Floating Weeds (Ukigusa)

Floating Weeds (Ukigusa), 1959. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

Great movie. Stunning compositions. Every frame can be a photo. Not for everyone, especially impatient people used to Hollywood paced plot driven movies.

A poor itinerant Kabuki troupe arrives in a small town. The master visits a son he hasn't seen in 12 years and who knows him only as an uncle. The jealous mistress of the master plots to tarnish the innocence of the young man. 

Machiko Kyō who plays the mistress is a scence stealer. I love watching her subtle expressions: when she is jealous, you feel sick; and when she is hopeful, you feel butterflies. If you are a film buff then you'll know she was the main character in Kurosawa's Rashōmon (1950).


This is the first Ozu movie I've watched. It is my first foray into what I imagine to be snooty "film buff" favourites. Ozu is revered by film critics for his methods. I watched Floating Weeds twice, first for the story and then again with Roger Ebert's commentary track on. I expected more from Ebert. Too much redundancy. Here are some technical notes:

• Ozu never moves the camera
  
• camera is usually placed at the eye level of someone seated on the floor
• composition takes precedence over continuity. eg. a Gizo statute with a red bib faces the camera even if a subseqent shot of a room is from another angle
• Ozu loved red so many scences have a bit of red in it
• people look directly into the camera during dialogues
• scenes often have frames within frames. Ozu uses Japanese architecture of sliding doors and hanging banners to maximize this theatrical effect
• often there is depth in scenes. i.e. you can see beyond characters into the next room or out windows. This compensates for not having the camera pan the room. 
• characters are often lined up in a diagonal row and talk while looking at the same direction

Good Hair

Good Hair (2009). Chris Rock does a documentary on African-American hair. What is good hair to African-Americans? It's a simple question but the answers are painful.

I watched this movie last week but couldn't find the right words to review it. A part of me wanted to do it justice because Chris Rock is sort of doing some good in pointing out the dangers in perming hair, the amount of money spent on weaves, and the problem with holding a Eurocentric ideal of beauty. Another part of me doesn't want to exploit black people. I was fascinated by the deep seated desire by black people to have straight hair. It is surprising to know that a black man will look at a black woman with straight hair and think that he can't date her because her hair costs too much. Or that black men know never to touch a woman's weave. Basically, attitudes towards straight hair affect social relationship in ways that limits intimacy and affects standards of living among black people.

Now I look at Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu differently. As far as I can remember, they have always worn their hair in dreads or fros. I understand now they are women who truly don't give a shit about social pressure or stereotypes -- that having nappy hair means you are poor or stupid.  Good for them.

You know. I've always thought dreads were cool and now there are good reasons behind it.

Ong-Bak

Ong-Bak (2003) starring Tony Jaa (born Panom Yeerum).

The story: the head of a Buddha, referred to as Ong-Bak, is stolen from a rural village. Tony Jaa, a country boy trained in the deadly arts of Muay Thai, goes to Bangkok to retrieve it from art smuggling gangsters. Incidentally these same people bet on illegal street fights and Tony gets into the thick of it.

Ong-Bak is for action buffs. Little dialogue. Long scenes of fighting, running, jumping off roofs, walls, and over cars. Tony Jaa is amazing. In one scene he faces a group of men. He jumps up and stepping quickly on their shoulders, he runs over them. This is a serious martial artist guy. I wish I could do that.

Since watching the movie, I started using "Ong-Bak" in reference toTony Jaa's fighting style which is characterized by jumping up and elbowing people in the head. I itch to Ong-Bak people in the head and sometimes I do, but I plan to stop. It doesn't seem right to use Buddha's name in that way.

What exactly does Ong-Bak mean? Here's a quote from a Thailand forum board:

"Ong" is a classifier used in Thai for Buddha images, statues etc (it's also the name for "body parts", there may be two meanings in the title).

"Bak" means to "etch" or to "score", for example, your name on a rock.

According this definition, it makes sense and isn't disrespectful to say I'll "Bak" you in the head.  It's just that I love saying "Ong." If you watch the movie, listen to the pronunciation. I suspect you'll want to say Ong-Bak and then your elbows will itch for contact with heads too.

Blue Gold: World Water Wars

Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey

Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey (2009), a six part BBC series on food in Southeast Asia.

Wow. Spectacular mouth watering food. Unfortunately (or not, depending on your epicurean leanings), 75% of the recipes are a variation of curry. Yikes or Yum ! ? If you like food, this is absolutely worth watching.

