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The Big Lebowski (1998)
Modern Cowboys fight the Zeitgeist: Nihilism
This film expands from the good old western framework, a bounty hunting triad, into a modern story, and thus plunge us headlong into the modern spirit: nihilism. The triad are literary nihilists fighters, since the climax lies in when they fight three nihilists which results in Donny dying from heart attack.
It starts with a tumbleweed blown from countryside to city, and ends by the sea, along with a man with western accent unfolding the story with a third-person perspective, who later appears as a random western guy having casual conversation with the protagonist, Dude, at the bowling bar. It is worth pointing out that the tumbleweed is a metaphor for the tertiary character, Donny, whose fate is also revealed by the deuteragonist Walter's catch phrase: "shut the f* up, Donny" throughout the film. Actually, the tumbleweed metaphor can be applied to all of the characters, if interpreted broadly. The "bounty hunting" is a group of missions centered around bringing the lost wife of a billionaire home, which turns out to be a sham, because the wife is never lost. But the McGuffin, a suitcase with the ransom keeps the story going, and keeps evoking tricky problems for the triad to meet quirky people. Here it is interesting to note that the suitcase is a Hitchcockian McGuffin in that it is never even opened and no one in the end knows where it ends up to be. All the people they encounters along the way are explicit or implicit nihilists: bowling mates who don't care about the rules, a billionaire who doesn't find purpose in his philanthropy, his daughter who creates post-modern destructive erotic art and sleeps with Dude just to reproduce, three pornographer-scammers who cuts one's girlfriend's pinky toe, a porno giant who creates stories for people to jerk off over, and of course the missing wife, Bunny, who runs away from home, marries a rich old man and squanders her youth with money, sex, and other stimuli. Even when they were retrieving Donny's ash from the funeral parlor, the Bible words on the wall, which extracts only a biased part from a chapter, reads: "as for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone", is deeply nihilistic.
Our triad, on the contrary, are defenders of the untimely order. Walter is a learned Vietnam survivor who has no short of moral and emotional flaws, but in his defense, he never directly hurt anyone. His edginess is a counterattack to the lost sense of order at every turn: a bowling teammate who is slipshod about the rule, Donny when he cuts in a conversation and digress, and the most important motif, the Vietnam war, which is his biggest trauma where he takes out that no one is following any rules anymore. Apart from threatening to shoot the careless bowling mate, another of his orderly revelation is his strict obedience to the Sabbath, and surly, his random obligation of taking care of his ex-wife's dog.
Dude, on the other hand, is a hero figure, although the narrator hesitates to call him that from the outset. He is the only one who sticks to saving Bunny, a girl whom he barely knows, except indirectly ruining his beloved rug, which really ties the room together. Mr. Lebowski's love for Bunny is ambiguous. His histrionic expression of love is suspicious enough, coupled with the fact that he sends a "bum", in his idea, to retrieve the person whom he supposedly loves more than anything else in the world. When he gives bunny's toe to Dude, instead of caring about her safety, he expressed more about the concern of the money. At the end of the day, Dude is the only person who cares about Bunny in this event, whilst everybody else is calculating their own interests.
There are also a lot of bonuses/punchlines hidden throughout the film. The 3 Germans' album is a salute to Kraftwerk's Autobahn, and the band's name in the film is "Nagelbett", which is "nail bed" in German. When Dude slips up again with the pronouns-we instead of I-he repairs it with "the royal we". After the "Chinaman" peed on Dude's rug, he wore a T-shirt with Chinese to see Mr. Lebowski. When the narrator, the Cowboy guy, shows up and talks to the Dude at the bar, he says a proverb which Dude asks if it is something Eastern, and he replies, far from it, which implies the film's western prototype.
