My goal: to see 100
movies in 2007
(Last
year, I saw 95 films, listed here. The 97 films I saw in 2005 are listed here. The list of the 115 films I saw in 2004 is here. The list of the 86 movies I saw in 2003 is here.)
Return to Michael K. Bourdaghs
homepage
90). Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007;
dir. Steve Bendelack). I have a higher tolerance for Mr. Bean than
most adults, and this is silly, pleasant fun.
You wish it might be more ambitious in its parodying of Hollywood
commodity-cinema and that it might come closer to the level of its obvious
namesake, M. Hulot’s
Holiday. The soundtrack music seems
as randomly assembled as the ring tones on the cell phone that Mr. Bean plays
with during one sequence. But it’s hard enough
to make good comedy, especially when you largely deny yourself the resources of
the spoken language, and so rather than complain about what this is not, it’s
probably more fitting to enjoy what it is.
(12/30/07 as in-flight movie).
89). Watashi o ski ni tsuretette (Take Me To The Snowland;
1987; dir. Baba Yasuo). A perfect time capsule from late 1980s
Japanese mass culture, as beautiful
twenty-somethings enjoy a life of high consumption/romance: the cars, gadgets, leisure trips, clothes, and
drinking. The soundtrack by Yuming completes the deal.
You can’t imagine how nostalgic this is for someone who was there…. (12/30/07 as in-flight movie).
88). Circus goningumi (Five-Man Circus; 1935; dir. Naruse Mikio). Fine example of 1930s “ero-guro-nonsense” culture,
replete with cafes, chorus girls, and popular music. Naruse seems
fascinated with the “mass” in mass culture:
in several sequences of circus performances, he seems more interested in
capturing crowd reactions than the performers.
The plot, such as it is, features the foibles
of a traveling troupe of five male musicians:
they chase women, get drunk, have their hearts broken. Typically, one of them dreams of becoming a
serious musician, a violinist; the masses fail to appreciate him, but the
tough-as-nails circus girl with a heart of gold understands. And then, inevitably, they move on to the
next town. Lots of dynamic camerawork and editing. (12/19/07 on Nippon Eiga Senmon Channel).
87). Chijin no ai (A Fool’s Love; 1949; dir. Kimura Kengo). I couldn’t
figure out what the male bodybuilder striking poses behind the opening credits
was supposed to signify. But when he
returned at the final ending credit, I think I got it. The climax of the plot is drastically altered
from the novel: unlike the book version,
here Naomi (played in fine sex-kitten fashion by Kyô Machiko)
surrenders completely to her husband, telling him that she wants to know the
secret to real happiness as an obedient wife.
In other words, Jôji
the husband wins out and becomes a real man.
I also kept trying to figure out, without much success, if the setting
was the early 1920s (as in the novel) or in Occupied postwar Japan (when the
film was made). (12/16/07 at Asagaya Raputa Theater)
86). Kureeji no daisakusen (Crazy Operation; 1966; dir. Furusawa Kengo). Another glossy Crazy Cats
musical-comedy from the 1960s.
Here, Ueki Hitoshi leads the gang in a heist story full of sight gags,
musical numbers, and slapstick chase sequences as they try to steal a billion
yen from a group of criminals. Very
reminiscent of such contemporary Hollywood films as Casino Royale, What’s New,
Pussycat?, and the Dean Martin “Matt Helms”
series. My favorite moment: in one of the musical sequences, the Crazy
Cats briefly and devastatingly parody the “ereki
boom” of surf-guitar bands. (12/11/07 as in-flight movie).
85). Shaberedomo Shaberedomo (Talk, Talk, Talk; 2007; dir. Hirayama
Hideyuki). Warm, nostalgic film about
the aura that popular culture forms take on as they fade from view: rakugo storytelling,
baseball, neighborhood festivals, etc. A
young-but-hapless apprentice storyteller takes on three students who hope that
learning to perform comic tales will help them overcome personal failings, all
of which derive from an inability to speak freely. The pupils and their teacher all find
happiness, of course. Ideological
message: the key to redemption involves
living in Japanese-style homes and wearing Japanese-style clothing. The storytelling performances are fun,
though. (12/11/07 as
in-flight movie).
84). Lower City (Cidade Baixa; 2005; dir. Sergio Machado). Filmed in semi-documentary style with lots of
hand-held shots, this tells the story of a love triangle set in the slums of
lower-class Brazil, with racial tensions thrown in to boot. Two men, one black and one white, co-own a
small freight boat. They have been
friends since childhood, but their homosocial bonds
are put to the test when they both fall for the same woman, an exotic dancer
who turns tricks on the side. Lots of sex
and violence, but the film never quite gels:
the characters in the end fail to capture our imagination, I think. (12/10/07 via on-line streaming from
www.netflix.com)
83). Hakai (Apostasy; also known as
Broken Commandment; 1948; dir.
Kinoshita Keisuke). I’d been wanting to see this adaptation of Shimazaki
Tôson’s
1906 novel for many years. Very much a
product of the reformist early postwar years, this version foregrounds the
political, starting with an opening title sequence that situates the story in
the context of freedom and equality, the new constitution, and the struggle to
stamp out evil feudal remnants. As in
the 1962 version directed by Ichikawa Kon, the novel’s
ending is rewritten: instead of emigrating to Texas, the hero Segawa
Ushimatsu resolves to stay on in Japan, fighting
against discrimination as the heir to his mentor Inoko
Rentarô. The film features extreme camera angles—crane shots
from above, shots looking up from the bottom of a cliff, etc. Playfully, the characters here show
familiarity with the literary works of Tôson: they even recite his poetry. #6 on the Kinema
Junpô Best Ten list for 1948. (12/4/07 on DVD)
82). Amores Perros (2000; dir. . Alejandro
González Iñárritu). Powerful film about
brotherly (and canine) love and hate in the mean streets of Mexico City. Skillfully written, edited and acted, but
also a tad long: Wong Kar Wai would have brought this
in an hour shorter. (12/3/07 on DVD)
81). Orange County (2002;
dir. Jake Kasdan).
