duandsku Reviews

Nobody Knows (2004)

A heart-rendingly winsome picture, early contender for the best of the year

[7 March 2005]

Few directors can create settings as developed or as ponderous as Hirokazu Koreeda's, and his touch seems perfectly suited for NOBODY KNOWS, a film that shows the world through the perspective of 5 kids left to fend for themselves when there is no one else to turn to. Koreeda's work seems to catch everything vital to the story and gets each detail just right. Based on a true story and acted by mostly non-professionals, the picture has an uncommonly natural perspective of a situation that seems terrifying but is absolutely, unquestionably true.

It is deeply unnerving to see the ways in which the parents of the 4 central characters rationalize the neglect that has shaped their lives, and it is downright horrific to see the ways in which the mother manipulates the children. A child herself, the mother knows how to see life from a child's perspective. This allows her to control the children by giving presents and rewards most kids fantasize about while completely denying them everything a responsible parent would give their children. (One such instance is how the oldest girl is encouraged to save up to buy a piano while she is denied the "luxury" of going to school.) The kids are made to feel like they must always tip-toe through life; they are everybody's burden and should feel fortunate that anyone is looking out for them at all.

The film is a heartbreaking tale of child neglect, but it is elevated to also be a story about finding your own way despite the odds. Giving the film a bit of depth, there are undertones that hint at the story being a social commentary on the price of living in Japan, though that theme is comfortably left far beneath the surface. I do not think I have ever seen a film that captured the wondrous viewpoint of the world through a child's eyes as well as this does, and that the story kept digging deeper and further past the premise kept surprising me. If you think you know where this one's going, you probably don't.

The performances are uniformly excellent, including the award-winning work of Yûya Yagira as the eldest boy. Undeniably affecting, his performance anchors the film and shapes the story's effortless, natural heart.

**** out of ****

-By the way, this is smartly being marketed as a horror film, but I assure you it is more a domestic drama that just happens to wind up in a very dark place (i.e. if you walk in expecting RINGU, you'll be disappointed).

This also struck me as being a much more approachable film than either Koreeda film I've seen before (MABOROSI and AFTER LIFE), so even if you have seen his past works and thought they were not your cup of tea, I would definitely still recommend this one.

Run Ronnie Run (2002)

How did this go wrong?

[6/10 · 10 December 2003]

Ok, I'm a Mr. Show junky. I love the show to death; I have done so ever since their first season back in '95. They have taken sketch comedy to such joyous, conceptual heights that you would think anything they were involved in would be classic. When I heard they were making "Run Ronnie Run!", I read a quote from David Cross in Spin magazine. It was maybe February 2000, and David said, "If something like Deuce Bigalow can top the charts, then our movie has to be classic. There's about 5 times as many laughs as that so called comedy." Ok, I'm slightly paraphrasing, but he was snobbish about that comedy and thought his film had so many more jokes.

But, where are they? The jokes. The laughs. The Ronnie Dobbs sketches always seemed like the weakest ones on the show, and it always seemed like Bob and David had an affection for them (even as the audience didn't laugh). The main basis of the show was taken from a sketch from their pilot episode, and it was one of the least funny in the entire duration of the show. They were so unfunny, they actually had to cut an entire scene out, the only time they have ever done so on the show.

So, it didn't work as a sketch, so they made it into a movie. Conceptually, what an awful idea. The idea of "Cops" following anyone around is the most lame brained premise for a comedy, and the only inspired version I have seen of this idea in a DECADE is the Comedy Central gem, "Reno 911". They actually know all the "Cops-Sketch" clichés, and avoid them by making the scenarios absurd, beyond the bounds of its Cops-like premise. "Run Ronnie Run!", on the other hand, runs into every Cops cliché in the book, and the basis of most of the dramatic scenes are weighted back in sketches that were 5 years old when they started filming. It's also a shame as David is actually a very strong dramatic and comedic actor, but he is stuck in an unbelievable accent and an unlikable character, which is never a smart move for a full length feature. You need to sympathize with the main story line, at least a little, for it to work all the way through.

All of that being said, I'd like to say there are some very good jokes here. The biggest laugh in the entire thing is the infomercial Terry Twillstein is partaking in the first time we see him. Another bright spot is seeing Scott Thompson partaking in the secret gay conspiracy everyone knows he is a part of. A scene where a bunch of board members, including Sarah Silverman, Scott Foley, and Andy Richter, decide on the future of the Ronnie Dobbs show is a classic piece. However, the best sequence in the film is Ronnie seducing a Hollywood playgirl, one where the payoff is priceless. These are a few diamonds in the rough, though, as everything that corresponds to the main premise seems entirely disposable.

I could mention many jokes that do not work in the film, but the most inexplicable is the odd "Survivor" parody, which doesn't even seem to have a joke behind it. Since they started filming the movie long before "Survivor" ever aired, one has to suspect that this was a last minute effort to make the film seem more relevant and prescient in our culture. However, since there have been so many "Survivor" parodies already aired on so many shows, it just makes it seem lamer and tired. Also, it timestamps the movie from being from this era and will make it age very quickly.

