Argo (2012) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : Believe or not, it really happened

Posted on November 1, 2012 by kaist455

“Argo” is about one improbable CIA operation as unreal as a fake movie they used as a main cover, and you may not believe that the movie is really based on a real-life operation unless you stay during its end credits to see the photos of real-life figures involved with the operation. It did not look like a good plan to them at that time, but the Operation Hollywood, which was declassified in 1997 by the US government, was successfully executed amidst lots of risks and dangers, and six American people were safely exfiltrated from Iran as a consequence.

Many of you already know about the ending though the promotion of the film, and you can sense that some of its elements are fictions for heightening dramatic effects in the story, but “Argo“ is still a gripping first-class thriller which can drive you to the edge of your seat. This is one of those dexterous thrillers which play us like piano through its pure nail-biting suspense and delicate timings, and it is also mixed with right amount of humor to amuse and relax us from its high-octane intensity.

Its humor mostly comes from the comical side of the operation. For the operation, the people at CIA and Hollywood carefully prepared the production of a fake film which would never be produced, and everyone in the world really believed their fantastic story – even the authorities and revolutionaries in Iran. While impressed by the script and storyboards handed to them, they do not seem to think about the implausibility of the production at all. Seriously, who the hell wants to make a film in Iran when it is going through a very tumultuous state?

This outrageous operation was conceived for rescuing the people who managed to escape to find a temporary shelter at the start of the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979. After Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the massive revolution against his ruthless tyranny, the relation between US and Iran became more hostile than before as the Shah was allowed into US for his surgery. As succinctly shown in the prologue with graphic novel style, the Iranian people had lots of resentment toward the US government due to its deep involvement with the Shah regime, so they finally broke into the US embassy in Tehran and held the American officials as hostages on November 4th, 1979.

Six people luckily escapes from the embassy before it is occupied, and they find a refuge at the residence of brave Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor(Victor Garbor). Taylor protects them from the eyes outside his residence as much as he can, but it is clear to everyone that the time is running out minute by minute. It is the matter of time before their escape is discovered and all of them are identified, and it is quite possible that they will be killed as soon as they are found. The people at Washington D.C. look over several plans for exfiltrating them, but they only find none of them are practically possible.

While searching for a better plan, a CIA agent Tony Mendez(Ben Affleck) gets one nice idea from a SF movie his son is watching on TV, “Battle for the Planet of Apes”(1973), He will go to Iran as a movie producer, and he will disguise these six people as the Canadian crew who visit Iran for searching the suitable locations for their fake film. It does not sound very plausible, but there is no better plan(Mendez’s direct boss, played by Bryan Cranston, says to his superior, “This is the best bad idea we have, sir – by far.”), so his idea is eventually accepted by his bosses.

Mendez recruits two first-class experts in Hollywood for his setup: John Chambers(John Goodman), a make-up artist who won a Special Oscar for his memorable job in “Planet of the Apes”(1968), and Lester Siegel(Alan Arkin), a Hollywood movie producer with a special award at the Cannes Film Festival at his home. Through how they fool the people in Hollywood and then the people outside Hollywood, the movie indirectly tells us about the overlapping regions between moviemaking business and espionage work. After all, the success in both fields crucially depends on deceptions and guts, and how Mendez trains his fugitives with the fake identities prepared for them in one scene is not that far from the script meeting before shooting, As “actors”, they should convince their dangerous audiences, and no mistake is allowed for them because their survival depends on how convincing their “performances” are.

Through fun performances from Arkin and Goodman, the movie provides the welcoming respite from its very intense circumstance from time to time. Arkin, the master of droll comedy, is fun to watch as a cynical but wise old-timer who knows a lot about how the system in Hollywood works. The screenplays usually come handy in Hollywood, and one screenplay named “Argo” is quickly chosen for their fake SF film, and then, thanks to Siegel’s good manipulation, the promotion events are quickly followed even though they do not have a real movie at their hands.

Meanwhile, the tension level is steadily increased with anxiety and doubts in the Canadian Ambassador residence as the Iranian authorities are approaching closer to the identities of the people hiding in the building, With the tight screenplay written by Chris Terrio, which is based on the book “The Master of Disguise” by Antonio J. Mendez and the article “The Great Escape by Joshuah Bearman,  the director Ben Affleck grabs us with the series of intense moments vividly presented by the cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, and everything powerfully culminates into a climactic moment where Mendez and others must hurry to board a plane while trying not to be caught at the airport.

The movie is so focused on the main event that its small problems inherent in the story are quite clear to some audiences including my fellow critic Omer M. Mozaffar, who expressed his uncomfortable feeling on the film while recognizing its strength as a well-made thriller in his insightful article recently posted on Roger Ebert’s Far-flung Correspondents. Though the movie has a liberal view on the Iranian Revolution and explains the motive behind the Iran hostage crisis, the Iranian people in the film are depicted as the faceless group more or less than angry and hostile mob. In addition, the movie does not provide us the alternative view from the other side or more historical background to understand these angered people.

While I agree with Mr. Mozaffar in several aspects, I also want to point out that one movie cannot tell everything about its story in 2 hours. There are other books, articles, and movies, and they will give you more information and other views if you are really interested in the real-life incident the movie is based on and its historical background.

And I do not think “Argo” would remain effective if it were less biased and focused. Like “Black Hawk Down”(2001), its thriller effect heavily depends on sticking to the sole view of the characters dealing with a very dangerous situation, and the sense of danger and menace is palpable in the film along with the growing fear and doubt in Mendez and others. Its sheer intensity would be considerably diffused if it diverged from the main plot for more background information.

