Aku Aku

Review: Amarelo Manga (2002)

Amarelo Manga (2002)
My housemate Cheu is working with the San Francisco International Film Festival this season and she has brought home many VHS tapes of the films sent to the committees. Tonight I caught the last half of a Brazillian movie called Amarelo Manga (Mango Yellow). This is the second Brazillian movie I've seen, so I'm now under the impression that all movies from the world's fourth largest country will be brightly colored, darkly plotted, wild and passionate. Bring'em on!

This one seemed to tell the stories of a small intertwined group of voracious and lascivious ne'er-do-wells. It apparently is centered around the sensual awakening of a timid and pious wife of an adulterer, and the scenes of her getting her freak on will probably be burned into my mind for a week or two.

I think I'll wait to see the first half until Mie and I can see it together, as I think she'll really enjoy it...

Incidentally, when looking for photos to attach here (imdb didn't have one) I ran across this weird little photo set showing some of the makeup effects used in the film: FX, I like the fingers.

Review: 8 Mile (2002)

8 Mile (2002)
Sean rented this video tape the other night. Watching video seems so 1980's in the age of netflix.com. Anyhow the movie was OK for predictable hollywood crap, but I really dug the attention paid to the setting: Detroit's not so nice parts of town. I think the director and cinematographer did a great job of making the Detroit ghetto atmosphere feel honest and real.

Review: Alphaville, une trange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)

Alphaville, une trange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)
Wow, this was a bizarre film. A Jean-Luc Goddard piece that is really out there. I've never before seen a movie that was supposed to be set so far in the future yet looked so obviously to be set in the past. As far as I can tell it is the story of a man who enters the stronghold of a city whose inhabitants have been somehow controlled by a powerful computer system named Alpha 60. The life for the citizens of Alphaville is framed in logic and sexual servitude and devoid of love and passion and other things held in high esteem by the French (oops I mean by the Freedoms).

Personally I dig nutty stuff like this, and the long scenes showing circa 1965 mainframe equipment and control rooms really got my geek juices flowing.

Review: Gilda (1946)

Gilda (1946)
Last night I watched the 1946 classic feature Gilda starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. No wonder it's a classic, the dialogue and Movie Star charisma was turned up to full blast. A very enjoyable flick and it has prompted me to add a few other classic Hayworth films to my netflix queue.

Laden vs USA

Found via Cheesedip:

Reuters, via Yahoo: "A man plays with an electronic game called 'Laden versus USA' which shows the faces of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and U.S. President George W. Bush, that was on sale on a street in Baguio City, northern Philippines, January 12, 2003. The toy, made in China, is on sale for P250 ($4.70). The game plan is to defend the twin towers by shooting down the bombers.

Interesting angle. Note that it's not Bush vs Bin Laden, or even Laden vs Bush. Subtlely implying a more human demeanor to Bin Laden while treating the USA as some abstract foe? I dunno. I suppose it's no worse than all the USA vs Arab Terror interactive flash animations on the web now.

lotr: the two towers

Went to the 12:01 am showing of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers(2002). I'll probably rewrite this tomorrow when I've had time to consider it more, but my first impression is mixed. I personally enjoyed it, but I think this is where the trilogy is going to lose some of the audience who never read the books. Honestly, I don't know how they'll be able to keep up with everything that's going on. In the first movie they were able to leave out large portions (Tom Bombadil, the barrowights, etc) that didn't really detract from the main storyline ...but in this episode they had to pack a lot more of the original book into three hours. This is one where the extended DVD with an extra hour or so might make a whole lot more sense...

great review: deliverance

I stumbled on this great review of Deliverance (1972) directed by John Boorman. It rambles all over the place, touching on Kubrick and 70's vs 80's vs etc films, but delivers (heh) a solid analysis of one of my favorite movies. A sample:

John Boorman is a bit like Stanley Kubrick, but more of a hippy. Kubrick was reclusive and his films often gave the impression that he had a dim view of all of humanity. Boorman, on the other hand, is quite open in interviews (he used to be almost a parody of the over-analytical film student, in that he was the kind of person who would use the words 'linear' and 'ambiguous' without blinking, but is now a lot grumpier), and his films usually had some sympathetic people, quite often those who were 'closest to nature', although his human actors were often archetypes, put there to represent a segment of humanity (most obviously in Zardoz, where everybody was 'The something', i.e. 'The brutals' and 'The apathetics' and 'The immortals' and so on), or indeed humanity itself.

solaris

Saw Solaris (2002) at the AMC 1000 tonight with Colin. I didn't know anything about it going in, other than it was based on a well regarded science fiction novel (which I've never read). I enjoyed this film. It turned out to be a slow, pensive piece with some capable performances and beautiful eye candy (the atmosphere of the planet Solaris would make a great screen saver). The sci-fi aspect of the film was mostly background, but that is really how good sci-fi should be, for example these are the manuscript guidelines for Asimov's Science Fiction:

In general, we're looking for "character oriented" stories, those in which the characters, rather than the science, provide the main focus for the reader's interest. Serious, thoughtful, yet accessible fiction will constitute the majority of our purchases, but there's always room for the humorous as well. Borderline fantasy is fine, but no Sword & Sorcery, please. Neither are we interested in explicit sex or violence. A good overview would be to consider that all fiction is written to examine or illuminate some aspect of human existence, but that in science fiction the backdrop you work against is the size of the Universe.

harry potter and the chamber of zzzzzzzzzz

Went to the AMC 1000 on Van Ness with Sion and Elaine to see Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets tonight. I saw the last film which I thought wasn't too offensive, and I've never read the books (and don't plan on it). I thought this movie was pretty dumb. Ah well, I get what I deserve; San Francisco theaters have some of the best film schedules in the country and I dash off and see something like that. I should have gone to see Unspeakable instead like I intended.

apocalypse now redux

DVD: Apocalypse Now R E D U X (1979/2001).
I greatly enjoyed the added scenes in this director's cut. There is one surreal scene concerning a french plantation in the middle of the vietnam jungle, and I think there is some added exposition at the beginning. The infamous "charlie don't surf" segment is filled out a bit more too. I've looked over a few reviews that state that the extra scenes detract from the mood as compared to the original, but I feel that the extra scenes are more honest. Thumbs up.