23 July - "Fellas like you and me, we don't run."

The Warrior's Way (2010)
dir. Sngmoo Lee

CAST

Dong-gun Jang

Kate Bosworth (The Rules of Attraction, 2002)

Geoffrey Rush (Elizabeth, 1998)

Danny Huston (Leaving Las Vegas, 1995)

Tony Cox (Beetlejuice, 1988)

I'm sick with some sort of heinous derivation of a summertime flu and life is basically miserable for me now as I sit and wait to see how my body will let me down next. The silver lining is that this is a perfect time to take advantage of Mom's On Demand and buy all these movies that I've been wanting to see (and a few just so my little brother will sit quietly with me).

From the descriptions I've read (because I don't think I actually watched a trailer for it) I was expecting a sort of inverted spaghetti-western, but running that phrase through my brain, I'm not exactly sure what that means. I guess I was thinking about The Magnificent Seven, which isn't a spaghetti western at all (usually when people are talking about those, they are thinking about Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) --Rather, The Magnificent Seven was westernized retelling of The Seven Samurai, which I've never seen but it's probably something I should get around to.

So I guess my point is that this movie is like how a Japanese person imagines and idealizes the old American West. It is spare in scenery and props, but all of the ones that are there are over-the-top and in-your-face. The villain is villainous, barely humanized. He rapes girls with good teeth. The hero is quiet and noble with a dark past. He barely speaks. The ending scene was anticlimactic, totally unnecessary to the conclusion of the story arc, but upon exit interviews, this scene held my little brother's favorite line of the movie, and my mother's favorite part as well. So, buttons.

This movie is good. It's unexpected and totally different. It uses a few common tropes, like the typical old-time circus characters, but these are satisfying and not boring. Kate Bosworth is sort of annoying as always (can I say poor-man's Jessica Simpson, or is that too cruel?) being the spunky-girl-in-the-old-west. OK, I get it. You're like Annie Oakley. Let's not overkill the folksy expressions.

I feel like this review was vague. I'm tired and sick and I have to make my own chicken soup and the kitchen stove doesn't work. Next I think I'm reviewing Megamind or else that one is coming up soon.

16 Jan - "But he's so cautious. He won't go into dark places"

Lust, Caution (2007)
dir. Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, 2005)

CAST
Wei Tang
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Leehom Wang

This movie is set in WW2-era Shanghai, and it's about a college drama club in 1940s China who discover and attempt to murder a high-level traitor collaborating with enemy Japan. The youngest member of the club, Wong, ingratiates herself with the traitor Yee's household and quickly becomes his mistress. The club gets drawn into the REAL resistance movement and the conspiracy deepens. Wong delves deeper and deeper into her make-believe role, rejecting her own true love for the farce of romance with the sadistic Mr. Yee. All of the heroes die.

You guys, this movie was super-sad. The heroine gave up everything to become the perfect spy, only to fall for her own act, and betray the people she swore to protect and die for. There's one part where the gang realizes that in order to carry on their scam, Wong is going to have to sleep with Mr. Yee. And so one of the other club members, the only one with any experience, is elected to show Wong how it's done. That's the part where Wong becomes a real outsider in the group, and her commitment to her alter-ego begins to overpower her own true self.

I think this was marketed as an "espionage thriller," I don't think that's right at all. I guess it's a "wartime romance," but a really twisted one. Lots of explicit sex scenes in here, but that's pretty much the name of the game with these foreign films. Plus, I think I watched the uncut version (it was 2:40 long)

Nov 7 - "...and you obey, no different from the world we left behind"

Kamikaze Girls (2004)
dir. Tetsuya Nakashima
starring
Kyoko Fukada (Ring 2, Japanese version, 1999)
Anna Tsuchiya

What do you call that genre where a realistic storyline is infused with elements of surrealism? Not like Pan's Labyrinth, which was overtly fantastic, not even like Like Water for Chocolate, which is, of course, magical realism. I mean like real-life but just infused with a little bit more imagination. That's what Kamikaze Girls was like.

It's a buddy movie about a sweet Lolita-type girl (Momoko) who is way overdressed for her rural Japanese town. She doesn't have any friends and she doesn't care about family and just likes to dress up and go shopping. She gets tossed together with Ichiko, a yanki-type biker chick. Both girls are way overdevoted to their style-identity, but the twist is that it ends up being Ichiko who is playing a part to fit in, Momoko is alienated, but at least she's true to herself.

This is some quality storytelling right here. It's not melodramatic except where it's supposed to be, and the two female leads are true to their characters without hitting you over the head (OH I GET IT SHE HAS INNER VULNERABILITY OK). Ichiko is particularly well-performed, the kind of girl you sometimes meet who's a little to cool to be natural. Momoko gets a little bit of guts in the end, and learns the importance of friendship. There's a little bit of bloodshed, but it's cool.

Celia and Julianne- you two should totally watch this, but separately, because you don't know each other. Or together, that would be a different kind of awesome.