Darick's Talk

The Hurt Locker

Wow! That was intense! This is how you make a war movie. No patriotic bullshit here. No taking sides. There are no sides. Just a few man, trying to survive in the war, trying to make sense of it. Best war movie since Full Metal Jacket.

The Brave One

"the brave one" is jodie foster's latest blockbuster breakthru by some art-house director neil jordan with the helpful upstaging thru charismatic terrence howard. so would "the brave one" be a smash hit? obviously, it sells well but would its crucial viewpoint be taken without being midled and over-generalized as another "chic with vengence" rehash, especially from male audience? another sort of chic/woman's flicks about strong woman risen up against all the odds just like 40s "mildred pierce"?

it's a story about a woman and her husband-to-be being almost beaten to death in the central park. she survives but her loved one passes. so angered by the injustice and grievance as well as approaching fright, she purchases a gun for the sense of safety. then some other perilous events drive her into using her lethal pistol into immediate killings which she's obtained great kicks from until she actively sets her path into disposing of the genuine evil men that including her fiancee' murders. therefore, she's become an involuntary vigilante partially forced by circumstance.

"the brave one" is actually a film noir to its essence but inevitably it over-lingers over the sentimentalities of a woman's traumatic pysche after the catastrophe such as the self-inflicted confession over the radio-broadcastings, and those attributes are easily categorized as "feminist refugee" like 90s "thelma and louis".

there're four basic elements of film noirs that this flick's contour could ascribe: 1. the dark side of humanity over sex or violence. 2. anarchistic distrust over the law. 3. a vigilante to perform the justice on his own, usually private dick like philip marlowe. 4. the seedy backset of a metropolitan's shadowy retreat like raymond chandler and james m cain's frequent spots of los angels, grendale, pasadena in southern california or danshiel hammet's san fransisco. and "the brave one" is about human's potential appetite of violence being provoked by grand tragedy, and the woman protagonist's distrust over the law is so severe that she has to buy a gun to feel safe, then bang bang bang! she would do justice on her own, a vigilante! and it's about the dark corners of new york as well as her obsession over this super-metropolitan that's well-channeled by her radio-broadcastings...unfortunately these traits have been neglected by the viewers, does it occur to you that audience cannot deem it as film noir just becuz the vigilante protagonist ain't male despite jodie foster has every believable characteristic of a tough guy inside her? or it's too sentimental to be taken as noirish? or it's becuz the director hasn't toyed enough of cinematography of starkness but chose naturalistic rendering instead?

still, it's very engrossing to put a woman into a spot in this kind of story as gender-reversal. jodie foster has a genuine grit in her and her "tough guy" ain't like uma thurman's cartoonish "kill bill"(a semi-dominatrix vixen in boyish pulp), she conveys real fragility as well as genuine toughness to win the odds. probably she's the only woman actress who could pull off the task of action heroine without taunting her sex appeal. perhaps, a woman in the main spot would bring out some feminine aspects to mellow out such material which is supposed to be harsher, rougher and more expressionistic to be considered noirish. pitifully "the brave one" would still be labelled as "chic flick", "woman's movie" or "feministic refugee".

Revenge of a Kabuki Actor (Yukinojo henge)

such a weird film. your basic revenge plot highly stylized. kazuo hasegawa is pretty amazing as the cross-dressing kabuki actor who elaborately plots the demise of the men who destroyed his family when he was a boy. he's in drag throughout but has mad samurai skills and two beautiful women fall in love with him (!) lovely cinematography and set designs but the film is melodramatic and the rhythm feels odd as it's meant to reflect kabuki theater. strange score too. this is a remake of a film from the 30's starring the same actor and he still pulls it off 30 years later

JSA: Joint Security Area (Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA)

JSA is a perfect examples of how didn't meet the expectation doesn't always comes as a bad thing.judging by the poster and the trailer,i expect this to be a great political war thriller brought by Park chan-wook,the master of that kind of movie.the fact is,this is not a thriller(althought there are some thrilling moments).what JSA truly are is a wonderful story of friendship and pain of guilt.brillilant!

