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Ôdishon (1999)
Only for Miike Fans. A Cult, not Art House.
I purchased the DVD from recommendations and comparison with Hitchcock's Psycho. No matter how many times people try to justify what this film is about with all those descriptive words and analysis on what kind of genre this movie belongs to (or that this movie is about the views on women or humanity in general, etc.) - one thing is certain, its BORING!
SOME SPOILER...
I know this isn't a horror/gorefest movie or a romantic movie. Reviewers have been trying to justify the boring setup of the first 2/3 of the movie in order to highlight the last 30 minutes of torture on the protagonist. That doesn't make sense to make a boring movie of that length. If all you have is a nice ending - make a short.
I love watching movies - from shorts to epics. Long, subtle movies centering on human relationship? No problem. I loved watching movies of international directors from the likes of Godard's Masculin, Feminine (French), to Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy (Australian director), to Mann's HEAT (American). They were all long AND entertaining.
How can this even be compared to Psycho (and Vertigo)? I don't think Hitchcock would appreciate the comparison. All the movies of Hitchcock were storyboard to the last detail. Editing and Cinematography was painfully planned - each scene had a purpose down to the wiper blades in Psycho.
Everything about this movie has faults.
I understand the editing is supposed to be jerky to mimic hallucination (which I appreciate for the last 30 minutes), but the rest of it only distracts the viewer more.
Cinematography is absolutely bad. The strong reds, greens and blues puts the audience on edge as it represents the various moods and hallucination. But its absolutely horrible to put all those strong colors in one scene. Like the scene where they go out of town. Give one character a color, and the other another. But make it subtle! Audiences are not stupid. They can detect subtle color changes to represent parts of a movie or character phase.
The script is bad. Why? There are too many loopholes and questions unanswered. I've watched this movie twice for two days straight just to analyze the intention of the director. Sure it has psychological aspects all through-out. The movie is supposed to be jerky and shocking, but don't do this by confusing your audiences even at the end - which is supposed to tie all the loose ends.
The antagonist is a psycho who mistakes the protagonist to have the same intentions as her other suitors. So she tortures him, despite the director showing us all their romantic conversations and the genuine feelings of the guy.
Suddenly she goes to his place and explains what she thinks he is. Huh? Again, despite all the flashbacks of their romantic conversation over and over again? If she is a psycho, make the audience show her how she wanted to torture him by finding out from his friend, whom she tortures first because he reveals to her and suggested the whole fake audition.
You want to watch a Japanese psychological thriller? I strongly recommend PERFECT BLUE. This will keep you on edge until the end.
As for this movie, not even worth renting.
eMale (2001)
Very funny.
I've seen this in my grad class because my teacher was the Cinematographer, Bill Holshevnikoff. It wasn't the color-corrected version, but the Cinematography was already great.
A very funny short film that doesn't try to be anything artsy or deep. Cleverly created and wonderful to watch.
Although the poster gives the impression that the film has a dark story, you'll laugh when you realize what part of the scene it pertains to.
The people behind this film will go places.
A Walk to Remember (2002)
Bad Movie-making
This is an example of bad movie making. The director didn't bring out the best in the lead characters. It was just plain flat. No interest and predictable. There was no continuity in the editing. And why the frequent cross-fade? I can understand the lapse in time when called for, but this was too much. Most of the transitions should have been a straight-cut. As for the cinematographer, I can't believe with all the credits on his list you can see the change in quality of lighting from a long-shot vs. the close-ups. Lastly, the book was a best-seller but this dialogues script is absolutely bad especially in this day and age. There were so many unnecessary scenes which don't drive a point or haven't been developed much further. I'm guessing there were a lot of deleted scenes which we will see in the DVD version. I respect Ms. Moore for trying out different roles, though. And the supporting casts were great.