GRWeston Reviews

Swiss Army Man (2016)

"If you don't know Jurassic Park, you don't know s***!"

[8/10 · 12 June 2017]

Better known as the "farty boner corpse" movie, this is a strange, funny and surprisingly heartwarming buddy comedy starring Paul Dano as Hank, a depressed man whose suicide attempt is interrupted by a corpse that washes ashore. Hank uses the corpse, which he dubs Manny (a very good Daniel Radcliffe) to escape his desert island and return home. The movie makes a strong argument that the smartphone- addicted culture of the 2010's is turning too many of us into people like Hank, a man who is ashamed of his eccentricities, oddities and everything else that social media allows us to mask all too easily. During his travels with Manny, who exhibits everything disgusting about human beings, he learns to not be embarrassed of his abnormalities, because when it comes down to it, humans are pretty weird by design. The movie has been compared to everything from Cast Away to Weekend at Bernie's to Where the Wild Things Are, but the comparison that makes the most sense to me is Rain Man. In that movie, Charlie regains the humanity that Reaganomics stole from him, and in this one, Hank regains the humanity that smartphone culture told him to revile. While its life-affirming message it shares with some of the other movies I mentioned is not terribly original, the odd, disgusting and definitely unique journey Hank and Manny go on is still worth joining.

Jaws (1975)

'Tis a Remorseless Eating Machine!

[9/10 · 17 November 2015]

Why is Jaws' titular character one of the scariest movie monsters? Ultimately, it's a common great white shark that lacks the genetic and/or supernatural enhancements expected in horror antagonists. One explanation is its hunting ground, which is a place we cannot imagine anything bad happening. Besides its safety and beautiful weather, Amity Island is perfectly evocative of childhood beach-going memories. Adding terror to this idyllic blend makes it all the more terrifying. The three leads' all-consuming relationship with the beast also explains its near-mythological status. After all, it would take some kind of monster for someone like Hooper to devote his life to studying it and a hell of an encounter for someone like Quint to devote his to turning them into trophies. As for Brody, while hardly a shark expert, his every waking thought concerns stopping a single shark from ruining paradise and harming his family. Regardless, all of these elements could still result in a monster that makes audiences laugh instead of shudder. Spielberg and company prevented this from happening in one of the most famous instances of doing more with less in movie history. Since the mechanical shark prop was too cumbersome for extended use, the director made substitutions such as showing the beast from a first-person perspective and by revealing the aftermaths of its feeding frenzies instead of the shark itself. Besides adding tension, these flourishes make it more possible to imagine the monster not as a shark, but as the stuff of nightmares killing machine that Hooper and Quint describe. John Williams' theme for the shark is another prime example of doing more with less. Its simple repeated phrase not only adds an undercurrent of dread, but also mystery as to when and where the beast will attack. In the end, Jaws proves that a monster does not need an elaborate history or otherworldly origins. With enough movie-making magic, it can simply be an animal looking for its next hot lunch.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Only the Lonely

[8/10 · 17 November 2015]

Let the Right One In is advertised as a vampire movie, which is understandable since Eli is one of the best portrayals of a vampire in movie history. She exemplifies the classic vampire rules such as immortality, vulnerability to light, a need to be invited inside a home before she can enter and of course an appetite for blood. Even so, the true horror of this movie is not vampires, but loneliness. The young protagonist, Oskar, defines loneliness: he has no friends, absent parents, is constantly tormented by bullies, and to make matters worse, he lives in an isolated apartment complex. He becomes friends with new neighbor Eli, a relationship that initially provides hope for his desperate situation. However, as their friendship develops, it reveals that Oskar may develop a blood lust to relieve his solitude in the same way that Eli's relieves her hunger. The movie is set in the '80s, presumably to avoid adding cell phones to the plot, but Let the Right One in is very much a horror movie for our times. There have been too many accounts lately of young people like Oskar who tried to escape their loneliness by harming themselves or others. While the movie portrays such horror, it also provides a solution to it. It may be less frequent if more people confront the lonely and isolated in the same way Oskar first confronts Eli by trying to understand them first and judging them second.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988 Video Game)

The reigning 2D platformer king

[10/10 · 15 March 2014]

When I was a kid, Super Mario Bros. 3 was the only video game that mattered. I still remember going to the video store almost every day after school to rent it and always leaving empty-handed. On the day that my mother countered my suggestion that we try one more time by surprising me with my very own copy, I felt like Ralphie when he unwrapped the BB gun in A Christmas Story. Tips and tricks regarding warp whistles and the locations of power-ups dominated my lunchroom conversations. At first, I thought the game was a secret amongst my geeky friends, but eventually, nearly everyone in my class ended up contributing to our discussion.

