The Spoiler Shirt - she's a ghost, he's a sledge

Hilarious! But what is the film with the policeman sacrificed by the villagers??

Chinese Films of the Decade

Following the call for suggestions in the Chinese Cinema Digest, I first have to say that I was a little bit depressed about the state of Chinese cinema in this decade. Still some gems among those that I watched, but is there a trend towards more ambitious and professional story-telling? I really cannot see it… but then again, as you can tell from the movie selection, I am more on the Chinese mainstream side and am not aware of too many young film-makers that may change this perception.

In more or less ranked order (I hope the HK and Macao films qualify):

1) Still Life (Jia ZhangKe)

2) Blind Shaft (Li Yang)

3) In the Mood for Love (Wong KarWai)

4) Isabella (Pang Ho-Cheung)

5) The world (Jia Zhang-Ke)

6) Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (Zhang Yimou)

7) Lust, Caution (Ang Lee)

8) 2046 (Wong Kar-Wai)

9) Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau, Alan Mak)

10) Summer Palace (Lou Ye)

Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Year (so far)

And following the ambitious amateurs, here comes to pro: Roger Ebert, Godfather of film critique, cheated himself into a top 20 list for 2009, which has the unique feature of featuring Werner Herzog in the "Mainstream" category (the person most likely to ever anticipate that to happen would be Werner Herzog, I presume).
Same treatment as with the filmspotting list: the watched ones (new title for "Watchmen" sequel? "The Watched Ones"? Please don't…) are highlighted. And it's so annoying that apparently awards season is shifting so strongly towards New Year that with most of the really anticipated films I did not have a chance to watch yet, grrrr…

Top Ten Mainstream Films:
Bad Lieutenant (as all Herzog fillms: overrated by US film critics, but worth watching, and always a good laugh)
Crazy Heart (should / must / want to see!)
An Education (must see)
The Hurt Locker (yes, very good)
Inglourious Basterds (yes, very good fun, with some outstanding elements)
Knowing (puff, puff, puff…. Hyperventilation may make this pretentious thing go away)
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (must see)
A Serious Man (must see)
Up in the Air (must see)
The White Ribbon (excellent!)
Special Jury Prize: Avatar (must see)

The Top Ten Independent Films
Departures (on my list of must-see)
Disgrace (almost watched it two months ago... or maybe read the book first?)
Everlasting Moments (don't know)
Goodbye Solo (I have it, yet awaits watching, as do the director's all other films - this promises to be a feast!)
Julia (not yet, but will)
Silent Light (promise, very soon)
Sin Nombre (I always wanted, but then ... not yet)
Skin (don't know)
Trucker (what? Rubber Duck?)
You, the Living (They Live was groovy)

This is depressing... but let's call it my official holiday to do list!

Filmspotting 2009 Films of the Year

If you like movies and don't listen to Filmspotting podcast, I cannot help you. But if you like year's end, year's middle and year's sometime-in-between top-10 lists and top-5 lists, and still don't know their podcast, bury yourself. Or better, go to the site and indulge in the last years' lists about anything and everything related to movies. Best taboo relationship movies. Best Halloween entertainment movies. Best first date movies, etc. Now to celebrate the end of the year and the decade, here are the moderators Adam and Matty's year's top 10 movies, and also guest commentator Michael Phillips of Chicago newspaper and "At the Movies" fame. I marked those I watched:

Adam
1. Inglourious Basterds (good entertainment)
2. Humpday (must see)
3. An Education (must see)
4. The Hurt Locker (really gripping)
5. A Serious Man (must see, if only out of Coen habit)
6. Up in the Air (must see, if only for the man crush)
7. Summer Hours (never heard)
8. Brothers (why should I see that again?)
9. The White Ribbon (excellent - my movie of the year)
10.Where the Wild Things Are (looks good, will see soon)

Michael Phillips
1. Up (impressive - but slightly straightforward in the 2nd half)
2. Where the Wild Things Are (looks good, will see soon)
3. Waltz with Bashir (hmmm... yes, but maybe it's only form over function)
4. Of Time and the City (so much want to see this)
5. The Hurt Locker (really gripping)
6. A Serious Man (must see, if only out of Coen habit)
7. In the Loop (really hilarious film based on a really really hilarious tv show with one of the best villains ever)
8. Sugar (what?)
9. Me and Orson Welles (not sure)
10.A Single Man (where did I hear that before?)

Matty
1. Inglourious Basterds (good entertainment)
2. An Education (must see)
3. The Hurt Locker (really gripping)
4. A Serious Man (must see, if only out of Coen habit)
5. Brothers (why should I see that again?)
6. Sugar (what? another mention? need to research...)
7. Treeless Mountain (never heard...)
8. Up in the Air (must see, if only for the man crush)
9. O'Horten (lovely, and gets the shrewd Scandinavian bonus prize)
10.Summer Hours (never heard)

Biggest Blockbuster is... Gone With the Wind

The New York Times' Economix Blog has an interesting bit about how to calculate blockbuster success properly and how to compare movie success of 1938 (Gone with the Wind) with one in 2008 (The Dark Knight). It is inflation, ticket price develpoment, maybe purchasing power development, sure, but also population rise (or decline), number of screens, maybe average distance to the next screen, number of children eligible for reduced admission fee, etc etc. The analysis the article refers to looks into some of them, not all by far, but already re-affirms that the truly hugely successful movies of all times are those you expect them to be from your gut feeling. Does "Dark Knight" coney this? Not really. "10 Commandments"? - Absolutely, as does "Gobe with the Wind", "Star Wars" or "E.T." is there any comprehensive analysis with the development of a logical and stringent measurement system around?

