Now Watching, Films/ movies discussion Options

[Olen]

We have a music discussion thread but seem to lack a film (movie if you're from that bit of the world) discussion. The idea's pretty self-evident: what films have you seen recently, what did you think of them? Fairly similar to another thread really...

To start, I watched Gomorrah (2008) for the second time last night. It's a really good bit of Italian film-making and centres arouind the problems faced by Naples throught the stories of a few people whose paths cross with the organised crime there. It certainly doesn't pull punches in terms of the gritty reality from the first scene and a fairly grim ending.
Some of the settings are brilliant too, there are scenes shot in some buildings which look seriously run down in Naples which leads to a good degree of accuracy.

Overall I'd give it 8/10.


So what's anyone else watching?

[SubRosa]

I just finished re-watching Letters from Iwo Jima for about the fifth time. My first time on blu-ray though. Once more, I was just left in awe by this movie.

The cast is superb. A real treat after the stiff acting one always sees by Japanese actors in the old 70's movies like Midway and Tora! Tora! Tora!. I think the movie being in Japanese really makes a huge difference, as the cast does have to struggle to deliver lines in a foreign language. Being subtitled, I know most Americans cannot even bear to watch it. After all, you have to read. Nothing more terrible than that, except perhaps having to think as well.

Funny thing was when I was watching the extras, Eastwood was talking about making the movie, and he commented that directing was a more difficult for him than usual, because he did not know what the actors were saying! He had a translator repeating everything he said on the set, and vice-versa. It never occurred to me until then just how difficult that must have been to do!

Ken Watanabe stars, and I swear that man is awesome. I think I saw him first in Memoirs of a Geisha, and he blew me away there as well. As Eastwood says in the extras, Watanabe has a terrific face and a great presence. Looking at pictures of the real General Kuribayashi, it is amazing how similar the two men are in appearance as well.

One thing that always strikes me about this movie is the contrast it makes to Flags of our Fathers, especially concerning the cast. I always get confused watching Flags because except for the native american, I cannot tell the characters apart. I really mean that. With the same clothes, same haircut, same young, clean-shaven faces, they all literally look the same to me. I know Eastwood went with unknown actors because he wanted people to see the characters, rather than the people playing them (which inevitably happens with well-known stars), but I think it back-fired. The only characters in Flags I could tell apart were the minor characters, who were played by seasoned actors that I knew.

But I do not have that problem with Letters at all, even though Ken Watanabe was the only actor I knew. Each Japanese character is unique in appearance. Partly it was the different uniforms between officers and enlisted men. I think the facial hair that many had helps too. For example Baron Nishi has a very distinctive thin goatee (haute would like the Baron, he was an Olympic gold medalist in horse-jumping before the war, and a well-known ladies man ). Kashiwara has this really straggly look. Saigo really stands out as clean-shaven, baby-faced and looking every inch of the sloppy civilian he really is, while Shimizu is always all prim and proper, etc...

The other thing I liked about Letters over Flags was that where Flags bounced around constantly, Letters was pretty solidly done in chronological order. Letters does have flashbacks which reveal more about the characters, but the way those are done it is very clear that it is a flashback, what character it is about, it offers real character development, and finally, they are brief, keeping us in the moment.

What is astounding is that this movie was basically made on a whim. Eastwood was preparing to shoot Flags when he came across a book of Kuribayashi's letters. They so inspired him that he wanted to do a companion film told from the Japanese side. He ran it by Spielberg (who produced along with Eastwood), who said "Yeah, sounds great!" and so they did it at the same time as Flags. Just like that, a fantastic movie was made.

All in all it is one of the best war movies I have ever seen. It is all about sacrifice. The last stand where there is no chance of victory, let alone survival, but they keep on fighting anyway. Of the 22,000 Japanese on the island, only two dozen were taken alive during the battle. Another 1,800 surrendered months, and even years, later. Some hiding out until 1951. The other 20,000 men all died.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Oct 21 2010, 05:37 PM