Venus

daring,provocative,and with a subject matter that hollywood often fears to tackle,VENUS is a drama unlike any other.and excelled by O'toole wondrous performance,this is a surprisingly brilliant movie that i didn't see coming.the last shot is a gem too(especially if you're a man,hehe)

A Bittersweet Life (Dalkomhan insaeng)

part kill bill,part leon:the professional,.A BITTERSWEET LIFE is another greatness from kim jee woon,.now official to becoming one of my favorite director.he really can turn a well established genre (horror with A TALE OF TWO SISTERS,and now gangster),into something entirely different and highly poetic.a must see,and definitely better than OLDBOY in my opinion

Une Vieille Maîtresse (The Last Mistress) (An Old Mistress)

"the last mistress" is the work of art from the director who's made "romance", catherine breillat, and it's much more reserved and polished due to its backset time-scale than breillant's any other sensationalistic piece. frankly, as a fervent feministic provocateur, breillant has always been a little bit too politically contrived on the bedroom matters when she seals her relentlessly cynic mockeries to genders and marital legimacy. somehow that characteristic spoils the genuine artistic success she may have ever had. "the last mistress" is another achetypical example of her radical viewpoint which is also very avant-gardistly cliched: sex, the physical desire could override any santuary reverence men have over innocence, purity and the institution of marriage, no matter how much you may love a person, but you still listen to your genital down below at any cost, you may feel agonic and very much in pain but you just cannot help it, so women're better off without the bondage of men, be the dominatrix who masters over men.....come on, tell or advocate me something which i haven't heard or read in these three decades of feministic movements.

in a nutshell, the tale goes like this: a penniless libertine swoons a beautiful chaste woman of higher birth, the jewel of french aristocracy, but he has a hard time terminating his 10 year affair with a wild gypsy-like she-devil, a seed of illegitimate union(princess and matador). the male libertine deserts his mistress for the virginal lily, and he believes he's whole-heartedly in love, then this gluttonish she-devil traces him to his newlywed chateau to re-kindle their illict sparkle. then the man succumbs...later, his wife discovers then has a miscarriage by broken-heart. eventually the libertine has ruined the happiness of his precious wife as everyone predicts. the classic quotation here would be "in love, the first to suffer has lost"....

undoubtedly, the she-devil is played by the notably spunky italian actress asia argento who's been taking roles of brave indiscreet women since the 90s, her smashing performance in 1998 "b monkey",,,then her role is always tough woman-rebel or daredevil whore...i've always been amazed by her gritty beauty, and i've never found any character she performed abrasive despite the inevitably repeated typecasting until the moment after i watched "the last mistress"...her interpretion is fine and perhaps argento is the only actress who could render this role due to her winsome features which are literily designed for this role. but i've got to admit, asia argento's no longer the same fresh-faced ingenuine who toys between reckless seductiveness and brittle naivete that i saw 10 years ago in her american debute "b monkey"...she's upgraded into a more spiteful lilith-like being who ruminates and devours in full masterful manipulation in catherine breillant's "the last mistress" which definitely decreases her likability.(or she just ain't that gorgeous as she was in 1998?)

the castings of the leads are absolutely a gallery of striking fair youth, and the male protagonist has a pair of juicy smackable lips, eyes of sheer transparent blue, and skin made of milky streaks of porcelain, same for the blonde-haired woman-protagonist, so statuesque like people who stride out of europe's classical paintings. somehow that makes the setting even more peculiar and oddly persuasive, accompanied by such cherishable beauty, you would still like to cheat with a third party who may not rival your wife? perhaps the ignition of lust could surpass any romantic sentimentality you've been deeply inspired. the director's camera frame has manifested well on that by a shot of the man's wedding ring and the illict woman's snake-shaped bracelet.

this movie's made with some refinement which surprises me since it's done by the same brazen woman who chooses to bare a vaginal frontal scene and have his lead woman sex with a real porn actor in "romance"...but honestly i'm still deeply annoyed by her sexual politics in this latest movie of hers. why, as a woman, she has to be so tremendously selfish just for the sake of shameless unbridled freedom even it would cause pain to others??? it even features one scene where argento's character smirks at the cornered seat of church when the man's wedding is to be proceed on with some drab bliblical admonisments for marital virtues on women as if she lures the man just to defy church out of taunting contempt...would she care the other party which's never done any damage to her? personally if that's the necessary attitude to pronounce your feminist right, it's better to have no part of it when your blissful emancipation has to be built by the sacrifice of those irrelevant people. wouldn't woman, in this case, just descends into the accomplice of man to wreck other woman's life?

