Movie Diary 2012-03 [March]

Different director - kinda same repetitive stuff.
The happy family's make up is more "plastic-like" and white this time, Kayako's appearance being more "porcelain mannequin" than ever. She's somehow creepier.
This time they tried to focus a little more on the victims' personalities/background stories. I'm sorry that they can't see the "VICTIM" tag placed over their heads right from the start as clearly as the viewers do.

AKA Takashi Shimizu's SIXTH attempt to do the same movie. And, to be honest, the results get worse time after time.

A plain tale about man's preferred hobbies (love and money) involving two husbands, two sisters and their mother who unexpectedly puts a dreadful end to the story.

Three people.


(One of them)

Strange fact 1: everybody in Italy seem to talk only in English (even between themselves) or in an Italian-sounding gibberish.
Strange fact 2: you can easily do an exorcism on a seriously ill patient in a hospital, just ask - they even give you the room.
Strange fact 3: this movie IS good.

One of the best picks from the "nothing quite happens" genre. It has lots of beautiful shots, like the opening one, which is my favourite.

We should be insane to avoid life. It always finds us and the memory factory returns to operate.

I love my baby when she dresses white, I love my baby when she comes to my funeral, if I weren't alive I'd feel surprised to sense the sun on my skin. But the darkness will come.

The soul has bruises, too, and they're obviously blue.
Cry Julie, cry, 'cause the world never stops.

At the dusk of life as the biggest mountains crumble and death's teeth bite more than ever you're gonna reap what you sow.

It's interesting to study in deep how American visual storytelling has changed in 30 years comparing the 1932 and 1957 adaptations of Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms'.
Both have their own flaws, but I prefer this one, at least for its poignant ending.
Unfortunately the Italian dubbing is so poor.

"Suzuki makes incomprehensible films.
Suzuki does not follow the company's orders.
Suzuki's films are unprofitable and it costs 60 million yen to make one.
Suzuki can no longer make films anywhere. He should quit.
Suzuki should open a noodle shop or something instead."
Kyūsaku Hori, Nikkatsu president.

Extract from "Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts" (Taylor & Francis, 2007)

The Fifth One.
Not as fascinating as I thought it would be, but still an amusing experiment, and still a clever portrait of ourselves.

Memories of my youth.
Robert Cohn is, among the book's many characters, the most interesting and complete. The same can be said of the movie counterpart, although the adaptation as a whole differs considerably from the novel, the latter being bleaker and more tragic. The novel's mild sense of resignation and despair drowned in liquor and laughter is replaced here with just liquor and laughter. Despite the numerous and sometimes inevitable simplifications the last scene retains its original pathos and is, in my opinion, the movie's peak.

A note about bullfighting: I strongly dislike such rituals in which the bull is brutally killed, and I mean every aspect of them, including the cheering crowd.

A fuck did to them what the war could not. No spoilers intended.

An overweight and slightly depressed night porno watcher gets obsessed with domestic Serbian hardcore flicks and, being the only one theorist on Earth on this matter, he shoots a domestic Serbian documentary flick about that sensational world of stinking old pussies, field sex, limp dicks, fat hairy tummies and kitsch furniture, following the working and private life of four actors.
Very, very bad acted/written/directed/edited/all else. So bad that is somehow good to me. Each portrait has its own touching elements that let the audience (does this movie really have an audience?) empathize with the actors' common and miserable lives and their dreams.

Director Mladen Djordjevic made a significant progress years later with The Life and Death of a Porno Gang.

Third watch.
I strongly believe I can re-watch this forever.

A good article:
The Colour of Pomegranates by Rahul Hamid (Senses of Cinema)

Very good.
As everyone knows, the movie is (1) set in Hollywood in the early 30s during the birth of talkies and (2) told in a silent-film style; given these two premises, the risk to bring out a cinematic bad masturbation was high. I'm glad my cynical mind was wrong this time, as the result is strangely modern and fresh.

Despite the facade, it has little to do with movie nostalgia and silent-era revival, as everyone seems to first point out when talking about 'The Artist' ('Hugo' is WAY more nostalgic) or at least, the movie is not JUST that. It is what it is, a silent made in 2012, making use of an interesting mixture of old and present-day cinematic language, and made to look like a modern production. Actually, it somehow looks to the future rather than glancing at a long gone past.

Pretty banal to be honest. I expected a more intriguing comedy having seen the trailer (all the funniest scenes are already spoiled in there). Few scenes I'd like to see again given the chance, pratically whenever Rupert Everett appears. Maggie Gyllenhaal's character is quite detestable. A wasted opportunity, with such a promising subject (the invention of the vibrator).

Russ Meyer or John Waters, watch it and fix it YOUR WAY.