Being John Malkovich

I actually watched this move quite a while ago (I think back in year 8 or 9 during my movie watching spree cos I just got broadband) but I decided to re-watch it because it was really good. It's about how this guy who discovers a secret hole which allows him to be John Malkovich, an actual actor in real life. Basically its a portal for mind control, but it only works for one person John Malkovich, hence the title.

This is a lot more interesting than it sounds and the above synopsis is a gross over-simplification of the film. This movie is written by Charlie Kauffman (who also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and I've watched four of the movies he's written which I'll post about later. Right now I'll just say he's a very original writer with many original ideas. Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are) directs this movie and I think it's largely to his credit that he can thread all of the plot elements and themes here to make a coherent story which is emotionally involving as well as being funny and engaging.

What really confuses me is why the movie had such a hard time being made. Apparently plenty of studios turned down the chance to make this movie. One guy even said "Why the fuck can't it be Being Tom Cruise?".

Unlike Somewhere I think the majority of people will like this movie. It's an easy to watch movie (as in you always know what is going on and why - no long stretches of the camera just watching something) but not easy to understand. It's challenging not in an Inception sort of way where the structure of it confuses you, but rather raises questions that you might not have thought about before. What if John Malkovich went into the portal so he experiences being himself? What if a woman went in? What if John Malkovich had a child?

I think this is the perfect movie to start off watching other more diverse movies rather than traditional genre movies. I think it was this movie when I watched it way back in Year 9 that made me realize that good movies didn't necessarily have to be just conventional ones done well, but could also rely on original ideas not explored before. I recommend everyone to watch this movie when they have the time. Which is after Trials. Or HSC. You could still watch it now though.

That is all.

Somewhere

I'd like to start off by saying that the idea for a separate film blog where everyone chips in is very good because it would probably lessen the guilt in me having multiple posts when I want to post about multiple movies and/or random posts. Over the holidays I've watched quite a few films but this one is one of the less weird ones I've watched. By that I mean, more people will get this movie than the other movies I watched (I think).



Somewhere is about a movie star Johnny Marco who feels no pleasure in anything even though he has a successful professional life. He also drinks a lot of alcohol, does drugs and a lot of women. One day his 11 year old daughter comes to stay with him after her mother needs to take some time off.

This movie is directed by Sofia Coppola, who you may know from Lost in Translation. Let me start off by saying that this film isn't as good as LIT. I think it just doesn't have the same intimacy as that movie and it isn't as visually as interesting because Tokyo at night is pretty cool. It isn't as funny (although I think this film has the funniest sex scene ever) and the acting isn't as good. Some of the themes and concept are the same and those are equally as interesting (at least for me) here.
On it's own though it is a really good movie. This is sort of like LIT in the sense that there isn't really a plot, things just happen. There's no complication except for the inner conflict Johnny has because he thinks he's nothing. The very end is a bit of a copout and a cliche, but the film still evokes emotion without getting all mushy.
If you thought LIT was boring, this will probably be the same for you (although for all you perverts out there is more sex and nudity in this but obviously done in a tasteful manner). I have a suspicion that even people who did like LIT won't like this as much. I thought it was just fine.

That is all.

Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies starts with the death of its young protagonist Seita, starving to death as a tramp in a subway. The rest of the movie is a flashback from his ghost, starting from the firebombing of his village during World War II that left he and his younger sister Setsuko orphaned and homeless. They stay with their aunt for a while but she's a cruel woman so they leave her and live in a hillside bomb shelter, scrounging for food wherever they can.

This has got to be one of the most depressing movies I've ever watched. It's a very subdued movie which makes it all the more human when it sinks into moments of grief and suffering. Afterwards, I wondered what was the point of making a movie like this. It reads very well as an anti-war film, an exploration of how it destroys innocent individuals from the inside out. Seita starts off as a proud, well-off kind of guy but by the end he has nothing left in the world and has lost his will to live.