While reviving his acting career after such disastrous films like “Gigli”(2003), Ben Affleck has also begun to show his talent as a good director through “Gone Baby Gone”(2007) and “The Town”(2010), and he goes one step further with this movie. The ambience of the era is recreated well through details in the film, and the movie is an engrossing experience thanks to its taut and efficient storytelling, Affleck may look a little bit awkward as the Hispanic hero, but his functional performance has no problem on the whole in showing an expert who simply does a job he’s very good at, and he also pulls nice performances from his cast, which includes many dependable actors like Bryan Cranston, Victor Garbor and Philip Baker Hall.

“Argo” is a terrific thriller which tells a compelling story which had been hidden behind one of the turbulent historical incidents during the late 20th century. I was constantly agitated while watching the movie at last night, and I was also amused by how a movie can affect people even if it is a fake one. These props for that fake movie look as ridiculous as, say, “Flash Gordon”(1980), but their magic does work during an unlikely moment when Iranian revolutionaries are completely persuaded by them. It is not easy to resist an illusion called movie, you know.

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Savages (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4) : A big mess in their lucrative crime business

Posted on November 1, 2012 by kaist455

There are always troubles waiting at corners in criminal business, and Oliver Stone’s “Savages” presents us the ruthless sights in the barbarous war between the criminals you won’t particularly like. Only reason we may care about our main characters is that they are relatively lesser evil compared to the savage underworld figures they are dealing with, and I have lots of doubt about their morality, but the movie tells their brutal story with considerable energy and dark black humor to be appreciated.

The story is told to us through the languid narration of Ophelia(Blake Lively), who is just called “O” in short. She narrates the story of her and other two guys she loves, and it sounds as if she were in the euphoria of marijuana – or she were looking at what kind of mess they were in from her afterlife. She warns us in the beginning: “Because I’m telling you this doesn’t mean that I am alive at the end.”

She and Ben(Aaron Jonhson) and Chon(Taylor Kitsch) have enjoyed their carefree life thanks to their lucrative cannabis business. So far, the life has been simple and good to them. Ben has two college degrees in botany and business, and he knows a lot about how to grow marijuana. Chon is an ex-marine who have been to Afghanistan, and he brought the valuable cannabis seeds from that country. Ben and Chon have been close since their high school years, and they are ideal business partners who perfectly complement each other in their business in Laguna, California. Ben, who is influenced a lot by Buddhism, wants his business as peaceful as possible while he diligently manufactures the first-class product for his distributors and customers. But they need sometimes muscle in some occasions, and their annoying matters are quickly handled by Chon, a tough, intense guy who has no qualms about intimidating criminals by any means necessary.

And O happily goes back and forth between them as she enjoys the luxury in their life including a nice big house facing the sea. Their triangle seems to work on the surface, but, though they care about each other, their acts are closer to a balancing job rather than a serious relationship. Well, that does not matter to them much, because they see no problem in their relationship and, above all, everybody is happy with their mutual paradise on the Earth.

But their paradise is built on their crime, and, not so surprisingly, a bigger evil starts invading into their paradise. They receive a very disturbing video through e-mail, which shows a bunch of guys brutally beheaded with chainsaw. It is sent from the Baja Cartel in Mexico, and its boss Elena(Salma Hayek) wants to get in their cannabis business. First, she proposes a rather generous offer to Ben and Chon through her lawyer Alex(Damien Bichir), and, when they do not accept the offer instantly, she orders her sinister enforcer Lado(Benicio Del Toro) to give them a ruthless offer they cannot refuse.

Maybe because they have been on the top of their business so long, Ben and Chon make a big mistake of underestimating these savage criminals who will do anything to get what they want. They think they can handle their situation, but they unwisely let O to go outside even though they are clearly aware of their danger. O is no wiser than them; her reason for going out for a while is so superficial that you have to hear for yourself to believe what she says.

It will not be a spoiler to talk about what will happen next, but let’s say the story gets more complicated and more violent as more characters are introduced in this deadly conflict. Ben and Chon do the best as they can to save the woman they both love, but the circumstance becomes trickier as the time goes by. They can trust some people, while they cannot trust the others much. In case of Dennis(John Travolta), an FBI agent they have paid bribery to protect their business, he is willing to deal with both sides while trying to find a way out of this mess as he realizes that his FBI badge does not always guarantee his safety.

Oliver Stone is well known for his hyperkinetic approach in many of his famous works, but “Savages” is less showy compared to them. Black and white film and overexposed film are occasionally used through the movie to accentuate the dramatic points in the film, but the story is told with comic detachment even when it gets nastier. The interactions between characters are handled in interesting ways, so we have an amusing scene where a captor and a captive have a nice talk about their respective personal lives even though their positions remain same as before.

While Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, and Taylor Kitsch do competent jobs as the business partners who are not so serious about their personal relationship for enjoying it, the supporting performers surrounding them give more colorful performances with their juicier roles. John Travolta is having a ball as an untrustworthy FBI agent, and his best moment comes when he desperately tries to convince the other character that he is still too useful to be eliminated. Benicio Del Toro is both sleazy and menacing as a savage criminal with his ruthless band of workers who are always ready for disposing bodies, and Salma Hayek is strangely sympathetic as the boss who will do anything for the future of her organization – and her family.

One critic in South Korea harshly said the movie shows Oliver Stone past his prime. It goes without saying that he recently made several dissatisfying works in the last decade, but Stone has not lost his talent yet, and “Savages” is an enjoyable crime thriller although I felt an urge to check out the novel written by Don Winslow, who co-adapted his novel with Stone. You may be not so pleased about its attitude at the ending, but the movie is twistedly humorous enough to make that flaw acceptable at least during viewing, and I like that.