Here there be culture!

Wittertainment at its most wittertaining, this time from Imagethief on the ever-fascinating topic of governmentally conceived culture:
As the Beijing Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference announced that they had conceived a big-scale blockbuster flick about the Birth of a Nation (something like that, in any case), the approporiate comment comes in:
"… nothing says, Aaargh! My eyes! like "Conceived by the Beijing Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference." This, in a nutshell, is every single thing that's wrong with Chinese popular culture --especially the film industry-- distilled down to it's purest essence in nine bone chilling words. The BMPPCC should conceive statues. It should conceive statutes. It should conceive worthy initiatives to get healthy meals to schoolchildren and it should conceive improved traffic laws. But it should conceive motion pictures like I should conceive a two-headed goat child."
Imagethief goes on to suggest that the picture should be helmed by Michael Bay instead of Huang Jianxin and replace a politics whore with a money whore. Bay being the anti-christ, this will not happen, of course, as it would cause religious turmoil. I think the idea of showing 'em how it's done is pretty good, though, and suggest to ask Trey Parker and Matt Stone to go for the big screen again.

Oscar predictions 2009

Righ before the shows starts, my predictions / expectations:
Best Film / Best Director: Slumdog / Boyle --> yes
Best actor: Rourke --> no, Penn
Actress: Meryl Streep --> no, the chubby one from Titanic took it away
Support Actor: Heathcliff Huxtable … no, what's his name? Anyway... --> yes, sure
Support Actress: Viola Davis --> no, beautiful Penelope for best performance in worst film of the year (can they hand out Oscars and Razzies at the same event, would be more efficient)
Screenplay Original: In Bruges (best movie of the year, if you want my opinion!) --> no, Milk, sounds a bit boring
Screenplay adapted: Slumdog --> yes
Foreign language: The Class --> no, the Japanese film
Animated: Wall-E --> yes
Cinematography: Slumdog --> yes
Documentary: Man on Wire --> yes
The rest: can't be bothered…

Filmspotting Top 5 Abduction Movies

The unmissable Filmspotting podcast has this nice feature of Top 5 something movies at the end of each podcast. This time, I felt compelled to "counter" their list of "Top 5 Abduction Movies" with my own, as there was at least one unforgiveable ommission. Hope Adam and Matty will survive the criticism.

Their list
1. The Big Lebowski/Fargo/Raising Arizona
2. The Searchers
3. Silence of the Lambs
4. Blue Velvet
5. Oldboy

While these are cool, my number one is non-negotiable:
1. Spoorloss / The Vanishing
If this is not the meanest ending of a film ever (including and considering the recent "The Mist" as competititor, but still!), the I don't know. The prototypical abduction in many ways: no motive, no remedy, no resolution. Lesson learned: if somebody gets abducted, you better leave it as it is.
2. Raising Arizona
3. Poltergeist
4. Oldboy
5. Silence of the Lambs

Insult to 110 years of film-making at Golden Globes

Just found on IMDB, Golden Globe award results

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Winner: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

You are fucking kiddin' me... behold, the end is nigh. Horsemen of the Apocalypse closing in any second, "Goodbye cruel world, I'm leaving you today"!

Or maybe just the end of brain functions?

The One and the Three

I found this on The MovieNess's blog, and fun as it is to pick a “One", it is much more satisfying to do a "Three", so first the "One", to show I am disciplined, followed by the "Three", to prove that I am not.

One:
1. One movie that made you laugh: Ghostbusters
2. One movie that made you cry: Local Hero
3. One movie you loved when you were a child: The Rescuers
4. One movie that you have seen more than 10 times: Escape from New York
5. One movie you’ve seen multiple times in the theater: Dances with Wolves
6. One movie you walked out on: Land and Freedom
7. One movie that you can and do quote from: Lawrence of Arabia
8. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Dances with Wolves
9. One movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t gotten around to watching yet: The Seventh Seal
10. One movie you hated: Vicky, Christina, Barcelona
11. One movie that scared you: The Descent
12. One movie that made you happy: The Commitments
13. One movie that made you miserable: Kammerflimmern
14. One movie musical for which you know all the lyrics to all the songs: Pink Floyd - The Wall
15. One movie that you have been known to sing along with: Rocky Horror Picture Show
16. One movie you would recommend that everyone see: Lawrence of Arabia
17. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with: Epiphany Proudfoot (Angel Heart)
18. One actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie: Clive Owen
19. One actor that would make you less likely to see a movie: Steve Martin
20. One of the last movies you saw: This is Spinal Tap
21. One of the next movies you hope to see: The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford

Three:
1. Three movies that made you laugh: Ghostbusters, Tootsie, Laurel and Hardy: Way Out West
2. Three movies that made you cry: Local Hero, Cinema Paradiso, Local Hero
3. Three movies you loved when you were a child: The Rescuers, Bringing Up Baby, Quo Vadis
4. Three movies that you have seen more than 10 times: Escape from New York, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Bible
5. Three movies you’ve seen multiple times in the theater: Dances with Wolves, Lawrence of Arabia, Once Upon a Time in the West
6. Three movies you walked out on: Land and Freedom, Rollerball (1975 version), no other
7. Three movies that you can and do quote from: Lawrence of Arabia, Escape from New York, The Godfather
8. Three movies you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Dances with Wolves, Tootsie, Mama Mia
9. Three movies that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t gotten around to watching yet: The Seventh Seal, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Tideland
10. Three movies you hated: Vicky, Christina, Barcelona; Pirates of the Carribean - Dead Man's Chest; Melinda & Melinda
11. Three movies that scared you: The Descent, Spoorloos (1988 Dutch version), The Fog
12. Three movies that made you happy: The Commitments, Local Hero, I am sure there was a third one…
13. Three movies that made you miserable: Wolfsburg, Krótki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film about Killing), The Pianiste (The Piano Teacher)
14. Three movie musicals for which you know all the lyrics to all the songs: Pink Floyd - The Wall, Blues Brothers, Jungle Book
15. Three movies that you have been known to sing along with: Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Commitments, Singing in the Rain
16. Three movies you would recommend that everyone see: Lawrence of Arabia, Ta'm e guilass (Taste of Cherry), Before the Rain
17. Three movie characters you’ve fallen in love with: Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet in "Angel Heart"), Raimunda (Penelope Cruz in "Volver"), Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier in "Wuthering Heights"…)
18. Three actors that would make you more inclined to see a movie: Clive Owen, Sigourney Weaver, Harvey Keitel
19. Three actors that would make you less likely to see a movie: Steve Martin, Jim Carey, Julia Roberts
20. Three of the last movies you saw: This is Spinal Tap, The Dark Knight, Paranoid Park
21. Three of the next movies you hope to see: The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, Mei Lanfang (Forever Enthralled), Slumdog Millionaire

Washington Post's Best Films of the Year

New Year time is list time, and this is a good one. The Washington Post's movies of the year stay pretty clear of the mainstream productions, and this year this is pretty much justified, as mainstream arthouse has had a disappointing record so far. Ann Horday's list looks like this:
1. "The Visitor"
2. "WALL E"
3. "Milk"
4. "The Edge of Heaven"
5. "Man on Wire"
6. "Chicago 10"
7. "Happy-Go-Lucky"
8. "Rachel Getting Married"
9. "I've Loved You So Long"
10. "Tell No One"
And almost all of these films I have either seen and liked, or are on my list of desperately anticipated DVDs (lacking cinemas that would show them…).

Paul Newman (1925-2008)

One in an endless stream of moving Paul Newman moments, but one that really feels special:

Never mind what happened in 1969. I'll dig up the old magazine and put it on the web site. Let's move forward to 1995, and listen very carefully. When I walked into his room, he said, "Aw...it's you again." The point is not that he remembered me. The point is how he said "aw..." Imagine it in Paul Newman's voice. It evoked feelings hard to express in words. The "aw" wasn't "oh, no," as it sometimes can be. To it me it translated as, "Aw, it's that scared kid, grown up." Whatever it meant, it put me right at home.

TV shows and other reflections

I have hardly ever been expecting a tv show as eagerly as I was expecting the 4th Season of Battlestar Galactica over the last nine or so months (now how is that about being auspicious?). In the last two years, I have been catching up with quite a bit of tv show material that I could never be bothered to watch before, or where the sheer format - the weekly installments putting their cruel dictate upon me - were just not my kind of ball game. Some considerations on this self-surprising development:

I suppose most of my change of attitude is due to the age of DVD boxes and online download platforms. It started, I remember, when I VHS-taped the first season of "24" a couple of years ago (and even before that, I was the occassional "X Files" and of course "Twin Peaks" audience member), but only took really off with the boxed sets of the first season(s) of "Lost", "Heroes", and "Battlestar Galactica". I admit that those four shows have turned me around - I was absolutely amazed at the high quality of tv that is being written and produced on any given day in the wide world of US tv (only very recently did I realise that for some strange reason, all the best US tv premiers on Thursdays and Fridays - and I cannot for the life of me imagine why a broadcaster wants to offer his crown jewels on a Friday night, honestly!).

Outside those BIG FOUR, there is plenty of material with which I could brighten my day any time: the perennial "C.S.I.", the hard-hitting "Dexter", very clever "Californication", eerie "Life" (will you be back, Damon? Pleeease!), terminated "Jericho", sexy "Entourage", even the recently re-discovered "South Park" (all episodes online, takes only about a month to watch 12 of them. Seasons, I mean). There will be the day when I will get the complete "Sopranoes" box set, no doubt. And "The Wire" lurking behind the corner, waiting to be discovered.

Through the writers' strike, it became clearer to me how difficult it must be to sustain a coherent story line, credible characters and just the right pacing for each of these dramas to work out. The strike messed it all up royally, and nowhere was it as visible as in the case of "Heroes", where the transition from excellent character drama to completely disoriented and pointless superheroes patchwork took exactly one day - last episode season 1 to first episode season 2. Arbitrarily introduced new characters did not work, storylines got lost, nobody really saw what the actual drama, the McGuffin driving the story, was. You cannot pack a show designed for 23 episodes in just 11 or so. It got random, and while there is the hope that the long hiatus gives the writers and producers the unprecedented chance to write the best and most intelligent and most dramatic season in tv show history, chances are rather that the show will glide into oblivion, having missed the chance to keep up the high quality, and not getting another one. "Lost" had a similar problem, actually, also introduced a new set of characters for the new season, but managed slightly better to keep their profile low, indicating that somebody out there knows what to do with them - only next year instead of this.