An entertaining teen exploitation film that obediently
respects the rules of its genre.
In other words, it flirts with immorality (drugs, booze, sex) but ultimately reaches the inevitable moralistic
conclusion: there’s no place like home
and even Orange County can sustain the heart.
It’s a nice parody of college admissions anxiety and of Southern
California suburban lifestyle—which makes Brian Wilson the perfect choice for
the soundtrack. Just as in the Beach
Party teen exploitation films of the early 1960s, this one is studded with
cameo appearances by veteran stars: John
Lithgow, Kevin Kline, Lily Tomlin, Chevy Chase, Catherine O’Hara, etc. (12/1/07 via on-line streaming from
www.netflix.com)
80). An Inconvenient Truth (2006;
dir. Davis Guggenheim). After hearing
all the buzz about this over the past couple years, I was surprised to see how
much of the film is devoted to telling the Al Gore story, as opposed to the
global warming story. I was also touched
by part of that story: the way his life
was shaped by his college professor, Roger Revelle,
who first presented to Gore as a student decades ago evidence of the C02
build-up in the earth’s atmosphere and of the impact it would have on
climate. Sometimes, we professors really
do change lives: it’s good to be
reminded from time to time. (11/30/07 on DVD).
79). No Country for Old Men
(2007; dir. Joel and Ethan Coen). Understated almost to the point of
overstatement, this is a fine morality play set in the hardscrabble wastelands
of Texas. Not a scrap of soundtrack music
is permitted to ease the viewer’s burden:
that would be the easy way out.
The ruling aesthetic is barrenness, and there is just enough moral sense
left in the landscape (much of it carried by no-nonsense, sassy wives) to
support a scattering of desert vegetation.
(11/23/07 at Grandview Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota).
78). Grizzly Man (2005;
dir. Werner Herzog). Herzog transforms
the life story and self-shot footage of grizzly-bear fanatic Timothy Treadwell
into a documentary about obsessive film-making.
The moral he discovers has less to do with bruins than with the human
soul. Richard Thompson produces a rather
low-key soundtrack. And then there’s
Amy, Treadwell’s girlfriend, who ended up unwillingly sharing his bloody
fate: as Herzog notes, she is the
mystery in all of this. We could
probably learn more from her about what makes us do the things we do—except
that she didn’t carry a videocamera with her every
step of her life. (11/22/07
on DVD).
77). The Last King of
Scotland (2006; dir. Kevin Macdonald). Yet another
white-folks-in-darkest-Africa saga.
Well-made and acted (especially Forest Whitaker as Idi
Amin) and yet utterly stereotypical in its
ideologies—even as it rather cynically has Amin and
other characters denounce those ideologies, a typical strategy of disavowal
that allows the audience to have their cake and eat it too. The soundtrack is a tip-off to the film’s
robotic adherence to convention: the
music grows dark on cue just seconds ahead of the visuals, manipulating audience
expectations in the most Hollywood of fashions.
(11/14/07 on DVD).
76). The Whistle (1921;
dir. Lambert Hillyer). William S. Hart, the great early Hollywood
cowboy, gets down from his horse and lopes squarely in the direction of
proletarian film, playing a New English factory hand whose son is killed due to
the boss’s neglect of worker safety. Distraught,
he kidnaps the boss’s son to raise in place of his
own. This being Hollywood, though, the
opening titles deny any political intent to the story, and the social conflict
is resolved not through strike or revolution, but through the love of a mother
(and a puppy dog) and the power of prayer.
As the narrative lurches forward, the background paintings on the intertitle cards shift wildly from socialist realism to Art
Nouveau to religious kitsch. (11/11/07 at Docfilms, University of
Chicago).
75). Aguirre, Wrath of God (Aguirre,
der Zorn Gottes; 1972;
dir. Werner Herzog). Powerful
performance by Klaus Kinski in the title role. An allegorical film in which the madness of
twentieth-century politics get mapped onto the sixteenth century Spanish empire
in the New World (all the characters speak German in the Amazon jungle), Herzog
here keeps the soundtrack and the visuals muted (half of the music is diegetically motivated) so that mise en scène tells the whole wretched
story. (11/10/07 via
on-line streaming from www.netflix.com).
74). Ojôsan kanpai (Cheers to the young miss!; 1949;
dir. Kinoshita Keinosuke). Utterly charming early
postwar romantic comedy. Hara
Setsuko plays the daughter of a once-elite family now down on its luck; Sano Shûji is the
uncultivated but ambitious young man who falls for her. Visually, the film is packed with neo-realist
style street scenes and inventive shots and edits, and the classical-based
soundtrack plays to fine effect almost nonstop throughout. The hit 1991 television series 101st Proposal seems to have
lifted its plot directly from this film:
the elite and beautiful classical pianist with a dead fiancé she can’t
forget falls for a loveable ruffian. And
the film features a brief sequence of men dancing with women and women dancing
with women (neither a surprise) – but also men dancing with men. #6 on the Kinema
Junpô Best Ten list for 1949. (11/9/07 on DVD)
73). Enoken no seishun suikoden
(Enoken’s Water Margin of Youth; 1934; dir.
Yamamoto Kajirô). A wonderful example of 1930s ero-guro-nansensu (erotic-grotesque-nonsense) culture,
this film features the always charming Enoken, first
as a failing college student in a one-sided romance, and then as a spoiled
company president married to another woman.
