to eliminate completely the automobile plants that were the city's economic life's blood. Moore pursues Smith in an attempt to get him to return to Flint to confront the reality of his decisions. Roger and Me introduces a lot of the characteristics that I associate with Moore's clever but often flawed documentaries: Moore finds an interesting way to tell an important story; as stand in for the "average guy," Moore becomes too much a part of the story; the documentaries always provide tons of food for thought; but questions of exploitation (the rabbit woman, in this case) inevitably arise. For some reason, I had never seen this documentary before, and I was impressed by it. Though it very clearly shows the immense social cost of downsizing industries and shifting the work to cheaper locales, I thought the movie did something else as well, intentionally, I suspect, but indirectly. I can think of few movies that I have seen, certainly few North American movies, that better reveal the hierarchical nature of the class system in all its ingrained destructive power. It is not just economic theories at play in Flint that are important. It is the gulf between the haves and the have nots that really stands out.

The people in Flint who have lost their jobs, who are often though by no means exclusively black, are frequently contrasted with the people who are well off and do not depend on factory jobs to make a living. The latter group is exclusively white, smug about their good fortune, and utterly oblivious to the realities of those less fortunate than themselves. If "those people" don't have jobs, it just means that they are lazy and rather be on the dole anyway--that attitude pervades the golf playing grandmas who Moore interviews and the grannies are hardly alone in their beliefs. The documentary makes clear how pervasive and stratified this situation is. Each class of people live in a bubble from which virtually no mutual interaction among the different groups occurs. I am used to observing the virulence of the class system in England, its even more daffy caste manifestation in India, but I went through a lot of my life thinking, whatever else its trouble, North America was largely immune from class distinctions. Obviously I was wrong. The class system is perhaps more subtle on these shores but the damage that it does is still vast and indefensible. The odd thing is that even when we see it, exceedingly few of us, myself included, choose to do anything more about it than shrug. The British have a term for that: "I'm alright, Jack."
 

KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

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Roger & Me
Moore (1989)
“I cannot come to Flint, I’m sorry.â€

General Motors, under the leadership of CEO Roger Smith, announces the closing of 11 plants and the layoff of more than 30,000 workers. The carnage includes a plant in Flint, birthplace of the company, and 3,400 workers. Director/star Michael Moore’s mission – make Roger Smith literally answer for this decision.

Moore’s past is Flint. He’s a native. Almost all of his family was GM employees including his dad who worked on the spark plug line. He was the editor of the Michigan Voice before a brief decampment to San Francisco. Despite all this, it doesn’t feel like he really has a personal stake. He feels like a tourist. Moreso, he feels like he at times is mocking the people he claims to be defending (the rabbit woman, the color consultant). Maybe I’m being ungenerous?

Moore balances a few narratives. There are his attempts to reach Smith both through GM and through the man’s other interests such as exclusive clubs and other rich man diversions. There is his depiction of Flint’s attempts to change – a new hotel, a new mall, an auto-themed amusement park. And most affectingly there are his portrayals of workers impacted, most often shown as they’re being evicted. But what’s really shocking to me isn’t the footage Moore can’t get (i.e. Roger Smith), but rather the footage he did get – the party with human statues, the party inside the just about to be opened jail. How and why would these people allow that? Different time? Were these people really not self-aware?

There is a level of absurdity here that’s borderline shocking. A preacher encourages prayer as a fix for joblessness. Taco Bell seems like a good job alternative. An animitronic autoworker serenades a robot. But, as shocking as Bob Eubanks’ extremely off-color joke is, does he really have a place in this? Same with Miss Michigan? How about the rabbit woman? I understand the “survival†angle of her story, but I wanted more normalcy and less shock. Did average people not want to share their tales or does Moore preference for something flashier outweigh that possible human factor?

I first saw it in a college sociology class and recalled it as being quite compelling, an entertaining and informative venture. Now that I’m older and I’ve been plenty (over)exposed to Moore, I find its hard to disassociate myself from his antics.

I SHOULD sympathize with Moore and yet I can’t fully do so. GM is 100 percent evasive and deserve the hectoring to a full extent. But it’s hard not to think that Moore’s endgame wasn’t really a grand insight. It’s hard to separate the man from the movie.

Then we get into more of a philosophical issue. As cold as I’m going to sound here, something I think the PR flack says is right: I’m not sure a big company, certainly one the size of General Motors owes its hometown anything. Maybe morally it does, but it does have shareholders, not to mention other employees, who rely on its on-going health. Corporations aren’t people. It’s a machine built for profit and though it we may want our big businesses to have heart, it’s an unrealistic (though not impossible) expectation.
 

