| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Countess from Hong Kong - Unrated | December 19, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Badlands - PG |
1973 "badlands" is an idyllic film about a young couple whose lives have been led astry by fate's mishappenings...strangely, "badlands" is supposed to be a horrific story about morbid trigger-happy young fellows who have caused the deaths of a couple of innocent people due to momentary spur. but it is not, it's a lyrically romantic tale about a naive but hell-bent first love of a guileless young girl, and the killings done during the movie all seem to be forced by the circumstances despite the girl narrates "he's the most trigger-happy person i've ever seen in my whole life"...
now it comes to my routine reciting of the scenario: a plain-jane type of young girl meets a somehow handsome proletariat young man who lives on the wrong side of the track..pleasantly they conversed on the sidewalk, and she knows he's just a petite garbage-man.. but when he requests to see her again, she silently assents...then they see each other more and more in their exclusive retreat..someday the girl's father discover this romance and wanna forbid it, but the boy insists on eloping with the girl so he breaks into the girl's house and starts packing for her...spotted by the girl's father, the boy shoots the father dead after being provoked with criminal charges and the jail sentences. all of a sudden, our anti-hero grabs his girl on the road after setting the house aflame...on the way of their fierce escape, they dwell into a wooden nest by the lake of cottonwoods, dining on raw chickens and fishes like two people in oblivion of civilization until some intrusive bounty-hunter invade into their sanctuary of wilderness..so our anti-hero shoots every single man and keeps on rolling...a spree of killing occur when our protagonist gets anxiety-stricken under the fright of getting caught...at last, the couple set their way within the desolate desert heading the borderline of montana, living in an even more primitively exclusive way like eating grass until one day the girl awakens to realize that this man ain't for her... as for why it's romantic? i suppose, in a way, both characters have a residue of innocence within them, particularly the childlike detachment sissy spacek holds, her character is like that sort of person you feel comfort in getting along with even you may not notice her that much, she seems like that sort of person who won't pass a judgemental contempt to you no matter what you have done, she just quietly does her own thinking without casting a disturbance on anyone like a misanthropic child who just enjoys galloping in the forest on her own...martin sheen, in that stage of his career, appears fresh-lookingly handsome with an undercurrent rebellious temperament, a freewheeling youthful air infuses a light-headed charisma into him..his character is more like wondrous man who accidentally commits a horrible crime but he continues doing it just to see whether he could make a freeman out of himself again by killing off all the witnesses because he's an adventurist who's willing to take all the risks... he's also a romanticist who would stop the cadillac in the middle of barren desert at dark night to dance with his girlfriend along the melody of nat king cole spontaneously flowing from radio, whose ultimate fear of death is just that he doesn't wish to die alone without a girl to scream his name out, who's poetic by soul to be in awe with the grand sight of tangerine sunset with clouds etwined like a gigantic castle....eventually he surrenders to the police under the pretense of flat tire because he doesn't wish to carry on alone with the girl by his side, and also he voluteers to keep the girl's records clean before he's sentenced into the electric chair.. sissy specek's narratives just feel so self-absorbed like someone's reciting her own precious diaries, and the movie takes the woman's visage to move on, and the tone of her voice sounds apathetically introspective..she doesn't seem to be happy or particularly sad, and far from angst-ridden..she simply exists and encounters a gorgeous boy who looks like james dean, who seems to appreciate her as what she is, for that, she's gratified even he's the murderer of her father and he seems to have a hidden violent streak. but strangely she tends to live along with that fine as if her senses are buried into an autistic universe of naive wonderments for the world until she starts to acknowledge the consequences of things at last, so farewell to girlhood and puberty! "badlands" is a subdued treat to the eye for baring the poetic inland america, and middle-east states could be quite enchanting with a simplistic allure which is originally american, and as the audience, i feel the grusome aspect of those spree-killings is shielded out of a vacuum of outlandish reveries within the core of the protagonists' hearts which are filled with every bit of purity and candidness in a society which wouldn't take individuality into its frigid consideration as if life's a fast-living dream and at next moment you die in an electric chair after slumbering over a melodic tune of nat kind cole's..after all, the world ain't for dreamers! |
December 14, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Natural Born Killers - NC-17 |
"natural born killers" is oliver stone's anarchic anthem in the 90s, tackling into the subject of adolescent spree-killers as a satirized version of 1973 "badlands" featuring still fresh-faced martin sheen and sissy spacek but the 1970s piece is more like dirge for the dazed youth when individuality is buried by social conformity as the young couple extend their excessive energy in astray direction while the 90s interpretation is more targeted upon the obsession with fame and celebrity culture induced by the avarice of media. now here comes the turn for woody harrelson and juliette lewis in their prime youth of edginess exploded in a violent tale like "natural born killers"