There are tons of musical numbers (including one Hawaiian song), bouquets
of chorus girls everywhere you look, and a terrific barroom brawl at the climax
that would make Buster Keaton proud. The
film clearly references both the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin. It’s also full of creative visuals: odd camera angles, zooms, cross-cuttings,
etc. The chorus girl sequences pulse
with energy: the massed female bodies
are in constant motion, creating wave forms and other patterns while the camera
swoops and slides, all adding up to a remarkably kinetic effect. (10/31/07 on DVD)
72). The Cheat (1915;
dir. Cecil B. DeMille). The film that made Sessue Hayakawa a star (see #71 below). In a drama
that revolves around the fear of miscegenation (its climax teeters on the verge
of a public lynching), Hayakawa plays an evil Japanese
elite in NYC. In 1918, though, the film
was edited due to Japanese protests to change the Hayakawa character’s
nationality to Burmese; this is the version I saw. (One wonders if there were any Burmese in the
U.S. at the time, and what they thought about all of this.) At any rate, in this one the villain entraps
a white socialite who has fallen into debt, and takes out his payment from her
body by force, a rape scene depicted through stunning symbolism. The use of shadows and light is striking
throughout, and both Hayakawa and Fanny Ward, the actress who plays the
heroine, give strong performances. (10/26/07 via on-line streaming from www.netflix.com).
71). Forbidden Paths (1917;
dir. Robert Thornby).
Fascinating vehicle for Sessue
Hayakawa, the Japanese superstar of early Hollywood film. Here he plays the suave hero, who sacrifices
himself to save the (white) American girl he loves. The use of cross-cutting is remarkably
sophisticated, ala D.W. Griffith, and the cut usually takes place via similar
action: two hands touch profanely in one
location, and then we immediately cut to two hands touching in a sacred death
bed scene in another, etc. Hayakawa’s
charisma shines through: you can see why
he rivaled Valentino in popularity. (10/26/07 at University
of Chicago Film Studies Center).
70). Bounce Ko Gals (1997; dir. Harada Masato). An odd little film on enjo kôsai
(compensated dating by high school girls), it
manages to individualize the usually demonized teenage girls who supposedly
sold their bodies in large numbers to older men in 1990s Japan. In the face of repeated scorn, the central
female characters come across as being above all resilient: like the children in Truffaut’s Small Change they bounce when they
fall. Yakusho Kôji, on the other hand, never really settles into his
character, a yakuza chieftain troubled by the newly risen amateur competition
to his more traditional prostitution racket.
#6 on Kinema Junpô Best Ten List for 1997. (10/21/07 on DVD)
69). The Knack….And How To
Get It (1965; dir. Richard Lester).
The film Lester made between Hard
Day’s Night and Help, a Swinging
London farce about a frustrated young schoolteacher who wants to learn the
knack of seducing women from the more experienced Lothario who rents a room
from him. Formally more experimental
than the Beatles’ films, it provides a remarkable combination of cinéma vérité and
surrealism, with wild editing swoops and a soundtrack that is frequently out of
synch with the visuals: we often hear
voices (a Greek chorus of disdainful older Londoners) when no speaker is
present, or alternately silence when someone is saying something on screen. (10/19/07 via
on-line streaming from www.netflix.com).
68). Queen of Sports (Tiyu huanhou;
1934; dir. Sun Yu). Another great
Shanghai silent-era film; Li Lili is positively
luminous as the young girl from the countryside who finds meaning in the city
through the disciplining of her body and mind through sports. Lots of instructional images included for the
clear purpose of inculcating hygiene and sports in the spectator. The camera seems always to be moving
throughout the film, setting a kinetic tone that matches the athleticism on
display. (10/19/07 on
DVD).
67). Zoku aoi sanmyaku (Green
mountains, part two; 1949, dir. Imai Tadashi).
In the concluding half of this epic soap opera (see #66 below), the
issue of sexual repression as unhealthy comes to the foreground. The teasing and rumor-mongering that assail
innocent young couples are all symptoms of pathologically suppressed desires,
the good characters argue repeatedly. My
favorite moment: when three evil young
toughs taunt a fine young couple out swimming by singing “Tokyo Boogie Woogie” at them. #2 on the Kinema
Junpô Best Ten list for 1949 (10/13/07 on DVD).
66). Aoi Sanmyaku zenhen (Green
mountains, part one; 1949, dir. Imai Tadashi).
One of the most popular films of the early postwar period in Japan, it’s
a kind of reworking of Natsume Sōseki’s
1906 novel Botchan,
except here it is an idealistic female
teacher (played by the inimitable Hara Setsuko) sent from the city to confront
the backward ways of a rural school and its town. The film provides a wonderful snapshot of
early Occupation-period reformist humanism, with all the evils of “feudalism”
cited: group conformism, suppression of
women, use of violent coercion, etc.
Hattori Ryōichi composed the soundtrack,
which includes the title song, one of the biggest hits of the era. #2 on
the Kinema Junpô
Best Ten list for 1949. (10/12/07 on DVD).
65). Sunrise (Tianming; 1933; dir. Sun
Yu). Startling
combination of country-girl-goes-bad-in-the-big-city melodrama with
revolutionary agit prop. One of the great Chinese silent films, it
features a stunning performance by Li Lili as an naïve newcomer to 1920s Shanghai; she gets tricked into
prostitution but then awakens to the national revolutionary cause. This allows the audience to enjoy its bad
girl, bare legs and all, even as it celebrates her selfless devotion to the
fatherland. All you have to do is smile,
the film says over and over again: if
you do that the dawn will break. (10/12/07 on DVD).
64). Babel (2006; dir. Alejandro
González Iñárritu). Essentially a remake of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, with its parts scattered
through the contemporary world rather than across historical time—but with the
same moral fervor and strong-handed (armed?) eliciting of connections. Emotionally powerful, even as it clearly
manipulates the audience—again, Griffith comes to mind. The manipulation of sound in the Tokyo disco
sequence, on the other hand, is pure Kurosawa.
(10/10/07 on DVD).
63). Onna ga kaidan o agaru toki (When a woman
ascends the stairs; 1960; dir. Naruse Mikio). I’m quite
fond of Naruse’s films, but somehow managed to avoid
seeing this one until now. It’s widely
acclaimed as one of his masterpieces.
