The unsavory epithet "kitsch" came to mind during the first twenty minutes of Death Proof and it got me to thinking about Tarantino's latest efforts. He may have been the most revered director of the nineties, but the movie world has moved on and it seems Quentin doesn't seem interested in keeping up with it.
I don't mean to say that a director should latch onto trends and mold his style around them, but it's almost as if he's making films for his own benefit at this point. If Kill Bill was supposed to be his magnum opus at that point in his career it falls flat on it's face on a second viewing. It hasn't aged very well in six years, and in retrospect it's a cluster-fuck of references and borrowed stories that all come together to make, well that's just it - what is it? The thick layer of style and cool seem like they are there to distract us from the fact that nothing interesting is going on. Adding to his failure is the fact that he clearly doesn't know when to stay out of his own films. His brief appearance in Deathproof is awkward at best and brings into question whether the director has a clear understanding of how he's percieved on screen. Which to me, is a clear indication he's losing it.
Most of my generation ended up in film school because of this man. That's speculation, not fact, but it really makes me wonder how well the rest of his ouvre has aged. Maybe calling him a rennasaince man was premature, because I can't forsee him making any more valuable contributions in the future. Because they way I see it, he's never going to get tired of himself even if the rest of the world does.
Anyway, by way of making a thesis statement here, I just think a man that clearly has this much talent should be able to offer something better than an empty homage.
Showing posts with label Sweet Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sweet Movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Queue
Books
Movies
...and of course this delightfully controversial series compared both favorably and vehemently to NGE. I'm skeptical because the last time someone described a series as being "better than Evangelion" I was subjected to about two hours of this abomination. Shouldn't have to mention that despite it's ripe old age I still think fondly of Eva as an important part of my formative years.
I have lost touch with the anime world since joining the work force full time my senior year in 2003, and so I'm rectifying this by absorbing some of the more talked about series in the past six years. I trust Raxephon should live up to it's hype. More on that later.
The nice thing about patience with media is that time weeds out all the bullshit...
P.S. Almost forgot about this highly underrated and quite nearly forgotten work (or at least nearly forgotten in my mind). I enjoyed the first act though I never got ahold of the other 2/3's. Very much looking forward to it.
Movies
...and of course this delightfully controversial series compared both favorably and vehemently to NGE. I'm skeptical because the last time someone described a series as being "better than Evangelion" I was subjected to about two hours of this abomination. Shouldn't have to mention that despite it's ripe old age I still think fondly of Eva as an important part of my formative years.
I have lost touch with the anime world since joining the work force full time my senior year in 2003, and so I'm rectifying this by absorbing some of the more talked about series in the past six years. I trust Raxephon should live up to it's hype. More on that later.
The nice thing about patience with media is that time weeds out all the bullshit...
P.S. Almost forgot about this highly underrated and quite nearly forgotten work (or at least nearly forgotten in my mind). I enjoyed the first act though I never got ahold of the other 2/3's. Very much looking forward to it.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Movies: Tsukamoto
...or I just got a netflix account and it's hard to believe I've lived three years without one.
I digress.
When I first heard about Nightmare Detective a few years ago I was intrigued to see how Tsukamoto Shinya's abstract sensibilites would translate into mainstream Japanese cinema. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that it doesn't. I guess the marketing campaign for the film threw me off along with hundreds of angry j-horror devotees. Shame on me for not knowing better.
Tsukamoto is one of those artists whose style is to idiosyncratic to be recognized as the work of anyone but Tsukamoto - and Nightmare Detective does not disappoint in this respect. The film contains many of the staples I've come to expect from his past films(he admittedly conceived it during his Tetsuo days) though it lacks a lot of the energy of his work in the nineties. The frantic handheld camera and visceral gore are all there but there is something stale to it, likely because it's all things he's done before. The only major change here is the setting and the exposition that uses more defined supernatural designs, which he alluded to in his early work as something more akin to allegory than as a plot device. Or to be more specific, he tries to imbue some kind of explanation this time around, instead of letting the abstract wierdness speak for itself. This is about as close as he gets to making a commercial film, thank heavens.
There are a couple of scenes unusual to Tsukamoto's canon - namely any scene involving the police investigation. I feel like a tool saying anything negative about these snippets. They are pretty standard fare for Japanese horror, and so I'm kind of ambivalent towards them. He directs us through the process effectively if not gracefully, and the payoff is worth sticking around for.
