Renae and I finally got around to catching Once last night, and we enjoyed it quite a bit. The film caused quite a stir on the festival circuit, garnering the “Audience” award at this year’s Sundance Festival, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a very fetching little film, a musical romance that eschews the usual tropes associated with both musicals and romances, instead opting for a much more subdued, realistic, and sympathetic approach.

Since walking out of The Ross, the movie’s been on my mind, so I thought I’d jot down a few random thoughts and observations on the film (and I’ll try to avoid spoilers).

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Does anyone know if the Coup Clutz Clowns have an Omaha chapter?

A Neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Movement is planning to protest on Saturday in front of the Mexican Consulate building. I wonder if anyone will attempt something like the Nazi-depantsing that took place in Knoxville, TN back in May, where a group of counter-protesters dressed up like clowns and attempted to join a Neo-Nazi/KKK march with their own made-up signs and skits.

This fighting hatred with humor is just brilliant, revealing these hate-filled folks as the ridiculous fools that they are and their diatribe as the pathetic joke that it is. Now, if only someone would do something about those Westboro Baptist Church folks.

It seems only fitting that I write about Fist Of Legend after having just posted about The Matrix. As much as The Matrix borrowed from Ghost In The Shell, it also borrowed mightily from kung fu films such as Fist Of Legend—even going so far as to use the same martial arts choreographer, the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping.

To put it quite simply, Fist Of Legend represents the pinnacle of both Jet Li’s and Yuen Woo-Ping’s careers, which is saying something because both have a heckuva a lot of great films under their belts. But Fist Of Legend represents both at the very top of their game. The result is one of the finest martial arts films of all time.

A remake of Bruce Lee’s classic, The Chinese Connection (aka Fist Of Fury), Fist Of Legend stars Jet Li as a Chen Zhen, a Chinese student studying in Japan circa 1937. There he confronts constant bigotry and prejudice from many of the Japanese students. Thankfully, as the scene above shows, he’s more than capable of protecting of himself.

The above fight scene isn’t the best one in Fist Of Legend, but it happens within the first 5 minutes, and immediately whets your appetite for the many fist flurries to come—though it barely prepares you for the impending martial arts cornucopia.

This might sound blasphemous, but I actually prefer Fist Of Legend to The Chinese Connection. Whereas Lee’s film is pretty black and white (Japanese = bad, Chinese = good), Li’s film is a little more complicated, morally. As it turns out, there is both corruption and nobility on both sides, and the martial arts are shown as a way to learn tolerance and compassion—as well as an effective method for handing bigots their kneecaps.

Sadly, there’s not been a good version of Fist Of Legend available here in the States.  Which, considering its status in the genre, is a crying shame. Thankfully, Dragon Dynasty will be releasing a two-disc “Ultimate Edition” of the film this December, which will hopefully live up to its “Ultimate” title.

This entry is part of my August blogging project, “Scenes I Go Back To”.

I first learned of the existence of The Matrix—the movie, silly—when I saw a poster for it in a movie theatre lobby. I immediately wrote it off—it starred Keanu Reeves, how good could it? And even after I saw the trailer, I was fairly uninterested. When my friends and I did eventually see it, it was on a total whim.

To say that I was blown away would be a grand understatement. My first viewing of The Matrix was probably akin to someone in the previous generation seeing Star Wars for the first time. I walked in knowing next to nothing about the film, and for the next two hours or so, was treated to something that unlike anything else I had ever seen. As I stumbled out of the theatre, high on the experience, I found myself wishing the movie had been twice as long. I wanted more, more, more.

Of course, that wish was granted, albeit in a slightly bittersweet manner. We got the much-anticipated (and much-debated) sequels. While The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions weren’t as bad as everyone says they are, but they certainly weren’t as good as the first film. Which still feels as revolutionary and groundbreaking now as it did back in 1999.