While I found it quite good, I also found it a bit monotonous in
comparison to other works by the director—mostly what we get is a sullen anger,
with little or no variation from that emotional keynote. As always, Naruse
draws out a fine performance from Takamine Hideko as
a Ginza bar hostess, used mercilessly by all those around her and surrounded by
men who ultimately refuse to rescue her.
There’s a nice, sparingly used, soundtrack of sleazy nightclub
jazz. It’s great, yes, but not really,
really great. (10/6/07 on DVD).
62). Two Stars in the Milky
Way (Yinhe Shuangxin;
1931; dir. Tomsei Sze). Fascinating early Chinese
film from the heyday of Shanghai culture. Like many of Ozu’s
silent works, this one labors to convey visually the experience of music
(apparently, the film had a wax soundtrack record that was to be played in
synch with certain scenes, though that is lost now). The daughter of a composer who delights in
both Western and Chinese music becomes a famous movie actress; she falls in
love with her dashing leading man, but duty to the family overrules passion,
and the two end up tragically alone.
Among the highlights here, what must be one of the earliest portraits of
miniature golf in world cinema history (9/28/07 on DVD).
61). Hatsujô kateikyôshi: sensei no aijiru (The glamorous life of Hana Sachiko; 2003; dir. Meike
Mitsuru). An attempt to resuscitate the
old 1970s “pink film” genre that combined soft-core pornography with
avant-garde aesthetics and leftist politics, this starts out with a breezy tone
and then, perhaps inevitably, runs out of ideas and energy. The cloned finger of George W. Bush serves as
a kind of mental sex toy, while the muttering the words “Noam Chomsky”
functions as the foolproof aphrodisiac.
(9/28/07 via on-line streaming from www.netflix.com)
60). The Constant Gardener (2005;
dir. Fernando Meirelles). A film about weeding….I remember that many of
the early reviews praised this but complained that it partook of the old “good
white people helping the poor black Africans” mode of imperial nostalgia. That is certainly there, even if the villains
are also largely white (it still renders the locals into passive tools of the
active Brits), but I was struck more by how it reproduced yet another old
melodrama ideology: the way the
beautiful female corpse cements the bonds between the male characters (cf. Tokutomi Roka’s early 20th century Japanese
best-seller, Hototogisu): can you spell “homosociality”? (9/26/07 on DVD)
59). Nippon musekinin yarō (The most
irresponsible guy in Japan; 1962 dir. Furusawa Kengo). Second in the series, and quite good. A bit more song-and-dance than in the first one, and the social satire is more biting: the melancholic emptiness of salaryman existence is detailed with sharp wit. Once again, Ueki Hitoshi plays the scheming,
devil-may-care salaryman who tricks his colleagues,
girlfriends, and enemies—only to wind up on top at the end, the result of his
many acts of sheer irresponsibility. (9/23/07 on DVD).
58). Nippon musekinin jidai (The era of
irresponsibility: Japan; 1962; dir. Furusawa Kengo). The first of the “Nippon musekinin”
series that made film stars of Ueki Hitoshi and the Crazy Cats, all shot in
glorious TōhōScope widescreen. Ueki plays the role that would become his
signature piece: the lazy, scheming salaryman who nonetheless, by exploiting the human
weaknesses of everyone around him, winds up on top. It’s a key exhibit in the genre of “salaryman” culture that developed in the late 1950s and
early 1960s, and quite enjoyable. (9/16/07 on DVD).
57). Brokeback Mountain (2005;
dir. Ang Lee).
Terrific, of course, with classic performances by
Heath Ledger and many others. I
kept flashing back to John Ford’s Westerns as I watched. It also struck me that this is today’s
version of Death of a Salesman (okay,
I just happened across a copy of Arthur Miller’s script at a neighborhood
bookstore yesterday): the film probes
emotional depth and tragedy in the socioeconomic class where the mainstream
liberal audience least expects to find it.
I liked the soundtrack as music, but found it distracting: as Emmy Lou Harris, Willie Nelson, Steve
Earle and others played in the background, I kept saying to myself, this isn’t
the music that Red State ranch hands love, this is the music that Blue State
hipsters listen to when they imagine they’ve gone cowboy. (9/12/07 on DVD)
56). Janken musume (Rock-scissors-paper girls; 1955;
dir. Sugie Toshio).
The first, and by many accounts the best, of the “Sannin
Musume” (The three girls) series starring Misora Hibari, Yukimura Izumi, and Chiemi Eri. All three were
in their mid-teens when they filmed this glossy musical-comedy-melodrama. The song-and-dance numbers are quite
strong. Hibari
performs “La Vie en Rose” in English (in fact, all three sing in English in the
film) and also performs a kabuki-style dance sequence – a polyglot hybrid of
both contemporary American and “traditional” Japanese culture characterized the
first decade of her career. The final
roller coaster sequence sums up the film aptly: like the amusement park ride, the film is a
well-crafted product of the leisure-and-entertainment industry aimed at newly
affluent Japanese consumers, and its storyline provides a mostly satisfying mix
of ups and downs. It’s also interesting
how central the sex industry is to the narrative: Hibari plays the
illegitimate daughter of a former geisha, and Izumi plays a maiko
about to be married off to an old man against her will. (9/8/09 on DVD)
55). The Illusionist (2006;
dir. Neil Burger). Not quite as flashy
as The Prestige, but still a strong
work that fantasizes about the loves and passions of conjurors from a century
ago, one that (quite in synch with its historical setting) alludes to silent
film techniques. Strong performances all
around, but the production design steals the show: you really feel as though you’ve sunk into
the world of turn-of-the-century Vienna.
