But Enough About Me!

Okay, I haven't seen it yet, although I may or may not, mostly depending on if I can ever find time.

Anyway, Twin A and Daughter went to see it for a second time, this time in 3-D (first time in 2-D). Twin A, on returning, announced, "After seeing this a second time, Mom, I feel I can be pretty sure in saying that you will not like it." (due, he meant, to high cliche quotient in the script as well as the noble savage motif)

What I did find was an interesting discussion by anthropologists, from the always interesting blog Savage Minds.

One of the more interesting stories that fall into the Dude Going Over is the story of Gonzalo Guerrero--Spanish sailor is shipwrecked, captured by a local Yucatec Maya group, eventually marries a chief's daughter and becomes part of the tribe and fights against the Spanish; his sons fight the Spanish, too). But the big difference with the story of Gonzalo Guerrero is that the Maya are not noble savages. They are people, with a civilization, with points of similarity and dissimilarity to other cultures, with their own wars and disputes, their own sense of humor and ways of doing things, upsides and downsides (and of course the Classic Maya civilization, further south, collapsed for various reasons one of which may be ecological mismanagement some hundreds of years earlier). They're not "better than us" or "worse than us." That's what I get tired of (a point, I might add, apropos of nothing in regard to the film, which I have not seen).

This one took forever because I kept getting an error message every time I tried to post it. I had to retype by hand. Weird.


Warriors of Heaven and Earth

On paper this had everything I love in an historical film with fantastical elements:

handsome male leads in strong roles (one surely doomed; one you're not sure)

a strong and sympathetic female character (the general’s daughter as calm, competent, courageous, but not--as she would not likely have been in that culture--secretly a ninja warrior; she is a warrior, as it were, in that she takes action and keeps her cool even if she is not a trained fighter)

gorgeous scenery

proper villain and hench-minions

pending war

mystically calm monks with holy relics

loyal followers with "personality" (that is, two dimensional quirks)

a score by A. R. Rahman, of all people

a potentially good plot line in which the two male leads are both honorable but set against each other by circumstance.

I liked it. But I could not help but wonder if the version released in the USA was somehow cut down from a longer and more coherent version. I found it choppy both in the visual and in the plot narration in a way that detracted from the fabulous epic it could have been. And it could have been fabulous. Additionally, it contained an important moral lesson: to quote my spouse, "Don't fuck with the Buddha."

So if you like historical films with a fantastical element, I'd see it. But I don't think it's the movie it could have been, and I'm sorry I didn't get to see that other film. This one came so close.



I'll start the 2009 film reviews with all the movies this year I got from Netflix and didn't finish.

To clarify: these are films I watched in 2008, not necessarily films released in 2008. I'm just catching up. In fact, this is the second to last post for 2008 films.


Our Mutual Friend

Over time, I have had to conclude that Dickens is just not my thing. This is well done in the usual British style, but I scarcely can recall anything about it except that it featured scenes of the underbelly of Victorian London. Oh, and the young female lead from MI-5 (aka Spooks) plays the secondary female lead, the underclass beauty.



As opposed to

Cranford, based on the Elizabeth Gaskell novel,

which I adored. And which my spouse, patiently sitting down to watch the first episode with me on the couch to keep me company, watched all the way through, all the episodes, as well, so you know that between the production, acting, writing, and the all important source material, someone was doing something right. NOTHING HAPPENS in this miniseries set in the mid 19th century. But everything happens. Life happens. Change comes to the English village of Cranford, slowly, on little cat feet, and we get to know a varied set of characters in a way that allows us to understand them, care for them, dislike them, respect them, hope for their success, or mourn at their deaths. I would watch it again.



Central Station

This story, set in Brazil, of a retired and rather misanthropic schoolteacher who ends up involved in restoring an abandoned boy to his family could be a sentimental mess, but I thought the filmmakers and in particular the actress who plays the lead avoided the pitfalls inherent in the situation. The story focuses on the human need for connection, and what it means to feel connected to others, to strangers, to humanity. The ending is bittersweet but satisfying. There are many fine details and moments about the country and culture of Brazil. I found this to be a very good film. Oh, and it passes the Bechdel Test.



Snatch

Jason Statham (love him!). Brad Pitt (incomprehensible! and really really funny!) Guy Ritchie (directing), and a passel of low life characters, violence, and dark humor. The set up is a bit long and convoluted, although that’s part of its charm, and although I can’t be absolutely sure since I'm relying on my rather hazy memory, I’m pretty darn sure the film does not remotely pass the Bechdel Test. But the pay off is, in a darkly violent comedic way, very satisfying. Also, it follows the all important film rule: the best looking man in the film wins (well, okay, except when he doesn't, but in this kind of film, he usually does). I liked it, lots.



Chungking Express

Tony Leung smiles! And, yes, his smile is devastating, so be still my heart. Two stories (the first is a strange but compelling tale with Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin), linked by the Chungking Express (the local equivalent of a fast food restaurant, kind of). Not really a comedy, definitely not a tragedy. These are more like two slice of life stories, woven together. The second, with Tony Leung and Faye Wong, is rather sweet. And, seriously, Tony Leung strips down to his underwear *and* he smiles. What greater recommendation do you need, people?

This is a new NBC show, a kind of alt history thing based on the stories of Saul and David from the Bible. I will admit my biases up front.

