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This is the End (2013) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Funny actors in the middle of Apocalypse

Posted on October 6, 2013 by kaist455

As its title suggests, “This is the End” is about the end of the world, and it has indeed plenty of fire and brimstone to pour on its funny cast. While it is almost certain that they are going to be doomed just like everyone left on the Earth, we are constantly bombarded with small and big laughs as the world outside is showered with fire and smoke and other apocalyptic signs, and there are several absolutely hilarious moments surrounded by its mildly amusing jokes involving with the main actors having a ball with playing the fictional version of themselves in the movie.

Based on Jason Stone’s short film “Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse”, the directors/writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who wrote the screenplay for that short film with Stone, sets the beginning of their irreverent story in the mundane mood before gleefully hurling their friends/colleagues and others into Hell on Earth to be unfolded on LA. Jay Baruchel, nerdy and neurotic as he was in “Almost Famous”(2000) or “She’s Out of My League”(2010), visits LA to meet his close friend Seth Rogen, and he is warmly welcomed by his friend at the airport before going to Rogen’s house for smoking marijuana together. After their several dizzy hours with marijuana have quickly passed, Rogen, who looks less chubby than before but still not so different from his jolly teddy bear image I am familiar with, takes Baruchel to the night party at James Franco’s big modern house, but Baruchel is reluctant because of Jonah Hill(he does not like Hill for some reason).

At Franco’s residence, which looks like a stack of Lego blocks from the outside, we see lots of well-known figures in Hollywood business here and there as everyone has another fun night with music and booze. Two of the most notable guests are Emma Watson and Michael Cera, and Cera is virtually on the full-throttle mode for completely wrecking his shy, awkward kid persona previously exemplified in “Juno”(2007) and “Superbad”(2007). He is more or less than a cocaine-snorting jerk here in this film, and we also witness him having some private moment with two ladies in the bathroom.

And then something happens when Rogen and Baruchel go outside to buy cigarette. A huge Earthquake suddenly strikes LA, and they see a bunch of people being transported to the sky by mysterious blue light beams, and then the pandemonium erupts in the city. The party guests are initially oblivious to what is going on outside, but they soon find the ground in front of the house cracked and then crumbled to create a big giant hole. The special effects in the movie are as good as the ones in, say, “2012”(2009), and you may be tickled by the sight of many famous entertainers tumbled and fallen into the fiery bottom below one by one(Cera gets the worst of it, and he truly deserves that for his effectively unlikable performance).

On the next morning, it becomes clearer to six survivors in the house that they are in the middle of the biblical disaster. While the electricity is somehow supplied to the house, the communication line is broken, and there is not much food in the house. In the outside, fire and smoke are everywhere(considering the scale of the disaster, it is rather amazing that they are not asphyxiated to die yet), and there is also something horrible moving around the house.

The middle part of the movie is relatively the least funny part because the story is basically stuck with its main actors in the confined space, but it is at least amusing to watch these funny actors rolling and clashing with each other within the limited space while the end is coming closer to them hour by hour. Rogen and Baruchel are the most sensible members of the bunch, and Baruchel quickly sees that what he and Rogen witnessed at the supermarket was none other than the Rapture as prophesied in the Book of Revelation – and he also sees that there might be a way out of this mess for them. While Franco plays a vain, egoistic prick version of himself, Jonah Hill is nicer than he was in his previous comedy films, and Craig Robinson and Danny McBride are not that far from their respective screen personas. Usually with his personal towel on his left shoulder, Robinson comes to us as a big soft guy in his usual low-key comic performance, and, as the most incorrigible one in the bunch, McBride wields his boorish impertinence whenever it is possible; you never doubt that he will certainly go to hell no matter what happens.

The movie throws lots of inside jokes based on the careers of its main actors as they search for any way to increase their chance of survival or waste their precious time, and you may not fully enjoy them if you are not familiar with their careers. Hill’s recent Oscar nomination for “Moneyball”(2011) is naturally one of the main targets for laughs, and we even see a silly attempt to make the sequel to “Pineapple Express”(2008) in the middle of the story.

The movie also has other things to be enjoyed, and you will find them really funny regardless of your background knowledge. As the things get much worse outside, the movie goes all the way for more outrageous sights such as the giant devil with a certain big body part(you have to see it for yourself) and the hilarious cameo appearance by a certain major Hollywood star, and I must confess that I laughed hard while watching an uproarious moment during which “Rosemary’s Baby”(1968) and “The Exorcist”(1973) simultaneously came to my mind.

Although they were responsible for disposable films like “The Watch”(2012) and “The Green Hornet”(2011), Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are good comedy writers who can pull big laughs from us as proven in “Superbad” and “Pineapple Express”. While decorated with their usual raunchy male humor, “This is the End” is as funny as it can be, and it feels sort of sweet at times despite its loony background. After all, having some good laughs before thrown into hell is not a bad thing, and this is surely a fun apocalyptic ride to be enjoyed before you go to hell – or heaven, perhaps.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Actors, Apocalypse | 1 Comment

The Kings of Summer (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : Their short summer deviation

Posted on October 5, 2013 by kaist455

I remember well when I watched the first trailer of “The Kings of Summer” early in this year. The movie got some positive responses after it was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival around that time, and, as far as I could observed from the trailer, the movie looked like a spirited coming-of-age comedy drama. It just showed its three teenager heroes having a musical fun with a big pipe line in the forest, and their sense of fun and enthusiasm made that moment charming and exciting.

However, when I saw the movie at last night, it turned to be not as exciting or funny or touching as I expected after watching the trailer. Although it is not entirely devoid of charm and energy, the movie frequently feels like a one-joke comedy stretched too long, and its weak story and characterization does not help much the good-spirited performances from its main cast which certainly deserves better than this. I was amused occasionally by their performances, and I enjoyed its vivid summer atmosphere, but, to be frank with you, I felt like a bored summer vacationer as the story dragged after its first 30 minutes.

The movie is about a short summer deviation of three boys who merely happen to get together and then go along with their impulsive plan. Joe(Nick Robinson) is a high schooler living with his widower father Frank(Nick Offerman), and his life with dad at home is suffocating to say the least. Frank is not exactly a loveless father, but his strict rules and constant sarcasm on his son always annoys Joe, and that attitude is not changed much even when they are with others. Offerman maintains his absolute deadpan performance while his character keeps finding from his son anything to be sarcastic about, and he is one of few things really funny in the movie.

