nan | 楠木

I like to watch a black and white film now and then, because film-making was so different back then in the golden era, and also because the films that last to this day have stood the test of time. The Maltese Falcon, starring the great Humphrey Bogart, is one such great film, and often hailed as one of the definitive films of the Film Noir genre.
The Maltese Falcon is a great mystery thriller. Bogart is private detective Sam Spade, a smooth talking veteran of the streets. It is his profession to dig up the dirt of human society, and he can smell a lie a mile off. One morning, the femme fatale in question – Mary Astor as Brigid O’Shaughnessy – walks in and asks the detective and his partner to follow a man whom the woman claims is holding her sister. Spade soon finds out that O’Shaughnessy is lying, but at the cost of his partner’s death. The man they follow also quickly ends up dead, and a lot of suspicion is cast onto Spade.
What begins from here is an intricate mystery that expands and develops so smoothly I was rather disappointed that it was all over so quickly. Indeed, the film is just as smooth as Bogart’s character, who utilizes all his wit to play other characters against each other to his benefit. Sometimes he is too smart for his own good, as he ends up unconscious in one scene due to his foes joining together. But he soon picks himself up again, and is back on the trail – the trail, that is, which leads to the Maltese Falcon, a statuette of great value and the centerpiece of all the characters’ attention.
There are no sophisticated stunts or long and thrilling action sequences. What The Maltese Falcon relies on, is solely a gripping plot and wonderful characters. The film successfully flushes out a handful of distinct characters, all of whom are instantly fascinating. At the center of it all is Bogart’s Spade, who’s smart and witty, but perhaps with a soft spot for the girl. Astor’s O’Shaughnessy truly exemplifies the phrase femme fatale, which has been used all to often to describe girls that are anything but mysterious. To our delightful frustration, we never know when she’s really telling the truth, or it’s just another well-conceived lie. Then there’s Joel Cairo, played by Peter Lorre, who is perhaps the film’s most funny and interesting character, who makes an impression (and steals the show from Bogart) right from his first scene. Finally there’s Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman, a 300 pound criminal mastermind, who’ll stop at nothing to obtain the statuette. And of course there’s also a whole bunch of other supporting characters, in smaller but still vivid roles.
To sum it up, The Maltese Falcon is a great film built upon a host of strong characters and a witty plot that never fails to amaze with every turn. Some 66 years after it was made, it still makes great entertainment. A true classic for all film lovers.
9/10

There are only two times when British super-spy James Bond fell in love: once, at the very start of his career as 007, as portrayed in the most recent Bond flick Casino Royale; the other, is in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, where Bond goes one step further and even gets married (although he also got married in You Only Live Twice, a somewhat arguable false marriage).
That’s not the only distinction this film boasts. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is also the only film starring George Lazenby as the lead spy, and it’s not surprising why. The film is deeply flawed, except during the last half hour where it partially redeemed itself through some very intense action scenes and a heartbreaking ending.
The first flaw is obviously Lazenby himself. He is not Connery, and I guess he knows that, but I find him caught between imitating Connery and building his own 007. It might have been better had he just stuck to his own understanding of the character, and not jump back and forth. For example, it would be hard to imagine Connery’s Bond thoroughly enjoying a Playboy magazine while doing business; not that he isn’t capable – he certainly is – but that’s not his particular style. While it is arguable whether a Bond who openly acknowledges his taste in girls with little clothes on is fitting or not, it is at least a new version of the spy, and if Lazenby stuck to this style, it would at least be a complete effort. Instead, he goes about saying one-liners that he couldn’t deliver, making us miss Connery all the more.
Then there’s the flaw with the plot. For the better part of the first hour, the plot is quite intent on telling the love story between Bond and Tracy (Diana Rigg in a dignified performance). What Bond wants besides the girl though, is information on the whereabouts of Blofeld. So when he catches wind of Blofeld, the film ignores the girl completely for the next hour, and the love development is left unattended to. It is picked up later on, quite unexpectedly, with the girl appearing out of nowhere (no good explanation given) and rescuing Bond just when he’s about to get his ass kicked. I’m not complaining that the plot doesn’t make sense – they don’t make sense in most Bond flicks – but the plot is thoroughly frustrating due to such above mentioned turns.
And then there was the music. Somehow the production forgot to include a theme song, and replaced in its place a theme music that’s not exactly very good, which is further aggravated due to its excessive reuse throughout the film. I couldn’t help wondering if the whole crew were uninterested in making this film work.
Then again, the film gradually sorts itself out this mess towards the end, as Bond tries to escape from Blofeld’s hideout and a great chase gets underway. The action scenes certainly don’t look as good as they must’ve seemed at the time, but the intensity of the sequences remain. And of course there’s the aforementioned heartbreaking ending, telling us the lesson that Bond is lethal, not only to his foes, but also to his women. It is during this half hour that Dianna Rigg is especially impressive, and I couldn’t help wondering what would have happened had the plot included her in the bulk of its middle act.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a unique Bond film. That doesn’t mean it’s good, but it’s somewhat interesting, and it tells an important part of Bond’s story – how he is the man he is. Sadly, it doesn’t do so quite as well as it should have, which just reminds me all the more how good Casino Royale is.
5/10