Ralph Spoilsport

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Corporate social responsibility was barely a thing before Roger & Me; an academic concept that business school professors teased their students with, perhaps to root out the lefties, freethinkers and other potential troublemakers. Today it's not an option (neither is corporate media training). Roger & Me is relevant again today as it taps the grapes of the Trump supporters' wrath, beginning as it does by hearkening back to their golden age of the mid-fifties when America was great, teamwork was the buzzword and the main street parade was not just a symbol for civic pride but a barometer of healthy social cohesion.

The fact that Moore never gets Roger Smith's cooperation is a blessing, since what he gets instead is way more moving, memorable and revealing. Instead he gets the cooperation of the deputy sheriff responsible for evicting the destitute from their homes. He gets images like a Christmas tree getting dumped at the curb as an autoworkers family gets evicted days before Christmas. He gives us you-can't-make-this-stuff-up stories like the ABC News Nightline equipment truck being stolen moments before the show is supposed to go on air live. Or the staggering incompetence of civic boosters trying to turn Flint into a tourist mecca with their build-it-and-they-will-come projects...an indoor ferris wheel? What were they thinking? Or stumbling upon the bunny lady. Who needs a plan? Moore may be winging it but it all comes together eventually. In a way its amateurism, its homemade feel and use- whatever-we-have resourcefulness adds to its credibility by showing sincerity and determination.

Roger & Me is billed as a comedy, and he certainly uses his sense of humour to sugarcoat the bitterness of the situation. There's nothing really funny about what happened to Flint Michigan; the misery is palpable, even the folks lining the parade route look like they'd rather crawl into a hole and die. It is tragically absurd. When you've got to rely on Pat Boone to explain it all, without dropping his always-on smile, you've got to laugh to keep from crying.
 
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Jevo

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Roger and Me (1989) dir. Michael Moore

In his debut picture Michael Moore returns to his native Flint, Michigan. Almost two decades before the city got the dubious honour of being a first world city with literally undrinkable tap water, there's still reason for Michael Moore to tell the story of what is happening in the city. The eponymous Roger is Roger Smith, then CEO of General Motors, who oversaw the closing of several factories in Flint, Michigan, in favour of factories in Mexico. GM was then the biggest employer in town, and it led to unemployment and poverty for many of the laid of workers. Moore interviews and follows several of these people. One who is now tasked by the Sheriff's office to go around and hand out record numbers of eviction notices, another breeds rabbits in her back yard and sells them as "pets or meat". Moore also tries, however unsuccessfully to get an interview with Roger Smith.

This is Michael Moore before he became Michael Moore, famous documentary film maker. Not that it changes much. His signature style of making documentaries is already present. Even if he didn't know what he was doing, he knew what he wanted to do, and already had a well developed style of presentation that he knew how to employ. And I have to say I quite like Moore's style. He is not afraid to use comedy to lighten the mood when things become a bit too somber, and it often does. It makes his movies entertaining and watchable, and it doesn't hurt that I actually think he's funny. Moore might not go for the literal truth in his movies. That is not to say that he deliberately lies or misleads in his movies. But he tries to go for the most effective version of the truth that he can find. The problem with this approach and Moore's style, is that Moore mainly makes movies for people who already agree with him. I at least doubt he has convinced many who oppose him politically with his documentaries.

I found it quite interesting how relevant Roger and Me still is today. Michigan still suffers from the automotive industry shutting down most of its activities there and moving them abroad. It also have some hand in the current political climate. With Trump making it a priority to talk about wanting factories moved back to the US, although that is not going to happen, he undoubtedly scored a lot of goodwill on it from certain segments of the population. Many of these people could be the ones we see in this documentary who are affected by outsourcing. It's interesting and scary to think about how long the actions in the 80s and 90s are felt, when there's no system in check to take care of those who have lost their job. Especially when most of them are the kind of people who are most vulnerable if they are struck by unemployment, as they don't have any education or money.
 

kihei

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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) Directed by Julian Schnabel

Jean-Do Bauby, a successful magazine editor in the prime of life, suffers a massive stroke that leaves all but one eye immobile. Despite his paralysis, he managed to write a book about his experience using a single eyelid to communicate. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, with Mathieu Amalric as the afflicted writer, is a cinematically satisfying adaptation of Bauby’s book. While the film chronicles Bauby’s slow adjustment to his horrific condition, it gracefully avoids the temptation to tug at the audience’s heartstrings. Though we are never allowed to pity Bauby's plight, we can sense both his great anguish and disappointment while at the same time we can appreciate his great strength of will. The narrative is told with voice overs from Almaric who creates a sympathetic and likeable character despite his very limited means for expression.

