Highly Recommended
-
morrison-dylan-fan — 9 years ago(January 30, 2017 05:33 PM)
7
- This review may contain spoilers ***
Despite reading about him for years I've for some reason have never crossed swords with Stephen Chow. Taking a look at Netflix UK,I found an obscure title of his about to be taken off the site,which led to me Chow-ing down for the first time:
The plot:
Suffering the loss of his 13th child,infamous lawyer Sung Sai Kit decides that his get out of jail card ways must have put a curse on him,which leads to Sung retiring from law. Whilst her husband sits around bored,Sung's wife learns of a murder trial taking place. Wanting to end on a high,Sung comes out of retirement, and brings justice to foot.
View on the film:
Keeping the Kung-Fu wires spinning,director Johnnie To & cinematographer Peter Pau aim arrows at extremely broad Comedy that breaths in fart gags and spicy sass. Flying into a period piece,To cheekily sends up the dry historical epics with silk primary colours lined up the screen that are scanned in rapid-fire zoom-ins making the viewer a jury member of the absurd trial.
Knocking down the walls of the courtroom Drama,the screenplay by Sandy Shaw rips the respectability of instructions apart in a wickedly crass farce,sipping Sung stepping in corrupt double dealings in the courts with an unlucky taste for breast milk. Swinging to the defence of his wife,Stephen Chow gives a splendid motor mouth performance as Sung,thanks to Chow hitting the comedic action scenes with a relish,and delivering the dialogue at a lightning fast speed,as Sung puts his foot down on justice.
- This review may contain spoilers ***
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sitenoise — 9 years ago(February 01, 2017 02:19 PM)
Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu
Director: Tatsuya Oishi, Akiyuki Shinbo
4.366/10
I don't get anime. This has some beautiful mixed shots of cartoons on top of landscape photography, and lots and lots of drawings of one of the characters' eyeball. Like there is emotion there.
White Bird in a Blizzard
Director: Gregg Araki
4.79/10
I watched this for the Harold Budd/Cocteau Twins soundtrack. The things we do.
The Girl on the Train
Director: Tate Taylor
8/10
Haters gonna hate. Likers gonna like. Emily Blunt is fabulous, and that means a lot coming from a guy who thinks acting drunk is one of the hardest things an actor can attempt. You Go Girl. So much better than
Gone Girl
.
The Workhorse & the Bigmouth
Director: Keisuke Yoshida
8.137/10
Requisite
SPOILER ALERT
because I may end up over describing this thing, but it won't matter because nobody reading this will, or should, ever see it.
Another home run for
Keisuke Yoshida
of
Himeanole
and
Cafe Isobe
fame. This is another small, tiny, little, dinky flick. Yoshida knows how to cut film. Bad cuts are when you're all like, "wtf?" Good cuts are when you can't help but joyfully ponder where the next few minutes of a scene might have gone if it wasn't cut. Thank you. I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your waiters.
This is my
anti-
LaLaLand
. The gut punch here, the
Anagnorisis
(even though the fantastic fansubs totally boinked the money shot) is when
Kumiko Aso
, as a 34 year old wannabe screenwriter says (something to the effect of): "Getting rejected every time, never even making it into the first round, year after year after year that's nothing compared to giving up a dream you've had since childhood because you recognize you don't have the talent for it."
Kumiko Aso
is fabulous. If you don't like her you won't like the film. She's about as plain jane as a person can be, has an insincere smile, and yet while never wearing tight jeans she's totally hot. And she doesn't really act. As the "Workhorse", since she can't really
act
(thank god), she simply owns every scripted line. The ironic beauty of having her play a scriptwriter who attends classes and does every act I, act II, act III thing by the book was not lost on me.
The film is almost a standard jrom-jom.
Aso
is independent. The "Bigmouth" isn't loud, thank goodness, more of a slightly cocky
Jeff Spicoli
without the drugs, who attends the script writing classes, wants
Aso
, and criticizes everyone else's writing for playing by the rules, while being unable to write anything of his own. I pondered punting when I feared the two of them would end up together. If Spicoli would have bad eating-acted I would have punted for sure. In the hands of a lesser director he would have bad eating-acted all throughout. And gotten Aso.