Lenny

Exceptional biopic where I actually learned something about the subject! In true 1970s cinema fashion, Bob Fosse does not attempt to glamorize or mythicize controversial comedian Lenny Bruce as modern Hollywood would. Instead we are shown events detailing the ascent and regression of a man who inadvertently challenged authority over freedom of public speech.

I was unfamiliar with Bruce's actual act and the film offers many nightclub performances with Dustin Hoffman impressively pulling them off. While it was difficult at first to distance his young appearance from his turn as Benjamin Braddock in 'The Graduate,' once he grows a beard he IS Lenny Bruce. The most comparable comedian I know is George Carlin as both used language as a tool to expose human hypocrisy though humor. With today's abundance of foul-mouthed comics populating TV specials, it's dumbfounding to learn how Bruce faced repeated prosecution and served jail time for merely saying words in public that were deemed objectionable.

The film uses an interesting mix of fictionalized interviews and fly-on-the-wall storytelling to relate the influences and pressures within Bruce's life and how they affected his onstage material, much like we see in the first few seasons of TV's 'Seinfeld' 20 years later. The acting and direction make it all seem very real, a favorite scene shows Bruce, his mother, and his agent joking about an offer to play shows at a club at quintuple salary - their interaction is free and easy, an important step in Bruce's career told in a very believable, realistic manner without the staginess that plagues many biopics. An absorbing, informative, and entertaining film.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam's new film starring Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer and TOM WAITS!

Dog Day Afternoon

"This is the first newspaper article I have ever written, but it is necessary so you the people can know the truth. On April 23, 1973, I was sentenced to serve 20 years for armed bank robbery even though I made a deal and pleaded guilty. The powers that be did not keep their part of the deal even though I am a first offender. I'm now serving time at the U.S. Maximum Security Fortress at Lewisburg, Pa."....

I thought the movie was great, very well directed and acted but you shold hear the fact about this from the real Sonny. The rest is here:
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC15folder/RealDogDay.html

Zeitgeist: Addendum

It's like a mixture of an economy class at university and a horror movie. But a really scary one. It's talking about pretty much the same stuff with the first Zeitgeist movie but this one has a better editing and a better handling. They go easy on the religion this time, and try to make it a little more universal so they focus on the monetary system. It presents nothing cinematically, it's basically a man talking, but talking about really important stuff that everbody needs to hear.

Zeitgeist: Addendum

It's like a mixture of an economy class at university and a horror movie. But a really scary one. It's talking about pretty much the same stuff with the first Zeitgeist movie but this one has a better editing and a better handling. They go easy on the religion this time, and try to make it a little more universal so they focus on the monetary system. It presents nothing cinematically, it's basically a man talking, but talking about really important stuff that everbody needs to hear.

Up

its hard not to fall in love with UP(emm,actually,its hard not to fall in love with pixar movies).this latest offerings from the factory of wonders is many things.it is funny,it is adventurous,and it is probably their most romantic movie to date. the first ten minute is a real gem,a classic,which makes me forgive about the weak,generic third act.

