Roller Derby - Way of Life

Brutal Beauty: Tale of the Rose City Rollers (2010) - Mabry

What's not to like about seeing sexy tattooed girls in hot pants rollerskating really fast, going round and round, bumping off each other violently? Roller derby seems like a dream sport for any respectable punkabilly. Brutal Beauty follows the Rose City Rollers in Portland, OR. as they compete in the 'bouts'. They play in teams like High Rollers, Break Neck Betties and Guns N Rollers. The girls are dedicated bunch. They all have day jobs but when it's the derby season, they practice 3-4 days a week. Roller derby is more than a hobby, it's an effective anger management, psychotherapy and, um, way of life. Players go by their flamboyant alter ego names, Blood Clottia, Cadillac, Smack Ya Sideways, Marollin' Monroe, White Flight... They have dedicated superfans who travel with them when they go to regional and national games.

So how is roller derby played? There are Pivots, there are Blockers and there are Jammers. Even after Wheels of Justice (the all-star team for regional/national competitions) coach Rob Lobster eloquently demonstrates at work using donuts as players (he works at the famed Voodoo Donuts in Portland), I still have absolutely no idea how it's played. Don't matter though. It's all about the girrrl power, it's about comradery and friendship, it's about competitiveness and it will save your soul.

Brutal Beauty barely touches upon subjects like being role models or seen as sex symbols.
Don't matter, it's endlessly entertaining as the girls shout colorful obscenities at each other, tumble, elbow, we share their passion for the game. The film made me look up the local roller derby league. I might get hooked, too. Drew Barrymore's movie didn't make me do that.

Review at Twitch

God Complex

Terrarium. It's a tiny world in a jar filled with moss, gravel, charcoal and small mementos, all self sufficient. A mini biosphere. And it's created by you. We've been contemplating making our own for quite some time now. The other day, armed with a tupperware and spade, we went for moss hunting in Prospect Park, scaring some unsuspecting old ladies- one asked us if we were burying something. We shook our heads guiltily, saying that we were gathering moss off of boulders. I don't think she believed us.

Then we found a place that sells Reindeer Moss- spongy, bright green living things that come in a plastic bag. My lady, a person who creates things for a living is very enthused about making these. Soon our cluttered apartment will be filled with tiny little worlds in glass jars I'm sure. World within a world.

Girls in Prison

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (2009) - Beesley

Oklahoma leads America in incarceration. Female incarceration rate there is two times higher than the national average. 75 percent of all inmates are in there for drug offenses and 80 percent among them are mothers, according to a correctional officer appearing in the film. Since 1940, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary has been holding annual Rodeo. It has been more than a mere gladiatorial spectacle. It's become a well-loved tradition, especially for its inmates and their families. For the inmates, it's once a year refuge from boredom of being incarcerated, a breath of fresh air. It's also a great honor to be selected to represent their respective jails. For their families, it's the only time they can enjoy watching their loved ones being free and happy.

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo starts with Danny, a tattooed and bespectacled convict describing his passion for rodeo. If you ever saw him on the street, you wouldn't be able to tell that the man is serving a 30-year sentence for murder. Personable and articulate, Danny sees rodeo as a perfect metaphor for freedom: "Being out there is to touch something that I gave up when I was sentenced." He laments. This is why they risk their lives being gored by bulls and thrown off broncos.

The film belongs to a female prison rodeo team though. They all have been struggling through broken homes, drug abuse, abandonment issues and separation from their children. As we get to know Rhonda, Jamie, Crystal and Foxie, same picture emerges from them: they have paid more than enough for the crimes they committed when they were young and stupid. They have wised up and all of them deserve a second chance.

As the team prepares for 2007 Rodeo, there are heartbreaks- a broken collar bone, contraband use (lipstick, they suspect) and subsequent suspension from the team, emotional family reunion and parole hearings. But all of them seem very happy when they are practicing on their jerry-rigged bull.

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo succeeds in putting human faces on the statistics and shedding light on the broken justice system where they insist on locking people up rather than investing on treatment and support. And there is plenty of death defying action by spirited beautiful women too. Definitely one of the best documentaries I've seen in recent years.