When a movie is about a character who literally can't move or speak, it is incumbent upon the director to find ways to expand the film beyond the limitations of his primary character. Director Julian Schnabel, an artist in his own right but a fledgling film director here (it was just his third movie), finds marvelous ways to express Bauby's condition and point of view, very few of which depend on the infrequent flashbacks that the film occasionally uses. The first several minutes of the film allow us to take part in the disorientation and confusion that Bauby feels as he gradually becomes aware of the extent of his problems. As we see much of the action from his eyes, we get to sense both his meager joys and ongoing disappointments but also how other people are reacting to him, especially his principal rehabilitation counselor (Marie-Josée Croze, an absolute dead ringer for Naomi Watts) who struggles with him as he learns a painstaking way of communicating by tirelessly going through the alphabet letter by letter.

To me this movie has a beautiful balance. It is poignant, funny, intelligent, creative, and memorable. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly doesn't have a single maudlin moment. All the pitfalls that it could fall into are avoided beautifully. The film is such an impressively directed work by Schnabel that I am surprised that he has not done only one more feature film since then.

Obviously Mathieu Almaric loves a challenge. Playing a character who can move only one eyelid throughout most of the movie would seem like an impossible limitation to place on an actor, but somehow Almaric finds ways to communicate anyway. He has always been an expressive actor--I once commented on how I thought that he would have been a great silent screen actor because of his facial animation and his slight sense of mischief. If Almaric can't carry his full load, all of Schnabel's finesse moves in telling Bauby's story would have come to naught. It is a remarkable performance in a remarkable movie.

subtitles
 

kihei

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My next pick with be Marcel Ophuls' (son of Max) documentary The Sorrow and the Pity. it's four hours and eleven minutes but it is also both interesting, powerful, and I sort of get the feeling, newly relevant, too.
 

Ralph Spoilsport

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I haven't forgotten about Battles Without Honour or Thingy, still looking forward to it!

In the meantime I'll jump on the horror bandwagon and go with Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hausu (House) for my next pick.
 

Jevo

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The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (2007) dir. Jules Schnabel

The real life story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a middle aged man who suffers a severe heart attack. He survives, but wakes up suffering from locked-in syndrome. Which he's paralysed except for his left eye, which he eventually learned to use to communicate, and ended up writing a book about his life by blinking. The movie starts as Jean-Dominique wakes up from his coma, and except for a few flashbacks, most of the movie is filmed from Jean-Dominique's perspective, as he learns to live with his condition.

How do you make a film about a man who can't move anything but his one eye, and make it exciting? I sure as hell wouldn't know how to, even after watching this movie I am not sure how to. But Julen Schnabel makes it work incredibly well. Jean-Dominique's internal monologue, delivered very well by Mathieu Amalric, is quite funny and that helps break up and otherwise slow and somewhat depressing movie. While internal monologues can be a lazy story telling device, enabling the main character to express themselves un-organically, it doesn't seem lazy here. First of all, Jean-Dominique is never speaking to the audience, only himself or "to" other people who are talking to him, and it really is the only way for him to express himself in the movie. Another good thing about the internal monologue, is that it really allows the viewer to feel for Jean-Dominique when these unbearably patient people from the hospital keeps trying to do nice things for him, what a bunch of ********.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is the kind of movie that should not be possible. It should not be possible to make a good movie about a man who is 99% paralysed and can only move an eye. Yet this movie is not just made, it's great as well. It's incredibly compassionate and entertaining. I couldn't keep my eyes off it, and I never expected that to happen with this movie beforehand. One of the best parts of the movie I think, is that the movie doesn't pity Jean-Dominique. It just tells his story without going for cheap tears in the audience.
 

Jevo

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In Bruges (2008) dir. Martin McDonaugh

A job gone wrong that ended in Ray (Colin Farrell) killing an innocent child along with the priest he was ordered to kill, results in Ray going into hiding in Bruges together with his partner Ken (Brendan Fraser). They are instructed to wait and behave like regular tourists until they get further instructions from their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes). Ray hates Bruges, but Ken is quite stricken with beautiful old town with the canals, the churches, the old buildings and stuff. Ray would rather be at the pub, and charms his way into a date with a beautiful young local woman. Meanwhile Ken gets ordered by Harry to kill Ray. Harry doesn’t like child killers.