This is most apparent in the movie’s numerous action scenes, which blend together lightning fast martial arts (courtesy of Yuen Woo-Ping), lots of John Woo-esque gunplay, bleeding edge special effects, and tons of ultra-cool panache (trenchcoats and cool sunglasses are always a winning combination). The lobby shootout, in which Neo and Trinity storm an office building full of soldiers to rescue Morpheus from Agent Smith and his cronies, is a perfect example of this.

The scene is a perfect study in contrasts, between the frantic firearms pyrotechnics—which find Trinity and Neo going through about 300 guns in 3 minutes—and wonderful slow-mo acrobatics, like Trinity’s “running up the wall” move. All in all, it’s a beautiful, aesthetic scene to watch (I love the way the chunks of marble and stone explode in glorious slow motion around our two heroes as they make their way through the hail of bullets) as well as one full of signature kick-ass moments (love the way in which Trinity relieves that one guy of his shotgun).

Many movies have since cribbed The Matrix’ style, effects, and whatnot, but none of them have come close to the dazzling results that the Keanu Reeves and Wachowskis seemed to pull off so effortlessly.

Now, bring on Speed Racer!

This entry is part of my August blogging project, “Scenes I Go Back To”.

Thanks to Aaron Elastic for the 411 on this. The Perfumed Garden has a ton of peel sessions available for the downloading. I went into bandwidth-draining frenzy today, grabbing sessions by the likes of Talulah Gosh, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Cocteau Twins, and Ride, to name but a few.  Sadly, I found this site too late to nab the Slowdive sessions. Better luck next time, I guess.

Park Chan-Wook’s second vengeance-themed film, 2003’s OldBoy has generated a good deal of controversy since its release.  Not the least of which was when photos of Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho were released featuring him striking poses that were eerily remiscent of scenes from the movie.

Of course, there was never any evidence that Cho had actually seen OldBoy, but that didn’t stop folks from talking up the connection.

That being said, OldBoy is a difficult and brutal film to watch. The story of a man imprisoned for 15 years, then suddenly released, only to go on the warpath to find those responsible for his captivity, is full of scenes of brutality and violence, among other things. And on top of that, it’s incredibly stylish and fanciful, shot with virtuosic aplombby Park and featuring a searing performance by Choi Min-Sik, one of South Korea’s finest actors.

But to simply dismiss it as an orgy of violence and sadism is to miss the point.  OldBoy is far more complex than the mere exploitation flick that its critics sometimes present it as, as it explores and deconstructs themes of revenge, forgiveness, grace, and depravity.  Its characters never simple, one-note caricatures, but rather, complex and deeply flawed characters whose failings are taken to almost mythic extremes.

And though there are many scenes that do provide a rush of adrenaline, those same scenes often cause us to question said rush, that challenge our excitement and make us wade through the consequences of violence.  Case in point, arguably the movie’s most famous scene, in which Oh Daesu (the film’s “hero”) takes on an entire hallway of thugs with nothing more than a hammer.

Technically, it’s a brilliant scene. It’s all done in one take, with the camera moving back and forth along the hallway, following Oh Daesu and the gang as they duke it out. But the fight never approaches the hyperkinetic, overly stylized bloodletting that you might expect—this is not a kung fu movie.

Rather, as the fight progresses, Park refuses to cut away from the violence and its effects.  And so we see the combatants grow tired from their exertion and their injuries.  Their attacks become sloppy and desperate, and towards the end, it becomes rather darkly comical, as barely-conscious thugs have to resort to throwing scraps of wood (and lame curses) at the barely-standing Oh Daesu.

It’s thrilling to watch, as any good action scene should be. And yet it undercuts viewers’ expectations and forces us to rethink our assumptions and expectations, to question why we got so excited in the first place.

Which is the ultimate goal of OldBoy, I think. By showing us the dreadful, bloody, damaging results of vengeance and hatred, of refusing to show mercy and forgiveness, we’re left with brutality and sadism. Not as something to revel in, as might be the case with a true exploitation film, but rather as something to lament and mourn (much like the trumpet that plays during the hallway fight theme).