Review at Twitch

Extraneous Purchase No. 1,574

I know we have a lot of crap in the house but just look at this:


It's a cat lantern. We found it at a stoop sale while wandering around Carroll Gardens area. It was so bizarre and with a 50 cents pricetag, we couldn't resist. It also meows when you turn it on.


Press play below to listen to perhaps the saddest meow in the world:

All I can say is, in case of emergency, I want my Cat Lantern to guide me.

Call to Prayer

Sister Leisl has always been her favorite. Even though she was a couple of years senior, she couldn’t help but feeling like a little girl at the presence of her.

Penile * Vaginal * Anal Wart Treatment
Confidential, Private Dermatology Office
Consult and Same Day Genital Wart Treatment
Call: xxx-xxx-xxxx

They were playing tag in the convent courtyard. As it was usually the case, the game ended up becoming a ticklish affair. The courtyard was soon filled with shrieks and laughter of delight.

AM I YOUR MOTHER?
Adoptees & Natural Parents Can Find Each Other.
www. Adoptioncrossroads.org
xxx-xxx-xxxx xxx-xxx-xxxx

The sudden shower started to fall and broke the game abruptly, making them flee in all directions. But She didn’t. Standing in the now empty courtyard, she looked up. The rain felt good on her face. It drowned out all her senses. Everything became blurry.

CRACK & COCAINE USERS NEEDED
Ages 18-60 years old in good health for participation
in brain imaging medical research assessing the effects
of cocaine on the brain. Confidentiality maintained.
Transportation & Fee Provided
xxx-xxx-xxxx

She felt arms around her waist, softly hugging her from behind. Then she felt a hot breath brushing against her right ear, “You are it.” Sister Leisl said in a hushed voice.

24 Hour Prayer Hotline
Call anytime with any need.
This is a line dedicated for live prayers only
xxx-xxx-xxxx

She didn’t hear the phone ring at first or ignored it. She didn’t want it to end, standing there, in the rain, in Sister Leisl’s arms. But it was the phone in the hallway, ringing mercilessly. She was on duty.


After a long while, someone picked up the phone.

Hah, hah… Hello, Sister Madeline speaking, hah, hah…
Oh, hello. Is it a prayer service line?
Yes. Hah, hah. Yes it is.
So how does it work? I mean, I’m wondering how to go about it.
Sorry. I’m kind of out of breath…Let me…
It’s okay.
Well, if you think you need a prayer for something in your life, I say a prayer for you. And if you’d like, we can pray together.
Oh.
Do you need a prayer?
No Ma’am. I don’t think I need it now. I just wanted to know how it works. But if I ever need one, I’ll call back.

And then I hung up.

Central Park Carousel - 9/7/2010

American Apparel the movie

Stay the Same Never Change (2009) - Nakadate

Having missed its New Directors/New Films appearance last year and a couple of traveling screenings this Spring, I was very excited to hear that Museum of Modern Art acquired photographer/visual artist Laurel Nakadate's feature Stay the Same Never Change. So I saddled up and went up to MoMA to see the film on a sunny afternoon for what could be the last chance to catch it on a big screen.

This plotless, episodic film featuring young girls in Kansas City could be best described as feature length American Apparel commercial or teen porn without sex. Girls in short shorts are lounging around in their houses, wandering out on empty streets inarticulately describing their lives. The mood is ominous and harmless at the same time. It's not completely insulting to male viewers in a jailbaiting kind of way since there are some truly beautiful shots and funny moments. It's a Harmony Korine movie in mini-scale, put together very amateurishly.

One girl is in the habit of calling random numbers from an open phone book and warning/consoling the unsuspecting persons on the other line about tornadoes. Another girl talks to her teddy bear as if it is a boy she likes in school while wearing a dress she bought for her wedding night. She then swims in the river in her bikinis and asks two hunky fellow swimmers to drawn her. Another one is sitting in the woods surrounded by men(some shirtless) who just left their wives and girlfriends behind. Then there is a girl who makes a full figured male doll which resembles Fabio and takes it to a drive in movie(I think the movie they are watching is Evan Almighty).

