Movies

Here are a few things I want to say about some movies I’ve seen in the past few months. The title of the movie and it’s poster displayed both link to its respective article on Wikipedia.

Sicko

Michael Moore investigates the lack of a social health care system in the United States in this documentary, and compares the public health care in Canada, the UK, France, and even Cuba. While I agree with most of the statements in the movie, and while Michael does point out a few drawbacks about having such a system, including the cost, I think the appearance of the health care in Canada being so great is widely exagerated.

I’m not saying our health care is bad. However, we are shown Michael interviewing a few patients in a Canadian hospital waiting to see a doctor. When being asked about how long they have to wait, they all said between 30 to 60 minutes. They’re lucky. I remember having to wait hours to see a doctor at a hospital in Moncton. Hapilly, once I waited just 15 minutes! NoMez went to the hospital in Ottawa and had to wait 16 hours… But one his girlfriend’s brother was injured during a holiday and had a doctor right away! There were no patients at the hospital and the doctor was even thinking about leaving for the rest of the day.

So, the situation depends. Health care in Canada has its flaws. Also, while it’s true that patients can have operations to save their lives for free, they often have to wait months before getting hospitalised.

Ichi the Killer

Based on the manga series of the same title, this Japanese movie is directed by Takeshi Miike. From Wikipedia:

The film stars Tadanobu Asano as Kakihara, a sadomasochist yakuza enforcer who enjoys giving and receiving pain in about equal measures. Kakihara’s boss Anjo is murdered in a particularly gruesome fashion, and a mysterious group arrives to clean up all evidence of the murder, and they steal 300 million yen Anjo had in his room.

Gruesome indeed. Just don’t watch that movie over dinner. We just had enough of all the gore after the movie… What else could have we expected? It’s not the first movie directed by Miike we’ve seen!

The Simpsons Movie

Before seeing the movie mentioned before, we were five going to see the Simpsons. Finally after almost 20 years on the small screen, the Simpsons moved to a one big enough for Homer’s ass. I really thought it was a good movie. Although, I few modern computer animation tricks were used, I’m glad the producers made the Simpsons look as we all love them to be. Unlike many movies based on a show or comic, they didn’t make everything 3D-this real-life-that. The Simpsons were just simply like how they are known.

However, just one thing. What happened with that pig?

Transformers

There’s another great movie. So many people wanted to see it, my friend and I had to go to a different threatre than the one we wanted to go to just to get a parking spot!

The storyline was a bit childish. It is based on the cartoon many of us grew up watching after all. The movie adaptation was great, with it’s wonderful robotic visual effects. Too bad the product placements were almost everywhere in the movie.

Death Note

Thriller movie based on the Japanese animation of the same title about Light, a university student, who’s quest for “justice” starts when he find a notebook droped from hell by a shinigami (“death god”) which any name written within by its finder will kill the person bearing that name within seconds. It made me laugh as I though the storyline was trying to be too “dark.” A few points of consideration:

• The notebook from hell never seem to run out of pages.
• Although I know why the rules of usage were written in English, I still think of the idea of a death god to take the time to write them in a human language to be frivolous.
• Same goes to the main character’s name. A Japanese guy named “Light?” His family name, Yagami, doesn’t make much sense either.
• Pretty Japanese girls are always killed in any movie. The characters played by Nana Katase and Seto Asaka all died in the movie. (Same issue applies for the movie Ichi mentioned above.)
• The “Tokyo Express” subway is actually the Tsukuba Express. The advertisements shown in the subway’s scene parodise real advertisements. One of them is for the language school “NEVA”; a play on the real language school called “NOVA,” and sounds like “never.”

I visited friends of mine in their new townhouse. After dinner, we watched a movie. What a crazy movie…

It’s supposed to be a horror movie. The movie is dark dreamscape of a stream of consciousness on a Yakuza backdrop. But, with its black humour and weird situations, you can’t help yourself from not laughing.

The story features a lost guy as the main character, his partner being reborn into a woman and then again as a man, an old guy saying how it is warm outside, a woman selling her breast milk to the village, an American who speaks Japanese like a robot, and some sort of a Minotaur.

I especially like the end when the old guy laughs…

Briefly, if you have spare time, you must watch this movie.

(Links: Wikipedia, IMDb)

Recently, with a friend of mine, I went at the Bytowne Cinema in downtown Ottawa to see the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival 2006, awarding last year’s best commercials around the world. Below are a few I liked:

Coca-Cola: “What Comes Around Goes Around” (Pictured)

That video was reminiscent to a Japanese music video I’ve seen before. Turns out both are directed by the Japanese Nagi Noda. The music is by Jack White.

Axe: “Coined”

A guy is doing little tricks to throw coins in all sorts of glasses.

