Twitch: Film & DVD Reviews (Work-Safe)

Yama no Anata: Tokuichi no Koi aka My Darling of the Mountains

2008-07-01T15:40:31Z

Toku and Foku travel between seaside spas in the North and mountain hot springs in the South from season to season. They offer their services as masseurs and are very much respected and appreciated by hotel owners and their patrons. They are also known to be very competitive hikers as they attempt to pass as many other hikers as possible before they reach their destinations each year. They find this very satisfying because they are blind. Toku’s first client upon their return to a mountain resort is a woman from Tokyo, Michiho.

Review of HANCOCK

2008-07-01T15:24:09Z

A few people I know who saw the trailer for Hancock thought it revealed everything in the movie. They boasted that they can write an accurate review of the movie just from the trailer.

If you think you know what the story is about, well think again. Seriously.

Hancock is simply one of the very rare Hollywood blockbusters today that can still surprise. Nothing you already know about superhero movies will prepare you for this. I assure you.

Review: Wall-E

2008-06-30T23:05:20Z

I don’t know if a science-fiction movie should be judged by the casting of its fictional president, because well that would make Deep Impact (Morgan Freeman) or Independence Day (Bill Pullman) seem like half-way decent entertainment. But I have to admire the chutzpah of placing Fred Willard as the President/CEO of Earth in Pixar’s WallE. Rare that an actors face shows up in one of Pixar’s CGI films, even if it is ‘archival footage.’ Nevertheless, Willard’s all-smiles, no brains (but really there is a brain) vintage comedy fits perfectly into the science fiction tale where big box stores, privatization and consumer detritus have made life on earth forfeit. That all is left is a single garbage handling unit (well and his cockroach companion, natch) who is all the lonelier for having as his only emotional anchor the innocent and saccharine Hello Dolly! If holding hands while staring into your partners eyes is the ultimate physical expression of true love, then WallE, with his large grips and larger puppy-dog eyes seems born to do so.

Rovdyr – Blu Ray review

2008-06-30T19:43:17Z

We have been following the making of the Norwegian horror film Rovdyr for a while now and today the Blu Ray release came through my mailbox after it was delayed for a couple of months.

Scandinavia in the last few years have been emerging as an area to look out for when it comes to horror, just like France who’s young directors have been churning out some of the most gruesome horror films of this decade. Norway has been dipping its toes in to the crimson waters with Fritt Vilt which got great reviews and now two years later the horror hit Rovdyr by Patrik Syversen burst on the scene with its hard hitting violence and breakneck pace.

2008 FRAMELINE32—REVIEW of Chris & Don: A Love Story

2008-06-30T18:36:37Z

“We don’t need no piece of paper from the City Hall keeping us tied and true…”—Joni Mitchell, “My Ol’ Man”

Historically, the California Supreme Court’s recent decision affirming gay marriage—while good news—doesn’t take away much from the countless couples who committed themselves without sanction in decades past; the intergenerational partnership of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy being perhaps one of the most infamous, if not controversial. That lifelong partnership is affectionately documented in Guido Santi’s and Tina Mascara’s Chris & Don: A Love Story (site), which Variety’s Robert Koehler describes as “focusing on the texture and sweetness of a particularly beguiling real-life gay love saga.”

2008 FRAMELINE32—REVIEW of The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela

2008-06-30T18:12:40Z

I wish Pee Wee Herman were still around. If he were, we could make “transtastic” the word of the day and scream outloud whenever it’s used at the Frameline Film Festival, which will be often with regard to Olaf de Fleur Johannesson’s docudrama The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela (site). Billed as a transsexual Cinderella story, this Berlinale Teddy winner is amazingly engaging for its heady blend of gritty vérité and whimsical fairy tale. Why should I care about froggy-throated Filipina “lady-boy” Raquela Rios and the journey by which she lifts herself out of the gutters of Cebu City, through Internet porn, through Icelandic fish factories, to a delicately-staged freedom in Paris? Because it documents the desire each and every one of us has to achieve our dreams. Because each and every one of us deserves a better life. Because we’re all orphaned royalty exiled from our true kingdom. If Queen Raquela can do it—however she has to—we all can do it, however we must.

