It being holiday time, I decided to go forth and get out a bunch of movies I'd been meaning to see/re-see for some time.
Here's a brief rundown:
Office Space (1999) - never seen it, loved it. To misquote Morrissey, it was a film that "said something to me about my life". Even Jennifer Aniston didn't infuriate me.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) - never seen it, loved it. Sean Penn in the performance of his career... Phoebe Cates topless! Jennifer Jason Leigh being wildly promiscuous! Judge Rheinhold!! Written by Cameron Crowe, the thinking man's John Hughes.
Zardoz (1974) - never seen it, totally baffled by it. Sean Connery in a red nappy is but a minor piece of daftness compared to some of the other goings on in this out there piece of out-thereness. Backwards speech, communal psychic rituals involving interpretive dance, a scientific experiment to stimulate Sean Connery to get an erection (apparently Charlotte Rampling does it for him)... This collection of images played at speed to give the impression of a moving picture features a lot of Radiophonic electronics and tapes soundtrack. Right on! Directed by John Boorman (Deliverance, Excalibur). The word 'nutter' fits him
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) - have seen it, had largely forgotten it. It's rubbish, really, but endearing rubbish. Wanted to revisit it after I learned that the movie was John Carpenter's take on Tsui Hark's baffling, hyperbolic Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983). The final battle is reminiscent of one 'wtf' scene in Zu, but the rest consists of US Chinese actors fighting about half the speed of their Hong Kong counterparts (the film editor may not have heard of the HK 'speed up the film' trick), and Kurt Russell doing a hammy (is there any other kind?) impression of John Wayne. The least said of Kim Cattrall the better. Of a much higher standard than the film is the commentary by Carpenter and Russell, who spend a lot of time asking how the other's kids are doing. Russell was amused about how his character was set up as a wise-cracking tough guy, but he spends most of the time being upstaged by his Chinese sidekick, and making hilarious pratfalls. I have a lot of time for Kurt Russell, and like to think of him as a more successful Bruce Campbell (which I guess also makes him a less successful Bruce Campbell).
Princess Mononoke (1997) - seen it before, didn't like it, wanted to see it again. Seeing Mononoke in the original Japanese was much more enjoyable. I didn't have to put up with Gillian Anderson's flat voice - yeesh. [Also, no John Dimaggio, the voice of Bender in Futurama. If only he had portrayed the samurai Gunzo as a foul-tempered New York robot...]
Having now seen most of Miyazaki's films, I see Mononoke as a kind of historical version of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984). Though the animation is a vast improvement on Nausicaa, Mononoke's story doesn't have quite the same resonance for me. It's good, but a little too heavy on the epic confrontations. I found the film quite exhausting, too. But that might just have been because it was after midnight when it finished and I had just watched five movies in a row.
Posted by stuart at December 24, 2006 5:29 PM