Where Have All the Flowers Gone (Na shi hua kai) [2002] • China

This is a wonderfully surreal 90 minutes spent with interesting characters involved in interesting situations, not so much story wise but in each of the set-pieces on display. It's an experimental film using it's own internal logic telling its story in non-linear fashion but it's easy to follow because it's engaging. One of the reasons Chinese independent films can be so good is that the directors of many of them, like this one, are able to employ top tier actors. Zhou Xun is one of mainland China's best contemporary actresses and Xia Yu is no slouch. He's the captain of goofy suave. The film hops around space and time, sometimes during a single conversation and one of the most remarkable features of this production is the sound design. It remains a constant through all the jumping around making it easy to hang on to the roller-coastering ride. Very well done film.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Moon [2009] • UK

I don't know if the science fiction elements of this reach any highfalutin heights (an Alien-esque greedy galaxy corporation blah blah, cloning blah blah) but the way it all plays out on the surface is a lot of fun. The film looks good in all its sparseness, no complaints there, but the real treasure of this movie is Sam Rockwell. It takes him a while to get going while the film is creating its context but as soon as his place in the world is established and he's split in two, he soars, so convincing in his random deterioration he doesn't seem like he's acting a part as much as simply putting up with the things that happen to him. The ending is a little abrupt and if you want this to be some big statement about something you may be disappointed, maybe not, but for a film with one guy in it, it's a great performance piece.

★★★★

Thirst (Bakjwi) [2009] • South Korea • Park Chan-wook

We had a Thirst party and we're all sitting there silently in shock and awe for the first thirty minutes or so and then someone asks "Why is this film so annoying?" Someone else responded: "For one thing, the sound design is childish at best." What's with all the slurping sounds? Someone else offered: "If they don't kill that one guy pretty soon they better at least teach him to wipe his nose or I'm gonna puke." Well, one of those things happened but I won't spoil it by saying which one, suffice to say it had no impact.

This film has low-budget written all over it. Sure, Park spent a few bucks on a couple scenes but overall it feels cheap. And don't go suggesting that someone drive in here with the metaphor assistance team to give it some depth and all will be well because it is still unpleasant to endure. The only good part is Kim Ok-bin's lust towards her newfound lifestyle but then even that comes too late and plays itself out way too long to the point of indifference. What a let down from the director who's given us Oldboy, JSA, and I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, not to mention Song Kang-ho in the lead who is one of the best actors working in the world today.

★★★

Hurt Locker [2008] • USA

I don't understand all the love for this film. Kathryn Bigelow is a fine director and all, but the script for this is terrible. It's cliché from top to bottom. There's nothing here that isn't predictable macho nonsense. Given that it is purported to be written by someone embedded with real access to these army guys, I couldn't believe how unbelievable it all is. Team players don't turn off radio contact and do things the other players don't know about unless they're dumb movie characters. Generals don't then praise them for doing it, either. Of course butch boy befriends Iraqi boy for cheap shot at character depth and I call bullshit. This film is insufferably boring unless you get a rush from fantasy testosterone games. The narrative barely rises above the limits of a Powerpoint presentation.

★ ★

Paranormal Activity [2007] • USA

Don't fall for the stories of people walking out of this movie because it's too scary. It doesn't even pretend to be scary until at least an hour into it. Somebody's leg is being pulled. And speaking of pulled legs ... that is the only scary scene in the movie.

There are allegedly three different endings to the film. I saw the original one ... and it's not scary or satisfying at all. There's a little bit of off-screen screaming that abruptly turns into silence. OK, that can be unnerving but it's just a technique. It doesn't move the story to anywhere that matters. The ending being shown in theaters now might be better--a whole bunch more technique with a frightening image or two that is over with quickly. The original peters out to nothingness for far too long and has no meaning.

Even if we grant that either or both of the endings I didn't see kick total ass, that doesn't make it a good film. It makes it three minutes of coolness that requires ninety minutes of suffering to get to.

The guy in this film is a completely unlikeable moron. The girl is OK but I never really thought she was scared, more just annoyed by her idiotic day-trader boyfriend. I think everyone acknowledges that this film is mostly, for at least an hour, nothing but set up before anything happens, and that's too much time spent with bad actors working without a script. There's nothing subtle about it.