The film also features a compelling soundtrack by Philip Glass, one that
all comes together very nicely in the closing credits theme. (9/6/07 on DVD)
54). Finding Neverland (2004; dir. Marc Forster). Predictable in a way that a movie celebrating
the creative imagination shouldn’t be, this is still emotionally effective – in
part, probably, because of its very predictability. Johnny Depp gives
his usual stunning performance (here, in an appropriately low key) as
playwright J.M. Barrie struggling to create Peter
Pan. It’s great to see Julie
Christie in anything. The film features
some flashy camerawork that calls too much attention to itself, but makes up
for it with a lovely old-fashioned soundtrack (9/3/07 on DVD).L
53). Letters from Iwo Jima (2006;
dir Clint Eastwood). I finally managed
to see this one, which was a big hit in
52). Little Miss Sunshine (2006;
dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris). As many others have noted, this vicious
little comedy actually provides a serious, heartfelt commentary on the state of
the family in present-day America – with the accent on that last proper noun,
given the strategic use of the “United We Stand” billboard and the song “America
the Beautiful” in key scenes. It’s
lovely to see Alan Arkin once again exercise his
comedic timing. (8/16/07
on rental DVD).
51). Ratatouille (2007;
dir. Brad Bird). Sweet
without pushing it too far. Other
than in the technical details of animation, the film shows little ambition, yet
it achieves its modest aims in a satisfying way that recalls
50). Sicko (2007; dir. Michael Moore).
As others have pointed out,
49). The Last Mimzy (2007; dir. Robert Shaye). An incomprehensible mash-up of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Rainn Wilson does his best Richard Dreyfuss
imitation), Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, Lewis Carroll and Tibetan Buddhism. And it’s all topped off with a faux Pink
Floyd number from Roger Waters. Really creepy, both intentionally and unintentionally. (7/14/07 as in-flight
movie).
48). Firehouse Dog (2007;
dir. Todd Holland). A
kids’ movie about loss, death, mourning, and survivor guilt—and not half bad. George Orwell wrote an essay many decades ago
about how all the great children’s stories of his age were politically
reprehensible, but I think the situation, at least in contemporary Hollywood
family films, has changed: the issues of
race, class, and exploitation are all front-and-center here, and the heroes are
government employees. (7/14/07 as
in-flight movie)
47). Tears of the Sun (2003; dir. Antoine
Fuqua). A bit more thoughtful than the
usual Bruce Willis flick, but just barely.
As always when Hollywood goes to Africa, it is the heroic white men who
rescue not only the white woman, but also the ‘natives’ – and often, as here,
rescue them from their own alleged backwardness. (7/8/07 broadcast on TV Asahi network).
46). Ôatari sanshoku musume (Big hit for the tri-color girls; 1957; dir. Sugie Toshio). This
week would have been Misora Hibari’s
70th birthday, and NHK is marking the occasion by airing a number of
her films and tv
specials. This was the third title in
the “Sannin Musume” (Three
Girls) series starring Hibari, Chiemi
Eri and Yukimura
Izumi. A musical comedy with remarkably
high production values (it was the first widescreen production released by the Tôhô studios, for starters), this
is a terrific example of late 1950s goraku (mass
entertainment) movie-making. The plot
revolves around a complicated web of mutual deceptions, with true love finally
emerging in accordance with the Japanese proverb “uso kara deta makoto.” Each of the three girls is assigned a
dominant color in the production design—blue for Hibari,
yellow for Eri, and red for Izumi—hence, the
title. The influence of American teen
culture is everywhere: cute boys are
compared to James Dean and Elvis Presley, and Izumi performs her version of the
Gene Vincent hit “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” The
final sequence is a water-skiing spectacular, though the use of stunt doubles
is blatantly obvious. (6/23/07 on VHS
taped from NHK BS-2).
45). Ongaku no chikara (The power of music; 2007; no
director listed). A
new DVD of a benefit concert held for the legendary Japanese recording
engineer, Yoshino Kinji, who suffered a stroke last
year. Among the participants, all of
whom had worked in the studio with Yoshino, are Yano Akiko, Hosono
Haruomi, Yuzu, Sano Motoharu, and Tomobe Masato. The performances are quite lovely and
heartfelt, and there’s a shared sense of impending morality among these 50- and
60-something musicians (setting aside for the moment Yuzu,
who had a big hit last year with the lovely “Mo sorosoro
30-sai,” or “I’m almost thirty!”):
several performers comment from the stage that the next benefit concert
might be held on their own behalf. (6/18/07 on DVD).
44). Pirates of the
43). Nianchan (My second brother; 1959; dir. Imamura Shôhei). Early film
by Imamura, a neo-realist take on the life of a family of four orphaned
children in a hardscrabble coal-mining town in 1953, when the Korean War boom
ends and the company is cutting back.
Quite moving, with terrific performances by the child actors, elegantly
constructed shots, and a subdued mandolin-based soundtrack. More conventional than Imamura’s later work,
but even here the hard political edge (many of the characters are zai-Nichi – ethnic Korean) and stylistic ambition that
characterize his best films are present.
#3 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 1959. (6/9/07 broadcast on Channel Neco).
42). Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006;
dir. Gore Verbinski).
As so often happens with
41). Toki wo
kakeru shôjo (The girl
who conquered time; 1983: dir. Ôbayashi Nobuhiko). A big
hit in 1983, mainly because of the presence of teen idol Harada Tomoyo in the title role. We sometimes describe someone who looks
emotionally dead as having a vacant face; like so many Kadokawa
studio films from this period, this movie has a vacant
face. The characters all seem to be
taking heavy doses of anti-depressants in this story of high school romance
that involves time travel. Ôbayashi tries to liven things
up with his usual stylistic tricks:
messing around with the color exposure, using wipes and keyhole shots,
throwing in the odd montage sequence, etc.
The soundtrack, too, is by the very talented Masatoya
Masataka. But
the thing just sits there, inert and dead.
(6/6/07 on VHS).
40). The Producers (2005; dir. Susan Stroman). I was very
much in the mood for a comedy and this delivered: had tears of laughter rolling down my
cheeks. I hardly missed Zero Mostel at all. What
I liked best was how this functioned as a fine example of the very genre that
it parodied: the Broadway musical, with
Damon Runyonesque characters, etc. As a result, it does a feel a bit stagey at
times, but that’s a small price to pay—and after all, it is a filmed play, a
Broadway musical, in fact. Who needs
cinematic realism when you can get old stage pros hamming it up? (6/04/07 on DVD).