Even the shows that are running on very high steam and with constant quality for years - BSG and Lost, maybe - are extremely fragile in that respect. The audience's urge to come back every week - to watch it or to start the download or to get home and watch the TiVo recording - can evaporate just like that if you push the wrong button once too often. "Lost" almost achieved that when they lost track of their mythology by introducing new characters and killing them off right away within one episode: the two guys who got buried alive in season 3 were not just irrelevant to the show, they were an intruder from the hostile planet of "continuous tv programming", where a tv show's story having a beginning, a mid-section and an end is considered blasphemy against the God of profitability. One-off stories allow a show to go on forever - and going on forever is exactly what all those shows I like cannot do without destroying themselves (with maybe the only exception and guilty pleasure of CSI, assuming that Grissom is immortal, and why should he not be?):

"Lost" needs to find a way to either get the people off the island for good - or to keep them there for good. "Heroes" and "24" are odd brothers in that they must find a new apocalyptic threat per season (one that did not really exist in Season 2 of "Heroes", and a couple too many in the last "24" season), and Battlestar Galactica must lead the colonial fleet to Earth - or get smashed by the Cylon armies to smithereens - which is what I still kind of hope for: a truly heroic ending for that beaten-up garabage truck and its brave crew.

Before BSG had decided to fulfil its mission after season 4 (and praise the Lords of Kobol for this wise decision!), isolated episodes were seeping in by the minute: about Sagritarian sects, rogue doctors, admirals' wedding anniversaries, trade union nonsense and so forth. I believe the high concentration of these episodes in the second third of season 3 made the decision to terminate the show after one more season unavoidable, unless you can live with the fact of turning a high-quality drama in a rubbish soap opera (as the X-files creators did, of course - learn from history, shape the future…). "Lost" is a bit more hesitant, but 100 episodes will be enough for them, two more seasons to go. The "24" format has reached a point where you cannot just repeat the same pattern, because only so many presidents can get assassinated per tv show. Unless they re-invent themselves after the long long long break, they should consider also going out with a bang (make Jack president, and have him shot when swearing the oath - and then his annoying daughter takes over his job, longing for revenge, and we will never have to watch again. Or we have to watch the loop re-runs of episodes 1 - 7).

As all the shows have been taking breath recently, and only the Battlestar has been revving her engines again, with plenty of waiting time ahead for all the others, I was wondering: what's coming next? Where is the next "Lost", the other BSG-like re-invention of Science Fiction drama, where is the proof that there can be decent tv outside those shows? I am a bit concerned, to be honest, that the time of big-scale drama may already be at an end, that shows that are running over a couple of seasons, but hardly ever lose their aim, their target out of their eyes, may be outdated? Or too expensive? Please no… I just got used to them.

Roger Ebert Weblog

This is too good to be true. I am a late Ebert-explorer, having grown up in parts of the world where he was not known as writer or tv host. So after a couple of months of diving through the regular archives (pleasant enough), but being annoyed at the lack of subscribing in one way or the other to the website, now here comes the Ebert-Blog, opening with the most appropriate things you can expect, a humorous obituary on Arthur C. Clarke, who "died convinced Bill Gates had made a big mistake in not keeping the Cinemania CD-Rom in print."
This is something to look forward to!

Interview Jia ZhangKe

Still maybe my favourite contemporary Chinese filmmaker (auteur? If you please!), Jia ZhangKe's films are, in his own words, but also quite visibly, about ordinary people in typical Chinese settings. This means the people are usually neither rich nor do they live in the prosperous Eastern cities. If they do (as in Shi Jie - The World), then they are caught in a desolate wasteland from where they can only observe the new wealth puring into the country.
Some interesting bits about this interview with Good magazine: I never knew what it means to be "banned from making film" on a practical level, but Jia mentions it, telling about his experience after being subjected to such a ban in 1999:
"So, when I made Pickpocket, I gave no thought to the censors. We just wanted to make the film the way we wanted. In 1998 it showed at the Berlin film festival, and then in 1999 I was banned from making films. This ban had no expiration date, and it meant that I was on a blacklist at all the postproduction companies in Beijing and Shanghai, saying that I couldn’t borrow equipment or develop film."

And on the notion of piracy:
"In the context of China, I also think DVD piracy is useful. I went through a long period during which my knowledge of film came from reading scripts, or listening to other people’s descriptions. I knew about Godard, Truffaut, and films like Kramer vs. Kramer and On Golden Pond, but I hadn’t seen any of them. China had these films, but they were locked away in an archive, to be seen by film insiders and people with special privileges."
The end of the article has a list of his films, useful as a checklist, because I just realise I still have not yet seen "Dong" and "Useless", his latest documentaries. There is also another list of recommended non-Jia movies, most of which are pretty decent.

