Missed opportunities
Sep. 23rd, 2007 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blodeueddFor once, I actually remembered this year's Talk Like A Pirate Day, but was internetless to do anything about it. Although that probably would only have been mention it to my father, who would have let loose a few "Avast, ye scurvy dogs!" And Brother #1 used to be quite the pirate fan, back in the day.
And now, some actual content!
On the way to Canada, I was rather off my game. The plane had individual screens, with six different movies looping, but I somehow always missed the beginning (they'd start all the movies at the same time, then wait ten minutes or so after the last one was over before starting them again), so I saw three movies, minus ten or fifteen minutes at the beginning, two movies of which I'd never heard before.
The Land of Women: Drama, with Meg Ryan who plays a suburban housewife who has cancer. The story revolves around the young man (I know he's supposed to be 27 or something, but that actor looks barely legal) who moves in next door to take care of his grandmother? great-aunt? aunt? There are also Meg Ryan's two daughters and her husband who's having an affair and it's all family drama and coming to terms with one's life. Oh yeah, and the neighbour guy manages to make out with both the teenage daughter and the mother with cancer before deciding what the hell to do about his girlfriend he left back in the city (and I hardly think that's a spoiler, in case anyone cared, because you just know it's going in that direction). An okay movie, I guess, just not anything I'd even make an effort to see.
The Year of the Dog: A weird little indie comedy which, to its credit, does not follow the typical romantic comedy route. About a single woman trying to find meaning in her life, eventually discovering a passion for animals. There are quite a few moments that made me chuckle, though several of them are those are that uncomfortable kind of funny that sometimes make me cringe. Didn't bother me too much, this time round. And Laura Dern was hiliarious as the over-involved super-mother.
Waitress: This was the only movie I'd heard about beforehand, because for some reason people were raving about Keri Russell's performance. Not that it's bad, but I don't see what's so great about it, nor about her as an actress. But, there's Nathan Fillion! And even though he plays an asshole doctor (though maybe we're supposed to feel bad for him, being married to a -- wait a second, the waitress is the one with an abusive husband, he's just the small-town doctor who takes advantage of his pretty, pregnant patient who's trying to get out of her abusive marriage, what the hell's his excuse???), there will always be a little place in my heart for Captain Reynolds. But I suppose we're to look at the fantasy from the waitress's perspective, after all, so he's the handsome, sophisticated lover. There's also some subplot about the owner of the diner, but because I missed the beginning and because only the left side of my headset was working, I didn't quite understand it all.
While I was in Canada, I saw Stardust, which I've already written about, but for some reason it completely escaped me that I'd wanted to see Pirates of the Carribean 3 with... my brother? M-P? Someone else? *confused* No matter. I did, however, start introducing Brother #2 to Chinese movies, making him rent In The Mood For Love and 2046. Together, we watched:
Happy Times: By Zhang Yimou, this is similar in feel to his Not One Less, whough this one is not based on a true story. It's quite funny and very touching, about an old man who, trying to win over a prospective wife, takes the woman's blind step-daughter under his wing. This involves deception after deception, as the man pretends he's part-owner of a large hotel and sets the girl up as a masseuse. The "The hole is so big!" "Here, we do everything big!" bit, about the massage table, had us in stitches and later, when he describes the new dress to her, it's a total heart-twistingly sweet moment. The ending is one of those sad-yet-hopeful endings that never fail to make me tear up. It's also a fascinating movie to watch because of the China it shows, the old and wearing down next to the new and shiny.
On the way back to Japan, I was on the ball and managed to watch FIVE movies! And you wonder why I didn't sleep!
Spiderman 3: First of all, for those of you who don't know, I've never been a big superhero fan. Secondly, I've never really liked Spiderman, since he's always struck me as whiny (Oh, the angst, the unlooked-for resonsibility, Mary Jaaaaaaaaaaaane!). I was left unimpressed by the first movie, failed to see (and failed to care about) the second and watched the third because on a 12+-hour flight, it's a good way to pass the time. So Peter Parker is still whiny, and if he's supposed to be in a relationship with Mary Jane, why the hell do they never seem to talk to each other?! I liked the bit about him thinking he's so suave, dancing around New York, because that's how much of a loser he really is. Maybe it's just Tobey Maguire's face, though I haven't minded it in other movies, but just... blah. I still prefer X-Men.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: More spandex! The title is actually longer than the movie. Why, oh why, did someone feel the need to give Jessica Alba NUDE LIPS? Don't you know how I feel about that particular look? What's the point in having her all prettied up if it's only to be ruined by corpse lips? Aside from that, I find the whole concept of the Silver Surfer completely hilarious. Am I right in thinking that it wasn't originally intended as a joke? That makes it almost... sad.