I understand what Nakadate is going for. These are girls in the heart of America, always flirting with danger, helpless and most of all lonely and their diet consists of froot loops. Stay the Same silly, beautiful selves, being objectified by men and Never Change. The thing is, there is already far better, mature version of the film out on the same subject, Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola.

Is it really a work of art? It deserves to be archived into MoMA database? I'm no art critic but if one suggestive image from American Apparel campaign achieved the same thing as this, why aren't they acquiring Richard Kern photos? Or have they done so already? Disappointing.

Forgive but never forget

Romero (1989) - Duigan


Raul Julia plays Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador who was gunned down for speaking out against military violence on its citizens in 1980. Romero, a timid, frail man of books and privileges gets elected by the stolid church to keep things the way they are- El Salvador under military dictatorship, even though the civil unrest is growing.

It's not until his radical friend Father Grande (great Richard Jordan) gets assassinated Romero realizes that the cycle of violence is stemming from economic inequality and there needs to be justice for the poor. Julia is amazing. He gives a subtle yet passionate portrayal of the man of god.

Romero is a powerful film. Duigan (usually known for his fluffy fluff movies- Flirting, Sirens) doesn't shy away from showing the brutality of what had been going on with graphic scenes and actual pictures of the deceased Salvadorans. After the assassination, the country enters the 12 year long civil war.

The smallest country from Central America, El Salvador now is still far from perfect, but it joins many Latin American nations that went through horrendous turmoil against military dictatorship supported by the US government and have become reconciliatory, democratic societies. I hear the phrase 'Forgive but not forget' a lot from that part of the world. And it always amazes me. If it was done to me and my family, I don't think I could ever forgive anyone who raped and murdered, ever. My admiration goes out to them.

Walk the Walk

Point Blank (1967) - Boorman






Walker(Lee Marvin) is double crossed by his buddy, Reese and girlfriend and left for dead on Alcatraz during a holdup. A year later, he is getting his revenge and wants his $93,000 share from the holdup. Aided by a man who wants to bring down the 'organization', Walker goes after Reese, Carter and Brewster to get his money with the help of perky Chris(Angie Dickenson).

Exercise in style, Point Blank packs more visual ideas in a minute than an average movie does in its entire length. With its frenetic editing and sound design from the get-go, John Boorman (Excalibur, Deliverance)'s cool filmmaking never loses its momentum. The self-awareness of this neo-noir makes it even more delicious:

I laughed out loud at the scene where Chris says bye too casually to Walker, after helping him out by almost sleeping with a man who makes her skin crawl.

In another scene:

Chris: What's your first name?
(pause)
Walker: What's your last?
(cut to the next scene)

Marvin's no smile antihero Walker is the definition of cool. As the man of principles, he is fearless and uncompromising. Point Blank is like hyper-stylized Dirty Harry movie but it definitely stands tall above the rest.

Insinuendo

The Ruling Class (1972) - Medak

Lord Earl of Gurney, an important parliament member, dies in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident in a tutu, leaving his estate to a schizophrenic mental patient son, Jack (Peter O'Toole) who thinks he is Jesus Christ. It's a natural progression really, his German psychiatrist explains- what could be more holier than the British ruling class? Only god himself.

The power hungry relatives of the deceased has a plan: they will declare Jack insane soon after he produces a son. So they introduce us to lovely Grace (Carolyn Seymour), the implant of Charles Gurney, the brother of the deceased. She immediately falls for love-preaching jolly, silly JC. She does a very hot striptease on her wedding night, not for Jack, but for us audiences.

There are many great scenes in this 2 hr 30 minute extravaganza. One has to do with when Jack is asked to perform a miracle. Another is when Jack is confronted with another delusional false god, angry one at that (he proclaims to be the vengeful god from the Old Testament). If there is only one god, which one is the fake?

This satirical look at upperclass snobbery and the rise of conservatism is filled with plenty of sudden musical numbers and O'Toole's eyebrows. It starts out pretty impenetrable with all the wide angle crane shots of gilded interiors and British twit talk. Then it settles nicely into outrageous black comedy that resembles Monty Python on a quiet day, with a set of fangs.

