Hey, I have a gap between festivals so I can see some mainstream blockbusters.
I...didn't hate this movie. But I wish Tim Burton would write his own stuff. Adaptations of other's works have been spotty--and more so of late (starting I think with PLANET OF THE APES and peaking with CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, although I did love BIG FISH). His original stories (EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, etc.) are much better in my opinion.
Anyway, ALICE IN WONDERLAND has the expected visual flair, a fairly (in fact, probably too) linear story with a beginning, middle, end, good guys and bad guys. And in embracing the "only the best people are crazy" ethos, it's as much or more Tim Burton than Lewis Carroll.
Oh, and there's an uncomfortably tacked-on resolution scene at the very end. It's so unrelated to most everything else that I debate whether describing it would count as a spoiler. Oh, what the hell--Alice ends up opening trade routes to China. Huh?
Anyway, I don't want to spend more time writing about this movie. There are hundreds of reviews you can read anywhere for more information. I'd rather spend my time looking forward to FRANKENWEENIE (written and directed by Tim Burton, based on his old short film) next year.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Jason goes to Bad Movie night and sees RED DAWN
Happy 5th birthday Bad Movie Night! We celebrated last Sunday with the totally plausible jingoistic epic of Soviets invading middle America (I guessed they skipped over Fake America figuring they're already communist) and the rag-tag team of patriot high school football stars who resisted them. The acting was so great, I only hope the upcoming remake (with Chinese invaders) is even half as good. Then it will be 1/1,000,000 of a good movie.
America! Fuck, Yeah!
Jason slips into a Vortex to see THE SAGA OF THE VIKING WOMEN AND THEIR VOYAGE TO THE WATERS OF THE GREAT SEA SERPENT
Ummm...I don't have much to add, the title pretty much says it all. That and a few Vortex martinis (vortinis?) and I was a happy camper last Thursday night.
They also played WHEN WOMEN HAD TAILS, but I slept through that. Apparently it was even worse. Anyway, I'm not counting it as a movie I saw.
Running Time: 71 minutes
My Total Minutes: 179,537
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Jason goes to Asianfest--Day 11
And the final day of SFIAFF 2010, and the final day of Chi-hui Yang being the man in charge. Looking forward to seeing him as a fan next year, and I'm curious who will step in and how the festival will hold up going forward. Anyway, I'm only about a week and a half late with this, so here's the last five movies:
First up, the shorts program Wandering, Wondering. Shorts about loneliness and connections (often with cell phones):
JUST A LITTLE RUN: A couple of children run away in Taipei. If only they knew the bus system better.
ONE DAY: From Korea, a woman follows her husband to a love hotel. Bad man!
LOVERS: Also from Korea, a gay story of a love and disappearance when and old man's much younger lover goes missing.
TALL ENOUGH: A black woman and an Asia-American man form a cute couple in Brooklyn. Yes, she assures here mother on the phone, he's tall enough.
YES, YESTERDAY: Yesterday really meaning "many years ago" in this story of old lovers reunited in New York's Chinatown on the Fourth of July. Fireworks will ensue?
WORKS OF ART: Art is a Korean-American actor. Art has trouble getting work. Art's best friend gives him a gig--playing him on an arranged date.
Next up was a TALENTIME. It was a sweet little teenage comedy/drama from Malaysia. The local school is holding a Talentime (Talent Show) for the students. And there are some talented students (and some goofy teachers, but their drag act is ultimately cancelled). Melur is a English/Malaysian girl with a beautiful voice and who writes her own very short poems. Like all competing students, she is assigned a chauffeur--a fellow student with a motorbike to transport her to and from practice and the final competition. Her chauffeur is Mahesh, who is quite handsome and might be her new boyfriend. Too bad he's so rude--he never speaks or reacts to anything she says. It's almost as if he's deaf. Oh, wait, he is deaf. Meanwhile Hafiz is the main competition, both in the Talentime and for her affections. He's the ultimate good guy, splitting time between the competition (where he's a virtuoso at the guitar) and taking care of his dying mother, while still maintaining high marks at school. And he's even a gentleman in his love of Melur, simply pining for her from afar. I believe he was actually the one who told her Mahesh was deaf. The end result was an ultimately sweet but multi-layered complex story of teenage love, family, and talent.
