Well, coherent Jodorowsky is not something I want to see. And his DUNE was not going to be coherent. His version not happening is one of the greatest "What If's" in film history. For now I'll have to settle with this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-oBEGF7uwE

Anywho, I just watched the anime film REDLINE. It was... interesting. I appreciated the film as animation for animation's sake but I gotta say I ended the flick a half hour ago & already it's started to fade from my mind. It's an impressive technical work but like all things technically impressive, without that little extra magic supporting it there's just nothing to latch on to. Entertaining but already left my mind.

Wasn't Jodorowsky's Dune suppose to be completely different from the novel anyway?

Probably. Attempting to film Dune straight-up is the errand of bigger fools than Jodorowsky.

Azathoth wrote:But the movie would never have been coherent (and possibly would never have been good) even if it had been fourteen hours long

The coherency issue may be a valid point, but Lynch is at his best when he's skirting coherency anyway. I still maintain that at an extra hour to flesh out the characters, universe and mend the jagged pacing would have at least elevated the film to "good" and not "incredibly dull, but kind of fabulous."

I haven't really been keeping up with Korean cinema much over the past year or so. Last "new" movie I saw as The Man From Nowhere, which I didn't much care for. So today I decided to start cramming for my final exam on current Korean cinema, and I ended up watching Sunny, which is quite possibly the most Korean movie I've ever seen. For a nostalgia-filtered mainstream coming of age comedy-drama, it was enjoyable.

^ I found two Korean movies named Sunny, one made in 2008 and one in 2011. Which one did you watch?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_(2008_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_(2011_film)

2011. It got pretty good reviews and my old roommate gave it a glowing review. Of course, he also seems to have developed a crush on the actress who plays Su-ji along the way, which probably added to his liking of the movie.

Not that I blame him. A similar situation made The Classic a better movie to me than it should have been. Oh, So Ye-jin... such a lovely woman...

Mamoru Oshii's The Sky Crawlers: A film about manchildren maintaining their absurd, seemingly futile existence in an elusive world where they are fighting a war against the unknown. No matter what sort of allegory you can extract from the film its writing is interesting nevertheless. As for Oshii's direction it's on its own level thanks to the hypnotic atmosphere, terrific soundtrack and gorgeous animation.

Rewatched Riley Tip's lovable film Just One Look. What is great in particular about this film is how it often feels lightweight and fun, yet there's a sense of melancholy always lurking in the background. Sure, the latter portion of the film becomes more serious, as is typical with this particular type of film. The drama never feels forced, however, as the film's final act is clearly set up in the beginning of the film.

Placing this film within a particular genre is a difficult task in and of itself. It's kind of a "coming of age" story, which is not really a genre I'm particularly fond of in general, but not as a strict rule, obviously. At the same time, it's a youth romance, and also... a kung fu revenge movie. The kung fu itself leaves plenty of room to be desired in the way it's shot and edited, but at least captures the correct feel for the film. If this were anything resembling an "action" movie overall this would be a major demerit, but I'm willing to overlook this editing transgression based on the overall genre.

The actors are great for the most part. Anthony Wong is his usual reliable self as the local gangster Crazy, and Shawn Yue, as the film's main protagonist Fan, really shows off the acting chops that would lead him to become one of Hong Kong's most sought after leading men in the subsequent years of this film. The best performance of the film is actually from first-time actor Wong Yau-Nam as Fan's close friend Ming, who would go on to be nominated for Best New Actor for his work in this film and Fruit Chan's excellent Hollywood Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Charlene Choi, previously nominated for said award, is at her most subtle here. Her role is rather minor overall, mostly being a love interest for Ming and the daughter of the sifu at the local Hung Gar kung fu school, but she infuses what screen time she has with the charm that has made her one of my favorite actresses. Gillian Chung, who is often a bit of a dull surprise, fares decently as Fan's love interest as well.