The Ruling Class is the flip side of A Clockwork Orange in a sense. Jack's transformation as the remnant of the innocent flower child of the '60s to the fear mongering conservative with Jack the Ripper undertones while maintaining his god complex is needless to say, pretty heavy handed. But it's O'Toole's show: he is a great physical comedian!

I wonder why Brits are so good with satires but not Americans, especially about class differences. Is it the good old American Dream that prevents us from making fun of them? The American ruling class is not funny?

Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere

My lady Nicole had her mural dedication today. It was commissioned by a Dutch Human Rights Lawyers group Miles4Justice and co-led by our artist friend Chris Soria. The mural was designed and painted by young adults (14-20yrs old) from Red Hook Community Justice Center and after school program ran by Groundswell Mural Projects under Nicole and Chris's guidance. This is her 4th Summer mural.




These small pictures really don't do justice. Hopefully Groundswell would load up bigger pictures on their website soon.

The Mural overlooks the waterway between Brooklyn and the Statue of Liberty on the Valentino Pier in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It's on the side of an old box factory right at the edge of the pier. It's massive and very awesome!

Bird Calls

I don't know why but Nicole and I stopped at FAO SCHWARTZ toy store in Midtown while we were around that area. It was huge and filled with yapping children and their parents. There was a section of stuffed birds by Audubon Society, where you can make birds sing by squeezing the small voice boxes in them. We spent about half an hour squeezing and tossing as many stuffed birds we could get our grubby hands on. We must've looked like a pair of crazy bird haters to innocent kids. It was fun.

Essence of the '80s

Liquid Sky (1982) - Tsukerman

An UFO the size of a dinner plate lands on the roof of a fashion model, Margaret (Anne Carlisle)'s penthouse apartment in Midtown Manhattan. The alien is after effects of heroin and similar effects of endorphin produced by humans when they reach an orgasm. Margaret is the object of desire. Whether she likes it or not, everyone wants to have a way with her. People start to evaporate into thin air right after having sex with Margaret, leaving her with the god complex and still no orgasm.

Funny, corny, endlessly nihilistic and beautiful, it's a wondrous experience. Neon lights, fashion, drugs, fame and androgyny fill up the screen. If you could bottle up the essence of the 80s, Liquid Sky would be it. This will make a killer double feature with The Man Who Fell to Earth.

I've been riding with the ghost

The Eclipse (2009) - McPherson


A touching ghost story that is miles better than any other recent boo! horror. Michael (Ciaran Hinds) is a sad faced widower with two kids and an old father-in-law in a nursing home in the small gothic town of Cobh, Ireland. There is a literary festival going on and as he always has been for many years, Michael is volunteering for driving writers around town. He meets Lena, a famous writer who writes about ghosts and supernatural encounters. Funny, because he's been having spooky encounters lately, with the ghost his still alive(but for how long) father-in-law.

With blustering Aidan Quinn as a famous writer who has hots for Lena, the acting in Eclipse is superb, so as careful framing and effective steadycam shots- it's all silhouettes and lots of breathing rooms. There are only a handful of ghost sequences and they are truly terrifying. McPherson's ghost story is mature and rings true for anyone who experienced or thought about grief, death and fear of losing the memories of past love. Thanks Ben, for this rec.

Viva il separatismo della liberta

Salvatore Giuliano (1962) - Rosi

Francesco Rosi's depiction of the life and death of the Sicilian separatist Salvatore Giuliano makes Soderbergh's Ché look like a daytime soap. With a cold narration and Giuliano being only a dead body, Rosi paints a complicated picture of postwar Italy where the politicians, mafia, separatists, police are all in cahoots, trying to get a piece of power and leave poor peasants to fend for themselves. The first half concerns with guerrilla warfare against stark/beautiful Sicilian backdrop and the second half, the courtroom drama where Giuliano's lieutenants are on trial for a civilian massacre. Turns out everyone had their own angles to play and things get muddy quickly.

Resembling a newsreel, Rosi's work might lack an identifiable character, but still maintains its power and weight through its immediacy and naturalism borne out of Italian neo-realism. Only comparable film I can think of is Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers which came later.