Not here
. He does, however, put pencils up his nose.
There's also Aso's ex who is goodness personified. He's an ex-actor who now works as a caregiver wiping butts and cleaning up puke.
Aso
calls him and asks if she can volunteer at his nursing home as research for her next screenplay. Will they end up together?
Not here.
You have to be fairly smart and creative to write a screenplay about screenplay writers who dream, and discuss talent. What is talent? Who's got it? Can it be measured? Can it be improved?
There is also a handful of incidentals who all rise to the level of characters.
The Workhorse & the Bigmouth
is a slow burn, smart and talky little anti-romcom. But it is emphatically NOT arthouse pomposity. It's a goofy little film filled with dorks who chew up and spit out (politely, into a napkin) conventional stereotypes. I loved this thing from top to bottom well, not quite. A few years ago when this came out I immediately dismissed it because the film poster is bad. You can almost always infer the quality of a movie from its poster. Yoshida needs help in the poster making department. My guess is he doesn't involve himself with it. Mistake #1. Mistake #2 would be the title of the film.
_-|/`— my opinions are incomplete. always wil -
plsletitrain — 9 years ago(February 01, 2017 05:24 PM)
"I don't get anime. This has some beautiful mixed shots of cartoons on top of landscape photography, and lots and lots of drawings of one of the characters' eyeball. Like there is emotion there."
Bwahahahaha! I admit, as an anime lover myself, there are some animes I also can't get into. Its a hit or miss when it comes to anime.
I've been waiting and looking everywhere for ages for Your Name (Kimi No Na Wa) but please please let the gods hear this, can they post it in the sites I visit now??? Complete with subs and all???? I really really wish I could see this already.
I was about to look for the Workhorse & the Bigmouth because Himeanole but your review of it kinda sounds like that movie I can't remember where I watched it because its your favorite but it only took me around 10 minutes to put it off because I can't stand the leads staring at each other and (I think) they were eating in a restaurant whispering some sweet nothings or what was that. I can't remember the title now. And the trailer for this Workhorse doesn't help too so I think I'll give this one a pass.Age of Loneliness-
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sitenoise — 9 years ago(February 01, 2017 05:46 PM)
Workhorse & the Bigmouth
is nothing at all like
Cafe Noir
or
One Fine Spring Day
. The bigmouth is seriously a Jeff Spicoli spinoff so that gives you an idea of its goofy factor.
Aso
's ex is a lovely man but everyone else is a loser (well he's a loser too, but a lovely one). The overall humor is more heady, though, than slappy. The director wants you inside the people rather than pointing and laughing at them. There are many many touching moments but I think it would be too slow for you. If the trailer had subs it might be a better sell as a few of the jokes are there, but as Trailers are always stupid and non-representative of a movie, I don't know what to say. It had Spicoli with the pencils in all his top level orifices, tho. Isn't that a selling point? lol -
zelena33 — 9 years ago(February 02, 2017 03:53 PM)
When I saw your comments about his cutting skillz, I decided to give
Himeanole
a try I had downloaded it and was on the fence. I thought it was really good for the first 50 minutes. Then it turned into a senseless gore flick. I was really disappointed. Once that kind of violence starts in a movie, it doesn't stop. I bailed at 1:16 and I think that was at least the sixth graphic murder in 20 minutes. Sorry if I'm a broken record, but I'm not "for" or "against" violence in movies, it's just a question of whether it serves a cinematic purpose. If a death scene doesn't elicit empathy, that becomes an occasion for you to know that you have no empathy for other people. It's just porn, and there's way too much bad porn in Japan. The whole film still could have been great if the violence was cut out in the way Hitchcock would have, but the pacing, which was exceptionally well done up till then, would have been blown out. If I was teaching college kids film, I would have them edit out the violence and make it still work.
