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Satôkibi batake no uta (2003)
Beautiful miniseries
I saw this movie in 2003 when I was working in Japan. At the time there was rarely anything in English on TV, but occasionally I'd watch to get a feel for the country. So one weekend this started playing. It wasn't in English but the plot is very easy to follow, particularly if you know the history of WW2 and the fact that the Olinawans, though they look Japanese, are really a separate ethnic group from Japan, who were conquered by Japan in the distant past. I thought it was a movie at first but it kept going in and on! So I ended up staying home and just watching the whole thing. And WOW! It was the best TV movie I've ever seen, except for Lonesome Dove. It follows the cruel destruction on a lovely Okinawan family during the war. In Japan, WW2 is rarely taught in schools and Japanese atrocities are almost never acknowledged, but this movie is surprisingly different! It portrays the Okinawan family as largely peace loving but forced into the conflict. Each family member meets a different horrible fate at the hands of the radical Empirialists who ran Japan at the time, all inspired by true stories from history. I remember the 'Sugar Cane Song' from this movie still.... Zawawa, zawawa, zawawa... the sound that sugarcane makes as it blows in the wind. Haunting! My favorite detail is that the story is told in modern day by the one surviving member of the family to her bratty teen granddaughter, who gains a new respect for her family by the end. She recieves a family heirloom that survived the war and honors it by attaching it to dangle from her cellphone with her other little collectibles. This was perfect because at the time (and possibly still) hanging stuff from your cellphone is something that kids do in Japan to an obsessive extent. I saw entire stores selling doo dads to hang from your phone. Anyway, the greatest testament to how awesome this movie is that I only saw it once, 20 years ago, in a language I don't understand, yet I can still see many of the heartbreaking scenes in my head, and hear that haunting song... zawawa zawawa... zawawa...
John Carter (2012)
A Fairy Tale for Boys
I saw this movie at an early screening for Disney employees. By the end I was sniffling in tears.
So when it came out I dragged my wife to it. I was worried that I might not like it a second time, but nope, it made me cry again. But my wife was bored to tears watching it. When it was over she said I probably liked it so much because it was a fairy tale for boys.
That made so much sense! Girls love their fairy tales. The handsome prince rides in and rescues the poor maiden and whisks him away to live happily ever after. But in a boy's fairy tale, an ordinary guy finds himself in a wonderful place, and he has super powers, like the ability to leap hundreds of feet in the air! And he is stronger than giant monsters! But best of all, he meets a feisty, insanely sexy and gorgeous princess, who despite the fact that's he's really nobody special, falls in love with him, and they live happily ever after! (and have lots of hot sex, presumably.)
And like any great Fairy Tale, it's not rooted in reality, but taps into pure unconscious wish-fulfillment. The laws of physics on Barsoom are nonsensical, but so what? They make as much sense as a pumpkin turning into a stagecoach, or a poison apple that makes you fall asleep until you get the kiss of true love. In fact, the sheer magical impossibility of every element of science in this movie only adds to that fairy tale thing!
As I watched this movie I was taken back to how I felt watching Star Wars the first time.
But why on Earth would this movie need to cost over 200 million dollars? It just seems impossible that that much money was spent. It certainly doesn't seem visible on the screen. But hey, who am I to complain? I'm glad they made it just like it is!
My other favorite Fairy tale for boys was Flash Gordon. Oh, man! Whenever that movie comes on television, I'm hooked!
Avatar is also a fairy tale for boys, but I have to say, it left me cold. Perhaps because because so many plot elements were borrowed from Cameron's earlier movies that it just kept reminding me it was a movie. Or maybe that Avatar had a message to convey, about the evils of greed and aggression, yet it seemed to me the heroes were every bit as judgmental and ignorant as the bad guys. In John Carter, there isn't a big message like that. It's just the story of a disappointed man who refuses to choose sides, until he realizes that the hot chick is on one of those sides, and she pretty much forces him to grow a conscience, if he ever hopes to score with her. And once he's grown a conscience, he's a better man for it.
I am very sad the movie flopped so monumentally at the box office, because I would dearly love to see the sequel!
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)
One of my Top Ten!!
I saw this film after seeing it on Roger Ebert's top ten list many years ago.
I was captured from the first moments. Most movies try to play audiences like a fiddle, generally speeding up faster and faster to a crescendo. Aguirre does exactly the opposite. It starts off slow, stays slow and toward the end virtually creaks to a halt.
This movie cannot be enjoyed casually, it must be experienced fully. Which is why I don't watch it very often. I don't want to start it unless I can sit through the whole thing. Because the movie demands that you change your natural rhythm to an unnaturally contemplative pace, but if you do you find it is almost like an out of body experience. You are watching humans who cannot be understood, because they don't understand themselves. Cut off from solid ground, whithered by hunger and illness, they discover the true nature of humanity, which is that without purpose, life is nothing but breathing and waiting for death.
