A 2005 Japanese film directed, written, edited by, and starring Takeshi Kitano. It is the first film in Kitano’s surrealist autobiographical trilogy, being followed by Glory to the Filmmaker!, and Achilles and the Tortoise.
PLOT: Beat Takeshi, a prominent actor, meets a lookalike named Kitano, who is a struggling actor, but after the meeting, Kitano’s dreams take a violent, surreal turn.Read More »
A satire about the French small businessman: A naive, middle-aged and paternal managing director (Mondy), subject to takeover by a wily American conglomerate, becomes besotted with Darc, supposedly the PR man’s niece but actually a callgirl hired as an inducement for the night.Read More »
Two criminal gangs are ruthlessly fighting for a 1-million dollar check that, purely by chance, got into the flat of shy high school teacher George Camel. As the number of victims sharply increases, Camel is mistakenly regarded as a mass murderer and cunningly uses his horrifying reputation to get the respect and heart of his beloved Sabrina, a journalist from a local newspaper. But this game turns out to be risky and in the end, both gangs don’t hesitate to seize the check at all costs, including an improvised operation.Read More »
The spirit, hopes, and failures of a troupe of itinerant performers in the 1950s create a poignant, humorous leitmotif in this drama by Fernando Fernan-Gomez. The story of the wandering players is told in flashbacks, as Carlos Galvan (Jose M. Sacristan) reminisces about the good times while under therapy with a psychiatrist in a senior citizens’ home. Carlos and his lover Juanita (Laura del Sol), his teenage son, his father, and a few other actors try to eke out a living by putting on shows in small towns and villages. No one has very much money, but life is lived to the hilt, and Carlos himself has some pretty tall tales.Read More »
Sung Shih Chieh, a brilliant, but somewhat shifty lawyer who uses his verbal dexterity in the pursuit of cash, not justice. His kung-fu kicking wife frowns on his success as it has had a terrible karmic price: all twelve of their infant sons have died prematurely. Sung agrees to leave his legal chicanery behind, but a murder case involving Madame Chou arrives on his doorstep. Sung is pulled out of self-imposed retirement by this sensational case, and the Qing Dynasty legal world had better watch out!Read More »
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“Sooner or later, everyone who loves movies comes to Ozu. He is the quietest and gentlest of directors, the most humanistic, the most serene.” — Roger Ebert
It took long enough, but I sampled my first Yasujiro Ozu film, Good Morning (Ohayo), and will soon indulge myself with as many of his works as I can locate. At one time, his films were thought to be “too Japanese” and weren’t available in the West, but if Good Morning is any indication of his craft and appeal, Ozu deserves a much wider audience. It’s a film that works at multiple levels, and only artistic geniuses like Shakespeare have been able to pull off such a universal work that works with both down to earth people and with the upper levels of critical audiences equally.Read More »
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British director Suri Kishnamma follows his quiet character study A Man of No Importance (1994) with this raucous feel-good suicide-pact comedy-drama. The film opens with buddies Jake (Andrew Lee Potts) and Steven (Robby Barry) enjoying a little joie de vivre on French ski slopes during a school holiday until a freak avalanche kills everyone in their high school class except, of course, Jake, Steve, and an adult chaperone who remains in a coma throughout the movie. The two cogent survivors return to their coastal community with much tabloid attention. Jake’s divorced mother Shelley (Anastasia Hille) is barely able to keep it together with anti-depressants and welfare checks. She leans on Jake, her eldest son, for emotional stability. Steven, on the other hand, loathes his ice queen socialite mother (Jacqueline Bisset) and his anal-retentive politico father. Traumatized in two different ways — Steven slides into steely cynicism while Jake delves into weepy despondency — the two agree to a blood pact: they will spend the following year living it up in nihilist glee, after which time they will duly off themselves. As the year of mayhem unfolds — including robbing banks, torching schools, and eating ice cream in Timbuktu — their friendship and their fidelity to their pact is questioned.Read More »
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The intertwining storylines of an art dealer, a thief, a police chief inspector, a gun dealer, an inventor, a beautician, several bums, and a crazy old man play out as an 18th century chinaware set and a 19th century portrait pass in and out of their hands. This absurd, hilarious, intricate and surreal cinematic Rubiks cube examines the bizarre twists of fate that draw people and possessions together and apart.Read More »
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Leo is a street vendor who, always accompanied by his dog, entertains shoppers on the beach telling stories to a group of guys who actually want to conquer the tourists in a bathing suit. Meanwhile, Mario, a boy on holiday with his father, falls in love with his cello teacher Margherita. Beautiful Margherita, who teaches music and disturbs the sleeps of her adolescent students, is immediately the most popular prey by the guys on the beach. But it will be the father of one of them who manages to covet it.Read More »