I don't know much about kissing

They Live by Night (1949) - Ray

It concerns young love between 23 year old jailbait Bowie (Farley Granger) and a lonely gas station attendant and a niece of an accomplice, Juliette (Cathy O'Donnell). Just broke out of a jail after serving 7 years for murder, Bowie is mixed up in with tough bank robbers Chickamaw and T-dub. After another heist where people are shot and fallen in love with Juliette in the safehouse, Bowie wants out. They get married at a bus stop chapel and get settled in a small cabin in the woods. But the sensational newspapers blow him out of proportion, making him a some kind of sleek gangster. And the tough guys wanting the third wheel, wouldn't leave him alone.

Ray's attention is on the two young people in love rather than on their impending doom. "I don't know too much about kissing. You will have to show me." The love sick kitten Juliette purrs. "I don't know much about it myself." Bowie replies in earnest. "We'll learn it together." she says. If this was said in any other film, it wouldn't have worked. But it's Nick Ray film. Fresh faced Granger and O'Donnell are perfect for the parts as young lovers who are basically children that the circumstances made them playing grown ups. Instead of coming off as naive, they are sullen and aware of the world they live in. They are just happy they found each other and want to be left alone. You instantly feel for these kids.

Even though it's regarded as the granddaddy of Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands and slew of other caper flicks, They Live by Night is a typical Nick Ray film first.
They Live by Night is a sentimental film. But you can feel that Ray's sentimentality comes from a genuine place, out of well drawn characters. I really loved it.

Float

L'Atalante (1934) - Vigo

A country girl, Juliette (Dita Parlo) marries a young skipper of a barge named L'Atalante on the Seine. They sail from one port to another along the river with a couple of shipmates- buffoonish, grizzled sailor Le père Jules (the great Michel Simon) who owns a dozen cats that seem to be always roaming around the ship and a kid. Juliette soon finds the life on the barge boring. Her eyes sparkle when she hear the news of docking in Paris.

It's a simple story beautifully told- young lovebirds, temptation of the City of Lights, jealousy, rash decisions and regret. The moving ship inevitably provides plenty of great cinematic visuals. There are many memorable scenes too- Le père Jules' cabin of curiousities, a street peddler's one man band act, and of course, the memorable under water scene. But my favorite scene is the newly weds sleepless night apart where Vigo goes back and forth with the simplest, yet very effective shadow play to tie them together.

I've heard a lot about L'Atalante's influence on my favorite film, Leos Carax's Les Amants du Pont-Neuf and now I can see why. A beautiful movie. I'll just go and put my head in the water bucket now.

The Box

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) - Aldrich


Craaazzzy movie. It starts out very strong with a woman only wearing trench coat running barefoot on the LA highway at night, then body stopping the car driven by a thick-headed PI, Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker). Soon They are captured by a bunch of thugs and when Hammer comes to consciousness, he witnesses the woman being tortured to death. Next thing he remembers is their car being pushed off the cliff with him and the woman in it.

This cold war paranoia tinged 'whatsit' movie is so ridiculously hard edged, so hilariously brutal and so not PC, it kept me chuckling throughout. It's a archetypal pulpy noir: nothing is really explained here and it don't matter. It's still amazingly delicious. You can see its influence everywhere from Tarantino to Lynch. Hammer is no Marlowe or Spade. He is a vain, big, tough man who wouldn't hesitate to slap anyone around to get what he wants. There are lots of dames in this one and non of them are that pretty. The femme fatale of the movie is a waifish curious cat, Lily/Gabrielle (Gaby Rogers). You have to slog through the saggy middle but the payoff at the end is so grand, it made me laugh for the longest time.

Heap of Sand

The Hill (1965) - Lumet

It's a military prison in North Africa for deserters, thieves, troublemakers and weaklings of the British army. The place is tightly run by square jawed R.S.M. Wilson (Harry Andrews) who truly believes that good old discipline will make a soldier out of any man. The man-made sand hill in the middle of the camp is shown in a spectacular crane shot that opens the film. It's the crowning jewel of Wilson's legacy. Under his command, the prisoners would march up and down the hill under the unforgiving African sun until they pass out.

Enter a new batch of prisoners - Roberts (Sean Connery), King (Ossie Davis), Bartlett (Roy Kinnear), McGrath (Jack Watson) and Stevens (Alfred Lynch). After few scuffles, the new cellmates bond but are worried about weakling Stevens. It's the sadistic Staff Sergeant Williams (Ian Hendry) who's after Stevens and the gang. After grueling run on the hill wearing a gas mask, Stevens cracks and dies, sending out ripples through out the camp.

With Ray Rigby adapting from his own play, The Hill crackles with sharp dialog delivered by amazing actors including young, just-off-doing-Goldfinger Sean Connery playing a man who refused to fight in a suicide mission. The character actor Andrews is also great as a man drunken with power, Hendry is nurse Ratched worthy and Michael Redgrave as the sympathetic medical officer brings in humanism. But the star of the film is definitely Ossie Davis, who plays a whiskey drinking Jamaican man and steals every scene he is in. Oh god, he is a national treasure here, ready to be discovered by Nicolas Cage. One of my all time favorite performances by anyone.

The film is not bogged down by sentimentality or a big message. The mere notion of Military invokes 'leave you brain behind'/'no-common sense required' in my mind. Lumet doesn't have to try hard to make things anti-military. It's out there in the form of giant sand heap for all to see. He just shows that it doesn't have to be super serious or highly dramatic to make a point and he does it marvelously.

Gerry-Rigged

Gerry (2002) - Van Sant

If a film starts with Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel, you know that shit's gonna go down and someone will die. It sets the tone. That's what happens in Gerry, but very slowly. We follow Casey Affleck and Matt Damon through a desert hiking trail and where they soon get lost. They totally gerried their directions. At first, with uneven visuals (mainly long takes but not the usual Harris Savides style), minimal dialogue and annoying moody score, I had a hard time getting into it. Once it settles in with the desert vistas and monotonous trekking, I was totally sold on its hypnotic nature. There is a funny ten minute marooned-on-the-rock scene that ends in totally ridiculous way.