Simple Life

The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005) - Davaa




Young Nansal comes home to the Steppes of Western Mongolia for Summer break from school in the city. No more than 7 years old, she helps household chores and takes care of two younger siblings in tough, normadic life.

Nansal learns about reincarnation and responsibilities along the way. Their way of life hasn't changed for hundreds of years but there are some hints of modern civilization - they own a motorcycle, and father brings home a green plastic bucket to the appreciative mother who in turn asks, "Oh, beautiful colors, is it heat resistant?"

It also showcases mobile Mongolian adobe - Ger, as Batchuluuns dismantle and move to another area for grazing. And it's specious inside, practical and ingenious in design.

Byambasuren Davaa (Story of a Weeping Camel), a mongolian born, German filmmaker spent a Summer with Nansal and her normadic family and made this quietly observed, lovely docudrama about a stray dog that came into their lives. Makes you question if our lives were way too complicated.

Altitude Sickness

Altiplano (2009) - Brosens/Woodworth

Altiplano opens with the start of the Virgin Mary procession in the town of Turubamba up in the Andes. The statue shatters right outside the church because children get over-excited about silvery liquid in the potholes on the ground. The whole sequence is breathtakingly gorgeous. Then it cuts to a battle field of Iraq, where a Iranian-born, Belgian photojournalist Grace (Jasmin Tabatabai) is forced to take a picture of the death of her guide, Omar. Soon after, she denounces her profession and falls into a deep depression racked with guilt while her husband, a cataract surgeon Max (Dardennes' regular Olivier Gormet) heads for the Andes for the volunteer work.

People in Turubamba get sick from the mercury poisoning and a headstrong girl Saturnina (Magali Solier of Madeinusa) loses her fiancé to the illness. Her blind rage becomes the focal point for the riots against ever present mining companies digging for gold.

Set in otherworldly Andes backdrop, Altiplano is bravura filmmaking at its best- colors, music, camera movements and unforgettable images mixed in with myth and spirituality conjuring up emotions like no other. The filmmakers does take artistic freedom to bring home the message. But it doesn't feel cheap. Their tragic lyricism doesn't feel made-up. And the camera adores Solier, understandably so- she is the definition of exotic beauty. Her defiant martyr carries this otherwise too on-the-nose film. By the end, this stunningly presented tale of reconciliation and fraternity really cuts deep.

Trailer

An Education

Un Prophète (2009) - Auidard



Without ever being showy, Un Prophète is a pitch perfect prison movie that could easily have been called An Education or Life Lessons. The Prophet reference comes late in this two and a half hour film which you don't feel the length at all- Our hero Malik(Tahar Rahim), a young Arab criminal serving 6 year sentence, has a premonition: "The Animals are Coming!", and surely, they do. He could've just easily blurted out, "Arabs are coming!"

The dangerous chess game Malik plays in and out of the prison is almost too coolly and confidentially realized by Auidard. It floats without one false note. As great as he was in The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Niels Arestrup here plays a menacing Corsican Don, César, treading the screen like a caged lion.

The film alludes to the bigger picture reflecting the French colonial history and the changing face of French society. It's like Caché with recognizable face, much less abstract and much more personable with an unobtrusive supernatural flare. Auidard once again demonstrates that he is gifted with a rare combination of Neil Jordan humanism sans drama and rhythmic elegance of a good classical music.

Farewell to the Rights of Man!

Billy Budd (1962) - Ustinov

Set in Napoleonic War era, The film tells a story of an incorruptible sailor, Billy Budd (Terence Stamp) and his sadistic superior Claggart (Robert Ryan). Good natured, always smiling Budd gets recruited from the merchant ship(The Rights of Man) by Royal Navy. Soon, Budd's beauty and innocence wins over weary sailors and officers alike, except for the Master-at-Arms, Claggart who is despised both by shipmates for his cruelty without reason and by officers for being an unwelcome headache during wartime. And he is out to destroy something perfect, something beautiful.

The best part of the film is the two's on deck confrontation - no matter how hard Claggart tries to get a rise out of the angelic kid, he only finds himself defeated by Budd's innocence and straightforwardness. "Oh, no. You would charm me too, huh? Get away." He shouts.