Wong Kar-wai in Slate Magazine

Even though the guys at "Slate" have a more sober attitude towards Wong's latest films in particular than I have (Mood for Love, 2046 being repetitive efforts - yes, we knew that, but that was somehow the point, was it not?), they still have the fair point that currently it looks as if this without doubt visionary and visually inspiring director is somehow stalled. Even though I have not seen it yet, My Blueberry Nights does not appear to be the re-invention of Sturm und Drang narration and cinematography, either. However, following his contemplating characters dream around for a while is still among the better movie experiences in any case. Just imagine to would have to spend the same time sitting through a Cheng KaiGe epic…

Disoriented tv shows

Is it just me, or:
* was the second season of Heroes lying in a heap of uninspired and all-over-the-pace shambles, with nonsense plot lines (virus) and boring new characters (this latino chica/chicko team), a miserable patchwork abruptly ended by the strike. For some reason beyond me, the makers decided to pretend this was a closed season instead of just having the breath for a 6 month break.

* was the last season of 24 (was it 6 or7?) fatally stuck to a concept that became so formulaic that even the impending death of millions was not able to create tension anymore, and the repetitive "crisis-resolution-more-crisis-more-resolution" pattern was used up for good, probably making the authors grateful for a strike that gave them another year of thinking time.

* should Jericho have ended after one (maybe slightly longer) season, because the effect of being cut off from a world about which you don't know anything, struck by you don't know what, could not hold forever. And once the post-Apocalyptic action sets in, the show loses a lot, because re-building an anarchic society is a completely different story, one which requires larger patterns and larger pictures - in both of which the Jericho production is not as good at as in the chamber drama of "Locked in our little town".

* did "Lost" modulate dangerously between fascinating and desperate efforts to make it to the show's finale, with catastrophic blackouts such as the "I am paralysed by a spiderbite" episode last season, and with an eerie effort to get more things resolved within one episode. This is not necessarily benefincial to a drama that needs to pace towards its finale, and where every resolution along the way only takes away this pace.

The only real high-quality constants of the shows I watch have been CSI (I guess those guys are just too routined to get distracted by anything) and Battlestar Galactica, where there is hope that with the end in sight, there is no danger of losing faith and the path. But then again, we have not yet seen the start of the final season, and dammit, has that last season been long ago!

Star Wars, the better version

Well let's say in comparison to "Phantom Menace", this is the much better movie, and shorter, too! I am the last person on the planet to find it (You Tube Counter at 2 Million plus), but still: Star Wars retold.




And while we are at it, what would this posting be without reference to the other shortest Star Wars version. 30 Seconds, and bunnies!

Are the Movies Back?

I frequently go back to the UME website - always nurturing the dire hope that there must be a day when more interesting produce than "Assembly" and "Warlords" hits Beijing's big screens (I think I would physically give my left arm to see a non-censored version of "No Country for Old Men" on one of the Beijing big-ass multiplex screens - both arms for a double feature with "There will be blood"). During the comfort of the No-US-Movies moratorium that of course did not exist, the screens filled with some extravagant stuff (most if which was outright rubbish) and with a bit of threshold material, pretending not to be American (My Blueberry Pies, I think it was called).
Now I come back to see whether it's better to go for the DVD collection on an uncomfortable Saturday afternoon, and here he is: Will Smith and the Film With the Spelling Mistake in The Title. I would have much preferred to see the IMAX version of I am Legend, of course, but this is not so much a film now, but more a light on the horizon, indicating the point has been made about the WTO and the Chinese film's market share has been re-established (or maybe it's a technicality and one of the producers had an English grandmother? Never mind, it's the signal that counts!). At least this promises a couple of blockbusters in a decent technology setting. Get out the 3-D goggles, Beowulf can't be far!
UPDATE 2008-01-20: The colleagues at www.Danwei.org point to recent schedules with quite a few US and other foreign movies waiting in line: "Doraemon (Japan, 01.24), Salir pitando (Spain, end of Jan), The Water Horse (US, 02.16), Atonement (UK, end of Feb), some Russia movie that I can't find a translation for (end of Feb), and then in March, Golden Compass and National Treasure" linking to this Chinese source and to this slightly different Canadian one. Let's sit and wait…

Chinese Films at Rotterdam Filmfest

This is a good chance to catch up with the films missed over the last years. Rotterdam (January 23 to February 3) will screen some outstanding examples from China's Fourth Generation film makers:
See here for the details and here for more on the respective films:

The films are:

Troubled Laughter / Kunao ren de xiao, Yang Yanjin, Deng Yimin, 1979

Little Flower / Xiao Hua, Huang Jianzhong, Zhang Zheng, 1979

Evening Rain / Bashan yeyu, Wu Yigong, Wu Yonggang, 1980

The Alley / Xiaojie, Yang Yanjin, 1981

River Without Buoys / Meiyou hangbiao de heliu, Wu Tian Ming, 1983

My Memories of Old Beijing / Chengnan jiushi, Wu Yigong, 1983

At the Beach / Haitan, Teng Wenji, 1984

Narrow Lane Celebrity / Xiaoxiang mingliu, Cong Lianwen, 1985

In the Wild Mountains / Yeshan, Yan Xueshu, 1985

Sacrificed Youth / Qingchunji, Zhang Nuanxin, 1985

Woman Demon Human / Ren gui qing, Huang Shuqin, 1987

Black Snow / Benming nian, Xie Fei, 1989

This is a lineup that would be great for a Beijing filmfest, actually. I am sure most of those movies have never really seen the light of China's day.