39). The Shaggy Dog (2006:
dir. Brian Robbins). Reasonable children’s
fare, at times funny, but at other times a bit mean-spirited: how funny, really, is it to knock over an old
woman using a walker? The usual Dad’s-ignoring-the-family-in-pursuit-of-success
storyline. But guess what? There’s a happy ending. (5/31/07 on DVD)
38). Pirates of the Caribbean:
Curse of the Black
37). Memoirs of a Geisha (2005;
dir. Rob Marshall). I’d put off watching
this for as long as I could, and it turned out to be just as bad as I feared it
would—not just in ideological terms, but also aesthetic. In other words, it’s boring as all hell. Gong Li and Yakusho
Kōji make game efforts to generate some energy
within their cardboard-cutout characters.
But when they go absent from the screen, the film just falls limp and
plays possum. Honorable reader, I most
regretfully fear I must pronounce this movie unworthy of your most noble
aspirations. (5/24/07
on DVD).
36).
35). Yureru (Sway; 2006; dir. Nishikawa Miwa).
Fine film about how brotherly love and rivalry bleed into one
another. Odagiri Joe plays a nihilistic
young photographer who reluctantly returns to his rural hometown for his mother’s
funeral．There, he seduces his shy older brother’s girlfriend,
setting in motion a disastrous string of events that ends up shaking (or
swaying) the lives of all the characters to the very core. Nishikawa never takes the easy route,
choosing to leave the audience in suspense rather than provide simplistic
answers: why should we enjoy clear lines
of causality when the characters themselves aren’t sure why they do the things
they do? A funky jazz soundtrack at the
beginning gives way, appropriately, to elegiac piano as the narrative unfolds. The script begins to lose its way in the last
half hour or so, but still a strong work.
#2 on the Kinema Junpô Best Ten list for 2006. (5/20/07 on
DVD).
34). Little Women (1949;
dir. Mervyn LeRoy). Nice, glossy MGM film (though the painted
backdrops are quite realistic, in that they look exactly like painted
backdrops) with terrific performances by June Allyson as Jo and Elizabeth
Taylor as Amy. The male characters all
come off as dull and weak, but that is just as it should be. (5/5/07 on DVD).
33). Dreamgirls (2006; dir. Bill
Condon). Good fun,
and Eddie Murphy is terrific. But while
the performers deliver the songs with authority, the tunes themselves are more
Broadway than Motown. Then again, there
are worse ways to spend two hours than watching a competent musical. (4/30/07 as in-flight
movie).
32). Notes on a Scandal (2006;
dir. Richard Eyre). Excellent
film, in which the always amazing Judi Dentch gets a
chance to stretch her considerable talents to the limit, playing a repressed
lesbian school-teacher trying to manipulate a pretty young colleague (Cate Blanchett) into a
relationship. Astonishing
performances all around. (4/30/07 as in-flight movie).
31). Bushi no ichibu (Love and honor; 2006; dir.
Yamada Yôji).
Kimura Takuya plays a low-ranking samurai loses first his sight and
then, increasingly, his place in the world.
He manages to restore his honor by defeating the villain in a swordfight
(complete with Kurosawa-like gusts of wind), but as a blind swordsman Kimu-taku poses no threat to the memory of Katsu Shintarô. As in any Yamada film, there are many
striking moments, but overall this isn’t one of the director’s best. Not enough sentimentality, I think—probably
because Kimu-taku can only play the cool, ironic
postmodern hero. #5 on the Kinema
Junpô Best Ten list for 2006 (4/26/07 as in-flight movie).
30). Eragon (2006; dir. Stefen Fangmeier). Why do all fantasy films these days look and
feel the same? The fantastic is, I fear,
becoming routine and ordinary. (4/26/07 as in-flight movie).
29). Hula Girls (2006; dir. Lee Sang-il). A big hit here
last year, this is a very commercial movie about deindustrialization and the
rise of a service-based economy in a rural Tôhoku
town. It’s 1965 and the local coal mine
is dying; the company decides to save the town by building a Hawaii-themed
resort, complete with hula girl dancers recruited from among the daughters and
wives of the miners about to lose their way of life. In a sense, it’s Flashdance with grass skirts and
leis, but Lee (who explored similar territory a few years back in 69, a much stronger film) the gritty
feel of life in the hardscrabble mining town is conveyed effectively. Amazingly enough, it’s
based on a
true story. #1 on the Kinema
Junpô Best Ten list for 2006. (4/21/07 on rental
DVD).
28). Borat: Cultural Learnings of
27). Sakuran (2007; dir. Ninagawa
Mika). Now I suppose I really have to
see Memoirs of a Geisha, just to see
how badly it fares by comparison to this spectacular tale of life in the
26). Hong Kong Nocturne (Xiang
jiang hua yue ye;
25). Ginza
24). Kokoro (1973; dir. Shindô Kaneto). The 1914 novel by Natsume
Sôseki (or, the last of its three books, anyhow)
updated to the 1970s, so that it becomes an allegory about the collapse of the
student protest movement and the rise in its wake of a generation of youths
devoted primarily to consumerism (Ojosan here is a
design student who wears frilly white dresses).
This has all the endearing clunkiness—and all
the somewhat less charming humorlessness—of the 1970s’ ATG
(Art Theatre Guild) movement that produced it. It also ends somewhat surprisingly before the
resolution of the narrative: perhaps
this, too, is meant allegorically to point to an open future. (4/5/07 on VHS taped from Nihon Eiga Senmon Channel).
