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| Monday, April 18, 2005 11:08 AM |
| Let's All Go to the Lobby |
 by Fëanor |
- Too Beautiful to Lie - I loved last year's Korean romantic comedy, and this one is just as good--pure fun! Hilarious and cute and touching. I worry that Korean romantic comedies are really pretty much the same as American romantic comedies, and I only like the former and hate the latter because I am a movie snob. But then again, maybe they're just better. Anyway, after seeing this movie I felt quite happy and in love with movies again. I hadn't realized until then how depressing and dark and disturbing pretty much all the other films that I've seen have been. I kind of wish I'd had more movies like Too Beautiful To Lie on my schedule.
- Evilenko - Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who raped, murdered, and ate over fifty young children during the '80s and '90s--so right back to more of the dark disturbing stuff! Malcolm McDowell stars in the role of the killer. Long story short, I didn't like this one. It was in English, but for some reason they found it necessary to overdub many of the actors, even though they were clearly speaking English like everybody else--maybe somebody thought their accents were too thick? Anyway, this wouldn't have been that bad, if they had done the dubbing well, and hired competant voice actors. Instead, the dubbing is painfully clumsy and obvious, and the voice acting is horrendous. But most of the actors speaking with their own voices are pretty awful, too, so it doesn't matter that much. Even McDowell, whom I usually really like, is way over the top here. The movie is trying to make a serious point of some kind about the loss of identity of Russian men after the fall of Communism, but it ends up being ridiculous and unbelievable. It doesn't help that, during the inevitable text crawl at the end of the film explaining what happened to the characters in real life, McDowell is staring straight into the camera for many long minutes, grimacing and making faces and waving his hands around. This elicited laughter from the audience, which I don't think was the desired effect--although I can't imagine, watching those images, what else it was supposed to elicit.
- Soundless - A German film about a hit man who falls in love with a woman that he meets at the scene of one of his hits. I enjoyed the movie. A good story, with some neat twists and a couple of great death scenes. The ending escape sequence wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped, though, and the cop who was after the hit man was ridiculously, unbelievably good at his job. He made all kinds of really improbable deductions and guesses that all turned out to be right--it was like he was psychic or something. There was also an evidence collection scene as unlikely as any in a "CSI" episode. Oh, and the hit man, for being as amazing and professional as he was supposed to be, made a number of really dumb and obvious mistakes. Still, a fun film.
- Karaoke Terror - A really, really strange Japanese film (a strange Japanese film? I've never heard of that before!) about a group of aimless young men who end up in an escalating war of retribution and extreme violence with a group of aimless middle-aged women. This film is ridiculously hilarious, darkly realistic, and horrifically violent and gory, all at the same time. It's also rather tragic, and there might be a socio-political message in there somewhere, too. It's split into sections named after Japanese pop songs, and is loaded with talk about music and bands. The film is a bit too long and a bit too slowly paced, and I don't know what it's about really, but overall I found it mighty entertaining.
Three left tonight, and then I think I'm finished. Well, I'm considering seeing The Edukators tomorrow night, as it's been selected as a Festival Favorite and I heard many good things about it. But it's playing really late, and my wife and I would like to see each other again at some point... |
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