Day 75: Hausu / House (1977)

When this title was announced as part of Criterion's fall lineup, I was intrigued. I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up, and my interest was piqued. Coincidentally, my local indie-film house was screening the film, and I managed to even score two free tickets through Twitter. So I got to see the film before the Criterion release, though the print I saw was not in the best of shape, and I'm hoping for a better quality one on the Criterion version.

I'm at a loss of words on how to properly describe this film. One of the headlines at the local theatre at which I saw it read simply "WTF," and this encapsulates my feeling exactly. The film follows the horror film narrative style, but is hardly scary. It is more of a comedy, but even it doesn't fall into that category easily.

The basic premise is that a group of girls visit one of the girl's Aunt over a break from school. Upon arriving at the house, weird things start to happen, and the girls start disappearing one by one. It turns out that the Aunt is dead and that the house is haunted. This plot synopsis, while accurate, does not even begin to explain the film. Each scene is filled with absurdities, randomness, and humour. The film defies comparison, and needs to be seen to understand. I can say, rather affirmatively, that you have not seen a film like this before, and it's one you should check out.

Day 74: Che: Part Two (2008)

The second film (The Guerrilla) was a lot slower. This film covers Che's role in the attempt Bolivian revolution - that would eventually lead to his death. The film examined more the physiological effects on Che and the other revolutionaries in trying to lead a less popularly-supported revolution, and the pains of waiting. This film, however, in my opinion, better demonstrates the guerrilla warfare that Che and his men practiced. The film, also, barely touched on America's and the CIA's involvement in Che's death. The film was good, but just not as good as the first.

Day 73: Che: Part One (2008)

I've been wanting to see this for some time. It didn't come to Kingston sadly. I was in London where it was showing, but by then they were only showing part two and not part one, so I missed it there too. When I found out Criterion was releasing it, I decided to wait for their release. I ordered the Criterion release through the local video store in Kingston, but when it arrived weeks later it was the non-Criterion release (which I don't understand why anyone would buy when a Criterion edition exists), so I didn't get it and waited. I finally managed to pick it up a few weeks ago at the Barnes & Noble Criterion sale.

Che is a well known pop icon, but how many people know who he actually was? As a history student, I studied Che briefly, but never in great depth. For this reason I was interested in seeing this biopic, especially considering it was directed by Soderbergh.

The first film (The Argentine) focuses on his role in the revolution in Cuba. The film portrays Che as a revolutionary fighter, a doctor, and a social philosopher. The film is fast paced, and intercuts scenes from an Interview done in New York and a speech to the UN following Castro's rise to power with the progression of the revolution in Cuba. The film demonstrates how an Argentinian doctor became one of the leading figures in Cuba’s struggle for independence. I found the first film to be a lot faster paced and flowed better. The acting, especially Benicio Del Toro as Che, was superb. Whether you know anything about Che or not, the film is well worth checking out.

Day 72: Post Grad (2009)

I was at home tired and somewhat burnout from movie-watching and had no desire to watch any of the films I had on my list to watch. While in the kitchen I noticed this DVD on the counter - presumably rented by one of my sisters. I had never heard of the film before, but I recognized Alexis Bledel and decided that a chick flick was about the extent of movie watching that I could take for the day.

Ryden has her whole life planned out, but when she loses her dream job to her arch-nemesis, her car gets wrecked and she loses her dream apartment she is forced to return home to live with her eccentric family while she looks for another job.

This film is so bad in so many ways, I don't even know where to start. The first problem is that the film doesn't know what it wants to do with itself. It puts Ryden back at home with her family, all of whom are eccentric, and all of whom need a subplot of their own, which deludes the film as they try to tie each subplot off, taking away time from Ryden's story. Ryden's best friend is a guy who is in love with her, by Ryden is unaware or doesn't care, and he isn't in the majority of the film. Ryden's family has a hot older Brazilian neighbour who Ryden falls for, and who, inexplicably, also falls for Ryden.

The film could easily have been good had it focused on the trouble of getting a job for a post grad in today's market - it's a reality faced by a lot of people, and could work as a film. The problem is that they diverge from this almost instantly and try to fit in as many chick flick cliches as posssible - the best friend whose in love with her but she fails to notice, the attractive older guy, the dysfunctional family, and the biggest one of all - that despite her best efforts, nothing goes her way.

