Norwegian Wood
"Ping Pong" as shown on BBC4 in Jonathan Ross's ongoing "Asian Invasion" series.
Built on some manga series or novel, fresh, amazingly different and good.
reviews here:
http://www.j-fan.com/cinema/cinema.c...rev&selected=8
http://www.barbelith.com/topic/18650
Ness Rowlah
Ive heard of that comic... big in Shonen jump a few years back. One of those semi-formulaic 'occupational' manga about training to be a great Table Tennis player/Chef/Pachinko player/Accountant/Sherpa/Martial artist/Politician/Sushi Chef/Bass Fisherman etc... but with a bit of a twist. I love that stuff. They have the whole aspirational thing down pat, and the competitions/challenges just get more and more intense and ridiculous as the story progresses.Originally Posted by Ness Rowlah
Id heartily recommend Taiyo Matsumoto's 'Black and White' manga as well, as, apart from being one of the most experimental and Western influenced artists in Japan at the moment, his stories have as much in common with underground UK and US stuff as they do with traditional manga..
Teasmaid
Bit mainstream perhaps but I really enjoyed "The constant gardener", in fact it restored my faith in cinema. Fiennes is particularly good and I cried like a baby at the end.
Wild Horses
Munich
If you treat it as fiction and not fact though surely? Some very dodgy twisting of the facts going on with that film from what ive read...
Prodigal Son
I saw "Memories of Murder" by Joon-ho Bong (IMDB link) last night. It's a fairly recent movie, set in mid-1980s Korea under the military dictatorship. Don't know if it's a thriller, a comedy, a political film, but i really liked it.
the grander question i have is: why are seemingly all korean films good these days, and most good films korean? is there any specific reason for this, to me, surprising emergence of korea as a cinematic powerhouse?
Banned
kung fu hustle...
Banned
i'd unreservedly advise everyone to revisit whatever is hailed as the greatest moments of cinema in the thirties, fourties, fifties, sixties and seventies. then add the things that you liked as a kid. up to when you were 12 years old. then reconsider. there you have it.
there are no accidents
The Constant Gardener.
I dare the most stringent of film snobs on this board to slam this one.
(but I'll prolly get what I ask for won't I?)
Last edited by zhao; 05-02-2006 at 08:58 PM.
HA-DO-KEN!
i saw this in the cinema when it came out, it's fucking great
Snakes + Ladders
viewed recently...
Nic Roeg- Walkabout
Alejandro Jodorowsky- The Holy Mountain
Last edited by arcaNa; 11-02-2006 at 05:47 PM.
Wild Horses
Bela Tarr - Damnation & The Werckmeister Harmonies
Prodigal Son
ha! i must see it forthwith in order to win this dare.
btw, i saw the godfather for the first time last week and thought it was RUBBISH
pigferatu
Of course! Obviously, as resident film-hater, I rather loathed this film - I really did, btw, not just being obtuse. Have already been in trouble with Christian sister of best friend over this - actual anger on her part as to how anyone could dislike such a moving tale of personal courage, the battle against multinational corporations, love, anti-racism, etc.
The reason why I'd slam this film, despite its potentially appealing premise (revealing the actually existing evil of pharma-cons in Africa and elsewhere - obviously 'true' with regard to the current attitude towards generic versions of Aids drugs, the practice of 'experimenting' on deliberately misinformed patients, etc.).
Basically, I detested its myriad cop-outs:
1. That the suspicion that his pretty, politically-aware wife might be shagging the black activist (exploited to the hilt in the hospital scene where she holds a black baby after, you later find out, losing her own child. Plus the fact that she dies in the car with him after sharing a hotel room - maybe they didn't just have a cause in common, hint, hint!). But he's gay! So it's ok (although not for him, obviously, he gets strung up like a hare in some primitive homophobic-political attack. D'oh!).
The implication being that she had to be as pure and innocent as her political project - and if not, no one would have 'believed' her...let alone taken up her leads and so on (and how stoooopid was her husband for not realising that she was doing all this activism stuff while he worked for the British Gvt - wot, she was sitting at home knitting....but where were all the scarves?!) ...The modern version of the white man's burden - the flirty white wife! 'Keep her in check...obviously we all fancy her, but she's dangerous, you know!'
2. The personalisation of politics - systematic corruption via the powers that be, but only rendered true-to-life through the sad tale of one man and his wifey - cos no audience could deal with the issues outside of a sorry love story.
3. The colourful/grey dichotomy - Africa all dancing colours, pathos and rituals; England all grey, rainy and full of eeeevil corrupt politicos with dubious physiognomy. Subtle!
4. The fact that the 'constant gardener' only tended his plants obsessively about twice in the whole film, thus not really making enough of his supposed inverted, autistic tendencies to make his oh-so-late political revelations convincing.
Mind you, I loathed City of God even more....
HA-DO-KEN!
really? i watched city of god yesterday.
recommended:
grizzly man. i'm a sucker for gawping at derranged and delusional americans.
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