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A Werewolf Boy (2012) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : A Girl and her pet werewolf

Posted on November 1, 2012 by kaist455

South Korean movie “A Werewolf Boy” is an old-fashioned romance story featuring a young girl and her loyal werewolf boy. I know many of you are already thinking about those CGI wolves in Twilight movies, but, luckily for us, the movie is having some fun with its old-fashioned style as well as its preposterous premise, and it has more emotions than Twilight movies although I was also bothered by its awkward process of the story around its finale.

The story is recollected by an old lady who lives with her son’s family in US. On one day, she gets a call from South Korea, and she instantly returns to South Korea for taking care of her personal matter, which involved with a house in some remote mountain town. She comes to see the house with her granddaughter, and, even before she starts to reminisce, we sense that the house, which looks both nice and a little creepy, has something to talk about inside itself.

The movie goes back to 47 years ago, when an old lady was as young as her granddaughter. Soon-yi(Park Bo-yeong) and her family move to the house because they need a quiet place for her frail health condition. Their new neighbours, only five or six people, welcome them wholeheartedly, but Soon-yi remains moody about the new environment unlike her plucky younger sister, who immediately befriends the two kids living nearby.

Their father died a few years ago, and we hear that the house is bought and given to them by his business partner. It seems that there is a sort of deal between him and Soon-yi’s mother(Jang Yong-nam), and that is probably why his mean and obnoxious son, Ji-tae(Yoo Yeon-seok), behaves so insolently in front of Soon-yi’s family on the moving day. He is a piece of work; he does not do anything to help at all, and his main business seems to be snigger and insult, and this despicable guy does even not try to hide his interest in Soon-yi, who has nothing but contempt for him.

During the first night at the house, Soon-yi is awakened by some strange sound outside the house. Like any heroines of horror stories, she goes into a dark, shabby shack next to the house to find out what it is. There is a mysterious chamber in the shack, and, as soon as she opens its closed door, something dark and frightening in that chamber quickly escapes from the chamber before she can clearly see what it is.

On the next morning, she and her mother discover a mute boy who behaves more like an animal than a boy. They think he is one of those war orphans during the Korean War, but there is something weird about him. His temperature is abnormally high, and he runs fast, and his body shows no sign of injury even when he is hit hard by a falling iron rail. As shown in the scene around the beginning, he is a part of some secret experiment carried out by the previous owner of the house(he is dead, by the way), and, of course, there are the people who have a lot of interest in him.

But “A Werewolf Boy” is a ‘romance’ rather than a horror thriller, so the movie focuses on the developing relationship between Soon-yi and a wolfboy, named Cheol-soo(Song Joong-Ki) for the time being. Soon-yi and her family are flabbergasted by Cheol-soo’s rude animalistic behaviors, but she finds practical ways to tame him from a guide book for dog owners. He still uses his hands during dinner, but at least he learns some manners and he is soon accepted as a part of the household. It is a little embarrassing to watch Song Joong-Ki completely following animal instincts as ‘a big dog’, and I wondered during the screening whether Cheol-soo also went through a potty training.

Through the training process for her convenience, Soon-yi comes to care about Cheol-soo. She tries to teach him how to write and speak, and she also plays a song with her guitar for him, and their private moments are drenched with lots of sunny tenderness on the screen. But, as far as I can see, the love he feels is not a romantic one, and the movie thankfully does not go into a saccharine mode. Yes, he can learn, and he may speak like a normal human being someday, but his brain will still function like that of a nice doggie with fatal aggressive instinct.

Later in the story, Soon-yi comes to see the other side of Cheol-soo, which is not so pretty to look at, and what we get here is a typical situation we can expect from monster movies. There are a military officer who wants to take care of the situation quickly while covering the truth from reporters, a scientist who has enough biological knowledge to explain how scientifically fascinating Cheol-soo is(but he is frustrated because the others do not understand a lot, no matter how much he tries to explain), and a couple of guys with guns. With these kinds of stock characters, you will not be surprised to see a monster running from the people chasing after him – with a beautiful girl in his arms.

The director/writer Cho Seong-hee made a notable debut with “End of Animal”(2010) in last year. I have heard lots of good words about that movie from my Internet acquaintances, though I have not watched it yet because the movie has not yet available on DVD or Internet even in South Korea. I do not think “A Werewolf Boy” is successful mainly due to its weak third act, which is unconvincingly pushed by a cardboard villain(guess who that will be?), but the movie does a good job of mixing romance and horror elements in its rather offbeat story. Park Bo-yeong is lovely as a romance heroine, and I liked the neurotic hilarity in Jang Yang-nam’s performance, which provides many comic points in the film, and its bittersweet ending has emotional resonance in spite of its apparent implausibility. I am still hesitating to recommend it to you, but I can instead assure you that this movie is certainly less painful than Twilight films.

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The animals at KAIST (2012/10/30)

Posted on October 30, 2012 by kaist455
                             
It’s getting cold, and they are looking for something to eat.
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Skyfall (2012) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4) : James Bond returns to his root on a gloomy day

Posted on October 27, 2012 by kaist455

After I walked out of the screening room at last night, one audience wondered whether “Skyfall” was a Halloween movie. I was not so surprised about that reaction, because “Skyfall” is probably the gloomiest chapter in the fascinating series which has managed to survive even though the era it represents was gone a long time ago. There are many standard materials you expect from your average Bond movie everywhere in the movie, but the situation is less fun and more serious for not only our beloved unrealistic hero but also the people surrounding him, and even the title song has a certain degree of solemnness we rarely encounter in the Bond movies.