In case of Joe’s friend Patrick(Gabriel Basso), he has an opposite problem with his equally suffocating parents, who care about their son too much. Mr. and Mrs. Keenan(Marc Evan Jackson and Megan Mullally) never lets their son go away from their sight, and their overbearing attitude recently becomes more insufferable after Patrick got a minor injury in his left foot. Like Joe, Patrick wants to get away from this suffocating environment if he can.

Now the summer vacation begins, so they are bound to be stuck in their respective homes, but Joe comes upon a good idea after one night party near the forest. While wandering in the forest, he comes across a vacant lot in the middle of the forest, and then a small plan comes to his mind; he and Patrick can build a house at this spot, and they can live in the house while being free from their parents at least during the summer vacation.

Patrick is reluctant at first, but he eventually decides to join his friend and Biaggio(Moises Arias), a bizarre boy who somehow comes to participate in this plan from the beginning. Although Arias is a scene-stealer who will probably lead a good acting career in the future, one of the main problems in the movie is that it does not know what to do with this offbeat character except making him doing the series of weird things including his silly camouflage for hiding in the forest. He may be funny to watch at first, but the movie does not provide any substantial characterization to make him into a really funny character, and Arias’ performance becomes rather flat even though the movie keeps finding another weird behavior to play for him.

Once they finish building their house and then move into the house, the movie treads a predictable path. The sky is bright and clear, and the forest is cool and green, and the boys are excited and happy to be free in their own world, and, of course, their parents are worried after their boys’ elopement(Biaggio’s parents inexplicably never appear in the movie except one brief scene which merely shows his father’s neck being shaved). While the boys explore the environment around their house, the parents and police keep looking for them, and, not so surprisingly, the parents begin to think seriously about why the boys run away from them.

Although the director Jordan Vogt-Roberts(this is his first feature film) did a good job of setting the nice, crisp atmosphere of summer days in his movie, I began to lose interest in the story mainly because Chris Galletta’s screenplay fails in developing its comic characters into something more than caricatures. There are several good individual moments, and that pipe line scene does not disappoint me at all, but they do not mesh well together to make a story which can hold our interest.

The story subsequently loses its breezy energy glimpsed during its first act as it loses its way amid slow motion shots and song-filled montages during its second act, and the conflict brought onto the third act through Kelly(Erin Moriarty), a nice girl Joe has had a crush on, is contrived and unconvincing. It is supposed to be a coming-of-drama about rebellious boys, but only growth I observed around the ending was the stubbles on their faces.

Anyway, “The Kings of Summer” is a flawed but likable film with nice things to be savored in its lightweight environment. Three young lead actors get along well with each other on the screen, and I felt a bit relaxed as appreciating those lovely summer scenes in the film. This is a little fun for a while, but, unfortunately, it just passes by like my recent summer days.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Adolescence, Elopement, Summer | 1 Comment

Prisoners (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : Good cop, Bad citizen

Posted on October 3, 2013 by kaist455

“Prisoners” tries to roll two things at once to create bigger dramatic impacts. The one is about the grief and subsequent anger caused by a terrible incident, and the other one is about an increasingly frustrating investigation process for finding a culprit responsible for that incident. While there are several intense or interesting moments as we can expect from a dark thriller drama involving with kidnapping and (possibly) murder, the movie stumbles as its calm approach clashes with its heavy-handed mystery plot filled with obvious clues and typical plot turns, and the result is uneven and incoherent to say the least despite its good things to be admired.

From the beginning, you can instantly feel that something bad is going to happen. After the quiet but unnerving opening scene showing Keller Dover(Hugh Jackman) and his teenager son Ralph(Dylan Minnette) during their hunt at the forest, the movie moves to the comfortable suburban environment as Keller and his family enjoy the dinner at the house of his friend Franklin(Terrence Howard), but we see the ominous signs all around them – including a suspicious camping car parked nearby.

After the dinner, Keller’s young daughter Anna(Erin Gerasimovich) and Franklin’s young daughter Eliza(Zoe Soul) go out together to find a missing whistle at Keller’s home. When they do not return, their parents are naturally concerned, and their fear and panic are increased as it becomes quite possible that the girls were kidnapped by someone – and they may not see their girls alive again.

The main culprit is quickly arrested as soon as that camping car in question is spotted, but the local police cannot find anything incriminating from the vehicle or its driver, a retarded young man named Alex(Paul Dano). He is virtually a blank page except when he answers to simple questions or blurts out something to be suspected, and that certainly does not help Detective Loki(Jake Gyllenhaal) and others at the police station a lot.

While Detective Loki concludes that there is no solid evidence against Alex despite some suspicion, Keller, who is literally on a full-seething mode, thinks differently. This is a guy who has always prepared for the worst(we later see his garage filled with canned foods and other equipments for survival) but realizes how much helpless he is in this terrible circumstance, and his furious anger is unsurprisingly directed toward Alex just because Alex was initially picked as a prime suspect.

It is possible that Alex is just an odd but innocent man-child taken care of by his aunt Holly(Melissa Leo), but Keller is more convinced of his guilty especially after his public clash with Alex in front of news reporters and policemen. We can have some reasonable doubt on what Alex faintly said to Keller during that moment, but, while overlooking the problems in his household, Keller becomes more obsessed with getting any evidence from Alex. He kidnaps him, and then locks him in an abandoned building, and then tortures him with the reluctant assistance from Franklin, who expresses disgust and doubt at first but helps his friend anyway due to Keller’s bullying certainty.

The movie enters a darker territory as Keller’s method becomes more drastic, but this part goes nowhere while Keller alternatively mulls over his torment and keeps torturing his miserable captive. Hugh Jackman is relentless in presenting the brooding side of his troubled character, and it is sort of fascinating to see how far Keller can go as driven by his grief and following obsession, but Jackman’s gloomy performance gets tiresome as he keeps seething and raging for most of his appearance time.