Gerry is not an incisive character study, nor huffy survival tale, nor reflection on today's wayward youth. Van Sant keeps things deliberately obscure. It's challenging. Two characters are totally interchangeable. There is nothing really going on. Yet I couldn't keep my eyes off the screen. It's an interesting experiment that is only possible in cinematic terms. I liked it.

Uncle Boonmee Choice Cuts

Watched it again recently since it's out on DVD. Sublime. Got some screengrabs:











Uncle Boonmee Review
Apichatpong Weerasethakul Interview

Time

The Future (2011) - July

A couple of weeks ago, I was having brunch with my wife at this German place we know. Some waitstaff's ipod mix was playing through the speakers and a familiar song caught our attention. It was 'Where the Streets Have No Name' by U2. Then it occurred to us that the song was 25 years old. 25 YEARS OLD! Where has all the time gone?!

'Time' is the subject of The Future, the second feature by artist/author/filmmaker, Miranda July. Filled with anxiety of getting nowhere while getting old, it's decidedly sadder and darker than her previous film, Me You and Everyone We Know.

Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) are thirty something, self absorbed modern couple going through their early midlife crises. Unmarried and childless, they are stuck in jobs they hate (Sophie works at a dance center for children and Jason, an over the phone computer tech support). Their decision to adopt a long haired, injured cat named Paw-Paw (who narrates the film in a scratchy, high-pitched voice- by July) pushes them into existential crises. This rash decision was based upon the prior knowledge that Paw-Paw has only six months to live. It's a short term commitment- something tangible: they would love and care for the cat for his remaining time here on earth, then they would move on with their lives. But at the shelter clinic, they are informed that with lots of love and proper care, Paw-Paw might live for up to 5 years!

To have the cat fully recovered from his injury at the shelter, they are given a month of freedom- so to speak, to do whatever they want, before they commit to the daunting pet ownership. For Sophie, it's creating 30 new dances and put them on youtube. For Jason, it's surrendering himself to fate. They quit their respective jobs and even quit internet which they are married to. The film turns darker when artistically frustrated Sophie starts having an affair with an older man. It culminates to her confessing to Jason. But he can't take the harsh truth, so he literally stops time- it's one of the tricks the couple practices.

July again tackles the internet age human interactions through seemingly normal characters with their abnormal lives. As usual, she does her delicate balancing act where her quirkiness could easily turn uncomfortable at a moment's notice but never tips over. More so than in Me You and Everyone We Know, the characters in The Future are emotionally transparent, exposing their vulnerability out in the open. They are as terrified of the ominous, uncertain future just as the children often are.

Being a thirty-something, semi-professional myself, the film hit me very hard. It makes me contemplate on how the technology (wide use of internet, cell phones and game consoles, all happened in our twenties) could be a contributing factor for our generation being trapped in a perpetual arrested development. The Future is funny and poignant in its depiction of adult angst, but I can't shake off the sadness I feel after watching it. 

After making an appearance in the Berlin, Sundance and SXSW film festivals earlier this year, The Future opens on July 29th in the US, followed by a UK opening in November.

Horseman of the apocalypse

Disclaimer:
WARNING!! THIS FILM IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. IF YOU HAVE EXISTING HEART CONDITIONS, PLEASE LEAVE THE ROOM NOW!!

To beat the 104 degree heat and unbelievable boredom, me and crew were at it again.
Can a youtube clip scarier than death? Apparently so.

I gotta thank the crew again:
Brandon for Nicolas Cage impression, David for mindblowing lighting set-up and Asuan(?) for your emotional support.

What we need is some kickass soundtracks.

Encounters of the Spooky Kind

Disclaimer:
WARNING!! THIS FILM IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. IF YOU HAVE EXISTING HEART CONDITIONS, PLEASE LEAVE THE ROOM NOW!!

Gosh, I haven't done any filming in years. Bored out of my mind, me and some kids decided to make use of the new HD video camera at work.
It's shot on SONY PMW-F3L XD CAM with an 18mm Zeiss Prime.

I have to thank these brave souls who made this sacrilege possible:

Eric the horse whisperer
David for his mesmerizing performance
Asuan for lighting, btw, how do you spell your name?

Poltergeistus

Insidious (2010) - Wan




Director James Wan (Saw) delivers some really effective scares in this Poltergeist + Nightmare on Elm Street mash-up. Wan takes his time to gear up the suspense and it pays off nicely. The visual is pure 80s Argento, with red dominating the color palette. At time's Insidious feels like a Tom Waits music video and has no weight to it since the devil's appearance and demeanor (with hula music and all) has no strong reference points from anywhere other than some shaky urban legend tabloid stories. The ending almost ruins the good fun, but it still is much better than other recent horror films.

Haru's Journey

Haru's Journey (2010) - Kobayashi

Tadao (screen legend Tatsuya Nakadai) is very upset. He's first seen storming out of the house by the sea in a small fishing village in Hokkaido, with his granddaughter Haru (Eri Tokunaga) trailing behind with his cane. She apologizes profusely but he is adamant. It is finally clear after they are on the train what their argument was about: Haru's job at the school cafeteria is no more since the school is permanently closed. She wants to go to Tokyo to get a job, and therefore Tadao will need to find some way to support himself alone. He is begrudgingly on his way to ask his siblings whom he hasn't seen for ages, if they could take him in. So starts Haru's Journey, a moving, beautiful film by Masahiro Kobayashi (Bashing, Rebirth).

Haru's Journey is a road movie. Our odd couple travel by train from place to place, relying on Tadao's worn address book, from one of Tadao's siblings after another. But there are no prospects of them accepting his proposal. They have their own problems and Tadao's insolence is not helping. It becomes clear that quiet Haru's been taking care of the old man all this time. Their money is running low and Tadao's lame leg does not help the matter.

