The Twilight Samurai

This was a gorgeous movie. Every scene was lovingly filmed. Of particular beauty were the scenes where Seibei is with his children. The only scene that might have been a little weak was at the very end. But you only think this because of the water tight direction through the rest of the movie. The two action scenes are spectacular. Yoji Yamada looks to be a great director. Sadly it appears he spent his entire life directing soap operas for his studio. Roger Eberts suggests this movie might have been self-referential.

A beautiful movie. A wonderful antidote to Takeshi Kitano's gaudy showpieces.

War of the Worlds

Maybe I should go back and read the book again. But the movie was not anything like the book I recall. Or the radio play I heard a long time ago. I remember it as political science fiction. This movie was a straight forward sci-fi/horror.

In any case looking at the movie by itself, it was a disappointing one. The characters hard to empathize with. The aliens seem to have no real motivation driving them. The occupation appears to not really be a metaphor for anything. The violence following the chaos just seems like frenzied middle class paranoia after what happened in New Orleans and the horrible way it was reported. The humans fighting back don't seem to have any political structure to them. The battle of the Ewoks and the forces of the Empire had better reasoning behind it.

This was just good old-fashioned science fiction emasculated for easy consumption. Filling, yet unsatisfying.

The Real Genius

Although a fun movie (if you are of a certain age) The Real Genius"s real value lies in its politics. Can you imagine a movie today which makes militant pacifism cool?

Its good to see such movies occasionally, so as to remind oneself that the in the history of politics nothing is new. Sooner or later the wheel will turn.

Save the Green Planet

This is the kind of movie which when I was younger, I would never react favorably to. In some sense it was a terrible waste of talent. The movie is laden with wonderful acting and directing. Its a powerful film that forces you to connect with virtually all the leading characters introduced. Given all this, its particularly hard to forgive the frivolous ending to the movie. All the building up to nothing speaks of a director who just got tired and ended the movie. It was unclear what the point in the end was? We should pay attention to psychotic people because they me be right? Anyway such disappointment aside, the movie was a very tightly made horror movie which never is less than competent, and is in many spots inspired. The music is excellent.

However, I must say, the more I see these movies, or for that matter, Steven Chow's, or Wong Kar Wai's movies, it seems unclear to me who these movies are made for. Watching these movies, I certainly don't have the feeling of outsider eavesdropping (ala Amartya Sen describing non-bengalis watching Satyajit Ray). Either Hong Kong/Korean cinema is moving closer to American tastes, or the film-makers are directing to those tastes. Shades of Dalrymple's diaspora tail wagging the dog but in film. I hope I see someone writing on this soon.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I had some excited anticipation about this movie. But also some trepidation. The TV version of this super radio script turned full length novel was a bit of a disappointment. And that wasn't because of bad special effects. The movie fulfils most of the fears and hopes. The funny lines are really funny. But its more fun to read a clever concatenation of one-liners than it is to watch it. Said out aloud, Slartibartifast doesn't even sound that obscene. Its also hard to see what Trillion sees in Zaphod Beeblebrox in the movie because that my favorite line "With a double PhD in Mathematics and Astronomy, what was I supposed to do?" is gone.

Its hard to care by the end. But still, I guess someone had to make the movie.

On the Run: Trilogy 1

This movie was alright I guess. Hard to say if I liked it or not. It was so depressing! It didn't have the humanity of The Terrorist. I guess I was supposed to empathize with the Catherine Frot character, but I am afraid I couldn't. The horrible claustrophobic feeling is clearly deliberate and wonderfully created. The heavy feeling just never leaves through out the whole movie. But maybe the best evidence of the director's abilities is the spectacular way in which you empathize with the Lucas Belavaux character, and then realize he's quite insane. An extraordinarly well acted movie, sparsely lit and beautifully filmed. It plays fast and loose with the audience's emotions with the expertise of a true master. The spectacular closing sequence must be unmatched with its ascending giddying heights of relief followed by the most crushing descent into gloom. The forboding of impending doom never leaves the audience even when horrible weight appears to have been lifted, but the way in which the doom arrives is characteristically unforeseen.

The secret of the NIMH

This movie was intended for my 3 year old. He was too scared by the opening sequences to watch it. Its not a good movie at all. As an anti-vivisection movie it is just too incoherent to make any sense. The nonsense of magic makes no sense what so ever with the background story. The animation itself is awful and flat. Makes you wonder what on earth Derek Jacobi was thinking voicing this trash.

Generally awful for children and adults.

National Treasure

This movie is awful. I stopped watching after 30 or so painful minutes.