The better part of the story belongs to the police investigation process, and that is where the story fits well with the director Denis Villeneuve’s cool, detached approach. He keeps the tension level high through subtle ways including careful scene composition, and the cinematographer Roger Deakins amply drenches the screen in the mood of insidious cloudy/rainy days. More puzzle pieces are thrown into the mystery plot including an unidentified body and a bunch of inexplicable maze pictures, and we get several suspenseful scenes such as when Detective Loki suddenly notices a possible culprit and then slowly begins to chase after him.

As a young detective gradually obsessed with his case, Jake Gyllenhaal gives the best performance in the film. While the movie does not tell us a lot about Detective Loki except some background information on his rough adolescent past, Gyllenhaal’s haunting performance fully presents a good, competent cop who probably learned one or two things about the dark side of human nature through his hard personal experience. He instinctively senses that Keller is playing a bad cop(or a bad citizen, shall we say) for himself, but he chooses to stay focused on his main job even though he comes to have a pretty good idea about where Keller is keeping Alex. After all, there are already too many things to handle in his labyrinthine investigation, and we can sense how much pressured he is while he looks more agitated and frustrated.

Despite its long running time(153-min), “Prisoners” was not a boring experience in spite of my uncomfortable viewing condition(I happened to sit on the floor at the back of the screening room), but I kept thinking of better films during the screening. While “In the Bedroom”(2001) and “Mystic River”(2003) delved more deeply and darkly into the grief and devastation resulted from the loss of a loved one, “Zodiac”(2007) more convincingly presented the people gradually consumed by their obsessive crime investigation going nowhere while strewn with countless possibilities.

The movie is not without interesting aspects, but the screenplay by Aaron Guzikowski is frequently hampered by blatant symbolism and manipulation, and the good actors like Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Melissa Leo, and Maria Bello are wasted mainly due to thin characterization. As Keller’s distraught(and heavily medicated) wife, Bello is mostly stuck with her character on the bed, and Howard and Davis do as much as they can do with their thankless accessory roles. Davis, who plays Franklin’s wife, proves again that she is one of the valuable American actresses, and she handles the scene well where her character confronts with what her husband is doing with his friend.

Denis Villeneuve’s previous work was an Oscar-nominated film “Incendies”(2010), which I chose as one of the best films of 2011. Its plot was progressed rather mechanically, and I could see that the story moved from one point to the next point as planned in advance, but it was devastating to watch the movie finally arriving at its inevitable ending. Although it is a well-made and well-acted film, I only observed plot machination from “Prisoners”, and that is why I left the screening room with growing dissatisfaction at last night.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Crime, Detective, Family, Kidnapping, Thriller | 2 Comments

Cats and kittens in the afternoon(2013/10/01)

Posted on October 1, 2013 by kaist455

There are more kittens in the campus…

Posted in Photos | Tagged Cat, KAIST | 1 Comment

Behind the Candelabra (2013) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : Behind his sparkling showmanship

Posted on September 28, 2013 by kaist455

“Behind the Candelabra” is as dazzlingly entertaining as its flamboyant entertainer hero who ironically hid himself through the bold, colorful, and sparkling presentation of his personality on the stage. When we see one of Liberace’s stage performances full of glamour and sparkles along with the candelabra on his fancy piano, it is almost transparent that he is a homosexual, but, despite constant rumors about his sexuality, his fans and others mostly accepted his public denial, and that went on until his AIDS-related death in 1987(he tried to cover that fact from public even after his death, by the way).

Based on the book written by Scott Thorson and Alex Thorleifson, the movie focuses on a crucial romantic relationship during the later years of Liberace’s life. It is 1977, and Scott Thorson(Matt Damon), a good-looking 17-year-old boy hoping to be a veterinarian while working as an animal-trainer, happens to meet Liberace(Michael Douglas) through a Hollywood producer named Bob Black(Scott Bakula), who has been Thorson’s close friend after their incidental encounter at a local gay bar. After taking care of the eye problem of one of Liberace’s dogs, Thorson starts to win Liberace’s favor, and then he soon works as Liberace’s ‘assistant’ while living with him.

Thorson may be naive compared to others around him, but he is well aware of his new position as Liberace’s latest lover, and he gladly enjoys the excessive luxury inside Liberace’s mansion in Las Vegas, which looks like a big, wide royal palace filled with expensive furnitures, decorations, and clothes. He soon gets his own house and cars thanks to his lover’s generosity, and he also appears with him on the stage as a part of the show.

Despite their considerable age difference(Liberace was approaching 60 around that time), there is genuine mutual affection between Thorson and Liberace. From his lover, Thorson sees an aging man who always needs someone to stand by him(and sleep with him), and he willingly gives his lover whatever he wants while showered with the presents from him. In addition, because he grew up without his parents when he was young, Liberace becomes a father figure to him, and Liberace, who seems to really love him, even seriously considers legally adopting Thorson as his son – or his lifetime partner, shall we say.

But the story becomes weirder and darker as their relationship is developed further. In a hilariously cringe-inducing moment, Liberace has his shady plastic surgeon Dr. Startz(Rob Lowe, who looks nefarious as much as he can) do a plastic surgery on Thorson for making Thorson look more similar to him, and the movie has some fun with the unpleasant details of plastic surgery process. Thorson later becomes addicted to the diet drugs prescribed to him by Dr. Startz, and his addiction problem puts more conflict on their strained relationship along with Liberace’s frequent promiscuity.

While it has the inherent quality of campy show business melodrama considering its subject, the screenplay by Richard LaGravenese stays neutral with its balanced view on Liberace and Thorson’s relationship amid sumptuous set designs and flamboyant costumes, and the movie is constantly enjoyable to watch thanks to Steven Soderbergh’s slick, competent direction(as usual, he also worked as the editor and the cinematographer of his movie). The ambience of the 1970s is recreated well on the screen along with Liberace’s showy stage performances, and late Marvin Hamlisch’s score functions well with other songs on the soundtrack(this is his last work, by the way).