One more note: Mr. Show fans should at least rent this film, as there is a hilarious video by Three Times One Minus One on it that rivals anything from Mr. Show. It's nice to see that they still have got it, at least in sketch format. And Bob Odenkirk has apparently made a brilliant film on his own (Melvin Goes To Dinner), which suggests they even have a future in movies. It's just unfortunate that it couldn't start here. 4/10

A Ninja Pays Half My Rent (2003)

Could have been better...

[3/10 · 8 December 2003]

Well, I can't deny this one made the audience behind me laugh in the theater, but I only cracked a smile once or twice, and most of the jokes seemed to fall in the "boy this is a ridiculous premise" mode. The actors seem like high school students learning how to say their lines for the first time. Some of the individual jokes were so absurd that thinking about them makes you realize they CAN'T be funny (someone dying because they had a grapefruit sprayed in their eye, a ninja wearing a towel over their robe to come back from the shower), while all of the cliches regarding how SWEET ninjas are and what antics they could develop if they were your roommate bring up mild chuckles at best. That all of the scenes are told in flashback setting makes the story seem even more trivial, although the tone of the short was very well defined. It was smart to allow the main character to have such a disenchanted, bored view of the ninja's household behavior.

Overall, though, this film seems like the product of someone making a film based around a minimum of resources than an inspired idea. Still, it's better than 75% of all short independent comedy films I've ever seen. But it would be advised for the filmmakers to view some more Mr. Show, The State, Upright Citizens Brigade, Kids in the Hall, Monty Python, SCTV, Ben Stiller Show, etc., if they are interested in making more short sketch based comedy films.

Robot Stories (2003)

Four tales of wildly differing qualities, but "The Robot Fixer" is a classic.

[5/10 · 8 December 2003]

The film "Robot Stories" carries many of the same positives and negatives that many films have that are, in effect, a series of thematically similar short films tied together.

"My Robot Baby"

This film was the second least broad concept of the four and is consequently the second most interesting tale. Like a Real Life `The Sims' game, this film offers a scenario in which a couple receives a robot child as test to see if they can care for a real baby.

Of the four, this one is perhaps the most naturally acted and directed. It's a smart choice to have as the first film in the series, because it is impossible to figure out what direction it will end up going in until it finally inches to the end. There are times when it seems like it is a Twilight Zone style alternate universe tale, times when it seems like a charming family drama. While we care for the relationship between the couple, we can't figure out how we should care about Marcia after the beginning scene of her as a child. The robot child starts to act more and more berserk, and the film starts to veer off in a direction like it will become a horror movie.

While the film sometimes seemed like it would go in an obvious direction, let it be said that Pak never takes the easy way out and has a way of controlling just what expectations are made for the viewer. This Story deserves ***/****.

"The Robot Fixer"

Easily the most moving, timeless tale of the four, this story gives the film an early peak. The story is the tale of Bernice Chin and her daughter, Grace, as they visit Bernice's estranged son Wilson, who has been hit by a car and is in a coma. Bernice and Grace stay in Wilson's apartment during their stay to see if Wilson recovers.

Bernice is frustrated by how estranged she has gotten from her son in the many years previous. She attempts to make up for lost time by cleaning everything in his rooms and making them spotless and presentable. When Grace finds a brand of toy robots that Wilson collected as children, Bernice finds a new mission: She will replace all the missing pieces of the toys and make Wilson's collection complete. She believes that if she can repair his treasured toy collection, perhaps Wilson could be revived from the coma.

The direction, acting, and screenwriting give this piece a wonderfully natural, believable feeling. Because of Pak's charming simplicity, the story is beautifully relatable with just about anyone that could watch it. "The Robot Fixer" finds Pak catering completely to his strengths. The movie includes many subtle nuances and builds on its main themes quite knowingly, as when Grace tells her mom of how valuable each of Wilson's organs could be donated to many hopeful organ receivers around the country. It becomes evident how meaningful Bernice's struggle to mend her child with the toy pieces is, and we start to see there is a bigger meaning here than simply Bernice trying to mend her estranged relationship with her son.

"The Robot Fixer" is a timeless tale that moved me to tears. If this section of the film could be separated into its own short, it would certainly be one of the year's very best. On its own, it gets ****/****.

"Machine Love"

After an early peak, the film hits its lowest point with "Machine Love". This film's premise seems to be made on a series of "What if?"'s so long that a viewer either has to be with it or totally against it. For some reason, there is a requirement for computers to type up information they already know for 12 hours a day. Also, robots long to have love only to be like other people in the workplace. This premise didn't have any believability to me, and especially will not appeal to anyone that didn't buy the film A.I. (which much more confidently and thoroughly explored the same thematic issues this film does)

This film isn't particularly amusing or interesting, and the premise is thin even for a half hour short. The whole story seems like it was written by someone with lesser talents and a lot lower filmmaking vision than the previous two films, even if it is admittedly very well acted and directed. The robots actually seem and look like robots, and the little touches of the robot discovering about personal interactions are nuanced. But overall, it gets */****.