AOL UK

Interesting duo of commercials showing the phone’s both good and bad opinions of the Internet.

Argentina political message

Really intelligent political message. A bit like the AOL ad mentioned above, shows two sides of the same coin in a really creative yet simple way.

Vodafone

Conversations that got abbreviated a bit too much.

Bangkok Insurance

That number was probably rounded.

Honda Choir

And my mom was telling me to stop making sounds with my mouth…

Toyota: “Human Touch”

That’s the way customer service is in Japan.

VW Fox

My friend was really fond of those animated 30-second remakes parodies of famous movies.

I’ve made a playlist of all the Cannes commercials I could find on YouTube.

Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) is directed by Zhang Yimou, the guy who brought us House of Flying Daggers and Hero.

I have the habit of grabbing my keys and my jacket when heading outside. Now, with my new cellphone, I tend to grab that instead of my keys. The worst happened Sunday evening — I ended up locking myself out of my bedroom. My roommate was kind enough to lend me her key for the front door of our apartment.

I called the owners and they were not there. See how useful it is to have a cellphone during emergencies?! Everybody told me the same whining excuse about having a cellphone, “It’s good for emergencies.” What about the week before when I was out in the cold trying to catch a bus back from Gatineau to Ottawa? The automated timetable phone system was offline. Another point for having a cellphone! You can call everywhere — except nobody’s available!

NoMez, his girlfriend, and I went in Kanata to go see a movie. A Chinese movie, subtitled in English, Curse of the Golden Flower. I love those. I don’t understand a word of what they are saying, and that is what makes the beauty of it. Furthermore, Asian women are a plus. Hurray for Asian women!

However, no Zhang Ziyi (Memoirs of a Geisha) this time, but there is Gong Li (erm… Memoirs of a Geisha too)! Chow Yun-Fat (Bulletproof Monk) also plays in that movie, and we all know he can kick some behinds!

(Can someone go see my friend’s site, by the way? I think he’s desperate for visitors… He has pictures!)

The story is mainly about a rebellion of the emperor’s wife who is dying little by little by a poison administered in medicine by order of the emperor. Simple idea, surely, but it somehow makes the beauty of the storyline, which is greatly written.

Gong Li plays as the Empress in Curse of the Golden Flowers. She also played as the antagonist Hatsumoto in Memoirs of a Geisha.

Don’t shake the projector when watching the movie — the psychedelic interiors of the golden-roof castle where the imperial family lives in pain will cause you epileptic seizures. It’s the most beautiful and colourful set I’ve ever seen. I think it’s a real castle and I’m sure I saw it before, but I need someone to confirm this.

Another plus in the movie: the costumes wore by the girls show a lot of cleavage. Women did wore similar costumes in the time, but in reality, they were not showing that much skin. This movie was set in the Tang dynasty, but has no pretencions of being a historical movie. The era has little importance to the storyline.

The minus: the cutest girl gets killed. It’s always like that in Chinese movies. They lure you with pretty girls and they get killed. Why?! It’s like Zhang Ziyi — in every movie she played, she’s in love with at least two men and ends up being dead. What a waste…

If you were depressed, go see that movie. It’ll make your night. Seriously, you’ll think your life is not as messed up as the members of a royal family. I know it did my night!

And I was able to break in my room and get my keys back. I didn’t have to pay $125 to a locksmith to get it unlocked! (I called to ask the price.) How better the night could have been?

I saw it yesterday with friends of mine. It was good! But please let’s move on…

This is the movie I want to see:
http://www.cinoche.com/trailers/1939/1989

Finally a movie entirely bilingual, French and English.

While waiting, here’s a list of ten gadgets from the future:
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/top-10-strangest-gadgets-…

(Oooh!)

(December 17, 2006: I’ve replaced the video with the one I posted on YouTube. My Flash video player doesn’t work anymore. I also learned that one of my hosting providers, Dreamhost, offers free tools to convert your videos into Flash videos and publish them, which I’ll probably use from now on. Great alternative to YouTube! I always recommend Dreamhost to everyone.)

(August 10, 2006: This video is now also available on YouTube.)

Friends and I present at the national Japanese speech contest early this month in Toronto saw the crew of the only Japanese-spoken show we know on TV, Wai Wai Wide. We waited for them so say something about the contest on their show. Finally, three weeks after, they did. Click below to see the show!

Side note: Converting the video

It’s the first time I post a video, proudly converted into FLV format with Linux. For those interested, I’ve used ffmpeg and flvtool2 in order to do so. After having recorded the TV show (using a script which I posted recently), I typed in the following commands to convert it:


ffmpeg -i input.avi -ar 22050 -ss 00:00:49 -t 00:05:55 -r 20 -b 200 -f flv - | flvtool2 -U stdin output.flv


Finally, I’ve uploaded it to my server using scp.

