Love her voice and the songwriting … Malia singing Pretty White Lies:
Movies Watched -- Shoplifters (2018)
In Japanese. 121 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … slow at first, all of the revelation happens in the last 30 minutes or so, and it turns around everything that came before … I liked it in the end and can see why it won the Palme d’Or, although it did indulge the fantasy that these people living on the margins are truly happy, much happier than any conformist squares, which is nonsense of course. Sakuro Ando is beautiful and gave the most impressive performance, I thought. This is a winner, a green-go.
But sometimes, it's better to choose your own family.
Thought of You Out of the Blue
I’m not super thrilled with her voice, but I like the song … Katie Pruitt singing Out of the Blue, while playing a $95,000 guitar:
Movies Watched -- You Only Live Twice (1967)
117 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … my buddy reminded me that this Bond movie was written by Roald Dahl so I had to see it again … I liked the Japan setting, it was interesting to see late 1960s Japan … they featured a Toyota 2000GT Roadster, which was nice to see … plenty of corny double entendres … nice to see Blofeld and his white cat and Aryan bodyguard (Franz? Hans?) … the most interesting thing to me was one of the Bond girls, Kissy Suzuki, looks like a mixed-race person to me, not “pure” Japanese. Weird.
Some honeymoon
Movies Watched -- Night Comes On (2018)
86 minute running time…. not sure how this ended up in my queue, but I wasn’t thrilled … it was depressing and sort of pointless … dysfunctional (poverty, ignorance, violence) American black culture movie (made by a beautiful blonde white woman), a teenage girl sets out to murder her father for murdering her mother (his wife), and her little sister tags along … partly a cycle of violence thing. 98% at RottenTomatoes led me astray, mainstream white critics lap this stuff up from their safe perches, I guess. I didn’t find it hopeful or inspiring like Edelstein did. You can give it a miss.
No Angel
Movies Watched -- 12 Angry Men (1957)
Precious Basket Case
These guys (Dallon Weekes and Ryan Seaman) seem to be my kind of smartasses … I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME playing Choke.
Movies Watched -- Parasite (2019)
In Korean … 132 minute running time, which means it was at least 30 minutes too long … I don’t know why this movie was so loved by the critics and got both the Palme d’Or and Best Picture Oscar, c’mon, spare me … even John Farr fell for it … but it was a dumb story, completely unrealistic, esp. for the internet age … there were some funny bits, I admit, but I don’t recommend you see it … maybe if it had been under the sacred 100 minute mark, I’d say it’s a dumb, sort of funny movie you might want to see, but not at 132 minutes. Don’t buy the hype!
Rick Kisonak correctly wrote: “… the film offers zero thoughtful comment on capitalism or inequality. It simply gives us poor characters gaming rich characters and assumes we'll side with the poor. That's not ‘savage commentary.’ That's condescension. This is by far the filmmaker's most commercially successful work to date. Getting fat off a fractured fairy tale about class, Bong acts like a parasite here if anyone does….”
Family of cretins
Fall In At First Glance
Jay Som singing Tenderness… she’s Filipino-American.
Movies Watched -- Hunger (2008)
92 minute running time … Shame was one of the best movies I saw from 2011 so I was already a big Steve McQueen / Fassbender fan … this movie was also excellent, the only trouble was my disc (from Criterion) didn’t have subtitles so I had to read along with the script since 90% of it was incomprehensible. There’s a 22-minute one-take conversation between Fassbender and the priest, of which I understood absolutely nothing said. This is a green-go, assuming you have the script to follow along.
I agree with Rex: “It's a brilliant work of power, maturity and vision that should not be missed.”
When you're hung from a cross, you're gonna say anything.