philly

Lady was away for a few days and I didn't have anything planned and it was hot. So I had myself a mini filmfest since Thursday. Thursday night, I watched the Kurasawa film Ikiru.

Ikiru is about a thirty-year civil service worker, Kanji Watanabe brilliantly played by Takashi Shimura, currently enjoying a fairly high position as section cheif of Public Affairs, a new wing of City Hall designed to help the people with their problems. The Japanese title of the film translates into the verb: to live. Wantanabe is diagnosed with stomach cancer and realizes that he had not been living his life all these years, working like a mummy in City Hall all for the benefit of his semi-estranged son and his wife who live in his traditional Japanese house within modern city limits. The unravelling of this mummy awakening a dying man inside is inspirational and is similar to an awakening I've been having for the last two years. It's beautifully filmed in black and white. You could probably watch the film with no subtitles or no sound at all and still understand what's going on just by watching Shimura's face. His eyes in this thousand-yard glaze switching over to a frentic searching in a blink.

Friday night, I went to see Lady in the Water which I wrote about previously. I very much enjoyed it and plan on finishing out the final couple of Shyamalan films I have yet to watch. And let me add how great it was to see an actual Korean person playing a Korean person in this film. It's the first time I can recall such an occurrence in recent memory.

And Saturday, it was off to TLA Video to rent two and one for free. I had seen Underworld a couple years ago and hadn't gotten a chance to see the sequel Underworld: Evolution so I grabbed that one. I'm a sucker for vampire movies [I loved the Blade series]. It was quite a bit better than I expected it to be and they had some new vampire/werewolf stuff added in to keep it fresh. The story picks up right where the first one left off. There's even a mini prequel sequence filling in some blanks from a few hundred years prior which was pretty sweet. There's a lot of Kate Beckinsale running around in a patent-leather body suit. There's tons of guns firing, but with more hand to hand fighting this time around and a lot more gory stuff. Watching [all of] the extra footage, I learned that this almost got knocked up to an NC-17 rating because of the blood and guts. Didn't phase me. It was fun and mindless and a good change of pace after Ikiru and Lady in the Water.

I wanted to watch Jarhead when it came out in theaters for two reasons. The usage of the song "Jesus Walks" in the original trailer and the scene in the trailer where Jamie Foxx looks at Gyllenhaal and calmly, yet sternly, says "Hoo-raa". I get chills when I hear the intro to "Jesus Walks" because it always reminds me of Kanye West's performance at Live 8 where I was front row – that was probably the best live performance I've ever seen a person put forth and I doubt it'll be topped. Jarhead is the first mass-release film I can recall taking about the Gulf War which I grew up watching on the television in the fifth grade. It's based on the book by U.S. Marine LCpl Anthony Swofford's novel Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles, a memoir of his experiences and lack thereof during his half year in the desert. There have been countless war movies about the horrors of war. This movie deals primarily with the preparation and the waiting. The endless waiting before contact. Minds going numb in the heat. Trying to stay sharp. I really liked Foxx's performance and if he wasn't in the film, I think I would've hated it. When I see Gyllenhaal's face, I instinctively want to take a swing at it. It's a face that just begs to be punched. The classic Marine drill sergent sequence was spot on. And a little tidbit from the film: there were well over 500,000 soldiers there. For our current two front war, I think the number is somewhere around 160K.

I've been told countless times to watch Princess and the Warrior since it came out six years ago. It is Tom Tykwer's follow up to Lola Rennt, one of my all time favorites. I've also seen the third film during this four year spree,

href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246677/" target="_blank">Heaven. This film has the same picturesque scenes you'd expect from Tykwer along with the wonderful twists and turns he weaves into each of his films. It also has one of my favorite leading ladies Franka Potente. I think the image of her running full tilt with her red tresses trailing behind will be forever imprinted in my mind. In this film, Sissi [Potente] is hit by an 18-wheeler in an accident caused by Bodo [Benno Fürmann]. Bodo, in turn, ends up underneath the 18-wheeler and saves Sisis's life by performing an army battlefield tracheotamy. Sissi sees Bodo as a savior, but he leaves her at the hospital. Two months later, she is determined to find him to see if what happend that afternoon should serve as the impetus to drastically change her life. The wonderful long shots of the urban landscape and the German countryside. Sissi is a nurse in the psychiatric ward of a gorgeous and gigantic hospital with one guest of particular interest. One of my favorite shots of the film is an overhead shot following the elevated train snake along the meandering river through the middle of the city. The tracks are directly in the middle of the river held up by steel structures from both sides of the river. The film took a little while to get going, but it doesn't stop running once the momentum builds up. I didn't like it more than Lola Rennt as I was also told I'd feel, but this was a fun film to watch nonetheless. A fun story with a gorgeous backdrop.

I don't recall hearing the term "Lolita" prior to 1992 when Amy Fisher was dubbed the "Long Island Lolita" and the story exploded. I was up last night around 1a and couldn't sleep and I resorted to flipping around my free movies on OnDemand and saw that Lolita [the Kubrick version] was on so I clicked it. I thought it was pretty cheeseball. In the words of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I found it quaint. I thought that James Madsen's English accent was a little too much for me, not that it was fake, he's English, but it was just too much for me. But Sue Lyon was great. There was some stiff introducing the film via OnDemand beforehand who said that Lyon was a thirteen-year-old model with no prior acting experience when she was signed on for the role as the young starlet. It's crazy how far we've come in forty years. This Nabokov adaptation [I hear the book was waaaaay more scandalous than the film] was crazy taboo for back then. But nowadays, a thirty-second Target ad can be more scandalous let alone a full length Hollywood feature film.

And earlier tonight, Lady and I went out to see Strangers with Candy which is indeed an extension of the old TV show of the same name. It's got much of the old cast. It's no instant classic, but it made us laugh for ninety minutes or so. The movie is packed to the brim with cameos all over the place. My favorite blast from the past was Dan Hedaya who plays Jerry Blank [Amy Sedaris] comatose father. He played Carla's husband on Cheers – I loved him as Nick Tortelli. One-liners all over the place all throughout this one. Mindless fun.

I did get out a little bit over the weekend though. I played my usual Sunday evening soccer game which has now turned into a regular match. It's like an Inter Milan v AC Milan type of rivalry in a short month. Pretty cool.

Seen any good movies lately?

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