The teaser trailer is now available online! After 14 years (I think), it’s about time! I just hope it won’t be a straight-to-DVD movie like Family Guy.

When I complain about the fact that most Japanese female characters in the "Memoirs of a Geisha" movie (now banned in China -- at least until mid-February) was acted by people of other nationalities: Chinese, American, Vietnamese, etc. Most told me "Well... It's for an American market." or "There is no popular Japanese actress!" At least, for the guys who are acted by Japanese people (for most, anyway), we got Ken Watanabe!

If the later above quote is true, well, they are not trying hard enough. Since I have a thing for Asians, when asked which girl I think is the prettiest, I say a name and I always get a blank stare, because they have no idea who I'm talking about.

Below is a list of some girls I wish I could have seen in the movie instead:

To replace Gong Li, who plays Hatsumomo: Waka Inoue. I heard American guys like big tits. I also heard that Waka is apparently renouned for her attributes: 90-60-90. With her height, she would have been the perfect bitch against our favourite geisha.

The two geisha with the chairman: Eriko Sato and Nana Katase. I didn't see them acting often, but I just like them. Eriko Sato was the "Cutey Honey" in the live action 2004 movie based on the anime.

Michelle Yeoh, Mahema: Nanako Matsushima. The proof that age doesn't impact beauty. She's quite famous in Japan and was once the "commercial queen" for years.

Finally, to replace Ziyi Zhang, Sayuri (a.k.a. Chiyo): Aimi Nakamura. I remember her playing the social antagonist Miyabi in the Japanese drama series "G.T.O." (Great Teacher Onizuka) based on the comic book of the same title.

At least we got one main Japanese actress in the movie, Yuki Kudo, who plays as Pumpkin. Too bad her character is too Americanised later in the movie. She also played in "Snow Falling on Cedars" and is a voice actor for the animation "Blood: The Last Vampire". Interesting enough, she can also speak French!

Links

• IMDb.com: Cast and crew of "Memoirs of a Geisha"
• Michelle Yeoh Web Theatre: Memoirs of a Geisha
• Youki Kudo's Official Homepage

Based on the novel of the same title. A real story about a real geisha, or so I thought.

It starts with a little girl, Chiyo, who got sold by her family to a geisha house. Nothing uncommon there: happened quite often in the old days. But the point when I saw the story had little reality is when we see the Japanese girl’s blue eyes. When’s the last time you saw a Japanese with blue eyes? Oh, wait, she’s special…

More lies? Everyone can speak English! I used one hand to count all the Japanese words I heard in the movie, after the two first minutes, when the Chiyo’s family could only speak Japanese.

What next. Of course, the majority of the actresses in the movie are playing Japanese characters, but are not Japanese. Funny enough, all the men are real Japanese people. After looking at that, I thought I should star in a movie and play an African-American character. Although, Ziyi Zhang and Michelle Yeoh were the main Chinese actresses, so it’s a bad thing for a good one. Though, Ziyi, who was playing the grown-up Chiyo then known as Sayuri, when she spoke English, her accent let me know right away that she’s Chinese.

Oh, another thing, selling the girl’s virginity to the highest bidder is another lie. The real geisha upon who the author of the book, Authur Golden, based his thoughts about geishas, was not really happy to hear about that lie he wrote about.

Her name is Mineko Iwasaki, who wrote her side of the story: “Geisha, a Life” or “Geisha of Gion”. Honestly, I think I would have prefered seeing a movie based on her book than based on a book written by a bastardisation expert.

The movie was alright, nonetheless. A good point is each time sakura flower petals would fly down, it reminded me of dried-potato flakes. Mmmm!

Links:

• Official movie site
• Trailer
• Soundtrack
• Information at the IMDB
• Information on Wikipedia
• Mineko Iwasaki, author of Geisha of Gion, on Wikipedia

A spy is sent as a blind dancer to a kill police man, with then becomes her lover.

Ziyi Zhang strikes again with her charm and beauty. It may be the deception of some that she never gets naked.

Her aside, the story could be a mix of Romeo & Juliette, Spy vs Spy clips, and scenery from New Brunswick tourism commercials.

Most of the movie happens out in the wood, and being in that province in the time I viewed the film, it reminded me a lot of where I actually was.

I guess they chose daggers since the story is a lot about backstabbing. You don’t know who’s the enemy or the friend anymore. It was not confusing — just a lot redundant.

Most CG effects were seamless. However, there were too many effects overall. Quit the slow-motion flying knifes already!

The movie was okay, but I would have probably not rented it if I read before that it was mostly a love story.