Seongyong's Private Place

Cats and one ruthless avian campus gang (2013/03/25)

Posted on March 27, 2013 by kaist455

Here are some extra photos….

Posted in Photos | Tagged Cats, Goose, KAIST | 1 Comment

Holy Motors (2012) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : A dazzling limousine ride with Carax and Levant

Posted on March 23, 2013 by kaist455

Some movies can instantly grip our attention even though they do not explain a lot about themselves. I cannot explain well the logics or motives behind its very odd premise, but I can definitely assure you that Leos Carax’s comeback film “Holy Motors” is a dazzling cinematic ride you cannot forget easily. It is a weird but compelling experience, and I willingly went with it as it kept providing something to behold and admire through one ‘mundane’ workday of its lonely hero.

In the opening scene, we see a guy waking up at some motel room. He opens a hidden door in the wall with a key transformed from one of his fingers, and he soon finds himself walking into a quiet movie theater full of the audiences passively staring at the screen. We see a baby walking on the aisle, and then we see a baby replaced by a dog in the next shot. Considering that movie theater is a place for collective dream, I guess this place is a sort of dreamland: are the audiences really watching something or are they waiting for something to watch and dream?

Anyway, the movie moves its focus to Monsieur Oscar(Denis Levant), whose schedule on this day is booked with no less than nine appointments. In the morning, he appears as a middle-aged business man who lives in a big modern house with his family. When he goes for work, the white limousine driven by a middle-aged woman Céline(Édith Scob) is ready to take him to the appointed places, and the files for instructions are also prepared for him in the limousine.

This is quite an interesting limousine, by the way. The space inside the vehicle is far wider and bigger than it looks from the outside, and this space looks more like an actor’s dressing room filled props and tools. As Céline drives around the streets of Paris, Oscar carefully prepares for each of his appointments in the schedule with make-ups and costumes, and he is usually on time as instructed.

The purpose behind his works remains vague even in the end, but we come to accept that he transforms himself to the various characters assigned to him and gives the performances as demanded(it is implied through the conversation at one point that the camera is somewhere near him to shoot his performances for… I don’t know). First, he plays an old female beggar on the street for a while, and then he is swiftly taken to his next assignment involving special effects. He walks into a big, empty studio while wearing tights for motion capture performance, and he alone goes through the series of rapid physical motions as being surrounded by flashy laser lights and computer graphics. He even runs on a treadmill with a machine gun in his hand in front of a big screen, and he is later joined by another performer for their erotic duo performance which is humorously rendered into CGI images.

His work goes on, and I particularly enjoyed watching Levant reprise his role from the segment directed by Carax in the omnibus film “Tokyo!”(2008). In that segment, Levant played a repulsive and aggressive human beast named Merde(it means ‘shit’ in French, by the way), who talked in gibberish while doing freakish and vicious things whenever he came out of the sewer system in Tokyo. Merde shocks the citizens of Paris with equal viciousness here in the movie; as usual, he suddenly appears from the underground and frightens the people unfortunately on his way. When he storms into a commercial shooting site in the park, he seems to be attracted to a beautiful model played by Eva Mendes, and what will happen between the beauty and the beast at the end of this part is another droll irreverent fun you must see for yourself.

The movie keeps going on in its own baffling way, and it is constantly fun to watch. This is Leos Carax’ first feature film since “Polar X”(1999), and it clearly shows that he had lots of fun and joy while making it. Besides the bizarre circumstances themselves, there are also small funny touches throughout the movie including the tombstones inscribed with Internet homepage addresses instead of names. The movie also slyly implies that there are other people in the city who go through various performances like Oscar. I wonder – are they manufacturing the stereotype performances like plant workers making products?

Amidst these fascinating sights, the marvelous multi-faceted performance by Denis Levant holds the center as the emotional anchor of the movie. We do not get to know a lot about Oscar except his performances(we are not even sure about whether Oscar is his real name), but his professional diligence gradually reveals the melancholy and exhaustion buried behind it. During one sequence, he looks really sincere and concerned when he is with his ‘daughter’, but it is just another work to perform in his daily life, and he remains as lonely as he has been despite the caring assistance from Céline.