Michael Douglas has received lots of acclaims including an Emmy award for this movie, and he certainly deserves them for many reasons. It is always pleasure to see an actor showing unexpected sides through good performance, and, as he sometimes did, Douglas shows here something we have never expected from him. Gliding with wig and make-ups and those shiny capes like a peacock, he not only looks convincing as Liberace but also gives us the complex portrait of a colorful show business man who can be caring and generous as well as manipulative and egoistic. Douglas deftly moves around theatricality and sincerity while revealing an interesting human being behind the caricature persona created by himself, and he is always entertaining to watch on the screen.

Opposite to Douglas, Matt Damon naturally looks less showy, but his earnest performance holds the ground while having a good chemistry with Douglas’. He surely feels a bit awkward at first(after all, he plays the character who was a teenager boy at the beginning), but he quickly immerses himself into the role as the story develops with passing years, and he is effective as a young man who is easily impressed, influenced, and manipulated by a larger-than-life figure he loves and cares about. Thorson’s gradual transformation along the plot is believable thanks to Damon’s performance, and he and Douglas never flinch from their respective characters as convincingly presenting the unstable relationship dynamics between them.

The supporting actors surrounding Douglas and Damon also leave some impression as they revolve around them. While Rob Lowe and Scott Bakula are easily recognizable, Dan Aykroyd is nearly unrecognizable as Liberace’s trusted agent Seymour Heller, and Debbie Reynolds is Liberace’s old doting mother who has probably never imagined that her talented son is not very interested in finding the girl of his life.

The movie ultimately comes to us as a humorous and touching love story between two men who still care about each other despite the bitter end of their relationship. Their final meeting scene not long before Liberace’s death especially feels poignant, and it is soon followed by the beautiful closing scene Liberace himself would have fully approved of.

Steven Soderbergh recently announced that he will retire from his directing career, and it seems “Behind the Candelbra” will be his last movie(Produced as a TV movie, it was aired on HBO in this May while being released in theaters outside US). Considering that he is not that old yet, it is possible that he will make a comeback later, but, anyway, this is surely the fantastic swan song from one of the talented directors of our time.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Entertainer, Homosexuality, Pianist, Real-life figure, Real-life incident | 1 Comment

Blue Jasmine (2013) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : A Streetcar Named Delusion

Posted on September 26, 2013 by kaist455

Observing the unstable heroine of Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” is akin to looking into a miserable mess beyond repair. While she had already been mired in self-delusion when her world suddenly collapsed, she still remains in that pathetic state even when she reaches for a chance for restart, and that is why the movie is morbidly compelling to watch although we don’t want to be around her even for 5 minutes.

With Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” as its major inspiration, the movie comes to us as one of the darkest stories from Woody Allen, who came back to US for this film after making several films in Europe. While the story is not entirely devoid of humor and the soundtrack feels as pleasant as its locations around San Francisco, this is essentially the tragedy of a deluded woman trapped in her hopeless situation by none other than herself, and it is sometimes not easy to laugh even though we clearly see how silly she looks as she is heading to another bottom point already set for her from the start.

Jasmine Francis, played magnificently by Cate Blanchett, had been the wife of a successful financial business man in New York, but things got pretty disastrous for her and her husband Hal(Alec Baldwin) recently. The luxurious life style they had enjoyed for years was in fact supported by Hal’s massive financial fraud, and her comfortable world was turned upside down as soon as her husband was arrested by FBI on one day.

Almost broke as a consequence, Jasmine decides to leave New York and flies to San Francisco for a new chance, but it does not look hopeful much to us, if not her. She has never had any real job since her marriage, and her plan to be a certified interior designer sounds quite unrealistic to say the least, and she has a serious mental problem as shown during the opening scene in which she keeps talking about herself and her life even though an old lady sitting next to her in the plane is not listening to her at all. Her unstable mind sometimes seems to go back to her luxurious years in New York, and that naturally makes the people around her baffled or embarrassed.

At least, it is lucky for her that her younger sister Ginger(Sally Hawkins) lives in San Francisco and can provide her a place to stay for a while. Like her ex-husband Augie(Andrew Dice Clay), Ginger has lots of reasons to be angry about Jasmine’s recently deceased husband(he killed himself in prison), but, as a good sister, she lets Jasmine stay in her house although she sees that her sister is not changed much despite her crumbled position. Jasmine laments about how she becomes far poorer than before, but it seems to never cross her mind that she could have saved some money for her if she had not bought the first-class airplane ticket.

The movie goes back and forth between Jasmine’s pathetic present in San Francisco and her splendid but equally pathetic past in New York. Besides being a Wall Street crook, her husband was a lying philanderer, and everyone around Jasmine knew about his affairs as well as some dirty business behind his back, but she virtually chose to be deceived by not only him but also herself. Literally bathing in luxury, she could get anything she wanted thanks to him, and she was comfortable with that while looking down on her sister and brother-in-law.

Not so surprisingly, she instantly looks down on Ginger’s recent boyfriend Chili(Bobby Cannavale), a local mechanic whom she thinks is not good enough for her sister. Mainly due to her sister’s influence, Ginger finds herself drawn to Al(Louis C.K.), an amiable guy who looks more gentle and caring than Chili, and Jasmine also meets her possible second Mr. Right through an accidental encounter at one party.

You can easily guess how the things will turn out in the end especially if you are familiar with Tennessee Williams’s play, but Woody Allen presents his heroine as a memorably incorrigible case study, and Cate Blanchett’s terrific performance elevates the story to a grand tragicomedy. Like Charlize Theron in Jason Reitman’s “Young Adult”(2011), which was also a dark comedy about a pathologically self-deluded heroine, Blanchett goes all the way to play an unlikable character we can hardly identify with, and she is consistently fascinating to watch as revealing her character’s many unhinged sides. Like she turned a blind eye to what was going on around her in New York, Jasmine does not even try to face her problems while continuously ingesting alcohol and pills, and that only causes her circumstance to get worse than before.

Woody Allen assembles the nice supporting cast around Blanchett. Sally Hawkins is fabulous as a realistic counterpart to Blanchett, and Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Dice Clay are solid as two ‘brutish’ working class guys immediately reminding us of Stanley Kowalski. Alec Baldwin gives his despicable character slick quality as required, and Michael Stuhlbarg is a dentist who comes to have a very misguided notion about his newly employed receptionist, and Peter Sarsgaard is a young diplomat whose wholesome political ambition is definitely not compatible with Jasmine’s checkered past.