They would have had to do something amazing or actually edgy and provocative for this to work for me, because I have strong ideas about the story already. This basically means they either have to play it pretty straight in terms of what is already a convoluted emotional and political story with great depths and heights and interpersonal relationships and no single villain--even Saul is not actually a villain--OR they have to do some crazy sidewise kind of interpretation that opens up a new view of the material.

( I bitch behind the cut about why I didn't last more than an hour, so if you enjoyed the pilot, I would skip this, also mild spoilers although one can't really spoil this story as prolly most people know it already )

On the night of the Oscars, which I'm not watching for no reason except that I generally never do, I do think about film.

First, oursin flagged this article in the Guardian about romantic comedy: Where have all the good women gone?.

Romantic comedies have, of course, long been formulaic, and often palpably dumb, but recently they actually seem to have become contemptuous of women.

I was going to write up approving commentary on the article, and my reaction to the portrayal of women in film in these days (and will still likely write up something on the portrayal of women in epic fantasy), and so on, but then Justine Larbalestier went ahead and kindly wrote up a rant for me. I mean, she probably didn't know that's why she was doing it, but I really appreciated her going to all that trouble just to spare me from having to say pretty much the same thing. Thanks, Justine!

She begins:

Lately I’ve been talking with many of my film-obsessed friends about romantic comedies. Specifically we’ve been trying to come up with one made by Hollywood in the last five years which wasn’t misogynist rubbish.


But now for something almost kind of different.

Tonight, the Oscars gave awards for best film, but what about the really bad stuff you had the misfortune to see?

What were the worst films you saw in 2008 (preferably released in 2008, but I'm willing to go easy if there's a bit of date slippage and it's more of a 'worst film seen in 2008) in the categories of

1) Just Plain Bad

2) Hated It Even Though It Received Critical or Popular Acclaim


I'll go first, even though I saw very few 2008 release films, alas.

1) The Mummy: China edition
Brendan Fraser and Jet Li and Michelle Yeow and Russell Wong and even poor John Hannah TOTALLY WASTED. Idiot plot, terrible writing, mediocre CGI. So, so sad.

2) Haha. You knew this was coming if you read my blog last year. Mongol.

Once Were Warriors is a New Zealand film from 1994 (or 95). I'm not sure how to describe the plot. The dynamics of a family of poor Maoris living in the city is unfolded, as well as the struggle between those Maoris who have kept hold of their traditions and those who have been beaten down into a shell of what they once were by the modern world. There is abuse. The inevitable tragedy strikes and precipitates the mother's final realization that she must break out of the situation she has, frankly, been complicit in all these years.

I found this to be a brilliant film; I'd go so far as to call it a masterpiece. But it is tough, tough viewing. It's kind of like the flip side of Whale Rider, another beautiful film that is also about how an old and venerable, but vulnerable, culture must find a new way--make a new journey--through and into the modern (post-colonial?) world in which it now finds itself.

Once Were Warriors pulls no punches (literally), and is horrifyingly real in its depiction of an abusive family. This is not Hollywood at all. It is a stunning movie, the more so because the actors are simply amazing. Temuera Morrison (hope I got that right) is incredible as Jake (the Muss), a handsome man of great charm who has been eaten up by the anger of failure and his own inability to have come to terms with his feeling that he isn't "good enough." And I really have no words to describe Rena Owen's performance as Beth, mother and wife and human being; I would call it one of the best performances I've seen in a movie. The rest of the cast are excellent as well.

I sat down to watch this with my spouse and one child, not really knowing what the film had in store. I knew it was a "domestic" story (and I knew it was about struggle and difficulty), and I wondered if my husband would get bored and leave after a while. But we sat there gripped, and at the end, he said, "I think that's one of the best movies I've ever seen."

Sometimes a film emerges with an intangible quality; it is greater than the sum of its parts. This is such a film (imho, of course; ymmv).


But again, fair warning: this is a very hard film to watch. I would not call the end uplifting, but there is a chance for hope. I can't really recommend this highly enough.

See, I don't have to go see films any more unless I'm really really sure I'll love them. I just send chibicharibdys who hits the main points of my problem with most of the films these days: it's all about the Man.

Read her review of The Dark Knight here.

In terms of films and books, my patience for watching films or reading stories in which only one or two women appear, who then have no agency and function only in terms of their (sexual or maternal) relationship with one or more of the men, has pretty much plunged to nothing.

I'm not talking about films like, say, Lawrence of Arabia in which, in the context of the story, there genuinely is no public space for women. I'm talking about epic fantasy or superhero movies or children's animated flicks or pretty much anything in which the writer/director/whatever cannot conceptually find space for females in a landscape that is more or less 50% women. I have the same lack of patience for film/stories that, in a similar intersectional vein, cannot find conceptual space for an ethnically, religiously, or culturally diverse cast in landscapes where, in fact, such diversity exists.

Yet time and again works so lacking conceptually may be described as cutting edge, ground breaking, provocative, and so on, when for me, from my perspective, it's just the same old same old styled up in fancier effects and clothing and with maybe a little more blood and gore. I have been around long enough now to state pretty categorically that, no, it's not new, it's just the same story. And I'm bored of it.

Now and again I post capsule film reviews. I don't do it for books, so go figure.

( Capsule reviews of Densha Otoko, Porco Rosso, Dancehall Queen, Lackawanna Blues, Hard Boiled behind the cut if you're interested. )

As my spouse said, there are movies you don't have to think about at all after they're over, and then there are movies that will stick with you for a long time.

In this house, we're agreed this is the case for Andrei Tarkovksy's Stalker, a film I'm not even sure I can describe.

( if you're interested, read more )