NYAFF Report: Controversial Documentary YASUKUNI Review

2008-06-30T10:57:42Z

On the 15th of August 2005, Japan celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of what they call “The Great Asian War”, which we call “The East Part Of World War II”. Many of these celebrations were taking place in and around Yasukuni, a Shintoist shrine where thousands of swords were created for the officers of the Japanese army. It also holds the remains of a vast amount of Japanese soldiers who died during the “Holy Wars” fought for the emperor, holy wars including that big one 60 years ago.

The Yasukuni shrine made the news several times between 2001 and 2006 when Koizumi Junichiro, then the Prime Minister of Japan, made well-publicized yearly visits to the shrine. This to the abhorrence of many Chinese, South Koreans and indeed Japanese, because Yasukuni also houses, even actively WELCOMES the remains of tried war criminals. According to fanatical Shintoists, these people have done nothing wrong and are to be considered heroes, who served Japan with valor under its God-emperor Hirohito. Prime Minister Koizumi’s visits were seen by many as an approval of this view.

Chinese director Li Ying went to the Yasukuni shrine in 2005 and made a film about the controversy surrounding the 2005 visit by Koizumi. He shot footage of rallies, petitions and ceremonies and managed to speak the sole surviving swordmaker of Yasukuni, a nonagenarian who allowed him to film the actual process of making a sword. Edited together with archive footage and pictures this became the documentary “Yasukuni”.

Although both sides get plenty of screen time to voice their opinions, the end result was deemed too controversial to be shown in Japanese cinemas until it got itself a reputation as something you needed to have seen, if only to show you supported the right of Freedom Of Speech.

So is it good?
Well, after a very slow start it gets interesting, and frankly that is all a documentary needs to be to start rolling.

More after the break.

Movie Review: The Crossing

2008-06-29T06:03:19Z

Over the last few years, I have started to really hate Korean Films. Recently, they were just all flash and no substance. The plots were bad, the acting was horrible and by the end of the film, I would swear that I would never watch another Korean film ever again. Lately,every time I have broken that vow, I have been sorely disappointed by the crap that Korean films have become. So far in 2008,I have only seen one Korean film come out that I have even liked and it was a great one called, The Chaser

NYAFF Report: M Review

2008-06-29T01:09:01Z

There is little doubt that Korea’s Lee Myung-Se is one of the purest cinematic talents working in the world today. His grasp of the language unique to cinema is staggering, his ability to merge cinematography, editing and sound unparalleled. The man is a flat out technical giant. That said, his devotion to form often leads to some problems with story and while with M Lee irons out the tonal problems that plagued The Duelist to craft one of his most unified and focused works to date the film is so heavily constructed that the highly structured form obscures the emotional core of the story resulting in what is arguably his least accessible film thus far.

NYAFF Report: SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO Review

2008-06-28T01:08:00Z

Thank God for English subtitles. Yes, the latest from Japanese cult icon Takashi Miike, his spin on the spaghetti western, is technically already in English but thanks to the vast majority of his performers speaking no English at all and having to deliver their lines phonetically trying to watch this film without subtitles would have been an exercise in pain. With them, however, the film is a loopy explosion of energy, the most overtly crowd pleasing effort from the prolific cinematic freak show since Zebraman. Bright, brash, violent, and intentionally camp Sukiyaki Western Django is that rarest of things: an intentional cult film that succeeds on all fronts.

NYAFF Report: ACCURACY OF DEATH aka SWEET RAIN Review

2008-06-28T00:24:00Z

Ehm… tell me if you’ve heard this one before: an anthropomorphic version of Death walks amongst people, with God-like knowledge and powers, but when he takes a closer interest in some of his subjects he suddenly gains new insights about what “life” and “death” mean.

