The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Foreign
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Excruciatingly boring tale of a young orphan and the hooker with a heart of gold who takes her in. Set in a dystopian future Japan, despite always being boring, the film doesn’t get too bad until about forty minutes into the two hour and thirty minute (!) run time when the future mobsters show up.…
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Often excellent, deliberate drama about forty-ish Lee Mi-suk having an affair with much younger Lee Jung-jae. Lee Mi-suk is phenomenal throughout, but the film’s very uneven between the first and second halves. In the first half, the film could just as easily be establishing Lee Jung-jae as a stalker while cuckold Song Young-chang seems like…
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Scandal presents an incredibly humane side of Kurosawa, one his historical pictures don’t convey. He shows the desperate sadness of people and offers little visible hope throughout. There’s one scene, when the protagonist (played by Mifune Toshirô) and the main character (Shimura Takashi) come across a pond reflecting the stars and Mifune comments about the…
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Tedious samurai picture about honor and obligation; director Yamada tells it all in summary and set pieces, with thinly contrived manipulative actions to connect those set pieces and drive that summary. Nagase Masatoshi gives an excellent performance but it’s a depthless part. Based on stories by Fujiwara Shuhei, just like Yamada’s immediately previous film THE…
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Great procedural about a police investigation into government corruption with a phenomenal lead performance by Mifune Toshirô in the lead. Intricate, complex screenplay–inspired by HAMLET no less–but tender and playful in a very un-HAMLET way. Kurosawa’s got a deliberate focus as the film follows multiple characters through the run time, with salient events often coming…
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Very cute adaptation of Annie M. G. Schmidt’s children’s novel about a cat who (through a chemical serum) becomes very human Carice van Houten, who then helps aspiring journalist Theo Maassen. She’s still able to talk cat so she gets all her old friends to dig up news around town. Lovely sets–rooftop are very important…
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Not exactly romantic comedy or drama about school teacher Park Hae-il perving on and manipulating colleague Kang Hye-jeong into dating him–the film goes from being a cringe-y “sexual harassment comedy” to a cringe-y “sexual harassment drama.” Really strong performance from Kang and some potentially good dramatic developments in the plot get flushed for the pat…
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Beautiful, dialogue-free film about a family living on a desolate island without any potable water (the daily trips to the mainland for water figures in). Director Shindô zooms out the narrative distance so far the people are just living creatures as opposed to human beings. Lots of successful elements, both generally (wonderful score by Hayashi…
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Profoundly boring story of the creation and opening of the Moulin Rouge. Well-acted, with Jean Gabin in the lead, just completely pointless. The film’s a series of conflicts and resolutions without any rising action, the opening as a backdrop–no idea if it’s historically accurate, but it would be nice to have some drama. Or a…
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Spectacular comedic, romantic drama about Korean Lee Jung-jae falling for a Japanese webcam girl (Tachibana Misato) and because it’s the movies (and the year 2000), he’s not a creep and she likes him. Great script from director Lee, phenomenal performances from the leads. Tachibana probably wins if its a contest but actor Lee is great…
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Good, if impersonal, Kurosawa epic about thief (Nakadai Tatsuya) getting recruited to impersonate a warlord (also Nakadai). Complications, obviously, ensue. Kurosawa seems beholden to historical accuracy at the expense of natural drama. The film’s so packed with information, it could even use some more run time (as is, it’s over two and a half hours).…
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Mostly outstanding night in the life picture about three young men, one White (Vincent Cassel), one Black (Hubert Koundé), and one Arab (Saïd Taghmaoui); the city is rioting after police assault one of their peers. Writer-director Kassovitz never gets preachy, impressive given it’s shot in atmospheric black and white, but he does get predictable, constraining…
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Initially derivative, then good story of Korean teenager Kubozuka Yôsuke growing up in Japan and suffering racism. Lots of good stuff with the family and the friends, with the romance and the comedy coming in a distant third (and fourth). But then all of a sudden the romance gets good. Sometimes rocky–even through the denouement–but…
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Toho’s last Godzilla entry before an extended break is homage to the seventies take on the monster with lots of monsters, lots of wrestling, lots of monsters wrestling. Sadly very long fight scenes and way too much reliance on wanting CGI. Director Kitamura doesn’t seem to have any interest in the giant monsters, which is…