However, unlike disappointing previous movie “Quantum of Solace”(2008), “Skyfall” does not let itself sink into gloomy solemnness while trying to be both serious and entertaining. Although it is not an exciting action film like “Casino Royale”(2006), the movie goes deep into the characters, and, in spite of its slow pace, it eventually pulls an unexpectedly powerful drama from the long relationship between James Bond and one of the major supporting characters in the series.

Although we are not treated with that cool James Bond theme at the start, the opening sequence is familiar. James Bond(Daniel Craig) is doing his latest mission in Istanbul, and we soon see him chasing a bad guy in his usual spectacular(but not so efficient) way while aided by Eve(Naomi Harris), a fellow field agent who later shoots him in a tense situation as soon as their boss M(Judi Dench) in London decides it is necessary.

Of course, Bond survives, and he goes into retirement mode along with booze and women for a while, but he returns when the circumstance is quite dire for MI6. During his last mission, that bad guy stole a hard disk drive which contains the information of every undercover field agent around the world, and some mysterious figure starts to release the information bit by bit on the Internet. Moreover, MI6 headquarter is attacked right at its center, and the leadership of M is seriously questioned by the top-ranking government officials including Gareth Mallory(Ralph Fiennes), the chairman of National Security Committee.

In these days, even the superheroes like Batman have to face their grim reality, and Bond, who has somehow maintained his fantasy aspects for 50 years, is no exception now. Looking older and more ragged than before, Craig brings his character closer to the harsh reality while holding his place as James Bond we are familiar with. The time has changed, and he may be not in his best condition mentally or physically, but this old-fashioned tough guy has not lost his dry sense of humor yet, although he may not often drink dry martini stirred not shaken now.

Slowly building the story, the director Sam Mendes, the first Oscar-winning director to direct Bond film, moves the movie and Bond around several exotic locations, and the great cinematographer Roger Deakins does a wonderful job of presenting impressive sights on the screen as we were promised by the trailer. I like a gorgeous sight of the casino floating on the water along with many candle lamps surrounding it, and I was amused to some degrees by the shabbiness of the villain’s private place in contrast to the vast nature background. He has a remote private island where he can ruin the world with his realistic technological power if he wants, but the interior decoration must have been the last thing that came to his mind, though he makes a sort of grand gesture in front of Bond when he finally meets Bond face to face in his lair.

The villain, Raoul Silva, is played by Javier Bardem, the first Oscar-winning actor to play Bond movie villain since Christopher Walken in “A View to a Kill”(1985). While the recent Bond movie villains usually have the goals far less lofty than world domination, Silva’s goal is more personal; he has a few scores to be settled with M, and he is so determined to get the fulfillment in his own way that I think that famous talking villain syndrome does not apply to his case.

Bardem plays his character as a weird mix of smooth campiness and brooding intensity with his awfully blond hairdo which looks as menacing as Anton Chigurh’s. His performance is as crucial as Craig’s to the success of the movie, and the interaction between their characters is both amusing and interesting. Facing each other on the opposite, they see that they are not so different from each other as the wounded children of M, and we even get the subtle erotic intensity which we have never imagined from Bond movies before.

The movie even approaches to a sort of dysfunctional family drama later in the story as we are served with an explosive cross between “Straw Dogs”(1971) and Hammer horror films at some dark, gloomy manor on the Highlands. Albert Finney does a fine job as a faithful gamekeeper of the manor, and Judi Dench, who has played M since “GoldenEye”(1995), is magnificent as a woman who has to deal with her past as she tries not to lose dignity during her remaining days as the head of MI6. As her character goes through a full character arc in the story, Dench has her own dramatic moment at the special hearing when M makes a passionate speech about why her old way is still needed even in the 21th century, and it can be said that the movie is about M rather than Bond – and that she is the ultimate Bond girl he will never desert till the end as her dutiful rogue knight.

Trying something new and unexpected, “Skyfall” remains as a James Bond movie to the core. It constantly makes a fun of its conventions including the gadgets provided by Q(played by nerdy Ben Whishaw), but the movie sticks to its territory, and this reconstruction job is engaging on the whole. Along with Whishaw, Naomi Harris and Ralph Fiennes are having a fun with the potential in their respective characters, and we may see more of them in future Bond movies.

The James Bond series has flexibly adapted to the passage of time and accompanying changes as one of the most enduring series in the movie history, but it recently begins to look notably different from what it was before. “Casino Royale” revealed the origin of Bond’s emotional coldness in his heart to us. “Quantum of Solace” was a misfire, but we could see that how the franchise tried to be as serious as its junior modern action movies within its traditions. “Skyfall”, the 23rd Bond movie, tests its hero against the reality of our world, and then it goes deep into its root to find a way to continue its entertainingly anachronistic journey in the 21th century. I have some reservation about the movie because I think it is a little too long and it loses some of its momentum around its middle part, but I am glad that we are firmly assured again James Bond will return.

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Almost Che (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4) : He just wanted to get a girl out of his league…

Posted on October 26, 2012 by kaist455

I do not remember a lot about the 1980s in South Korea because I was very young at that time, but I know it was a violent era when many people were injustly crushed by South Korean government because they protested against the dictatorship during that time. There were many big and small demonstrations on the streets, and the participants were savagely beaten and arrested by the riot police, and my parents’ generation remembers that era with that unforgettable smell of tear gas, which I have once experienced on one day in 1992 when I and my family were shopping at the downtown of Jeonju.

And that was the main reason why I thought the finale of new South Korean comedy “Almost Che” does not work well. The finale does not feel wrong in the context, but, in my opinion, it is an ending a little too feel-good for the historical background of the movie. Our hero smiles in the end because he is happy to know that his efforts are not fertile, but I am aware of what will probably happen to him and others – and the audiences older than me surely know that.