"Clay"

The purpose of "Clay" seems to be to transcend the previous three stories into a tale of the finality of life. If you take the aspect of substituting love for humans with love for a robot from "My Robot Baby", combine with it the futuristic innovations of "Machine Love", and the aspect of coping with death through machines with "The Robot Fixer", you could possibly come up with the film "Clay" as an ending point. The premise involves a man who is dying of a terminal illness and his potential future as a "scanned" person in the computerized afterlife. This film has the most inventive premise of the four, but...

Unfortunately, there isn't a single aspect from this film that hasn't already been explored in another film. Any of the visions of technology have been given to us before, most notably in the previous two Tom Cruise Sci-Fi vehicles, Vanilla Sky and Minority Report. They both explore using technology to recreate lives after death. Soderbergh's Solaris goes even a step further, in that it explored the psychological underpinnings of living with a false version of a past love. Anything explored here has been explored much more deeply before.

Basically "Clay" is as uninspired in its view of the material as "The Robot Fixer" was unique and powerful. It gets **

Overall, the film gets **1/2, but "The Robot Fixer" deserves to be seen by anyone interested in independent cinema.

Losers Lounge (2003)

`Losers Lounge' recalls the majesty of golden age Noir films but can't quite get there itself.

[3/10 · 22 November 2003]

I recently sat in during a screening of this picture, and I must say that it wasn't my type of film. While this was clearly a first try film, and a certain amount of raggedness is to be expected, there are a few key problems that made the entire experience underwhelming.

The script should have gone through a few revisions before making it to the screen. The plot centers on the death of a young girl that takes a job serving drinks at Loser's Lounge. This leads to the questioning of a local reporter who is the prime suspect of her murder. However, the death of the girl doesn't happen until probably 50 minutes until the film, which means the first 50 minutes are entirely exposition with no plot arc directing it to anywhere interesting. This all leads into a completely standard murder mystery that is at once completely obvious as well as difficult to follow. Anyone that has seen any of the noir films (`The Maltese Falcon' comes to mind, but there are many others) that this was based on will know long before the end who was responsible for the murder, yet the plot details are so difficult to follow that the clues are incomprehensibly hidden in long dialogue passages. By the time the lead characters figure out the mystery, the viewer will have no idea how they could have possibly figured it out based on the clues they have discovered.

Another big script problem is that ninety percent of the character development comes in the form of long monologues in which characters discuss their entire back story and history before the movie started. Characters admit to many seedy details of their lives, including stories of prostitution and child molestation. Now, many films of this genre have used this technique ("Chinatown" is perhaps the most famous example), but this film seems to have one huge monologue every scene. Each of the main characters has 2 or 3 monologues over the course of the film and just about everyone has one at some point. The acting doesn't help, as none of the actors seem to know what to do with this writing other than just recite it like they are reading it off the page for the first time. By three quarters of the way through the film, the monologues seem completely unnecessary and for this reason alone the film felt endless. At one point, a waitress asks the main character, "So, why'd you move here?" He responds, "It's a long story." This inspired laughter from the audience in the theater simply because everyone knew this was going to lead into another needlessly long monologue and eat a few more minutes of their time.

The direction of the film doesn't help much either. The filmmaking process seems to have not included any storyboarding, as shots violated the line of action and the framing was not based on any standard cinematographic principles. This often leads to a confusing experience, trying to figure out where people were located in a room or what the location of the scene was like. The film is extremely sparse visually, as sets consisted of mostly a couch or a bed in the middle of a completely white room that has a couple of pictures on the walls. There is always so much white space on the screen with no interesting lighting or angles that the visual element feels irritatingly monotone. There is also hardly any movement on screen; characters typically stand or sit in one position and don't move around and the camera is always on a tripod without any motion the vast majority of time.

In terms of period details, it's hardly ever believable that this story is actually happening in the '40s, as there are details that are identifiably modern, such as a modern refrigerator and a NASCAR poster. At one point, one can see a figure that seems suspiciously like a computer screen. The clothing styles are similarly plain and are questionable of what year they are supposed to be representing. The music in the film was quite minimal, as there were a couple pieces that seemed appropriate for the time period, but most of the music consisted of monotonous two chord synthesizer loops and at one point a break-beat based techno song came into the foreground. These components often distract from the movie, and at best simply add to the droning experience of the film.

Technical problems aside, many of the actors seem to have fun during the filmmaking process, and there is a positive first time filmmaking quality that can be felt in the film. However, since none of the actors are professionals, one can't really believe that the characters are truly 1940s prostitutes, private detectives, police officers, etc. Perhaps if they were making a film closer to their frame of reference, like a modern story about family or friendship, a much more interesting indie film could have resulted. Instead, the picture is simply a fallen satellite that can only long to be one of the stars that shined so bright many years ago.

On an end note, anyone that sees this film might as well stick it through to the end, as the final plot developments turn into something quite comically absurd. The audience during the showing couldn't sustain their laughter as the main characters make such bizarre, unrealistic decisions that one can't take them seriously. Also, this film probably sets a record for the longest lists of epilogues ever seen in a movie; each of the characters established over the entire film are given a one line summary of what happened to them in the next several years after the events of Losers Lounge. These ingredients were actually quite a memorable ending for the film, even though perhaps for slightly different reasons than the filmmakers were intending.