There's much more to talk about, but I need to stop here, because I have so many more Coen Brothers' films yet to watch.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
An Existential quest into the Jungle in a Destructive World
The Vietnam War profoundly manifests the century's most conspicuous dilemma between our quest of purpose and the unaccountable nihilism the world enforces on us. This modern crusade is by nature an ideological massacre when, at the end, the practical goal of winning steers everyone away from their big ideas, if there are any solid ones from the outset. Everybody in the film is looking for an answer: to be or not to be, that is a question. Should we live or die when everything deteriorates into chaos? Those that live have to face the horrifying question, and inexorably, they need to act whatsoever. The captain chooses to kill, the colonel chooses to assemble a cult group and kill, and Kurt's followers choose to idolize someone who gives the faith back to them, whatever that is, and whoever he is. Everybody is to be sacrificed, no matter what actions they choose, hence the camouflage. At the end, the colonel chooses to die, and he dies like a cow on the altar. So is everyone in the war, cows on the altar. "This is the end", the Door sang.
Premium Rush (2012)
One of the Best Films I've Watched in a While
The film has an extremely short time span but is, at the same time, extremely well written and sophisticated. It touches on multiple social issues that are both of historical and topical relevance. It is wrapped up in a classical form of play, where all the events presented on the stage are in the climax of a rather long storyline, based on which the audience deduct the background and previous narratives. This film is more audience friendly in that it actually unfolds pretty much every detail needed to understand the plots. Instead of a chronicle orchestration, the film unravels in an aleatory fashion, going back and forth, driving head of our mind a little bit, and then drawing backwards to provide its solid cause. It masks itself with a reckless-adolescence-action formula, but actually throwing out multiple threads and patiently wove them into an all-encompassing piece of fabric which is also logically hermetic. I recommend it.
Hannibal (2013)
A Failed Attempt to Show off
I came with a high expectation but quickly realized that it's nothing but a sensational spectacular. A cannibal dressed up like a prince and eating human lungs with Chopin on the background. A frenzied agent coupled with a dad figure tracing murderers' mindsets like they are all Homers and Sophocles. The crimes are so extreme that it came to a point that I can't watch it anymore or I'd throw up. They decorated the crimes and criminals so well that it seems they are glorifying them. And all of the crimes have zero logic, with only emotional appeals that grows solely out of excessively romantic book nerds who have done too much literary analysis, and who never kills people but only listens to dark songs by the Doors, which is of course implied in one of the episodes. Not gonna continue with it, I'm done with the gratuitous bloodshed.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
It's all about style
The film tries to merge the life trajectories of Mikael and Lisbeth in order to solve a crime in the Vagour family. This premise is already problematic. In a film less than 3 hours, it's impossible to unfold a sophisticated crime and at the same time develop 2 protagonists. As a consequence, we are not given enough information to emphasize either Mikael or Lisbeth, and the crime-solving process is sloppy. And the connection between Mikael and Lisbeth seems to be only sexual. Custodial rape is a recurring theme, but given the ambition of the huge amount of contents designed for the film, it is not delineated sufficiently. As a compensation, the characters are styled dramatically to reveal their idiosyncrasies, or stereotypes, if you will. Lisbeth is this gothic, bisexual problem-kid, and Mikael an integrate journalist who's probably having his middle-age crisis - those are all plainly displayed to us by their apparel and manneristic styles. This is an inferior way to depict characters, because you'll end up distracting the audience with too much trifles. The solution of the crime also doesn't hold much water. To summarize, I wouldn't recommend it.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
an epic fall
I don't know if it was because I watched it while having the worst covid fever but I was intrigued all along those 3 hours and hoped it didn't stop when it finished. The film is not comfortable to watch at first because there are many branches coming out of the main storyline. Besides, it is slower than what we are used to. Those were the reasons I didn't finish it during the first 2 tries. But this time I was totally attracted. The first half is a story of a man accumulating his pride with wins. That pride, also known as hubris, is a long-lasting motif that forecasts a person's fall. And Barry fell during the second half, slowly and destined, from a pedestal that he himself created. If he becomes totally demonic, that fate could have been avoided. But he is neither innocent nor evil. So he fell.