I've recommended this movie to several people, including my wife, but they can't stand it, because it is too slow. Well, I love it. It's fascinatingly slow. Mesmerizingly slow. I swear, watching this movie slows down my heartbeat and quiets my mind and gives me a terrifying glimpse into what it must be like to be trapped somewhere, incapable of action.
I love this film! Its the only Klaus Kinski film I enjoy. And knowing the harrowing story of how it was shot makes it all the more enjoyable to watch.
Miracle Mile (1988)
Chilling!
The thing that makes this movie particularly effective is that it feels just like a dream. I've had nuclear holocaust dreams all my life, and when I watched this movie I felt like I was dreaming. I really connected emotionally with the main character. He's a nerd who has suddenly met the girl of his dreams, a nerdy, cute girl with glasses and a sweet demeanor, and at that precise moment the world appears as if it is going to come to an end! And he's not going to get a chance to even kiss her before the world goes poof! hey, it's bad enough to die, but to die with an unfulfilled love is truly nightmarish!
The movie is not exactly illogical, but follows a sort of dream logic, where things just get worse and worse, relentlessly, and the harder you try to run away, the slower you move. The ending is devastating, horrifying and heart warming all at the same time.
After seeing this movie for the first time I shivered for hours, and couldn't bring myself to watch it again for 12 years! Its not that I didn't like it, I just knew that if I saw it again I would lose that special thrilling fear that it instilled in me. But it was so powerful that when i did see it 12 years later I remembered every plot, every character and event. On one viewing it imprinted itself on my brain, which movies hardly ever do.
See it! And see it late at night in a dark room!
cb
Revolution (1985)
MY FAVORITE MOVIE - And a great, unusual LOVE STORY
Many of the bad reviews of Revolution point out that it is dirty, filthy, disgusting, muddy, messy and uncomfortable to watch. True, true, true.
But... THAT'S WAR!
As a child I thought the American Revolution was the cleanest and most honerable war in history, fought by idyllic patriots on the side of freedom against snooty, smug king-lovers. That's how it was depicted in my childhood history books. But as I got older I realized that the books must have been glossing over something, because it seemed utterly illogical that a war could be so clean and honerable. Wars are desperate and horrible blood-soaked experiences that rip relationships apart, destroy everything, and are fought at ground level by the most uneducated people of all, many of whom really have no choice in the matter and are merely fighting for their own lives.
Revolution demythologizes the American Revolution by dismissing many of the ideal illusions we have about that war in particular. The hero is a self-serving man, who has no interest at all in war, but is forced to fight in it against his will. He's a free man who is forced into virtual slavery to fight for his freedom. Does this make him a bad man? No, he's an honest man who is out for number one, and is motivated mostly by love and loyalty to his son. The war steals everything from him, so why should he be happy about it? There are a few true 'patriots' in this movie, gung-ho idealists like Daisy, but almost everyone else is in the war for selfish motives, to profit from the war, to assert power, to avoid starvation, or for the pure joy of war itself. The redcoats are depicted as rowdy london street-toughs, who are no more or less ignorant & petty than the Americans, only more cocky and egotistical. Their uniforms are ill fitting and poorly miantained. This and a thousand other details give this movie the air of truth. By the end the victory of America is all the more sweet due to the wretchedness the victors must slog through. It's a very noble thing to see war depicted in such realistic ways.
This movie might be too grim to take if not for the great love story at the center of it. Its an entirely unique love story in the history of film, because it demonstrates how a relationship can continue to grow over time even if the lovers are separated from each other for long periods. Daisy and Tom have only a few minutes worth of conversations in the entire movie, and those represent ALL of their conversations. Basically they cross paths from time to time, but they are interrupted every time, and must leave each other, unsure when or if they will ever see each other again. So although they don't really get to know each other or go on dates or have any kind of normal courtship, they nonetheless fall in love, basically thinking about each other over the intervening periods. It is really the war that allows them to fall in love in the first place. Without the war these two people from opposite sides of the social spectrum would never have socialized, and without American freedom they would never have been able to stay together. But in the throes of war all the social rules are off, and these two are so desperate for something good to enter their lives, they fall in love. I don't know why this touched me so much, but it did.
I find this movie emminently re-watchable. I love it. In comparison, Mel Gibson's bad rip-off "the Patriot" is unwatchable to me. It is so full of moral absolutes and is so organized and visually beautiful, I think it does a disservice to the reality of war.
But that's my taste. I love almost every grim-reality war movie. Catch 22, The Victors & Das Boot, to name a few.