the story goes like this without all those distractive boisterous mtv-montages: mallory comes from an abusive family with her father sexually moistering her since childhood, and then she meets the meat-deliverer mickey to rescue her from her obnoxious father by ferociously killing off the whole family. so they elope and make a pact of eternal bond, seeking their exclusive pleasure by slaughtering off everyone they encounter whenever they feel like it. all of a sudden, they've become the nationally well-known heroic figures against the authority, idols for youngers, and perfect material for a cheesy tv show called "american maniacs"..finally the couple got some fatal snake bite and besieged by police force, so they're sentenced into separate prisons awaiting to get executed. somehow the greedy reporter played robert downey jr. detects a great opportunity to catapult his personal status by interviewing this about-to-be-dead serial murderer, so he has a live interview with mickey, during intervals mickey obtains a chance to kill his way off for survival and re-union with his beloved mallory. in the end, the reporter is slaughtered as the director's metaphoric grudge against this corruptive cultural phenomenon... oliver stone was excellent with those mtv-montages, for example, he sets the episode of mallory in the form of "i love lucy," using 50s sit-com to render the story of a child with a pedophilic father to create a harsher sense of grotesque and to enhance its undercurrent disturbance, a father grabbing his daughter's butt in the background of light-weighted 50s homely melody. or mickey and mallory embrace under the song of edith piar's "life of rose"...numerous examples like that... stone tries to caricature how fame could empower any half-witted hillbilly in this media-manipulated nation called america, and the dialogues contain great contempt for authority and government and how the commoners are thrilled with a deranged form of anarchism represented by outlaws since the days of john dillinger and bonnie and clyde. stone, in this stage of career, does have lots of political concerns to vent in his movies, thus "natural born killers" has become the utmost pinnacle of oliver stone's career as well as woody harrelson and juliette lewis'. the soundtrack has some precious gems like underground all-female punk-band L17, which only existed briefly, their classic song "SHITLIST" which is flowing along with juliette lewis' striptease dancing in the outset sequence, and the camera shot and the spunk fit the this smashing punk anthem so wonderfully that it still lingers over my mind endlessly even after a decade when i firstly "natural born killer" as a teenage. then i start to recall the ballistic juliette lewis in the 90s, in my belief she's the best actress ever to play the troubled and neurotic youth, despite she may not be top-drawer of world-class beauty, but there's an agelessness in her that i consider incredible...who else could do the psycho-bitch so well meanwhile preserve a chic it-girl-ness so un-apolegetically like lewis?...maybe courtney love or patricia arquette, but they seem to be more like tenderized vixens who appear more like the objects of desire, the femme fatale type. unlike lewis who could render an extreme spunkiness blended with a frail naivete. same for woody harrelson who seems perfect for this role, un-replacable. in the 90s, people would critize "natural born killers" as merely sex and violence, but now you see all those pervert slashers made in 2000s like saw and michael bay's texas massacres, "natural born killers" could only be considered cartoonish right now, and oliver stone at least has lots of wits and intelligences upon the subject of violence, such as he uses the interivew of charles manson in mickey's confrontation with the reporter "i kill because it's fate, just like a woolf doesn't know why he's born a woolf and a deer doesn't know why he's born a deer"...now the violence of those 2000s horror pieces are truly more upon the degrading of human impotence without a trace of contemplation upon laws of nature or the course of society or the purpose of humanity. time has proved oliver stone is right and "natural born killers" remains one of the most interesting movies in cinematic history. oh, man, I LOVE THE 90S! |
December 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson - R | November 17, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Killing of a Chinese Bookie - R | November 14, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Feng sheng (The Message) - Unrated | How could no one know about it? it's the best-selling movie in china now! a blockbuster hit which sweeps the box-office! and the first chinese-languaged genuine spy movie for the natives!!! ignorant, ignorant, ignorant. | October 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Ultimo Tango a Parigi (Last Tango in Paris) - NC-17 |
"last tango in paris" is marlon brando's self-reviving strike before he officially steps into his senile years of obesity, and his character in tango feels literily like the aging version of stanley kowaski of "streetcar named desire": prole stud with a simmering violent streak which detonates thru his sadistic libido. stanley shuts "stella!!!" in his most fragile moment and ravishes vivien leigh's blanche to exercise his strong urge of masculine dominion since he senses the contagious menace blanche puts over his enslavened wife. as elia karzan who directs several of brando's movies, such as "on the waterfront" and streetcar, comments that brando has a very tenderized feminine side conflicted with a sort of melancholy and disatisfaction which could be very dangerously explosive. "last tango in paris" shall be a perfect set to channel such brandoesque spirit by its deranged exploration of spotaneous roller-coaster sex as well as the existentialistic tale of bleakness.