Martin McDonaugh is able to strike an almost perfect balance between comedy and drama in In Bruges. The comedy never diminishes the effect of the drama, it merely serves to make an unbearable situation seem bearable for the characters. For Ray and Ken comedy is as much a way to deal with the weight of the situation as it is for the audience. Although the audience does laugh a lot more than they do. But for a long while the audience doesn’t know exactly why they are in Bruges, just that something has happened, and it probably isn’t good. A big reason why the movie works as well as it does is that’s incredibly well written. Martin McDonaugh is very good at establishing his characters with very little screen time. It doesn’t take long before we know exactly what Ray and Ken are like. It takes only a 20 second scene when Harry is first on screen, for his character to be fully defined for the audience. Because they are so well developed, their actions later on, outrageous as they might be, are believable to the audience, because the audience is not surprised by their actions based on how they behaved very early on. As such, a film that starts as a bit of a slow drama with some comedic moments, can turn into a film with two people in a shootout negotiating how they are going to leave the hotel without harming the highly pregnant owner, who refuses to let one person ascend the stairs of the hotel. Without the audience losing suspension of disbelief in the process. It is all also helped by the three principal actors being very good. Colin Farrell is not the best actor in the world, but he can shine in the right role, and he shines here. Brandan Fraser and Ralph Fiennes are two of the best actors around today, and to see them work with a script as good as this is just a pleasure all around.

In Bruges has to be one of my favourite movies of the last 10 years. It’s very funny, has a great drama with great characters. It’s very re-watchable, the comedy doesn’t get old, and there’s still stuff to think about even the third time around. There’s a lot of depth to the characters as well if you are willing to sit down and think more about them.

If Martin McDonaugh and his brother John Michael doesn’t make the best English language films around these days, they certainly are making some of the most entertaining ones. Their styles are quite similar, and the definitely have the same sense of humour. I don’t think I’ve been disappointed by either so far.
 

KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

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I haven't forgotten about Battles Without Honour or Thingy, still looking forward to it!

In the meantime I'll jump on the horror bandwagon and go with Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hausu (House) for my next pick.

I swear to all that one swears to that this was going to be my next pick. I know I am showing my cards, but a fantastic Halloween season choice.
 

KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Schnabel (2007)
“Other than my eye, two things aren’t paralyzed — my imagination and my memory.”

The true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathiew Amalric), once a jet-setting editor of Elle, who suffered a stroke resulting in “locked-in syndrome,” paralyzing everything but his eye, trapping the man in his own head. Director Julian Schnabel puts the audience right there from the beginning. Bauby wakes up from a coma, unsure of what is happening. We’re in his head. We’re seeing through his eyes. We’re hearing his thoughts. The other characters, however, cannot. It’s disorienting and clausterphobic. This isn’t horror, but it is horrifying. A truly terrifying effect. Most of the film is through this lens. It feels like a good 80 percent of Diving Bell unfurls like this, with some exceptions made for flashbacks and for imaginative flights of fancy. It’s a testament to what film can do. We follow Bauby as he learns to communicate via just blinking his eye. He’ll eventually dictate a book this way — the source material for the movie — which receives rave reviews in the film’s final scenes. Bauby died 10 days after its release.

Despite the heaviness of the topic as it moves along there is a bit of light. It’s hard not to be moved by the tale. Bauby remains every bit a man — oggling and commenting upon the fetching females on hand to help him regain his ability to communicate. It’s lively and beautiful at times though it never loses sight of the reality. Schnabel deploys some jarring cuts from Bauby’s boisterous, musical internal life to the cacophonous corridors of the hospital and real life. It avoids being maudlin as well. Bauby, though struck by tragedy, is no saint. He was a womanizer and a scene where the mother of his children is forced to translate for him to the woman he left her for is a painful watch, especially when Celine (Emmanuelle Seigner) has proven to be a loyal and helpful presence in his current life while his lover cannot bear to even show up.

An unsettling, but moving viewing experience. Never seen something quite like it.
 

kihei

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In Bruges (2008) Directed by Martin McDonagh

It's always a joy to watch In Bruges again, a movie that really underscores the importance of a great script. Concerning most of the movies that I like and praise, I usually think of the direction or the cinematography or even the acting before I think of the script. I think for a lot of movies, the script, just written out, is nothing special--that most movies are dependent on what the artists involved actually do with and to the script. Some directors don't even always have a set script--more like a series of ideas that get fleshed out in the process of making the movie. Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine, a sad romance about a failing relationship, was allegedly the product of a clear idea given the actors concerning what he wanted and then total improvisation of their part (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams). So movies in which I think of the script first are relatively rare. But In Bruges has a great script. For beginners, the premise is both intriguing and hilarious in a dark way: in beautiful Bruges of all places. two hitmen are on an enforced vacation only to discover that one of them has to kill the other but may not be able to so before the intended victim commits suicide. That's pretty inspired.

