Index for posts concerning Film

Youtube Reviews #1: The Amen Break by Distinguished Bean
4 comments

Bieren’s Stuff You Should Know #2: Wong Kar-Wai by Bieren Skidels
3 comments

Wong Kar-Wai and My Blueberry Nights by Bieren Skidels
3 comments

Casino Royale by Darth B'strad
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Youtube Reviews #1: The Amen Break

Posted on February 4th, 2009 by Distinguished Bean.
Categories: Political, Film, Reviews, Media, education, Economics, photo/video, Cultural.

Read AFTER watching video:

As defined by Dictionary.com, a market is trade or traffic, esp. as regards a particular commodity or idea. So what does this 6 second drum beat loop have to teach us about markets, you ask? It actually brings great understanding to a system that has been ruined in so many ways by so many people. To some extent, the goal of a market is to bring the quality of an object to the greatest potential it can; really, increasing to some unknown and unreachable infinite value of quality. This drum beat proved that regulation on commodities or ideas is criminal and only hurts the quality of a product or object in the long run. Had the spread of the drum beat been cracked down on and regulated, who knows what would have happened. Now, there is a possibility that the fathers of hip hop and marketers of commercials would have just found another drum beat loop, but how would that have sounded different? Maybe better, maybe worse… Due to the extreme success of how the styles of music and marketing outlets has turned out, I don’t think we really want to know how it would have been without this Amen Break. Sub-consciously, the public has grown to enjoy this rhythm, this timing of sounds, and thus it has been able to transform certain aspects of media, increasing the quality, as judged by consumers, over a period of time. The Amen Break has done great things, even if people do not recognize its depth of influence.

So what does this have to say about regulation in the larger sense? Well, with this example, and countless others, we are able to see that regulation only hurts the quality within a market. Regulation on music, such as harsh copyrights and limits, have only hurt the spread of music and the quality there in. The same can be said of numerous products within our economic system. As Pepsi copied Coke, and Qdoba copied Chipotle, the de-regulation of commodities has only increased competition and thus quality. In art, regulation could have done much damage. What if people had rejected Shakespeare due to his great amount of plagiarism of the time, what would have happened to poetry? What has the spread of certain techniques done for painting and photography? In most all cases, if there has been large amounts of regulation, the product’s quality is weakened, whereas, with no regulation, the quality has increased to an amount we may not even recognize.

So can this idea of the greatness of de-regulation be applied to the much broader economy as a whole? The government, especially now, with stimulus packages and business regulations, seems to encourage the halting of commodity and idea flow. We may not even recognize the damage that is being done. What would a system without harsh regulations really look like? I believe it would be a beautiful thing, that would increase quality and bring glory to our market as a whole. Just look at certain cases where ideas have been able to spread, de-regulated. Wikipedia has become one of the largest sources of information available due to its great freedom. Not just Wikipedia, but the Internet as a whole has shown the greatness of the free spread of ideas. So I have a great hope that people will begin to recognize the destructive nature of regulation, and accept the idea of freedom that our country was largely founded on. May this freedom cause the quality of the market and ideals within the country to sky-rocket in value and increase in worth. The Amen Break is a great symbol that, although seemingly unknown, will hopefully bring greater understanding to how people run markets in the future.

The Amen Break was a 6 second loop that transformed music… What are we stopping from spreading now, that could transform our lives today and into the future?

In the end, the only thing that should be strictly regulated is the New York Yankees…

4 comments.

Bieren’s Stuff You Should Know #2: Wong Kar-Wai

Posted on December 2nd, 2008 by Bieren Skidels.
Categories: Film, Reviews, Media.

A’ight here’s a few things you should know! and it’s movie directors this time…

I’ve always had a thing for directors with what sounds like three names, whether it be a hyphenated name or set of asian characters that didn’t transliterate so well. Starting with Gus Van Sant’s Goodwill Hunting I’ve been on a cinematic trek across the world to find the best of the three name sounding directors. As it just so happens, most of my favorite directors have such peculiar names. I’m going to do a series on a set of four of them: Wong Kar-Wai, Lars Von Trier, Jean Luc-Godard, and Chan-Wook Park

Wong Kar-Wai: (Hong Kong)

Having already written an exhausting essay on wong kar-wai I’ll keep this brief and mostly nude yet tasteful. Wong Kar-Wai is my chosen ordering and pronunciation for his name. One might choose a mandarin standardized Wang Jia-Wei or even anglicize the ordering to Kar-Wai Wong, with the family name coming last - but since he’s generally considered a hong kong director, I stick to the Cantonese transliteration.