While making many enjoyable comedy films, Woody Allen has made more serious attempts in his long, illustrious career, and “Blue Jasmine” can be viewed as one of them although it can be interpreted as a comedy. Beneath its laid-back humor, there is a dark, hopeless tragedy at its center, and the movie could be a lot more depressing experience if it were not for Allen’s lightweight approach. She is stuck on a streetcar named delusion, and I doubt she will ever get off from it.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Comedy, Mental Illness, Sisters | 1 Comment

Our Sunhi (2013) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : Three guys and one pretty girl

Posted on September 20, 2013 by kaist455

I usually hesitate in case of giving advice to others because, besides being quite reluctant about that due to the subsequent responsibility, I am not sure about whether I am a guy who knows the best. I may be willing to give an advice to other guy because I think I should, but I will probably ask myself first about whether I really know enough about him.

In case of Sun-hi, a lovely college girl played by Jeong Yu-mi in Hong Sang-soo’s new film “Our Sunhi”, I still do not know a lot about her even in the end; yes, she is pretty and likable, but she is somewhat elusive to us even though we have seen her different aspects since the day she arrives. I will certainly not give any advice to her even if she demands, but she frequently gets advices from three guys reaching for her and then baffled about her, and that is where the movie gets most of its laughs.

During the opening scene, we see her visit to the campus after some time of her absence since the graduation. After coming across her senior student Sang-woo(Lee Min-woo), she soon meets her former professor Choi Dong-hyeong(Kim Sang-joong), and she is very furious to Sang-woo later when they meet again by coincidence. Maybe it was a harmless prank in his view, but it was surely wrong to lie to her that Professor Choi was out of the town when she needed to see him right now, and you will agree that he richly deserves all the sound and fury from her.

Sun-hi was Professor Choi’s favorite student when she studied as an undergraduate student in the film academy department, and now she needs Professor Choi’s help. She decides to learn more about fillmmaking outside South Korea, so she requests him to write a nice recommendation letter for her enrollment in the graduate course in some American university.

Professor Choi gladly accepts her request, and he quickly writes the recommendation letter for her and then gives it to her on the next day. It is a nice letter on the whole, but he does not exactly praise her talent or potential while clearly pointing out her weaknesses including shyness and indecisiveness, and we can see her confused reaction from her face as she reads it alone on the bench. She thinks he did not know well about her while writing it, but she is not so sure about herself either.

Anyway, they have another private conversation on that day, and Professor Choi agrees to write another version for her as they drink soju like many characters of Hong Sang-soo’s films did. After all, it did not take much time to write that recommendation letter, so he thinks he will satisfy her easily, but, in this time, he discovers that he has had some feeling toward her.

That change inside his mind results in one of the amusingly repetitive contrasts/comparisons in Hong’s playful plot which juggles not only these two characters but also two other main characters going around Sun-hi. Not long after her first meeting with Professor Choi, Sun-hi spots her former boyfriend Moon-soo(Lee Seon-gyoon), who is now a graduate student while recently making a debut as a movie director. They soon have a day drinking time together with beer, soju, and fried chicken, and it seems possible that there are still remaining feelings between them as we watch them eat, drink, and talk with each other.

After parting with her, Moon-soo meets Jae-hak(Jeong Jae-yeong), who was their senior student and is now more or less than a loser intellectual living alone by himself(he separated from his wife lately). They drink soju together at a bar nearby during the same evening, and we get a very memorable long-take scene as they try to be articulate in spite of their inebriated state. Lee Seon-gyoon is simply hilarious as Moon-soo is trying to make his point about ‘digging deep’ for future, and I later came to learn that he and Jeong Jae-yong actually drank soju while going through several takes; while this surely proves that Hong Sang-soo is a director any recovering alcoholic actor should think twice about working with, these two actors deserve praises for managing to maintain good comic timing and effortless spontaneity during their alcoholic performances(Hong eventually used the last take because it was so good and so lively compared to the other previous takes thanks to his drunken actors).

As observing how the movie amused the audiences with its cheerfully repetitive humor during the screening at last night, I also thought about how Hong Sang-soo’s films have kept tickling me and others with their plain but humorous storytelling while rarely stepping out of his own small territory. His characters are usually associated with fillmmaking one way or another, and we frequently see them drinking soju(even Isabelle Huppert in “In Another Country”(2012) drank soju, and that was a priceless moment), and we chuckle about human silliness and embarrassment in their comic situations fueled by bottles of soju.

As I became more acquainted with his films, I came to appreciate and admire his movies more even though I was not as enthusiastic as others, and waiting for Hong Sang-soo’s new film in South Korea becomes as ritualistic as waiting for new Woody Allen’s film in US. While less stylish and less distinctive on the surface than his contemporary South Korean directors such as Park Chan-wook or Bong Joon-ho, he has been consistent and diligent while establishing a solid renowned career through his small but witty and intelligent films released every year, and notable South Korean actors willingly work with him even if they get paid less than usual.

Hong usually work with a small group of actors(there are only nine actors in the film, by the way), and they are delightful to watch. While Kim Sang-joong, Jeong Yu-mi, and Lee Seon-gyoon give good comedy performances as they did in their previous respective collaborations with Hong, Jeong Jae-yeong and Lee Min-woo get along well with their fellow cast members, and Ye Ji-won also provides a small extra dose of humor as the bar owner who just sits besides the main characters while ordering fried chicken, which is one of the running gags in the film.

Maybe I still have lots of things to learn for digging deeply into Hong’s films and I cannot decide on whether they are profoundly simple or simply profound, but I can say I like his films, and I think “Our Sunhi” is one of more enjoyable ones in his interesting career. I enjoyed how the characters are rolled around without perceiving the whole circumstance of theirs in its lightweight human farce, and, above all, it reminds me that Seoul has at least one nice place for stroll. To a guy who always thinks that Seoul is a dreadfully abstract environment covered with the forests of tasteless concrete apartment buildings, that’s a nice achievement to say the least.