Sylvia

"sylvia" is a mighty bio-piece of the legendary poetess sylvia plath who terminated her own life by sticking her head into an oven, but mainly about her famous/infamous relationship with british laureate ted hughes who firstly achieved fame by his "hawk in the rain"...personally i absolutely cannot buy into the movie's premise that this is one of the most essential romances in 20th century...but to appreciate "sylvia", you've got to hypnotize yourself with such notion.

so sylvia plath is a genius woman who's been obssessed with death after her dad passed suddenly when she was 9, then this young lady with such explosively sparkling intelligence falls under the spell of talented ted hughes who has the magnetism to frighten her off with challenging attractiveness as sylvia's mom puts it bluntly. except hughes' extraordinary gift as a poet, he has nothing adequately made for an ideal husband or father: he's a womanizer, an egoist whose priority is not family but his own recognition and he cannot really offer any solid tenderness to her except some momentary stormy passion. in several scenes of his infidelity, he even angers at her then returns to her later with a brief "sorry, i love you" but still keeps on the same mistakes afterwards. but how about sylvia herself? she's also quite a difficult person with some serious symptoms of paranoia and some severe torments of her death wishes, not easy to get along with, either. it proves one fatal point that if two strong egos build a bond together, the union's doomed to collide into the ruin of one side which is more brittle with stubborn frailty. besides, why brilliant woman likes to be with such arrogant man to be your "black marauder" (as sylvia herself dubs it in her poem) who mostly takes and rarely gives? why not appreciative gentleman who admires the soils you step upon as talented man always marries submissive woman who's easy to handle?

gwyneth paltrow amazes me with her showcasing performances, and before i only thought of her as someone who makes her success by dubbing herself with a tangibly conventional east-coast glamour, a grace-kelly-wanna-be. the other surprise would be daniel craig as ted hughes, he's much more appealing as hughes than his later smashing role as millennium james bond. his ruggedness and ballistic energy are all demonstrated quite well as his winsome qualities for a leading man. craig serves an effective purpose to romanticize ted hughes in numerous smoldering love scenes with paltrow, and a sizzling feverish spunk could be felt upon him then somehow you could comprehend why she's so much into him. daniel craig's never been as sensual as he is in "sylvia", but since he was not so well-famed then so the focus of "sylvia" is still majorly on paltrow as her vehicle.

in a nutshell, calling the relationship of ted and sylvia one of the essential romances or great loves in 20th century is a hypocritical and absurd idea in spite of all the engrossing intensities the leads have projected on screen, even by watching the movie itself, you could feel this match is bad sass tailored by a woman's compulsively masochistic drive, her own strong need of self-victimization, no wonder of her choice over ted hughes whose second wife also commits sucide in the same way as sylvia plath: head in the oven.

besides, it is spoiling enough to have all these literary feuds posed by their separate enthusiastic readers that include those who accuse hughes as chauvinistic asshole who tortures sylvia and those who condemn plath as abrasive psychobitch whose haunting intimidations push her lover away. additionally, some controversial editing problems on hughes' manipulated erase of evidence over sylvia's diaries and parts of her words against him aren't quite plesant to dig into as well. so, wouldn't you find it odd to make an epic romance on a couple of such obvious discord???

The Dreamers

"the dreamers" is classic new-wave director bernardo bertolucci's smashing hit in 2004 to anchor a tribute to the ultimate flaming passion of cinema and, of course, its dreamers that could include anyone of us who dedicate ourselves in flixster for sure. but the audience has to ask himself one question: have you watched any of those movies referred within this flick as its protagonists mimc in their oblivious existence fabricated by the fragments of the cinema.

a hippie-orientated american student of tumultuous 60s, the cynic period of vietnam war, on his cinematic crusade to paris, then he meets a pair of french twins who are also movie buffs, the edgy IT type with leftist politic tendency, who worship mao's cultural revolutions, deranged with their intense daring trials of sex. so the fresh-faced young american college student falls head overs heels in love with their charismatic allure of avant-gardist thinkings as well as their provocative sensuality when he sees the twins's naked sleeping poise. they dare each other to guess scenes of movies and the loser pays the price of punishments which strays an exhibitionistic masturbation and freewheeling intercourse.