Rick Stein tours Southeast Asia, exploring cuisine, people and politics. He covers restaurant and hotel food, but it is the street food and home-styled cooking in villages that distinguishes this series. From food stalls, Stein tastes chopped roti and curry for breakfast and for lunch on one rainy afternoon, he eats mouth watering, steaming bowls of noodles. In the villages, Stein studies women cooking outdoors, sitting low to the ground, surrounded by plates of spices, chopped and minced ingredients. He is one lucky bastard. Is there anyone who wouldn’t want to travel and review food?

Anyway, here are the places he visits:

Part 1: Cambodia
Part 2: Vietnam
Part 3: Thailand
Part 4: Malaysia
Part 5: Sri Lanka and Bali
Part 6: Bangladesh

As a host, Rick Stein does a satisfactory job, as in a B-. He might be well known, but I haven’t heard of him so I’m not predisposed to like him or believe he can cook well. I admit he’s good at describing the taste of food and has an enthusiasm for eating – his pudgy impatient fingers are often seen greedily reaching for morsels. And I’ll give him credit for trying to understand local politics, even though his sources are mostly ex-pat Europeans hoteliers or restaurateurs. He just wasn’t particularly fun to watch. But a mediocre host has one advantage: it tests the strength of content and in this case, the cuisine and locales are so vibrant they nullify the fuddy-duddy presence of Rick Stein.

While doing this write up, I found a food blog, gastronomyblog.com by Gastronomer who was one of Rick Stein's guides in Vietnam. See Gastronomer's entry on the taping here.

*Note to self: Try the Bánh Cuốn recipe. Minced pork and wood ear fungus wrapped in rice sheets.

I also found ramblingspoon.com, a good food blog Karen J Coats, a former Asian correspondent for a food magazine. She has cleaned up, magazine quality photos of food and everyday life in Asia. Nice to look at.

*Note to self: Find and try Kampot pepper, a pepper that is indigenous to Kampot, a town SW of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Supposedly it’s the king of peppers and has a spicy, aromatic and flowery taste.

Banlieue 13

Banlieue 13 (2004) or in English, District 13. Starring Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle. Jason Statham fans take note. As you can see from the poster, this movie is from the producer of Transporter 2.  

District 13 is a ghetto controlled by criminals. A punk from the ghetto teams up with a cop to save his sister held prisoner by a crime lord, and to diffuse a bomb that could destroy the whole area.

This is a movie with very little plot, but if you like continuous action sequences in the style of Jackie Chan, then Banlieue 13 is for you. There are some spectacularly convincing jumps through windows, off roofs and monkeying up of pipes.  

Try to image fight or chase scenes to this music by Da Octopusss and you'll get a sense of what to expect:

This is the first time I've seen Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle. They were extremely fit and physically well matched. There was a scene when both did a back flip and it was mesmerizing, sort of like watching synchronized swimming. Anyway, there is a sequel, Banlieue 13 Ultimatum (2009). I probably will watch it. And strangely enough, I'm curious about Ong Bak (2003). Apparently it's about a Muay Thai martial artist who fights for the honor of his village.

Julie and Julia

Julie & Julia (2009) starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. 2.9 stars out of 5 (without Streep it would be 2.5).

Everyone knows who Julia Child is but not everyone has seen her cooking shows. I've never seen her show so the accolades for Meryl Streep's portrayal of Child were lost on me. While watching the movie, I realized her warbling voice and lumbering movements were purposeful, but I could only appreciate Streep after the movie, when I watched a few clips of Julia Child on Youtube.

Based on two true stories, the movie alternates between the life of Julia Child, as she starts cooking lessons and writes a cook book, and Julia Powell, a blogger, as she starts her writing career. The tie in is that Powell challenges herself to cook all the recipes from Child's first book in one year. The two stories did not congeal, and the ending was simple: both women get book deals and Powell says something to the effect of "I define what Julia means to me and that's the important thing."

Without Meryl Streep the movie would be unbearable.

Zombieland

Zombieland (2009), starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Bill Murray as himself. Two out of five stars.

The world is infested with zombies. Woody Harrelson and the annoying Jesse Eisenberg are two of the few humans that remain. They team up and drive east. Along the way, they get conned by two sisters, played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. They give chase and then the four travel together.This is a horror comedy, but if you've seen the movie trailer, then you've seen all the funny bits. The only surprise is Bill Murray so I won't say more on him.