Heroes are made, not born, and throughout human history, it has always been war – the apex of human conflict – that makes the most number of heroes. Flag of Our Fathers, a World War II drama about the legendary battle of Iwo Jima, is at its center a complex discussion of heroism.
The narrative is a structurally convoluted one, but it primarily follows two lines, jumping from one to another in a series of random flashbacks. The first line is revolved around a photograph that is now part of American history – the flag being planted atop Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. The picture is an instant hit with the American public, and the war government decides to use it to raise war funds. In doing so, they pull out the 3 soldiers who were on that photo and still alive, and send them touring around the country promoting the war bonds. But the 3 soldiers share a guilty conscience, as they know some uncomfortable truths about the famous photo: (1), it wasn’t a photo of the first flag that was planted, but instead the replacement flag; (2), the name list of the soldiers who were in that photo is erroneous. The 3 soldiers also understand what they are doing is important for the men in the front, though, and they dutifully play along with the lies, making themselves heroes to the mass public.
The second line of the narrative, is logically about the battle of Iwo Jima itself. We witness a beach landing that is in the proud tradition of Saving Private Ryan. The fighting is bloody and intense, and many young Americans were simply massacred on the beachhead. The film doesn’t really show us how the battle progresses, how the Americans eventually take the island, which gives the violence portrayed a further sense of senselessness – why are these men dying there, what are they fighting for?
We eventually see the moment of the photograph, and the reality is in stark contrast with the propaganda. The process was simple, no difficulties involved, and the men were surprisingly ordered to take a swim and enjoy themselves afterwards.
As with any war film, there is a big cast, but the film basically focuses on building 3 characters – the 3 soldiers who returned to do the war bond tour. The 3 characters are quite distinct, and I won’t go into a detailed narrative here, but their life stories (which is also told in a extended final act of the film) are quite insightful and interesting in and of themselves.
As I mentioned at the start of this, Flag of Our Fathers is a discussion of heroism. The 3 soldiers didn’t see themselves as heroes at all, but it was useful and somewhat necessary for them to be made heroes to America. The real heroes, as they said time and time again, are those who died at Iwo Jima, who couldn’t return to tell their tales. After the war, the 3 heroes of yesterday found themselves going back to ordinary lives, either living with their personal demons or nowhere as successful as they thought they would be (with all that publicity). They are quickly are quietly forgotten. Also conveniently forgotten are the families of the boys who never got their 15 minutes of fame, who died on that black-sanded beach in the middle of nowhere – the real heroes, it seems, are always nameless. And they never saw themselves as heroes – they just did whatever they thought was necessary, whether it was killing the enemy in grueling hand-combat, or standing by their buddies throughout inferno.
Flag of Our Fathers is not a perfect film. Director Clint Eastwood perhaps tries to tell too much, and as a result the film is stuffed with all sorts of messages. Towards the end, the film sometimes feels a bit too long, trying to tie up too many loose narratives. But these flaws are acceptable, and for the most part this is a gritty and engrossing film, and a proud addition to the many great World War II films of past.
8/10