Later in the story, he encounters a female fellow worker he knows, and he and she have some private time in an empty abandoned theater. They share their exhausted feelings due to their work, but their scene is quickly switched to the musical mode, and Australian singer Kylie Minogue is poignant during her singing scene which ends on a ‘tragic’ note.

When I watched “Holy Motors” at first, I described it as “a good case of all style and no substances”. I still think it is a stylish exercise in genres, but the movie is very engrossing none the less, and Carax and Levant presents us a lot more compelling ride than David Cronenberg’s intriguing but tedious film “Cosmopolitan”(2012), which was also about the hero who moved around the city a lot in his big limousine like Oscar.

While another day is being finished for our tired hero, the movie is imbued with a certain sense of melancholy and desperation – and we come to sense that his daily life has been wholly consisting of his performances from the beginning to the end. Around its finale in which he arrives at his ‘home’, it came to my mind that some really talented actors like Marlon Brando could not get away from acting throughout their whole lives. No wonder they were mostly unhappy people.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Actor, Limousine, Performance | 1 Comment

Very Ordinary Couple (2013) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Are they ever

Posted on March 23, 2013 by kaist455

Many romantic comedies become mellow or slow during their third act as things get more serious, but South Korean romantic comedy “Very Ordinary Couple” is a bit different because of the irony inside the dynamic between its couple. They decide to separate at first, but they find themselves drawn to each other again, and they come to see that they still have the feelings toward each other – and the same problems they have encountered before.

While they work in the same bank, Lee Dong-hee(Lee Min-ki) and Jang Yeong(Kim Min-hee) have been lovers for a while. It looks like there was a time when they were happy together, but now the romance becomes fizzled, so they recently decide to end their relationship. They try to be cool and sensible about this break-up, but, like any ordinary couple, it is hurtful to both of them as they try to get over with it.

As the co-workers, they manage to be nice to each other in the bank as if nothing much had happened between them. Except Dong-hee’s close colleague, the people in the bank only know that Dong-hee and Yeong have been dating with someone, so they do not have to talk about their relationship to them except simply saying that they have a break-up, and all they have to do is moving on with their respective lives.

Well, it turns out to be not that easy. They still fight and clash with each other like a resentful couple even though they emphasize that they are no longer a couple. They become petty and nasty to each other among the ruins of their relationship, and their co-workers slowly begin to sense something being heated between them although they have no slightest idea about the reasons behind their edgy behaviors. And this invisible tension between them is more intensified as they are respectively getting involved with someone else.

You think what will happen next, but the movie is quicker than expected. After the series of misunderstandings and comic circumstances, Dong-hee and Yeong admit that there still exists the feeling between them after one big turbulent dramatic/comic situation, so they come to believe that they should grasp the second chance given to them. As a result, they finally return to their former happy relationship as before….

… but I have to remind you that the movie is far from being over yet at this point. As mentioned by Yeong during their reconciliation step, separated couple is likely to resume their relationship again but it is also quite likely that they will be separated again, so we soon see how their relationship becomes strained again. While we can see how they got close to each other in the past through their blossoming second romance, we also discern how they got distant to each other before their first break-up as the emotional temperature between them is lowered again. In addition, the fallouts from the first break-up also affect their renewed relationship, and they gradually realize what they have forgotten: why their relationship could not work – and why it still cannot work.

While their story goes along this predictable but amusing route full of ups and downs, the director Roh Deok keeps its comic momentum rolling quick and fast like a roller coaster which is prominently featured later in the story as a crucial storytelling device. One of the funniest moments in the film is when Dong-hee and Yeong behave like sworn enemies and try to goad each other by any means necessary, and it is hilarious to watch thanks to the deft editing and the good comic timing between two lead performers as the absurdity of their mean and ridiculous behaviors escalates along with the emotional tension between them.

Two lead performers, Lee Min-ki and Kim Min-hee, are a believable comic/romantic couple in the film, and they lightly dance together between comedy and drama. I noticed Kim Min-hee for the first time in another South Korean comedy film “Hellcats, I Like It Hot”(2007), and she gives a delightful performance again in this movie. She is charming and likable right from her first appearance, and we come to feel lots of sympathy toward her character as she goes through difficult moments. The more I think about Dong-hee, the more I dislike him because of his character flaws and many unwise behaviors, but Lee Min-ki at least makes Dong-hee an understandable character if not amiable. He may love Yeong as much as she adores him, but, as many of you know, the love relationship cannot be maintained only with romance, and they both eventually learn a hard life lesson in the end.