Bumblebee is Here: Full-Size Transformer sighted

Not that I enjoyed the film too much (let's take it from the positive side: if Michael Bay can be a director, then who can't?), but this story (found by Rick Martin's Little Red Blog) is spectacular enough. Somebody in Nanjing got bored (probably had a bit of leasure time after playing an extra in one of the 25 Nanjing Massacre versions to be filmed on location) and built a full-sized Bumblebee. So if you happen to be in the area, pay him a visit.

The Downfall of HD-DVD

This is appalling on every level，outrageous, tasteless. It's also pretty funny (found through The Movie Blog):

Chinese Film Landscape - Generation What?

That's beijing (or The Beijinger? I am currently a bit lost on what they're called) has quite an interesting article / posting on the whereabouts and whatabouts of the current generation of Chinese big screen directors (even though big screen means for some of those guys being screened at Cherrylane or in the "black box café". Big Big Screens are mostly taken by other stuff). The interesting part is the ralisation that after a clearly identifiable Fifth generation of film-makers (most of who have already sold out, most would agree), number 6 is scattered and less tangible. However: with Jia Zhang-Ke and Li Yu among others, there are now some people around who not only do love and pictures, but also intellect and politics. That is a good sign for the Chinese arthouse cinema, even though it comes at the price of becoming harder for those artists to perform their jobs in mainland China. Let's hail them at least in the festival circus and in the European arthouse theatres!

New Year's Resolutions: Watch more DVDs!

Not mine, no no no, but those resolutions that EW.com's Dalton Ross shares with us include some highlights. Next to the obvious "I resolve to not impregnate any member of the Spears family" that every one of us should subscribe to, I found this one particularly interesting.

"I resolve to stop telling people to watch The Wire, recognizing that if people haven't checked it by now — in its fifth and final season — they ain't gonna start no matter what I or any other critic says." http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20170630,00.html

But man! it's plain wrong! I enjoy the benefit of neither living in the US, where US shows apprently screen first (duh, that was a brainer), nor do I actually have a tv set. Meaning that there is no regular influx of tv shows unless I buy them in a nice packed DVD box, the larger, the better. And the best way to do this is after the whole show is done. Hard to find, but you can do this with the "Muppet Show", with the "X Files", "Twin Peaks" and - the one I am really looking forward to foir this year: "The Sopranos". Just imagine my year: I see the Sopranos for the first time, and I see them from beginning to end! Yes, die of jealousy! And having had three seasons of Lost in one go, or 7 of CSI to devour is not bad either. "24" has to be seen in one rushed weekend, anyway. Once you get hooked onto the weekly addiction, all those shows lose quite a bit of their appeal for me. I want to dive in deep, and 40 minutes is just not enough to do that.

EW.com: Is sci-fi out of ideas?

Very nice piece by Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly (where I go compulsively to find the latest Stephen King column: )

"This Christmas' guilty-pleasure DVD indulgence was a multidisc collection of five different versions of the 1982 film Blade Runner, which is itself based on a 40-year-old Philip K. Dick novel. Personally, I'm holding out for a SuperPlatinum Deluxe Psychotic Edition, which will arrive in a crate containing 47 discs and Ridley Scott himself, who will hang out with you and then rewire your home sound system."

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20169296,00.html

Oh yes, oh dear...right, the Cinephiles

As found by Jim Emerson of Chicago Sun-Times (http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/12/stages_of_a_cinephile.html) when he read the Grish comments: http://www.girishshambu.com/blog/2007/12/defining-moments-in-moviesrosenbaums.html

Stages of a Cinephile:
1. Ages 6-13/ marvel at the lights, learn about adult life, eat sugar/Disney, Spielberg, John Hughes
2. Ages 14-19/ age of discovery, excitement and inspiration/ Rear Window, Bicycle Thief, early Godard
3. Ages 20-26/ O.C.D. attempt to see everything by every major director/ Dreyer, Ozu, late Godard
4. Ages 27-33/ burn out period, start seeing films rarely and complain about how bad movies have gotten, sell your old videos/ Straub, Snow, Dziga Vertov Group

5. Ages 34-41/ burn out continues, fall asleep in one two many Sokurov films, stop watching art films and start watching blockbusters again, become a faux-populist and develop inane arguments about movies you’ve never seen

6. Ages 42-45/ watch only Reality TV and Internet porn, get drunk alone, send mass emails linking to Armond White reviews

7. Ages 46- /after therapy and anti-depressants repeat steps 3-6.

Why China's films are currently a lost cause

See an excellent contribution by Imagethief about a Chinese "film official"'s successful effort to make a fool out of himself. Unfortunately the attitude by the official is one very much representative for many parts of China's "culture industry".
It does not happen too often that one reads a lengthy article and shouts "YEAH" at every full stop. I did with this one. Only have to add that the Michael Bay example is a brilliant one, because it shows how super-patriotism frequently coincides with lack of talent by people who get drowned in cash. Bay should become Chinese, he could make exactly the films he likes, and about 5 billion US dollars every year could be spent on less lobotomic output. (In the words of Matt Groning: Bay would realise that his films are mere comedies, but he doesn't, because he is a turd.)
The one feature of the Chinese government-approved culture industry I find the most telling is the complete lack of self-confidence, which then again must lead to crapping your pants when anybody makes fun of you or critizices you. Those cultures are able to create powerful cultural produce that are able and willing to play with their own strengths and weaknesses at equal measure. I think the culture officials of any country should start watching some movies for a change - and learn to judge what it means that one cultural domain is able to produce the range of "Taxi Driver", "Apocalypse Now", "Thank you for Smoking" and, yes, also "Transformers" - and why another is unable to rise beyond "WuJi".