Anyway, does this other one have a lot of gore? I'm still open to the director. Himeanole had great humor, and as you pointed out, phenomenal photography and editing, and superb sound design, that added a lot to the storytelling. I was really digging the jrom-jom elements all guys are losers unworthy of women, but get them anyway, and all women are not as angelic as they're cracked up to be when you fall for them. I'll trust your take on whether
Workhorse
is zelenable. -
sitenoise — 9 years ago(February 02, 2017 05:22 PM)
Himeanole
is his outlier. It was strange to see where he went with it. Gore is not present elsewhere in his oeuvre.
I guess his first flick,
Raw Summer
, is a soft porno with Sora Aoi, but that's pretty common in Japan, I guess. Beyond that, everything is zelenable. It's not that much tho, just
Cafe Isobe
and
Workhorse
. Can't remember if you've seen
Cafe
or not. It has more energy than
Workhorse
. I like them both in the 8 area.
Oh yeah, there's
My Little Sweet Pea
which I found Hallmark channel awful. And I see he has another flick with a pig on the poster. I'm ignoring that one.
I think you'll like
Workhorse
. Too slow for weepyeyes, tho.
If you're really scrounging, I would love your opinion on that Cat movie we went on about recently. -
zelena33 — 9 years ago(February 04, 2017 03:01 PM)
Well, seeing that Himeanole was a merciful 1:46 long, I went back and finished it, trying to FF through the gore scenes. However, there is hardly a three minute stretch in the rest of the film without a graphic murder. I was really puzzled and disappointed with where this film went. I guess this is why there are Executive Producers. They serve to nudge directors in the right direction (aka "interfere in the creative process") when they get too up themselves and get lost.
This director definitely has flashes of creative brilliance. I see what you mean by the cuts. He has some of them. "Your pasta " What do you want to bet this guy was the valedictorian of his film school class, and was one of those guys who everyone has always said is a "genius" (but isn't)? He sat down and learned some things from Scorcese etc, which is more than most people do. I wish he could have just made an odd jrom-jom out of Himeanole, instead of an adolescent slasher flick, where women are just there to be raped. I gave it a five point something because it had some merits but I barely watched the whole thing.
Workhorse was different, again some flashes of good stuff. What's her name was a pretty naturalistic actor too. She grimaces disapprovingly in a very natural way. But the plot though. You praised the director for not making it into the cliche where the guy gets the "girl" (who is 35). But I read it the other way; he makes it into something where he doesn't care if they get together, doesn't care if they don't. But then he still plays j-drama scoring. I thought it was too long and I wasn't satisfied at the end, put it that way. I gave it seven point barely
So what, now I'm down to cat movies and noplace to vent about them!?! -
sitenoise — 9 years ago(February 04, 2017 04:01 PM)
Not that it matters much, but I think it's unfortunate you watched
Himeanole
first. And wondered if there was more gore about him. (interesting, I haven't committed this director's name to memory yet).
For me, he's a comedy guy. I hope you'll give
Cafe Isobe
a shot if you haven't. It's mic drop city. That's why
Himeanole
was so weird, and surprising. I had no idea it was going to go there. I'm sympathetic to your views re: gore and violence, just have my line drawn at a different place.
You are right about the "j-drama scoring" in
Workhorse
. I remember wincing a few times.
My Little Sweet Pea
= OMG and he has a movie with a pig on a poster. It probably has an awful score. He's all over. I don't want to reduce him to a hired gun, but he's inching close. And in the end, anyone who doesn't get music will eventually lose me.
I'm just going to go on a little bit more here, lol. He made
Sweet Pea
and
Workhorse
the same year. Two films about women who figure out they don't need someone else to walk ahead in the world. Nobody raped them. I don't know if he's pandering or genuine.
In re: music(ality). That's what grabbed me about
Cafe
. Not it's score, but its rhythm. That's his cutting prowess.
Until such time as I believe otherwise, I maintain the guy is skilled enough, interestingly intelligent enough, and gosh darn-it, I like him. You should watch
Cafe
. -
sitenoise — 9 years ago(February 03, 2017 08:01 PM)
Here's the thing:
Kang-ho Song
. He has this magical ability to appear as if he's wandered on to the wrong film set, and then through sheer force of will he takes over the proceedings. He's got to be one of the finest actors on the planet. What he does in
The Age of Shadows
is amazing. I could never decide if he was a weak flip-flopper of a character or ultimately conniving because he does both. I don't think many people can do that.