Posted in Movies | Tagged College, Comedy, Professor and pupil, South Korean Film | 2 Comments

The Conjuring (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : A usual business in the ominous haunted house

Posted on September 17, 2013 by kaist455

Maybe I am too jaded as a seasoned audience and amateur critic, but I could not help but be sarcastic about the prologue of “The Conjuring”, which kindly emphasizes to us that everything depicted in the movie is based on a real-life incident. Seriously, how could I believe its serious statements when it was pretty clear that it would go into the familiar supernatural territory of “The Exorcist”(1973), “The Amityville Horror”(1979), and other countless horror films about malevolently dilapidated houses or insidiously disturbing possessions?

Speaking of “The Amityville Horror”, “The Conjuring” is based on one of those questionable incidents reported by the very couple who inspired that movie: Ed and Lorraine Warren. They gained their ‘reputation’ as paranormal investigators while publishing several books on their investigations, but I have no idea about whether they witnessed real supernatural incidents or whether they just thought they did. Sure, you may enjoy their stories, but you cannot possibly serious about a demonic werewolf or a haunted house when there is no credible scientific evidence to support their claims.

Anyway, the movie believes in its supernatural elements, and it did a credible job of constructing an insidious house made of various horror movie conventions at the remote rural place in Harrisville, Rhode Island. This house looks pretty nice from the outside, and its interior does not look bad though it needs some more repair and remodeling, but you know they are going to be in trouble because 1) the family dog is reluctant about going inside the house, and 2) they find a hidden entrance to the basement where lots of suspicious things have been stored, and 3) there is an old big tree outside the house which looks like being imported from “Sleepy Hollow”(1999), and 4) the youngest daughter finds a grimy music box toy which sounds pretty good even though it seemed to be manufactured at least 100 years ago.

Understandably, everything looks fine to the Perron family during their first days at the house. Carolyn and Roger(Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston) are glad to buy this house at a reasonable price through a local bank auction, and their lovely five daughters get quickly accustomed to their new environment. Too bad they are living in the 1970s – they would instantly recognize minor but disturbing signs around them if they were familiar with “The Amityville Horror” or other subsequent haunted house movies.

But, like any normal people would in their circumstance, they slowly come to recognize that there is something in their house. They hear voices and sounds during nights, and they keep having a problem with the temperature maintenance in the house, and they also smell something stinking. Furthermore, Carolyn finds inexplicable bruises on her body whenever she wakes up in the morning, and her youngest daughter talks with an unseen entity as her new friend when she is alone.

And that is just the beginning, and the Perrons’ circumstance gets worse and worse. One of their notably sensible reactions is that they immediately approach to the experts of paranormal activities, who are none other than Ed and Lorraine Warren(Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). After handling some bad case a few months ago, Ed and Lorraine decide to take a break while giving lectures from time to time, but they feel the urgency when they meet Carolyn after one of their lectures, so they go to the Perron family house along with two other people assisting them. One of them is a police officer, and I must say it is rather refreshing to see a policemen in the movie willingly assisting the paranormal investigators in spite of his mild skepticism.

If you are an experienced moviegoer like me, I bet you have a pretty good idea about what will be served after that point. As a clairvoyant, Lorraine instantly senses an unknown malevolent force shrouding not only the house but also the Perrons, and she sees some disturbing hallucinations as she looks around the house and the surrounding environment. With the recording equipments set inside the house, Ed searches for the evidences which can get him a permission for exorcism from the Catholic Church. The dark history behind the house is revealed(an amusing IMDB trivia: “The state of Rhode Island does not require home sellers to disclose documented paranormal and supernatural hauntings to potential buyers.”), and the things become more perilous than before in the house whenever it gets dark, and, yes, Ed and Lorraine come to realize that it may be too late for the Perrons or themselves if they do not take care of this supernatural danger as soon as possible.

As the bodies and objects are moved around a lot on the screen during the second half, its credibility as a ‘real-life story’ is virtually thrown out of the window, but the director James Wan and his crew give us a competent haunted house movie which knows that good scary movie mainly depends on mood and suspense rather than shock. Its ominous atmosphere is well maintained on the screen, and the screenplay by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes does not feel tedious as steadily tuning suspense and shock throughout the running time. Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, and their co-actors are convincing in their earnest performances, and their characters are more than terrified cardboards. One nice scene is involved with Ed’s private office which looks like a museum of the damned objects, and I could see lots of potentials from that spooky place which must have many other supernatural stories to tell.

“The Conjuring”, which got R-rating even though it does not have any particularly gory scene, confirms again that the director James Wan has advanced a lot since his breakthrough film “Saw”(2004), a torture porn film I disliked. He is a good director who knows how to set the mood and how to assemble genre conventions for entertaining the audiences, but I think the movie could have been a little more than that. It goes without saying that this is a well-made film, but I could never get wholly engaged with what happened on the screen, and I did not get scared enough to recommend it to you. What the hell, some of you don’t probably watch more than 5 horror films every year unlike me, you may be more scared or entertained than I was.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Family, Haunted House, Horror, Husband and Wife, Possession | 3 Comments

Monster University (2013) ☆☆☆(3/4) : When Mike met Sulley

Posted on September 16, 2013 by kaist455

“Monsters, Inc.”(2001) was not one of the better animation films from Pixar Animation Studios, but it was an enjoyable one despite its weaknesses, and I had a nice personal memory about it. It was late December in 2001, and, right after enjoying the first Harry Potter movie which was released around that time, I quickly went to the other screening room showing that animation film, and I had another good time thanks to its colorful fun with ‘scary’ monsters and their wonderful closet doors.

Now I have moved forward from my adolescent/college years during that time in one direction, and “Monster University”, the prequel to “Monsters, Inc.”, moves in the opposite direction which may appeal more to the adult audiences little younger than me. They probably enjoyed “Monsters, Inc.” as young kids adoring its odd duo, and many of them may find “Monster University” paradoxically coming closer to them through going backward from the previous film.

The story is about how the odd couple of “Monsters, Inc.”, James P. “Sulley” Sullivan and Mike Wazowski, met each other during their first year at the Monster University, the Ivy League university of their world which usually guarantees the promising career as ‘scarer’ to its monster students after their graduation. Many famous scarers from this university work in the energy company named Monsters, Inc., and, as depicted in the previous film, they bravely go through the portals connected to the bedroom closet doors in our world to scare the hell out of the children sleeping at night. After harvesting the energy for their city from children’s screaming, they return to their world as soon as possible because, ironically, the monsters in the film are quite scared of children, which have been regarded by them as something as toxic as radioactive waste(this looks pretty silly if you remember how the story of the previous film ended).