Then the first of an accidental (maybe?) double feature on identity (they were separate programs, but worked so perfectly together). FOG is a drama from Hong Kong about amnesia. Wai (Terence Yin) is an amnesiac recently released from the hospital and trying to piece together the pieces of his life against the backdrop of the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China. He goes out with friends who tell him stories of himself that he doesn't remember. He gets drunk a lot, he wanders through his old school recognizing nothing. But gradually he picks up pieces of himself. Especially about an old girlfriend, and eventually the huge shock that he has a daughter who doesn't know him (for some unspecified reason they broke up either before she was born or when she was too young to remember). The reunion is more than a little uncomfortable, as his ex is still angry about something he can't remember. But to their daughter, he's cool uncle Wai. It's an interesting day-in-the-life snapshot of a man who literally lives in the present--because he knows nothing about his past or his future.
Then the second movie on identity was an amazing documentary, IN THE MATTER OF CHA JUNG HEE. I missed Deann Borshay Liem's previous documentary, FIRST PERSON PLURAL, although it will play on PBS's POV series paired with this follow-up. Deann is a Korean-American adoptee. A war orphan originally named Cha Jung Hee. Problem is, she was never Cha Jung Hee. Jung Hee was an orphan, and the Borshay's (her adoptive parents) corresponded with the Korean orphanage and arranged to adopt Cha Jung Hee. Problem is, Jung Hee's family had already come to claim her, so the orphanage passed off a different girl (Kang Ok Jin) as Cha Jung Hee and she flew to America, was adopted, and became Deann Borshay. Apparently in FIRST PERSON PLURAL Deann Borshay/Cha Jung Hee/Kang Ok Jin learned this and uncovered her past. 10 years later, this muddled identity is still haunting her, so she goes to Korea to find Cha Jung Hee--the real Cha Jung Hee. Armed with a name, a picture from 1964, and very little else (the name and location of the orphanage), she sets out on her quest. She meets several Cha Jung Hees, including on that might (she decides is) the real one. But she also uncovers more secrets (a third Cha Jung Hee?) as well as a perspective of what her life would've been life if she stayed in Korea (different, but likely not that bad) and some startling statistics on adoption (despite having grown to a modern, technologically advanced nation, South Korea still adopts out many children overseas--a holdover from the postwar period). Excellent film.
And finally, SFIAAFF has a strong tradition of ending the San Jose weekend with a strong, energetic, blockbuster (last year it was THE CHASER, a few years back it was Chan Wook Park's OLDBOY) and this year was no exception with THE MESSAGE. A cool, stylized suspense thriller of China during the Japanese occupation of WWII. There's a puppet Chinese collaborationist government set up by the invading Japanese. But there's also a wave of assassinations from the underground resistance. After torturing a prisoner (there's a lot of rather inventive torture in the movie) they learn how messages are transported through codes, and learn that the messages are coming from within the puppet regime from a source codenamed Phantom. Through a message about a fake meeting, they narrow down the suspects, and then invite them all to a top-secret meeting in an isolated castle, where the fun begins. They're all under suspicion, they're all bugged, and whoever the Phantom is now knows that the fake meeting is really a trap to catch the leader of the resistance, and they must get a message out. Mistrust escalates, everyone fights with everyone else and accusations fly. It's thrilling, but complicated enough that I'd have to see it again to give anything like a coherent plot description.
First up, the shorts program Wandering, Wondering. Shorts about loneliness and connections (often with cell phones):
JUST A LITTLE RUN: A couple of children run away in Taipei. If only they knew the bus system better.
ONE DAY: From Korea, a woman follows her husband to a love hotel. Bad man!
LOVERS: Also from Korea, a gay story of a love and disappearance when and old man's much younger lover goes missing.
TALL ENOUGH: A black woman and an Asia-American man form a cute couple in Brooklyn. Yes, she assures here mother on the phone, he's tall enough.