Although the story accordingly becomes less cheerful during its third act, the movie seldom loses its wits. Showing its characters through handheld camera approach, the movie presents their silly situations in a comically realistic style not far from TV series “The Office”, and it has the good supporting performers who have a fun with their colorful characters. When one naive intern threw a good punch line about his new work environment at one point, I and other audiences could not help but laugh because we could not possibly agree with him more. With such funny people like them, working at the bank will be never boring at all despite mundane paperwork.

“Very Ordinary People” may be an ordinary romantic comedy as its title suggests, but it is an entertaining one with not only good laughs but also some insights on love relationship. They think they can do better, but they unwisely forget why they could not do better before, and that is why there is an amusing irony in the ending. It is hard to begin a relationship, but it is also difficult to end it – but we all keep trying, don’t we?

Posted in Movies | Tagged Bank, Comedy, Romance, South Korean Film | Leave a comment

Jiseul (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4) : A sad, restrained elegy for the nameless victims

Posted on March 22, 2013 by kaist455

“Jiseul” reminded me that I did not know much about the Jeju uprising, which was one of the most tragic incidents in the modern Korean history but a merely small fact in my high school history textbook. Although it is neither informative nor revealing, this South Korean independent film closely focuses on the ill-fated people who happened to be swirled into the massive tragedy without fully grasping its scale, and the result is a tribute both mournful and respectful to the nameless victims of the unjust massacre.

Let me explain a bit about the historical background of the story. In 1948, Korea had already been divided into North and South Korea due to the Cold War conflict between Soviet Russia and US, and the tension around the Korean peninsula was rising as North Korea government held their own election and South Korea government was also planning to hold the election as a counteract. On April 3rd, the local police in the Jeju Island, a big island off the south coast of South Korea, fired on the demonstration for commemorating the Korean struggle against Japanese rule. The angered people attacked 12 police stations in response, and that was the beginning of the revolt which eventually caused the death of at least 30,000 people and destroyed 70% of the villages in the island.

While this revolt was indeed supported and led by the members of Workers Party of South Korea, a leftist party known to be associated with North Korea government at that time, the oppressive response from the South Korean government was quite ruthless to say the least. While the communist rebels also did many terrible things to their enemies, lots of villages were pillaged and many people were executed by South Korean soldiers and the additional paramilitary force as a part of the operation, and it was especially harsh around the winter of 1948. The order was issued from the South Korean government and US military government that all people living more than 5 Km off the coast line would be labeled as the communist mobs, which was more or less than death sentence, and the soldiers were ready to scorch the island for purging every rebel and collaborator from the island.

The movie focuses on the two groups of the people somewhere in the island. We see a bunch of inland village people desperately looking for some cave where they can hide for a while. They think their plight will be over within days, but, even though they are temporarily safe in the cave later, that dreadful feeling of doom slowly descends upon them in the darkness. They have little food to sustain themselves, and they have only one rifle for their protection, and the soldiers keep looking for them outside.

We also observe the soldiers doing their duty in the deserted village. Some soldiers are pretty mean and vicious, and they have no qualms about the atrocities like beating and rape because of their personal grudge toward communists. The other soldiers gradually come to feel that they are not doing right things, but they know they have no choice in their circumstance no matter what they think about their mission; if they do not kill any rebel, they may not be fed as a punishment.

All these human matters and the landscapes of Jeju Island encompassing them are beautifully shown through the terrific black and white cinematography by Yang Jeong-hoon, which effectively evokes the style and ambience of traditional ink paintings. With the eerie feelings generated from smokes and lights and shadows, the movie looks like an uncanny chronicle of the haunted memories from lost souls, and its narrative structure reflects this aspect through the chapters following the procedure of the Confucian memorial service for the dead, which usually ends with the burning of the names written in Chinese letters on Korean paper as shown during the finale sequence.

Handling his story with such formal austerity, the director/screenplay writer O. Meul, who is a Jeju native, does not lose the human dimensions inside the story. Even when they are under the dire circumstance, silly but human humor comes along with the village people’s hopeless plight, and I was amused by the scene which shows them coming into a big hole one by one while the hole becoming more crowded. There is also a wonderful moment in which the camera steadily moves across in front of the village people in the dark, oppressing cave, and I was impressed to learn later that they really shot the scenes at a real cave; despite the technical difficulties, the result looks as smooth and poetic as a low-budget film can possibly be.