Billy Budd, Melville's the other famous seafaring novel, has been loosely adapted to two highly homoerotic films - Beau Travail and Gohatto, both set within military ranks and holding on to the idea of 'sailor' from the Village People a tad bit too seriously.

No doubt, 22 year old Terence Stamp is gorgeous and fits the title role as the innocence and virtue personified with speech impediment. Robert Ryan gives the performance of his career (even though he's the only one on the ship who speaks with an American accent) as evil Claggart who's just as vulnerable and lonely as anybody.

Things escalate and the film turns in to a Path of Glory like courtroom drama. Ustinov directs, produces, writes and even plays a hammy role as Captain Vere who has to make an impassioned decision on the young sailors fate (he can't veer off, get it?). He solemnly declares, "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!" Even though it's a little heavy on its biblical notion of the sacrificial lamb for the common good, with a heartbreaking and well deserved ending, Billy Budd is well worth the trip.

Gills

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) - Arnold
An archeologist down in Brazil finds a puzzling fossil- a quite intact arm of a creature equipped with webs inbtwn fingers. Can such a creature still be around? Band of scientists, including lovely Kay (Julie Adams) aboard the boat named Rita is dispatched to confirm the existence of such a creature.

Black Lagoon plays out like Jaws. The creature is tenacious, smart and deadly. It's a much more dangerous killing machine than a Great White because it can attack you both under and out of water. It's also infatuated with Kay.

I have a thing for the underwater photography and this one features plenty of beautiful underwater sequences. Pretty cool monster wet suit too.

Gullible

So, how is your heart doing?

Well, she didn’t say. She just told me to take off my shirt, turned off the light, put some goop on my chest and prodded me with her magic wand and we watched my heart on the computer together. That was it.

So an echocardiogram is like an ultrasound?

It’s exactly like an ultrasound. But instead of seeing tiny hands and feet, you see this gray image of a pure muscle palpitating. You can hear its sound too.

Wow, really?

And it sounds like a swamp toad. Not graceful at all.

So when are you gonna know if your heart is okay?

I don’t know. She will give the test result to my doctor and he will call me by the end of the week, maybe.

Why did you have to get an echo in the first place? What’s wrong with your heart?

I had a heart surgery when I was seven. So I have to get it checked regularly. I can’t ever remember the technical term for the defects. Something to do with the wall of my heart having holes. So the-

The blood wasn’t pumping through your body.

Correct. The blood wasn’t sufficiently circulating through my body. I couldn’t really run. I walk, say, from here to over there to the door, I had to take a break. I had purple lips and fingernails.

But now you are all better.

Well, because I had a heart transplant. I have a baboon’s heart.

A baboon’s heart?

Yeah. They gave me a baboon’s heart.

They didn’t fix your heart? They replaced it with a baboon’s?

No, they didn’t fix it. Apparently baboon’s is the closest to human’s they say.

Did they give your heart back?

What do you mean?

You know like in a jar, like when they take your tonsils out?

No, I wish. They probably threw it in a garbage can or fed it to the dogs.

Don’t say things like that.

No. I didn’t get my heart back in a jar.

Too bad.

Well, now I got incredibly warm hands and feet and I sweat a lot. Thanks to my baboon heart.

Why is that?

Because it beats faster than human’s.

Is that why you are always hyper?

Yes.

Do baboons live long?

I detected a real concern in her voice. I couldn't lie anymore.

Tunnel of Love

Subway (1985) - Besson



After blasting through the safe of a rich man at a party, a no good small time thief (Christopher Lambert) takes a refuge underground. At first, he is blackmailing the rich man for 'the documents' but he is infatuated with the rich man's trophy wife Helena (Isabelle Adjani). Down in the metro, he meets a bunch of cooky characters and wants to form a music band. But there are many people who are after him. Blabbity blah...

Neon lights, shoulder pads, hair gel, really bad synth pop, dancing to a Rickie Lee Jones and roller skates consist of most of Besson's Subway- an amour fou taking place in the Paris Metro. The colors, unnecessary steadicam moves, a sax solo, plenty of fog machines- in short, it's got everything. A great 80's time capsule.

