Lost In Translation

Throwbackmax T-Shirts

These are two T-Shirts that I just bought from my friend Rob Shugert's company Throwbackmax. They specialize in vintage (mostly defunct sports teams) sports and pop culture T-shirts and accessories. For those who are film fans, you might recognized the Blume Industries T-shirt design from the film Rushmore. He scanned the design from the letter head from the speech Bill Murray reads at the beginning of the film. Others might recognize the Stiff Records T-Shirt from various artists like Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Rockpile that once called thelabel home. 

Maple Street Bistro

The Maple Street Bistro is a new Spokane find for me. I stopped in after finishing a workout early and I was impressed by the variety of bakery items, drinks, sandwiches, and breakfast options. I went with the Homestyle Wrap: ham, bacon, scrambled eggs, olives, tomato, cheddar and pepperjack cheese in a cilantro wrap. It also came with a side of what I am guessing is homemade applesauce.

2011 Holiday Films Part 1

30 Minutes Or Less (2011) was directed by Ruben Fleischer, who also directed the vastly entertaining Zombieland. The films are similar in that they both parody and make fun of their respective genres. This film makes fun of the heist/action film tropes. For example, rather than filming in an exotic location, the film is set in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Once again Jesse Esienberg is the slacker anti-hero Nick, a pothead slacker who works as a pizza delivery driver, hence the title. His best friends are Chet (Aziz Ansari) and his twin sister Kate (Nick’s love interest played by Dilshad Vadsaria), who are Arabic American Muslims, which is true to the region. Instead of a fancy high-performance sports cars, we get a junky, non-sexy model of a Ford Mustang, which our heroes upgrade for a…Datsun 280Z. However, there is some gunplay, explosions, and even a flamethrower. There’s lots of great dialogue as well. This film wasn’t on my radar, so I was pleasantly surprised to find among the choices for films on my last flight.

Hunger (2008) directed by Steven McQueen starring Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands is a powerful movie. The impressive aspect is how much McQueen explains through exposition of actions. We see a prison guard getting ready for work and the prisoners themselves-there is some sparingly used voice over narration that sets the up the situation and comments on the situation between the IRA prisoners led by Sands who want to be recognized as political prisoners rather than common prisoners. Their first protest is realized as a no wash strike in which they don’t wash and foul up their cells by smearing feces on the walls. There is a call for negotiations and the prisoners rebel once again when they aren’t given their own clothes. There is a masterful and intense scene where Sands is visited by a priest and they argue the ethics of a hunger strike and Sands defines who he is through a story of his youth-it is a set piece tour de force of acting by both. The later half follows Sands demise as he slowly wastes away in the prison Fassenbender’s physical dedication to the role calls to mind that of Christian Bale’s emaciation in The Mechanic. I was impressed the power of the film that was mostly told through images and just a few characters.

I didn’t read the novel, but was compelled to see the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011), because it was directed by David Fincher. Fincher has had few missteps in his career and he delivers the goods here. I’ve been told that the film follows the book quite closely, but I am impressed on how Fincher has created the visual mood of the film set in Sweden. The leads actors were well played by Daniel Craig and Rooney Marta. The opening credits look as though it could have been a stand-alone video and it is one of the hallmarks of Fincher’s visual style. Thematically this film that is many things (a murder mystery, a serial killer film, a tale of redemption, a whistle blower corruption film), but similar to two of his previous films: Se7en and Zodiac. It was entertaining and well made in away that audiences have come to expect from Fincher.

I have been a fan of Shohei Imamura’s films for some time, but just got around to watching Black Rain (1988). This film was shot in black and white and has the feeling of having been made in the Taisho period of the 40s during the war and post war period. It chronicles the lives of the Hiroshima survivors who were plagued by their uncertain futures after having been exposed to radiation form the Hiroshima bombing. One character asks why the Americans dropped the bomb. Another character answers to end the war more quickly-there is little interest in pursuing the matter more fully and coming to terms with Japan’s war of aggression against Asia and America. This character also wonders why not Tokyo rather than Hiroshima-but most of the victims try to get on with life as much as possible. It highlight’s the Japanese proclivity for ostracizing those who are different. One of the major plot points concerns an Uncle (Kazuo Kitamura) trying to marry off his niece (played by Yoshiko Tanaka), but is thwarted by the fact that she had been exposed to the toxic black rain that fell after the bombing. There’s another overlapping story about a war damaged soldier who was a member the suicide tank squad, which in itself suggests the lengths that Japan was prepared to fight to the bitter end to get a better surrender agreement. This was also seen the bloody last battles of the Pacific War in Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It is yet another powerful film in the diverse Imamura oeuvre.

I Saw The Devil (2010) is a violent horror/crime film from Korean director Jee-Woon Kim. It is a stylish crime/horror film, and above all a sort of revenge fantasy film. The fact that the main homicidal rapist/murder (there are several types in this film) is a murderer played by Min-sik Choi, who played a similar role in Chan Woo Park’s film Lady Vengeance. Byung-hun Lee plays a secret agent whose pregnant fiancé (the daughter of the police chief) is murdered by Choi. Lee hunts him down and plays a game of catch and release inflicting some brutal physical punishment along the way as the roles of victim/aggressor are blurred. I can’t help but see it as torture porn on some level-it is not a feel good movie.