Impressed by these scarers at their work when he and other kids visited the Monsters, Inc. during their field trip, young Mike immediately wished to be a good scarer like them, but the harsh reality reminded him that he did not look scary from the beginning. Compared to his classmates, who look actually pretty cute despite their teeth, claws, tentacles, and other weird appendages, Mike already looks like a born underachiever considering that he looks like a green billiard ball with one big round eye.

But he does not give up his dream even after several years, so he enrolls in the Monster University as a Scaring major. Although he still does not look scary, Mike(voiced by Billy Crystal from this point) is hopeful and optimistic, and he is ready to do anything for passing the final exam at the end of the semester. As soon as he walks into the university, we see him whirled around the busy atmosphere of the campus welcoming its freshmen, and I must say this sight was amusingly alien to me as an audience whose freshman year at KAIST was a lot more uneventful compared to that. I moved to my dormitory with others, and I bought textbooks, and I prepared for lectures, and that was all I can remember about my first days as an undergraduate student who only cared about study, books, music, and movies(and I was not that interested in girls, let alone boys).

Mike’s first day at the Scaring department does not look that promising. While his classmates including Sulley(voiced by John Goodman) have more potentials thanks to their inherent talents, Dean Hardscrabble(voiced by Helen Mirren), who looks like a cross between dragon and centipede if that ever happens, does not highly think of Mike or her other students. After all, she is a legendary scarer who won’t be easily impressed – or surprised, shall we say.

While finding himself against the wall no matter how much he tries, Mike continues his diligent efforts, but he eventually gets stuck with the fraternity members of Oozma Kappa, the most unpopular(and the least scary) fraternity in the campus. Because of Mike’s determination to be accepted and recognized, Mike and Oozma Kappa members come to be in the competition with more talented fraternities in the Scare Game, and Sulley, who was kicked out of the program along with Mike due to their disastrous conflict, also joins them because Oozma Kappa needs one more member for the Scare Game and Sulley also wants to be reaccepted into the program like Mike.

Now you can see the movie following a typical plot of mismatched underdogs surprising themselves and others by how much they can rise to the occasion, but the story is driven with vibrant energy and enough wits, and there are several fun, exciting moments to be enjoyed as Mike and Sulley and their friends struggle to remain in the competition. The movie has more freedom and speed thank to the digital animation technology which has advanced a lot since “Monsters, Inc.”, and, while that aspect is no longer a surprise to us in these days thank to the constant stream of digital animation films at theaters(remember how much we were amazed by those painstaking details shown through Sulley’s fur?), the movie is entertaining to watch on the whole as it joyfully rolls its colorful characters on its small playground.

As they did in the previous film, Billy Crystal and John Goodman have a nice chemistry together as two contrasting personalities recognizing each other through their adventures and disputes, and other notable actors like Helen Mirren and Steve Buscemi bring extra fun to the story as some of more distinctive monsters at the campus. I especially liked Don Carlton(voiced by Joel Murray), a chubby spectacled monster with tentacles who is not far from how I will probably look like if I spend ten more years at my dear campus.

Pixar has enjoyed many high points of their creativity and imagination during last 18 years, and, compared to them, “Monster University” is not exactly a high point to be mentioned with “Toy Story 2”(1999) or “Finding Nemo”(2003). It is surely a fun experience which made me and adult audiences laugh many times, and I enjoyed an effective and humorous use of the horror film conventions around the ending, but I must say the movie remains to be a lightweight effort compared to Pixar’s best works. At least, an average Pixar animation film looks a lot better when it is compared to more than half of animation films we see every year, and that is why we should cherish it for a while until Pixar surprises us again.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Animation, Fraternity, Monster, University | 1 Comment

The Act of Killing (2012) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): This is one nutty filmmaking

Posted on September 15, 2013 by kaist455

This is one nutty filmmaking. “The Act of Killing”, an absurd and chilling documentary about how the perpetrators of one atrocious political purge are still enjoying impunity along with power in public even after more than 40 years, has a loony unorthodox filmmaking process at its center, and what is shown in front of us through that process is as hilariously terrible as the corrupt social environment surrounding it. We are shocked to see that these murderers have been supported and celebrated by the local government and media for their ‘patriotic’ killings, and they even openly talk about how they killed people during one TV interview in which, this will certainly make your eyes rolling, the interviewer praises them for their efficient and ‘more humane’ killing method without unnecessary brutality(and, believe me, the audiences applaud for that).

You may think this is too absurd to be real, but that massive political purge in question did happen during the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966, and US and other western countries chose to ignore this terrible incident just because they supported Suharto’s right-wing regime as a part of their Cold War tactic. The people responsible for killing more than one million of union members, poor farmers, left-wing/anti-government intellectuals, and ethnic Chinese people during this bloody period are still alive well in their country, and they have been the powerful leading members of their society since the purge; they casually wield their power, money, and notoriety in front of others, and not many people dare to talk openly about the past. As a matter of fact, it is rather revealing to see that many local crew members of this documentary including one co-director are merely listed as “Anonymous” in its strange end credit.

Now it sounds like it was really hard to make a documentary about this immense historical tragedy and the following injustice still reigning even at this point, but the director Joshua Oppenheimer and his co-director Christine Cynn found the very cooperative sources who could tell them anything: the perpetrators themselves. After all, they successfully got away with what they did, and they have been quite frank about that because no one in the Indonesian government will possibly hold them accountable for that. During one of the darkly hilarious moments in the documentary, the vice president of Indonesia attends their paramilitary group meeting, and he enthusiastically praises their continuing loyal service to the country while emphasizing that the country always needs the political thugs like them for its safety and maintenance. What a wonderful country Indonesia is.

These horrible guys are surely the ultimate examples of that famous expression ‘the banality of evil.’ It looks like they really do not have any thought on what they committed or what they have been doing, and they do not have any ounce of shame on that, either. At one point, the camera follows a local leader of the well-known paramilitary group named Pancasila Youth, and this guy does not particularly mind at all about showing his shameless extortion of Chinese shop owners in front of the camera. These helpless common people have no choice but to obey to him as bullied by him for any reasons such as the lack of respect or less payment for his protection.