Jesse Eisenberg. He reminds me of Michael Cera from Juno (2007), but without the depth or range. I first saw Eisenberg in  Roger Dodger (2002). He plays a teen-aged nephew being taught by an uncle on how to pick up women. Seven years later, Eisenberg still has the same acting tics -- stuttering and stammering starts to dialogue. I'll call it the Woody Allen. Casting agents: stop casting slender, curly haired white guys as stuttering nerds. Change the formula up. We are bored.

Abigail Breslin. Who can forget Breslin as Olive, a chubby, child pageant contestant in Little Miss Sunshine (2006)? She can ride on those laurels for sometime and rightfully so. I look forward to see her in future movies. I like watching child actors grow up. Do you remember Elijah Wood in The Good Son (1993) opposite Macaulay Culkin? To think Wood grows up to play Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings (2001) !!! Or how about Anna Paquin as the little girl from Piano (1993) who later plays Rogue in X-Men (2000) and Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood (2008)?

Woody Harrelson. A likeable actor. He's been in alot of stuff, too much to list. He's a pothead and seems happily stoned in photos, but he's got range and established this along time ago -- he played an airhead bartender in Cheers (1985-1993) and a psychopathic serial murder in Natural Born Killers (1994).  Harrelson is great in comedy. The role in Zombieland seems to have been written for him. There was senseless destruction of property, lewd comments, child-like focus on something (pursuit of Twinkies), etc. The role suited him or he suited it. At any rate, it looked like he had delirious fun swearing and hollering and his enthusiasm makes him fun to watch.

Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman

Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2006) is a six hour long documentary on what it means to be a "Modern Woman." (For so many reasons, I cringe whenever she says that) It covers issues deemed important to the modern woman such as sex, death, pregnancy, fertility, etc. It's about Jennifer Fox, a single, 42 year-old American filmmaker who lives in New York. Sounds pretty bad doesn't it? She also narrates in first person, in an annoying, story-telling tone, unsuited for anything but calming down mental patients.

I finished watching part one. From childhood, Fox vowed to not marry or have children, and instead, she would be free and travel the world. She kept that vow and lived the life she wanted but now, she finds herself unsatisfied. Through introspection and interviews with family, a lover, and friends, Fox ruminates on whether marriage and children are things she wants.

I don't like Fox as the subject. I realize the film is suppose to about her but she comes across as weirdly self-centered. She films herself reacting to a pregnancy test, she films herself phoning a lover, and so on. As in any documentary, but especially this six hour special, you know there must be piles of unused, unwatchable footage. Can you imagine going through reams of footage of only you talking to the camera? There are critics that have called her neurotic, her film as a mid-life crisis, and I can see some why.

Will I continue watching? For now, yes. Supposedly there are interviews with women around the world. I want so hear what they have to say.

**************************************************

Nov. 5, 2009 Update:

I watched two more hours. It's a soap opera. Fox has a married lover in South Africa and a boyfriend in Sweden. The lover's wife finds out about the affair. Fox continues "interviewing" friends in France, South Africa and India on being a Modern Woman. I use quotations because it's mostly Fox whining to her friends and filming their advice on her two man situation.

It gets absurd. Fox goes to India to escape her guilt and whine about her love life. Parmita, an Indian human rights activist, bears the brunt of it. After a what-to-do session one night, Fox says, I should let you get back to work. A tired looking Parmita agrees and says she has alot of work to do. Fox's selfishness does not end at hindering an activist. She also bothers cancer patients. Fox visits a friend who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. Mercifully, this friend has just found love and her happy glow helps her endure Fox's redundant questions of what to do and who to choose.

Fox does admit that her problems are insignificant in comparison with her friends, but saying this doesn't make the film any less exhausting to watch.

It is really unbearable. Let me wrap up. At one point Fox decides she wants to have children and stops taking birth control. She tells the two men that contraception is their responsibility. Fox gets pregnant. That is the cliff hanger. There are still 3 more hours.

I just don't care.

Louis Theroux: The Strange and the Dangerous

I used to think it'd be hard to beat Ian Wright from Lonely Planet as a crazy explorer, but that was before I watched Louis Theroux get liposuction.