While admiring the film, I also noticed several notable problems. The screenplay is a little too murky and opaque to follow, and, maybe because of its austere approach, there is always a certain distant feeling in the movie which distracted me at times during my viewing. I appreciated that none of the performers in the film stand out in their earnest performances(the production was fully supported by the local government and the village people in the movie was mostly played by the local people), but the characterization mostly feels flat; their characters are not easy to distinguish from each other, and I had some difficulty with following their actions and stories at times.

None the less, despite its flaws, “Jiseul”, which means potato in Jeju dialect, is still an admirable movie with strong points. Its slow-burning anger toward its subject is calmly conveyed through the competent direction, and its low-key finale is sad and haunting in its appropriate restraint. The movie has received several film festival awards including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, and it certainly deserves them for its impressive artistic/technical achievement.

It had been forbidden to mention anything about the Jeju uprising for almost 50 years in the South Korean society, but the truth was eventually revealed and recognized around the 1990s, and the South Korean government made the official apology in 2006 while the US government has not yet made any apology for their indirect involvement or blatant ignorance at that time. Like many of those ‘slow’ films, “Jiseul” requires a certain amount of patience and background knowledge, but it memorably presents you a small hidden painful chapter of the modern Korean history, and its sad, harrowing elegy may linger on your mind after you watch it.

Sidenote: Although this is a South Korean film, the Jeju dialect in the dialogues is frequently hard to understand to even the Korean audiences including me. Thank God for the subtitle.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Real-life incident, South Korean Film | 1 Comment

The avian campus gangs (2013/03/17)

Posted on March 17, 2013 by kaist455

The gangs are unusually quiet today…

Posted in Photos | Tagged Geese, KAIST | 1 Comment

Barbara (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4): She’s being watched – and she knows

Posted on March 16, 2013 by kaist455

During the opening sequence of “Barbara”, we come to know that she is being watched – and she knows too well. She lives in East Germany in 1980, and it is an oppressive world in which the life can be very difficult if you are marked by the authorities. It is always possible that she can be exposed and arrested at any time, and she should be careful and discreet while hiding her thoughts and feelings in front of others.

She is Dr. Barbara Wolff(Nina Hoss), who once worked at a big hospital in East Berlin. Because she applied for the permission to leave East Germany for living with her West German lover, she was incarcerated for a while, and now she is transferred to some small rural town near the Baltic Sea. When she arrives at the town, she is watched from the distance by Dr. André Reiser(Ronald Zehrfeld) and a Stasi Officer Klaus Schütz(Rainer Bock), who orders Reiser to watch on her for getting any interesting information about her.

Although she is a new staff member who has just arrives, her work at André’s department goes smoothly from her very first day as she makes the round with the other doctors and medical students. She also shrewdly notices that a runaway teenager named Stella(Jasna Fritzi Bauer) is not malingering but really sick because of meningitis, and she makes it sure that this wild girl gets a right treatment. Appreciating her medical knowledge and skills, André’ approaches to her like a good colleague, but Barbara is no fool and she bluntly points out his motive during their conversation, although his kind words seem to be sincere.

She cannot be easily relaxed – even when she is alone at her new residence. It is apparent that her landlady is not someone she can trust, and Schütz can suddenly come into her home at any moment to search for anything suspicious. During the search, she even goes through a strip search at the bathroom, which is a really humiliating experience to her.

This hardships can eventually turn into mere annoying things in her new daily life, but, the problem is, Barbara is planning on something as suspected by the authorities, and that is why she should be very watchful in her every move like a secret agent while advancing her plan step by step. She receives money through a secret rendezvous at a restaurant far from the town. She has a clandestine picnic meeting with her lover in the forest near the town. Her lover later tells her about how she will be able to escape, and she becomes more nervous as the clock is ticking.

The story is basically a thriller plot, and the director/screenplay writer Christian Petzold ably keeps the tension being mounted below the quiet atmosphere of seemingly relaxing country town. East Germany during the 1980s is vividly presented through small details and subtle touches, and the anxiety inside its heroine is more amplified by the absence of music, which is sometimes disrupted by the sudden appearance of sounds including a car engine noise heard from the outside. We come to sense that this is a harsh world where trust can be a very dangerous thing; they can be nice to each other but it is not easy for them to be open to each other even if they want to.