The film can be seen as an updated version of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story, but instead of older parents asking children for help in the industrialized post-war Japan that amplified the widening generation gap and breakdown of the tradition, Haru's Journey touches upon the two of the most pressing issues in contemporary Japanese society- growing number of elderly population and the crippling recession. Since it being a Kobayashi film, there are no archetypes in Haru's Journey nor any moral grandstanding. Tadao is not an old saintly man contemplating about changing times but rather a stubborn, uneducated, selfish man who throws tantrums from time to time. Haru, whose mother ended her own life, is a deeply wounded girl, about to venture out to the world on her own. Every character in the film is three dimensional and has redeeming qualities. And there are no perfect answers to the life's complications and not one person is wiser than the other.

As the tearful reunion between Haru and her father and his new wife gives Haru and Tadao a glimmer of hope in attaining a real family, but they realize that they can't just intrude on someone else's lives. For better or worse, they only got each other until the end.

Nakadai is nothing short of a revelation as a stubborn old man with no regrets. With his commanding presence and vulnerable gaze, the film showcases his great range. Eri Tokunaga is also remarkable as the withdrawn nineteen year old country girl whose resilience is the bedrock of the film. Kobayashi skillfully punches in for close ups of these two faces which convey so much feelings, in critical moments. The strong support cast include Chikage Awashima as Tadao's kindly older sister and Teruyuki Kagawa as Haru's equally wounded, understanding father. Haru's Journey is a quietly affecting modern day masterpiece that will break your heart many times over.

Haru's Journey plays part of Japan Cuts 2011, July 20th 7pm. For tickets and info, please visit JAPAN CUTS 2011 website.

Trashy Fun

Tabloid (2010) - Morris

Errol Morris's examination of the nature of tabloids turns out to be the funniest film I've seen in years. He tells a crazy story that happened in Britain, 1977 involving a beautiful all around American girl Joyce McKinney. From her side of the story, it makes McKinney a hopeless romantic- love at first sight, but her man goes to Britain for a mission (he is a Mormon), she goes after him with some friends, kidnaps him and ties him to a bed and have sex with him to de-brainwash him. The Scotland Yard sees it differently and puts her in jail. British tabloids see it differently as well dig up some of her sordid past including bunch of nudie and s&m pics of her.

Real life stories are nuttier than fiction. Morris lets his subject tell their stories without much interruption. Conveniently, all the records and photos are missing from both sides, the truth lost in the middle somewhere.

Then there is a Korean connection involving cloned dogs named Boogers one to five. The tabloid story doesn't get any weirder than this.

In the age of Newscorp scandal and sensationalized murder trials, Joyce McKinney story seems fun and innocent. Morris is on top of his game and has never been any more entertaining than this. Will definitely end up in my top ten of 2011.

My Errol Morris Interview

Global Recession

Sketches of Kaitan City (2010) - Kamakiri
A young shipyard worker takes pride in his work. You can see it in his face when one of the gigantic ships he worked on is being launched to sea. There is almost a childlike glee in him. Then the news of the company restructuring and the layoffs hit the airwaves. It's all down hill from there in the northern port city of Kaitan, where the soul crushing effects of economic downturn are the only things gloomier than its unforgiving wintry weather. Kazuyoshi Kamakiri's Sketches of Kaitan City is a relentlessly bleak film.

This Altman-esque, episodic film chronicles five very distinctive and loosely connected stories based on the shorts by novelist Yasushi Sato, set around a joyless new year's eve: the aforementioned shipyard worker and his sister take the city tram up to the overlook to watch the first sunrise of the year, only to find out that they don't have enough money for both for the lift down, an elderly woman refuses to move while the city tries to demolish her shack and make way for a new shopping mall, then her cat runs away, an operator of the shaggy city planetarium doesn't know how reconnect with his unresponsive teenage son and suspects his bar hostess wife is up to no good and, an abusive gas supply business owner beats his wife, who in turn, beats their son and an old trolly conductor meets his estranged Tokyoite son at his wife's grave.

With its handheld camerawork and minimal music, Sketches of Kaitan City resembles strongly of the neo-neo realism of the Dardenne brothers' films but without their sense of hope. That's just the thing. All the stories are equally strong and performances, very good. You feel their pain and suffering. But Kamakiri's documentary style filmmaking is too distant and dispassionate to be appreciated. It is problematic for a nearly three hour film where the only character that gives the audience a glimmer of hope is the pregnant cat, that there will be adorable kittens in the near future. Well, if you were jobless, homeless, beaten and isolated, what good would the kittens do?


Sketches of Kaitan City will be screening as part of Japan Cuts 2011 on Tuesday July 19th 6:30pm You can find out more information at Japan Cuts 2011 website

Headless Limbless Companion

Torso (2010) - Yamasaki

One might wonder that whether we need yet another film about a blow up sex doll, especially one coming from the long time Hirokazu Kore-Eda's cinematographer Yutaka Yamasaki. Not that Kore-Eda's approach in Air Doll was in any way sensationalistic, but Yamasaki's Torso is neither an over the top titillating sex comedy nor a whimsical fantasy about an inanimate semen receptacle coming to life. It's rather a quiet character study deeply rooted in realism.

Hiroko (Makiko Watanabe) is a thirty something office worker and by all account, a cold fish. She seems quite satisfied with her single woman status. Her interactions with people including her younger half-sister Mina (Love Exposure's Sakura Ando) are curt and distant. She declines invitations to the night outings by the men-hungry coworkers at the office. With no makeup and her scant wardrobe in shambles, she doesn't seem to try very hard even though she's not unnoticeable- with her black rimmed glasses and her hair tightly held back, she can pass as a sexy librarian. But she has a secret: every night, she inflates her male blowup torso, takes bath and snuggles up in bed with it. As the film progresses, we realize that this inflatable object is more than just a sex toy.