23). Kenchô no hoshi (Star
of the prefectural government; 2006, dir. Nishitani
Hiroshi). A good-sized hit here last
year, mainly due to the presence of two popular actors in the leading
roles: Oda Yûji and Shibasaki Kou. It’s a slick, not particularly energetic,
romantic comedy about an elite bureaucrat forced to work in a ramshackle
supermarket—where he meets, of course, a lovely female employee who dislikes
him at first, but then…. The petty (and not-so-petty) corruptions of both
private and public sectors come under the scalpel here, but the blade is pretty
dull. (4/1/07 on DVD).
22). The Prestige (2006;
dir. Christopher Nolan). Brilliant
pulp-novel stuff here, with non-linear plotting of the storyline pushing the
limits of coherence (at least, it was pretty damn hard to follow while watching
the screen from twenty rows back in a 747 above the
21). The Host (Gwoemul;
20). The Mistress of Spices
(2005; dir. Paul Mayeda Berges). It’s good to see South Asian culture in the
19).
18). Nihon junjô-den okashina
futari (The strange
pair; 1988; dir. Ôbayashi Nobuhiko). An oddly interesting dull
movie, or perhaps an interestingly dull movie—I’m not sure which. As in #17 below, lots of creative editing and
camerawork, here with special reference to recreating the feel of old Hollywood
and the glory days of the cinema.
There’s even a direct reference to Laurel and Hardy. Imagine, for example, Terayama
Shûji directing an Abbott and Costello film and
you’ll have some sense of what this is like.
A story of three friends—one a loan shark, the other a pianist gone bad (and missing a pinky finger), the third a dreamer and drifter—all
in love with the same woman in a small town.
The screen is filled with sped-up shots of trains, slowed-down shots of
boats, and the lovely faces of old women.
(3/6/07 on VHS)
17). Seishun dendekidekideki (Youth chika-boom-boom-boom; 1992; dir. Ôbayashi
Nobuhiko). Utterly charming
story-of-the-band film, a kind of boy-version of Linda Linda Linda,
except it’s set back in 1965-68. It
opens with terrific footage of The Ventures touring Japan (the onomatopoeia in
the title mimics the guitar sound from “Pipeline”) both in the 1990s and the
1960s, and then the story follows the impact of the “Ereki
bûmu” (Electric guitar boom) on a group of high
school boys in rural Shikoku. The
direction and editing brim with energy and creativity—lots of jump cuts, asides
spoken to the camera, weird camera angles—and it all works. There’s a nice touch, too, in the casting of Kishibe Ittoku as the sympathetic
teacher who mentors the band—Kishibe was a member of
the 1960s Group Sounds band The Tigers. #2 on
the Kinema Junpô
Best Ten list for 1992. (3/2/07
on VHS)
16). Gridiron Gang (2006; dir. Phil Joanou). I don’t
want to go all moralistic on you here, but of the three films I’m writing about
just now (including #14 and #15 below), this is the one I liked best—despite
its rather shameless trucking in stereotypes and its hammy script (the worst
lines, the documentary footage over the closing credits reveals, were taken
verbatim from the real-life models for the story). I guess it’s because this film actually has a
message that involves finding decency even in some of the most despised members
of our society. Playing a
15). Employee of the Month (2006; dir. Gregory
Coolidge). This one is no less cynical
in story than #14 below, and a good deal less polished in its production
values, but I didn’t feel as offended by it.
Perhaps because it sides itself with the lowly grunt
employees of the big-box store? Perhaps because it doesn’t pretend to contain any message?
There’s something to be said for watching films on an airplane: as a captive audience, you get exposed to
things you would never watch by choice.
Without that, what are the odds I ever would have seen Jessica Simpson
try to act? (2/23/07 as in-flight movie)
14). A Good Year (2006: dir. Ridley Scott). I’m a sucker for stories about stressed-out
middle-aged men going to southern
13). The Queen (2006; Stephen Frears). There is
something unseemly about making this film while the principal characters are
not only still alive, but still active in the same public roles: the Queen, Tony Blair, etc. Still, all told, it’s a marvelous film—it
reminded me a bit of Shakespeare’s historical dramas (though he usually had the
good grace to wait a century or two until after the deaths of his historical
models). Frears
achieves his apparent goal: the allow
Queen Elizabeth to crack through the tabloid media image she has acquired and
to emerge before us in the figure of an actual human being. He also reminds us of the initial excitement,
now largely forgotten, with which Tony Blair’s rise to power was greeted. Outstanding performances, as everyone has
already noted, and the music is quite lovely, especially the cumulating piece
that is played over the final credits. (2/13/06 as in-flight movie).
12). The Tigers:
Sekai wa bokura wo matte iru (The Tigers:
The world is waiting for us: 1968; dir. Wada Yoshinori). Terrific fun, the debut
film by The Tigers, another popular Group Sounds band (see #11 below). Low-budget 1960s special effects, psychedelic
fashions, and general silliness abound.
Princess Silvi from the star Andromeda flees
her home galaxy to avoid an impending marriage.
She lands on earth and promptly falls in love with Sawada “Julie” Kenji,
lead singer of The Tigers—much to the consternation of Sawada’s possessive
earthling fans. She nearly manages to
kidnap him, but Julie’s bandmates and their fans at a
concert in the Budôkan are able to raise a loud
enough noise (with Julie joining in via interstellar radio) to disrupt her
flying saucer’s control systems and force her back to earth, whereupon Julie
rejoins his mates on the concertstage and proceeds to
sing the group’s latest hit number.
Absolutely delirious, with lots of great footage of The Tigers
performing in front of their screaming fans.