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Predictable teenage love story with some tragedy and a “present day” framing device thrown in. Osawa Takao has gotten engaged but he’s still not over teenage love Nagasawa Masami. What makes the film work–in addition to some truly wonderful direction from Yukisada–is the acting from Nagasawa and Moriyama Mirai (as the teenage version of Osawa).…
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Rookie cop Go Soo already has his hands full with drug dealers then comes across TV reporter Song Ji-hyo, who may or may not be able to tell the future, and the two find themselves trapped in increasingly dangerous (and ominous) situations. Cute and occasionally lighthearted, the film still manages to be violent and threatening.…
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Ineptly executed decent idea–soldiers on either side of the Korean border becoming pals and how wrong things go. Director Park sentimentalizes more than directs. Some of the acting makes it bearable, though far from all of it. DVD.Continue reading →
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Middling but inoffensive Korean supernatural thriller about an Antarctic expedition; pretty soon expedition members start dying off one by one. Beautiful New Zealand locations, fine direction, and okay plotting can’t overcome weak characterizations or the script’s emotional cheapness. The acting is better than the writing needs or deserves. DVD (R3).Continue reading →
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Sometimes quite good cop movie about good cop Daniel Auteuil and good-but-complicated cop Gérard Depardieu jockeying for the same promotion and both becoming morally compromised (or worse). Loses its footing more and more as things progress. Auteuil’s good, Depardieu’s awesome, but they can’t save the film from director Marchal or the script. DVD.Continue reading →
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Direct continuation sequel is probably incomprehensible if you haven’t seen #1. Ueto Aya is a master assassin in Tokugawa Japan; everyone underestimates her because she’s a girl. Low budget, bad villains, and Kaneko’s mostly unimaginative direction don’t help, neither do the sillier aspects of the script. Ueto’s good and Kaneko does an amazing job with…
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Well-made but predictable romantic melodrama has Son Ye-jin as a college student who finds her mom’s old love letters. Son also plays Mom in flashbacks. Good performances all around, but it just doesn’t work out. Writer-director Kwak can’t do the melodrama. DVD (R3).Continue reading →
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Widowed samurai Sanada Hiroyuki has given up the warrior life to take care of his kids. Then childhood love Miyazawa Rie comes to town and things start changing. Good performances–especially from Sanada–but the narrative’s disjointed and suffers from a constant lack of focus. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading →
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Problematic, reductive adaptation of Maxim Gorky play about residents of Russian flophouse and their successes and failures trying to get out of poverty. Great performances from Jean Gabin and Louis Jouvet, but director Renoir loses track of the film when away from them. DVD.Continue reading →
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Tsutsumi Shin’ichi is an introvert professor, Uchiyama Rina is his long-lost (and completely unknown to him) daughter. She tracks him down and starts influencing his life for the better. Amazing performance from Tsutsumi can’t save the film, which has serious script problems. DVD (R2).Continue reading →
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Suicidal Alejandro Ferretis–he’s got a bad leg–travels to a rural area to do the deed, then meets an older woman (Magdalena Flores) and decides life’s worth living so long as she gets jiggy with him. Pretentious, self-indulgent, long. So long. Reygadas’s uneven direction is at least better than the script; the all-amateur cast is far…
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Gérard Séty runs a failing psychiatric hospital and agrees to hide mysterious Curd Jürgens (for a fee). The hospital is then overrun by spies from both East and West, complicating things. All the acting is good; Séty is excellent. Very complex script, superiorly navigated by Clouzot’s direction. DVD (R2).Continue reading →
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Technically magnificent action/horror picture has Sakaguchi Tak fighting zombies with a samurai sword while wearing an ultra cool black leather trench coat. The writing is always iffy, but Kitamura’s direction tends to compensate enough. DVD, Streaming.Continue reading →
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Patient, deliberate drama about a family coping with the mother’s death. Only the wrap-up is uneven; an excellent debut from writer-director Bonnell. DVD.Continue reading →
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Lee Jung-Jae starred in the first Korean film I watched, Il Mare, and I’ve seen another one with him in it. Some bad one that was half-gritty cop movie and half English Patient. I probably did I write up, I remember typing that slight before. Over the Rainbow is, therefore, his first good film. You…
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The modern Japanese drama tends to be emotive. Even when they aren’t good, they succeed in making the viewer care for the characters. Turn is, ostensibly, a Japanese Groundhog Day. Only not funny. Where Groundhog Day was about Bill Murray interacting with people with no consequence, the character stuck in turnover in Turn is alone.…
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