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I first spotted The Face of Another on DVDBeaver.com a while ago and have been looking forward to watchiung it for quite a while. While out in Manchester yesterday I popped into Fopp to wait out the rain and just happened to spot it going for £10 (a bargain when Amazon wanted £17 and HMV probably £20). Fopp are a pretty great store in general… they have a good selection of foreign stuff and a range of prices, unlike HMV (which admittedly has an even better range) where everything is flat £20.

I’ve just finished watching it and I’m not too sure about it yet… I’ve rated it 7/10 on IMDb, but sometimes I change my mind about films like this when I start thinking about them a little more. The story I found a little off… the predictions of the psychiatrist seemed out of proportion and I didn’t get his mass mask production ideas at all. What made the film really great was the music… in a way this was pretty bizarre… it seemed a bit of a cross between something that might be heard in a Kurosawa movie, alonged with some Parisian music and German singing. It’s pretty odd that when I’m watching a film from Asia I sometimes don’t immediately recognise that a certain character is a Westerner… sometimes I even think about it before coming to a conclusion. A few years ago seeing somebody (in film or real life) from Asia was actually a fairly infrequent occurence, but now it’s totally normal… maybe that’s why?

Anyway, as well as the music the cinematography was amazing. The use of spotlights to almost make other people in a bar vanish was great… the flicking of a switch to turn from night to night with a bulb was also good, as were the still frames that cropped up from time to time. Thinking about it we see a lot of still frames in films today… I can’t think of any hard examples to back this up but I think Sin City might have used stills when introducing characters. It’s certainly the first time I’ve seen it in an older film.

As ever… give it a try ;)

The da Vinci Code, eh? I can’t speak about the book but the film is quite possibly the most boring piece of drivel I’ve ever come across.

I always thought of the first Lord of the Rings film as a bit “they did this… then they went there… then they did that… then they went somewhere else… then they did something else… the end.” dVC takes this a bit further by doing just the same but adding long boring bits of historical ramblings that flew over just about everybody in the audience (at least all four of us). They weren’t even interesting, or funny… they were a bit pointless, really.

I wouldn’t mind too much but the whole “doing bits” bits were poor too. The whole opening scene with the blood and secret messages splattered all over the place was pointless, not to mention pathetic. Why did he decide to set himself up in a funny position with blood all over his body again? As far as I can tell it was the “get Fred Bloggs” written on the floor that did it all… the rest just seemed to be for show.

As for the acting… well. That French girl, she’s hot, but the dialogue between her and Tom Hanks was cringeworthy. The timing seemed way out. Remember the defining moment of the most recent Star Wars movie? The cheesy “I love you” line? Yup, sort of like that… only spread over a few sentences. Mr Leon wasn’t great, either… he’s seeming a bit “past it” and the whole French cop role is getting boring. Somebody needs to give him a big knife, a plant and a really young girl. Having said that, I quite liked the Albino guy… he did a pretty good job. But I think half of that was down to the fact that he was a funny colour.

Actually, I didn’t want to comment on the plot too much but I’ve just realised how poor it was. It was a bit of a wild goosechase with some horrendously obvious twists (who didn’t suspect the Butler the second they saw him?)... I really really hope the book is much better.

Did I mention it was a good hour too long? If they cut out some of the history rambling crap it would have been a lot more easy to watch.

It seems to me this film was made solely for the purpose of making some money. I think they knew from the start that they couldn’t make a good film out of it, that it would get shocking reviews and so on… but as they say “CINEMA: IT’S THE EXPERIENCE THAT COUNTS.”

I’ve just sat down and watched the first five minutes of Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern. It was all sounding very similar so I decided to try and track it down. It turns out I’ve already read Su Tong’s original set of novellas that the film was based on… now that I recall I picked the book up at great expense in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Now that I remember what it’s about I’m sure I’ll enjoy the film. The book was excellent. I’m really curious now how certain parts of the book will be portrayed.

Time to un-pause…

Outstanding. Go and watch it.

Oh.
Dear.

As a bit of a follow-up to my Play.com entry about how I obtained a copy of Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love on the cheap… a “Lewis” review (you know, where I don’t review it but say how I liked it and attempt to convince you to borrow the DVD from me so you can enjoy it too).

Well, to begin with, I saw the sequel, 2046, about six months ago and was reasonably impressed with it, despite the “wtf?” feeling I had at the end. Maybe I’ll give 2046 another go this evening, now that I know the background properly.

What impressed me most about ITMFL was the stunning cinematography… every scene was outstanding with Wong Kar-Wai’s classic “neon colours”. The film was shot in the mid-90s (I think) yet it maintains a feel in-line with the era the film is set in. Some of the most visually impressive scenes were those of copious amounts of cigarette smoke wafting towards the ceiling… really amazing stuff.

Once I managed to get to grips with the characters (which I found surprisingly difficult, much the same as with 2046) the story was equally excellent and runs something along the lines of (and this isn’t a spoiler) “two people who suspect their partner of cheating on them meet up and fall in love”. But it’s better than that and makes for a really interesting film to watch.

So, that’s the end of my “review”. Hurry up and watch it.

Thanks very much to the Daily Mirror and Play.com a copy of Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love arrived in my postbox this morning.

The total cost to me was £2.99 (P&P is free), thanks to my having collected* five codes from the Daily Mirror to allow me to claim a £5 voucher at Play.com.

I’ve already seen 2046 by the same director, but later found out that it was a “sort-of” sequel to this film. Hopefully it will be as good as the one I’ve already seen.

IMDb rates FernGully: The Last Rainforest a pathetic 5.7 out of 10! What kind of world do we live in where classics such as FernGully can get such shocking ratings!?

I’m the sort of person that doesn’t really look at who stars in a film to rate it… but if it stars Nicholas Cage then I almost always want to see it. I noticed that there’s a new film called The Weather Man coming out soon, which is also starring Cage.

I skimmed through some of the comments and quickly found one about the titles of the films he’s been starring in… this is a fairly interesting list:

• Wicker Man (filming)
• The Weather Man
• Matchstick Men

• The Family Man

  As one other person pointed out, I wonder when Nicholas Cage will star in “The Man”?

Whatever you were planning to do this evening, don’t. Well, unless you were planning to sit down in front of the television and watch BBC2 as they broadcast the first part of Martin Scorsese’s Arena: No Direction Home, a Bob Dylan biography.

It’s on at 9pm and finishes at 10:55pm. I don’t want to say too much but this is probably the biggest thing to be on TV for quite some time. So far all reviews are excellent and I don’t think it requires any real prior knowledge of Dylan himself.