No Mod Required

Yeah, I watched The Matrix again.

Instead of me writing something new about it- and therefore having to dredge up the unpleasant memory of the sequels; why don’t you read this old article I wrote about Yuen Wo-Ping instead?

Lady Snowblood - Love Song of Vengeance The short answer? I liked this film this much (opens hands up really wide).

While this isn’t great cinema, it is certainly entertaining cinema. Wildly so. A steely eyed-murderess slashes her way through a corrupt cabal in charge of Meiji era Japan?

Yes.

Toss in some black death (as a biological weapon!) and a half dozen blood geysers and you’ve got the makings of a to notch pass-the-popcorn genre flick.

I am a sucker for this period and genre, so your mileage may vary, but if you’ve ever seen and enjoyed a Zatoichi movie then this will be a film for you.

La Vie en Rose

With Let’s Get Lost I had quite a back to back with the movies recently. Both are excellent films about incredible talents with a strong thread of tragedy running through their lives- great cinema, definitely in the downer column. There are worse things, of course, I just thought I’d point it out.

This, the story of iconic French singer, Edith Piaf, is truly a great film. It’d be tough to go wrong with the source material, but it really beat my expectations. That’s due mostly to the incredible performance turned in by Marion Cotillard. On the surface it’s a stereotypical “great” performance. Aided by makeup and highlighted by the physical transformations brought on by Piaf’s poor health, the showy aspects of this performance are of the type that I’m usually skeptical of when similar performances are held up as truly transcendent accomplishments (I’m looking at you Charlize Theron in Monster.) The thing is, in this case the obvious changes are buoyed by a heartbreakingly honest portrayal of the complicated inner life of the singer. makeup or no makeup the emotion that plays out across just Cotillard’s eyes is enough to get me nodding my head in approval. It’s truly a wonderful performance.

Beyond that, and that’s all you really need in my book, the rest of the film is also excellent. Based on the little sparrow’s fascinating, tragic life, the film is well written, paced nicely and well acted across the board. It’s a painful thing to watch, especially with the empathy generated by Cotillard’s performance, but there’s a beauty in the pain, much like Piaf’s music itself.

I can’t go on without mentioning the music. The film is obviously full of Piaf’s music and, for me, that would have been worth the price of admission alone. It’s a glorious, unique* thing, her voice and spending a couple of hours getting to know it and the life behind it better was something special.

All in all this is an excellent film and one that is most highly recommended.

*It’s interesting that I say unique here, because there are several scenes voiced by an uncanny Piaf soundalike named Jil Aigrot- as I learned from this feature on PRI’s The World.

Let’s Get Lost

I’m WAY behind on movie reviews, so I’ll make this quick. So quick I’m going with a list…

Let’s Get Lost is:

• A fascinating look at the troubled life of the late, great Jazz musician Chet Baker
• One of the prettiest documentaries I’ve ever seen. Directed by photographer Bruce Weber, Let’s Get Lost is a stunning visual achievement. Like the best black and whtie still photography come to life, this film matches the melancholy of Baker’s life, the life of those he touched and his music perfectly.
• Depressing. Baker was on top of the world. Then he became a junkie and got his teeth knocked out. Fun times.
• Maybe a little overlong? It’s a somber film. 2+ hours of somber can be a bit of a marathon.
• Features Flea. When I saw this film first, in the theater, I was probably the only person in the audience to even recognize him. Now? Probably a different story.
• Is really a must-see. One of the best docs I’ve ever seen. not that I’m the king of documentaries, but still…

That’ll just have to do. I’ve got much to churn through here.

Ultraviolet (Unrated, Extended Cut) So…. right after I watched Resident Evil: Extinction, a film I was biased by my Resident Evil video game addiction into liking, I watched a somewhat similar film built around the same lead actress- to very different results. Without the benefit of the emotional buy-in the RE video game series brought to the table and with an even worse plot and sometimes goofy effects I don’t have all that much nice to say about this comic-booky (but not actual comic based) film. The best part of the film is comic-book cover montage in the intro.

That’s not a good sign.

Sure, there are some okay action scenes and the film is occasionally pretty stylish, but man was this thing ridiculous. I’ve got years of bad (and not so bad) science fiction under my belt and even I had a hard time not groaning at some of the plot devices at play here.

I can’t say I hated it, but I’d hate to say it was any good.

Resident Evil - Extinction (Widescreen Special Edition) As I’ve mentioned before I’m a huge fan of the Resident Evil game series so I’m basically part of the built-in audience for this franchise. No matter how bad it is and how silly it might seem to people who haven’t spent literally hundreds of hours blasting zombies with a shotgun, moving statues around and piecing together random clues about the Umbrella Corporation; I look at these films and get all geeked out.

Literaly quotes from last night’s viewing:

“Claire Redfield! It’s Claire!”

“Oh snap! A Tyrant!”

So, yeah. If you’re not a complete RE geek like me, then you’re probably not going to like this movie.

Me? I’m thinking about buying the films on DVD.

I swear.

Century of the Dragon Wong Jing’s career encompasses the entirety of cinematic experience and I love the guy for it. He’s been at this for decades now and over his years he’s produced great films, sleazy films and plainly bad films in every conceivable genre and style (oftentimes in multiple genres at once.)

Unfortunately, this film, which he only produced, falls smack dab in the middle of that range- it’s so-so quality wise, it isn’t nearly as sleazy or exploitative as it could have been and it’s only mindless action packed for short bursts. Maybe if he’d done the full auteur treatment on this one it would have hit a few more high notes.

As it is, it was a fine way to spend a couple of hours. Why? I pretty much never get tired of triad dramas, even half-assed ones.

The Nomi Song Know who Klaus Nomi is? I didn’t until I saw this film. I’m still not sure what to think about him, but this documentary was an excellent introduction to his life and career. I could write a little bit about him and what his music sounded like, but instead I’m just going to post another Youtube video featuring Klaus in all his glory. That’ll go a lot further than anything I could ever write. That’s a guarantee. With someone as unique as Klaus, seeing is really believing.

The Bourne Ultimatum (Widescreen Edition) I really enjoy this series. Even this entry, which suffers from one of the worst cases of shaky-cam-itis that I’ve ever seen. While they do manage to keep the action generally clear, in that I could follow what happened; the specifics of what’s going on, on-screen is pretty much lost in the hand-held blur of the cinematography. There are several intricately choreographed hand-to-hand scenes that are absolutely ruined by this abominable technique.

Beyond that? As I mentioned, I eat this series up and this is a perfectly fine capper to the set. It ties up a lot of the loose ends plot-wise and presents a solid two hours of action.

Zodiac (Widescreen Edition) I was really impressed with this film. The story is gripping (the Zodiac murders have long fascinated me,) it’s well acted and there’s some really nice stuff done with the film structurally that elevates it beyond a simple “whodunnit.” One element I feel like I ought to mention is the way that Jake Gyllenhaal’s character floats in and out of focus in the first half of the film, mirroring the dominance of different characters in the investigation. It’s interesting any time to see the lead character treated like a footnote for entire reels and in this case it’s done so naturally and makes so much sense structurally that I can’t help but point it out.

All in all this is definitely a film to check out.