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)
It can be better
I think it can be better. The story is meant to be unfolded with 3 protagonists, but actually only two are the actual heroes (antiheroes). I don't really see the correspondence between the Bad and the other two, which made it quite confusing when I was expecting three persons' story intertwined. The Bad is quite static and two dimensional. Tuco is a successful character though. I see his personality fully elaborated and almost all of his behaviors are explained with his history. The best part is when he met his priest brother and said something like "from where we were born, the only ways to survive are either to be a priest or a bandit." It is like a response to Stendhal's The Red and The black where the situation is either to be a priest or an aristocrat. The time sets in civil war America, where aristocracy life is out of the picture. That plot alone evolved Tuco from a dumb gangster to a complex and somewhat lovely character who we can sympathize. While the Good, although better depicted than the Bad, is not very successful neither. The storyteller apparently wanted to make his line a crucial thread, but we still don't know why he is the good one. He is not any better than Tuco, because they all kill people for a living. Sometimes he cares for others but that's not enough to turn our perspective on him from bad to good. Yup, he is attractive, but still - not enough. None of his history is told, so we don't have any evidence to understand his conducts as a whole. It's a pretty nice western though, but I do think there can be more. It can be so much better.
The Sandman (2022)
Lacks logic
I quit at episode 5, which is about John revealing people's honesty in a cafe. This part is the most confusing and I can't keep up with it. Until the part I quit, no plot is designed to unfold why John killed people with his Ruby before he was held captive, which should be important because that is repeated in the previous episode multiple times. Yep, he might have done the same as in episode 5, but the altered ruby's power is to make dreams come true. That means it makes a certain dream come true, which might be subject to his newest one. So still, we need more elaboration on his previous conduct to understand that ruby's working process. Rosemary's behavior is also confusing. She is already petrified before seeing the ruby kill the gas station guy, but she suddenly becomes calm after it and even waits outside the warehouse to see if she can take John a ride. That totally doesn't make sense. And then we come to the cafe plot, and I get more distracted. The killing and chopping parts are obviously made for manga and don't look good at all on TV. I don't mind if it goes extreme, but the tension is not built enough for that level of extreme. One second people are making out and everything, and the next they are chopping their own hands off. Then I stopped watching so I have nothing more to say about this episode. The previous ones are alright, not too bad but can be done better for world-building. Right now I don't really get how this pantheist world functions, and the hierarchy of all these Gods. Overall speaking, I hope they can improve the logic part. I love how the writer draws inspiration from literature canons, though.
The Hunger Games (2012)
A future gladiators' story
The world is in a future setting, where there's a new way of going back to Rome: although the technology has reached an unprecedented height, the dictatorial government is no difference from the Roman empire when the kings and the citizens (only a short portion from the city of Rome) watched the slaves fight to death in the Colosseum just for fun. The citizens in the capitol are the modern Romans, they dress up flamboyantly because they do not need to work and are bored, desperately seeking for entertainment. This movie is rather based on true history than on fiction. The survival story itself is not that thrilling though, with the protagonist being the center of everything from the beginning. I was quite interested in the 11 district rebellion part, when the world outside responds to what happens inside, but that is not very nice processed: the judge crew announces that 2 from the same district can survive together to calm the rebels down and notes that is the only announcement, but at the end they announced that the new rule is withdrawn. This would anger the people from the 11 district, so it's not logical. In summary, I love the whole setting but some details can be made better.
Heojil kyolshim (2022)
The story doesn't make sense
After finishing it with full attention (since Park Chan-wook and Tang Wei are both among my favorites in cinema), I felt very disappointing, and even a little bit offended because it seems they didn't put enough effort into their work. There are two main suspects in separate cases - Hong Shan Wu (I can't find how to spell his name in English, this is his Chinese spelling) and Seo-rae, which is juxtaposed all the way to the middle part, but, there's no strong link between them. It appears that Hong's story is meant to let Seo-rae reveal her message of "people might fall in love with married ones", but the similarity is too superficial. What's more, I don't see the reason why Seo-rae falls in love with the detective, and is desperate enough to do all the crazy things for him - marries a man whom she doesn't care about, kills the mom of her husband's creditor just to let the creditor kills her husband (this is also weird conduct given the woman is already dying), and finally commits suicide for him. All they did before were some basic conversations and eye contact. Am I missing something or isn't this too fake? Remember, this woman is a badass who kills her mom and her first husband without a blink. Then we can come to the killing part, which is even more confusing. In her first case, she kills a man so meticulously, with the mountain climbing close to the human limit, but she lets a phone app track her climbing data; in her second case, which technically is not her crime, she washes her second husband's body after he was killed by the creditor, without a proper explanation, that's completely unnecessary; in the case that she poisons her mom, it makes more sense compared to the other two, but why would she bring the pill all the way to Korea? That's her crime evidence, and she chooses to keep it while immigrating illegally to another country. Actually, there might be a justification for Seo-rae's behaviors - she does all the things out of either love or desperation, but the plots are too weak to lead us to believe it. On the contrary, the story puts enough effort into demonstrating her cold blood and convinces us that she is a skilled killer (her smile and "straight sitting" in interrogation are all pointed out by the officers). At last, there are too many unnecessary characters, like the detective's wife, her potential affair with her colleague, the detective's assistant, and his brother/co-worker... the story put enough emphasis on them to let us expect something more, but actually, there's close to none. Above are just some major defects, beyond which there are loads of details that don't make sense. This is an unsuccessful film, and I don't recommend it if you expect anything as good as Park Chan-wook's other works.