YES, YESTERDAY: Yesterday really meaning "many years ago" in this story of old lovers reunited in New York's Chinatown on the Fourth of July. Fireworks will ensue?
WORKS OF ART: Art is a Korean-American actor. Art has trouble getting work. Art's best friend gives him a gig--playing him on an arranged date.
Next up was a TALENTIME. It was a sweet little teenage comedy/drama from Malaysia. The local school is holding a Talentime (Talent Show) for the students. And there are some talented students (and some goofy teachers, but their drag act is ultimately cancelled). Melur is a English/Malaysian girl with a beautiful voice and who writes her own very short poems. Like all competing students, she is assigned a chauffeur--a fellow student with a motorbike to transport her to and from practice and the final competition. Her chauffeur is Mahesh, who is quite handsome and might be her new boyfriend. Too bad he's so rude--he never speaks or reacts to anything she says. It's almost as if he's deaf. Oh, wait, he is deaf. Meanwhile Hafiz is the main competition, both in the Talentime and for her affections. He's the ultimate good guy, splitting time between the competition (where he's a virtuoso at the guitar) and taking care of his dying mother, while still maintaining high marks at school. And he's even a gentleman in his love of Melur, simply pining for her from afar. I believe he was actually the one who told her Mahesh was deaf. The end result was an ultimately sweet but multi-layered complex story of teenage love, family, and talent.
Then the first of an accidental (maybe?) double feature on identity (they were separate programs, but worked so perfectly together). FOG is a drama from Hong Kong about amnesia. Wai (Terence Yin) is an amnesiac recently released from the hospital and trying to piece together the pieces of his life against the backdrop of the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China. He goes out with friends who tell him stories of himself that he doesn't remember. He gets drunk a lot, he wanders through his old school recognizing nothing. But gradually he picks up pieces of himself. Especially about an old girlfriend, and eventually the huge shock that he has a daughter who doesn't know him (for some unspecified reason they broke up either before she was born or when she was too young to remember). The reunion is more than a little uncomfortable, as his ex is still angry about something he can't remember. But to their daughter, he's cool uncle Wai. It's an interesting day-in-the-life snapshot of a man who literally lives in the present--because he knows nothing about his past or his future.
Then the second movie on identity was an amazing documentary, IN THE MATTER OF CHA JUNG HEE. I missed Deann Borshay Liem's previous documentary, FIRST PERSON PLURAL, although it will play on PBS's POV series paired with this follow-up. Deann is a Korean-American adoptee. A war orphan originally named Cha Jung Hee. Problem is, she was never Cha Jung Hee. Jung Hee was an orphan, and the Borshay's (her adoptive parents) corresponded with the Korean orphanage and arranged to adopt Cha Jung Hee. Problem is, Jung Hee's family had already come to claim her, so the orphanage passed off a different girl (Kang Ok Jin) as Cha Jung Hee and she flew to America, was adopted, and became Deann Borshay. Apparently in FIRST PERSON PLURAL Deann Borshay/Cha Jung Hee/Kang Ok Jin learned this and uncovered her past. 10 years later, this muddled identity is still haunting her, so she goes to Korea to find Cha Jung Hee--the real Cha Jung Hee. Armed with a name, a picture from 1964, and very little else (the name and location of the orphanage), she sets out on her quest. She meets several Cha Jung Hees, including on that might (she decides is) the real one. But she also uncovers more secrets (a third Cha Jung Hee?) as well as a perspective of what her life would've been life if she stayed in Korea (different, but likely not that bad) and some startling statistics on adoption (despite having grown to a modern, technologically advanced nation, South Korea still adopts out many children overseas--a holdover from the postwar period). Excellent film.