Um Tae-Goo
plays one of the greasiest bad ass villains in recent memory. I was mesmerized by his face, especially his cheekbones. Kudos all over that dude. He really makes the film.
The "Train Scene" is masterfully done suspense.
But
This big a$$
Warner Bros
flick also stars Kermit the over moisturized Frog face. A guy who co-starred in a film with
Do-yeon Jeon
, which was written and directed by
Yoon-ki Lee
, and the film sucked. Do the math. -
clayton-12 — 9 years ago(February 03, 2017 08:35 PM)
I kind of shudder at the thought of what your answer might be if I were to ask what you didn't like about
A Man and a Woman
I thought it was really, really good (but I preferred
After the Storm
quite a bit more to
Our Little Sister
, so we probably aren't on the same wavelength).
BTW, your appraisal of the music in
If Cats Disappeared from the World
was spot on - I'm not usually as attuned to these things as others, but that film is surely a contender for Most Appallingly Annoying Soundtrack Of All Time award. The concept was interesting and the shifting timeframes were handled well, but the other thing that bugged me was the cinematography. You commented that it looked good, and, yeah, it did look good, in a Hallmark/David Hamilton kinda way I thought it was as, umm, tasteful as the soundtrack. It reminded me very much of the look of
Very Ordinary Couple
, but that worked in that film because it was so gloriously ironic. -
sitenoise — 9 years ago(February 03, 2017 09:35 PM)
I initially felt Yoon-ki wasn't careful enough with the script so it came out creepy and gross. But I really like Yoon-ki, and Do-yeon, so I changed my feeling to: Kermit the over moisturized Frog generated zero chemistry and was unable to execute Yoon-ki's daring script.
I should recind my invite to comrade
zelena
to watch the Cat movie, because you're right about the cinematography. My threshold is different from normal people concerning this area. (I think a lot of folks registered this complaint on
The Girl on the Train
, too. Which I liked.) I get that it's crassly manipulative, but in the Cat Movie I really liked the framing and the textures, and gave the photography homage points. -
morrison-dylan-fan — 9 years ago(February 05, 2017 07:22 PM)
Thanks to everyone for the awesome posts.
8
Having fond memories of seeing Stephen Chow in Justice,My Foot for the first time recently,I decided to recently take a closer look at his credits,and was thrilled to spot a rare Chow Horror about to go from Netflix UK,which led to me looking into the dark
The plot:
Starting their new job as security guards to a luxury apartment building with a shopping centre on the lower floor,the guards soon begin to fear that it is they who needs security,due to the peculiar inhibitions of the building being joined by headless ghosts out for revenge. Wanting to help rid the building of the ghosts, ghostbuster Leon decides to train the security guides and some residence of the building in the best way to fight out of the darkness.
View on the film:
Flying into the dark on a pillow of warm shot on Video fuzz,writer/director Jeffrey Lau & cinematographer Chi Wai Wong turn the light on to an atmosphere of pure kitsch,which bounces along with playful, rubbery gore being drenched in stylish filters Lau slices into to crack open the absurd state of Leon's ghostbusting. Pitching the Comedy chops broadly,Lau makes the kitsch mood run deep,with gleefully extended comedy sequences exposing Leon's lack of real "skills",and also allowing Leon to push the Horror Comedy into over the top Fantasy.
Drawing the most basic outline for the characters,Lau makes this basic sketch one that is easy to forgive,thanks to Lau never pausing for breath,as the film leaps from hilarious overripe Soap Opera Comedy to kitsch,chainsaw-welding ghosts making sure that for Leon and the guards,bustin makes 'em feel good. Chasing after ghosts with sexy Karen Mok,Stephen Chow gives a fantastic performance as Leon,brimming with an arrogant wit that allows Leon to casually hold dynamite,as the ghosts come out of the dark.