The movie is helped a lot by Nina Hoss’s excellent performance which is finely tuned to the oppressive environment surrounding her. Barbara looks cool and detached at first, but Hoss slowly and palpably reveals the feelings and thoughts glimpsed behind her jaded austerity. The mood becomes a little brighter whenever she tentatively allows her emotions to be shown to other people, and her secret meetings with her lover reveal to us how much she has been suffocated by her society – and how much she has been yearning for getting out of the country and living with a man she loves.

But she also cares about the people around her – especially André. While working together, she and André come to respect each other as the professionals who have been frustrated about their work environment. Impressed by Barbara’s diagnosis on Stella, André shows her his private medical laboratory, and he becomes more open to her as approaching to her closer. He senses Barbara is hiding many things from him, but he does not seem to mind about that and it looks like he is really fond of her.

But can he be trusted? He is surely a nice guy, and he does not hide the fact from her that he will probably report anything about her as ordered, but that still does not mean that André is someone Barbara can rely on. Even when he tells about an unfortunate case in his past, she instantly responds to his story with reasonable suspicion. Nina Hoss and her co-actor Ronald Zehrfeld deftly handle their scenes filled with nuances and suggestions, and their interactions are always compelling to watch; they like each other, but there is always the barrier between them during their conversations.

“Barbara” is one of those quiet but powerful films that will grow on you after watching it. Although I will stick to my initial 3-star rating after the first viewing in 2011, I must admit that I come to admire its performances and direction more after my recent second watching. Though I could easily predict that how the story would eventually end, the movie delivers its finale with its quiet dramatic power as Barbara makes a crucial choice for her and others in the end, and the last scene feels cautiously hopeful despite the uncertainties lingering on the screen.

The movie reminds me of another wonderful German movie “The Lives of the Others”(2006), which was one of the best movies I saw in 2007. Both movies realistically show us one gloomy world existing in the past, and they reminded me of a far gloomier world existing right above my country. I do not know when the deranged dictatorship in North Korea will meet its end, but, as a South Korean movie lover, I sort of wish that there will be the time when the movies about North Korea society are made – and I hope they will be as good and honest as “Barbara”.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Doctor, East Germany, Escape, Hospital, Thriller | Leave a comment

Touch of the Light (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4): His disability is a mere fact to him

Posted on March 15, 2013 by kaist455

Taiwanese movie “Touch of the Light” is a simple and honest story about two good people getting closer to each other. Considering its subject and the real-life story behind it, it could have been one of those sentimental “the disability of the week” movie, but it instead treats its hero’s disability with honesty and respect. To him, his disability is a mere fact he has to cope with every day, and the movie calmly moves along with him as observing how his life goes through small changes.

Huang Yu-Siang, who plays his fictional version in the movie, has been blind since he was born, but his gentle face is always brimming with infectious good will and optimism. He is a talented pianist and is willing to take a big forward step for pursuing his interest, so he leaves his rural hometown for studying music in some urban university. His ever-caring mother is naturally concerned about him even though she knows well that her son can take care of himself well once he gets accustomed to his new environment. She talks with the music professor, and she looks around the dormitory where her son will live, and she frequently visits his son for washing his clothes or having a lunch together.

The adjustment process is indeed difficult for Yu-Siang during his first days, but he is helped and supported by the others surrounding him besides his mother. The music professor and her substitute lecturer are generous to him, and his roommate Ching(Hsieh Kan-chun) is a jovial friend who gladly brings Yu-Siang to his band circle. They and other band members get along well with each other, and Yu-Siang is happy to play music or spend free time with them.

On one day, Yu-Siang happens to hear some woman’s voice while trying to recruit new members with Ching at the campus. He likes her voice, and he is interested in meeting her again even though he does not know who she is or how she looks like. Some days later, when he has a trouble with walking across the street, he comes across her, and that is how they are acquainted with each other for the first time.

Her name is Xiao Jie(Sandrine Pinna, who is also known as Chang Yung-yung), and we already know a lot about her because the movie goes back and forth between Yu-Siang’s daily life and Jie’s before they are formally introduced to each other. Jie studied ballet for a while, but she stopped her study due to the financial circumstance in her family(her mom is a serious shopping addict), so now she is working as an employee at a coffee/beverage shop.