There is nothing new in having death itself or one of its helpers show up as a human figure in movies, although it is slightly more original to give it the starring role. Every time it happens, though, invariably such a film will try to tell the audience that life is bittersweet yet worth living. Which, frankly, is like saying the sky is blue, the sun is hot and rain is wet. The sheer obviousness of the topic (for why else would you have Death feature as a character?) makes it a dangerous one: all too easily you get an end result which is too sentimental, too serious, or both.

Does Kakei Masaya’s “Accuracy of Death” avoid this pitfall? Not entirely, as the alternate title “Sweet Rain” aptly predicts.
Is it worth watching though? Oh yes…

And the biggest reason for that is Takeshi Kaneshiro, who basically saves the movie with his performance as Chiba aka. “The Grim Reaper”.

More after the break…

NYAFF Report: DAI NIPPONJIN Review

2008-06-27T01:07:00Z

Meet Dai Saito. He’s your typical, working class shlub in Japan. There’s never quite enough money, there are few prospects for the future, he hardly ever see his daughter, and his grandfather suffers from dementia. But there’s more! Dai Saito is also Dai Nipponjin, the sixth generation superhero who grows to enormous size when exposed to electricity to battle the monsters rampaging across Japan! Too bad nobody cares ...

NYAFF Report: ALWAYS, SUNSET ON THIRD STREET Review

2008-06-26T01:06:00Z

Call it the Titanic Syndrome but whenever word comes out of a film sweeping film awards the assumption tends to be that it has done so by playing to the lowest possible common denominator, by glossing things up to a polished sheen and hoping by doing so to distract the audience from the fact that they’re being shamelessly manipulated. And, honestly, Takashi Yamazaki’s Always – winner of twelve of thirteen total awards offered in Japan’s version of the Oscars and the winner of the Audience Choice award at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival – does exactly that. A wildly nostalgic film with a palpable ache for simpler days gone by Always reaches for every possible emotional button, flips every switch, practically begs you to follow where Yamazaki wants to lead. Subtle it is not but it is, however, blessed with strong enough characters and enough grace points that you are more than willing to forgive the occasional excess in favor of the larger whole. Always is such a polished, poised and consistent piece of work that it is hard to believe that it is from the same man who made the occasionally entertaining but wildly inconsistent Returner.

NYAFF Report: ALWAYS: SUNSET ON THIRD STREET 2 Review

2008-06-25T14:41:01Z

When you create a film that manages the difficult feat of winning the hearts of both critics and the public alike, pulling in serious box office coin while also managing a near-sweep of the local equivalent to the Oscars, there’s only one thing to do: make a sequel. Luckily for us, Takashi Yamazaki’s original Always: Sunset On Third Street was so full of rich characters that any excuse to pay a fresh visit to Third Street is more than welcome. All of the ingredients that made the first film such a rousing success are also in full effect here and while the sequel might lose a little something simply due to the audience now knowing the formula and what to expect it more than makes that up in the pleasure of seeing our favorite characters continue to develop and grow. There is, after all, something to be said for a director that knows what his audience wants and then proceeds to give them exactly that.

THE FLOCK Review

2008-06-25T14:36:00Z

Our thanks to regular Twitch reader Volker Briegleb for this review of Infernal Affairs director Andrew Lau’s Hollywood debut, The Flock.

What a mess. Quite unfortunately, there’s probably no better way to describe Andrew Lau’s US debut as director. To be fair, “The Flock” is an interesting mess—after all, this is coming from the man behind the highly acclaimed “Infernal Affairs” franchise. There are a few moments that “Flock”, starring an ageing Richard Gere and wide-eyed Clare Danes, trancends its apparent flaws and becomes a film that could be. But those are far to few to make this a satisfying genre flick. For all we know, this might not be entirely Lau’s fault.