According to Wikipedia however, the director (Isao Takahata) never intended an anti-war message because the film is more concerned with 'conveying the image of a brother and sister living a failed life due to isolation from society'. I guess what he's trying to say is that if you made it an anti-war film, then it has a message of 'look at all these bad things that happen because of war' and that would reduce the tragedy of the events because they would have a meaning and a purpose. But there is no meaning to the events of the film. Noone comes out wiser and everything is just absurd (in this sense of the word). The fact that the film is partly based on a true story is enough to justify its necessity.

I wish now that I hadn't picked this as my last Ghibli film to watch until after Trials. It was such a depressing note to end it on. After watching this movie, I thought about it and then I thought of the exuberance of Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away and I felt really bad.

Princess Mononoke

Continuing my watching spree of Ghibli films, yesterday I saw Princess Mononoke. If you haven't seen it, its about a young Prince Ashitaka, who is wounded after bringing down a wild demon that attacked his village. The wound is infected with some kind of curse which will gradually kill him and so he departs to the west in search of a cure. He eventually reaches an iron-making village led by Lady Eboshi that is caught up in conflict with the animal-gods of the local mountain ranges. There's also a girl named San raised by the wolf-god who he falls in love with. She's the 'Princess Mononoke' of the title, though that's more a description than a name because mononoke is just Japanese for 'monster-spirit'.

The noticeable thing about this movie is that there's no clear-cut villains. When the movie was over, I had this feeling that something wasn't quite right. I realised it was because though there was so much conflict and suffering in the movie, there is noone to really blame for it. There is no triumph over good and evil because there is no good and evil. All the characters seem to have complex and reasonable motives for their actions and that is something you'd hardly expect in this kind of fantasy epic story. Just think of the Empire in Star Wars, Saruman in Lord of the Rings or Voldemort in Harry Potter. (Not saying these villains are bad of course because they're all kickass characters. Just a different kind of storytelling.)

The love story between Ashitaka and San is also a pretty important part of the film but as usual, Miyazaki really plays it down. There's this scene where he's lying down recovering from a serious injury and she's taking care of him. She gives him some bat jerky to eat but he doesn't have the strength to chew. So she starts eating it herself and then she leans down to his face. I thought she was kissing him until I realised that she was actually spitting the chewed up meat into his mouth so he could swallow it. I know that sounds really gross but in the movie, its a really heartfelt scene.

Okay, the next paragraph will be about the ending so if you haven't watched it this is a spoiler alert. The ending baffled me at first because the denoument was very abrupt. I've thought about it a bit and it makes some sense now. I thought the villagers would be angry at Lady Eboshi for abandoning them but I guess they have too much to thank her for to condemn her for being lead astray by the Mikado's men. I was surprised that Ashitaka decided to help rebuild the ironworks. But I guess he couldn't return to the village as prince after having cut off his hair. Ashitaka and San not (quite) getting together was also a surprise but it makes sense because it would be pretty dumb if San lived with him at the ironworks. I think that in the end, its about the breakdown of the natural order between humans and spirits by Eboshi's firearms and the conflict that determined the establishment of the new order. Ashitaka, as a determined pacifist, is a neutral witness to the conflict who tries his best to end the fighting and minimise the suffering of everyone involved.

The next movie I'll be watching will probably be Grave of the Fireflies. And then I probably won't get to watch anything until Trials are over.

Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration

I saw this on Roger Ebert's website and I thought it was pretty cool and something every wizard or witch should know:

"Ever wonder what the five principal exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration are?

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it is revealed that Gamp’s Law governs the use of magic to create objects. However, there are five principal exceptions to the law that can’t be created or changed by even the most skilled wizard.

As the release of the final Harry Potter movie approaches, fans discover that only one of the exceptions is revealed. Harry Potter expert and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide ® to The World of Harry Potter, Tere Stouffer, offers her opinions on the remaining exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.

In Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling reveals only one exception to the law: Food.

Hermione says, “It's impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you've already got some. ’” And that pretty much sums up what we know about Gamp’s Law and its five exceptions.

But what else can’t be conjured or transfigured?

