Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Further Suffering

Why the honk do I keep watching these terrible films?  Why do I keep forcing myself to consume these (mostly Japanese films) in which I can predict the plot almost entirely, I don't like any of the characters, and I'm just waiting for the rape-scene to happen.

Maybe because I want some sort of self-righteousness that I saw these films, and I know how bad they are.  How they disregard women.  Then even further any English description or review or critique passes over any sexual assault that happens.

I'm yelling at myself here.  There is definitely great stuff on Hulu's Criterion Collection.  I've seen stuff recently I enjoyed every second of.  Maybe writing about my lack of will will give me the will I need to will.  Let's get on with some reviews of stuff I've seen recently. If I got screencaps from twitter, that will be the links to follow each.

World on a Wire
This is great.  It's almost 3 and a half hours of people talking, but I loved it.  It's proto-Matrix from 1973!  It's orange and teal by design and beautiful.  In my ever approaching list of 10 Criterion movies to watch on hulu this is on it.  I loved it. 1 2

Double Suicide
Myself elsewhere:"Then my now favorite J-director Shinoda (Our Marriage, One Way Ticket to Love, A Flame at the Pier (watch AFatP already) did Double Suicide which opens with stage hands setting up a puppet show while ?the director? talks on the phone about where the double suicide takes places. It is kind of a basic J-story, but it has lots of neat artifice to it that I like." 1

Japanese Summer Double Suicide
Also great.  Weird stagey.  A man that wants to die and no one will kill him.  A woman that wants sex and cannot find it. A boy that wants to kill but is never given the chance.  The world might as well as ended.  Or they exist outside it.  This film feels like it says more about 60s postwar Japan than a lot of the films I watch. 1 2 3 4

Everything Goes Wrong
Not to be confused with Daly's Gone Wrong.  Maybe this film was never on my good side, as it stars a guy I've seen twice already as a sociopathic rapist.  In this film he's just a sociopath shitty asshole teen.  Terrible things happen. 1 2 

Death Shadows
I honestly can't remember much of this film.  But revisiting my twitter, it sure does have some cool visuals. 1 2 3 4

Love New and Old
That's just it's Hulu title, the original is Shamisen and Motorcycle.  Which why would you go away from that title? Like Our Marriage it is a pretty basic story but it's filled with these live human beings. The women characters are complete people. That's sadly still rare today and more amazing for 1960. Towards the end it captures what loss is, and I was bawling. I'm still teary eyed now. Less the film, and more that it cut open wounds from my own life in a way I appreciated. Then it had about 30 seconds of unnecessary film. I continue to find in Shinoda what I guess everyone else gets from Kurosawa or Ozu. early Shinoda has real humanity to it. I find something like Ozu's Tokyo Story a gentle bulldozer. The human drama Kurosawas' I've seen I'm just staring at them bored. . 1 2

Let's talk why that shot is neat though.  The camera stays on the room.  It is only when asked about the time that the characters look up and the camera moves up to show the clock, and then they continue their conversation and the clock moves back down.

Youth in Fury
Shinoda again (watch a Flame at the Pier).  His messiest film I've seen, it just kind of ends even with a bunch of stuff slammed together.  It could have easily lasted another 30 minutes.  It has an asshole protagonist.  My problem with those usually, is they are just shitty petty jerks going WHATEVERMAN.  Here the world is reacting to him not belonging in it.  Instead of just saying the Youth of post-reconstruction Japan are fucked, it gives them dimensions and motivationsThey are still fucked, but maybe there is a reason for it.

 History is Made At Night
This film was old and boring I just wanted to link this again.

Safety Last!
Harold Lloyd silent film.  So I enjoy the craft more than actually enjoying the film.  The subplots for the comedy made me groan.  The final climbing the building sequence is worth watching.  1

Gates of Hell
I watched this thinking it was going to be horror.  Then it wasn't.  instead it ended a Tragedy For Everyone Involved.  Everyone wears a mountain of color.  It won the Academy Award for that.  Skip through it just to enjoy all the costumes.

The Fire Within
confirms I hate French Films. They are all just two people frozen mid-coitus while an omnipotent narrator says some bullshit.

Mahler 

was kind of cool, but you could use a highlight reel for the same effect.

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