Gracie: It's the 70s, and Gracie wants to play soccer on the boys' team. You know the formula, but it's still a well-done film and the young actress is very likeable.
Surf's Up: Back when computers were just a gleam in a scientist's eye, do you think anyone ever imagined that they'd one day be used to make a movie about surfing? A faux documentary about surfing? A faux documentary about surfing penguins? Still, it's a fun, silly little distraction.
The Ex (or Fast Track?): A movie about being mean to a guy in a wheelchair! Of course, he was mean first (truly) and besides, it turns out he can walk just fine. I spent the whole movie wondering why I knew Zach Braff's face so well, before getting home and remembering I'd seen a few episodes of Scrubs. An okay movie, nothing too memorable and relatively funny. But really, can't writers find a way to write in-laws so that they're funny but not completely loony? I've seen it way too often, and I don't even watch that many comedies!
Bonus!
Rémi sans famille: Back in the halcyon days of elementary school, a good portion of the French-language cartoons on tv were actually Japanese, dubbed in France. Of course, we didn't know that back then, though when I think about it now, the revelation that The Three Musketeers' Aramis was a cross-dressing woman should have tipped us off. I pretty much only watched tv in English, however, so while I was familiar with such shows as Les mystérieuses cité d'or, Lady Oscar and Candy, I somehow completely missed this little gem about a boy who has EVERYONE HE CARES ABOUT DIE ON HIM! In secondary school, A-L and M-P tried to patch the gap by singing me the theme song so that now I know it as well as they do, but I still had never seen the show. So when I saw a DVD of Rémi sans famille in the discount bin at Zellers, I thought 5$ a small price to pay to share this with my friends.
Except... as soon as we'd popped the DVD in, they knew something was up. The drawings weren't the same! The dog was the wrong colour! The music was different! What the hell? A-L and M-P wanted to know. Turns out that in addition to the long-running tv series, during the same period, a completely different Japanese animation studio produced a movie version of the same story, both based on a 19th century French novel. Once we'd figured this out, we sat back to enjoy (!) the show. At least my friends had given me fair warning that it was a tear-jerker: "The dogs are gonna die!" "The monkey's gonna die!" "The old man's gonna die!" I kept waiting for the supid parrot to bite the dust, but he never did.
Oh, well. It may have been the wrong Rémi, but at least I've gained a greater understanding of his horrible life, right? And the animation was terrible, but that's only to be expected for an early-80s tv production, I suppose.
And now, some actual content!
On the way to Canada, I was rather off my game. The plane had individual screens, with six different movies looping, but I somehow always missed the beginning (they'd start all the movies at the same time, then wait ten minutes or so after the last one was over before starting them again), so I saw three movies, minus ten or fifteen minutes at the beginning, two movies of which I'd never heard before.
The Land of Women: Drama, with Meg Ryan who plays a suburban housewife who has cancer. The story revolves around the young man (I know he's supposed to be 27 or something, but that actor looks barely legal) who moves in next door to take care of his grandmother? great-aunt? aunt? There are also Meg Ryan's two daughters and her husband who's having an affair and it's all family drama and coming to terms with one's life. Oh yeah, and the neighbour guy manages to make out with both the teenage daughter and the mother with cancer before deciding what the hell to do about his girlfriend he left back in the city (and I hardly think that's a spoiler, in case anyone cared, because you just know it's going in that direction). An okay movie, I guess, just not anything I'd even make an effort to see.
The Year of the Dog: A weird little indie comedy which, to its credit, does not follow the typical romantic comedy route. About a single woman trying to find meaning in her life, eventually discovering a passion for animals. There are quite a few moments that made me chuckle, though several of them are those are that uncomfortable kind of funny that sometimes make me cringe. Didn't bother me too much, this time round. And Laura Dern was hiliarious as the over-involved super-mother.
Waitress: This was the only movie I'd heard about beforehand, because for some reason people were raving about Keri Russell's performance. Not that it's bad, but I don't see what's so great about it, nor about her as an actress. But, there's Nathan Fillion! And even though he plays an asshole doctor (though maybe we're supposed to feel bad for him, being married to a -- wait a second, the waitress is the one with an abusive husband, he's just the small-town doctor who takes advantage of his pretty, pregnant patient who's trying to get out of her abusive marriage, what the hell's his excuse???), there will always be a little place in my heart for Captain Reynolds. But I suppose we're to look at the fantasy from the waitress's perspective, after all, so he's the handsome, sophisticated lover. There's also some subplot about the owner of the diner, but because I missed the beginning and because only the left side of my headset was working, I didn't quite understand it all.