First off, he’s a total film geek - much like me and Quinten Tarantino, directors who form themselves through extensive critical observation of their predecessors. This theory of understanding movies to make movies was pioneered by Jean-Luc Godard and his french cenophile buddies while writing reviews for ‘Les cahiers du cinéma’ in the 1960’s. Indeed, Wong Kar-Wai has studied Godard in detail and this can be seen in his style (however, I don’t see it as directly as some do)… and then along with Godard, Wong Kar-Wai can be considered an influence on Tarantino who has stated his own personal respect for Wong’s work. Wong, while eclectic in style, threads the same major theme or question through all of his movies: the continual search for relational and emotional satisfaction, which tends to end in frustration, destroying itself just as it is about to be realized and then popping up again, un-invited and when least expected. In this respect, every movie he makes is a tragedy in the classical sense, ironic.

The essential Wang Kar-Wai:

If you are a romantic in the sense that you like romantic comedies or embroidery, watch “In the Mood for Love” first - or if you’re romantic in the sense that you like innocent fantasy filled with prelapsarian frivolity, start with “Chungking Express” which is generally considered his best. If you watched “In the Mood for Love” first, then move to Chungking Express - but if you watched Chungking Express, watch Fallen Angels and then “In the Mood for Love”. If you are following the latter or former track and forgot which one I was referring to, or not, then watch 2046 - and then make a full round trip and watch the edgy and possibly most artistic film - Happy Together…

Things to watch for:

Pay special attention the cinematography, Christopher Doyle shoot most of his films. Doyle is an Australian, who spent his younger years traveling the world, drunk in jail, or as a sailor and ended up randomly becoming the cinematographer generally considered the best in asia, and he got his start with Wong Kar-Wai.

Pay special attention to the acting. Wong Kar-Wai has a unique relationship and works with the *BEST* chinese actors, namely Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Leslie Cheung, Gong Li (mainland), Carina Lau, and Briggette Lin… which make up a large part of the history of hong kong film over the past 30 years, they are the golden age of film there. (note that I DIDN’T mention Zhang Zi-yi).

Pay special attention to his music selection, it’s amazingly eclectic and also EXCELLENT!

3 comments.

Wong Kar-Wai and My Blueberry Nights

Posted on April 17th, 2008 by Bieren Skidels.
Categories: Film, Reviews.

Wong Kar-Wai is elusive, his art that is — and in turn he is even more. Much like Bob Dylan… who is he? It seems people have started to come to terms with Bob Dylan being many different people (many Bob’s) as presented in the movie “I’m not there.” Wong Kar-Wai (WKW) is possibly my favorite director, he has directed a series of amazing films since the mid 80’s, many of which are considered rather poor and out of place within the WKW canon (much like Dylan in the 80’s). What is the extent of their likeness? Dylan is has continued to redefine himself for decades making him seem more elusive. WKW is elusive but his films from Days of Being Wild (1991) (or possibly As Tears Go By in 1988) all the way through the movie 2046 in 2004 formed a fluid story about the enigma of relationship, or love (just as elusive as WKW himself). However, Wong Kar-Wai has never “reinvented” himself to the extent that Dylan did in going electric, going saved, going old, etc… None-the-less, after forming a beautiful narrative about love gained, lost, searched after and finally reconciled in an ironically pleasing disaster (2046) — WKW has produced an english language film… what?!?