Under the Knife (2007), written and presented by Louis Theroux, a British-American, tongue in cheek "journalist," is the third installment of a five part BBC documentary series on the strange and dangerous behavior of people around the world. This is the first show I've seen by Louis, and it was more in the style of Lonely Planet, a series on traveling, than a documentary. You can find a complete list of Louis' series and his other work on Wikipedia here.

In this episode, Louis is in L.A. interviewing a few plastic surgeons and their patients, asking them questions about self image, social pressure, etc. Operations of procedures for breast implants, liposuction, tummy tucks, and brow lifts were also filmed. I fast forwarded these parts.

Is plastic surgery strange and bizarre? Yes. We all know there are people who believe plastic surgery fixes problems. That's not new. The fascination lies in watching people say outlandish promises with conviction. One image consultant says about her client, "after the brow lift she will look refreshed and feel more energetic." (I quote from memory)

I doubt I'll watch more of Louis Theroux's series. While vaguely amusing, he wasn't engaging and a quick scan of the other subjects -- prison, hunting extinct animals, law and order, etc -- doesn't interest me.

Push 2009

Push (2009) starring Dakota Fanning, Chris Evans, Dijimon Hounsou & Camilla Belle. Directed by Paul McGuigan  (Lucky Number Slevin, 2006). 3.5 stars out of 5.

Ok. So I'm still working on a ranking system. For now I'll simply highlight movies that score 3.5 stars or above and this means Go Watch It. Now let me get back to business: go watch Push.

Story: As a result of Nazi experiments, some people have powers of the following kind: Mover (telekinesis); Watcher (ability to predict the future); Pusher (ability to plant memories); and one unnamed type that boils down to the ability to scream until walls collapse and enemies die, something akin to a sonic attack. I like to call it "Yeller."

Division, a U.S. government organization, wants to control, experiment on and use these super-humans. Kira (Belle), a Pusher, is the sole survivor of a drug that can enhance the powers of these humans. She awaken from the experiment, steals the drug and runs away. A marble, dropped by a Watcher, rolls along halls and ends up keeping open the very door Kira needs to exit. Kira is invaluable to research so Division sends people to hunt her down. As foretold by a Watcher ten years ago, a Mover (Evans) and a teen-aged Watcher (Fanning) work together to find and help Kira. This is all part of a bigger plan that I won't go into further detail about. 

If one day you are forced to make a sci-fi movie on a small budget, give a white guy a few lines in Chinese. It's cheaper that CG. We all know ethnicity doesn't dictate citizenship and language or, to put it another way, people don't always live in the country or speak the language they look like they should. On this point, movie reality differs from ours. If a white guy speaks Chinese in a movie, it can only be one of two genres: science fiction or comedy. Nobody bats an eye at Asians speaking English, but when I see Caucasians and Africans speaking Cantonese, as in Push, it has a futuristic effect.

One observation about location. Although Push was filmed in Hong Kong, it is noticeably different from Chinese movies filmed there. HK movies capture a grittiness in everyday life that is missing from Push.

Surrogates

Surrogates (2009), starring Bruce Willis. 3 out of 5 stars. Good story but could have been better.

Surrogates is the perfect follow up movie to the documentary, Second Skin. In the future, everyone stays at home and lives vicariously through a human robot. Some people choose younger "surrogates" of themselves, while others have fantasy clones, like the obese old man who's surrogate is a sexy blond girl.

Here is the story: a man, leader of an anti-robot group, obtains a weapon that can kill humans by shooting their surrogates. Bruce Willis plays a cop (surprise) who tries to stop a plot to kill everyone connected to a surrogate. While fighting the bad guys, Willis' clone gets damaged, forcing him to go out in the flesh, at which point he begins to re-evaluate virtual living.

Bruce Willis. In all the land of Hollywood, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore have the most functional relationship between a divorced couple. They are still sometimes photographed together as a family unit which includes their three daughters, as well as Willis' new girlfriend or Moore's second husband.

Over the years, Willis has become a better actor. There is a veteran quality to his face, and it might just be the wrinkles around his eyes, but sometimes when he tries, he can appear convincingly earnest and caring. However, no matter how good he gets, I doubt Willis can shake the line, "Yippee ki yay, Mother fucker!"

Second Skin

Second Skin (2008). 3 out of 5 stars. Entertaining.

In the style of trashy afternoon talk shows, Second Skin offers, an arguably, sensationalized peek into the gaming world. We meet four roommates who live and game together, couples who met online, and a gaming addict. It was entertaining to see what people are willing to do to maximize game time. It is scaring to let oneself believe that the road of gaming necessarily leads to poverty, obesity and stunted social skills.