And finally, SFIAAFF has a strong tradition of ending the San Jose weekend with a strong, energetic, blockbuster (last year it was THE CHASER, a few years back it was Chan Wook Park's OLDBOY) and this year was no exception with THE MESSAGE. A cool, stylized suspense thriller of China during the Japanese occupation of WWII. There's a puppet Chinese collaborationist government set up by the invading Japanese. But there's also a wave of assassinations from the underground resistance. After torturing a prisoner (there's a lot of rather inventive torture in the movie) they learn how messages are transported through codes, and learn that the messages are coming from within the puppet regime from a source codenamed Phantom. Through a message about a fake meeting, they narrow down the suspects, and then invite them all to a top-secret meeting in an isolated castle, where the fun begins. They're all under suspicion, they're all bugged, and whoever the Phantom is now knows that the fake meeting is really a trap to catch the leader of the resistance, and they must get a message out. Mistrust escalates, everyone fights with everyone else and accusations fly. It's thrilling, but complicated enough that I'd have to see it again to give anything like a coherent plot description.
And that...finally...is how Asianfest 2010 ended.
Total Running Time: 480 minutes
My Total Minutes: 179,466
Total Running Time: 480 minutes
My Total Minutes: 179,466
Friday, March 26, 2010
Jason goes to Asianfest--Day 10
A full Saturday of movies, I'm only about a week late writing them up, let's go:
First up, a comedy/melodrama from Japan, DEAR DOCTOR. Told in flashbacks, after the cops show up at a small town to investigate a death and a missing doctor. The story comes from the brash young intern who shows up in town and immediately becomes the Doctor Ino's protege. Although the intern has plenty of book learning, the doctor has the pulse of the whole town, knows everyone by name and knows how to take care of them in the way that best suits them. And for that, he is celebrated as a hero, even when he doesn't do much. He "saves" one old man who comes back to life after coughing out a bit of sushi he was choking on--throw a party for the doctor! Cracks start to show in the facade, as it becomes clear he relies on his head nurse (who used to work in an emergency room) more than he probably should. And things really get dicey when he an an old woman agree to keep her illness a secret from her family, even though her daughter is a doctor in the city. The cops' investigation uncovers secrets that raise questions about his place in the community, but ultimately, even when he's gone the village rallies around his memory. (spoiler: He's not really a doctor, he was a medical device salesman who just spent so much time in hospitals he picked up the basics of medicine)
Next up was a documentary about a fairly interesting subject, but it just wasn't executed well. AOKI is about Richard Aoki, a Japanese American activist and famously the Asian guy who was one of the founders of the Black Panthers. He died last year, and the movie is a combination of archival footage with footage from the last 5 years of his life. It's an interesting story, starting with his first time incarcerated as a political prisoner--he was 2 and shipped off to the Japanese-American internment camps during WWII. His youth in West Oakland clearly paved the way for both his gangster temperament and his political activism. And then the movie goes over his Black Panther years (including footage of a recent reunion) and ultimately his time afterward when he became a professor and a mentor to a new generation of activists. So what frustrated me about the movie? First, the editing was badly choppy, to the point that after a question is posed the answer will be cut from multiple interviews, often less than a full sentence from each one. It's jarring. Second, they spent way too long on his Black Panther years, and it was repetitive as hell. Rookie mistake, having a half-dozen interview subjects say the same thing about him. They could have cut out about half and had a fine short documentary. Third (especially if you want to keep it feature length), there wasn't enough on his post-Panther years. I thought his childhood was really the most interesting part--'How do you become a militant activist (as opposed to a peaceful activist)?' Conversely, the question of 'How do you go from a militant activist to a college professor?' is equally interesting, and totally missed. Compared to those two questions, 'What is it like to be a militant activist?' isn't really that interesting. Anyway, fascinating subject, missed opportunity.
