Film: Willard (2003)

Being either bullied at work or stuck at home looking after his sick mother, Willard (Crispin Glover) lives an unfruitful life. Then one day he meets a white rat who he calls Socrates. Socrates is both a loving and intelligent rat who brings hoards of friends with him. Willard soon discovers that through Socrates he able to control the rodents to get revenge on his boss, but the tables are turned when another rat, the gigantic Ben, gets jealous of being in second command after Socrates.

Willard is actually a remake of a film of the same name from the 70's. The original spawned a sequel entitled 'Ben' which gained notoriety due to it's more famous theme song by Michael Jackson. The song Ben itself appears twice in the film, the original and a new version sung by Crispin Glover who also directed a music video for it. Having previously only seen this music video I was never aware that the original song was written for such a film as it was, especially by Jackson. Though thinking of the Thriller video the connection makes more sense.

The characters in Willard are all archetypal, the sympathetic outcast who lives with his mother, the over the top and bluntly evil bully and the possible love interest. Overall the film is easy to get into and just plain fun.

Watch Crispin Hellian Glover's Ben

Film: Tie shan gong zhu (1941)

Aka Princess Iron Fan this is an early Chinese animated feature, I've heard to be one of the first even. Based on the book Journey to the West I watched this without subtitles but managed to barely follow the story. Three disciples of a traveling monk, a monkey king, a pig and water spirit attempt to steal a power fan from a princess in order to defeat an angry fire demon who is causing a massive heat wave. That about makes up the first half, the second I wasn't too sure about but it involved the fan again and also some singing along the way.

Having previously only watched the English dub of the Japanese Monkey series it was nice to see another adaption of Journey To the West, especially such an early one. The animation is crude as can be and the shots seem to make more movement then necessary (there are shots where the camera appears to dart back and forth for little reason), the former however being acceptable.

As i say it was nice seeing such a rare piece but would of been nice with subtitles. The animation is available to download from archive.org

Download

Film: You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Frank Capra directed comedy about a couple to struggle with families from conflicting backgrounds. One a middle class family who believe life should be lived with fun in mind, the other from the establishment who wants to buy their house in order to build a factory.

This film is absolutely wonderful from start to finish, I couldn't of enjoyed it more, well possibly without the ad breaks as i watched it on TV. A very young Jimmy Stewart co-stars who is excellent in this film. Very funny, I will add it to my 'wishlist' at once.

Cinema: Rescue Dawn (2006)

Werner Herzog's fictional re-enactment of Dieter Dengler's experience in the Vietnam war (See: Little Deiter Needs to Fly review).

From watching Herzog's documentary on Dengler Rescue Dawn felt very faithful, despite missing out several events such as the fact that Dengler was held captive twice and not just once as shown in the film and the incident concerning his wedding ring which he retells in the documentary. There has also been debate to the accuracy concerning Herzogs depiction of Eugene. However my only complaint, if any, is the simple fact that Dengler (played by Christian Bale) is lacking a German accent. Dengler was born in Germany and left for America at the age of 19 and retained an accent after nearly 40 years. In Rescue Dawn, Bale has a straight forward American accent which may imply that he came to America much sooner.

What is fascinating about the film is what has been pulled from the original documentary, the anecdotes and tidbits of information that pop up such as how the Vietcong's made fire which Dengler demonstrated himself.

Even despite want is going on the locations look stunningly beautiful. At times the camera would be used hand held, following characters much like in Herzogs documentaries giving the film what seems like an added dimension.

Overall I enjoyed the film a lot and feel that watching Little Dieter... first gives off a much better understanding even if it takes away any surprises (which is besides the point). Compared to other war films I have appraoched this one different, it has felt more like a worthwhile education then entertainment.

Film: Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Now this is Jarmusch's true debut!

Split into three episodes in the first an Hungarian girl called Eva comes to America to live with her aunt but must stay with her disinterested cousin Willy for 10 days till she gets out of the hospital. The second Willy and his best friend Eddie travel to Cleveland to visit Eva and in the last the three visit Florida.

Stranger Than Paradise started out as 30 minute short made on old stock given to Jarmusch by Wim Wenders and was later expanded int o the film we know today. Every scene is shot in single long takes with blackouts inbetween making the film presented more as moments than want conventional editing to conceive.

What Stranger has that Permanent Vacation didn't was ability bring across the actors/characters personalities making the quality of the acting less strident. An aspect that would be seen in later films where Jarmusch would cast many non-actors in roles.

Cinema: Wheel of Time (2003)

Part deux of the Werner Herzog season, in which Herzog takes a look at the Buddhist Kalachakra initiations from 2002. Done in a more traditional method then Little Dieter, the pic features interviews with the Dalai Lama and Takna Jigme Zangpo, a man who was imprisoned for 37 years demanding freedom for Tibet.