Her life is not that desperate except the money problem, and her employer is more like her friend, but there has always been frustration inside her because of her aborted dream. When she sees the advertisement about a free ballet class at the community center, she seizes upon the chance, and, not so surprisingly, the class gradually re-ignites her dream. When she hears about an important audition later, she considers going to the audition, but, despite her ardent wish, she is still not so sure about her talent.

As Yu-Siang and Jie become closer to each other, they get to know more about each other while somehow affecting each other’s career, but the director Chang Rong-ji wisely does not force them into romantic mode. Although there is apparently the mutual feeling between them during their intimate moments such as when Jie teaches him some dance moves at the empty auditorium at one night, they simply enjoy each other’s company just because they like each other, and whether their relationship will develop into something more than friendship remains an open possibility even at the ending.

Their relationship looks and feels convincing thanks to the good chemistry between two likable lead performers. Huang Yu-Siang brings that natural quality of non-professional actor to his sincere performance, and you cannot help but like him right from the beginning. I have no idea about how much the movie is close to reality(according to him, about 50% of the movie reflects his real life story), but I could see that Huang Yu-Siang is a really good man I’d like to know more about, and I liked the understated approach to his difficulty with blindness in the movie. Yu-Siang is not particularly burdened by his disability because it has been a part of his life from the beginning, but he wants his talent to be judged without the bias on his disability, and it especially hurted him when someone cruelly said at a contest that he won the prize just because of his blindness, although that was not true at all.

On the opposite, Sandrine Pinna gives a charming performance which interacts well with her co-actor’s earnest acting on the screen. While Jie and Yu-Siang visit his home, there is a lovely private moment between Jie and Yu-Siang’ cute little sister when they sleep together in the same room. Yu-Siang’s sister innocently asks Jie whether she is her brother’s girlfriend or not, and Jie gives her a warm reply with smile, and that is enough for her – and us.

Avoiding sappy sentimentalism and cheap clichés, “Touch of the Light”, which was the official submission of Taiwan to the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in last year, becomes a touching drama which subtly resonates through its plain attitude to its story and characters. There is the ‘climax’ part around the ending, but the movie handles it with admirable restraint, and the ending is somber but heartwarming none the less. Whatever will happen next, these two nice people feel a little better thanks to each other – and their lives will go on, separately or not.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Ballet, Disability, Music, Pianist, Real-life figure, Real-life story, University | Leave a comment

Warm Bodies (2013) ☆☆☆(3/4): Beauty and the Zombie

Posted on March 14, 2013 by kaist455

In short, “Warm Bodies” is a zombie version of Twilight movies. A living girl gets fallen in love with a living dead boy under an unlikely circumstance which is probably only possible in zombie movies(I will go into details later), and many unpleasant aspects we can expect from zombie movies are toned down for their little romance blooming in the post-apocalyptic world. Most of zombies in the movie are not particularly scary, and the movie is not as gory as you expect, and it even kindly warns us before it goes into a little more gruesome mode.

While that may not be a good news for some audiences, the movie is an enjoyable quirky romantic comedy instead. I was a bit disappointed with its softened approach to the zombies and their unsavory daily activities, but the movie is engaging none the less with its humorous moments generated from its odd juxtaposition of two ‘mismatched’ genres. Though it does not bite the story well at times, it is as likable as its rotting but sweet hero, and I was frequently amused during my viewing.

Zombies are usually mindless creatures craving for live human flesh, but ‘R'(Nicholas Hoult) is different from most of his fellow zombies who have been aimlessly plodding around their collapsed world. Although he does not remember how the epidemic began or who he was before infected(he only remembers that his first name began with R), he somehow regains an individual consciousness unlike others. As reflected by his self-aware narration, he can think and muse on his current situation, but his consciousness remains trapped in his biological condition though it gets a little better for him every day. He still craves for live human flesh just like other zombies, and, although he is capable of uttering some words, the daily communication with his best friend ‘M'(Rob Corddry) is mostly the series of growlings exchanged between them.