Mental note: Watch Bourne 3

Because all the reviewers stumble over themselves for the most original praise. E.g.: "The 007 fan in me did wince a bit, though, when Bourne planned his journey from Spain to North Africa: "If we hurry, we can make the morning ferry!" The ferry? Good heavens man, where's the collapsible helicopter that folds into your wallet? Where's the F1-11 fighter plane that materialises when you drop a tablet into a glass of water? Call yourself a spy?"

http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,,2150073,00.html

New MPAA Internet Age Classification for Trailers

The New York Yimes has the interesting story about a new yellow label
trailers can get for online distribution. This only refers to "age
appropriateness", and does not specify an age group. What it means is that
the trailer is suitable for "visitors to sites either frequented mainly by
grown-ups or accessible only between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m." It is a bit of a
funny mix-up of 19th and 21st century, but at least now there's a certain
chance of having trailers that reflect the film better than before, as
opposed to having family-firendly trailers luring audiences into movies they
do not want to see. You will figure out a way to find out what time it is at
the location of the server. Or your location as a user? Or the film
production company's location? Or the producer of the slasher blade that is
being used to . anyway: The (useless) remake of "Halloween" has the honour
of being the first to use it.There is also an R-rated version of the trailer
tag, in appropriate and attractive red. These "require viewers to pass an
age-verification test, in which viewers 17 and older have to match their
names, birthdays and ZIP codes against public records on file", says NYT
online.
Full story at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/movies/13yell.html?ex=1182916800&en=3f7ce7
9d259bc517&ei=5070 (registration required, but free, and worth it, anyway!)

Life's a bitch

it's not really that I am complaining about life as such, but how shitty can a cinema programme get? Very shitty, indeed! This may well be the worst choice any cinema has ever had on offer. Will probably check out Chinese porn actors' problems instead at this place.

No "Departed" for China

Reuters writes that Martin Scorsese's "The Departed"
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/) will not be shown in (mainland)
Chinese theaters. The reason apparently is the plot line in which Chinese
government agents attempt to purchase advanced weapons technology.
According to Reuters' source, censors believed the Chinese portion of the
story was "unnecessary." What they meant by this, it seems, is that it was
unnecessary for the weapons purchasers to be Chinese. Said the source: "
The regulators just cannot understand why the movie wanted to involve China.
They can talk about Iran or Iraq or whatever, but there's no reason to get
China in."
Source:
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/01/china_blocks_entry_to_scorseses_departe
d_reuters.php

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Kermode Advent Calendar

Relive the Moments... the Mark Kermode Ad-rant Calendar! Hilarious...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/kermode/adventcalendar/index.shtml

Mark Kermode

Attention Attention Important Announcement! I have been completely ignorant to the movie reviews by Mark Kermode on Five Live so far. When I listened to his bashing as Elizabethtown and his mourning over Brothers Grimm today in the Five Live Archive, I promised to myself that I will never miss a single Podcast of this show and that I will not rest until I have (a) found out how to download shows from the archive, (b) downloaded every single bit of it or got all streamed or whatever. I was in tears when he raged about Elizabethtown's outrageousness and was swimming in vomit, calling for the barf bag in vain! Yes! Greatest Podcast ever!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode.shtml?focuswin

The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made

The best link ever put online? I don't know, but it's competitive, that's for sure. Actually, a Top 1000 list is much mopre pleasant than a Top 10 or Top 100 list, there surely have not been more than 213 really great films over the last century, so all of them are supposedly included and the trick is to find out which ones they are.

What's great about the NYT site is not the list of films, but the fact that the links to the original reviews are being offered. So you can savour the insight of the critic about the early Martin Scorsese: "one of the best of the new American filmmakers") and the late ... well ... the mid-aged
Kirk Douglas and his "Spartacus": "the music score of Alex North is good and loud").
This is a temptation for any film buff, so be aware of the addictive qualities of these reviews - and go for it! Two a day, at least!
Here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/1000best.html

Perfume - Pre-Review and scary Thoughts

So often, the film based on or inspired by a novel has disappointed. From what can be read these days, "Perfume" will be the culmination point of all possible disappointments. Of all books, it is the least visual, its most crucial aspects taking place exclusively in the mind of Grenouille (while he remains almost motionless for 7 years, how about that for a movie?). The novel is something like a Holy Grail for us Germans, showing a narrative and linguistic power that we had not expected from German authors - this opulence of sensuality and the outrageousness of the protagonist's amorality are just too powerful to resist when you grew up with the likes of Siegfried Lenz, Hermann Hesse and Martin Walser…  (I think the success stems more from this surprise, less from the actual qualities of the book). I am a bit afraid that this monolithic achievement of German post-war literature might get damaged by the film. Films, as much as I love them, may be able to interpret specific motives from literature and create a new piece of art on top of them (see Kubrick, or Hitchcock). They are also (sometimes) able to add an artistic perspective to an already well-known story. By that I mean the cases where the story is sufficiently well-known (so well-known, as a matter of fact, that you can play with the storyline again), but does not necessarily have a standing as a major literary achievement in its own right. And thinking about the example for this category, I cannot but think of the "10 Commandments" and all those flics based on the same book… Where things can go really bad is when the book has all features of a masterpiece: plot, characters, drama, thrill, language. This now may be a matter of taste, but in my opinion, the only possible way of making a good film out of such a book is the "Kubrick way" (maybe that was why according to rumors Patrick Sueskind had him in mind as a director? So that the book remained unharmed? We don't know). Any effort to merely add the pictures to the letters will end in desaster. No, not desaster, but let's be more personal: In boredeom. I have never felt as bored in a major movie than in the first part of "Harry Potter", where nothing of substance was added to what already existed in the book. The only interesting thing was the ommissions. The pictures? No, I did have pictures before, trust me on this, anybody has plenty of pictures when reading a good book. (No, I do not really want to claim Mr Potter's biography was on the same quality level as Mr Grenouille's, but they have their similarities in their monumental impact on the literary scenes - and they are both entertaining, for some).