Se, jie (2007)
She couldn't come down the stage
After watching this film, I went back home and went to sleep. But that story lingered in my head for the whole night, that I couldn't stop dreaming about it. The one cut that impressed me the most was that Wang Jiazhi walking on the theatre stage while all her comrades calling her to come up, but she kept wandering. She is not a spy, she is Mai Tai Tai, that is a remark made by her boss, which best summarizes the whole story. She is an actor who gets so devoted that she lives into the character, and become her. Or so to say, she was already the character at the first place, and this role was an opportunity for her to be her real self. All the other comrades are intelligence agents, but Wang is an actor all way long. Other people might love theatre, but they use it as ways to show their patriotism or taste (like when the other girl said she could recite every line of a character from Ibsen's play). Wang loves theatre to her bone, that she come to this commission just to act. I believe if Wang were given another role to play, she would also burn herself. A mediocre actor can be a good intelligence agent, but a real good actor can never do that job.
Amadeus (1984)
A revenge to God from a great man
After watching this film, a respect for Salieri lingered in my head. He was never a mediocrity, like he stated at the end, but rather he was also a genius at his time. He was a complex and deep person with a profound love for his religion, music and life. Compared to him, Mozart is, although genius in music, a less interesting character. Salieri's conduct was not a result from jealousy, because if so, there are also other people better than him in many other ways who he never felt anything about. He was born from an inferior class and fought his way through his position, so there must have been many more who were better than him but he never cared. He was driven by his vengeance to God, because he thought God denied him as his kid, abandoned him, and teased him. He was religiously in love with music, but God gave the talent to another person who got what he wanted from almost everything - the court he served now loved Mozart, his beloved girl gave herself to Mozart, the position he wanted was referred to Mozart...He wanted to revenge to God for being such a jerk to him (pardon my language), that was why he decided to humiliated Stanze the night he threw God's statue into fire. But he was, at the same time, so in love with music, that he couldn't concentrate on his revenge. He couldn't help but got into ecstasy every time he listened to Mozart's music. He couldn't resist his compliment to Mozart whenever the latter came to him for opinion. At last, he even wanted to help Mozart to finish his last piece of work. He served at him like an assistant, he got so excited when he understood what Mozart wanted to express through every phrase. He totally forgot everything when he was in the world of music. He was actually the one who understood Mozart the most at their time, which made him at least one of the greatest music critics. Mozart in this film was also fighting with a feeling, which was his intimidation and obedience to his father. He, compared to Salieri, never got to choose what he wanted to do for his life. Although he was lucky that his father chose him the way he could fulfill his talent, but that was out of his obedience to another person. Thus he was always living under a dark cloud, which drove him into excessive drinking and partying, for that was an easy way to forget about that cloud. Besides music, I also feel Salieri great as shown in his taste of food. He understood beauty in life, and chew every bite of his food divinely. He knew how to taste life. Mozart was like a kid who didn't really know the world around him, he drank without knowing the taste, and playing without understanding the fun. Don't get me wrong, I never disliked Mozart. To the contrary, I am a big fan of his music, and I do think he saw the world's beauty in an equally rewarding way. But I find both the two characters fascinating, and I can't help liking Salieri more in this film.