Meanwhile, the living human beings have been doing what we have seen from other countless zombie movies: defending themselves and killing zombies. Under the command of General Grigio(John Malkovich), they built a big quarantine wall around their safety area, and the trained soldiers sometimes go outside for scouting or scavenging for food.

One of them is Julie(Teresa Palmer), and, while R and other zombies attack her and her colleagues, R feels something special from her – especially after devouring the brain of Julie’s unfortunate boyfriend Perry(Dave Franco). When consuming her ex-boyfriend’s brain tissue, R also absorbs the memories inside it, and that is how he comes to acquire a romantic feeling toward Julie when their eyes are met(should it be called love at first sight or love at first bite?).

It sounds pretty creepy, but the movie stays on its morbidly sincere mode while having a little fun with its Beauty and the zombie tale. R kindly protects Julie from the other zombies, and he takes her into his private place at the airport where he collects many things including vinyl records. Julie is initially afraid of R(well, who wouldn’t be?), but, as she sees R’s clumsy but sensitive gestures(he can turn on a LP player for setting the mood, for example), the romantic feeling between them becomes mutual after few days, and, not so surprisingly, we later have a funny moment which is clearly influenced by “Romeo and Juliet”.

The rest of the story is a standard stuff involving the conflict between two antagonizing groups. General Grigo, who happens to be Julie’s father, is not so pleased about his daughter’s new boyfriend. I must point out that Nicholas Hoult is a pretty handsome living corpse despite deadened eyes and purple veins in grayish skin(and he does not smell much), but the General does not like zombies, so he is willing to shoot R without any hesitation. John Malkovich is wasted in this thankless role, but his presence is surely more interesting than the CGI zombies called ‘boney’, a bunch of skeletal guys who descend to the worse condition than average zombies’ after eating their own flesh.

By the way, I know well that discussing the biology in zombie movies is utterly meaningless, but I could not help but think about the biological condition of zombies while the story was mainly told through R’s view. How can the zombies move and control their body even though they are biologically ‘dead’? And how can those degenerated zombies move or jump that fast even though all their bodies have are withered flesh and thin bones?

While there are other notable holes and contrivances in its story, “Warm Bodies” works well as a romantic comedy on the whole, and the director/screenplay writer Jonathan Levine, who previously directed “50/50″(2011), has good actors who know how to walk the line between silliness and sincerity in the story. Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer are well-matched as an odd romantic couple, and they are a lot more interesting to watch than that shiny-skinned vampire boy and his sullen self-absorbed girl in certain vampire romance movies. Analeigh Tipton has some saucy moments as Julie’s best friend, and Rob Corddry provides nicely understated humor to the story as R’s fellow zombie who also experiences changes in his body.

“Warm Bodies” could have been bloodier or funnier or edgier than its PG-13 rating allows(I heard that the movie is milder than Isaac Marion’s novel it is based on), but it is a sweet little comedy with enough wits and humor to amuse us. It is not as funny as “Shaun of the Dead”(2004) or “Zombieland”(2009), but I had a nice time with it and I could forgive most of its shortcomings to some degrees. You may complain that the zombies in the movie are not scary enough, but, you know, zombies are usually not so scary in most cases, and I think they function well as the comic background of the movie. Besides, isn’t it nice to see that their dead hearts can be revived through human emotion?

Posted in Movies | Tagged Comedy, Romance, Zombie | Leave a comment

Geese and cats in KAIST (2013/03/14)

Posted on March 14, 2013 by kaist455

Spring returns – and they are hungry as usual.

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Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : Pretty but not so great or powerful

Posted on March 8, 2013 by kaist455

The fantasy world in “Oz the Great and Powerful” is wonderful to watch at theater – at least during its first appearance. My eyes welcomed it when everything was turned pretty colorful, and, appreciating the efforts put into the screen by the people behind the film, I began to expect that the movie might provide something more than I expected.

However, sadly, the movie turned out to be more or less than I expected. As a prequel of “The Wizard of Oz”(1939), the movie attempts to tell us the story about ‘the man behind the curtain’, but it eventually becomes an inconsequential prologue to the classic adventure tale which still stimulates our imagination even though it was made more than 70 years ago. The movie certainly looks far more polished thank to technology advancement, but it seriously lacks a compelling story to support it, and we only stroll around the special effects till the obligatory climax in the third act.