We eventually end up with three brilliant characters with performances to match. The first time that I saw In Bruges, I thought it was a tour de force performance for the wonderful Brendan Gleeson. For sure, he's great in it. But since then In Bruges really seems to be more Colin Farrell's movie. His character sets the tone--a kind of deep Irish melancholy that is made up of guilt, anger, regret, and remorse. He has committed an act that can't be rectified or forgiven, and he knows it. Ray is consumed by it. Even in his happy moments, his face shows how quickly the memory can return to haunt him. For a tragic character, Ray also has to handle a lot of the humour in the movie, which is a really strange thing but works beautifully. Though Farrell can mug a bit too much here and there, sometimes the facial manipulations are truly funny; for instance, despondent that Ken won't let him out of the hotel room, we watch Ray's face as a cunning ploy slowly comes to him--finally he suggests to Bruges-loving Ken that they go sightseeing at night as all the buildings will look pretty with the lights on them. Farrell is terrific at that sort of thing, but it is grief and remorse that make the movie a moving one.

Ralph Fiennes is pitch-perfect as well. As Harry, we see about six different sides of him in twenty minutes and they are all believable. He, as well, has some very funny lines. But when you have so many characters doing so many different things right, then I think the scriptwriter really does need to be singled out for praise. Martin McDonagh was a respected playwright before becoming a film writer and director, and, obviously, that experience has served him very well in his career in movies. His script for In Bruges is not quite up there with, say, All about Eve, but it's not that far off either. Judging from his People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, he may have hit the jackpot once again.
 
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Ralph Spoilsport

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The first third of The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is a POV powerhouse. Locked in to the head of a man with locked-in syndrome we see only what he sees, even if only the inside of his eyelid, hear only what he hears. We fully experience his restrictions and the frustrations that develop from his attempts to cope and come to terms with his situation. It is a strange new world for him, helpless as a baby but fully cognizant with talking heads constantly in his face. We also hear his inner thoughts however, and since we're stuck in his head we may as well eavesdrop on his flashbacks and fantasies. His inner reality is as free as his outer reality is static. It's a thrilling start to the film which not only really gets us into the head of a character but takes us a mile in their shoes. If the credits rolled after 45 minutes I'd have been happy.

Of course it doesn't end there. There's a story to tell and the movie downshifts, but only slightly, to continue on to a triumphant but bittersweet finale using more conventional camera setups as we leave the inside of his head to get occasional real-world bearings. But the inside is still where the action is. With not much to do but contemplate existence, Jean-Do tries to make sense of things, mainly his love life. Along the way fantasy, memory and reality all begin to mix together. Hard to tell if Jean-Do is remembering events as they happened or as he wished they had happened. At one point his wife Celine ("she's not my wife!") actually begins to respond to his inner comments, and they have a bit of a conversation. If that doesn't say "soulmate" I don't know does...but Jean-Do is an eyeball who still thinks with his dick. This scene obviously isn't real, but in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly only life and death are non-negotiable; everything else is up for grabs.
 

Ralph Spoilsport

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I swear to all that one swears to that this was going to be my next pick. I know I am showing my cards, but a fantastic Halloween season choice.

Spooky! :pumpkin:

Finally found Battles Without You Know What, it was at my local video store all along under the title The Yakuza Papers :facepalm:

Will get to it soon (hopefully).
 

KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

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In Bruges
McDonagh (2008)
“Purgatory’s kind of like the in-betweeny one. You weren’t really ****, but you weren’t all that great either. Like Tottenham. Do you believe in all that stuff, Ken?â€

Ray is a hitman booted from London to Bruges for an impromptu and unwanted vacation of sorts after his first job goes horribly wrong. Ken is his assigned companion, there first as a friend, but ultimately charged to be his executioner. “You can’t kill a kid,†big boss Harry will later declare. And that’s what Ray accidentally did. So it is written, so it shall be done. The pair pass their time as tourists, Ken excited to do so, Ray much, much less so. He does meet Chloe, a kind beauty working on a film shoot. But generally his manic swagger causes more harm than good including a fight in a restaurant, a potential assault from an ex-boyfriend and a drug-and-drink-fueled evening with a little person (a bit of an obsession for Ray) and some prostitutes, all the while barely masking the heavy guilt on his soul for the accidental shooting. Ken, meanwhile, literally cannot pull the trigger, eventhough Ray is willing to die. Ready for death himself, Ken defies his boss, puts Ray on a train and dares Harry to do his worse. Hot-head Harry storms into town and just when he and Ken come to an understanding, bad luck (God’s will? God’s wrath?) puts Ray back in their path and leads to a bloody end for all.