the story is about a 20-something parisian woman who encounters a middle-aged american in a desolate apartment in slums, and at the spur of the moment these two mate in an animalistic way which is very close to sanctuary rape. somehow there's an undercurrent magnetism which keeps pulling these two back into this apartment as an oblivious vaccum of random sex as well as the retreat of their primitive intimacy to forget their private problems of life. then we discover the man's wife has committed suicide and he's under a fundamental crisis of abysmal mentality since he has no idea why his wife leaves him for good without a final note. on the other hand, the young parisian woman's fiance is a self-centered movie-maker who has emoitonally deserted and ignored her, so in a way, she's lonesome and in the need of attention despite her functional facade. so this un-usual pair unite together under the circumstance of not knowing each other's name in a wretched world of sadness. their intercourses are not genuine lovemaking but a result of the man's manipulated flaunt of manhood and the woman's side is more of a morbid curiosity for racy experiements, such as the notorious butter scene of anal sex and the fingering sodomy. what counts is their interactions driven by dialogues. they bares a sort of existentialistic anxiety out of their seperate conditions, and they crave for a space of temporality intagible to the reality. it digs into their memories of childhood to summon up their truest childish selves. this otherworldy dimension of temporality is shattered when the girl eventually meets the man outside the apartment, and this unique romance is over when brando's sleazy banal self's exposed under the blistering sunlight of cruel reality, her heart flees away despite the man vows to capture her again as his prey. the moment he finally acquires her name, he's shot into the un-comprehesibly ironic death while she keeps mumbling to herself that "he's a stranger, i never met him, he broke into my apartment trying to rape me, so i shot him" as if their passionate redenzvou never happens. the aged brando with thining hair is no longer the powerful irresistible stanley kowaski who robs his woman back by an overwhelming snarl. and this time he's destined to lose the girl as youth and strength slip away from him no matter how desperately he attempts to keeps them. our existence may just be like that, an deliberated oblivion of constant denials due to our weakness to cope with death and the annihilation of beings. |
October 24, 2009 | N/A | |||
| On the Waterfront - Unrated | October 23, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| A Life Less Ordinary - R |
"a life less ordinary" is danny boyle's primary attempt to hit into american market after his smashing success of countercultural revolt in 1995's junkie cult "transpotting"...it was shot when ewan mcgregor still belonged to the trio of boyle/hodge/mcgregor screen team since "shallow grave", the art-house british channel 4 independent production before boyle sold him out in "the beach" by casting leonardo dicaprio in the role he was supposed to play, long before mcgregor's become commericialized star-war prop..it took place also when cameron diaz still played sassy hard-boiled femme fatale before "something about mary" sweetens and softens her screen persona as romantic lead..