The Indonesian society is no better than him and his peers. We see a parliament member blatantly talking about how he gets some extra money through his political position, and we also observe how much ugly it can be during the election season as it is flowed with money and accompanying political influence. As shown in the documentary, the Pancasila Youth exerts a considerable power over almost every aspect of this corrupt society, and it is really hopeless to see its younger members zealously following its fascistic spirit with no question. I am sure that, if they are ordered, they will have no problem with killing anyone labelled as communist as their seniors did.

Oppenheimer and Cynn met many people participating in the Indonesian killings of 1965-1966, and they eventually encountered a man who would give them something far more fascinating than they expected. He is Anwar Congo, an old man who looks as gentle as, say, Nelson Mandela in contrast to his brutal history of violence. He and his friend Adi Zulkadry were initially the small-time local gangsters, or “premen”, selling black market movie theater tickets in Medan in North Sumatra, but then they came to lead the most notorious death squad in North Sumatra during the purge, and now Anwar is a prominent member of his society as well as an respected founding member of the Pancasila Youth. The governor of North Sumatra cordially welcomed him when he visited the governor’s office at one point, and he sweetly talks about his fun childhood with Anwar even though he surely knows well about what Anwar did during that time.

Anwar does not seem to feel so guilty about his countless murders(it is said that he killed at least 1,000 people), and he even willingly shows how he killed his victims during his paramilitary operation. When there was too much blood on the floor, he improvised a less bloody method for killing through a wire noose, and he willingly reenacts his private method at the very place where he and others killed lots of people – as reminiscing about his good old bloody years.

While admitting that he was once haunted by the memories of that savage time and his victims, Anwar shows neither regret nor remorse, and he and others keep openly talking about the details of their atrocities such as how they disposed of the bodies(They dumped so many bodies into the river in the city that the river was virtually filled with them). With Oppenheimer’s assistance, Anwar goes even further; as a long-time movie fan, he sets out to make a movie defending his position, and, what do you know, he will work as the director and lead actor in the production.

As this outrageous production starts and then proceeds, many memorable moments in front of and behind the camera strike us with their dark absurdity. The terrible scenes based on Anwar’s own killings are cheerfully decorated with Anwar’s favorite genres including musical, western, and gangster film, and its ghastly surrealism generated from the silly juxtaposition between crudeness and cruelty eventually culminates to its climax during the jaw-droppingly insane musical finale which must be seen to be believed. When they make one torture/interrogation scene, the supporting actor playing Anwar’s victim is actually the stepson of one of Anwar’s victims, and you can clearly sense his nervousness behind his pleasant gestures when he keeps assuring to Anwar and his friends that he will not criticize them through his work – and he does as much as demanded by the director when the camera is rolled.

We also observe two other interesting people around Anwar. Anwar usually watches his completed scenes with Herman Koto, a jovial plump dude who comes to us as Anwar’ Sancho Panza in this crazy cinematic journey. As a man who has always revered Anwar, Herman gladly joins in the production as one of the supporting actors, and we can see that this misguided but likable guy is having a fun time with his gaudy costumes which will certainly be welcomed by any drag queen entertainer. There is a grisly scene where Anwar and Herman interact with each other as a dead victim and a gleeful, voracious killer, and this is an utterly priceless moment due to its deranged black humor behind its gory details to make you cringe(thank god this is a low-budget production).

Adi Zulkadry also participates in the production as a favor to his old friend, and he shrewdly sees what possible harm his friend’s film can cause. Unlike others, he is well aware of that he and others did unforgivable things to their victims, but he hides behind his justifications when asked about how he thinks about his killings. He chooses not to face or recognize his evil deeds, but, ironically, he later points out the moral blindness of one journalist who claims that he did not see much of what happened at that time even though he worked directly for a powerful journalist who determined many matters of life and death(that journalist in question is Ibrahim Sinik, and, as shown during Anwar’s visit’s to his newspaper company, he is still well-connected with Anwar and many other influential right-wing figures in Indonesia).

While we are constantly horrified to see more about the evil corruption of the Indonesian society and the vulgar outrageousness of Anwar’s movie production, Oppenheimer wisely lets his hero and the society surrounding him show and tell the story by themselves. He steadily maintains the position of an objective observer during his journey with Anwar as he pushes his documentary into a sheer black comedy which is both horrifyingly absurd and chillingly human, and his bold, crazy, but somehow thoughtful approach evokes those offbeat documentary works by Werner Herzog, who incidentally served as the executive producer in this documentary along with Errol Morris, who, like Herzog, knows two or three things about human peculiarity as shown in his wonderfully compelling documentaries.

The documentary does not corner Anwar with difficult questions while he is making his movie, but we slowly see something awakening inside him as he tries to establish his own view on the killings committed by himself and search for any possible justification for him during the production. He is genuinely caught off guard by how the village attack scene turns out to be far more horrible than he envisioned. After watching one scene where he played an interrogated victim, he comments that he could feel the empathy toward his victims during his performance, though, as Oppenheimer calmly points out behind the camera, his victims went through far worse conditions before being killed.

“The Act of Killing” is a great documentary whose terrifying power comes from not only the startling human evil but also the equally astonishing obliviousness observed from its banal perpetrators. The documentary eventually arrives at a very powerful moment as it closely observes Anwar’s face around the finale, and you may see a man finally fully facing his monstrosity he has been trying to ignore for many years. While I am not 100% sure about whether Anwar’s reaction is genuine or not(one South Korean critic said he deserves to receive Best Actor Oscar if that was merely a performance) and I doubt whether this acclaimed documentary will inspire any change in the Indonesian society, I sort of wish that I witnessed a small but good proof of the power of filmmaking – but I don’t like to watch the end product itself in the documentary, by the way.

Sidenote: The documentary has two versions: the theatrical version(115-min) and the extended version(159-min). I saw the latter for this review, and I was reminded again that good movie is never too long. Yes, there are several minor scenes which can be trimmed without any problem, but I must say I seldom got bored while frequently shaking my head in disbelief.