Category: Culture

OK, so, you are probably thinking the same thing I was thinking, which is to say, “Ha ha ha, a horror movie about mutant cows. That’ll be a hoot. Possibly laden with mordant Irish wit.”

Do not be fooled like I was. Holy shit. Take the mutant cows very fucking seriously indeed.

It turns out, who’d have known, that when you film on a ramshackle failing Irish farm with a limited cast, and you get the classic horror tropes of disease and nature gone Gigeresque wrong and slow-mounting tension right, and you threaten the world because one stupid genetic researcher forgets that science will mess you up something fierce, and you do all that stuff? Yeah, that is pretty visceral stuff right there and it is indeed capable of scaring the crap out of you and no, the mutant cows are NOT FUNNY.

At all.

Seriously. Best monster SF/horror flick since Alien. Farm, spaceship, it’s all the same in the end, which is none too pleasant, let me tell you. It creeped me out a lot. There was nothing wrong with this movie.

Grade: I can’t grade it right now because I’m too edgy cause fuck, mutant cows. But probably an A+.

Yah, so, J-horror, long black hair as a signifier of angry spirits, everyday object as a carrier of the horror…

Red shoes, actually. Except these were more fuchsia. And yes, the idea is to evoke Hans Christian Andersen, but it didn’t work out very well. Lots of ballet, but no horrific mandate to dance forever, more’s the pity.

The twist, as seems to be obligatory in Korean J-horror influenced movies, has to do with family dynamics. Sadly, the director didn’t manage to overlap the ghost story and the family horror story at all, which meant that the last twenty minutes of the movie felt like an overdone coda: “Ah, you’ve resolved the ghosts? Now we will show you the real ending, because the dramatic tension we just built up and resolved was only the beginning!”

So I coulda done without that. I mean, it wasn’t abysmal, but it sure wasn’t good.

Grade: C+.

OK, so the whole theory about unpleasant people trapped in an unpleasant situation making for bad movies? It needs a revision. Wilderness taught me that it’s all about seeing ‘em get their comeuppance — which means, actually, that it’s all about having characters who you’re invested in, whether you like ‘em or not.

The reformatory lads of Wilderness were pretty much the latter, so there’s a lot of joy to be had from seeing them stuck on an island with something dark and terrible stalking them. Said joy was aided and abetted by excellent acting on everyone’s part.

It maybe started a little slow; I think we could have cut more quickly to the island, and the first set of fake scares was clumsy. Then again, they may have been worth it for the plot complication that resulted, and in any case things start to move really fast when they start to move. Excellent sense of tension, excellent action.

And it’s nice to see a movie that isn’t trying to be about the end of the world or superspies or any such. Wilderness is a small movie about a personal and particular set of issues. It doesn’t need to be more than that, and it cuts right to the bone. Succinct.

Grade: A.

Meh, Junk. I’d had high hopes, but it turned out to be royally dull. Reporter gets stuck in a bad place, which is pretty clearly a metaphor for something cause it’s completely stupid for her to be stuck there, and encounters people, including someone who may or may not be a serial killer. Speeches ensue.

At no point is our heroine proactive. Nobody’s really proactive, in fact. There’s a vague attempt at pretending there’s a coverup. Russia decays. Etc.

Grade: D.

Awwww! Train Man! Awwwwwww!

OK, that was the sweetest little romantic comedy ever. Sort of like a Douglas Coupland novel without the reflexive defensive snarkiness, or like Megatokyo without the self-loathing. As S. pointed out, the characters were all treated with respect, even our adorable otaku (who should be played by Jason Schwartzman in the inevitable remake). It’s a nice love story that doesn’t depend on coincidence or amusing accident to move it along.

Also, and I think most appealing, it’s as much a story about the community that helps Train Man to his beloved as it is a story about the two of them — which is to say, they have equal importance. The Greek chorus of bulletin board users who give Train Man advice are given weight, personality, and characteristics of their own, which make them a real community rather than a plot device. In fact, one of my favorite parts of the whole movie was the clever staging business between Professional Man and Mac Girl. Nice and understated and eloquent.

Grade: A+.

I’m sure it’s not as if Japan is cranking out all the cool SF that we don’t get in the US, but man, Samurai Commando 1549 is completely the cool SF that we don’t get in the states. The premise: the Japanese Self-Defense Force invents time travel by accident, the guys they sent back start changing history, and another group has to go back and fix the problem before history (and modern Japan) are destroyed. Aw yeah.

When they get back there, of course, the commander of the first group turns out to have taken a bit more interest in the course of Japanese history than might have been wise, and yeah. Samurai with machine guns. Archers taking out unwary tank drivers. Helicopters strafing calvary units. Big explosions. And I’m not even spoiling some of the cooler shots.