I was reasonably worried when I heard the news. And by this point in our relationship I really think it was rather unthoughtful of WKW to go make another movie just when I was finally packaging up his canon. Never-the-less, I must deal with My Blueberry Nights: a movie starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Daivd Strathairn and Natalie Portman…

First things first, I mentioned Wong Kar-Wai’s theme: the enigma of relationship/love. He uses exterior objects to symbolize this struggle within his characters, I will explain:

1991
In “Days of Being Wild” the object is a minute “minute” — Maggie Cheung (Su LIzhen) meets Leslie Cheung’s character, he says:

“At one minute before 3pm on April the 16th, 1960, you’re together with me. Because of you, I’ll remember that one minute. From now on, we’re friends for one minute. This is a fact, you can’t deny. It’s done.”

this prophecy becomes her nightmare… later she states:

“I always thought one minute flies by. But sometimes it really lingers on. Once, a person pointed at his watch and said to me, that because of that minute, he’d always remember me. It was so charming listening to that. But now I look at my watch and tell myself that I have to forget this man starting this very minute.”

here you have fantasy destroyed, the fantasy of the minute - the relationship which never existed, dangerous because you wanted to believe it did!

1994
“Chungking Express” is generally considered WKW’s best. Shot in a few weeks in the middle of filming another movie (Ashes of Time), hence it was rushed. The movie consists of three stories: the pineapple, california, and a blonde wig. The stories of California (Wong Faye) and the Blonde Wig (Bridgette Lin) deal with a mix-up of reality and fantasy, choosing the fantasy as  one’s reality and reality to be one’s fantasy. The Blonde Wig is the fantasy that is Bridgette Lin’s life, while California is the fantasy originally dreamed up by Faye, a fast food worker who likes to listen to music so loud she can’t think (helps her hold to the fantasy of “California Dreaming”. However, in the end, Faye embraces the fantasy as reality and abandons a real relationship with Tony Leung as soon as their relationship transforms from a voyeur fantasy into a reality! Both are seeking the fantasy!

The third story is deals with the denial that people change… the denial that reality changes. The pineapple symbolizes the change or inevitability that cannot be accepted by “Cop 223″. He states:

“Knowing someone doesn’t mean keeping them. People change. A person may like pineapple today and something else tomorrow.”

He chooses to eat cans of pineapple with the expiration date of May, 1st… his lost love was named May. He assumes that if he is not back together with May by May 1st… his love for her will expire along with the pineapple…

ote: Takeshi Kaneshiru, who plays Cop 223, speaks four languages in this film… another WKW motif: that of letting actors speak to each other in differing languages, usually in their first language. In this case a japanese actor speaks aloud in one language (Cantonese) and narrates his thoughts in another (Mandarin).

1995
Fallen Angels is in my opinion, the best WKW film. However, I am reluctant to choose one film out of the canon as a favorite because they are best when considered as one whole. Fallen Angels would not be nearly as powerful without Chungking Express in particular and the other films in general. Strangely, one of the most glaring differences between Fallen Angels and the other films in the WKW canon is that it doesn’t have Tony Leung in it. This could easily cause many viewers to find this film very different, strange, and unfitting with the other Wong-Kar Wai films… but that is only a surface issue and it allows the film freedom from the domination of Leung’s acting (who is possibly my favorite 1990’s actor).

Anyhow, there are two stories. One involves a serial killer and his beautiful business partner, “the killer’s agent”, who’s job it is to organize the details of the killing, i.e.who dies when and where. The killer’s agent secretly loves the killer and fantasizes about him. The serial killer himself is not willing to “mix work and play” and to protect the two of them, he chooses to end their professional relationship, effectively destroying the agent’s fantasy, fantasy lost = nightmare. She organizes one more job for him — orchestrated by her so that the killer dies. As the killer said:

“The best thing about my profession is that there’s no need to make any decision. Who’s to die… when… where… it’s all been planned by others. I’m a lazy person. I like people to arrange things for me. That’s why I need a partner.”

Obviously, this is an extreme examaple of co-dependency built upon the act of murder mmmm…

The second story is about the cop who ate the cans of pineapple (implied). Apparently eating too many cans of expired pineapple caused him to go mute. He now spends his nights taking over closed businesses and forcing customers to buy his services (such as hair cuts or ice cream). He falls in love with a Korean “Charlie” - who spends most of her time hysterical about other broken relationships and never pays him any attention. However, she is not without effect:

“They say that love can change a man. I start to find myself looking better and more charming, and suddenly I discover that I’m turning blonde.”