The film is even better for lovers of Hong Kong cinema of the past. Fan and Ming run a snack stand outside of the local theater, use plot synopses of the romantic films being shown as love letters, and imagine themselves as the protagonists of the films that are playing, particularly the kung fu films (Fist of Fury and A Touch of Zen being the most notable examples).

The one major flaw of the film is that it's rather disturbing in the way that the local young men deal with the rat infestation problem. Yeah...

Twins' (Choi and Chung, for the uninitiated) cover of the Bee Gee's "Melody Fair" is also a bit on the cheesy side, but I kind of have a soft spot for it myself. Speaking of Twins, while the film's promotional art work may make it seem like its' banking off their popularity, but the two actually only see each other once in the film, passing each other by on the street for a brief moment.

Also worth noting: Charlene Choi and Wong Yau Nam were also both in the film Summer Breeze of Love in 2002, and Wong's character was romantically interested in Choi in that film as well.

The fact that all of you want Asian women so bad is very disconcerting. This is partially because Asian men aren't really my thing, but mostly because it seems to reflect some inner sense of remnant Imperialism, wherein the white man wants to dress up his desire to conquer the East with a veneer of fetishism.

Wait, that makes no goddamn sense... Raping and pillaging makes me hard, and all my misogynist tendencies wouldn't object to women fucked and dismembered, not necessarily in that order.

It must be because you're all sticky nerds, and the concept of you getting laid, negligible though it may be, sickens me. Stop having libidos, you freaks.

I don't find most Asian women especially attractive, if it's any consolation.

Escape from New York: Man, this movie was so much more amazing in my memory. Unfortunately Doomsday and MGS have both plagiarized it so effectively that it no longer seems as awesome to me as it did when I first watched it at age 10 or whatever. Too bad. Kurt Russell, what happened to you?

It's cool. You usually give off the impression of being into freaky shit, which is perfectly normal. Being bitterly dismissive is a plus, too.

I watched Satan Met A Lady, the 1935 screwball comedy version of The Maltese Falcon. Ahahahahahahaha. Let's not speak of it ever again.

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:Being bitterly dismissive is a plus, too.

Isn't it, though?

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:I watched Satan Met A Lady, the 1935 screwball comedy version of The Maltese Falcon. Ahahahahahahaha. Let's not speak of it ever again.

You've seen the original 1931 version, right? I kind of like it better than the famous one.

Azathoth wrote:You've seen the original 1931 version, right? I kind of like it better than the famous one.

There are parts of the 1931 version that I prefer. I did like the more leisurely pace, especially in the opening scene. The 1941 version seemed to move at such a break-neck speed I'm not entirely sure I could have kept up with it had I not literally finished the book seconds before watching. The '31 version also has some camp value in the overall goofier tone and pre-Hays Code innuendo.

Overall, though, the '31 versions comes off as a bit sloppy. The '41 version was so incredibly tight because the book was so incredibly tight. I'm not the kind of person who hates on a film for changing shit from the book (knowing a couple of rabid Harry Potters fans in my formative years drilled into me how irritating a mindset that is) but a lot of the changes the '31 version are smudgy at best. The scene where Cairo sneaks into Spade's apartment while he's talking to the cops and runs into Brigid/Wonderly is the most noticeable example. The '41 uses the hilarious dialogue from the book to great effect, while the '31 version comes up with a new, less interesting conversation. I did, however, like how the '31 version made Miles's wife into an overall more antagonistic character. She seemed to just plummet out of the '41 version without notice, especially because that film didn't use the book's ending where Spade starts screwing her again the second he gets back to his office after turning in Brigid.

I still don't know how I feel about the '31 version's ending. It's cheesy and a bit maudlin, but it works in the context of the film it's in. I guess you could pretty much say that about the whole movie, though. It feels like a softened adaptation, and I'd argue the '41 version is remembered so fondly because it captures the essence of Hammett's masterful novel so closely, with such a level of visual stylishness, that the novel practically becomes extraneous.

I am very curious as to why you liked the '31 version more, though. I don't think it's a bad film, but it's not really a great film, either.

