Alphabetical Movie – High and Low
Having just finished with Hidden Fortress, the alphabetical movie gods favored me with a second Kurosawa film. Rather than a samurai epic, High and Low was set in modern Japan so it served as a nice contrast to the period pieces most people associate with Kurosawa.
Most of his modern films were dripping with social commentary and High and Low is no exception. In fact, the more accurate translation of the film title would be “Heaven and Hell” and given the film looks at the sharp division between the wealthy and the poor in post war Japan, that title is actually more evocative of the film’s tone.
Alphabetical Movie – Hidden Fortress
Hidden Fortress came to my house in a Kurosawa Samurai 4 pack that also included The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. In geek circles, it is probably the most famous Kurosawa film simply because George Lucas has said that Star Wars was influenced by some aspects of Hidden Fortress.
Before I watched the movie for the first time, I told a friend I was looking forward to seeing it and she told me it wasn’t very good. She’d rented it specifically because of the Star Wars connection and had been disappointed. In fact, she had rented it on VHS and said you could see the points at which previous renters had given up on the film and hit rewind.
Alphabetical Movie – Hero
Yimou Zhang makes some of the most visually arresting films I’ve ever seen. I think that to completely appreciate Hero, I need to watch it once with the sound and subtitles turned off. That way I could completely immerse myself in the look of the film rather than being distracted by the plot.
The story of Hero is a good one but it only takes up around 45 of the film’s 90 minutes. The rest is devoted to fights that are as much about dance as they are about combat and sweeping visuals of remarkable composition. So central is the visual style of the film, I find I don’t have the words to write about it.
Shit that pissed me off – 2/10
The autotuned “Time of My Life” by the Black Eyed Peas
I know this song has been around for a long time but the new radio station at work has this blasted thing on a heavy rotation and I want to cause physical damage to the speakers every time it is on.
I don’t mind cover songs at all. The original of this song is hardly one of the greatest songs every written. What it does have, however, is voices that sound like they feel something close to the emotion conveyed in the song lyrics.
Try this: turn on your computer’s voice simulator and have it say “I love you.” Now have your significant other do the same thing (preferably right after you’ve helped them have an orgasm). Which do you prefer? If you answered “a,” you will probably love the version of the song above. If not – stick with the original.
Alphabetical Movie – Hercules
A common gripe about Disney is that they mess with the original fairy tale to fit whatever story they want to tell. I imagine the reason people complain about this phenomena is because Disney is producing animated films and if the film is animated, it must be more faithful to the source material than a live action film based on a fairy tale.
Movies reinterpret stories all the time. Yet Disney seems to raise more ire than most other production houses.
Take Hercules as an example. The film has as much to do with Greek Mythology as – say – Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief. Maybe more. Anyone wishing to learn about real Greek Mythology need not watch the film.
Alphabetical movie – Henry V
When Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V was first released, it was a more popular film than it is now. Especially amongst critics, the film is typically dismissed as inferior to Laurence Olivier’s classic version.
Shakespeare films are, I think, more subject to that sort of analysis than any other. The question is not “how good is this filmed version of ‘Hamlet'” but rather “how does this filmed version of ‘Hamlet’ stack up against every other filmed version of ‘Hamlet’ I know of?” If Shakespeare is indeed the greatest writer in the English language, he is also one of the most frequently produced.
Chronicle – A life lived (and lost) on camera
I think that Chronicle may end up being one of my favorite movies for 2012 because it was so surprisingly complex. What I’m about to write is not a review of this film but rather some observations about the way the film told it’s story and used it’s medium to such tremendous effect. Because of that, there will be spoilers. Lots of ’em.
Alphabetical movie – Hellboy & Hellboy II
As a geek, I admit I’ve been excited by the number of super hero movies that have been produced in the last decade. One can argue that the proliferation of computer generated effects is not always a good thing but films like The Dark Knight, Captain America and Hellboy would probably have been much harder to make without the aid of CGI.
Also as a geek, I recognize my tendency to like such films simply because they exist. Yeah, The Green Lantern is pretty awful. But it’s The Green Fucking Lantern man! I knew the movie was going to be awful and I went anyway because I wanted to believe everyone else was wrong.
Alphabetical movie – Heat
Heat is one of the movies I’m using as justification for the alphabetical movie project as it is a movie I own but until recently, I’d never actually watched it. I can’t even tell you why I own it. My wife doesn’t like the film. I’ve never seen it. I’m pretty sure I never actually bought the movie. I have no idea how it ended up in our collection.
There it is, though, nestled comfortably between Heartbreakers and Hellboy. The rules of the project are clear, I had to watch it.
Characters we know nothing (and everything) about – Moriarty and Irene Adler
While by no means a great cinematic achievement, I quite enjoyed Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows when I viewed it late last year. Following the film, though, the conversation immediately turned to the fact that we all knew the film was really just a placeholder until new episodes of “Sherlock” were aired.
Season one of the BBC series is streaming on Netflix even as I write this and if you haven’t watched it, you are missing one of the better interpretations of the Holmes character you are likely to see. That is remarkable given that there are so very many of them.
Grail Diary 