Sherlock: The Final Problem (2017)
My personal favorite episode so far
This episode is beyond a detective story and evolved into a complex narrative about humanity and society. Eurus is not only a maniac sister but also an analogy and exaggeration of David Hume's philosophy, in which he believed that human beings are not that intelligent as they believe, but some creatures who rely heavily on instincts, emotions and experience. When Sherlock cracked the puzzle and found the real gunman, Eurus killed the other innocent men instead, saying something like, good man is not that good and bad man is not that bad, they are just animals who want to survive. Then she killed the guilty person and said something like, I feel no different in killing innocent man from evil ones. She practices skepticism to an extreme that morality seems no more than a narrative created by human to justify their false superiority. Besides that, there is also a moral paradox that worth discussing - is it justified to sacrifice someone in order to save someone else? In Eurus's case, that is Mycroft captivating her for the safety of other citizens. And in the little girl's case (who is a metaphor of Eurus's condition), Mycroft also insisted to crash the plane in order to save the people in the city. Representing the government, Mycroft implies how it makes decisions, which is to choose whom to compromise. And in the end, Eurus tells us why she acts so abnormally - she couldn't communicate with the world with the common language because she has always been left alone when she was a kid, so she developed through time a very personal method to ask for her needs, in this way she wouldn't face many rejections because most people wouldn't even recognize her language. That language is formed with puzzles, and huring others is merely a part of those puzzles and she couldn't feel the hurt because her lack of sympathy, which is a result from her being isolated from other people. So Eurus is trapped in a circle and couldn't get out. Overall, I thought a lot after watching this episode, and I consider it more of an independent film than a part of a TV show.
Fong juk (2006)
I don't feel the story is coherent
The beginning is epic - 3 close friends point guns at each other for different purposes and then get tired from fighting so they sit down and enjoy a dinner like in old days. The shooting and editing are at the top standard. But I didn't really understand why they have to do contract killing at that moment, since it is obvious that Blaze should finish killing Wo quickly or at least appear to do so or he would be seriously punished by Fay (or in a worse case, where Fay dispatch someone else to finish the job, and Wo would be in an even more dangerous situation). And that contract assassination part is also confusing since there are suddenly so many parties involved at the scene but their conflicts were not provided at all. I enjoyed the acting, editing as well as sound effects, but the story could have been better told.
Highway to Hellas (2015)
The second half flopped
I enjoyed it when I started it. I was randomly typing capitals on my TV streamer and jumped on this just out of instinct. It started with a funny plot and I laughed out loud several times spontaneously. The donkey scene was hilarious, adding to the extraordinary island ambiance - a feast for the eyes. But suddenly it flopped, when the German guy was electrified and lost his finger. That was unnecessary, given that the picture was meant to be funny and light. I believe it can be a lot better if the script is more elaborated. The settings and concepts have the potential to be a good film - a Jeffersonian ideal of human nature relation, the cultural contrast between German and Latin regions, etc. I would love to watch more Greek films after this one.
Benedetta (2021)
Fantastic adaptation of Benedetta's story
This film completed Benedetta's mystical story. Set in the pandemic period of Italy, this story explained why Benedetta kept seeing visions - those are signs from Jesus to save the people from the disease. But there were also tests from the Christ, which was Benedetta's intercourse with Sister Bartolomea. At a time of counter-reformation, Catholic churches were undergoing a series of changes to adapt itself to secular life and abandon its hypocrisy from the past. That made Benedetta's sexuality a test from God. Her sexual preference and conduct were not sins, but hypocrisy were. Just like Jesus, Benedetta was also betrayed and mistreated to save the people from their sins. Benedetta was not only the wife of Jesus, but also a female representation of Jesus. I fully enjoyed the time of watching this movie. Highly recommend it if you are interested in history or Catholicism.
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Cried several times through the film
Scarlett is such a complex, smart and independent woman. She is both interesting and strong. I love how a film like this is long enough to make every person vivid and full of personalities.
