films ahoy!!

[duchess_of_pie]

netflix's decision to go unlimited with streaming video has been both a delight and a suck of time in our household. we've got the computer hooked up to the tv as second screen, so it seems all we do is watch stuff we've already seen. this week alone, i finally made gabe watch "the king and i," and he has brought forth "just one of the guys," "little shop of horrors," and "vertigo."

last night, i watched "bush's brain," which made me believe that karl rove is this generation's anti-christ.

and i finally got to see "palindromes," which is neither todd solondz's best nor most controversial. (i did enjoy that that the plot was a palindrome itself. clever.)


i would also like to confess that we rented "son in law" from netflix. aren't you jealous? how long has it been since you've seen pauly shore's best film? he's the we-ee-zal!!

okay. what else?



REVIEWS OF THE DUCHESS: THE SAVAGES

laura linney just keeps getting better. talent + good career choices = contender in my book for best actress (2nd only to kate winslet). god i love that woman.

laura linney + phillip seymour hoffman = wonderful. but sad. nothing i could ever watch again. excellent.

end review.

REVIEWS OF THE DUCHESS: EAGLE VS. SHARK (dvd)

my reasons for renting were twofold: jemaine clement and indie appeal. neither of these reasons really panned out for me.

i don't know. i really liked lily and i found it sad that she kept chasing after jemaine's character. and he was really a dick. i got to the point where i was like, "if they end up getting together at the end of this film, 1) ick, and 2) just wasted two hours."

what a waste.

the whole movie just made me feel very uncomfortable for the characters, kind of like "you, me and everyone we know."

end review.

REVIEWS OF THE DUCHESS: MINLLENIUM ACTRESS (dvd)


wow. oh my god, wow. madhouse, you've just become my favorite studio since gainax and ghibli.

i wanted to watch this before "paprika," because i've heard that one is even better than "millenium actress." and now i can't wait, because MA was a-fkn-mazing. it looks so beautiful and the characters are really lovely.

basically, it's an anime about an actress who is in her 70's. she's giving an interview about her life as a popular movie actress, starting in pre-WWII japan and moving onward, her sole purpose being to find a man she fell in love with in her youth. and as her story progresses, it's told through the films she was popular for--period pieces taking place in the heian or edo eras, up through the space age. and all the scenes from these movies serve to progress the plot of her own story. the character who is interviewing her knew her long ago, and helped her once. while the interview continues and the movie scenes show, he steps in to play the characters that are helpers to hers.

it's just wonderfully made, and i can't imagine how one person could create something so intricate...much less a team of writers, all trying to keep things sane.

and character designs by one of my favorites--takeshi honda ("evangelion," "oh! my goddess" OAV, "macross plus," and it looks like he did some stuff for "tales from earthsea," a ghibli film that didn't do so well, which i have to get now).

i forgot that they also did "perfect blue," another movie i'll have to add to my que.

end review.

Comments

[dirtyknobs.livejournal.com]

The MA guy also did Tokyo Godfathers, which I haven't seen. Paprika is good, but pretty shallow IMO. Nice to look at. Then again, I DID fall asleep for both Perfect Blue and MA, so...Anyway, Susumu Hirasawa does the Paprika soundtrack, and it's amazing. Actually it's basically just one of his albums with a few edits. The main theme is...so...good...OMG! I could go on and on about him because he was the founding member of P-Model, which was a major Polysics influence...blah blah blah....

[duchess-of-pie.livejournal.com]

actually, the only other person i know who's seen "paprika" said the same thing about the soundtrack and said i'd be downloading it immediately.

i didn't know honda did "tokyo godfathers!" i loved that film!

[dirtyknobs.livejournal.com]

Or sorry, I was talking about the writer/director Satoshi Kon.

[duchess-of-pie.livejournal.com]

ah, that's just as good. he's pretty awesome. bad teeth though.

[dirtyknobs.livejournal.com]

HA!