- Money and Shelter: This is two items, but they are often inextricably linked: one can’t have a beautiful or large home without having money to pay for it. Although an interior of a room or area can be expanded, as the Weasleys did while camping at the Quidditch World Cup and while riding ministry-borrowed cars, and valuable objects can be multiplied, if the intention is to suffocate a thief inside a vault at Gringott’s, they can’t be created from scratch.

- Clothing: Even wizards of great skill—Remus Lupin and Molly Weasley included—cannot seem to conjure up new robes and are instead stuck with old, patched ones, ones that are too short, or ones that are hopelessly out of style. If clothing were not one of the exceptions, Lupin would have long ago conjured a new wardrobe, and Ron would have avoided his dress-robe embarrassment at the Yule Ball.

- Body Part Removed by Dark Magic: In the wizarding world, all sorts of body parts can be repaired and even conjured from scratch (like the regrowing of Harry’s bones after his quidditch accident in The Chamber of Secrets.) But these same body parts—and the entire body, in the case of the Killing Curse—cannot be replaced or repaired if Dark Magic was involved, no matter how skilled the healer.

- Temperature: The conjuring of heat or cold or the transfiguring of something warm into something cold (and vice versa). Although wizards can produce water (Aguamenti!) and can emit steam from their wands through the hot-air charm—steam that lightly melts objects like snow or dries objects like sopping-wet clothing—wizards cannot raise or lower the temperature of the air, stop rain or snow from falling, slow or speed the wind, or heat or cool large bodies of water"

That is all.

My Neighbour Totoro

I watched 'My Neighbour Totoro' the day before yesterday and I liked it a lot. It's about a father who moves with her daughters into a rural home where they meet strange woodland spirits (ie, Totoro). It was a much more subdued kind of movie than Spirited Away. Instead of a complication (like say, your parents turning into pigs), it builds up a sense of curiousity and wonder until it reaches moments of great magic. Miyazaki is great at creating really sublime moments with his animation and artwork. In particular I thought the tree-raising scene was pretty amazing.

I think that in the (very small) remainder of these holidays, I'll keep watching more Ghibli films. They make me feel really good, as opposed to other movies which just make me feel challenged.

Harry Potter - To Tim: HACK IT HACK IT HACK IT HACK IT

So since the new Harry Potter movie came out I've been thinking about it a lot especially after I watched the trailer and it looks really good. This time around I have been trying to resist reading the book before I see the movie because all the critics say that it's really confusing if you don't read the books so I'm trying to see if that's really true. And I want to test whether or not the story in the movie is actually any good (no one seriously goes to watch HP for the story right?). I think the HP series is really a sort of visual experience rather than one for plot or acting or dialogue but I think that's ok because the films are actually quite good looking. I think my favourite one is the Half-Blood Prince because the colours and lighting and stuff actually enhanced the mood instead of just trying to look pro, which it did.

Anyway I was wondering why they suddenly changed the Death Eaters being able to travel in black spirals all of a sudden (it sort of looks like the shadow blade in fruit ninja). I mean it looks really really cool but why would they do that if they could just apparate? And it wasn't in the books either so I have no idea what sort of magic they're doing.

Also, WHY THE FUCK do wizards use quills? It's completely illogical. I'm pretty sure in the first few books the students always complain about blotches on their books because of the use of quills and their ink spilling everywhere and ink pots getting smashed etc. etc. Quills have no magical properties, are expensive, are difficult to use and also cumbersome. Which witch (haha geddit?) or wizard was stupid enough to decree that the wizarding world could only use quills? Seriously can't they see that there is a perfect solution to all their quill problems if they used a pen?!?! OR a pencil?! I guess pureblood wizards and witches can't be blamed that much because they probably would never heard of a pen or pencil but seriously, Harry what the hell? Didn't you ever stop to think "Screw these stupid quills I'm gonna use a pen."? Or Hermione. Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?!?!? What the hell was going through your mind when you switched from pen to quill?!?!? Was it "Oh I love this new more inconvenient stationery. I think i prefer this over the pen which I have been using which historically is actually an evolution and improvement on the quill." . Stupid bitch.

That is all.

Spirited Away

I just finished watching Spirited Away and I thought I'd say what I thought of it while its fresh in my mind.