The Hidden Blade (2004) is the second samurai film directed by Yoji Yamada. I really enjoyed his first film, Twilight Samurai a lot. The two films have several themes in common: the focus on an honorable low ranking samurai with superior swordsmanship skills caught in a difficult romantic situation that cannot be easily consummated. B0th of the films have exhaustively research the period details regarding almost every aspect of society from clothes to hot bottle foot warmers. Also, Yamada is putting forth the revisionist argument that most samurai never had to kill and that they were frightened to fight sword battles. This film is also set at the end of the Edo period before the Meiji restoration. It chronicles the introduction of western weapons and thought. It is also an indictment of feudal society in which samurai are subjected to whims of their superiors and where societal customs forbid the mingling of the classes-thus samurai were not allowed to marry merchants and so forth. Masatoshi Nagase (from Mystery Train) stars as the strong willed samurai and his love interest is played by Takako Matsu (recently starred in Confessions). Another entertaining, well made revisionist samurai drama from Yamada.

 

England Made Me

England Made Me (1935) is one of the last novels by Graham Greene on my list to read. I had expected it to take place in England given the title, but was surprised to find it takes place in Stockholm, Sweden. This is where the never-do-well Anthony Farrant has landed after his latest failure in Aden (in Yemen), where his twin sister, Kate, works for millionaire businessman Erik Krough. She also serves as his mistress. Anthony Farrat is a charming failure with the gift of the gab who is prone to over exaggeration. Another equally fascinating creation is the English journalist exile Minty, who owes his meager existence to covering the doings of Krough and is a different sort of failure than Anthony. There is a lot of talk about class and what constitutes being a gentleman, which refer to traditional English standards of living and respectability that Anthony and Minty cling to. They are exiles who lust for the green fields of England and curse the fates for not having been born with money, because both believe that given a chance and trust of an investment they could be successful. Kate is more of a realist and has pinned her future on Krough. Anthony doesn't really have the fortitude to plan long term-he has spent too much of his life scraping to get by and moving from one colonial outpost to another trying to make a name for himself. It seems here he has decided to finally do the right thing and then return to England-the sure sign of a tragedy in waiting. There is a curious subplot involving one of the Swedish journalists who is an Anglophile and dreams of staging a production of Shakespeare's Pericles. I was trying to figure out why Greene chose that play, and it amy be because it has a mixed reputation and doesn't have a long history of being staged like some of his more famous tragedies. Perhaps, Greene is equating the narrator of the play, Gower, with Krough-since so many of the characters fates are tied to this industrialist's success. A lesser known Greene novel, but another compelling story from the master.

Moneyball

Bennett Miller’s (director of the excellent Capote) adaptation of Michael Lewis’s excellent book, Moneyball (2011), was a fairly standard type of adaptation. It added some elements and expanded certain aspects of the main character Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) in order to create a sympathetic lead character. This includes creating a father daughter relationship that portrays him as more vulnerable and sympathetic. However, the dynamic between Beane and his assistant (Jonah Hill) is more of the key to he film in how they were fighting against baseball conventions to find a way to win with out having the capital of big market teams like the New York Yankees. The highlight occurs during the 2003 season after losing three of their top stars the newly rebuilt team has a record 20 game winning streak before losing in the playoffs again. The film works well enough, but I can’t help wondering what the film would have looked like if Steven Soderbergh, who was originally slated to direct the film, had seen the project through to the end.

2011 Year In Music

My favorite albums for the year 2011 are:

    1. Decemberists The King Is Dead

    2. Ryan Adams Ashes & Fire

    3. Wilco The Whole Love

    4. Beastie Boys Hot Sauce Committee Part 2

    5. Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues

    6. Tom Waits As Bad As Me

    7. Radiohead King Of Limbs

    8. The Head & The Heart The Head & The Heart

    9. Drive By Truckers Go Go Boots

    10. The Strokes Angels

I was really disappointed by Bon Iver's new record,which I felt relied too heavily on effects and technology and killed what was distinctive about the band's sound. I missed out on a few albums from artists like Death Cab For Cutie, Old 97s, Nick Lowe, Dolorean, and Jesse Sykes. Did I miss out on any other good albums? 

Purple Noon

Purple Noon (1960) was the first adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley by Rene Clement. My first exposure to the story was through Anthony Minghella's 1999 version with matt Damon and Jude Law. Thus, it's hard for me to discuss the French version without referring to the most recent adaptation. I think the casting of Alain Delon as Ripley is much more successful since he is so charming and alluring-Damon's Ripley is plain and is overshadowed by Jude Law. Delon makes us feel the tension of Ripely getting caught in the act of disposing of the bodies and getting away with murder. Maurice Ronet is also good as the smug Dickie Greenleaf. Minghella's version has better female leads in Gweneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchard. The beautiful Mediterranean islands and ocean shine through the cinematography in both films. i think it is well worth searching out.