Why is Super Mario Bros. 3 such a universally loved video game? The simplicity and elegance of its graphics and gameplay is certainly a main reason. Even someone who is new to video games would have little trouble getting past World 1-1 and possibly further. The graphics are simple, colorful and make each item's purpose and each enemy's attack pattern quickly apparent. They also add distinction and atmosphere to each level and world in a way that maximizes the NES' 8-bit potential. As for the controls, they are tight and turn-on-a-dime responsive, not to mention easy to master. It takes no time at all to learn fundamentals such as when to let go of the B button to stop running at just the right moment or how hard to press the A button to execute the right jump. While the first game in the series shares many of these merits, Super Mario Bros. 3 surpasses its predecessor not only by exceeding them, but by allowing players to better customize the gaming experience. The first game has warp zones, but Super Mario Bros. 3's warp whistles take the concept even further, and the game even lets players skip entire levels within worlds. The third game is also even richer when it comes to rewarding players for being ingenious and going off the beaten path. In addition to the secret locations of the warp whistles and prime power-ups like the tanooki and hammer suits, it is possible to gain dozens of extra lives and warp to the final world in less than an hour's time. All of these qualities add up to make a video game that is endlessly replayable as well as challenging enough for the gaming amateur to finish and for the gaming expert to unravel every secret. The 2D platformer is one of the most beloved video game genres, and thanks to the recent explosion of indie gaming, it is still going strong. Regardless, despite many worthy challengers, Super Mario Bros. 3 is still at top of this genre's heap.

Half-Life (1998 Video Game)

"Gordon Freeman, in the flesh..."

[9/10 · 11 March 2014]

Before Half-Life, my enjoyment of any video game was based on how much I appreciated its gameplay, graphics and soundtrack. One variable I never gave much thought was how immersive the game was. I had been deeply immersed in video games before, but not to a high enough degree for me to give the variable much consideration. Half-Life, on the other hand, made me realize the amazing potential video games have at absorbing players into their worlds. The game demonstrates this right off the bat by taking the player on a long train ride into the Black Mesa facility. At first, I wondered why the ride was so long and when the action would start, but I soon found myself looking in every direction, changing seats and listening intently to the announcer as if I was on the train myself. By the time I disembarked and met genial security guard Barney, I had ignored everything outside my field of vision of my monitor and had fully assumed the role of Gordon Freeman. In addition to the introduction, Half-Life maintains your immersion in many other ways, particularly by never making Gordon speak. The game wants you to feel like you are in control of Gordon at all times, and if Gordon were to respond in conversations, that control would escape you. Speaking of conversations, there is very little text instruction or guidance as the game delivers most information via announcement or conversation. The game also lets you control whether or not Gordon is a saint or an all-out psychopath. With the exception of a few important non-playable characters, there are no consequences to maiming or outright slaughtering security guards or your fellow scientists.

Of course, all of this immersion would count for little if the game did not deliver on all other counts, and it does. Graphically, it provides what were some of the best 3D graphics of its time, made even better by careful touches such as the anatomically correct innards of the human carcasses and the non-playable characters' mouth movements matching their words as they speak. Except for a few limitations such as the security guards and many of the scientists looking exactly the same, the graphics still hold up very well today. The soundtrack is unusual in that it is mostly ambient sounds, and when there is music, it only plays at times where the visuals could not provide the full emotional impact on their own. Highlights include the spooky, droning Gargantua theme and the celebratory rock and roll that plays when you launch the satellite. As for the gameplay, it is responsive and intuitive enough for even the first-person shooter amateur to quickly master, not to mention totally empowering. With sensations like the jarring feeling of firing a machine gun, the palpable tension of staying concealed from enemy soldiers or the visceral thrill of immolating several vortigaunts at once with a single grenade, you do not just feel like a scientist killing aliens for kicks, you feel like the star of an interactive Die Hard/Aliens mash-up whose every action determines the fate of the entire planet. The game also provides multiple paths to success for some confrontations, thus allowing the careful demolitions expert to feel just as satisfied as those who would rather go in swinging the crowbar. Regardless, Half-Life is not without its faults; there are some obstacles that could require multiple tries not because of the difficulty, but due to inelegant design, and the Xen stages are a little anticlimactic. All the same, for providing such a thrilling, absorbing experience and for legitimizing the first person shooter genre even further than Doom and Quake did, Half-Life deserves its status as one of the best video games of all time.

Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000)

The entire high school experience in eighteen episodes

[10/10 · 30 December 2013]

When I was in high school, the most popular TV show about people my age was Dawson's Creek. As someone who was on the outside looking in to the kind of teenagers this series featured, I avoided it because I thought it would be as incomprehensible as some of the lectures on C-SPAN. Before Freaks and Geeks, the supposed antithesis to shows like Dawson's Creek, came along, my first thought was that with a title like that and a tag line of "what high school was like for the rest of us," it would be along the lines of the typical '80s teensploitation movie. Instead, we got a show that is intelligent, heartfelt, genuinely funny and - best of all - real. Instead of stereotypes, Freaks and Geeks gives us characters who seem so authentic that it is easy to mistake their names for the names of similar people we grew up with. I knew at least one dismissive, sarcastic man of few words like Ken, a constantly fighting couple like Daniel and Kim and was, ahem, knew an awkward, all-around geek like Bill. Despite focusing on the titular cliques, the show covers facets of high school life both in and out of the classroom that all students regardless of social standing encounter. These include romantic relationships that end before they begin, initial exposures to sex, drugs and alcohol and what could be the overarching theme of the series: how difficult it can be to discover who you are and where you belong. My favorite episode and the one where I feel the series hit its stride is "Carded and Discarded," particularly for how it reveals the unfortunate fact that some high school friendships are merely confidence-building stepping stones to bigger and better things. Freaks and Geeks only lasted one season, but since its portrait of the high school experience is so complete, this is hardly a drawback. For this reason and for the show's hilarity, authenticity and that it never hits a false note, Freaks and Geeks deserves to be on a list of the best TV shows of all time.

The Office (2001–2003)

A cold, hilarious dose of reality

[10/10 · 19 December 2013]

I watched the entire series of The Office and the Christmas special exactly nine years ago, the same year I joined the corporate world. My timing could not have been better because already one year in, I had already become familiar - and annoyed - with the politics of the corporation and its more offensive personalities. Sooner or later, everyone in the corporate world ends up having a coworker like one at Wernham-Hogg, whether it be the team lead who is masculine in a way that proves he's insecure about his own masculinity and who wields what little power he has like a despotic king's scepter (Gareth), the sexist, condescending braggart who is unfairly successful with the ladies (Chris Finch) or of course the incompetent manager who would rather be popular than good and who hides his incompetence with pretension (David Brent). All of the series' situations are also genuine, especially the awkward, strained Christmas and year-end celebrations, the pointless staff appraisal sessions and the useless training class, which is the centerpiece of "Training," my favorite episode. While reliving my least favorite corporate experiences made me wince, I laughed until my sides hurt at the same time, which explains The Office's reputation for popularizing cringe comedy. Still, despite the series' damning depiction of the workplace, at its core lies a big heart. You can see it in the way the show cares for Tim and Dawn, Wernham-Hogg's lone beacons of sanity and would-be romantic couple, but you really see it in how David Brent, the source of the series' most cringe-worthy moments, becomes the man you root for in the end. By providing the perfect outlet for my frustrations with the corporate world while making me not regret my decision to join it in the truest, most funny way possible, I easily rank The Office as my favorite TV show of all time.

White Heat (1949)

The Best Gangsters Have Mommy Issues

[9/10 · 30 March 2011]

An elaborate, bloody and very exciting heist of treasury bonds from a train kicks off White Heat, a movie I had been wanting to see for a long time, and my expectations were met and then some. The heist's mastermind is Cody Jarrett (James Cagney), a leader of a band of thieves who is the strangest, yet most entertaining gangster I've seen in a movie: he's a man prone to random crushing headaches and who is hopelessly devoted to his co-conspiring mother, much to the chagrin of both his second-in-command and his neglected wife. Unfortunately for Cody, he does not get away clean, but he has a card up his sleeve: do time for another, lesser crime he had committed earlier so that he can avoid the severe punishment of this one. While unable to step in, the treasury responds by having an agent assume the alias of Vic Pardo and pose as an inmate and befriend Cody so that the law can bring him and gang to justice. Meanwhile, his wife and his former right-hand man make plans of their own: move the organization forward, and without Cody - literally. Pardo inadvertently foils their assassination attempt, a move which makes his bond with Jarrett even stronger. The two eventually get out of jail, and while Cody quickly regains control and even lines up his next heist, the payroll of a major chemical plant, he remains unaware of Pardo's real intentions. Cody's gang and the law both converge on the plant, which becomes the set piece for a (literally) explosive conclusion.