But it is just my minor complaint, and “Almost Che” does the other things well as a comedy which happens to tell its innocent comic story amid its serious historical background. When I watched its trailer, it looked like a silly comedy only consisting of lousy gags and cheap laughs, but, surprisingly, the movie somehow manages to make funny moments while also being adequately serious about its background as required. The result is uneven at times, but I enjoyed it more than I expected in spite of its several flaws, and, above all, I came to like its silly but sincere hero.

His name is Dae-oh(Kim In-Kwon), who has been working as a delivery guy for some Chinese restaurant. Recently, he has a crush on one college student at the campus just because she leaves him a kind note of appreciation for his good delivery. He has never seen her, but he wants to know who she is, and he soon finds that her name is Ye-rin(Yoo Da-in). a lovely girl who immediately captures Dae-oh’s heart when he sees her from the distant.

He is determined to win her heart right from their first ‘encounter’, but, though he is pretty simple-minded, he knows too well that she is out of his league. He is a mere delivery guy, and she is a college student of a good university in Seoul who will certainly get a job high above his shabby occupation. Imagine a pizza delivery guy who is a high school dropout and an Ivy League girl before graduation, and you will know what I mean.

Nevertheless, Dae-oh never gives up. The first trial to approach to her is failed, but he soon gets the second chance. It seems there will be some birthday party where many college students will show up, so he comes to the appointed meeting place while disguising himself as a college student. The problem is, he never imagines that ‘birthday party’ is actually a demonstration in code word. When he finally senses that he is in a serious trouble, it is already too late for him; he is swept along with the other college students and then he finds himself stuck in the American Culture Center with them while confronting the police outside. Although the story of the movie is entirely a work of fiction, such an incident actually happened in Seoul on May 23th of 1985, and it was one of the famous incidents during that turbulent time; the college students quickly occupied the center as they planned in advance, and they demanded US government to withdraw the support to the South Korean dictatorship during the three days of their non-violent demonstration.

Though he is at a loss about his big trouble at first, Dae-oh manages to be accepted by the other students as one of them through the series of his improvised tactics, which provide many silly but hilarious scenes under their serious circumstance. I especially like the moment when they have to negotiate with the US government officials even though none of them can speak English well. Considering that even a toddler can speak basic English in South Korea in these days, it is rather amusing to watch grown-up guys fumbling with their little linguistic knowledge.

Meanwhile, Dae-oh keeps trying to get closer to Ye-rin, who also participates in the demonstration. Partly inspired by a book about Che Guevera one of his major clients showed to him before, he becomes more active than the others to impress her, and it looks like she begins to like him, although it is later turned out that she has a boyfriend. Ye-rin is more or less than the object of Dae-oh’s affection in the story, but Yoo Da-in, who gave a remarkable performance in “Re-Encounter”(2011) in last year, brings warmness to her character, and she and Kim In-kwon have a sweet scene where Dae-oh shows her how to throw the leaflets effectively from the rooftop.

The movie mainly depends on a nice comic lead performance by Kim In-kwon. I noticed him for the first time in “Haeundae”(2009), a disaster flick I didn’t like a lot, and I could see that he is a likable actor. That aspect of his is utilized well in this movie; Dae-oh may be a doofus, but, thanks to Kim In-kwon’s good comic talents, he is a lovable doofus with heart, and we eventually hope that his goofy mission will be accomplished.

The director/writer Yook Sang-hyeon’s previous work was an unpleasant and lousy comedy “He’s on Duty”(2010), which trivialized a serious social matter in South Korea. Like “Almost Che”, It was about a guy in disguise(in that case, he passed himself off as an immigration worker from Bhutan to earn his living), and there was a romantic subplot, and he was also played by Kim In-kwon. “Almost Che” is not wholly successful, but Yook Sang-hyeo and Kim In-kwon do a better job of providing good laughs here before the movie arrives at an obligatory melodramatic ending as demanded. Sure, the movie could have been better, but its heart is in the right place even when its head is confused between artificial melodrama and silly comedy.

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Lawless (2012) ☆☆1/2 : They were violent, stubborn, brutal, unwise, and ruthless

Posted on October 20, 2012 by kaist455

“Lawless” has every element it needs for telling a crime drama from the Prohibition era. Besides the good historical background well recreated on the screen, we have three criminal brothers, the associates in their moonshine business, the beautiful women attracted to them, a corrupt law official determined to arrest them, a powerful urban crime lord, and, of course, lots of violence. But what is distilled from these ingredients fails to grip my attention although it is entertaining to some degrees despite its narrative flaws.

The movie is based on the historical novel “The Wettest County in the World” written by Matt Bondurant, whose grandfather Jack Bondurant is one of the three brothers in the story. It is 1931, and Jack(Shia LaBeouf), the youngest brother, has assisted his two older brothers, Forrest(Tom Hardy) and Howard(Jason Clarke), although he is not directly involved in their moonshine business in Franklin Country, Virginia. Thanks to the Prohibition, they have earned more money despite higher risk, and they have been doing pretty well while running a gas station/restaurant on the surface. The local police do not care about them a lot because of the bribe and moonshine given to them, and there is always someone to buy their moonshine.

However, their circumstance is abruptly changed when Special Deputy Charlie Rakes(Guy Pearce) comes to their town. He demands the Bondurant brothers and other bootleggers in the town to give him a considerable part of the profit from their illegal business, and he won’t take no for answer. Rakes is essentially a cardboard villain, but Pearce seems to have a fun with the sadistic intensity of his reptilian character. Always appearing with his slick hair and cologne, Rakes is so fanatically fastidious about his appearance and attire that he cares more about his gloves than the guy he has just beaten up.