Daniel Terdiman from CNET criticizes the film here. Essentially, he says the filmmakers fail to portray a broad spectrum of gamers and instead, sensationalizes all of them as dysfunctional addicts.

Can I see myself gaming 20 hrs straight? Unfortunately, yes. And so to this day, I only play games that can be finished, and I have not tried World of Warcraft. To me, the word "WoW" sounds like "crack".

A Perfect Getaway

A Perfect Getaway (2009), starring Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn. 1.5 stars out of 5.

A bad movie with a title that invites bad puns about getting away from it. A couple go hiking in Hawaii for their honeymoon. They find out a newlywed couple was recently killed in the area. Along the trail they meet two other couples and suspect one pair might be the murderers. Another sentence more and you will NEVER watch it. Thrillers and mysteries are like that, an extra noun and they're ruined.

Milla Jovovich. I've liked her since The Fifth Element (1997), and have enjoyed her Resident Evil movie series. In the realm of celebrity gossip, she is famously known for gaining 75 lbs during her pregnancy and reached 197 lbs before giving birth. Truly scary. However, she did say that she felt beautiful throughout her term.

Steve Zahn. He's usually typecast as the funny sidekick, but very recently he's breaking into pseudo-leading man roles. I'm thinking of the movie Management (2008) where he plays a hotel clerk who falls in love with a traveling art dealer played by Jennifer Aniston. I couldn't finish watching that movie -- they had no chemistry together, and his scenes dragged on and on. Unfortunately, it's clear from A Perfect Getaway that Zahn isn't suited for thrillers either. He simply lacks the intensity needed for serious roles. But, if he's getting roles opposite Aniston and Jovovich, I guess he's on his way up the Hollywood ladder. Either that, or they're slipping down rungs.

Drag Me to Hell

Drag Me to Hell (2009), starring Alison Lohman and Justin Long. Yesterday was Halloween, and so, I included a horror movie to watch. I give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

A loans clerk, played by Alison Lohman, denies a loan to an old woman who then puts a curse on her -- in three days, an evil, horned creature will drag her to hell. During this time Lohman's character hallucinates, runs from devilish shadows, visits fortune tellers and medians in attempts to end the curse. Justin Long is the boyfriend who doesn't believe what is going on, but remains supportive (he pays the seer 10K).

Ellen Page was originally cast but there were scheduling problems. But it doesn't matter because better acting wouldn't have improved Drag Me to Hell anyway. 

Alison Lohman. I remember her playing a teen shuffled around foster homes in White Oleander (2002).  That movie had three strong actresses -- Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn, and Renee Zellweger -- all of whom maximized their screen time. As for Lohman, I remember her hair. She had cut it for a previous role, and wore a long-haired, straw-like wig throughout the movie. They should have spent money on extensions, bad wigs are distracting.  

Justin Long. The Mac Guy and Drew Barrymore's on and off again boyfriend. He comes across as a nice guy, the nerd from highschool who grew up and got rich in a start-up. Unfortunately, looks are deceiving. He admitted he knows nothing about computers which, somehow, makes him less capable, and more unattractive:

[Interview with Fred Topel, 6/28/07, quoted from IMDb]

"I get the worst of both worlds. I look like a geeky hacker, but I don't know anything about computers."

The Mac Guy sucks with computers. Why would you ever side with him on the Mac/PC debate?

Planet B-Boy

Planet B-Boy (2007), directed by Benson Lee, is a documentary about what is popularly known as break dancing. The film follows several groups from around the world -- Japan, Korea, France, Germany & the USA -- as they prepare for Battle of the Year, the world cup of b-boying.  Each group has a history, and a few individual stories are featured.

Documentaries on niche subjects can shock and amaze. They do so by showing the extremes people go to in order to pursue a dream, be it crossword puzzles (Wordplay, 2006) or spelling bees (Spellbound, 2002). Planet B-Boy does this for dance. For example, one Korean group practices from 12AM until 5AM, until they literal fall asleep on the group, exhausted.

Breaking started in the South Bronx in the 1970's among the poor, and in the film there were groups from poor areas or small towns. Their success shows that breaking remains an accessible dance form. It has fluid definitions that encourages innovation and individual style, and this is what makes breaking a powerful dance form.