The tension rises when Mina moves in to Hiroko's tiny apartment after a fight with her abusive boyfriend Jiro (with whom Hiroko has a history with) and declares that she is pregnant. Forever a pesky little sister, Mina accuses her introverted older sister of ruining her life by introducing the womanizing brut to her. There is a strong sibling rivalry and complicated family dynamics at play. Their mother favors Mina and hates Hiroko for all her late husband's misdeeds. "When people die, they all become saints," mother replies, effectively cutting off Hiroko's reason for hating her dead stepfather and not showing up at his funeral. 

There is a funny beach getaway scene involving ecstatic Hiroko and her headless, limbless boyfriend in a Speedo that ends in skinny dipping. It's the first time we see her smile and giggle like a little schoolgirl. She seems to find the situation just as hilarious as the viewers do.

In Torso, there are no huge confrontations or public embarrassments to speak of. It is inevitable that Mina's snooping in the small apartment would result in finding out her sister's little secret. Would that be a big deal? Would it be less embarrassing if it was a dildo?

Yamasaki handles what could easily have been a sordid material with subtlety and maturity. Fortunately, in his hands, the inflatable object remains to be the inflatable object and never takes over the film as a centerpiece. It is Hiroko's emotional support system, a symbol of comfort against hurtful things. But she can't stay in her comfort zone forever. Torso is an astute observation on the state of arrested development, aided by hand-held, natural photography and pitch perfect acting by Watanabe and Ando.

Torso will be screening as part of Japan Cuts 2011 on Sunday, July 17th You can find out more information at Japan Cuts 2011 website

I Can be Funny Too: Errol Morris Interview

I'm not a big fan of roundtable interviews. It's not as intimate as one-on-ones and you have to share the short given time with other interviewers. But when an opportunity comes along to interview Errol Morris, one of the most revered American documentary filmmakers, in the week of the release of his uproarious new film, Tabloid, who am I to say no?

Luckily, the time slot I was given was at the end of the day with only two other journalists so I was able to slip in fair amount of questions. Even after repeated interviews, Morris appeared to be chatty and generous in his answers about the film, the state of modern journalism and a new narrative project with This American Life's Ira Glass while showing a bit of his 'funny' side as well. Here are the excerpts from the interview:

[All the questions are mine, otherwise marked with *]

Even though Tabloid is being regarded as aesthetically different from your previous films, I still see it very much as an 'Errol Morris' film. In a way there are a lot of similarities in Fred Leuchter [Mr. Death], Robert McNamara in The Fog of War and Joyce McKinney. Was it that self-delusional, ironical aspect of her story what attracted you to do this film?

Yeah. Maybe in part, I think.

Did the Mormons give you any trouble making this film?
No. Mercifully.

You are not expecting a backlash from them after the release?

We were showing the movie in Salt Lake City and people there seem to love it! I think Joyce might have liked it more if the movie was more antagonistic to the Mormon Church. But as you know, it's an element of the story, not THE story.  

The tabloid culture seems a lot different now than in the 70s with the decline of serious journalism in general, many newspapers going under, the popularity of the reality TV and now The News of the World scandal. What's your take on it?

Things have clearly gotten worse. The News of the World story is not so much of a tabloid story. I mean there are elements of that kind of story in my movie where people no longer care about the facts or the representation of reality or truth. The News of the World story cranks it up a couple of steps further and shows that they not only don't care about the truth, but they don't care about anything at all. It's all lies and manipulation, crimes, hacking into people's phones and playing games with people's lives. With Joyce you can say 'ok she is not a completely innocent victim of the tabloids, she is a participant at least on some level that she sought some kind of fame or notoriety and she got it.' But you take the parents of the girl who got abducted and killed, they didn't seek any fame or attention. And the police were trying to decide whether the girl was alive or dead and the tabloid was fiddling around with the evidence? That's different. That's really truly screwed up version of journalism.

*One good thing that came about was that they shut the paper down.

No, it's not clear if anything is going to happen to the Newscorp. Some low level workers who were dependent on the paper got the blame but at this point, I'm not sure what it means over all.

Do you see Tabloid as your own response to your previous, more 'serious' films?

The Standard Operating Procedure wasn't particularly well received. The reviews were all over the place. I felt that the movie was misjudged by many people. Whether I went loony-toons in it or not, I felt the movie was never really appreciated. It didn't do particularly well at the box office either. And I thought it was good time to do this [Tabloid] because I consider myself as a funny person and this is a funny movie. So people can't quite say ERROL = NOT FUNNY because of The Fog of War and Standard Operating Procedure. So in a way I wanted to do this movie as a way of saying, "FUCK YOU I AM FUNNY!"

*You've collaborated with Philip Glass and Danny Elfman in the past...

Yes and I will work with both of them again. Philip and I did 3 features together and then we did a short project for IBM for its hundredth anniversary, it's on youtube. It's about a half an hour film and he did an original score for it (search: IBM Centennial Film: They Were There - People who changed the way the world works). I love Philip's music and I'd love to work with him again. I'm planning on one with Ira Glass as it was reported in This American Life. It's a narrative feature about the first cryogenic freezer, which is kind of a tabloid story. Either Danny or Philip will do the music. They both are great and they seem to tolerate me. (Laughs). John Kusiak did the soundtrack for Tabloid and he did a fantastic job.

Are you nervous that it's coming out the same week as the last Harry Potter movie?

I'll just have to face it down.

How are the Boogers [Joyce's dogs] doing?

I think they are doing fine. One of the Boogers was at the screening yesterday in a matching sequin dress with Joyce.

So that means there is really a future for successful human cloning, perhaps?

The clones would be very convenient for the screening appearances and interviews. (laughs)

*So Joyce is coming for the screening tonight too?

We certainly invited her. I get the feeling she will show up at the LA screenings too.

*So her not being happy with the movie and appearing at the screenings uninvited are...

We really had a good time the other day at the screening. She was funny, unlike when I was editing the film for the last six months. She was threatening and talking about suing me and all that. Is it all an act? We don't know. One word that comes to mind in dealing with Joyce McKinney is 'Kevlar'.


IFC Films will open Tabloid in theaters on July 15.

My thanks to Taiyo Okamoto from COOL Magazine and Adam Schartoff from filmwax for their camaraderie during the interview.