I would have been fine with the film being so overly predictable and cliche, except for the ending. So Ryden has had her life planned out from childhood - do well in high school, get scholarship, keep scholarship, graduate, and get job at company X. She, of course, doesn't get job at company X, but, wait for it, company X calls her near the end of the film and hires her! It's a wonderful world after all! Her dreams have come true! She must be thrilled! BUT WAIT! She decides that despite having no car, no money, and only just found a job that she is going to throw it all away and move to NYC to follow her bestfriend because she realizes she loves him. WHAT?! What kind of moral is this? It teaches girls that their dreams are second to that of love. Throw away a dream job for a guy? Move to NYC with no money and no job? I hope love will pay for food and a place to sleep, because NYC is far from cheap. Worst message ever. Love may be important, but so are dreams. What terrible trash.

Day 71: Some Like It Hot (1959)

One of my friends, Mal, suggested I watch this one. I don't always agree with Mal's movie taste (she has an odd fixation with 17 Again), but as I've never seen a Marilyn Monroe film before, I figured it was about time.

Two male musicians witness a mob hit, so in order to escape they join an all-female band headed for Florida disguised as women. On the way they meet Sugar Kane (Monroe). The film descends into a farce from there, that, as can be guessed, relies heavily on the fact that the two men are dressed as women. It's films like these that make me wonder what happened to classic comedies? Why can't we see more films like this - where the humour is not based on crass childish humour, but rather it relied on wit, timing, inventiveness and suggestion - not shock or gross-out value. Not that I'm against the former, I just find a lot of value, and comedy, in the later, and it seems these films are bygones.

I was amazed at some of the themes in this screwball comedy - mainly that a millionaire is pursuing one of the "women" and they become engaged. When the "woman" comes clean that she is in fact a man, the millionaire simply shrugs and says "Well, nobody's perfect!" That's the 1959 reaction to gay marriage? I can't imagine the same reaction used in a film today.

Day 70: Primer (2004)

I've heard people discuss Primer before, and read of it on various must-see Sci-Fi film lists online, but for whatever reason never got around to it. Now that I have, my head hurts.

The plot of this film is possibly one of the most complex plots ever filmed, and I'm pretty sure people who have seen it hundreds of times are still only guessing. The gist of the film is that two guys create a time-machine that allows them to live a day, then go into the machine and live it again, but this time knowing the outcome of the events of the day. While they use this to play the stock market at first, they start experimenting and things get complicated. After having watched the film, I read the Wikipedia synopsis 5 or 10 times and still don't fully understand. I studied the very detailed (and confusing) timeline that is all over the Internet, and am still confused. I get the general gist of what happened, but I couldn't explain it and do not fully understand. It's not a movie you can fully understand.

Considering the film was shot for $7,000 and Shane Carruth wrote, produced, directed and stared in the film, it's quite the achievement. This is a far stretch from some film school film project, it's sci-fi film that demonstrates the truly confusing nature of trying to use time travel in film. Sure the film is often out of focus, not always white-balanced, a lot of dialogue is muffled and hard to understand, they use technical terms without explanation, and most importantly the film lacks continuity. Yet, while these things would normally ruin any other movie, they work for Primer. The film works because it seems real - it portrays normal, almost wooden, scientists because that's what they'd be in real life. Inventions are just as likely, if not more so, to come from someone's garage then from some large lab, so why not make a movie that demonstrates this?

At the end of the day, there is no hero to cheer for, there is no moral, there is no message, and there is no costly special effects. The film is simple in its approach, and honest, and because of this, it's easy to accept it in all its confusion.

Day 69: Män som hatar kvinnor / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Having started, and finished, the Millennium trilogy over my vacation last week, I was eager to see the Swedish films that are based on the novels. The American English version is in the pre-production phase now, but I'm not a fan of American remakes of foreign films (I have no problems reading subtitles), and I'd rather not wait years to see the entire trilogy when there already exists a perfectly good one already all completed.

The film was rather loyal to the novel, though it did simplify various aspects of the novel in order to fit the rather lengthy novel into the running time of the film, and even then the film runs over 2.5 hours. The film centers around Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist, and Lisbeth Salander, a small-tattooed-piercing-filled-goth-introverted-hacker. After Blomkvist is convicted of libel against one of Sweden's biggest CEOs, he accepts an offer from a welathy industrialist to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of his grand-daughter. Blomkvist turns to Salander for assistance and together they uncover a very dark past.

The film does a great job capturing the essence of the film, and despite its lengthy run time, I kept wishing they had filmed more. I'm eager to see the other two films in the trilogy. The acting was great (will be hard for the American version to come close), and the cinematography provided the already intriguing story with even more reason not to take your eyes off the screen. Salander is a hard heroine to portray, but Noomi Rapace does an amazing job. Even if you haven't read the books, the film is worth a watch.