Whilst Dieter was a lot simpler to get into Wheel of Time is worthy not only as an education into Buddhism but also to the lengths that man would himself in for their beliefs, as demonstrated when pilgrims are shown making there way to the initiations whilst getting on the ground in prayer and back up again every few steps for however many days they must travel. For one monk it took him several years.

I throughly enjoyed this film and i am looking forward to seeing the final part in the Herzog series this Sunday with Rescue Dawn.

Film: Permanent Vacation (1980)

A boy spends this time wandering the streets, at times coming across some odd characters.

I'm a huge fan of Jarmusch's work so I was excited to finally see this film. Permanent Vacation is his debut feature film, completely self funded and shot of 16mm. Jarmusch was a film student at the time of production and actually quit university to finish the film. It doesn't seem too surprising to me that the film has the same feel as a student film. The acting from the main leads is pretty terrible and is a far cry from the dream set of players that Jarmusch would soon be hand picking and writing parts especially for. Because of this the film seem too scripted and the actors at times seem to be too reliant on the script, with later films such as Down By Law a lot of the dialogue is improvised. The building used for the hospital scene also gives off an atmosphere of a student made film.

But enough of the negatives, John Lurie who would play keys in Jarmusch's next two film, has a small part as a street saxophonist. He and Jarmusch also collaborate on the soundtrack together. The main character Allie mostly wanders around streets of decay, which is the films main attraction however I think the sequence shown with the opening monologue as the stand out a moment. It shows an array of once occupied rooms which could be still in use but are purposely lacking in personal possessions.

Permanent Vacation is interesting but possible only to those with a liking towards Jarmuash or independent cinema, though it seems to be setting itself up as the archetypical indie-art house film it's probably safer to say that Jarmusch's next film Stranger Than Paradise is his true debut.

Film: Three Came Home (1950)

Since I'm currently reading a book on actor Sessue Hayakawa it is appropriate for me to at least watch some of this work. The nearest and cheapest I could find is the war drama Three Came Home, which is in the public domain and downloadable for free. Hayakawa was at the height of his fame during the nineteen teens so this may not be the best example, but I will go on about his work and the book I am reading at a later date.

Three Came Home is about a family living in Burma, when the Japanese arrive they are soon transferred to POW camps. The film reminds a lot of the BBC series Tenko however less like ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif soap opera and more cinematic which gave me the feeling of a better realism. Hayakawa plays a Japanese Colonel who is a fan of a book written by Claudette Colbert's character which is probably the key to her survival. The relationship portrayed by these two in actual fact isn't to dissimilar to Burt Kwouk relation to his prisoners in Tenko.

The film is enjoyable and probably one of the finer examples, if but few, of a woman POW camp in the war. The copy I download unfortunately went out of sync in the middle so I had skip about 20 minutes though thankfully I didn't get too lost. It is certainly a film i will have to see again.

The film downloable from archive.org in divX format, but be warned with sound problems:

Download

Cinema: Lust, Caution (2006)

In the build up to the Second World War a group of students plot to kill Yee, a collaborator working with the Japanese. It is up to 'Mrs Mak' to become his mistress in order to take his guard his down.

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution brought controversy when released in China due to the explicit sex scenes which were cut out. Consecutively in the US the film will be released in both R and NC-17 cuts. The sex scenes are indeed explicit, getting more so through out. The first being quite tame compared to what follows.

Took a little while to get in to this film but overall i loved it, even being over two and half hours long it didn't seem to drag.

Cinema: Little Dieter Needs To Fly (1997)

The story of Dieter Dengler, a German-America pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam war and struggled for survival both in the jungle and in the hands of his capturers.

A few weeks ago I mentioned I enjoyed several of the pieces on Ten Minute Older: Trumpet and desired to look more into the works of these directors. I was lucky that at my local art cinema (Metro, Derby) they were showing three of Werner Herzogs pictures, the first showing last night and the last at the start of next month. Little Dieter is an unique documentary told throughout by Dengler himself. Dengler take us through his life and even to the past by re-visiting his hometown in Germany and then going back to Laos where he fought and was captured. As he describes the horrors he encountered the film suddenly becomes very cathartic as Dengler even replays some of the moments surrounded by local people filling in for the role of his capturers.



This approach to me seems very daring, even the fact that Dengler re-visits his hometown to tell his story is something you usually see in documentaries, it is far different then the usual talk heads followed location shooting by the crew alone.

The film was shot on 35mm but by the look of the projection to me it looked like video at times. It is possible that the projection itself was from the video source, at times there were moments of interlacing. To me this low quality did not distract from the film as a whole but probably made it even greater then it ever could be. The quality to me made the film feel and look honest. Dengler and Herzog have done an amazing job with this film. Dengler tells his story boldly and without remorse whilst Herzog dones a magnificent job at capturing his unique character.

Little Dieter is an amazing, sometimes funny and sometimes shocking insight. Werner Herzog recently adapted this story into a films tarring Christian Bale called Rescue Dawn (2006), which I will see on the 3rd of February but before then it's Herzogs documentary Wheel of Time (2003), showing next Wednesday.