Memento Mori

Inception (2010) - Nolan

Can a film in which you are spoon-fed for two and a half hours still be entertaining? Yes. Nolan achieves it here. Inception, a talky, dream within a dream within a dream corporate espionage thriller(?), is a typical Nolan subtext free filmmaking. Dream and subconscious are treated like straightforward science where you can even time them to set up a countdown style thrill ride (which works less and less as it is stretched out). It really doesn't matter. It's only Leo Dicaprio's Dom who has any kind of personality and who's actually running around with any kind of emotions. That doesn't matter either. It's so dense visually and plot-wise you don't have time to think about all that. You are completely sold by the time the ambiguous ending rolls around, thoroughly entertained and exhausted and maybe a little moved too. No harm in that. Supreme entertainment. But it's not going to age well.

Straight Story

Kakera: A Piece of Our Life (2009) - Ando

Haru (Hikari Mitsushima of Love Exposure), a college student is a bit of a pushover when it comes to relationship. Her boneheaded boyfriend hasn't even broken up with his ex and is constantly demanding sex. One day, she meets Riko (Eriko Nakamura), a prosthetics artist at a coffeeshop. She wipes off Haru's cocoa mustache, saying she finds her very attractive. Riko is that straightforward. So begins this girl-on-girl love story based on the popular manga, Love Vibes. Would make a good double feature with Happy Together.

Kakera is not set in Buenos Aires nor features spectacular cinematography. With the muted, soft color palette and James Iha's hazy strumming, Kakera has a nostalgia inducing 70's drama feel to it. I don't know much about Japanese manga culture that's geared toward girl audiences. But I didn't expect this subtle yet penetrating observation on relationship from a manga adaptation. Mitsushima and Nakamura draw sympathy as they portray these well drawn characters who go in and out of love with all the trimmings- jealousy, confusion, loneliness... With its open ended-ness and emotional honesty, Kakera reminds me of a good French drama more than anything else.

I step on Andy Warhol's face!

I got a call from my lady. "Come down quick," she said. "There are cheap shoes sales going on, and I got a pair saved for you." So I met her outside a shoe store on Broadway. It's one of the stores I pass by on the way to work everyday but never thought about dropping in. For those of you who know me, I'm the biggest slob there is. I wear whatever's there. But the fact that I've been wearing same black sneakers my sister sent me a while ago (she works for Columbia Sportswear which is great. Thank you Yoonmee!) had been bothering my lady. She was determined to get a pair of Summer shoes for me for a while.

At a first glance, this pair was not very unusual.

"Aren't they cool?" my lady said. Fragile: Handle with Care? Then I realized there are people's faces inside the shoes.

There were pictures, of Andy Warhol for the right foot and Candy Darling for the left. The pair was on sale for twenty dollars. I tried them on. Squishy! The idea of Warhol and Darling under my heels made me giddy. My lady eagerly paid twenty dollars for them.

I don't care if you accuse me of being hipster-ish at an old age. I'm happy to report that their faces are finally in their rightful place.

Hollow Dance

Mother (2009) - Bong

How far will you go to prove your child's innocence? Kim Hye-ja, the reigning queen of Korean tv drama plays the title character in Bong Joon-ho's Mother. He uses Kim's presence to the fullest here. Those big fawny eyes, raven's nest hair, wiry frame. She has been the mother of Korean collective consciousness for the last 40 some years. And she is a force to be reckoned with.

As he demonstrated over the years, Bong's a very talented director, churning out well polished dramedies (Memories of Murder, The Host) with everyman's touch. As we go through the moral muck of the small town ghetto, filled with poverty stricken swindlers, retards, incompetent police, glue sniffing high schoolers, we recognize right away that we are in Bong's world. Mom yells at her idiot son at a visitation after he gets arrested for murder, "Why did you sign the confession? You don't do that even if you are guilty!"

Like in Memories of Murder, Bong's not in a hurry to reveal the murderer. That's not really what he's after. There are plenty of small details and characters he wants to present first. It's not about child prostitution, not about broken family and not even about ineffective judicial system. Bong's very good at his own brand of storytelling. But I feel that he shortchanges those important elements to do so. Ultimately, it's about celebration of motherhood. But it feels hollow somehow.