So moving along from militant activism to a sex farce with THE PEOPLE I'VE SLEPT WITH. I grudgingly admit this was laugh out loud funny most of the time, despite having plenty of points that I thought were way too cheesy. Angela Yang is proud to admit she's a slut--that is, once she realized that "a slut is just a woman who thinks like a man" (side note: I would like to disagree with that and say men don't think about sex nearly as much as she does, but the creepy ex-con I met on the light rail heading home at the end of the night proved me wrong). She keeps pictures of all her lovers with some note to remember them, a huge stack of what she calls her 'postcards.' Problem, she's pregnant. And so she's off on a series of wacky adventures commiserating with her flamingly gay best friend and tracking down the 4 guys she had unprotected sex with in the possible time window. It's down to either the super-fast Latino guy, the Mr. Hottie who likes getting reamed up the butt with a dildo while he masturbates, the Nice-But-Boring guy (who goes way over the top when he finds out he might be a dad. Another one of the points I thought was just a little off), and the Mystery Man who won't say what he does for a living. Turns out, Mystery Man is the most interesting. His real name is Jefferson, and his secret is that he's a politician. And he might just be the guy she can settle down with and marry. 75% hilarious, 25% cheesy or just tonally inconsistent.
Then I saw a good old psychological (and perhaps supernatural) horror film about shamans and new American immigrants, MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME. Sookhy is the daughter of a powerful Korean shaman, but that is not her path (even though superstition has it that she who has the shaman's gift and doesn't use it will see all her loved ones suffer and die). Instead, she marries a Korean-American and moves to America. There she lives in the suburbs with her husband and domineering mother-in-law. And the neighbors, John and Julie. She becomes a little enamored with Julie--so much so that she takes Julie as her American name. And then the deaths start. And she becomes oddly manipulative and possibly downright evil. Or maybe she's just a very friendly neighbor. It's a very odd movie, with familiar horror tropes but an odd tone I can't quite put my finger on. And the ending is either supernatural or a psychological break with reality.
And finally, I ended the night with a movie about early postwar Taiwan, PRINCE OF TEARS. In the early years after Mao forced Chiang Kai-shek and his followers onto the island, they counted themselves as almost like royalty in paradise. They being Little Zhou and her big sister Li, happily playing and going to school. But there are forbidden parts of the island, especially the coast, where just being there will get you targeted as a communist spy and executed. Just what happens to their kind, caring, and handsome art teacher early on. Life goes on, and although they've seen death now, they still live with their handsome air force pilot father and their beautiful mother. And their parents' best friend, uncle Ding. Ding has a badly scarred face, but is kind and their father reminds them not to judge him based on his looks. See, he was scarred in an act of great heroism. But what invades their fairy tale life is the increasing number of anti-communist purges. The purges eventually even sweep up their father. It seems despite being a decorated officer he also went on an unexplained trip to the mainland many years ago. It's a pretty good story, lushly photographed from a child's perspective where reality and imagination clash.
Total Running Time: 533
My Total Minutes: 178,986
First up, a comedy/melodrama from Japan, DEAR DOCTOR. Told in flashbacks, after the cops show up at a small town to investigate a death and a missing doctor. The story comes from the brash young intern who shows up in town and immediately becomes the Doctor Ino's protege. Although the intern has plenty of book learning, the doctor has the pulse of the whole town, knows everyone by name and knows how to take care of them in the way that best suits them. And for that, he is celebrated as a hero, even when he doesn't do much. He "saves" one old man who comes back to life after coughing out a bit of sushi he was choking on--throw a party for the doctor! Cracks start to show in the facade, as it becomes clear he relies on his head nurse (who used to work in an emergency room) more than he probably should. And things really get dicey when he an an old woman agree to keep her illness a secret from her family, even though her daughter is a doctor in the city. The cops' investigation uncovers secrets that raise questions about his place in the community, but ultimately, even when he's gone the village rallies around his memory. (spoiler: He's not really a doctor, he was a medical device salesman who just spent so much time in hospitals he picked up the basics of medicine)
Next up was a documentary about a fairly interesting subject, but it just wasn't executed well. AOKI is about Richard Aoki, a Japanese American activist and famously the Asian guy who was one of the founders of the Black Panthers. He died last year, and the movie is a combination of archival footage with footage from the last 5 years of his life. It's an interesting story, starting with his first time incarcerated as a political prisoner--he was 2 and shipped off to the Japanese-American internment camps during WWII. His youth in West Oakland clearly paved the way for both his gangster temperament and his political activism. And then the movie goes over his Black Panther years (including footage of a recent reunion) and ultimately his time afterward when he became a professor and a mentor to a new generation of activists. So what frustrated me about the movie? First, the editing was badly choppy, to the point that after a question is posed the answer will be cut from multiple interviews, often less than a full sentence from each one. It's jarring. Second, they spent way too long on his Black Panther years, and it was repetitive as hell. Rookie mistake, having a half-dozen interview subjects say the same thing about him. They could have cut out about half and had a fine short documentary. Third (especially if you want to keep it feature length), there wasn't enough on his post-Panther years. I thought his childhood was really the most interesting part--'How do you become a militant activist (as opposed to a peaceful activist)?' Conversely, the question of 'How do you go from a militant activist to a college professor?' is equally interesting, and totally missed. Compared to those two questions, 'What is it like to be a militant activist?' isn't really that interesting. Anyway, fascinating subject, missed opportunity.