I sincerely, honestly loved this movie a lot. I don't like to use strong adjectives a lot for no reason but it was a beautiful, mysterious and enchanting movie. There's quite a unique sensation you get when you see a really great fantasy story like this. If I could relate it to any other experience, it would be closest to what I felt while reading the Sandman series. I find it hard to put into words but its the kind of fantasy that refuses to be seen as an allegory or a metaphor for real life but rather touches human emotions in a stranger, more profound way. Always at the end of such an experience I find myself wishing there was more.

What was refreshing too was that the film had a lot of heart, which is something quite rare in the angst-ridden movies I've been watching recently. Miyazaki seems like a really sentimental guy and it comes out really nicely. Also, the art that went into this was great. All the Japanese mythological figures everywhere were really quirky and a whole lot of fun. And I liked the music.

Anyway, I hope to see more Studio Ghibli films soon because this one was great.

And now for something a little different...

I've been thinking lately (okay, someone suggested to me) that I should make another blog dedicated just to posting about movies. The upside is that it might be pretty interesting because then I'd have to try harder to write stuff worth reading and things would get all serious and stuff. The downside is that I would have two blogs and only a wanker would have two blogs. So what I've been thinking is that I'd get many people to contribute and it would be a like a book club sort of thing but with movies. Okay, I know that sounds unbelievably gay but I can think of one or two people who'd be interested. So if you think you're one of these people then tell me in some way or another and maybe this dumb idea will go ahead.


(Oh yeah. Hope the people watching the midnight screening of Harry Potter right now are enjoying it.)

Persona and The Tree of Life

I think like most people, my holidays have not been too interesting. However, I've watched some pretty cool movies lately. I watched Persona, a pretty old movie I watched at home and I saw The Tree of Life, which I actually had to go out to the cinemas to see.

Persona was a very perplexing movie. It's basically about a nurse who looks after a woman who refuses to speak even though she is perfectly healthy and sane. I don't remember feeling so confused watching a movie since David Bowman transformed into a giant glowing baby in 2001. Partly I was surprised because I've seen several of Bergmann's other films and they were very different to this. Usually his style is quite straightforward, such as in The Seventh Seal where to visualise a man contemplating the nature of death, he actually shows him playing chess with the Grim Reaper. This movie is much more mystifying and it is often difficult to see what's real and what isn't. Bergmann likes to play around with the audience and he does things like making the film look like its burning up or turning the camera around to show the film crew, like he's trying to say it doesn't matter because it's all a movie anyway.

The Tree of Life was probably just as non-sequitur and unconventional but I found it a lot easier to understand. It's about a family of three boys growing up in 1950s Texas though there are strange intermissions where he cuts to epic scenes that highlight the miracle of life: the formation of galaxies, thermal activity in the Earth's initial formation, the evolution of life and dinosaurs. His goal is to make a connection between our everyday lives and the terrifying grandness of the universe. I read a lot about this film before I watched it and I was kind of skeptical how you could alternate between these two plot threads without ruining the flow of the movie but it works because they're united in tone and atmosphere. Despite asking all kinds of big questions, it's a pretty emotional film.





EDIT: I'm gonna watch Spirited Away next so I'll probably write something about that next time.

Regular Update

I really feel like posting a lot now even though there are fewer people than ever who read this because of exams.

Recently I've noticed how my movie watching habits have been sharply decreased over time. By that I mean there were really specific moments in my life which dramatically limited my ability to watch movies. Seriously, I think back in Year 9 when I first got broadband and just got introduced to downloading movies I think I watched about every single release for that year plus old movies. Now I can't even keep up with the latest ones. I still haven't seen Rango, Limitless, Paul, The Lincoln Lawyer, Sucker Punch, Source Code and Fast Five. Not too mention a lot of the recent releases that have come out.

Anyway back to movies I HAVE watched, which include Green Hornet (crap), Thor (good) and Adjustment Bureau (really good). It's really the last one I want to focus on because it has the most interesting premise since Minority Report. Basically it's about this guy who falls in love with a girl and vice versa but they're not actually meant to be together. How you may ask? (wow that sounded very douchey) Well there's this grand plan made by this dude and he has these guys all over the world who make sure that everything follows this plan. These guys have powers to help them to make things happen to ensure that everything stays in plan, like telepathically being able to move stuff, perceive your decisions and also change your mind. Seriously watch the movie, or if you don't have time read the first three (and only the first three) paragraphs of the wiki article.

