Lost In Translation

Kikujiro

Kikujiro (1999) is yet another one of Takeshi Kitano’s departures from expectations. It followed the international success of Hanabi, which won top prize at the Venice Film Festival. Hanabi was another violent film populated with yakuza. Kikujiro is probably as close as a traditional film that Kitano could make. This film is a road film where an ex-yakuza, Kitano, takes a young boy on a trip during the summer vacation to try and find his mother. The boy’s mother has remarried and has another child, but it seems that the boy has gained a father figure through the experience. There’s a dreamlike sequence that has performers doing a modern Butoh dance that prefigures the dancing in Zaitoichi. It is an interesting evolution in the career of an auteur. His variety of genres and experimental foray draw a comparison to Soderberg.

Versions of Carver

The Slate Book Club discusses two versions of a Raymond Carver short story this month,the Gordon Lish edited version, "The Bath," and the restored original version "A Small Good Thing." I end to agree with the commenters that the Lish edited version is more interesting. These are both available in The Collected Stories which includes the original short stories ina collection called "Beginners." 

Stephen King surprisingly writes about Carver, his life and stories, for The NY Times Magazine.

PhoNam

Nothing like pho on a cold rainy night, this dinner set with a mini curry, is courtesy of PhoNam at Tokyo Midtown.

In The iPod: Yo La Tengo, The Flaming Lips, and Built To Spill

The new Yo La Tengo album, Popular Songs, is no departure from their typical sound. There are several lush pop songs like "When It's Dark," "If It's True," or "Avalon Or Someone Very Similar" that should be big radio hits. But that is extremely unlikely.  That being said the most uncommercial song a 15 minute instrumental, "And The Glitter is Gone" is also one of my favorites. So far it is one of my favorite new albums of 2009.

Embryonic, The Flaming Lips latest album is another sonic feast for the ears with all sorts fo interesting sounds , but necessarily one of their most commercial albums. But that being said there are several cuts that make it worthwhile like:"Convinced Of The Hex," "See The Leaves," "The Egos Understand," and "Watching The Planets." 

I reached back to an older Built To Spill album from 1994, There's Nothing Wrong With Love, after hearing the transcendent "Car" on Slate's Cultural Gabfest a few months back. It's a great guitar driven album full of melodies in songs like: "Big Dipper," "Distopian Dream Girl," and"Some" among others. It is a very strong alum overall. I really need to spend more time with it. 

Kids Return

Kids Return (1996) is one of Takeshi Kitano’s more conventional films. It seems he has a habit of challenging the expectorations of his critics and fans. This film follows the comedic miscue of Getting Any? It is basically the story of two outsiders who deicide to look for a life outside the meritocracy of Japanese society much the same way Kitano looked for success outside the mainstream model of school followed by endless hours working in a company. One of the characters is a natural boxer, but after fleeting success fall by the wayside after being led astray by a negative influence. His best friend has a similar trajectory with the local yakuza. It also portrays the career trajectories of classmates from the same high school. One of the classmates takes a salary man job and works overtime as a cab driver and it ends in tragedy. Other classmates find success as a manzai team. There are several cyclic images that suggest a circular pattern of success followed by failure. This is Kitano’s 6^th film and it seems that he likes to keep his public guessing about what kind of film he will make next. I see similarities with Steven Soderbergh in that they both have an interest in experimental film and a variety of genres. 

The Best TV Series From The 00's

The AV Club is making Best of the 00's lists and they recently did one on TV series:

1. The Wire
2. The Sopranos
3. Arrested Development
4. Freaks and Geeks
5. Mad Men
6. Breaking Bad
7. The Office UK
8. Lost
9. Deadwood
10. The Shield

My list is as follows:

1. The Wire

2. The Sopranos

3. Mad Men

4. Arrested Development

5. The Office U.K.

6. Deadwood

7. 30 rock

8. Breaking Bad

9. Curb Your Enthusiasm

10. Six Feet Under

Honorable Mention: Freaks and Geeks, Flight of the Conchords, Dexter, and Veronica Mars.

New Cult Canon: A Company Of Men

Neil LaBute gets the AV CLub treatment with his debut feature:

“Women. Nice ones, the most frigid of the race—it doesn’t matter in the end. Inside, they’re all the same: Meat and gristle and hatred, just simmering.” —Aaron Eckhart, In The Company Of Men.

Neil LaBute’s 1997 directorial debut, In The Company Of Men, attracted such a heap of controversy at the Sundance Film Festival that most distributors didn’t want to touch it, even though no other film at that year’s festival was as talked-about. There were worries that lines like the one above—to say nothing of the vile actions they preface—would draw a backlash from arthouse audiences sensitive to misogyny. It had the potential to be another fiasco along the lines of David Mamet’s toxic gender study Oleanna, not least because LaBute owed the great playwright an obvious debt (if not royalties) for his clipped, profane, hyper-masculine dialogue, his spare directorial style, and a closing twist that echoes Mamet’s love of the long con. The film eventually found its way into theaters seven or eight months later, but the controversy stayed with it, and to my mind, the chief complaint was consistently wrong-headed. In The Company Of Men isn’t a misogynistic film, it’s a misanthropic film. Big difference. 

Stranger Than Paradise

Apologies to Facebook readers, but it is worthwhile to re-post a great film review of  Stranger Than Paradise by an interesting director: 

For better or worse, Jim Jarmusch has developed a reputation as the cineaste of cool. He has only himself to blame. For one, he has a rare genius for the suave posture and the shockingly odd image. Think of Johnny Depp in a checkered suit and black bowler, limping through a birch forest in the surrealist Western Dead Man (1995), or the two Japanese tourists in Mystery Train (1989), ecstatic with passion for Elvis Presley, sitting on the floor of their Memphis, Tenn., hotel room with lipstick-smeared faces. He also frequently casts musicians as his actors (John Lurie, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, and Jack and Meg White, among others), and his soundtracks, featuring Charlie Parker, Elvis, and Ethiopian composer Mulatu Astatke, help give his films their distinctive mood—the cinematic equivalent of a world-weary shrug. Most responsible of all for this reputation, however, is his trademark dialogue, with its reliance on antiquated slang, digressive riffs, and bathetic one-liners.

Inoki vs. Ali

There's a good piece on this infamous fight in The Guardian:

Picture Muhammad Ali.

How do you see him?

Standing snarling over Sonny Liston? Shadow boxing on the bottom of a swimming pool? Leaning into the ropes as George Foreman pummels his kidneys? Stooping, shaking, to light the Olympic flame?

How about Ali flapping about on the canvas while an 18 stone wrestler sits on his face? Who wants to remember Ali that way?

There are some things a person should never have to see happen to a man like Ali. This is the story of one of them.

King Rat

King Rat is an extraordinary film-I can’t believe that I’ve never heard of it before. It is one of the best POW prison films I’ve ever seen. It seems that many of my friends know it since it was adapted from a novel by Jamse Clavell based on his experiences at the Japanese prison camp Changi in Singapore-which is now home to the airport. It is the story of survival of the prisoners and what they did to survive. George Segal plays King, an American corporal who runs the camp with his black market schemes. He has a bunch of cronies that carry out his requests and he orders officers around as well. It is extremely realistic and has great cinematography. It is also a study of class and society. Once the camp is liberated by Richard Dawson!? King loses his status and position and once again is a lowly corporal rather than the King. The supporting cast is also quite impressive as well. It is well worth seeking out and watching.