So moving along from militant activism to a sex farce with THE PEOPLE I'VE SLEPT WITH. I grudgingly admit this was laugh out loud funny most of the time, despite having plenty of points that I thought were way too cheesy. Angela Yang is proud to admit she's a slut--that is, once she realized that "a slut is just a woman who thinks like a man" (side note: I would like to disagree with that and say men don't think about sex nearly as much as she does, but the creepy ex-con I met on the light rail heading home at the end of the night proved me wrong). She keeps pictures of all her lovers with some note to remember them, a huge stack of what she calls her 'postcards.' Problem, she's pregnant. And so she's off on a series of wacky adventures commiserating with her flamingly gay best friend and tracking down the 4 guys she had unprotected sex with in the possible time window. It's down to either the super-fast Latino guy, the Mr. Hottie who likes getting reamed up the butt with a dildo while he masturbates, the Nice-But-Boring guy (who goes way over the top when he finds out he might be a dad. Another one of the points I thought was just a little off), and the Mystery Man who won't say what he does for a living. Turns out, Mystery Man is the most interesting. His real name is Jefferson, and his secret is that he's a politician. And he might just be the guy she can settle down with and marry. 75% hilarious, 25% cheesy or just tonally inconsistent.
Then I saw a good old psychological (and perhaps supernatural) horror film about shamans and new American immigrants, MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME. Sookhy is the daughter of a powerful Korean shaman, but that is not her path (even though superstition has it that she who has the shaman's gift and doesn't use it will see all her loved ones suffer and die). Instead, she marries a Korean-American and moves to America. There she lives in the suburbs with her husband and domineering mother-in-law. And the neighbors, John and Julie. She becomes a little enamored with Julie--so much so that she takes Julie as her American name. And then the deaths start. And she becomes oddly manipulative and possibly downright evil. Or maybe she's just a very friendly neighbor. It's a very odd movie, with familiar horror tropes but an odd tone I can't quite put my finger on. And the ending is either supernatural or a psychological break with reality.
And finally, I ended the night with a movie about early postwar Taiwan, PRINCE OF TEARS. In the early years after Mao forced Chiang Kai-shek and his followers onto the island, they counted themselves as almost like royalty in paradise. They being Little Zhou and her big sister Li, happily playing and going to school. But there are forbidden parts of the island, especially the coast, where just being there will get you targeted as a communist spy and executed. Just what happens to their kind, caring, and handsome art teacher early on. Life goes on, and although they've seen death now, they still live with their handsome air force pilot father and their beautiful mother. And their parents' best friend, uncle Ding. Ding has a badly scarred face, but is kind and their father reminds them not to judge him based on his looks. See, he was scarred in an act of great heroism. But what invades their fairy tale life is the increasing number of anti-communist purges. The purges eventually even sweep up their father. It seems despite being a decorated officer he also went on an unexplained trip to the mainland many years ago. It's a pretty good story, lushly photographed from a child's perspective where reality and imagination clash.