The opening part of the movie is one of the better parts in the film. As a nice tribute to the 1939 film, Kansas in 1905 is shown in black and white film with 1.33:1 ratio, and we are introduced to Oscar Diggs(James Franco), who has been working as the magician Oz the Great and Powerful in a traveling circus troupe(Its name is Baum Bros. Circus, a nice nod to L. Frank Banum, who wrote “The Wizard of Oz” and other Oz novels). Oz is not bad as a magician, but, while hoping to be a great man like his idols Harry Houdini or Thomas Edison, he is not a good man to his assistant Frank(Zach Braff), the girls seduced by him, and his old sweetheart(Michelle Williams), who visits him to tell him that she will marry someone else.

Not long after he barely escapes from an angry strongman in the circus using a hot air balloon(he recently had an affair with that strongman’s girlfriend), he is soon swirled into a big tornado, and, when the situation becomes less turbulent, he finds that he is not in Kansas anymore as the screen is widened and gives us a wondrous landscape to behold. The big, colorful flowers are everywhere, and there are also fantastical creatures including Finley(voiced by Zach Braff), a flying monkey wearing a bellhop suit, and a china doll girl(voiced by Zoey King, who also appears in Kansas part like Braff).

While baffled by this strange but enchanting world, Oz comes across a witch named Theodora(Mila Kunis). Even though he is a pretty ordinary young man, Theodra instantly believes Oz is the man who will save their world as told in their old prophesy, so she takes him to Emerald City where her sister Evanora(Rachel Weisz) rules as a stalwart. Oz is reluctant about assuming the role of a savior, but, when he sees that there is a big reward for that, he decides to go along with his assumed identity, so his journey on that yellow brick road begins.

The director Sam Raimi and his crews did a fairly nice job in case of providing good sights to the audiences. With more advanced and various tools at their hands, they fill Oz with many wonderful things including the valley of Emerald and its jewel flowers or the freakish army of flying baboons. I only watched the movie in 2D, but I noticed that there were few good moments which deserve to be appreciated in 3D IMAX version, such as when Oz’s hot air balloon crashes down along the series of waterfalls.

Compared to this bright and splendid surface, the story is pretty weak. As the movie meanders along its bland plot until it arrives at the pre-determined finale, it becomes the prisoner of CGI spectacles, and I was not interested in the story enough. After all, many of us are familiar with “The Wizard of Oz”, so it does not take long for us to guess what will happen to Oz, Theodora, Evanora, and Glinda(Michelle Williams) in the end. The screenplay by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire tries to add some drama to the relationship between Theodora and Evanora, but it feels flat and unconvincing, and it is eventually put away once Theodora is turned into one of the most infamous movie villains in the movie history.

It is a really shame that three talented actresses(Kunis, Weisz, and Williams) are wasted in their respective roles, though they look lovely in their costumes. Kunis tries her best with her flat character, but, after her skin is finally turned into green, her performance feels like a pale imitation of Margaret Hamilton’s memorable performance in the 1939 film. While Weisz has some chances to have a fun with her treacherous character because her character has more space for interpretation, Williams looks unintentionally helpless at times even though her character is a lot more powerful than Oz. Considering his distinctive and plucky female characters in Oz novels, I can imagine L. Frank Banum rolling in his grave now.

James Franco’s lead performance is uneven but he is actually not that awful in spite of several notable deficiencies in his flawed performance. Franco is persuasive as a likable fraud, and he brings some energy and emotions to the story(and the green screen), but he lacks the bravado and grand gestures which are as important as the curtain Oz will hide behind.

Neither powerful nor great, “Oz the Great and Powerful” feels like a product made from borrowed parts rather than a work of imagination, and I came to learn that there is something which cannot be replaced by CGI. The special effects in the 1939 film look old, but they allow our imagination to seep into the screen through a good adventure story. The CGIs in “Oz the Great and Powerful” surely feel more polished and ‘real’, but we merely look at them while our imagination is hung out dried in our seats – and we are not amazed much.

Sidenote: While beginning to think about revisiting “The Wizard of Oz”, I also felt an urge to watch George Miller’s fantasy comedy “The Witches of Eastwick”(1987), which was also about three witches and one guy. In that movie, three witches have more personality and spirit, and they are surely more fun to watch even when they are almost upstaged by the special effects. Besides, we have Jack Nicholson as their man, who is always pleasure to watch.