Anyway, this movie really got me thinking if we actually have free will or do we only have the appearance of it. Like we can make decisions on the tiniest details like which pen to use or what clothes to wear but other decisions like your career are already predestined. Seriously there are times in my life where I look back and there were all these decisions that I made that brought me an oppurtunity or prevented me from doing something that I wanted. And plus all the decisions that everyone else has made around me. I wonder if there really are men in hats running around changing people's minds.

This sort of reminds me of the time after I watched the Truman Show and I got a bit paranoid that I was actually trapped in a TV show (btw that bit was actually supposed to be a surprise when the movie first came out) but then I realised that's stupid because if I were in a TV show they would never ever have me watch The Truman Show. Unless they're trying to be ironic. Hmm.... And I also realized that the Truman Syndrome is an actual mental illness and that I could be sent to a mental hospital if I kept my fantasy going. But maybe they just put that there to make me think that? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!!!! And I also realized how incredibly narcissistic it is to assume that my life was interesting enough for it to be the subject of a TV show. So now I've stopped.

That is all.

The Truman Show

On Alex's advice, I watched the The Truman Show a few days ago. It's about a guy who doesn't know it at first, but later realises that he has lived his entire life in a reality TV show, which is streamed 24 hours around the world. Every person he has met is an actor playing a role and every place he has been to has been within a giant television studio. I found it an oddly emotional film which left quite an impression afterwards. It was very unsettling to see a person trapped in an artificial world, and there's always a feeling of something sinister hiding behind the film's appearance of a light comedy, especially in its first half.

I thought it was interesting that this film was originally written as a brooding sci-fi thriller kind of movie. Only after Peter Weir signed on, he decided to make the film a bit lighter and cast Jim Carrey in the main role. This was a pretty good idea because it gives a kind of surreal atmosphere to the film which patches up its otherwise incredulous plot. If the film took on a more serious tone then it would have been quite hard to believe or get stuck into.

It's hard to say what the movie is about. All at once it's a criticism of voyeuristic media, a questioning of reality and a story about escape. It's the last one that really made me like this movie. I can't quite explain why but I really felt for this Truman guy as he was constantly lied to and trapped.

Tennis

I've recently been watching Wimbledon until really late and I was really pissed off that the network decided to only show one Roger Federer match which I missed especially since I stayed up almost every other night to see if he was on.

Anyway, I was really sad when Federer lost in the quarter finals because I really thought that this year was his comeback year. It made me realize that even though I thought that his greatness would last forever, it really didn't and the game of tennis really isn't the same anymore. While watching the Wimbledon finals, I discovered how boring tennis is in comparison to when RF plays. Really Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were just hitting the ball as hard as they could at each other and seeing who could hit harder. Of course those two are actually good players, they have excellent court coverage for one, but somehow they lack the artistry with which Roger Federer plays with. For anyone who also watched the match, most of the time Djokovic tries to hit it to Rafa's backhand and Rafa tries to do the same. It was pretty boring. Obviously there were some really good points but every time that happened I always thought if Federer played, it would look a lot proer. In one of the points Rafa tries to do a backhand smash and it just turns into a really easy point for djokovic cos he smashes it back. It's not really an easy shot so good on him for trying. In another point Rafa tries to do a tweener but he seriously screws it up and it just ends up going nowhere. It was pretty funny because the ball went nowhere near the other side of the court, it just went off to the side and it was probably worth me wasting like 2.5 hours just to see that shot. Again, it's actually a ridiculously difficult shot to hit and kudos for trying but please just leave it to Federer next time. Watching that match made me realize how much I miss see Federer playing.

Also check out this match between Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. The Pete Sampras guy is seriously pro, I think maybe even better than Federer cos he's actually really old in that video. I bet if he played now, he would still be in the top 10.

That is all.