What surprised me the most about White Heat is its energy and speed. Instead of having the careful, measured pace typical of 40's film noir, it resembles what a feature-length episode of 24 would be like, and given the volatility of the Jarrett character, this is entirely appropriate. Cagney definitely sunk his teeth into the role: his creepy behavior, especially his relationship with his mother, really gets under your skin, and when he's violent, he makes even Joe Pesci in Goodfellas seem tame. The violence in general is very shocking: there are many shootings, and each one hasn't a shred of regret or remorse. As for the movie's two major heists, both are simply thrilling to watch, not to mention interesting in how they reveal how criminals operated during that era. Still, what is even more interesting is how the law uses technology to chase down Jarrett and his gang. There is heavy and seemingly accurate use of car phones, radar detection and other techniques I had no idea were in use at the time. I will admit, however, that the movie did not leave me with a whole lot to think about afterward, which is disappointing given Jarrett's strange quirks which, while unique, only seemed to be there for the plot's sake rather than examine of the burdens of having an Oedipus complex. Still, I will not deny that I was entertained, and I would be hard pressed to find a better example of noir and action done right.

The World According to Garp (1982)

Food for though, badly prepared

[6/10 · 5 March 2011]

I'll admit off the bat that this is my first John Irving experience. I had heard his work is very quirky, surreal, American, and tackles subjects that make you squirm and in a way that makes you squirm even more. Garp exhibits all of these facets, and while I gasped at the awkwardness, basked in the Americana, squirmed at the subject matter and raised an eyebrow many times in between, I ultimately found it interesting, but I can't quite say that I liked it. Even so, I believe this is a fault of the movie and not the material.

Lust. (Do I have your attention)? Anyway, of Garp's various subjects, this is the at the forefront, which becomes clear very quickly as the word is a sort of anti-mantra for Jenny Fields (Glenn Close), a nurse at an all-boys school and mother of the titular character. Having conceived Garp in a situation completely free of lust, having taken advantage of a dying WWII pilot who, shall we say, couldn't stop standing at attention, Fields is a woman constantly on the lookout for any kind of carnal expression. This is hardly a boon for her son, who is introduced as an imaginative, wistful boy whose dreams and fantasies are filled with airplanes and what his father might have been like, and who directs those yearnings towards becoming a successful author and, much to his mother's dismay, pleasing women, as he grows into Robin Williams. Garp is able to evade his mother's determination while courting his college sweetheart, but she still ends up making his life very difficult when, as soon as Garp's first book hits stores, she too assembles her own literary breakthrough: a sprawling and much more successful anti-lust manifesto. The work transforms Jenny into a sort of feminist cult figure, particularly to a group of supporters calling themselves Ellen Jamesians, each of whom cut their tongue out in support of a rape victim of the same name. As Jenny's influence expands, Garp does his best to provide a good life for his wife and kids, and while his efforts cause Jenny to gradually shed her misgivings, they of course draw the ire of the Jamesians. Naturally, this clash of ideals escalates to a shocking and circular conclusion.