★★

Eureka (Yurîka) [2000] • Japan • Shinji Aoyama

After three and a half slow paced, sepia toned hours experiencing emotional pain and anguish I still watched the credits roll. This film starts off with a man hijacking a bus and killing most everyone on it for no apparent reason. The driver and two middle school kids survive, and we spend the rest of the film watching them live with it. We watch them fall asleep watching television and other mundane matters but there is not a wasted frame in this film. There are a remarkable number of plot points to keep things moving forward but it still feels like suspended animation, like time is moving inward instead of along. Koji Yakusho is sublime and Aoi Miyazaki, at like twelve years old--and without saying a word for nearly the entire runtime--is mesmerizing. This film is a masterpiece, a journey exploring the myriad layers of trauma, of metaphorical death, and what three people endure on a path to renewal and emergence from a world of silent suffering. It will take your breath away.

★★★★★

Letter from an Unknown Woman (Yi ge mo sheng nu ren de lai xin) [2004] • China • Xu Jinglei

Xu Jinglei, may I have some more, please? This film really excites me about Xu Jinglei. The directorial hand is very mature and accomplished. The film has a great period look and feel to it. The cinematography by Lee Pin Bing is gorgeous and I’m sure that helped. The acting is all quite good. Strange, then, to have to say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the movie. Again, as with Xu's directorial debut, My Father and I, it's the story that let me down. I know it's an old story, one I haven't read nor seen any previous adaptations of, but I think I can say that while it might look good on paper, in outline form, it doesn't fare very well in this particular presentation.

There may be some cultural nuances that were lost on me, and I do have to say that the subtitles that came with the film were really, really bad. The character development didn't seem secure enough for me to accept the first disappearance of the writer after the initial affair. Frankly, it shocked me. I went along with it for the sake of the story, but it left me twitching a little. Then when they meet again and the writer doesn't recognize the woman, I lost it. I can accept not recognizing someone with a different hairdo eight years later passing them on the street but once you've gotten to the naughty bits, I don't buy it. I imagine this is all nit-picky to a story about the sadness of an extremely one-sided love affair, but I wanted something to assure me that this one-sided love was warranted and I didn't get it.

I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good love story. It's a beautiful film, and if you're not a lion in the tall grass, stalking, just waiting to pounce, like me, when you think that Xu Jinglei has failed in her exposition, the story is probably pretty good too. Stories for movies often come from outside sources but it ultimately falls on the director to tell the story in a convincing manner. Xu Jinglei, I'm officially a fanboy. Get to work.

★★★

Brass Knuckle Boys (Shonen merikensakku) The Shonen Merikensack [2008] • Japan

I'll watch anything with Aoi Miyazaki in it but it was extremely tough this time. She's fabulous, of course, and the film starts off with a refreshingly bizarre sense of humor, but it quickly devolves into toilet humor. Miyazaki plays a record company office worker who discovers a punk rock band on the Internet, thinks they are the next big thing, and decides to represent them on behalf of her company. What she doesn't know, at first, is that the band's web site and videos are 25 years old, so she must follow through promoting a group of middle-aged punk rockers because contracts have been signed and jobs are on the line. I can't imagine who this movie is aimed at. Young people (who are into punk) will recognize it as fake and older people (who may have been punks) will too. Brass Knuckle Boys confuses punk with childishness and fails to create characters that anyone will care about. For every quick and funny moment that works, and there's a bunch of them, there's umpteen that don't. And the sibling rivalry family drama subplot is painfully uninteresting. I'm a huge Aoi Miyazaki fan but a two hour fart joke is a bad vehicle for her.

★★★

Love Exposure (Ai no mukidashi) [2008] • Japan • Sono Sion

Director Sono Sion is a also a street poet and musician. There is a guerilla-art quality to this film. One gets the impression it's being made up on the spot, while you are watching it, yet there isn't the slightest hint of improvisation, and the film betrays an intricate construction. Contradictions abound. There's a mature adolescence in heady ideas about original sin and up-skirt, "peek-a-panty" photography. I hesitate to call this a weird film because it's not, even though I smiled through most of it thinking This can't be serious. I was amazed by the entire cast's chameleon like ability to move convincingly among different levels of sanity. Everyone in the film is so earnestly bizarre. If you like Sono's work you will not be disappointed by this. If you haven't seen anything by him, why not start with a four hour movie? The music is great.

★★★★★

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