(2/4/07 at the
11). The Spiders no daishingeki
(The Spiders on the attack; 1968; dir. Nakahira Kô). The second of
four films made by The Spiders, one of the most popular of the Group Sounds
bands from the 1960s. Broadly borrowing
from The Beatles’ Help, here it is
not a ring but a tambourine with an embedded jewel that causes a vaguely
Indian-looking beautiful young woman to stalk the band. On the other hand, an accidental swap of attaché
cases brings into play another set of bad guys, trying to recover secret
documents now also in the possession of the band. Like Help, the soundtrack features Indian music for the first set
of bad guys, but it introduces gagaku traditional Japanese music for the other set of bad
guys. Lots of shots of The Spiders playing
their hits in various locations – most memorably, perching on the very top of
the
10). A Prairie Home Companion (2006; dir. Robert
Altman). I feel about this one much the
way I feel about Kurosawa’s Mada da yo: what a nice little film for a great director
to go out with! Not overly ambitious or
pretentious, just a tidy recapping of the themes and style he had honed over
the decades. It was also nice to see my
hometown,
9). Sore demo boku wa yatte inai
(I still didn’t do it; 2006; dir. Suo
Masayuki). Suo’s
first film since Shall We Dance?, and as with
that one, he both directed and wrote the script. A fine ensemble courtroom drama of a man
wrongly accused of groping a high school girl on a crowded train, the film
serves as an indictment of the Japanese legal system and the coercive measures
it uses to obtain a 99.9% conviction rate.
Suo’s story, with its warning about the powers
of the state apparatus, couldn’t be more timely in
8). Natsume Sôseki no Sanshirô (Natsume Sôseki’s Sanshirô; 1955:
dir. Nakano Nobuo). A straightforward
but skillful adaptation of the 1908 novel about a rural youth baffled by life
and romance in the big city when he enrolls at Tokyo Imperial University. Nakano, who made his reputation directing a
number of Enoken’s comedies in the late 1930s, also
did a film adaptation of Sôseki’s Gubinjinsô in 1941. There are a number of nice subtle visual
touches here, and Ryû Chishû
turns in a typically fine performance as Professor Hirota,
he of the “philosophical smoke.”
(1/14/07 on VHS taped from Channel Neco, the Nikkatsu studio’s cable channel that is showing lots of
film versions of Sôseki just now to drum up publicity
for its forthcoming release of a new movie version of the short story “Yume jûya [Ten nights of dreams]).
7). Wagahai wa neko de aru
(I am a cat; 1936; dir. Yamamoto Kajirô). A fine adaptation of Natsume Sôseki’s 1905 comic
novel. The print they used in
this broadcast was remarkably clean, both the visual images and the
soundtrack. Tokugawa Musei
gives an attractive performance as “Kushami Sensei,”
and the film makes creative use of off-screen sound to expand the story
world. Oddly enough, the story is moved
forward in time about a decade: the
characters frequently discuss World War I as an on-going event. Was this intended as a commentary on 1936
world events, or was Sôseki by then already so
closely identified with the Taishô period that even
his Meiji-period works were anachronistically projected onto that later
era? (1/8/07 on
Channel Neco).
6). Nodo jiman (Amateur singing contest; 1998; dir. Izutsu Kazuyuki) An
ensemble drama with a fine cast, as the long-standing NHK amateur singing
contest television show comes to rural Gunma Prefecture for a live broadcast
and local residents go all out to appear. The movie is full of music, all of it
diegetic – that is, sung by the characters in the
film. Sakamoto Kyû’s “Ue wo
muite arukô” (a song better
known in the West as “Sukiyaki”) plays a crucial role and provides the music
for the final credits as well. #6 on
the Kinema Junpô
Best Ten list for 1999. (1/6/07 on VHS).
5). Kobayakawa-ke no aki (Autumn for the Kobayakawa family; also known as The End of Summer; 1961;
dir. Ozu Yasujirô). The second-to-last film the director
made. It’s an Ozu
film, so of course they’re scheming to marry off Hara Setsuko against her will,
but the main story here focuses on the aging sake brewer (Nakamura Ganjirô) and his relations with his grown children, his
long-time mistress, and his illegitimate daughter. The final funeral sequence clearly was one
source for Itami Jûzô’s Osôshiki (The
funeral, 1984). A lovely film, and one that shows that Ozu
was successfully making the transition to 1960s cinema, much as Kurosawa was
doing at the same time. The closing
shots and the soundtrack (in particular its use of woodwinds) foreshadow much
that would be done in cinema from later in the decade. (1/5/07 on Nihon Eiga
Senmon Channel)
4). Inazuma (Lightning;
1952: dir. Naruse Mikio). A fine but tough film adapted from an
original story by Hayashi Fumiko: four grown siblings, all sired by different
fathers, bicker with their mother and with each other. When the husband of one
of the daughters dies, the others and their mother think primarily about
getting their hands on the insurance money – except for Kiyoko (Takamine Hideko), the good daughter who
wants only to break away from her vampirish family. Kiyoko’s job as a bus-tour guide means we see
lots of great footage of early postwar
3).
Charlotte’s Web (2006, dir. Gary Winick). A nice, respectful version of the book – unlike the horrific
animated version made back in the 1970s.
I particularly liked the way they preserved the wonderful opening and
closing lines of E.B. White’s original novel.
And, yes, I cried when
2).
Hibari no san’yaku:
Kyôen Yukinojô henge zokuhen (Hibari’s
three roles: the apparitions of Yukinojô, part two; 1957: dir. Watanabe Kunio). A two-part jidaigeki color spectacular, in which Misora
Hibari plays three roles: one male, one female, and one
(characteristically) in-between: the
title character, a woman pretending to be a male kabuki actor who specializes in
female roles. In that role, Hibari manages to avenge her own parents’ death while
fending off several female admirers. All
sorts of gender bending and intentionally awkward sexual tension, of course,
and Hibari gets to perform
several kabuki sequences, as well as engage in some nifty swordplay. Great fun. (1/3/07 at Asagaya Laputa
Theater).
1).
Hibari no san’yaku:
Kyôen Yukinojô henge seihen (Hibari’s
three roles: the apparitions of Yukinojô, part one; 1957: dir. Watanabe Kunio). See #2 above. (1/3/07 at Asagaya Laputa Theater).
(Last
year, I saw 95 films, listed here The 97 films I saw in 2005 are listed here. The list of the115 films I saw in 2004 is here. The list of the 86 movies I saw in 2003 is here.)