Nowhere to Turn 여기보다 어딘가에 (Yeogiboda Eodingae) Somewhere Over Here [2007] • South Korea

This is a film that went nowhere beyond a couple festival screenings. There's nothing earth shattering about it but it's not bad. Typical slacker-with-dream storyline about a girl who wants to go abroad and study music. What drew my attention to it was the lead actress Su-yeon Cha.

Cha made three films in 2007: Beautiful, For Eternal Hearts, and Nowhere to Turn. I had seen Beautiful, a film about a woman whose life is hell because of her incredible beauty. That's quite a role to fill. Cha is attractive in a sleepy, natural sort of way, but not typical of today's Korean starlets. Her performance in Beautiful showed promise, exuding poise and confidence, but the film was so scrambled script-wise it was hard to make much of her acting ability. Then I saw For Eternal Hearts, a supernatural thriller, and Cha performed reasonably well in a supporting role, so I took a chance on this one.

Nowhere to Turn follows Su-yeon (that's also her character's name) as she tries to earn enough money to go to England and study music. She has no support from her parents so she runs away from home in protest. She ends up at the flat of a male friend who has a big crush on her but she keeps the relationship platonic. She tries giving piano lessons to earn money but doesn't have the patience. She meets a successful musician and thinks he might be able to help her but all he wants to do is sleep with her. She returns to the puppy dog boyfriend and does something creepy. She discovers another woman is interested in her friend so she tells the woman that he has AIDS. One thing leads to another and she and her boy friend form a musical duo to perform in a contest that offers a cash prize big enough to send her to England. Bummer she didn't sleep with that other musician guy, as he turns up as one of the judges for the contest.

Cha's performance in the film is OK but, as mentioned she has a sleepy sort of beauty, and judging from this film she appears to also have a sleepy sort of acting style. Her role as a drifter we are supposed to root for requires a little more spunk than she brings to it. She does do a very good job of fitting in as a member of the local indie music scene, so there's that going for her. She seems quirky hip, if a little low-key.

All in all there's not a lot to recommend about Nowhere to Turn. It's not a bad film but it doesn't offer much that's new and the performances are only adequate. I liked it a bit more than I think most people will because I find Cha to be an intriguing young actress and I like films about people pursuing a musical dream. It's worth a rental if either of those things appeal to you.

★★★

Director: Seung-yeong Lee
Starring: Su-yeon Cha, Ha-joon Yoo, Jun-suk Bang, Oei Lee, Won-sang Park

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My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? (Eri Eri rema sabakutani) (2005) • Japan

This is an extremely slow paced art-house flick punctuated with lots of found object music and noise rock, so depending on your taste in the art of noise you may or may not like it. I was fascinated by much of the found object stuff, especially the vacuum hose contraption built on an umbrella skeleton and attached to a fan motor, but the overdriven guitar wanking didn't thrill me much. I'm sure it was a near nirvana experience for many folks to see Japanese indie icon Tadanobu Asano, his hair blowing Fabio-iously in the breeze, standing on a hillside letting loose on six strings and four giant stacks of loudspeakers in an attempt to cure Aoi Miyazaki of her suicidal tendencies.

The story is a cute apocalyptic one: it's 2015 and a deadly virus is sweeping the population, causing those infected to become extremely depressed and ultimately commit suicide. The atonal music practiced by Asano and his partner appears to be an antidote to the disease. Music can save the world, ya know. A rich old man tries to persuade Asano, whose musical partner had the disease but committed suicide anyway (for dramatic effect), to jam for his infected granddaughter.

The story is told in typical Aoyama fashion: slowly. I never really felt enough of a connection to the characters to enjoy seeing them get into a vehicle and drive along some seaside road for an extended period of time. Nor was I particularly engaged by the scenes of them sitting there thinking for extended periods of time. This kind of direction is meant to give the audience a breather, a moment to relflect on the characters and on their own feelings with regards to what they are experiencing. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I loved Aoyama's Eureka but this one didn't move me much. Fans of art-house noise rock, or whatever you want to call it, might find something to enjoy here, and fans of art-house films who aren't put off by loud noises might like it too. Just know going in that it's slow and loud.

★★★

Director: Shinji Aoyama
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Aoi Miyazaki, Mariko Okada, Masaya Nakahara, Yasutaka Tsutsui

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Shine a Light (2008) • USA • Martin Scorsese

The Good: the film is staged, shot, lit and (visually) edited extremely well; Mick Jagger has emerged from his tunnel of self-parody and carries the film on his energetic old man shoulders, his voice as strong and as accurate as ever, his lithe little body defying all the rules that apply to most sixty-plus year old bodies; they don't play any of the crap music they've written in the past few decades, sticking to oldies and standards.

The Bad: the Rolling Stones suck as a rock and roll band now, a guitar driven rock and roll band, that is; Keith Richards is mesmerizing in a "What is that thing?" kind of way, but as a guitar player, nope. The unfriendly way to put it would be to say he's lost his chops or has forgotten how to play all the riffs that made him one of the greatest rock songwriters of all time. The friendly way to put it would be to say he doesn't know the difference between what he feels and what he plays—all the riffs and rhythms circulate through his bloodstream perfectly but the technology doesn't exist to send them through the sound reproduction system so all we get is what pulses to his finger tips—all we hear is his accompaniment to his inner self. His approximations to the riffs of "Tumblin' Dice" and "Brown Sugar" are almost forgivable but his butchering of "Start Me Up" is not.

Ronnie Wood. He may be a fine guitar player but he doesn't play well with others. It's as if he doesn't listen to, or hear, what other members of the band are doing. A couple of the film's highlights are the two songs Keith sings featuring Ronnie as the sole guitarist. He plays great acoustic (slide) guitar on "You Got the Silver" and rocks well on "Connection." Throw him into the mix and he plays junk. As soon as you want to excuse either Keith or Ronnie because they are old, Buddy Guy, seventy-plus years old, comes on stage and makes clear what it sounds like when the first thing a good guitar player does is listen to what other people in the band are doing.

The Beautiful: Mick singing "As Tears Go By" accompanied by Keith on 12-string acoustic. Perfect.

The Bizarre: with the caveat that I watched and listened to this film on a standard television set so I don't know what the Dolby 5.1 sounds like, the audio mixing practice of boosting the sound level of the performer in the visual edit, down to single notes sometimes, sounds ridiculous. Luckily, Mick was the visual focus of most of the film, his vocals out front and clear.

The Disappointment: "Lovin' Cup" sans piano. Terrible.

The best parts of the film, and by that I mean the best songs in the film, are the minimal, simpler ones. It's too bad there aren't enough of them. Mick Jagger can channel himself channeling himself all night long, he can be double-plus-good, but he doesn't have a band behind him any more. By showcasing the band's relationship to its music as product delivered to an audience, an audience of hand-picked, paid extras that also includes Bill and Hilary Clinton, Scorsese doesn't shine a light or bring any new insight to the Rolling Stones in this film.

★★★