Film: Lord of the Rings (1978)

Yesterday I watched Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings, which is based on the first two books.

Recently Peter Jackson completed the trilogy across three 3 - 3 and an half hour films (not including deleted scenes included on the extended cuts), Bakshi managed to tell half of that story in just over 2 hours. Originally subtitled as Part One, a second film was planned but never created despite commercial success. The helm would later be taken over be Rankin Bass Productions Return of the King which was made more as a follow up to their earlier film The Hobbit.

Bakshi, like in his previous work, uses rotascoping to animated his characters, the process of filming live actors and then using that as a template to create more realistic movement. The use creates an odd mix of style in this work, at times you would think this was never done and then suddenly a shot would appear with such life like characters that it looks more like Richard Linklater's Waking Life (2001) or A Scanner Darkly (2006) then your archetypical cartoon [sic]. Though Bakshi at this time was seen as one of the most daring and cutting edge animators, it's no wonder that these shots look almost like dark pop art pieces.

At two hours for an animation this may seem long but considering the depth of the original books by many this may not be long enough. I thought the earlier moments of the film just skimmed past to quickly. There are some great moments in this film the most memorable for me was the encounter of Gandalf and Saruman, however i found the unbalanced mix of animation style i bit cheap and in general it seems a little flat at times.

Film: About Love

A trilogy of love stories set in Tokyo, Mainland China and Taiwan each featuring a foreigner from one of the other respected countries.

One of many films backlogged in my DVD collection that needed watching. An interesting film that has its moments but not something that i would watch again. The subject matter around language barriers is quite intriguing.

Film: The Revenge of Doctor X (1970)

An over worked NASA scientist, who appears to have crab up his ass which won't go away, takes a vacation in Japan by the advisement of a colleague. But instead of relaxing he decides to carry out experiments on a Venus Flytrap, which he somehow managed to smuggle in to the country, to prove that humans evolved from plants. He resides in a secluded old house with his colleagues daughter and the hunchbacked housekeeper and begins with crossing the flytrap with a seaplant which somehow manages to make it grow and take the form of a human. His last act is cross it with human blood which he obtains from a sanitarium which seemed to appear from no where.



The Revenge of Doctor X was a US-Japanese co-production that was allegedly written by none other then Edward D Wood Jr. The original title of the film was The Venus Flytrap, but Revenge is the more common title. Confusing because the X seems inexplanatory and theres actually no revenge of anything. The film is badly made and always over the top throughout. The doctor can't seem to go five minutes without bursting into fits of rage and moments towards the end just seem to get more and more nonsensical. For example why does the doctor go all the way to a sanitarium to get human blood, doesn't he have his own?

The Revenge of Doctor X is just pure silliness from beginning to end, any fan of bad movies will love this. This film is bad bad bad bad baaaad. And of course any fan of Ed Wood should certainly check this out [note: apparently the opening credits are completely wrong which explains why Ed isn't listed as writer]. The movie can be downloaded for free, and legally, via torrent from Public Domain Torrents.

Links:
The hunt for Ed Wood
Download

Film: Sour Grapes (1998)

Two cousins go to Atlantic City and one wins $400,000 on the slot machine but the other think he's entitled to half since it was his quarters and it doesn't go well for either from there on. Sour Grapes is Larry Davids only directional work and his first project after Seinfeld and before Curb. Overall the humour and characters feel like they should belong in a Seinfeld episode and unfortunately would probably work better there. SG is very dark in places, one of the characters attempts to kill his own mother by scaring her to death, these quite of traits would not belong in either of Davids other projects. This is probably where the freedom lies in making a film like this as there is no recognizable characters for the audience. The film was failure both commercially and critically and I can see why, whilst Davids humour is clear it doesn't quite work. Maybe under a different director it could of been better.

Film: Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaption

In 1981 three boys fell in love with Steven Speilburg's first installment of the Indiana Jones series so much that they decided remake the film shot for shot. Seven years later they were done. Shot entirely on home video the boys used magazines, articles and saw the film countless times even seeking in a sound recorder all in aid of research. They drew concept drawings, storyboards and made their own props. The dedication that went in to construction of this tribute is astonishing.



When any amateur or fan film is made there will usually be problems, as there is in this. The acting overall is pretty bad, the video being early 80s home video is mostly blurry and the sound at times is unlistenable. The boys however were 12 when began and a lot of the cast were around the same age. But at that age what they have accomplished is inspiring. All of our favourite and most memorable moments have all been faithfully reconstructed. Watch these YouTube clips for just a taster:

Trailer

Segment on BBC's Talking Movies



The film has had quite the following since its completion getting the big thumbs up from Speilburg himself and the story surrounding the remake is in the works to become a film itself (currently Daniel Clowes is set to write). Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaption is fascinating to watch and is currently only available to watch through bootleg or one of the recent cinema screenings. You can read more about the films production over at TheRaider.net.