In Bruges is ribald and gruesome, but an ultimately somber affair. The core trio -- Colin Ferrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes -- feast on McDonagh’s rapid, hilarious dialogue, especially Ferrell who has never been better. Ray is an open wound and Ferrell is equally adept at playing the petulant acting-out boy and the soul-crushed, questioning man. Fiennes is completely unhinged. Gleeson is the comparatively gentle counterweight to the pair. The script: sacred and profane. Hieronymus Bosch’s visions of purgatory loom large over the film. Ray and Ken see and ponder the works themselves in a museum and later, a gunshot Ray will wander onto the film set amid a live action Bosch-inspired dream sequence. It’s on the nose, but it works. In Bruges feels loose, ambling, but it’s actually a tightly engineered affair with unexpected events and players being more important in the end than they may first seem. A more picky viewer may find fault in these convergences, I do not. Feels natural, inevitable. I remain impressed by McDonagh’s ability to balance the profanity-laced proceedings with a brain and soul that lurks just under the surface. We’ve seen plenty of bloody hitman tales before, but never really one like this. As a Spurs fan, that Tottenham line hurts the most.
 

kihei

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Cronos
(1994) Directed by Gulliermo del Toro

One thing that you can always say about Guillermo de Toro without risk of contradiction is that he has an extremely fertile imagination. Cronos is essentially a vampire movie in shiny new clothing. Jesus Gris, an old antique dealer, along with his young granddaughter Aurora, discover a device that has been hidden away in an ancient statue. The device looks like a beetle, and, in fact, for the unwary it has a nasty clock-work bite that which dooms the victim to an eternal life that is no picnic. An unscrupulous millionaire who is dying and his casually brutal henchmen Angel (Ron Perlman) are after this contraption and will do anything to get it. In fact, Jesus is killed by Angel, but he doesn't stay dead long. Now he and Aurora must find a way to stop the device falling into evil hands. What I like most about this movie is that it has the aura and detail of a classic fairy tale. There is more character development than usual in this genre and just more pure imagination all around. Parts of it are funny, parts of it are charming; parts of it are frightening; parts of it are brutal. It seems like every time I turned a proverbial corner in this movie, something new and fresh awaited me. Perhaps because of the little girl, the movie also generates a queasy kind of dread. As in the best fairy tales, a child is vulnerable. I respond differently when that is the case, when the potential victim is a child rather than an adult, which I think is one of the elements that give fairy tales their punch. Though the atmosphere of the film is sometimes almost jovial, there remains the possibility that very bad things can happen. Perlman deserves credit for creating a suitably scary villain, but it is del Toro's multi-textured script that deserves the most credit for creating the impression that if the Brothers Grimm had been Mexican they might have come up with a tale that was something like this.
 
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KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

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May 30, 2003
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Cronos
Del Toro (1993)
“I don’t know what’s happening to me but I think it’s best if we’re together.”

Cronos is a modern/tweaked vampire fable. Instead of neck biting we get a clockwork golden scarab able to quite literally inject immortality into the veins of whomever possess it. At a cost, of course. Antiquarian Jesus Gris and his granddaughter Aurora stumble upon this ancient device hidden in the base of an old statue. He winds it up and is soon addicted to its effect. Downside: Light kind of hurts and that bloody meat in the fridge is starting to look mighty appetizing. Meanwhile, a reclusive rich man, De La Guardia, is holed up in a sterile room atop his manufacturing plant seeking said device. He sends his thugish nephew Angel out to hunt this down. These paths collide and impetuous Angel decides the best way to rid himself of his uncle’s nagging is to just up and kill the obstinate Jesus. The man, however, is not dead (as Jesuses are wont to do). He walks out of a crematorium (suit on backwards) and sets out to end the conflict once and for all. The rooftop climax as a solid reminder to never pick a fight with an immortal man.