the scenario is goofy. it's about a stupid janitor who kidnaps his boss' daughter in a rage after he's fired and dumped by his live-in girlfriend..then these two fall in love absurdly. of course, even angels in the heaven are their guidances to the journey of celestial bliss despite the course involves mayhem and bloodshed. it's generally a mixed genre of romantic comeday and neo-noir. don't expect rationality and sensible plot-developments because the essence of this movie is a brazen cheer of slacker's hashish daydreaming and mcgregor's presented as a character of proteriat outrage in the oblivion of the generation x, a mutant divergence from his trainspotting persona. he fantasizes about writing a blatant trash-novel to redeem his miserable existence of ephemerality, and his ideal romance is a game-show called "perfect love", favored by a pampered brat who appreciates such weakling demeanors and even aids him to get the ransom from her abrasive father who insists on cutting off her allowances. they pretend they're pop-stars and cabret dancers along the melody of bob darin's "beyond the sea"...in spite of their slacker narcissism, they do have a naively sacred respect over the bond arranged by fate but their deterministic conventionalism's got to be rendered in their deviant imaginations like angels act like noir villains to help the course of destiny, blah blah blah...oh, bank-robbery could be a pleasant stimulus of passionate kiss.. basically "a life less ordinary" is a celebration of "style over substance"..the costumes and location shots are particularly elaborated with a boyle trademark, such as mcgregor's mullet hairdo and floral shirt, diaz's bob-headed siren who high-hats men around..as for the location, i bet it's around the borderline of nevada and california where i've driven for several times while heading for las vegas, or it's around the woods in colorado??(i would be happy if anyone tells me where it's shot)...the valley cabin as the hideaway spot and the desolate driveway within the desert hills are well-selected and they all give you a otherworldly feeling of american universalism due to the unique perspective of a british director shooting america.. audience might neglect it's neo-noir trying to act like romantic comedy, or the other way around, holly hunter and cameron diaz are the neo-femme-fatales who conduct themselves rough and ruthless like avenging fury with a pistol in well-tailored suit..diaz coaches mcgregor how to perform lethal dialogue to ask for ransom while hunter orders delroy lindo to murder mcgregor in the corder of dark woods digging a hole beforehand for the burial...the deliberate gender-reversal's gonna make you giggle..but eventually it's less a romantic comeday than dark farce since our hero only concedes his emotions to our heroine after someone persuades him with words "she's a glamorous pussy in heaven and you're a two-dime worker cleaning floor in hell, why bother to think too much over whether she's your type or not??" this movie has so many colors on its palette that it's too distractive to enjoy..but ain't the life-style of lovelorn slacker so? also, it has one of the coolest soundtracks ever like trainspotting since the soundtracks of danny boyle's movies always have a it chicness before he reached international fame by 28 days and slum millionaire. (ps) around the same year, alicia silverstone made a stupid comedy about love in the course of kidnapping with benicio del toro, called "excessive baggage"....the sketch of storyline does have a parallel but it's much less creative and much more mundanely melodramtic(should i just say cheesy?)...don't get mistaken by that. |
October 18, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Dead Ringer - Unrated | October 14, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Pitfall - Unrated | October 7, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Front Page - PG |
"the front page" is the third time re-adaption of the stage play by ben hencht(who wrote the original scarface) and chas. macarthur. the first appearance on screen was in 1931, and the second time would be the most reputable one "his girl friday" in 1940 by howard hawks who had co-operated with hecht previously in "scarface"...now this time, billy wilder gets his feet wet with this sassy script of rotten journalism, spicing it up with even more political cynicism which is wilder's trademark, a sneer to various aspects of conventional americanism, such as patriotism gets mocked in "stalag 17", bureaucracy of enterprise in "the apartment", homophobia in "some like it hot", hollywood decay in "sunset blvd.", capitalist's narcissism in "love in the afternoon"...etc.
the script is also penned partly by wilder whose version is more faithful to the hencht's play except some few parts he added to make fun of emasculated dandyism, maccarthyism parody...and the stimulus appears so often that it loses its brightfulness and ceases to be funny when it comes to the satire of journalism, wilder does a superb job in his own script "ace in the hole" with kirk douglas in the 50s... |
October 7, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Bonjour Tristesse - Unrated | October 4, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Front Page - Unrated | September 30, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Blonde Crazy,(Larceny Lane) - Unrated |
"blonde crazy" is jimmy cagney's pre-code comedy, and also in my opinion, his first and only successful attempt of being cinematic romanticist before william wellman's "public enemy" catapults him into the smashing icon of misogynistic gangster who smashes grapefruit to a dame's face . it features joan bondell in her supremacy of beauty and youthful brightness before she descends into the typecasting of wisecracking sassy moll/doll in the warner's 30s gangster genre , especially in the bathtub scene. generally it's a quaint pre-code romantic comedy on the backset of rocketeering gangsterism without too much of profanity.