This entry is part of my August blogging project, “Scenes I Go Back To”.

• Wired 15.09—you know, the one with that big article on Halo 3—also contains a great article on the guys behind Penny Arcade, one of my favorite webcomics (here’s one reason why).
• Speaking of Penny Arcade, their annual Penny Arcade Expo recently came to a close. Now that festivals like E3 are cutting back, PAX has become the biggest gaming festival in the U.S., which means more videos to make us drool as developers and companies roll out previews, teasers, and walkthroughs. The 3-part “Developer Walkthrough” for Mass Effect is especially cool. And of course, let’s not forget Penny Arcade’s own game, On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One.
• A few weeks ago, I mentioned Olav Frihagen Bjørkøy’s Blueprint CSS framework. Jon Christopher, however, urges folks to avoid using CSS frameworks outside of testing environments.
• “The deathbed friendship between a bishop and an atheist” is the intriguing account of Italian writer, and outspoken atheist, Oriana Fallaci: Many conservative Christians nonetheless regard Fallaci as a hero, a veneration clearly on display Tuesday in Rimini, Italy, where the annual ‘Meeting’ sponsored by the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation ends tomorrow. One of the most popular sessions was devoted to Fallaci, and it featured the man whom she asked to be at her side as she died: Bishop Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University in Rome, and an intimate of Pope Benedict XVI.
• Back in the day—specifically, when MTV was actually a place where one could go to find out about new music—there was no cooler program than “120 Minutes”, MTV’s program devoted to “alternative music”. (Remember when that term meant something?) But like so many other truly good things on MTV, “120 Minutes” is long gone.  But now, Philip Fibiger is doing the Web a great service: he’s scouring YouTube et al. and culling together all of the videos that one could’ve seen on “120 Minutes” onto one website.
• For whatever reason, I found myself spinning My Bloody Valentine’s classic Loveless album. Which reminded me of a bit of news I’d seen earlier this week. Japancakes will be releasing their cover of Loveless—yes, the entire album—on Darla in November.

(The above YouTube clip contains several scenes from The Sacrifice. The scene I’m writing about takes up the first half or so.  The second half contains other scenes from the movie, and does contain some nudity.)

The Sacrifice is my second favorite Tarkovsky film, after Stalker, but it contains some of my favorite scenes and images from the man’s ouevre. The film centers around Alexander (Erland Josephson), a retired professor who has gathered friends and family together at his beloved coastal home to celebrate his birthday. The festivities are quickly forgotten, however, when jets scream by overhead and the birthday party begins hearing news reports that war has broken out around the world.

Distraught by the calamity surrounding him, Alexander, who has previously admitted to having no faith, falls to his knees and begs God to save the world from the impending doom. In return, he promises to sacrifice and forego everything he loves: his family, his friends, his house, his speech, and even his beloved son. What then follows is a sequence of bizarre, dreamlike sequences (which look stunning, thanks to veteran cinematographer Sven Nykvist) that begin calling into question Alexander’s sanity even as it becomes increasingly clear that God has answered his urgent prayer.

Tarkovsky is not the easiest filmmaker to “get”.  His films are demanding as few other filmmakers’ are. They are full of surreal imagery, long takes (that border on glacial), obtuse characters, and dialog laden with philosophical and metaphysical musings. The Sacrifice is no different, but at the same time, there’s a directness and urgency to the film—which makes sense considering that Tarkovsky knew he was dying when he made it.

Not surprisingly, The Sacrifice has often been labelled Tarkovsky’s “last will and testament”, a summation of all of his ideas concerning art, humanity, and spirituality. I think that comes through vividly in the scene above, as Alexander submits to the primacy of the spiritual as the last and final bulwark against oblivion.

This entry is part of my August blogging project, “Scenes I Go Back To”.