It’s the debut film of Guillermo del Toro and so many of his interests, tricks and abilities are on display immediately — his ability to build a world, his love not just of creepy crawlies, but also of clockwork contraptions, his meshing of classic horror, fairy tale and modern humor. He can unsettle, repel and make you chuckle all in the course of a scene. Licking blood off a bathroom floor is stomach churning (yet that dark red blood on that white tile makes for a beautiful scene). Cronos is a small story. Only a handful of characters and only 3-4 locations of note. But del Toro gets a lot out of it. Jesus becomes more monster-like in his appearance, but never loses his humanity. Aurora is essential grounding for that. She is a delight. Not scared of bugs nor her rapidly declining grandfather. When he needs to hide and rest, she clears out her toybox for a makeshift coffin. Lovely. Ron Perlman has an amiable menace and his fascination with plastic surgery made for nice color. I laughed out loud during the entire crematorium sequence (though I cringe at the sewing and stapling) from the confident orderly fixing Jesus’ forehead through the moment he pushes the empty box into the flames none the wiser. One of my favorite little throwaways is when we first meet De La Guardia. After he chastises Angel for not finding the right statute, he holds the ancient page of the book up just beneath his eyes. Not unlike the classic image of Dracula, his cape draw across the lower half of his face. De La Guardia also calls to mind the latter days Howard Hughes (nicknamed “Drac” by some), confined to a sterile box warding off death to the best of his paranoid abilities.

For a first film, not to mention one that relies on a fair amount of makeup, the production values impressed me. Other than the relative dearth of locations, there’s nothing to signal it as a low budget debut. In fairness, I don’t know the actual budget, but I assume it couldn’t have been much.

Random: As Jesus progresses through the movie, his look kept reminding me of other actors. With the mustache, it was Jason Robards. Clean shaven it was Jonathan Pryce. As he was rotting and coming undone it was a bit of a zombie Rhys Ifans.
 

KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

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Apologies because I'm still in a bit of a horror mood (I'll lighten up soon, I swear). I am a little surprised this director hasn't had a film picked yet, but for my next choice, I choose David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988).
 

Don'tcry4mejanhrdina

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This space.
In Bruges (2008) dir. Martin McDonaugh

A job gone wrong that ended in Ray (Colin Farrell) killing an innocent child along with the priest he was ordered to kill, results in Ray going into hiding in Bruges together with his partner Ken (Brendan Fraser). They are instructed to wait and behave like regular tourists until they get further instructions from their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes). Ray hates Bruges, but Ken is quite stricken with beautiful old town with the canals, the churches, the old buildings and stuff. Ray would rather be at the pub, and charms his way into a date with a beautiful young local woman. Meanwhile Ken gets ordered by Harry to kill Ray. Harry doesn’t like child killers.

Martin McDonaugh is able to strike an almost perfect balance between comedy and drama in In Bruges. The comedy never diminishes the effect of the drama, it merely serves to make an unbearable situation seem bearable for the characters. For Ray and Ken comedy is as much a way to deal with the weight of the situation as it is for the audience. Although the audience does laugh a lot more than they do. But for a long while the audience doesn’t know exactly why they are in Bruges, just that something has happened, and it probably isn’t good. A big reason why the movie works as well as it does is that’s incredibly well written. Martin McDonaugh is very good at establishing his characters with very little screen time. It doesn’t take long before we know exactly what Ray and Ken are like. It takes only a 20 second scene when Harry is first on screen, for his character to be fully defined for the audience. Because they are so well developed, their actions later on, outrageous as they might be, are believable to the audience, because the audience is not surprised by their actions based on how they behaved very early on. As such, a film that starts as a bit of a slow drama with some comedic moments, can turn into a film with two people in a shootout negotiating how they are going to leave the hotel without harming the highly pregnant owner, who refuses to let one person ascend the stairs of the hotel. Without the audience losing suspension of disbelief in the process. It is all also helped by the three principal actors being very good. Colin Farrell is not the best actor in the world, but he can shine in the right role, and he shines here. Brandan Fraser and Ralph Fiennes are two of the best actors around today, and to see them work with a script as good as this is just a pleasure all around.

In Bruges has to be one of my favourite movies of the last 10 years. It’s very funny, has a great drama with great characters. It’s very re-watchable, the comedy doesn’t get old, and there’s still stuff to think about even the third time around. There’s a lot of depth to the characters as well if you are willing to sit down and think more about them.

If Martin McDonaugh and his brother John Michael doesn’t make the best English language films around these days, they certainly are making some of the most entertaining ones. Their styles are quite similar, and the definitely have the same sense of humour. I don’t think I’ve been disappointed by either so far.

I laughed when I read Brendan Fraser is one of the best actors around. I know you mean Gleeson but that's just too funny to ignore.
 

Jevo

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Oct 3, 2010
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I laughed when I read Brendan Fraser is one of the best actors around. I know you mean Gleeson but that's just too funny to ignore.