Contact (1997)
the best sci-fi film i've ever watched
The best science fiction film is about philosophy/religion, and this one just brought it to a whole new level. It looks like a combat between science and religion, but eventually we understood that those are the same - what we believe is the truth. The science lady went all the way from earth to vega, only to know that there is a religious afterlife. Science and fiction are all human creations, just different paths to explain everything we see, feel, and believe in. This film makes me think a lot. I have to say this is the best film i have ever watched for years.
Annihilation (2018)
Good concept but i don't enjoy watching it
I love how they play with destruction and creation - the aliens are creating but we think they are annihilating. We are destroying ourselves, but we think we are creating something new. The women crew is a good idea, finally there are some women out there saving men. But the story can be told in a better way - if this is a story on philosophy, then I have to know what exactly happened between the couple so that I can understand the deep meanings better. The protagonist just cheated on her husband but that is not something that would teach us how their relationship is and how that is contributing to the whole alien story.
12 Monkeys (1995)
Exceptional concept, but the film doesn't make sense
The concept of a new virus makes people reside underground is supposed to make the story far more interesting than it is now. Too many flashy elements are squeezed into this 2 hour film, many of which are not necessary. The flow is wrong too. The ending doesn't make sense - if the couple already know the time travel thing is true, why would they choose to visit the sea instead of finding the original virus? And I don't get why they send a mentally sick person to complete the mission. Many characters and scenes are abundant, the hotel fight, the film theater...And finally, if you can't change the future, why would the scientists send James to the past over and over again, knowing he wouldn't trace the virus? This film drives me crazy.
Moon (2009)
The No.1 Clean Energy Provider
The sense of emptiness is astounding. Right now, I'm dealing with this extreme lockdown condition in Shanghai, and I completely feel the hollowness inside Sam. When the world looks well-functioning, but there's this one person suffering from being deserted, being exploited, being mistreated, and you happen to be that one person, that experience is very hard to describe, yet I felt it in this film. Looking back into my own life experience, there is a country claiming to be one of the most powerful places who cares about its people the most, but there are victims to cover them for this lie. When I hear the ads in the film proudly announcing the company's achievement of being the most clean, I related too much that I wanted to cry. A system needs sacrifice. We don't feel it that much unless the narrator is us.
Xia nü (1971)
This is the best martial arts film I've ever watched. And I'm Chinese.
I'm impressed even by the action scenes, which is often the lame part in contemporary martial arts films, because we all know that the good people will win. This film told us that good people are can also get hurt, even a buddhism master. What is important is how we deal with the hurt. By going away with a knife in his body, the master is teaching us to forgive and let go. And I feel the director meant to let us speculate that Gu Shengzhai is a descendant of Gu Xiancheng, the founding father of Donglin School, which Yang's father belonged to and got killed for. That explains why Yang wants to give a child to Gu, and also why Gu never tries to be a government official even though he is very talented and can easily achieve it by competing in the yearly examination. He only wants to read and teach, which is what Donglin school did when they couldn't beat them in the emperor's court. Yang and Gu belong to the same school of thought, even it seems like they only know each other because they are neighbors. I want to mention again the action scenes - I love that they fight with different weapons, or whatever they have on hand, and often pulse midway for several seconds to show they are tired by the intensive fight. Their imperfect victory humanized the heroes.
Certain Women (2016)
Loose but natural
The reason I enjoyed is that it doesn't try to attract people with plot twists. It doesn't explain everything which leaves the audiences to think freely. It reminded me of a theory that my piano teacher once taught me about, the negative space -- which means the absence of music sometimes makes a piece stronger. And I love how they portrayed absurdity and awkwardness just like in real life, and that made me feel more immersed.
Ai no mukidashi (2008)
First 1 hour is genius. Then the story goes weird.
I don't mean weird is not good. I love how the firm started weirdly. But later it just becomes so predictable, and the story stopped its smart mockery of religion, starts to look like an ordinary story with some religious symbols. Might be that it starts so good that it lifts the audiences' expectations. And I love how they use Ravel's music as repeating soundtracks, it's so funny.
Kiraware Matsuko no isshô (2006)
The visual is so good
So much imagination and the visual effect were so good but not stealing the attraction. It was very well made. Exactly smooth with the storyline. I love that how they made this movie with all these tacky songs/visual elements, etc, but when added together, they match so well and look surreal.