On to the good stuff...for such a fiercly independent director that began his career using the least sophisticated film equipment available it makes almost no sense to think that he could move so easily into the world of HD. But he does it and he does it well. Even with all those thousands of vivid color pixels he still manages to make his vision of Tokyo look like something completely alien and terrifying without using any discernable use of CGI.
In summary, not his best film. Snake of June felt as if it should have been a wonderful and concise button to that period in his career. Vital was an exciting experiment that revamped a lot of the themes form his Tetsuo days, but Nightmare Detective finds him lingering in the late nineties. Tsukamoto even casts himself once again as the antagonist, but I've seen him play this part in Snake of June and Tetsuo. But when you launch your career with Tetsuo the Iron Man, can you ever really hope to top it? Scenes pictured below contain very disturbing imagery.
Nightmare Detective Trailer...The opening monologue tags it pretty effectively as a Tsukamoto film. I think the correct operatives are polished and refined, though considerably less exciting than pictured above.
The sequel. Don't remember much about this one.
Personal fav...he effectively makes Tokyo look like his own creation in some of those shots.
An example of what's missing from his newest effort. The energy of this film is unparalleled.
I digress.
When I first heard about Nightmare Detective a few years ago I was intrigued to see how Tsukamoto Shinya's abstract sensibilites would translate into mainstream Japanese cinema. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that it doesn't. I guess the marketing campaign for the film threw me off along with hundreds of angry j-horror devotees. Shame on me for not knowing better.
Tsukamoto is one of those artists whose style is to idiosyncratic to be recognized as the work of anyone but Tsukamoto - and Nightmare Detective does not disappoint in this respect. The film contains many of the staples I've come to expect from his past films(he admittedly conceived it during his Tetsuo days) though it lacks a lot of the energy of his work in the nineties. The frantic handheld camera and visceral gore are all there but there is something stale to it, likely because it's all things he's done before. The only major change here is the setting and the exposition that uses more defined supernatural designs, which he alluded to in his early work as something more akin to allegory than as a plot device. Or to be more specific, he tries to imbue some kind of explanation this time around, instead of letting the abstract wierdness speak for itself. This is about as close as he gets to making a commercial film, thank heavens.
There are a couple of scenes unusual to Tsukamoto's canon - namely any scene involving the police investigation. I feel like a tool saying anything negative about these snippets. They are pretty standard fare for Japanese horror, and so I'm kind of ambivalent towards them. He directs us through the process effectively if not gracefully, and the payoff is worth sticking around for.
On to the good stuff...for such a fiercly independent director that began his career using the least sophisticated film equipment available it makes almost no sense to think that he could move so easily into the world of HD. But he does it and he does it well. Even with all those thousands of vivid color pixels he still manages to make his vision of Tokyo look like something completely alien and terrifying without using any discernable use of CGI.
In summary, not his best film. Snake of June felt as if it should have been a wonderful and concise button to that period in his career. Vital was an exciting experiment that revamped a lot of the themes form his Tetsuo days, but Nightmare Detective finds him lingering in the late nineties. Tsukamoto even casts himself once again as the antagonist, but I've seen him play this part in Snake of June and Tetsuo. But when you launch your career with Tetsuo the Iron Man, can you ever really hope to top it? Scenes pictured below contain very disturbing imagery.
Nightmare Detective Trailer...The opening monologue tags it pretty effectively as a Tsukamoto film. I think the correct operatives are polished and refined, though considerably less exciting than pictured above.
The sequel. Don't remember much about this one.
Personal fav...he effectively makes Tokyo look like his own creation in some of those shots.
An example of what's missing from his newest effort. The energy of this film is unparalleled.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Movies: Jodorowsky
I'm really not sure what to make of El Topo. It's tempting to dismiss Jodorowsky's film as nonsense. There's some outright bullshit in the film, particularly the overt allegory in the second half (the ubiquotous dollar-bill-illuminati symbol pasted over the crucifix, El Topo setting himself on fire like a tibetan monk) though in it's twists and turns the movie achieves some kind of vague understanding that transcendence and fulfillment are only achieved through repeated failure and violent struggle. If you pair it down to a statement like that - and maybe it's the inbred American sense of pragmatism - it's actually effective. Of course the real problem is that I have trouble finding the time to really delve into a film like this unless I'm convinced it's worth my while. Maybe later.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