If anything, Garp's exploration of lust is successful at demonstrating the extent to which we control our lustful urges or let them control us directs our growth as people. What this exploration does, though, is reveal truths that are even more interesting, namely that staying too true to an ideal, no matter how honorable, can have debilitating effects, and that the rejection of any alternatives to that ideal often stems from fear and ignorance. This is perhaps best revealed in a scene where Garp's mother confronts a prostitute not to accost her, but to simply understand why she does what she does and if she gets any joy out of it. Poignant moments like these are the movie's strength, as are its performances, particularly Close as Jenny and John Lithgow as Roberta, a transsexual former football player and Jenny follower. Robin Williams' performance, on the other hand, is unsuitably passive, especially for a man under so many constricting influences. And as interesting as Garp's themes may be, it does not excuse the movie from telling its story unsatisfactorily. Many scenes that come across as quirky or surreal may have just been poorly translated to the screen. If I had not have known Garp was an adaptation, I would have figured it out, as I often felt the need to reach for some kind of guide for more information. Also, there is what feels like a push to make the movie into an inspirational family drama as it goes on, which does not really go along with its sensibility-challenging ways. A lot of the interesting parts I mentioned (the Ellen Jamesians, Roberta's dilemma) fall more and more by the wayside or simply become less interesting. But really, the movie never quite achieves the right balance between the surreal and the grounded, or even the comedic and the serious. A climatic scene involving one of Garp's sons and its aftermath, for example, left me wondering whether to laugh or cry, and even if anything really happened at all. In short, Garp left me with a lot to think about, but with a lot of it being whether or not the filmmakers knew what they had to work with or even if they fully understood it.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)

The struggles of faith

[9/10 · 23 January 2011]

A tree falling at random and crushing a young man to death appropriately kicks off Sergei Parajanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, a film that episodically tells a story about the unsteady relationship between faith and chance as well as explores and celebrates the ancient culture that inhabited the Ukrainian portion of the Carpathian Mountains. The young man is the older brother of protagonist Ivan, whose continuous attempts from childhood through adulthood to live the kind of strong, honest Christian life of hard work, true love and marriage his culture fosters are repeatedly beset by occurrences that are equally unfortunate. While such tragedies - which include the demise of his sweetheart since childhood - dishearten the Job-like figure, he somehow manages to stay faithful, ultimately marrying a woman with beauty equal to that of his lost love. During their wedding ceremony, Ivan shockingly strips his bride naked of her traditional garb, an action that very well may be a tradition of his culture, but which I interpreted as Ivan lashing out at a way of life that has provided very little reward despite his efforts. Initially, it appears that with his marriage, Ivan's struggles have finally paid off, but it is soon revealed that he still pines for his lost love and that the couple is having no luck producing children. In a desperate act, Ivan's wife tries to remedy their problems with a Pagan fertility ritual, a move that makes her the target of a heretical neighbor's affections and which ultimately reveals her true colors as equally heretical. The two enter into an affair, made all the more painful for Ivan as they display their affections in plain sight as if he does not exist. Like the falling tree that kicks off the story, the affair brings it - as well as Ivan's woeful life - to a close, an ending that includes the bittersweet moments of Ivan envisioning a meeting with his young love in the afterlife as well as the kind of robust group of kids he had hoped to raise observing his contrastingly joyous funeral ceremony.

Speaking of contrasts, the story of Ivan's unfortunate journey is enveloped by a celebration of ancient Ukrainian culture. This includes authentic portrayals of its dance rituals, work habits and religious ceremonies, made all the more authentic via traditional Ukrainian music as well as production design that highlights the Carpathian region's natural beauty and color. At first, all of this celebration surrounding a life that offers little reason to celebrate made the film appear oddly schizophrenic, but I soon realized how well it emphasized Ivan's tragedy, especially since all of these cultural traditions - the religious ones in particular - seemed to be serving everyone perfectly fine except for him. Parajanov appropriately directs the celebratory scenes with camera work resembling that of Godard, or better yet, Evil Dead-era Sam Raimi, while Ivan's story mostly consists of stark stillness. However, Parajanov's direction includes the unfortunate tendency to change scenes at a breakneck clip, and the intentions of such scenes do not become entirely clear until much later. Regardless, Ancestors is a simple story beautifully told, and while it can ultimately be interpreted as an exploration of faith gone wrong, that it does so without belittling the act of having faith is admirable and refreshing.

Eros + Massacre (1969)

Care for a little anarchy?

[9/10 · 23 January 2011]

When I was recommended a 180+ minute Japanese biopic about someone I had never heard of, directed by someone I was not aware of and made in perhaps my least familiar era for film (the 60's), my first reaction was "what did I ever do to you?" However, now that those 180+ minutes are lodged - deeply, I might add - in my memory, I would have to say that I did not receive a burden, but instead a big favor. Eros Plus Massacre provided a unique and challenging experience. If anything, it shook my perceptions of the biopic format.