Forrest, who is the leader of his family, does not give in to Rakes unlike other bootleggers, so the conflict between them is inevitable. Jack, who has always wanted to prove himself to his older brothers since their childhood, finally gets his wish when he attempts a fast deal with the gangsters in the city for himself, But he and his friend Cricket(Dane DaHaan) are reckless and bumbling from the beginning; they forget to fill the fuel tank of their truck before starting off, and they later find themselves in a grave situation because they are not very careful about the dangerous people they deal with.

The story keeps going on its autopilot while introducing the other characters including Maggie(Jessica Chastain) and Bertha(Mia Wasikovska). Maggie is a girl who leaves behind her past life in Chicago for a more peaceful life in this ‘quiet’ town, and she is hired by Forrest as soon as her job interview is over. She quickly becomes an important part in the Bondurant brothers’ front business. and, of course, we soon see Maggie drawn closer to Forrest, although he is your typical gruff macho guy who is not so good at showing affection to a women he likes even when she approaches to him without her clothes during one night.

Meanwhile, Jack’s eyes are fixed on Bertha, the daughter of the stern local minister who does not like Jack because of his and his brothers’ reputation. He is eager to impress her and others, so, after lots of money comes handy to him, he starts wearing expensive clothes and driving a new car around the town. That is not a wise thing to do, and it is also quite unwise of him to take his girlfriend to a hidden workplace, considering that Rakes and others are always looking for the chance to capture Jack and his brothers on the spot.

In the end, many things happen exactly as we predict. We know that 1) something bad will happen to some of the supporting characters(and we know who they will be right from their first appearances), and 2) Jack and his brothers will be furious about that, and 3) there will be a duel of fate outside the town. I know that the heroes of action movies usually manage to survive regardless of how many bullets are flown across the screen, but I could not help but notice that aspect during the showdown sequence in the movie, and it is amazing to see that the characters manage to move a lot without getting shot even though a group of policemen on the opposite position literally shower them with bullets.

The actors do adequate job in their respective parts. Shia LaBeouf is competent though he is relatively weak compared to his co-actors, and he is certainly better than when he was mired in a swamp called “Transformers 3”. Tom Hardy is as imposing as he was in “The Dark Knight Rises”(2012) while not limited by that mask he was wearing in that movie, and Pearce is effectively hateful as a guy you’d love to despise. In contrast, it is a shame that the movie does not utilize well the talented actresses like Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska, who are mostly placed at the fringe of the story.

The movie is directed by John Hilcoat. He previously directed “The Road”(2010), and I admired its impressive bleak atmosphere while recognizing its half-success in the challenging adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel. For this movie, Hilcoat provides a good ambience for the background of his story through excellent production design and cinematography evoking the feelings of that era, and I appreciate that, but the spark is never generated amid its intense elements. On the whole, the movie just tells us that these people are violent, stubborn, brutal, unwise, and ruthless, and we have heard many similar stories before. I just want more.

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Dead Alive (1992) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Please prepare a barf bag just in case

Posted on October 20, 2012 by kaist455

Some horror movies have a mercy on the uninformed audiences who have no idea about what they will get. The opening sequence of New Zealand horror film “Dead Alive”(1992), which is also known as “Braindead”, is a good example because it kindly gives the audiences a very clear idea of what it about and how it is about. As some guy manages to escape from the natives of Skull Island(its location: Southwest of Sumatra) with some mysterious creature dreaded by the natives, he accidentally gets bitten by that animal hidden in a wooden crate. He says he is all right, but his local employees are suddenly frightened about that.

As you may already guess from its title, “Dead Alive” is a zombie flick, and the employees do what they should do in zombie movie without hesitation. That poor guy’s right hand is bitten, so his right hand is quickly severed with a machete in front of our eyes. And then they also see a scar in his other arm, so we see his left arm amputated. And then they find another scar on his forehead… do I really have to tell you what they will do next?

If you find this sight pretty gory, I have to tell you that this is merely a tip of iceberg. “Dead Alive” has maintained its infamous status as one of the most disgusting horror films, and you will be soon treated with the series of gruesome moments which certainly make you cringe and wince many times, and you may want to stop watching it as being repulsed and disgusted by it.

Nevertheless, once you understand that this is a black comedy which goes far, far over the top with its gleeful no-hold-barred approach to its rotting zombie bastards, you can have many good laughs while holding your barf bag just in case. To be frank with you, I also found the movie pretty disgusting when I saw the movie for the first time, but I found myself uncontrollably laughing out loud several times as my eyes were amazed by its bloody outrageousness. While going all the way to the extreme, the movie rushes to its deranged comic finale, and it is as riotous as, say, Mel Brooks’s comedy films.

After that hilariously gory opening scene, we see that the creature in question, which later turns out to be a very evil rat monkey with nasty traits, is sent to the zoo in Wellington, New Zealand. It has been kept well in the zoo, but a bad incident eventually happens; Mrs. Vera Cosgrove(Elizabeth Moody) unwittingly gets bitten by it while she is spying on her son Lionel(Timothy Balme) and his first girlfriend Paquita(Diana Peñalver). Good news: she quickly takes care of that mean rat monkey with her high-heeled shoe for the safety of mankind in the future. Bad news: although she seems all right at first, her condition is quickly worsened during that night, and, in the next morning, Lionel is horrified to find what has happened to his dear mother.