The overall plot is kinda shaky, in that the villainous master plan is a bit questionable, but eh — you get the whole honor thing and the retired military guy who is pressed back into service and the bonds of respect and friendship that transcend time periods. So that’s all good. Most of the actors were fairly appealing, too. It’s an easy bunch of people to cheer and/or boo, as the case may be.

I think what really struck me, though, was that — aha. In the U.S. version, it would have been all about the adjustment to the new time period and so on and so forth. This movie just takes it for granted that people can figure out how to cope with a new time, which seems reasonable, and gets on with the business of setting up the fight scenes.

Also, cool explosions.

Grade: B+.

So you see a big budget Korean blockbuster like (say) Vampire Cop Ricky, and you get…

I liked Independence Day, but it didn’t stick with me. This was about the same. South Korea, from my limited experience, has less of a national character when it comes to film than Japan or Hong Kong; the technique and acting is on a par with and deeply influenced by Hollywood film, without the minimalism and immediacy of so much Japanese film or the visceral propulsion I associate with Hong Kong cinema. I know Korean cinema is not a new institution, but it feels to me like they’re still finding their way, at least as far as mainstream big budget stuff goes.

There was some interesting cultural stuff. Digital media players are clearly popular enough in South Korea so as to not require any introduction for a sight gag. Even more fascinating to me: the crime lord’s primary source of income was a cyber racing parlor. Yep, a room full of degenerate gamblers betting on a horse race that exists only in the computer, with the odds constantly reprogrammed by the crime lord. Funky.

So the premise of a crooked cop who gets bit by a vampire mosquito and only turns into a vampire when he has a hardon? You might not see that if it starred Owen Wilson. But you might, and it’d be entertaining, which is what this was.

Grade: B.

I didn’t know anything about Ultraman before seeing these four episodes. What I know now: there are five members of Team DASH, and they fight giant monsters, kinda like Kaiju Big Battel. Team DASH is a special group within the UDF. Giant monsters tend to ravage a specific area of Tokyo which is a cut below the classic Toho models.

Officer Kaito can turn into Ultraman Max, who is exceedingly tall and who kicks butt on almost everyone. He only gets to stick around for three minutes, though. And, um, that’s pretty much it.

Of the four episodes, the episode where a staff writer dreams he’s Officer Kaito dreaming he’s a staff writer was my favorite. Miike’s comedy episode with cat monsters (Fluffy, Mopsy, and Blackie, says S.) who eat memories also rocked. The other two were OK. Everything was low budget. I kind of want a toy King Ele. Nice way to finish off the evening.

Grade: B.

Shinobi is state of the art Japanese high budget historical romantic dramatic action. The story is not Romeo and Juliet with throwing stars, as tempting as it is to use that line. (So tempting I used it anyway.) However, it is fated lovers and there were throwing stars, so that’s all good.

There’s a minimalist plot which, for much of the movie, looked like it was going to leave me hanging in terms of story satisfaction. I’d been sort of middling satisfied as the various ninjas, each with their own unique fighting style — excellent fight choreography — battled and struggled and died. But then the final confrontation turns out to not be the two lovers; rather, their story transmutes into the driving engine for something which is in the end more important. And that rocked.

It actually made me wanna see it again, just to pick up on the real plot, which I think flows alongside the romance throughout the entire movie. There’s a bit early on when the leaders of the two ninja tribes are confronting one another alone. On first viewing, I thought it was an echo of the romance. Now I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than that.

The cinematography was absolutely gorgeous, aided immensely by those big craggy Japanese mountain vistas, and it avoided being glossy. I was expecting something at a sort of Azumi level of polish, but instead we got a subtly colored palette with depth.

The acting was decent. I think the two leads are both medium hot Japanese stars at the sort of Colin Ferrell/Kiera Knightley level, but they inhabited their roles well enough. Good action, as I mentioned. Kippei Shiina was particularly awesome as the ninja who isn’t immortal, “Just bad at dying.” Tak Sakaguchi was his usual excellent self.

Grade: B+.

I gotta stop seeing Thai movies unless they get really good reviews. Hell was kinda Saving Private Tootsie in, well, Hell. Lots of wandering around, no dramatic tension, and I didn’t really care if any of the characters made it back to the mortal world. Also I knew they would, because the big demon boss said “Let them out once they learn their lesson,” except he couched it in terms of karmic debt.

So after about an hour I gave up and went off and had sushi with S. instead. That was better.

I’ll give the movie points for a decent grotesque Grand Guignol vision of Hell. It was icky and looked completely unpleasant without being CGI’d out all over the place. The ghost demon children were particularly nice. But yeah, unpleasant people in an unpleasant situation does not make for a quality movie going experience.

Grade: Incomplete, but heading for a D.