Long Live VHS!

Videodrome (1983) - Cronenberg

Long gone are the days of magnetic tapes. Today, it's all about shapeless, formless streaming video. And there is nothing physical about the technology anymore. It might be false and frivolous on my part to be nostalgic about a finite format, but hey, I spent my formative years in the 80s, so I am a product of that silly decade. I can be emotional about seeing a disheveled rubics cube with a couple of its tiles missing in a pitbull's mouth, if I want to. But David Cronenberg shows what was there back then- a subversive filmmaking. I can't think of any recent film or filmmaker that is as daring as Videodrome.

I saw Videodrome as a horny teenager, not grasping its implications about the physical manifestations of watching sex and violence in the media. Seeing it now, it's an electrifying experience. Casting the 80's sex kitten Deborah Harry in a s&m loving TV personality role is pure genius. James Woods has never been better since or prior to as a sleazy public TV show programmer.

One could see a strong correlation with Videodrome and Cronenberg's later, Burroughs adaptation of Naked Lunch. But I think I'd prefer media induced hallucination over drug induced one anytime. The film definitely becomes my favorite Cronenberg.

*Psychedelic Indie Nerd Glam

Ringing in Their Ears (2011) - Irie

The film starts out with Noko, a lead singer of Japanese metafunk band Shinsei Kamattechan, on stage, singing while holding a laptop in front of him. With fans' comments flying across the live streaming images of the concert in the background, Noko sings off key, accompanied by childish pop melodies and loud guitar. His voice is awkward and powerful at the same time. Unlike the group's less than rock star attire and cheerful sound, their lyrics are often dark and borderline weird.

Yu Irie, who graced last year's NYAFF with a pair of sleeper hits, 8000 Miles and 8000 Miles 2 about Japanese wannabe rappers and the suburban ennui, comes back this year with a decidedly mature film, Ringing in Their Ears, featuring aforementioned, Shinsei Kamattechan.

Taking place over a week building up to Kamattechan's big concert, Irie skillfully weaves the trials and tribulations of several Chiba-ites into a funny, touching film. Kaori (Kurumi Morishita) is a struggling single mother doubling as a nightclub dancer and a cleaning person to bring up her forever-glued-to-a-laptop, kindergartener, Ryota. The boy, being a big Kamattechan fan, gets into trouble when he teaches his classmates a disturbing song, obviously influenced by the band:

I want to live/I want to die/Either way is fine, ma, ma, ma, ma
I want to fade away/I want to die/Neither way is fine, ma, ma, ma, ma

A high school senior Michiko (lovely Fumi Nikaido) clashes with her parents because she wants to be a professional shogi (Japanese chess) player instead of going to college. Then her boyfriend who'd introduced her to Kamattechan's music, leaves her for the more conventional college-bound girl. The band members, with the exception of reclusive (apparently in real life too) Noko being AWOL until the concert, play themselves as they rehearse for their big concert, while their conflicted manager (Mikito Tsurugi) hesitates to break the news that they are getting picked up by a major label and about to become a sellout.

It makes sense that Irie, who demonstrated the knack for channeling the disaffected youth in his previous efforts, is the one showcasing this Chiba based (like 8000 Miles 2), web savvy, word-of-mouth, indie rock phenom. But Ringing in Their Ears is not just another publicity tie-in or fanboy movie. It stands on its own as an affecting narrative. It just happens to have kick-ass music too. Irie's nuanced, minimalist approach is never on the nose about the issues - shut-ins, outcasts and the generation gap. He conveys all those things through likable characters and the spirit of rock'n'roll without being showy or cocky. Ringing in Their Ears will satisfy music fans and film lovers alike.

Ringing in Their Ears will be screening as part of the 10th annual New York Asian Film Festival in conjunction with Japan Cuts 2011 on Thursday, July 7th and Monday, July 11th. You can find out more information at the NYAFF website and Japan Cuts website

*Psychic indie nerd glam is the term used to describe Shinsei Kamattechan's music by good people at jrawk.com. Please visit their page

Korean Food Anyone?

The Recipe (2010) - Lee

The Recipe's Korean title, 'doenjang' refers to 'fermented soybean paste' which is the base of almost all Korean cooking- it is in soups, stews, marinades, condiments, side dishes... the list is endless. With such an ever-present, everyday ingredient as the subject, I thought the film would be a tongue-in-cheek, Tampopo style comedy. Director Lee Seo-goon rather takes a tear-jerking, populist approach, a la Le Grande Chef, and the result is lukewarm at best.

It starts out quite promisingly- a death row inmate's last wish to taste the same doenjang jigae (soybean stew) in a small mountain restaurant where he was caught, triggers a TV producer Choi (Ryu Seung-ryong) on a wild goose chase. The police report and eye witnesses support that it was the aroma of the stew that stopped the violent criminal in his tracks.

With the help of his always hungry police friend and a lab technician, Choi searches for the story behind that mysterious soybean paste. The story cuts back and forth between Choi's investigation and Hye-jin (Lee Yo-won), the young woman carrying a small crock pot.

Growing up surrounded by meju (square blocks of fermenting soybean) hanging from the ceiling, Hye-jin has the talent for finding the right ingredient for making the best doenjang. Orphaned early on, Hye-jin travels countryside to find the right elements for her magical paste. In a southern rural village, she meets a handsome plum wine maker and falls in love.

As a Korean food aficionado, I expected to see some mouth watering Korean food in display in The Recipe. Unfortunately, the film turns out to be less about food and more to do with its gooey melodrama that involves an unrealized lovers' pledge, a fateful car accident, tears, butterflies and a goblin.

The most interesting part of the film is the process of making doenjang. Lee tries to elevate the art of doenjang making as that of wine making. A lot of elements play the roles: the location, soil, soybeans, water, salt, yeast, pollen, clay (for the large crock pots that would house the fermenting ingredients) and of course that special individual touch. Lee shows the process faithfully, if not a little too cutesy, sterile way.