Her symptoms are familiar. First, it is just a festering wound in her left arm which keeps leaking pinky pus. Second, her speech is more slurred than usual. Third, her skin becomes more fragile than before, so we get a funny moment when Lionel puts a dangling patch of her facial skin back to its original place with glue after she accidentally ripped it away. Fourth, she has an increasingly unusual appetite for meat – especially live flesh. “Your mother ate my dog!” – “Not all of it.”

While all these outrageous things are happening around him, Lionel does what he should do as a dutiful mama’s boy who richly deserves the Norman Bates award. As her mother becomes more violent and more voracious after her, uh, ‘official death’, he locks her up in the basement, but the troubles keep being piled on him as he struggles to manage his difficult situation. The problem is, his mother keeps making other people into her fellow zombies, and now he has to take care of them as well as her while he hides them from the eyes of his neighbours including his girlfriend.

Thanks to the director/co-writer Peter Jackson and his crews, we are served with a lot of quite grotesque sights which are as morbid as “Re-animator”(1985) and as bloody as “Evil Dead II”(1987) to say the least. There is an unspeakable scene at the dining room which can make you have a second thought about eating custard pudding, and then we get a truly twisted moment while Lionel tries to feed a quartet of zombies with the meal soaked with tranquilizer. One zombie cannot consume food because her head is almost ripped off from her body, so Lionel resorts to a disgusting but only logical way to put the food into her stomach.

Now the movie sounds like something unbearable and repellent to watch, but, once you get yourself accustomed to its goriness(it’s easier than you think), it becomes hysterically funny in its own crazy ways while driven by its zany energy and whimsy creativity. One of the funniest moments in the movie comes from the local priest Father McGruder(Stuart Devenie); as soon as he comes across the zombies at the town cemetery by chance, he zealously brandishes his hidden skills in the name of the Lord during his frantic showdown with them, and this uproarious fight scene ends with a nice touch suitable to his profession.

In addition, the zombies in the movie are disgustingly funny puppets ready to mutilate the living or to be mutilated. Like many critics, I usually find zombies uninteresting and boring because they are only left with the desire for live flesh in their rotten brains while aimlessly moving around without any other purpose, but the zombies in “Dead Alive” become playful and wacky as the elastic players of bloody slapstick comedy while the story gets gorier. We cringe at the vile sexual attraction between two zombies and their subsequent intercourse, and then we are tickled by an humorous homage to “It’s Alive”(1974) as their proud result. We all know zombies are hard to kill, but one of them in the movie is especially persistent – even when he is separated into three independent parts at one point. As far as I remember, this is the only horror movie where a zombie, or a part of zombie, pleas for its life with a pair of lungs instead of a pair of hands.

What an unlucky guy Lionel is, by the way. Because his dad was dead when he was very young, he was left alone with his domineering mother, and he has always obeyed to her although she has treated him pretty much like a slave under her command in their big house which looks over the neighbourhood on a high place(the movie makes no secret about the influence from “Psycho”(1960)). When Paquita, a pretty girl who seems to be out of his league, approaches to him just because she believes he is the man of her life foretold by her grandmother, he bravely decides to take a chance with her, but he finds himself still stuck with his mom. As a living dead, his mom will never go away unless he does something to solve his messy circumstance, which becomes far more complicated when his greedy uncle(pompous Ian Watkin) shows up for the chance to get some money.

Amidst this insane bloody mess, the movie somehow works as a sweet romance between two likable characters we care about. Diana Peñalver is warm and sunny as a plucky girl who believes in true love and actively pursues it once she sees the sign she has been waiting for, and she and nerdy Timothy Balme look nice together as an unlikely couple. Though Lionel’s private struggle with zombies puts considerable strain on their growing relationship, Paquita still loves him, and, after she discovers her boyfriend’s secret, she gives him a sensible advice on what he should do. Supported by the power of love, Lionel finally becomes more active than before as a man who takes care of his matter for himself, and he really rises to the occasion when he must protect his love from the army of dark force – and his mother who is later transformed into sort of a big bad evil mama during the climax.

As I warned you before, the movie does go to the extreme during its memorable climax. After the chaotic sequence where most of the people at the party held in Lionel’s house are turned into zombies in many variously gruesome ways(in one case, a guy’s head is skinned alive), gore walks along with black humor hand in hand on the bloody floor(When Lionel attempts to run away from zombies, he finds that the floor is too slippery to run on), and everything culminates into a terrific scene in which Lionel takes a drastic but effective measure for solving the problem once for all with a certain gardening equipment. Accompanied with Peter Dasent’s cheerful synthesizer score, this moment feels like a demented dance macabre, and I always find it very funny due to its unabashed glee with flesh and blood. Paraphrasing Mel Brooks, the movie rises below gruesomeness, and you will be not surprised to know that around 300 liters(79.2 gallons) of fake blood was used for this manic orgy of goriness.

Before the success with the Lord of the Rings trilogy and “King Kong”(2005), Peter Jackson, who was incidentally born on Halloween, had already established himself as a talent to watch outside his homeland. While “Bad Taste”(1987) and “Meet the Feebles”(1989) were competent B-movies drenched in bad taste like “Dead Alive”, he showed his more serious side through “Heavenly Creatures”(1994), an exceptional drama which was a major breakthrough not only for him but also for two talented actresses Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet. Considering that now he seems to be stuck with the bloated production of “The Hobbit”(I should not judge it before watching it, but, folks, is it really necessary divide that small book into three movies?), I miss Peter Jackson in early years, and I sometimes wonder whether he should look back at where he was for a change like Tim Burton recently did in “Frankenweenie”(2012).