undeniably sex is a massive attraction of this movie like one quote of cinema notebook mentioned within the movie that filmmaking is an art of voyeurism, like peeping your parents have sex thru the key hole, you feel guilty but rapturously aroused, and filmmaker is like a criminal who philander the audience this forbidden desire, audience naturally takes the spot of michael pitt's coy american who covets eva green and louis garrel who shamelessly dangle their lovely youthful fleshes in front of you as if it's nothing big deal, then a phallic dream is granted as pitt's got to make love to eva green and deflower this gorgeous french apphrodite, this crazy but quirky ingenune of guileless seductiveness. which gentleman in the seat wouldn't crave for that, huh? but the sex is nothing gratuitous, it torches the supremacy of lustrous passion and tender affections, especially the scene when pitt and green embraces harshly after lovemaking, and the girl's face is smeared with tears and her own virginal blood at first time. (quite touching, indeed.) the sex looks nothing dirty but innocent like kids who toy with their newly experimented genitals.

the most interesting parts would be michael pitt's philosophical dialogues with louis garrel, the angry youth who resents his highly proper and dignified father, who despises the bourgeois hypocrisy of cold war despite he's a descendant of middle class. they debate over keaton and chaplin, and the awestruck cultural revolution and its fundamental contradictions. you see posters of chairman mao hung in garrel's bedroom and he's reading the little red book so sincerely like it's a sacred bible. garrel takes it so literily that he even goes on street with a bomb to protest against the facsist french police (as he claims) while michael pitt strives to hold their faces for a quick smack of kisses to demonstrate his notion "an orgasm is better than bomb" (this slogan appears in the t shirt pitt wears in the premiere of "dreamers" as well) just like the highly welcomed hippie's idea of "free love" in 70s america: if we make love to each other instead of using our fists, the world would be in peace forever. i suppose frenches were more militant to resort to communism and sweeping revolutions while americans were more self-indulgent with their naive hedonistic beliefs. whatever happens in the world is all silmultaneous and contagious, china of the orient was going thru cultural revolution with a little mao book while the occidental country like france had various riots to echo that. meanwhile my country, taiwan, was dozing itself with a non-existent fancy pushed by governmental proganda that chiang kai-shek could retrieve mainland china, along with his american conspirators to perform his oriental "mccarthyism", which was just like mao's cultural revolutions, had all costed more real bloodshed than the occidental side of the world.

as roger ebert remarks in his professional review of "the dreamers" that the people who really change the world are not those who watch movies but those who have money and power. "the dreamers" showcased the most fascinationg period of cinematic worship when moviegoers do have a sense of political involvement with the worldwide conditions and project a true absorption of culture to the movies they watch without discriminations like "i cannot accept silents" or "black and white screen is blurry"or "oldies are intimidatingly boring"...it was the time when filmviewing was taken very seriously like the air they inhale and breathe out...but today audience watches movies with an easy expectation to "amuse himself to death" (a pun to the book witten by neil postman), there's nothing too idealstic but simply cheap fun-seeking..i wonder whether i should rejoice over this apathy even i deeply realize that dreamers truly cannot the world. somehow, in the end, does it really matter anymore? youth is a like a budding flower of frivolity and naivete, a fair blossom of dreams and hopes, you're the most beautiful when you smile with hope or frown with purist idealism because it's a utmost expression of your non-speckled humanity.

The International

I think this one is really quite underrated. It may not be as original and creative as other Tykwer movies but still it's not a bad movie. I think the movie didn't find its audience; both people who were expecting an action packed international thriller and people who were expecting something like the director's previous works aren't satisfied.

I was so looking forward to this at first but bad reviews put me off. If I saw it when I had two tickets to a screening here when it was first out, I could be disappointed but I missed it and read so many bad reviews ever since that my expectations went so low that the movie could meet them. Overall it was a decent watch on dvd and I had to give an extra half star because it ended in my beautiful city!

Moulin Rouge!

colourful, great songs.,almost perfect

Rejected

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

hilariously funny.RDJ is THE man. Forget iron man,forget tropic thunder,and even forget the next sherlock holmes.this is a movie tailor made for him

Moon

Though this story could have been told in less time, it's a good story and good soundtrack. Special effects are nothing fancy, but it's all quite realistic. Except for the scene with the earth in the background where they use the same photo I've seen in a thousand places. Am I the only person who recognizes it? Sam is great, and Kevin makes a perfect computer voice.