What we can expect from the "Perfume" is a very naturalistic film, with the stench of Paris and of Grasse, and the sweet odour of virgins about to get killed being put into colours. No doubt it will look great. Expecting more than that would be daring. Beyond that, what I hope is that not too many movie tie-ins and picture books hit the shelfes and spoil the uniqueness of what Sueskind has achieved for German literature.

A review after the press screenings can be found here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign/kateconnolly/aug06/stinker.htm

Spike Lee story: "The Angriest Auteur"

Biiiig story about Spike Lee and his wife Tonya Lewis in the NewYork
Magazine. It's called "The Angriest Auteur" and can be found here:
http://newyorkmetro.com/movies/profiles/19144/index.html. It comes just in
time to remind us all of the "Hurricane Katrina" docu Lee has produced for
HBO and which will was screened Aug 17th for the first time (in New Orleans,
of course). Hopefully soon to be seen in other places, too. But praise for
Spike Lee can already be found everywhere.
IMDB link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0783612/,
reviews:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081700
330.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,,1851742,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

No more previews for the critics?

I liked that article in the seattlepi: "Fewer movies are being prescreened
for critics -- and that's a good thing" by WILLIAM ARNOLD. He is basically
interpreting the hesitation of some distributors to offer previews for
journalists and introduces his vision of what movies will receive what form
of media attention in the future. I have to say: I almost completely agree
with his notion that reserving all this newspaper space for reviews of films
you will either see anyway or that you won't see anyway is "a waste of ink"
and that the other films - those where reviews actually make a difference -
are strangulated by this (in the US) Friday morning mayhem.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/281456_snakes17.html

NYTimes on that difference...

… the difference between the taste of audiences (or merely their behaviour?) and critic's choices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/movies/18crit.html

Covernsations with Ingmar Bergman (by Olivier Assayas, Stig Bjoerkman)

After heaving read "Trier about von Trier", an interview also conducted by Stig Bjoerkman, it became unavoidable to read the Bergman book, too. So many references to Bergman's films, so huge a relevance he has for today's film-makers not just in Scandinavia, but all over the world. The Interview was conducted quite late, I think 1990, so many films are far and lost in the momories of an old man. He is also very humble about many films, pretending not to remember them propoerly or waving them off as unimportant. Those where he accepts the discussion must be wort seeing, however, and the comments by the two interview partners give you some exciting insight in what it must be like to experience them for the first time (in some repsect, this means, I can be glad that I have hardly seen any Bergman film so far, only "Snake's Egg", I think, and he does not seem to like that one). In particular, I think, the following ones should be on the shelf soon (and maybe seen in the order of initial release): (not sure about the respective English titles): "The Summer with Monika", "For one Summer", Wild Strawberries”, “Scenes of a Marriage”, "The Silence", "The Face","Hour of the Wolf:, "Light in Winter"  "Persona", "Shame", "7th Seal", "Fanny and Alexander". And so on… There’s a task at hand!

The book: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3895810711/qid%3D1143774651/028-0608125-1602967
Bergman’s Auto-Biography “Laterna Magica”: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3895810932/ref=pd_sim_dp_1/028-0608125-1602967

The films he directed: http://imdb.com/name/nm0000005/#director

Some latecomers from the neighborhood

I decided to get rid of the blog dedicated to Chinese cinema in particular,
partly because Chinese cinema is in dire straits at the moment, and it hurts
reading about it. No, really, I just got confused with too many of thes
things, so I moved the small number of entries to this place (this explains
why the last five entries refer to things that are months old), which is now
the one and only place to look for comprehensive, intelligent, thoughtful,
outstanding comments on cinema and related issues.

In diesem Blog gibt es kurze Kommentare zu den von mir gesehenen Filmen zu lesen. Sei es im plüschigen Filmtheater mit Brokatvorhang - oder in Saal 18 des Vorstadtmultiplexes - oder auf dem Sofa, zwischen DVD-Schachteln und mit der Bierdose in der Hand. Content ist King, und wenn der nix taugt, dann wird das hier vermerkt, als Warnung an mich und an die Nachwelt.

This blog will feature short comments on the films I've seen, wherever and whenever: be it in the cozy comfort of the proper film palaces, or the shabby malls, or on the home sofa cinema studio, between stacks of DVD boxes and canned beer. It's content that counts, and if it sucks, this site is here to remind me and those who come hereafter of it.