Still looking for that one good film that would satisfy my desire to see delicious Korean food parading in front of me, I walked away from The Recipe with my mouth completely dry.

The Recipe will be screening as part of the 10th annual New York Asian Film Festival on Tuesday, July 5th and Saturday, July 9th. You can find out more information at the NYAFF website

Pretty Jamie Gumm

The Collector (1965) - Wyler

A young, introverted butterfly collector (Terrence Stamp) in a secluded big house with a separate cellar, moves up his territory when he kidnaps a pretty art school student (Samantha Eggar). After begging and pleading and escape attempts, they sort of agree on their terms - he will let her go after 4 weeks, hoping she will fall in love with him.

With only two principal actors (plus one small character in the middle), this John Fowles adaptation feels more like a play. Young Stamp is intense, playing the role of creepy, shy man with chips on his shoulders. Is it sex that you want from me? Miranda the art student asks him. No. He wants to respect her as a proper woman.

There is a big confrontation over Catcher in the Rye. Their class differences are highlighted and the gap between them is obviously too wide. The film suffers from Fowles passive aggressiveness of the characters and their shallow psychological makeup. Stamp is effectively creepy but the film doesn't quite escape from its Stockholm Syndrome/captive drama mold.

I Hate Musicals

Sell Out! (2008) - Yeo

The Filmbegins with sultry Rafflesia (Jessica Lai) interviewing a Malaysian film auteur for her low end TV talk show called "For Art's Sake". The auteur is Yeo Joon Han (the director making a cameo) who just won the prestigious Young Overseas Chinese Women New Directors Honorary Mention Award at the Krychindangzhongbushaus Village Far Eastern Film Festival. When asked about why his almost silent indie art film "Love is Love and Nothing Else", is so slow and boring, Yeo, who appears in the nude for the interview (and seems very comfortable), vehemently defends the authenticity of his film by citing that in real life, nothing really happens, that no one actually breaks out into a song in the middle of it. He goes on even further, stating that people who make musicals should be chopped into 18 pieces!

This prologue shows director Yeo's mischievous intentions. Sell Out! is an all-out, over-the-top satirical musical romantic comedy where many things happen and people break out into songs, many times over. And it's uproariously funny.

After capturing her lovelorn boyfriend's death on camera where he recites his poem before he dies, Rafflesia comes up with a concept for the ever-popular reality TV - a televised death. This will surely show her pretty half-English rival who the boss is. The only problem is, she has to wait by the deathbeds until her sadsack subjects croak. A potential megahit in her hand but under the tight deadline, she has to find a more reliable subject very soon. What kind of deaths are predictable? Suicides.

Enter Eric (Peter Davis), an honest engineer who works for the same greedy conglomerate that Rafflesia works for, named, ahem, Fony Corporation. He is in a pickle because the clownish corporate bigwigs can't believe their ears when they hear his 8-in-1 soy bean machine is built so well, it won't break right after its warranty runs out. How can you make money out of the product that won't break down? This is followed by musical number, "Money". They end up exorcising Eric's creative 'dreamer' side out of him, But the exorcism goes wrong, resulting in two Erics - the dreamer and the practical. Deeply depressed by all this, the practical Eric comes up with a plan involving lovely but heartless Rafflesia.

Director Yeo jabs at many things with his ironic sense of humor - snobby art film scene, money hungry corporate culture, absurd reality TV shows and even Malay English (Manglish). The film's filled with horrible, insensitive jokes and people but in Yeo's hand, they never feel malicious.

Sell Out! caught me by surprise, since I didn't know what to expect watching my first Malaysian movie. It's a light romantic comedy version of Network set in bustling modern day Kuala Lumpur with its own karaoke singalong time built in for the audience. I haven't had this rib roaring good time watching a film in a long while.

Sell Out! will be screening as part of the 10th annual New York Asian Film Festival on Friday, July 1st and Monday, July 4th. You can find out more information at the NYAFF website.

Lunch break Contemplation on Life

Tree of Life (2011) - Malick

It is a noble attempt to visualize someone contemplating his life for five minutes in his office during a lunch break. But The Tree of Life as a film just doesn't work. It is a fluffy snoozefest, 'Cotton: the fabric of our lives' commercial stretched out for two and a half hours with a better quality National Graphic episode thrown in. An old photograph from one's own past can more effectively evoke such thoughts than that of Malick's pretty picture diorama.

It's beautiful I admit on many occasions and some of the details of growing up are beautifully done. My problem is not with its semi-narrative structure. I appreciate poetry as much as the next guy. It has to do with how it's put together. It's way, way too meandering. And the walk on the beach scene showcases Malick's gooey life affirming tendencies at its most cringe inducing worst.

Rageaholic

Under the Volcano (1984) - Huston

Al Finney's boosy Brit diplomat the south of the border is fun to watch. But it's a bit too melodramatic for me. I've heard a lot about Malcolm Lowry's book that the film is based on, filled with symbolism, details and whatnot about the looming WWII. The ominous vocano, white horse, Day of the Dead are all there in the background but they don't make that much of an impact on the story of a man who can't get over his wife's infidelity. Solidly done, and Finney's great. But I couldn't get over how a scrumptious woman like Jacqueline Bisset would come crawling back for pale, flabby man who is drinking himself to hell. He gets away with saying hurtful things because he is drunk. I've always hated that passive aggressive tendency about drunks. It still makes me curious about the book.

Fire Within

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) - Reisz

Whatever people say I am, that's what I am not.

With his rugged good looks and swagger, Arthur (young Albert Finney) is a hard working, hard drinking factory worker. Constant trouble maker in arrested development, he has to face the consequences and think about settling down when he gets his girlfriend at the moment- a wife of a co-worker, Brenda (Rachel Roberts) pregnant and meets pretty, young Doreen (Shirley Ann Field). Would he change his ways and become like his characterless parents who only know work and TV?