At the end of the film there is sliver of hope that the mute ex-cop and the killer’s agent might find love with eachother… the movie ends with a beautiful scene in which the mute ex-cop drives the killer’s agent home on his motorbike:

“I haven’t ridden pillion in a long time, nor have I been this close to a man in ages. The road home isn’t very long, and I know I’ll be getting off soon. But at this moment, I’m feeling such lovely warmth.”

This is beautiful… I consider this last seen the apex of the WKW canon, after this it’s all downhill, not in terms of quality, but in the flow of the story…

2000:
“In the Mood for Love” was my introduction to WKW and probably the most aesthetically pleasing of them all (depending on how wild your aesthetic tastes are you might prefer 2046). This movie centers around two extra-marrital affairs. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are both recently married (not too eachother). They move in across the hall from each other and it turns out that their partners are having an affair with eachother (the realization that they both know they both know takes place in a beautiful dinner scene with Nat King Cole in the background and green decoration…yum!). They then spend the rest of the movie trying to understand their partners affair through reenacting it down to the last detail: who made the first move? when and how — how did they hide their secret rendezvous? what gifts were given? etc.. In the end, they fall in love, whoops, and Maggie Chueng decides the forbidden cannot be… This leads to Tony Leung traveling to Angkor Wat and whispering his secret into a hole… setting up the whole/hole idea of 2046:

“Do you know what people did in the old days when they had secrets they didn’t want to share? They’d climb a moutain, find a tree, carve a hole in it, whisper the secret into the hole and cover it up with mud. That way, nobody else would ever learn the secret… ”

This is the greatest emotional loss within all of the films… this is when you know it’s all over… and 2046 exists as a detailed crash, tragedy in slow motion. You are left with the following hopeless message:

“He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.”

2004:
As if that wasn’t enough, WKW picks up right were he left off — room 2046 (where Leung and Cheung’s affair got really steamy while “rehersing” for the confrontation of infidelity). In this movie Tony Leung returns to Hong Kong (from Singapore) to go back to his job as a writer. He tries to get room 2046 but can’t due to a messy murder in room 2046 which needs to be cleaned up (this inovles the return of a long forgotten character from “Days of Being Wild”: Lola). The movie consists of Tony Leung’s strange, doomed, forbidden relationships with the girls who fill room 2046 (he is in 2047). Also, he is writing a story called 2046… a metaphor of his life consisting of a symbolic train on which he is trying to return from 2046. 2046 is very deep in symbolism following all of the other WKW films and can’t be fully explained her. Each aspect of his previous and current failures are represented in one form or another. Lonely Christmases are represented by “zone 1224 - zone 1225″ which are apparently extremely cold and passangers are advised to hold eachother to fend off the cold and lonlieness. Also, he represents these fill-in relationships (the girls who fill room 2046) as android cabin attendants on the train…

“I once fell in love with someone. I couldn’t stop wondering if she loved me back. I found an android which looked just like her. I hoped she would give me the answer.”

however, the androids are unresponsive… are they incapable of love? no, just delayed, used up, empty…

“when they’ve served on so many long journeys, fatigue begins to set it. For example, they might want to laugh, but the smile would be slow to come. They might want to cry, but the tear wouldn’t well up till the next day… ”

In any case, the train is Tony Leung’s hopeless quest to find love, and the reality that there was no end in sight, his chance had passed him by (remember the affair in “In the Mood for Love”)

“Love is all a matter of timing. It’s no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. If I’d live in another time or place… my story might have had a very different ending.”

and that’s how it all ends, the message is pounded home as Leung cannot think of another ending to his story… he holds his pen over the paper as the sun sets and rises and sets again… 1 hour later… 10 hours later… 100 hours later… nothing.

Now it’s 2008… another 4 year interval and 20 years since “As Tears Go By”: My Blueberry Nights

an english language film… with hollywood stars… set not in Hong Kong - but mostly Nevada, can you start to understand my hesitancy now? And the question, is Wong Kar-Wai reinventing himself Dylan-style or what?

I’ve now watched the movie three times and my verdict is that, no, he is not reinventing himself.

