movie twofer

Because I had the day off, I saw two movies today, pretty much sweeping the emotional spectrum.

First was Love Actually, which I saw with my wife. It was great. Hands down, the smartest, funniest, most complex romantic comedy I've ever seen. I was expecting a chick-flick, and worse, a Christmas-themed chick flick (opening in February here). However, when Richard Curtis' name was revealed in the opening credits, I was suddenly infused with hope for the movie. He's responsible for the writing of Blackadder past Season One; you know, the good stuff. By and large, Love Actually is a typical comedy-romance; to some degree it was formulaic. However the dialog is hilarious, the pacing is brisk, and the editing is challenging to keep up with. The music used in the movie was spot-on as well. I give it a big, fat recommendation for watching with yer honey. Though I further recommend waiting to take your potty break until after Rowan Atkinson's scene, which is apparently (I'm told) flawless, but about the length of a quick piss. (I'm also told that Rowan Atkinson looks just like Lee.) The movie has sad and happy moments, and a less-than-perfectly happy ending. Overall the messages about various kinds of love, and what they mean to us, how our choices affect our lives, and how we treat others is wondrous and thought provoking without breaking into cliché or pedantic exposition.

After dinner, I went to see Takashi Miike's new movie, Chakushin Ari. It's a horror movie, in the same quasi-urban-myth vein as "Ringu," but with more mainstream production values and a cellphone instead of a videotape. Before I get into that though, let me say the trailers for movies coming up were pretty exciting. I'd not noticed previously that there were so few trailers for Japanese movies in front of the Hollywood stuff I've been going to see. This is the first Japanese movie I've seen in a theater since "Mononoke Hime," and I arrived late for that. So it was surprising to see a long run of trailers, including Devilman the Movie, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, Hayao Miyazaki's upcoming Howl's Moving Castle and oddly, My Lover, the Sniper. I noticed a lot of things in the trailers that an online, wee quicktime vid is not as capable of showing as the silver screen. Now I am all kinds of jazzed to see Innocence -- the CG/cell integration looks just stunning. I take back the mean stuff I said about Production IG relying on simulated shaky-hand camera effects; this stuff looks great.

Chakushin Ari was good, but not mind blowing. It is creepy as hell. There are a couple scenes where it feels like things are just slightly off, but one can't tell what's wrong until the thing that... shouldn't be there... moves. It has the most effective use of sound in a horror movie that I've ever experienced. There is a sequence where a chacter is being lured by a ringing phone, which kept moving around the theater, according to how she was facing, then it moved slowly closer to her, until it finally reached her location on the screen. There's tremendous subtlety as well, for instance in the opening, at a crowded bar, when a friend is telling about the death of a friend, everything is muted except the story, though the soundwork still matches the acoustics for the izakaya/saloon. Miike gets extra scare points against me, in the same way Tim enjoys spiders, for putting the climax in an abandoned hospital. Which is to say: dirty, empty hospital + flickering fluorescent track lighting + main character moving slowly toward someplace she shouldn't = 10X bonus scare multiplier Let me be clear about Japanese horror films: for scares, they are about as far in advance of American horror movies as Japan is ahead of the States in, well, cellphones. The end was confusing, though apparently it's even confusing to Japanese people who are accustomed to vague endings in horror movies. There's nothing wrong with that, though. I was happy to dodge the standard, formulaic ending bullet two times in one day.

Check also this spoiler-heavy synopsis, or this wondrous babelfish of the story from the official site (just for laughs): Yumi woman Oobu Nakamura (shibasaki kou) with the seat of combination KON, the portable telephone of proton of the friend hears and sounds with the arrival sound which does not have remembering. When message of the "arrival ant" is verified, as for dispatching with portable number of main person of proton, furthermore the message like the scream which is thought as main person of proton is left to incomprehensible thing. As for arrival time time of 3 days later.... And, the time after that 3 days, proton screaming same as message, falling dies from the bridge. Several days later, even in carrying Kenji which to the seat of same combination KON is with number of this person message of the "arrival ant" is left at future time. Scream of main person of Kenji has entered in the same way as the time of proton, increasing similar scream to also the time of several days later and it dies. And and Konishi of the close friend of the one person and Yumi stacking (blowing stone one blessing) message reaches with the same arrival sound as the time of proton. There with image, was the hand of the person who extends to the stacking and the back blankly has appeared in fear. As for stacking you take largely in notice of death and disturb, in spite even in Yumi's stopping, or in the time from TV station birth performing you do not do in program that you ride in the invitation. Yumi whom it tries to pinpoint the truth of incident encounters Hiro man Yamashita of the funeral house (the embankment truth one) with. Yamashita the younger sister in a similar way the dying/fleeing paragraph て time, two people start chasing incident together. And, more and more it is air time of program, but while being broadcast raw, cruel death is accomplished in the time when also stacking is notified same to as that. And, arrival of death is left to Yumi's carrying finally...