favela rising - this was surprising for two reasons: 1. it was a documentary that was outstanding and 2. i actually picked a documentary! but honestly, it was really fantastic. it’s sort of like the anti-city of god. instead of getting beat down by the drugs and the violence in the favela, these guys start up community orgianization which uses music and dance to speak out against the violence, and then itself becomes a community project and an alternative for the youth to turn to instead of just becoming drug dealers.
clouds of yesterday - this was strange and odd. we really liked the old-timey parts. the filmmaker said that it took him nine years to make this film, mostly due to scheduling and budget woes. and then there was that problem where they didn’t get that crucial shot of the cherry blossoms two years in a row…
executive koala - this may be the BEST MOVIE EVER. how can you not love a movie about a koala salaryman, who’s suspected of killing his girlfriend (and maybe even his ex-wife), and then there’s the boss who’s a giant rabbit, the guy from the kimchee company who has the flying squirrel, and then the theme song! delightfully ridiculous. it’s too bad that yetra skipped this one; she would have loved it!
see you in space - this wasn’t bad at all, just a little quirky, but it’s a good illustration on how sometimes q&a with the filmmaker isn’t necessarily a good thing. because it’s disheartening to find out that instead of you just not understanding/agreeing with the director’s artistic choices, they just made the choices they did for practical or perhaps just no good reason.
q:”why did you choose to film this with barely connected storylines?”
a: “because i could basically film four films at once. it was very efficient.”
q: “can you talk about the ending where the woman floats up into space and what that meant to you?”
a: “well, i didn’t really like that at all. but i didn’t know how to end it otherwise. i might do it differently, but i don’t know how.”
ugh.
Posted at May 2, 2006 11:54 PMComments are now closed for this entry. Thank you for playing.