Total Running Time: 533
My Total Minutes: 178,986
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Jason goes to Asianfest--Day 9
Although SFIAAFF had its closing night party on Thursday, there were really three more days left down in San Jose (where I often see the best films of the festival, just because I plan my SJ weekend before I figure out what I'll see in SF)
Opening night was the quirky romantic comedy/gangster flick/adventure AU REVOIR TAPEI. Kai is lovestruck, but his girlfriend is studying in France. So he spends his nights at a bookstore, reading a french textbook. There he catches the eye of sweet and helpful Susie, the bookstore clerk. There's also a gang of real estate agents/small time thugs, a mob boss who agrees to buy Kai a ticket to Paris if he just picks up one little package, a guy who's in love with the girl he works with at a convenience store, a cuckolded cop, and public dancing. And then it gets weird. And it was a lot of fun.
So was the after party, where there was plenty of free booze. Yay, booze!
Running Time: 80 minutes
My Total Minutes: 178,543
Opening night was the quirky romantic comedy/gangster flick/adventure AU REVOIR TAPEI. Kai is lovestruck, but his girlfriend is studying in France. So he spends his nights at a bookstore, reading a french textbook. There he catches the eye of sweet and helpful Susie, the bookstore clerk. There's also a gang of real estate agents/small time thugs, a mob boss who agrees to buy Kai a ticket to Paris if he just picks up one little package, a guy who's in love with the girl he works with at a convenience store, a cuckolded cop, and public dancing. And then it gets weird. And it was a lot of fun.
So was the after party, where there was plenty of free booze. Yay, booze!
Running Time: 80 minutes
My Total Minutes: 178,543
Monday, March 22, 2010
Jason slips into the Vortex for some CANDY
So last Thursday, rather than head to the SFIAAFF SF Closing Night Party, I went to my favorite underground movie hangout and caught a truly bizarre and beautiful flick, CANDY.
I got there just a few minutes late, apparently I missed the outer space opening (anyone who has seen it, confirm?) Anyway, when I walked in Candy Christian (Ewa Aulin) was listening to Welsh poet MacPhisto (Richard Burton!), whom she then takes home, where he tries to rape her. Then their Mexican gardener Emmanuel (Ringo Starr! I can't make this shit up) tries to rape her, even though "Emmanuel is a good boy!" (truly, he's a credit to the Mexican race). Then her stodgy father and wild uncle (John Astin, in a dual role) barge in and rescue her. They escape on a near-perpetually airborne U.S. military troop transport under the command of Gen. R.A. Smight (Walter Matthau), who also tries to rape her. And then it gets weird. Marlon Brando shows up as some guru, I think he tries to rape her, too (by this point I was pretty drunk), and James Coburn plays a famous hotshot brain surgeon who operates on her father (oh yeah, he sustained a head injury back during the scuffle with Emmanuel) and then tries to bed her on her father's recovery bed. The only thing crazier than the plot is that they somehow got this cast. Wow.
Running Time: 115 minutes (and although I missed the beginning, I decided I deserve every last one of those minutes)
My Total Minutes: 178,373
I got there just a few minutes late, apparently I missed the outer space opening (anyone who has seen it, confirm?) Anyway, when I walked in Candy Christian (Ewa Aulin) was listening to Welsh poet MacPhisto (Richard Burton!), whom she then takes home, where he tries to rape her. Then their Mexican gardener Emmanuel (Ringo Starr! I can't make this shit up) tries to rape her, even though "Emmanuel is a good boy!" (truly, he's a credit to the Mexican race). Then her stodgy father and wild uncle (John Astin, in a dual role) barge in and rescue her. They escape on a near-perpetually airborne U.S. military troop transport under the command of Gen. R.A. Smight (Walter Matthau), who also tries to rape her. And then it gets weird. Marlon Brando shows up as some guru, I think he tries to rape her, too (by this point I was pretty drunk), and James Coburn plays a famous hotshot brain surgeon who operates on her father (oh yeah, he sustained a head injury back during the scuffle with Emmanuel) and then tries to bed her on her father's recovery bed. The only thing crazier than the plot is that they somehow got this cast. Wow.
Running Time: 115 minutes (and although I missed the beginning, I decided I deserve every last one of those minutes)
My Total Minutes: 178,373
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