Saturday Night is a matter of fact depiction of working class. "All I'm out for is a good time - all the rest is propaganda." Arthur declares in his narration early on. Finney's at his best being a brut without real menace. Straight laced Roberts plays an object of desire for a good looking working class bloke here and again in This Sporting Life for young Richard Harris three years later.


Quoted and loved by many British rockers- from Steve Ignorant of Crass to Morrissey to Arctic Monkeys, I can see how Arthur's take-it-or-leave-it attitude appealed to many young men before Travis Bickle age.

Heartbreak Capital

Cafe Noir (2009) - Jeoung

Cafe Noir is screening for free Tuesday, June 21 at 7:00 PM, as part of Korean Movie Night at Tribeca Cinemas. You can find more details and information on the Subway Cinema site.


Jeoung Sung-il, a well regarded Korean film critic, makes a directorial debut with Cafe Noir, largely based on two works of literature - Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Dostoevsky's White Nights. This sprawling three hours plus contemplation on love and heartbreak also draws from many different cinematic sources. This concoction doesn't always work, but is still quite intoxicating. And in Jeoung's hands, Seoul, the neon megalopolis, becomes the new capital of the heartbroken.


The film opens with a young woman unwrapping and eating a hamburger while looking up forlornly to the heavens in what appears to be an indoor mall. Tears roll down on her cheeks as we see her stuffing her face in real time. She is our Joan of Arc of the fastfood age, christening the film.


Young-soo (Shin Ha-gyun, Sympathy for Mr, Vengeance, Save the Green Planet), a music teacher, is first seen getting dumped by his lover- a mother of one of his pupils, on a Christmas eve. Not accepting the defeat, he devises a plan to off the obstacle (the woman's monstrous, Rilke quoting husband). When he fails to kill the husband of his lover, Young-soo realizes that for the happiness of the woman he loves, it is he who needs to be out of the picture.


For the second part of the film, Young-soo re-emerges, only to go through another crushing heartbreak. He meets a young woman on a bridge by chance (showcasing the brightly restored Chung-gye creek which runs through the heart of Seoul). She begs him not to fall in love with her, but to be a confidant and proceeds to tell him a sob story in one long take- she has been waiting for her lover on the bridge for a year. They made a promise to meet after a year if they still love each other. Tonight might be the night, or tomorrow night, or the night after.... Her lover is obviously not coming, and our melancholic hero can't help falling for this delusional, yet vibrant, lovesick woman.


With its deliberate episodic pacing, arduous monologues, forever tracking shots, mix of B&W/color photography, a lot of intriguing supporting characters and a lot of film references (from The Red Balloon to The Band of Outsiders' dancing sequence to jabbing at recent Korean movie hits- Old Boy and The Host), Cafe Noir is a truly astounding cinematic examination of unrequited love.


With everything mapped out to a tee, Jeoung's style is quite the opposite of Wong Kar-wai. But it wouldn't be a stretch to regard him from now on as Wong's cerebral brother.

Wrong Play!

The Dresser (1983) - Yates


The setting is WWII London. Norman (Tom Courtenay) is a dresser to an aging Shakespearean actor, known only as Sir (Albert Finney in his career best). The only reason the senile actor can marginally perform his Othello, Macbeth, Richard III, King Lear night after night without fail is because of Norman. He dresses, washes, coerces, pep-talks, encourages, feeds lines to, takes insults and rants from the old man.

Sir has a close call and ends up in a hospital after he throws a fit in the bombed out London street. As the theater staff contemplate on shutting down the production, they find him returned to his dressing room and being incoherent. Is he going to be somewhat ready for tonight's performance of King Lear?

With Ronald Harwood (The Pianist, Diving Bell and the Butterfly)'s blistering script, the two of the most gifted British actors go mano-a-mano. Watching them in real time as Norman harangues downright deranged Sir to get ready is an exhausting experience. Norman is at once Salieri to Sir's Mozart, Felix to Oscar, Ratso to Buck, King to Fool. Thanks to Courtenay, Norman's affection and devotion for his master is real and heartfelt. Very awesome.

Feline Curse

Kuroneko/Black Cat (1968) - Shindo


The film starts with the farmers- mother and her daughter-in-law, gang raped and their house burned down by a band of lawless samurai. The women's black house cat ringers around their charred corpses. The setting is warring medieval Japan.


When they appear again, they are beautifully dressed courtesans luring the samruai in to the bamboo forest in the middle of the night and sucking their blood dry. Distressed leader sends the rising young samurai to destroy these monsters. The fate would have it, the young samurai happens to be the son and the husband of the two farmers who were raped and killed.


As shown in his Onibaba, Kaneto Shindo again, shows his hatred for the ruling warrior class and greed. Black Cat follows the best Japanese ghost story traditon, a la Ugetsu. Also it is the rape revenge story that is far more artful and elegant. The theatrical set and dramatic lighting are beautifully composed. It also features some great wire work and beautiful day for night shots. Very worth checking out.
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What is Flesh Alone?

Je Vous Salue, Marie/Hail Mary (1985) - Godard









Godard's take on Virgin Mary might have been seen as an assault on Christianity and the idea of Immaculate Conception but it's actually about one of his usual themes- body/soul dichotomy. What's refreshing about Hail Mary is it's also about relationship between two young people being tested: can they love one another without touching? I can see the film's influence on many younger filmmakers whom I once religiously followed, namely Leos Carax and Hal Hartley with their brooding anti-heroic archetypes.


Hail Mary is perhaps the most beautiful color film I've ever seen. Punctuated by amazingly graceful nature photography and anchored by Myriem Roussel's Marie, a high school basketball player and a virgin who finds herself being pregnant. Marie's questioning "what is flesh alone...?" and her struggle to keep herself chaste is touching and deeply felt. It's the presence of Roussel that differentiates Hail Mary from Godard's post-Anna Karina cynicism.


From what I hear, Hail Mary is one of the last films before Godard turned his direction toward visual essays of the 90s which I find dry and uninteresting. Call me old fashioned, but for me ideas are still best conveyed through stories and characters, not in the lecture halls(movie theaters) that Godard still seems to preside over. Cinematically no one can top Godard's playfulness in the 60s, not even Godard himself. But this is a gorgeous stuff. Easily a top ten material for me.

