Upon watching this a few times after purchasing the DVD I was struck not only by the excellent surround sound and picture quality but by the sophistication of the story and script.
A Short Film About John Bolton
The short film showpieced on this DVD is not Neil Gaiman’s (American Gods) best work. It is a fictionalized look at the artist John Bolton who in real life creates erotic paintings of nude female vampires. (Neil Gaiman also helped develop the English language version of Princess Mononoke.)
Mamoru Oshii's GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE
Mamoru Oshii (Avalon) does it again, this time with a sequel to Ghost in the Shell. Some of the same characters continue. The world of the future is even more detailed and incredible than in the original. There are more philosophical musings about the nature of humanity and technology. Plus, this may be the most incredible piece of animation I have ever seen. But it is not a favorite film of mine, for a couple of reasons.
Cédric Klapisch’s “L'Auberge Espagnol”
Imagine what it would be like as a young man to spend a year in Barcelona with an apartment full of male and female students drawn from all across Europe.
Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR
The Aviator is a grand and unique combination of glamour, adventure, intrigue, spectacle, humor, tragedy, and melodrama. It's about big, famous people doing things that we expect big, famous people to do. And it uses all the power that modern filmmaking technology has to offer. But its focus, ultimately, is on people and the things they do. The fact that the people inhabit (and helped create) the world of today is a definite plus, and Scorsese makes the most of this.
Akira Kurosawa's "THE HIDDEN FORTRESS"
Visually, this Kurosawa film (Red Beard, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, Madadayo) as represented on this Criterion DVD is magnificent. The widescreen photography, action scenes, natural surroundings, and Toshiro Mifune's performance are all excellent.
Monster Man
A bar full of amputee rednecks. Road trip guys chased by giant monster truck driven by faceless horror. Sexy scantily-clad hitchhiker. Giant pentagrams. Headless corpses. Fart jokes. Blood and gore up the wazoo. Road kill fantasies. This movie has it all.
Wes Anderson's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
I admit it. I'm terminally unhip. But I really enjoyed this movie. I put it right up there with Buckaroo Banzai and Repo Man, and that's very good company.
While watching this film I Imagined I was seeing an alternate universe view of a hybrid Charles Addams/Edward Gorey/Roald Dahl world as seen through the eyes of a child.
The Coen Brothers THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE
This film is a triumph of style AND substance. The photography is striking, the performance are universally excellent, and the story keeps our interest until the very last scene.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
This 1928 silent film is emotionally wrenching. We follow a fictionalized account of the “trial” of Joan of Arc by an English-controlled religious court. The “trial” spans a day leading up to her being burned at the stake.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban
My daughter explained the intricacies of the plot after we finished watching the movie. I was a bit confused about the rat sub-plot but did follow the time travel exercise (I always enjoy time travel stories when well done and the end sequence here is handled quite nicely).
Ram Gopal Varma's COMPANY
That the life of crime can be portrayed as glamorous, dangerous, brutal, and ultimately as pointless is something we in the West have grown accustomed to. We have films like THE GODFATHER and GOODFELLAS that reinforce that as they simultaneously attract and repel us.
Shohei Imamura's DR. AKAGI
In the closing days of World War II, family doctor Akagi runs (literally) from patient to patient in a small Japanese seaside village and discovers an alarming increase in hepatitis among his increasingly war-weary patients. He seeks a cure but the government is more interested in preparing for The Final Battle as the war draws inevitably to a close. He enlists the support of a diverse collection of friends including a morphine addicted surgeon, a hedonistic monk, and a young recovering prostitute who inevitably falls in love with him.
None of which is bad, given the skewing of this movie to a somewhat older audience than the first, but if you think of sports metaphors, Shrek 2 is a homer inside the park; Shrek was a homer outside the park. Both are winners, but there is a difference.