The subject of Eros Plus Massacre is Sakae Osugi (1885-1923), a Japanese radical who advocated anarchy and a way of life that went against as many social norms as possible. This lifestyle included refusing to work, not paying taxes and free love with as many partners as possible. The film covers the period when Osugi established his philosophy to when he practiced it and the moment when his radical views got the better of him: he died at the hands of a police squad, who beat him, his lover – fellow practitioner Noe Ito – and young nephew to death. While the film relies on the rise and fall story structure conventional to biopics, how it goes about telling this story is far from conventional. The plus in the title, for instance, is relevant: the film is roughly divided into halves, the aforementioned incident with the police – better known as the Amanasu Incident – serving as the first half's climactic moment, while the second half focuses on an intriguing and contentious incident where Osugi was stabbed by another, jealous lover, a moment that is repeatedly reinterpreted Rashomon-style.

Free love, refusing to obey the man, embracing alternative philosophies: is this the early 20th century, or is it the 60's? Yoshida expresses these similarities by making it appear that the film is under the direction of a student couple who are just as promiscuous, freewheeling and philosophical as Osugi and his lover. The film shifts between scenes with Osugi and the students without a moment's notice, the connections between them not becoming entirely clear until later. Whether due to Yoshida's directing style or my own unfamiliarity with the subject, I first assumed that the students were the young Osugi and Ito, and that the film was taking the kind of broken time line narrative approach that Tarantino would likely cite as an inspiration. The director's use of music, however, eventually made it all clear: the Osugi scenes use traditional Japanese instruments while the student ones are filled with psychedelic rock. Most of the film consists of conversations between the two couples, set against a series of distinctive, disparate (and very sparsely populated) set pieces, ranging from a garden-secluded traditional Japanese home to the underside of a massive highway system. While the truth may be that the director could not afford to hire any extras to fill these backdrops, their emptiness actually works to accentuate the characters' isolation as well as how their self-centered philosophies made the world seem like their own personal playground. In this way, the film reminded me a lot of Antonioni's L'Avventura in its emptiness, attitude towards the subjects' listless behavior (and perhaps in its repetition).

Is a life of anarchy sustainable? Do our social norms like gainful employment, marriage, etc. exist solely to empower the elite? The film leaves the answers to such questions up to the viewer, and while Osugi's ways led to his demise, the incident is presented in a very matter-of-fact manner. Even so, this hands-off approach does not always work in the film's favor. As I mentioned with my initial confusion over the use of the students, there are a few moments that would come across as obtuse or extraneous even to the Osugi scholar. There were also scenes that, while impressive aesthetically, did not really add anything new to the picture of Osugi's psyche. Still, it is all material that I wish more films these days would contain, or at least attempt to mimic.

Samurai Rebellion (1967)

Genre-Defying

[8/10 · 23 January 2011]

With a title like Samurai Rebellion and a disc cover featuring a bloody, threatening Toshiro Mifune, I was expecting an old-fashioned, meat-and-potatoes samurai yarn with clearly-defined good guys and bad guys. Instead, I experienced the near opposite: a movie awash in shades of gray and in a world where honor, loyalty and sword mastery are not always enough. I'm an avid defender of genre entertainment, placing the samurai genre near the top of ones that reliably please. Samurai Rebellion, however, offers an experience that is much more interesting, as well as with a much more long-term satisfaction.