While I was in Canada, I saw Stardust, which I've already written about, but for some reason it completely escaped me that I'd wanted to see Pirates of the Carribean 3 with... my brother? M-P? Someone else? *confused* No matter. I did, however, start introducing Brother #2 to Chinese movies, making him rent In The Mood For Love and 2046. Together, we watched:
Happy Times: By Zhang Yimou, this is similar in feel to his Not One Less, whough this one is not based on a true story. It's quite funny and very touching, about an old man who, trying to win over a prospective wife, takes the woman's blind step-daughter under his wing. This involves deception after deception, as the man pretends he's part-owner of a large hotel and sets the girl up as a masseuse. The "The hole is so big!" "Here, we do everything big!" bit, about the massage table, had us in stitches and later, when he describes the new dress to her, it's a total heart-twistingly sweet moment. The ending is one of those sad-yet-hopeful endings that never fail to make me tear up. It's also a fascinating movie to watch because of the China it shows, the old and wearing down next to the new and shiny.
On the way back to Japan, I was on the ball and managed to watch FIVE movies! And you wonder why I didn't sleep!
Spiderman 3: First of all, for those of you who don't know, I've never been a big superhero fan. Secondly, I've never really liked Spiderman, since he's always struck me as whiny (Oh, the angst, the unlooked-for resonsibility, Mary Jaaaaaaaaaaaane!). I was left unimpressed by the first movie, failed to see (and failed to care about) the second and watched the third because on a 12+-hour flight, it's a good way to pass the time. So Peter Parker is still whiny, and if he's supposed to be in a relationship with Mary Jane, why the hell do they never seem to talk to each other?! I liked the bit about him thinking he's so suave, dancing around New York, because that's how much of a loser he really is. Maybe it's just Tobey Maguire's face, though I haven't minded it in other movies, but just... blah. I still prefer X-Men.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: More spandex! The title is actually longer than the movie. Why, oh why, did someone feel the need to give Jessica Alba NUDE LIPS? Don't you know how I feel about that particular look? What's the point in having her all prettied up if it's only to be ruined by corpse lips? Aside from that, I find the whole concept of the Silver Surfer completely hilarious. Am I right in thinking that it wasn't originally intended as a joke? That makes it almost... sad.
Gracie: It's the 70s, and Gracie wants to play soccer on the boys' team. You know the formula, but it's still a well-done film and the young actress is very likeable.
Surf's Up: Back when computers were just a gleam in a scientist's eye, do you think anyone ever imagined that they'd one day be used to make a movie about surfing? A faux documentary about surfing? A faux documentary about surfing penguins? Still, it's a fun, silly little distraction.
The Ex (or Fast Track?): A movie about being mean to a guy in a wheelchair! Of course, he was mean first (truly) and besides, it turns out he can walk just fine. I spent the whole movie wondering why I knew Zach Braff's face so well, before getting home and remembering I'd seen a few episodes of Scrubs. An okay movie, nothing too memorable and relatively funny. But really, can't writers find a way to write in-laws so that they're funny but not completely loony? I've seen it way too often, and I don't even watch that many comedies!
Bonus!
Rémi sans famille: Back in the halcyon days of elementary school, a good portion of the French-language cartoons on tv were actually Japanese, dubbed in France. Of course, we didn't know that back then, though when I think about it now, the revelation that The Three Musketeers' Aramis was a cross-dressing woman should have tipped us off. I pretty much only watched tv in English, however, so while I was familiar with such shows as Les mystérieuses cité d'or, Lady Oscar and Candy, I somehow completely missed this little gem about a boy who has EVERYONE HE CARES ABOUT DIE ON HIM! In secondary school, A-L and M-P tried to patch the gap by singing me the theme song so that now I know it as well as they do, but I still had never seen the show. So when I saw a DVD of Rémi sans famille in the discount bin at Zellers, I thought 5$ a small price to pay to share this with my friends.
Except... as soon as we'd popped the DVD in, they knew something was up. The drawings weren't the same! The dog was the wrong colour! The music was different! What the hell? A-L and M-P wanted to know. Turns out that in addition to the long-running tv series, during the same period, a completely different Japanese animation studio produced a movie version of the same story, both based on a 19th century French novel. Once we'd figured this out, we sat back to enjoy (!) the show. At least my friends had given me fair warning that it was a tear-jerker: "The dogs are gonna die!" "The monkey's gonna die!" "The old man's gonna die!" I kept waiting for the supid parrot to bite the dust, but he never did.
Oh, well. It may have been the wrong Rémi, but at least I've gained a greater understanding of his horrible life, right? And the animation was terrible, but that's only to be expected for an early-80s tv production, I suppose.