Oh god... what have I done?! Now I'm trying to imagine Brendan Fraser in the movie instead of Gleeson, and it's not a pretty sight.
 

kihei

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Oh god... what have I done?! Now I'm trying to imagine Brendan Fraser in the movie instead of Gleeson, and it's not a pretty sight.
Maybe I missed it on the previous thread, but what's your next choice for a movie?
 

Jevo

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Oct 3, 2010
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Maybe I missed it on the previous thread, but what's your next choice for a movie?

Seem to have forgotten to choose one. My next pick is Aki Kaurismäki's The Man Without a Past.
 

Jevo

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Oct 3, 2010
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Cronos (1993) dir. Guillermo del Toro

In 1536 an alchemist develops a device that gives the owner eternal life, the Cronos. In 1937 his home collapses and he's impaled by the debris, killing him. In the present an antique dealer, Jesus , realises the base of a statue in his shop is hollow and when he opens it he finds a golden scarab. The scarab has a set of legs and a stinger which suddenly strikes into Jesus' hand, leaving deep wounds. He later realises that his youthful rigor has returned, and he's being tempted to use the device again. Simultaneously a dying rich man, la Guardia, is searching for the Cronos, and sends his thuggish nephew Angel to get the archangel statue which he believes holds the Cronos.

It's del Toro's first feature, and from the very beginning it's clear his eye for set design and costume design wasn't something he learned along the way. It's been there the whole time. I haven't watched all his movies, but all the ones that I have watched, have looked amazing and have been very interesting to look at. I'm not really sure what you'd call the style being used here, but it reminded me a bit of Frankenstein, especially the later part of the movie where Jesus turns into a sort of monster or zombie. I wanted to watch the old Frankenstein movie with Boris Karloff to compare the two stylistically but also thematically in regards to how Jesus ends up seeing his immortality and his condition as a curse rather than a blessing. I don't think there's much doubt del Toro has been inspired by many old horror movies and are a big fan. There's also the very unsubtle Dracula reference with Jesus sleeping in a coffin during the day because the sunlight hurts his skin, and his sudden thirst for blood.

As a horror movie Cronos isn't particularly frightening, but it's more of what I'd call a moody horror movie. Where del Toro builds up a mood of dread and fright, and constructs the drama around this mood. Which serves to enhance the drama. Rather than focus on frightening his audience, del Toro tries to tell an interesting story, and he succeeds in that. The story is interesting to watch unfold, but as I touched upon earlier it's also filled with references, not only to old horror films, but also plenty of religious references, such as Jesus possible resurrection at the end of the film. So there's lots to dig into and think about as well.

The acting in this movie deserves a lot of praise as well. In particular Federico Luppi as Jesus is amazing. He's believable all the way from lovable granddad to vampire/zombie/monster thing. I also want to mention Ron Perlman, I always thinks he's a lot of fun to watch, especially when he looks like he's having fun with a role, and he looks like he's having fun here.
 

kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
42,536
10,132
Toronto
House_Hausu-31.jpeg


Hausu
(1977) Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

Hausu is a Japanese haunted house/horror movie spoof about seven young teenage girls who go to visit an Aunt in the country. Auntie is not what she seems. Neither is the cat. If you are looking for scares, this movie will not deliver them. If you are looking for Pee-wee's Playhouse-type craziness than than Hausu will do just fine--in fact it probably influenced Pee-wee Herman and the creators of that show. The silliness, the so-cheap-they-are-cool special effects, and the ultra surrealism of Playhouse are in evidence along with a lot more gore and a much more sexualized presentation of young girls. Hausu is probably one of those movies that you are not to take seriously without spoiling somebody's idea of fun...not mine, though. I have never really been much of a fan of bad movies that become cult favourites as I don't find awfulness to be aesthetic virtue. This particular example of an awful movie at least has a discernible style, one that is often fun to observe, but to what end? I can give its creators points for cleverness but nothing else. A work such as this one can be innovative, creative, even, original, and still be terrible. To be sure, the movie and I started off on the wrong foot. The early scenes, dealing with the girls before they go on summer vacation to Auntie's house, were corroded with most annoying background music on the soundtrack that I have ever heard: it sounded like somebody was playing a radio turned to a schlock music station on the set while the movie was being made and that the director Nobuhiko Obayashi just decided to keep it in the movie for the hell of it. The broad acting, the intentionally artificial set design, the oddball camera placement, the synchronized swimming rictus smiles, all just irritated the hell out of me. Things improved once we got to the Aunt and the cat but not enough to salvage a movie that really doesn't seem to hang together even on its own terms. Perhaps all this was part of Obayashi's vision, but the result for me was just fanciful mediocrity which is preferable to garden-variety mediocrity, I guess, but not by enough of a margin to matter.

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