cagney is a hotel waiter who's enamour of a newly arrived blonde (played by bondell) who is reluctant to appreciate his aggressive courtship. so cagney hooks bondell to be his bussiness partner of larceny to con rich fellow who's blinded by lust. then bondell gets smitten with a suave bourgeois gentleman(played by the young, fresh-faced ray milland) to leave cagney heart-broken. so in the end, how cagney's gonna to court back the dame he truly loves with his un-requited chivalry? it also reflects the anarchistic mindset of the proteriats in the great depression that rascal could be a romanticist of genuine nobility while the gent of idle rich could be rotten inside. the ending is a surprisingly sweet romantic twist which is expressed effectively in the last 10 mins. (which won't be revelt here) director roy del ruth also makes another flick with cagney and mae clarke in "ladykiller" which steals some "grapefruit chauvinism" from "public enemy"...perhaps cagney's comic and romantic potentiality has been dwarfed by the charismatic brute image he renders so well in "public enemy" but it shows so well in "blonde crazy" with joan bondell here even he lacks every essential attribute as romantic lead, such as looks, grace and the affinity with female audience. instead, he could manage his cagney-kind of romanticism like bogart did in the 40s with lauren bacall. |
September 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Broadway Melody of 1929 - Unrated | September 26, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Broadway Melody - Unrated | September 26, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Call of the Wild - Unrated | September 20, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Gentleman's Agreement - Unrated | September 20, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Ossessione - Unrated | September 19, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Stazione Termini (Terminal Station) (Indiscretion of an American Wife) - Unrated | September 19, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Wings of the Dove - R | September 17, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Heiress - Unrated |
"the heiress" is william wyler's adaption from henry james' novella "washington square", featuring montgomery clift in his utmost of gracious beauty and a mature olivia dehavilland who still preserves a girlish coyness despite she's reached into matron-hood. it's one of those marvellous examples of dialogue-driven movies based upon the stage plays like "long day's journey into night" or wyler's another work "little fox" starring bette davis. now wyler's on his way to catapult another major warner-studio actress, olivia dehavilland, into further award-winning niche of accomplished actress like he did with bette davis in earlier years.
dehavilland is a rich spinster whose lack of glamour has dwarfed her from being the charming socialite her father wishes her to be, just like her absolutely gracious late mother who has been immortalized by her worshipping dad. the silhouette of her mighty gorgeous mother has intimidated her from blossoming into a genuine womanhood since father always makes woeful comparison between the fabulous mom and the plain-jane daughter. so she's never in love until a handsome playboy who secretly covets her fortune sets his eyes on her..then her timid virginal heart is stirred with rejoice until she discovers the cruel truth of life about her father and her lover's mercenary motive. clift's social climber has an overlayered parallel with his another role in "the place in the sun", but he just has a sort of boyish naivete and some beguiling refinement to make you hesitate whether you should hate him or accept his warming embrace. there's a very blurred and grey dubiety in his performances as if you could detect some gentleness in him even when he's conniving some bad schemes in his mind. when he's making love to de havilland, you're aware he's mainly after the money but his gestures are so sincere that you tend to fall into his trap. you cannot see any apparent vileness in a character who's supposed to be vile by purpose. that's the so called "elegant rotten-ness".. somehow you almost want to pity him in the end when he knocks the door desperately like a panic child even he just gets what he deserves. in a nutshell, olivia de havilland sheds off her swashbuckler sweetheart halo and proves to you that she could also be hardened, cruel and callous and she's not just a bundle of sugary water. ralch richardson could pull off any heavy task of stage-play kind of movie like his another success in katherine hepburn's "long day's journey into night" and the imaginative glamour of the protagonist's late mother totally relies upon richardson's nifty expressions, needless to say, it requires subtlety and culture in his blood to channel a fluent suaveness to deliver those lines of classic plays in a stagy movie like this. |
September 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Un Flic (Dirty Money) - PG | September 7, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Accused - R | September 6, 2009 | N/A |
1475 ratings
218 reviews