My Blueberry Nights is again a movie about the enigma of relationship and the obstacles to love along the frustrating journey one takes to get there. There are two major symbols of this, keys and blueberry pie (you might add poker and white chips…). Actually, the symbolism goes over the top in this film, maybe because he figures Americans will require something obvious to understand anything. There are four main struggles and stories in this movie:

1. Fate can be cruel:

Nora Jones stars as a girl looking for herself after a failed relationship. The journey begins in New York City at a bakery-cafe run by Jude Law. Of course, they become immediately attracted to each other (Norah Jones, the innocent heart broken girl and Jude Law the dashing, witty, confident shoulder-to-lean-on). Apparently many people that visit the cafe have broken relationships and tend to have keys associated with the relationship, which they leave with Jude Law (maybe, while men seek alchohol in times of love distress, women end up at a bakery with great sweets?). He keeps the keys in a jar (as he keeps Norah Jone’s keys, and then gives them back to her). He doesn’t throw them away because: then those doors could never be opened again, symbolic of burning your bridges or leaving the past truly behind. The keys echo the cruelty of fate. In fact, Jude can recall which broken heart and story goes with each key… Why are some people chosen over others? some beautiful, some loved? Well, apparently it’s as simple as blueberry pie. You see every day, some pieces of certain pies are left around, but there’s always an entire blueberry pie left over…

“Elizabeth: So what’s wrong with the Blueberry Pie?
Jeremy: There’s nothing wrong with the Blueberry Pie, just people make other choices. You can’t blame the Blueberry Pie, it’s just… no one wants it.
Elizabeth: Wait! I want a piece. ”

And there’s one change from previous WKW movies…a hope “I want a piece!”…

2. Failure to let go of fantasy
Norah manages to leave Jude Law and his romantic story telling. She ends up working two jobs, one of which is bar tending. She meets a supposedly recovering alcoholic, who is in fact always “recovering”. Every night he comes to the bar to celebrate his last night of drinking, much of it having to do with the wife he can’t let go of (Rachel Weisz). In the end he finds the solution: he is incapable of letting go and the only solution is to flee reality into death. This is where the white chips come in… they are representative of failure to let go and move on…

3. Trust, or learning not to trust
This is Natalie Portman’s section. She’s supposed to be some card shark wild Nevada chick, blah blah… she’s mediocre, and more hot than interesting… She tries to teach nora jones not too trust everyone. Anyhow, this section is subpar

4. Take the long way home
Or rather, “the longest way across the street”:

“It took me nearly a year to get here. It wasn’t so hard to cross that street after all, it all depends on who’s waiting for you on the other side. ”

This is the main idea throughout the movie, and where it might fit in with the previous WKW movies. In the end, love is found in a swirling overhead shot of a slow, sleepy kiss between Norah Jones and Jude Law. Maybe WKW wants to say that the only way to find love is to take the long route… or whatever. Anyhow, the movie as a whole doesn’t quite fit, but it is most definitely WKW style. To see hollywood actors in a WKW film is very interesting, more funny than anything else. It almost feels like an inside joke between WKW and his fans, a joke that the american actors aren’t in on. Anyhow, WKW’s style alone along with a few good scenes (the cafe scenes are pretty good) make this movie legitimate, decent, entertaining.. but not part of the WKW canon as far as I’m concerned…

so, you’re lucky WKW — I’ll let you off easy this time, but you better not try pulling another stunt like this!!!

3 comments.

Casino Royale

Posted on November 27th, 2006 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Film, Reviews.

Daniel Craig just did the same thing to the Bond series that Christian Bale did to the Batman series. In his new Bond movie “Casino Royale” Daniel revolutionized the Bond series and started a brand new Bond for the 21^st century. Now all of you hard core Bond fanatics might not like this one as much because it is completely different. This moive completely starts over, and acually the intro sequence is before he is even a double O. Then it moves into a nicely done and artistic credit sequence, with no dancing half naked girls in it. The movie still hold one to the necessities in order to make it and authentic Bond film: you know like the Vodka Martini, the Bond Song, “the name’s Bond, James Bond.” The down side is Money Penny and Q is not in this one. But with some more realistic action, fast past action sequences that are crazy, and plenty of good one liners makes this one of the best Bond movies I’ve seen yet. Although some times you kind of wonder “why was he doing that Again?” but it doesn’t matter because this move keeps you entertained from start to finish. And then finally at the end of the movie you get to see how Bond Became Bond, James Bond.

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