Set in a time of peace and entirely on the grounds of the Sasahara clan, the movie begins with veteran swordsman Isaburo (Mifune) and his friend Tatewaki involved in a required yet ultimately pointless - and for these soldiers, elementary - training exercise under the direction of the clan lord. It becomes immediately clear that the soldiers know that the exercise is beneath them yet have no power to object to their leader's wishes, a moment which in turn establishes - in addition to the stark, imposing opening shots of the Sasahara fortress - the clan rule's imposition and obstinacy. With no opportunity to put his skills to meaningful use and with a tradition-loyal wife at home in whom he cannot confide, Isaburo starts to feel very empty and useless. This changes, though, when Isaburo learns that his son, Yogoro, is to marry Ichi, a former mistress of the clan lord. Ichi, who had a son with the ruler, quickly turned into a pariah for lashing out at him for immediately taking up with another woman as if their affair never happened. Despite her reputation, Yogoro and Ichi's marriage is a strong and loving one, producing a daughter as well as a revitalization of sorts for Isaburo, who feels more alive now than he ever did as a servant of the clan's cause. Unfortunately, his elation is short-lived, as an untimely death makes the clan lord's illegitimate son his sole heir, which by tradition requires Ichi to return to the ruler's side. Unwilling to watch his family fall apart, Isaburo opposes the entire clan and seeks to expose its wrongdoings all by himself, an act resulting in bloodshed, the revelation of true colors and ultimately, the pitting of friend against friend.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a samurai movie where the villain is not bandits or warriors from another kingdom, but instead the kind of establishment that samurai were trained to uphold. In doing this, the movie takes apart the ugly side of fealty, especially in how the happiness of the subjected can vanish at the signing of an order or even at a whim. Japan being a country that takes its history and traditions very seriously, it's a wonder Kobayashi was able to get away with telling a story like this, his transition from working in the studio system to freelance being the likely explanation. Samurai Rebellion also defies convention in style and technique: instead of interspersing scenes of action with scenes of dialogue as seen in the typical samurai movie, Kobayashi gives us a slow burn of tension, saving all of the action to the best possible point to release it. Isaburo's struggle reminded me very much of Terry Malloy's in On The Waterfront in both purpose and in quality of performance. Mifune's transition from subservient veteran to vigilante is expertly gradual, and while his violent outbursts in his other performances tend to go over the top, here, he is true to character from Isaburo's highest point to his lowest. All of the supporting performances are equally solid, especially Yoko Tsukasa's, who demonstrates Ichi's powerlessness and desire for freedom with great pathos. The movie does not succeed on all points, however: the vast majority of Samurai Rebellion is dialogue-driven, and there are many scenes that could have been more interesting had Kobayashi showed more instead of told, especially since most of these scenes take place in formal settings where everyone must remain stock still. Formality or not, a little camera movement in these scenes could have gone a long way. Still, it has to be said that when Kobayashi does "show," such as in the aforementioned scene during the training exercise, he does it with great poignancy and efficiency. Also, there are some moments where characters mention that a great deal of time has passed, but since they exhibit little to no corresponding changes in age, behavior, and with the possible exception of Ichi and Yogoro's daughter, appearance, these passages are hard to take seriously. Regardless, Samurai Rebellion stands as one of the best samurai movies I've seen, not to mention proof that Kobayashi is as deserving of praise of Japanese directors like Ichikawa and Kurosawa.

Ronin (1998)

A Taut, Stylish Product

[20 September 2004]

"Ronin" is good for what it is: a structured, by-the-numbers product of the heist thriller genre. However, it is a stylish, sometimes exciting film with a few notable features that separate it from others in its pack.

The direction of the action scenes - most notably the car chases - has tinges of brilliance that could only come from the attention and care of a director like Frankenheimer, and the exotic European locales are a welcome change of pace from the familiar southern California back lots. I also appreciated how "Ronin" studies the state of its expatriate characters. Even though the ensemble's trade is amoral and compensates with more money than most of us will ever see, it becomes easy to empathize for these mercenaries who cannot officially go home again. Unfortunately, the emotions are not as strong as they could be: the cold, severe direction of the acting may be justified, but it still prevented me from fully connecting with the characters.

"Ronin" is not much more than a manufactured genre flick with a little something extra. It is a "something extra" that may enliven during and encourage reminiscence for a while after, but I would not count on the feelings and thoughts to last for a very long time.

Empire of the Sun (1987)

A disconnected experience

[5/10 · 1 March 2002]

"Empire of the Sun" is an awkward and uncomfortable film. Spielberg is usually very good at melding character interaction with the cinematography and music, but in "Empire," it's as if these elements are working against each other. Since all of the characters are at a distance, not fleshed out enough or both, it never seems like the sentimental direction or the evocative score are appropriate. What should be an expression of the characters' turmoil ends up feeling like obvious overcompensation. The best parts of the movie are the memorable visuals - the sparks flying from a WWII plane in particular - but like everything else in the film, the overbearing direction and music either dilutes the effect or feels out of place.

Without Limits (1998)

Enjoyable study of the short-lived track star

[7/10 · 18 February 1999]

I read in a magazine that this movie only received $1 million at the box office. It is really a shame that it was so quickly forgotten. "Without Limits" is a decent portrayal of Prefontaine's ambitious lifestyle and the relationship between him and his coach. The highlights of this movie are the intensity of the races and Donald Sutherland's terrific performance as the coach. The only thing that turned me off was the occasional slowing and repetition of the pace. Nonetheless, "Without Limits" is by all means worth a viewing.