Geisha * Harlot * Strangler * Star

William Johnston's book Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star: A Woman, Sex, and Morality in Modern Japan (2004) is a fascinating book in several ways. Sada Abe's story is extremely famous and has been written about many many times since it occurred in 1936. Most of my knowledge comes from Nagisa Oshima's film, In The Realm Of The Senses (1976). It is a enthralling analysis of Abe's life history, observations about modern Japanese society, and police interrogations and justice. It seems that she was spoiled by her parents early. And  later in her adolescence she was turned out of the house while they were fighting with her older siblings about the legacy of the family tatami mat making business. At this time she suffered rape from an acquaintance in her neighborhood who was older and went to Waseda. She told her mother who approached the family who refused to acknowledge the incident. Abe suffered from this thinking that she could not lead a conventional since she was no longer  a virgin and wouldn't be considered marriage material despite her mother's advice to forget about and not disclose this information. She started to steal money from her parents and hangout with a bad crowd and looking for fun in Asakusa. Later after they moved to Saitama, she took up with a neighbor and was living fast, so her father decided to sell her to a brothel-supposedly to let her get it out of her system then have her return to the family. Johnston states that this was a common practice among middle class families with wild daughters, which seems absolutely shocking to me. This was a turning point for Abe, who vowed to never return to her family after this.

The life she lead after this was dizzily chaotic life of going from one brothel to another getting large loans that have to be paid back, escapes from exploitative tea houses, tawdry affairs, and the contraction of syphilis at different times throughout her life. She finally tries to go straight, but is unable to for a number of reasons: lack of education, a taste for high living, exploitation by others, her high sex drive, etc. The whole system of running up high bills and escaping or paying a fraction seems inefficient and unlikely to me. At the point she has run off with the man she would kill, Kichi Ishida, she is getting her money from a kindly City Hall official from Nagoya. All of her many dealings with men suggest that most of them were keeping mistresses and/or playing around, and many wives were tolerating this or turning a blind eye-perhaps due to the lack of "love marriages" and the dearth of arranged marriages? Essentially, she was obsessed with Ishida whom she found irresistible and wanted to dominate/control him and stop him from having sex with other women or his wife and be hers alone. They were engaging in rough sex by strangling each other during climax for a more intense effect-has this been done since the karma sutra? This led to her strangling Ishida. Then she severed his genitals after strangling him as a sort of memento. There would be no question of double suicide or running off together-his wife ran a prosperous restaurant in Nakano and he had two children. The police testimony is a fascinating document that Johnston draws from and has included in its full form. She is given an eight year sentence and is dogged continually about the incident until she disappears from public view. The genitals of Ishida were given to university and also mysteriously disappeared. It is easy to see how this story has captured the attentions of millions since its occurrence.

90's Noir: The Last Seduction & The Grifters

I recently revisited a couple of 90's noir crime films and felt very gratified in knowing they stand the test of time. The first was The Last Seduction (1994) a film by directed by John Dahl. I was surprised by how little I remembered about the plot- was sucked in again by the plot twists. The three main lead performances (Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman, and Peter Berg) were great as well. I never understood why Fiorentino never became a bigger star, she had a great role and one of the greatest lines of the decade: "Who do I have to blow to get a drink around here?"

The other noir thriller was The Grifters (1991), an adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel by Stephen Frears. I was able to remember the plot of this film more easily, but that's not detracting from the artistry of the film. I think this one also had three great performances from leads (Angelica Huston, John Cusak, Annette Bening) not to mention some great performances from supporting characters like J.T. Walsh as Cole as well as others. I was surprised to see Jeremy Piven as a sailor mark on the train to San Diego that Cusak exploits. Overall, I was entertained as the first time I saw it.

When A Woman Ascends The Stairs

When A Woman Ascends The Stairs (1960) is the first Mikio Naruse film I've seen, so I don't have a strong sense of what it is that makes it a Naruse film. In fact, it seems like the kind of story-the struggles of a woman to find the balance of happiness and survival as a widower in her 30s, that would have been attractive to Mizoguchi. But it seems that according to Donald Richie's narration that the fact that Naruse grew up impoverished unlike Kurosawa or Mizoguchi and that was reflected in the stories he chose to bring to the screen. Hideko Takamine plays a widow who supports her mother and brother with her job as a hostess at a Ginza bar. She doesn't enjoy the atmosphere or drinking so she struggles to get by in this occupation. It is understood that she should marry or open her own bar at his stage of her life. She tries both avenues to avail and finds herself ascending the stair to work at he end as in the beginning of the film. It would seem his filming style is more subdued than that of directors like Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, but there are several interesting tracking shots and is probably more closer in style to the stagnant style of Ozu. I enjoyed this enough to want to see more of his films to see why he is held in such high regard.