Anyway, “Dead Alive” has retained its bloody notoriety intact while still working well as a deranged but ultimately sweet horror comedy, and you can find its influence from other cheerfully gory zombie movies such as “Shaun of the Dead”(2004) and “Zombieland”(2009). Unlike other tedious zombie flicks, these movies show us that zombie movies always need the extra dose of creativity for good entertainment – and they also confirm to us that zombies taste better when they are funny.

Whenever I watch it, I remember when I encountered “Dead Alive” for the first time on one summer night of August in 1999. It was a midnight double feature screening(the other movie was Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”(1980)), and I asked my dad to take me to the town hall where the screening was held. He willingly took me to the town hall, and we watched these two famous horror films together during that night; we watched “The Shining” first, and then, after a short break, we watched “Dead Alive”.

While it was a great time to me, I don’t know whether my dad was drowsy or not during that time. But I know one thing for sure. After the screening was over around AM 4:00, my dad complained that “Dead Alive” was full of “Boo-wang Boo-wang”, or “Bang Bang” in correct English. We went to a 24-hour restaurant in the near market place, and we had no problem at all with eating bean sprout stew with rice. I guess both of us saw the hilarity behind blood and gore in the movie – or maybe we just had natural strong stomach.

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Cats on Sunday Afternoon (2012/10/14)

Posted on October 14, 2012 by kaist455

                                        

They look drowsy under sunny autumn weather. The last six photos were shot at Daejeon Art Cinema theater on 2012/10/13

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Searching for Sugar Man (2012) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : Searching for a forgotten musician

Posted on October 13, 2012 by kaist455

Some people said life is third-rated novel, but we hear about incredible life stories stranger than fiction from time to time, and the story told in “Searching for Sugar Man” is such a case. This documentary introduces us one musician too good to be forgotten, and it tells us how he came to find his audiences at the place he or others around him had never imagined.

The musician in question is Sixto Rodriguez, who was discovered by Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey at one bar in Detroit around the late 1960s. Theordore and Coffey were experienced music producers who worked with many famous musicians including Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and they quickly recognized Rodriguez’s talent. Although Rodriquez was virtually unknown at that time with no album(he only recorded one single “I’ll Slip Away” in 1967), they got Rodriguez signed to Sussex Records, and the two albums, “Cold Fact” and “Coming From Reality”, were released in 1970 and 1971, respectively.

That sounds like a successful debut, but it wasn’t. Both albums were commercial failures in spite of good reviews, and, according to Clarence Avant, the owner of Sussex Records at that time, only 6 copies were sold in case of one of them(two copies were bought by Avant’s wife and daughter). Several songs written by Rodriguez are introduced in the documentary, and I can agree with the interviewees that he could have been as successful as Bob Dylan if he had been luckier. More than 40 years have passed, but they are still good songs to listen to.

After few more trials without much success, Rodriguez descended into obscurity, without knowing that he actually got the audiences on the other side of the Earth. Somehow his albums were flowed to South Africa, and they became very popular among the people rebelling against the South African government and its unjust Apartheid policy. Of course, the South African government banned Rodriguez’s songs, but that only increased their popularity among people(a note to the authorities: if you ban book or music or other art forms, that only increased curiosity and popularity). Bootlegs copies went around, and Rodriguez’s songs like “Establishment Blues” came to represent the spirit of the anti-apartheid movement, and many South African musicians including Willem Moller were immensely influenced by Rodriguez.

Rodriguez’s albums were officially released on CD in South Africa during the early 1990s, and Rodriguez became as popular as, say, Elvis Presley while more than 500,000 copies were sold. However, the fans and admirers in South Africa, including a passionate record shop owner Stephen Segerman and a journalist Craig Bartholomew-Strydom, still did not know anything about Rodriguez himself or what happened to him. There had been many weird rumors about his death(one rumor said he committed suicide during his last concert), but nobody exactly knew how Rodriguez lived after his two albums were released.

The first half of the documentary revolves around this interesting mystery and how Segerman and Bartholomew-Strydom tried to solve this as much as they could during that time. Thanks to the timely technology advancement in Internet, Segerman made a website for receiving useful information about Rodriguez from anyone around the world, but it seemed not many people knew about him outside South Africa. Bartholomew-Strydom also tracked down the royalties of the albums, but they only found that the royalties did not go to Rodriguez but to the record company holding the copyrights of the albums. They had Rodriguez’s photos in his albums, but they were not much of help because he usually wore sunglasses.

And then they received certain crucial information through the website in 1997. Now, for not spoiling your precious entertainment with this wonderful documentary, I think I must not tell too much about where their search was led to, except that a) they came to know more about Rodriguez than they hoped, and b) it was a lot more than they had ever imagined. As we learn more about him through this search process and accompanying talking-head interviews with the people who knew him, Rodriguez comes to us as a wise, humble, and admirable human being who was not daunted by the downturn in his life although it seemed his career was almost finished.

The documentary also has the other interesting people in its story. I especially like the sincere and passionate enthusiasm of Stephen Segerman, whose nickname ‘Sugarman’ is derived from none other than Rodriguez’s song “Sugar Man”, and he has an amusing scene on how he inferred the important clues about Rodriguez through the analysis of his songs. I and the other audiences in the screening room had some giggles during the moment when Clarence Avant gets cranky as the interview becomes unpleasant to him, and that was just one of many delightful moments during the screening on this afternoon.

The director Malik Bendjelloul, who came to know about Rodriguez through Segerman in 2006, does an excellent job of presenting his story. Rodriguez’s songs are effectively used along with the archival footage and the beautiful scenes made for the documentary, and we become absorbed in a miraculous human drama as we are drawn to its compelling ‘detective story’, and it eventually arrives at a very touching moment its subject deserves. This is indeed a powerful documentary you should not miss.

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