To Hellman and Back

Road to Nowhere (2010) - Hellman

As a fan of Monte Hellman, the famed director of the 70's seminal counter-culture classics such as Two Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter, it is very hard for me to report to other Hellman fans that Road to Nowhere, his new film in more than twenty years, is...umm...absolutely...dreadful. There I said it. Such is the burden of being the messenger of bad news.


Prior to the screening Hellman told the audience the advice he got from someone once- 'never explain your film, never apologize for your film and never reimburse tickets.' He succeeded in getting couple of laughs out of that. In retrospect, he wasn't joking. It was his ominous preemptive strike.


The film concerns a young, esteemed Hollywood director Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) adapting a real life story involving intrigue, corruption and double suicide, dug up and sold by a young blogger (Dominique Swain). Haven finds his muse in an amateurish actress named Laurel (Shannyn Sossamon) and becomes infatuated with her while the rest of the cast and crew get increasingly frustrated by his devotion to her.


Road to Nowhere fancies itself to be a meta movie of sorts. It's a movie within a movie, life imitating art imitating life. Laurel might be the real person she is portraying, so is the film's co-star (Cliff De Young). There is an insurance investigator/film consultant (Waylon Payne) who can't seem to distinguish fiction from reality.


Written by Steven Gaydos (executive editor of Variety), the film's Hollywood savvy, corny dialog is just too earnest to be taken as ironic. All the actors involved are not skilled enough to improvise with the given material, making their characters unbearably vapid.


Hellman's contemplation of filmmaking as realizing one's dream in the age of internet and HD photography, gets lost in its trite, tabloid worthy premise. As the film ends with an amazingly terrible song sung by some Bruce Springsteen impersonator, one realizes that even the greatest director needs a good script (doesn't have to be written by Rudy Wurlitzer) and good actors to pull off a DIY style vanity project to be halfway decent.

Splatter from The North Pole

Play God (2010) - Nikki

[Play God plays as part of DocPoint NYC, a program of 47 films hosted by its New York partners: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Scandinavia House, 92YTribeca, UnionDocs and the Tribeca Film Institute, on June 10th at 7pm]

A successful Helsinki based commercial director, Teemu Nikki looks back on his failed attempt at making the first Finnish splatter movie, Play God. This 38 minute, behind-the-scene, inside look at filmmaking gone awry doc is sort of 'making of' featurette on a movie that never happened.


There have been quite a few documentaries in the past that highlighted the trials and tribulations of filmmaking. Burden of Dreams: Making of Fitzcarraldo and more recently Best Worst Movie: Making of Troll 2, immediately come to mind. Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's Lost in La Mancha chronicled the disintegration of Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote. However entertaining that documentary was, it depressed a lot of burgeoning filmmakers including myself. I mean, what chance did we have if no one was willing to finance a Gilliam movie? The process of the making Play God documented here seems like a therapy for the director- to be rid of the omen that's been gnawing at him for several years. And he seems to have a sense of humor about the whole experience.


Growing up with the steady diet of splatter films on VHS, Nikki's foray into filmmaking is akin to that of many American indie filmmakers. Seeing homemade footage of Nikki and his Finnish compatriots making their own brand of splatter movies with their dad's video camera in their backyard reminded me of how universal the film geekdom is.


Play God, a shoot'em-up chop'em-up superhero movie in epic proportions (Sci-Fi backdrop, large number of extras, battle scenes and a chainsaw wielding Evil Santa) with an incomprehensible storyline and the puzzling English dialog, was all enthusiasm and not much else. Nikki's plan was simple: shoot the first 20 minutes of the film, show it to the possible investors who would then naturally be blown away by its brilliance and would dole out the money to make the rest of the film, then off to a successful career in Hollywood.


With extremely bad weather conditions (minus 40 Celsius degrees) and everything else going wrong, the production of the movie hit the wall from day one and never really got off the ground. The cast and crew, all Nikki's friends and family members, just as enthusiastic but all novices in filmmaking, faced some very treacherous working conditions. Without the script and direction to guide them while working hard for free, they slowly lost faith in Nikki. Then people started turning on each other. Yes, it can be frustrating when you're not able to cut Evil Santa in half with a chainsaw. But stop crying forgodssakes!


Interviewing various cast and crew members, Nikki faces some biting criticisms from his friends and family face to face. The movie didn't happen. The project was way too ambitious to pull off. And he blamed everyone but himself. Thankfully, the doc is also filled with plenty of awesome footage from Play God. There are definitely times in the film that you wonder whether it is a mocumentary or real. It is a playful, funny as hell and endearing documentary. And by the slick look of the trailer Nikki finally made, Play God could've been really an awesome splatter movie. I am hoping that Hollywood will take notice of now 'mature and competent' Teemu Nikki, and actually help him make Play God for real, starring, Mickey Rourke perhaps.


For tickets and more information please visit MoMA Presents: DocPoint

First Contact

The Andromeda Strain (1971) - Wise


Wasn't too sure about watching this. I remember it as boring ass movie as a child and indeed, the 2/3 of the film is purely procedural - in Michael Chrichton's 'I have to explain this made up world to you in detail' way. But once you settle in, it is a very enjoyable ride.


What if our first contact with alien species is with a too small organism our naked eyes can't see(which is the most probable scenario anyway) and deadly to us? After a satellite probe crashes into small town Nevada and kills off townspeople in their daily tracks, the US gov't assembles top scientists to an undisclosed superslick Nevada underground facility to determine whether to nuke the town. It's the usual gambit- the time is running out, perspiration, contamination, red lights, countdown, laser beams, the key...


Robert Wise goes town with the whole gov't top secret mumbo-jumbo stylings here - split screens, color coded floor corridors, mechanical arms, plus Doug Trumbull's innovative, pre-computer graphics FX. Now I can see where all the SCI-FI/spy films parodies originated from. It is super silly but at the same time, awesome.