Monthly Archives March 2009

Around the Bay, April / May 2009.

Oh how I love the SF International Film Festival. What I’ll be watching, in alphabetical order (and I’d probably add more if it weren’t for a vacation, commuter insanity, and a 9-5 job in the way): – Chiang Hsiu-chiung, Artemisia – Dante Lam, The Beast Stalker – Lee Anne Schmitt, California Company Town – Ruel [...]

The Best Movies I Saw In 2008.

Someone asked me the other day why I hadn’t written up a 2008 Top Ten list for this blog. I’m not sure, actually. I think it’s because I was a little more wary of listing movies I’d only seen once — and believe me, I know how film-geeky that sounds. The other was that there [...]

Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-ho, "Tokyo!" (2009).

I think it might have been Sofia Coppola – was it in that awkward interview that was part of the DVD? — where she reveals that Lost in Translation didn’t have to be set in Tokyo, and could have been anywhere. (Or was that Danny Boyle talking about Mumbai and Slumdog Millionaire?) There’s an odd [...]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa, "Tokyo Sonata" (2008).

I’ve only seen a couple of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s horror movies — namely, the somewhat underwhelming Pulse (Kairo, 2001) and Cure (Kyua, 1997), touted back in the day as emblematic of the J-horror genre (along with Hideo Nakata’s The Ring and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on). His latest film, Tokyo Sonata, strikes me as perhaps more deeply unsettling, [...]

Brillante Mendoza, "Serbis" (2008).

There’s a terrific scene in Brillante Mendoza’s new film that involves a goat. It’s a goat that wanders in, lost, through a hole in the wall of a filthy theater and ends up, as goats are wont to do, blocking the audience’s view of the movie. One would think it wouldn’t matter, since no one’s [...]

Adolfo Alix, Jr., "Adela" (2008)

Adela, by the Filipino director Adolfo Alix, Jr., is a quietly dignified but ultimately disappointing slog of a movie. I suspect it’s partly because I’m a bit tired of Filipino films set amidst the squalor of garbage dumps — there, I’ve said it — though I hasten to add that there’s hardly a hint of exploitation [...]

Zack Snyder, "Watchmen" (2009).

I don’t think I can actually write a proper review-review, so let me indulge in some comparisons instead. (I won’t be spoiling anything for people who haven’t read the comic.) Zack Snyder’s film will inevitably be a disappointment to fans of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel. I’m not spoiling anything here, I think. [...]