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:The fact that all of you want Asian women so bad is very disconcerting.

Bomby von Bombsville wrote:I will admit, there's a bit of added cultural interest with East Asian women in general, but it doesn't play as big of a factor in romantic attraction as some might (understandably) suspect

Also, it's a person by person basis, only two of the five or six women I've been interested in dating in the past year have been Asian, etc., etc., etc., yadda, yadda, yadda, shit I've said before, shit I've said before, shit I've said before

it seems to reflect some inner sense of remnant Imperialism, wherein the white man wants to dress up his desire to conquer the East with a veneer of fetishism.

Why do some people always seem to infer from any interracial attraction that it is caused by some sort of weird mental complex? Have you ever considered that some people might just have differing visceral aesthetic attractions? Or that, god forbid, two people of different races could actually meet and actually like each other as people and not solely because of their race or ethnicity?

It must be because you're all sticky nerds, and the concept of you getting laid, negligible though it may be, sickens me. Stop having libidos, you freaks.

But I'm cute. :)

Bomby von Bombsville wrote:Why do some people always seem to infer from any interracial attraction that it is caused by some sort of weird mental complex?

I would imagine it's because interracial dating is scary and weird. Almost as scary and weird as dating between two people of the same sex.

Bomby von Bombsville wrote:But I'm cute. :)

I know, Bomby. I know. I have an oubliette in my basement saved just for you.

Anyway, I'll let your yellow fever off the hook this time, but I'm still going to look at Oz with all the pity and disgust that an upstanding citizen like myself would reserve for an escaped mental patient masturbating over a sleeping person's bed.

It's cool. In fact, you've just inspired me to write a blog post in my empty, empty blog about this particular situation, which I've had to deal with more often than I'd like to.

Blackmail (1930) - It was alright. It has some good moments but it was rather boring most of the time and none of the characters where any good. It's very slow and it took a while for me to get into the movie. Not Alfred Hitchcock's best film but it's decent 6/10.

Late Spring (1949) - Saw this yesterday in my Asian film class and though it was a very well made film. I was surprise that I really enjoy this film since the characters where great, a good amount of funny moments and the music was very nice as well. I plan to buy it on DVD soon and give it another watch. 7.5/10

I also watch Super (2011), a few days ago. It was great and much better then Kick-Ass. Very enjoyable film and plan to buy it on Blu-Ray.

It's nice to know that I hit Bomby's sweet spot with that string of nonsensical gibberish. I'll have to whack broad targets in hope of cracking the facade more often.

Saw The Lady in Black with the family this morning. It's a more than competent and adequately creepy old school ghost story that's very much worth watching once. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Daniel Radcliff as an actor. I didn't think I'd be able to buy ol' baby face as a single father with a dead wife, but you know, it kind of sunk in. He kind of works, mostly, but there's something about him that seems... I don't know, he seems too young. I'm not sure what age his character was supposed to be in the film, but he seemed too young for it. If he doesn't end up horribly typecast, he should stick to playing teenagers for awhile.

The Scorpion King 2: This movie fuckin' sucks. I thought the main guy would be kind of attractive, but he was not. The narrator wouldn't clap his fucking trap. Randy Couture was about as threatening as a middle-school gym coach, and that was after he turned into a giant invisible scorpion.

The Scorpion King 3: This movie fuckin' sucks in Thailand. The third main guy still isn't very attractive, and his beard is poor. This one does have an okay villain, if only because he's clearly channeling Michael Wincott in The Crow. By which I mean he's high as shit, making up half his lines on the spot, and generally outqueening everyone else in the movie. Oh, Ron Perlman's in this one too, fuck knows why. And there's what I think is like an incredibly hamfisted say-no-to-American-imperialism thing at the end. And it spends way too much time trying to be funny, right up to ripping a joke straight out of MST3K, and then is actually almost good when it gets serious? (not really)

Fuck these movies, seriously. What's wrong with this world?