Human beings easily forget, even if what we are forgetting are horrible atrocities. And sometimes not only do we forget easily, but we also turn a blind eye altogether. Hotel Rwanda, a chilling drama about the Rwandan genocides that occurred in the early 1990s, is a slap to the cheek to all of us who chose to ignore what was happening.
The film stars Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, a well-off Rwandan manager of a international hotel. He is smooth talking and has the street smarts, allowing him to store up favors with all kinds of powerful people in case times go bad, and of course he makes sure business is good. Paul is a Hutu, the ethnic group that is dominant in Rwanda. His wife is a Tutsi, a smaller minority which was once the ruling class. There is bitter hatred between the two groups, because the Hutus were once oppressed, but now the tables have been turned.
As we soon find out – sooner than Paul, who is reluctant to believe – the Hutu militias are planning a systematic wipe-out of the Tutsis. It soon becomes very real, as Paul’s neighbors are murdered brutally. Paul takes his family, and many other Tutsi neighbors, to the hotel.
The hotel soon becomes a refuge shelter, crammed with Tutsis in hiding. The white people are soon evacuated, of course, and Paul’s hopes of the UN keeping order soon turns into despair, as Colonel Oliver (the ever-so brilliant Nick Nolte), the commander of the UN forces, tells him that the western countries aren’t sending more troops and he could at most spare 4 men, who aren’t allowed to fire unless being fired upon. “You’re dirt,” Colonel Oliver stutters to Paul in total despair, in one of the film’s most powerful scenes. Nobody cares about their lives at all.
Yet Paul doesn’t give up. Not because he is unselfishly altruistic, but because he loves his family so much. Indeed, Paul’s biggest motivation in his efforts is his family, and it’s simply basic human empathy he is showing while he cares for those others in need.
Paul eventually prevails, saving his family and some 1,000 others. But many others are not so fortunate, as we are reminded in the ending credits that over 1 million people were killed, while the rest of the world stood by and watched. Indeed, such a failure is not only a failure for the western democracies, but for all countries of the world.
Hotel Rwanda is powerfully made, mainly because of Don Cheadle. He shows many different layers of his character’s inner world, and in one most memorable scene, he demonstrates that even something as simple as doing his tie can effuse such emotion.
That being said, the film could certainly have been taken to a even higher level. I felt that the overall portrayal, while effective, did not fully stimulate our conscience. Many have raised Schindler’s List as a film with a similar theme, and indeed this film could learn something from Mr. Spielberg’s masterpiece. Still, Hotel Rwanda deserves praise, and is a film everyone should see, so that we might learn a lesson, and not turn a blind eye to nor forget such atrocities.
8/10

Babel has received a lot of praise (and nominations), and I couldn’t resist the temptation of internet piracy. After watching it though, I felt I might not need to break another law and buy the pirated DVD, because the film simply isn’t that good.
There are quite a few films whose success are at least partially based on their structure and methodology (sorry to bring up a professional term from my own field of expertise…). Momento immediately jumps to mind, as perhaps the most structurally successful film I’ve ever seen. The whole film is all about its clever story-telling. Then we have films like last year’s Crash, which is based on the surprising collusions of the characters’ fates, as we learn that the separate story-lines are inextricably woven together.
Director Alejandro González I?árritu’s earlier effort, 21 Grams, is about solving the puzzle of the seemingly unconnected characters’ relationships. With Babel, he shows even bigger ambition, by trying to tell 4 stories at the same time. Of course, these four stories are related – they have to be, right? – but that’s one of the film’s weaker points, because whereas in 21 Grams and Crash the separate lines clashed together resulting in excellent analyses of human nature, here in Babel they are just superficially linked. Most of the links are revealed quite early on, and there isn’t any further development to the stories’ inter-relationships (only simple references here and there such as TV news clips to remind us that the stories are happening parallel to each other). To me, this suggests that the film’s structure has no real meaning except for the sake of being so, and that’s my biggest complaint with this film.
That’s a shame, because separately the stories are quite interesting anyway. It might be interesting if Babel was just a series of 4 short stories, not woven together but just shown one after the other. While this deprives the film of its current eye-catchy structure, it will force us to appreciate the stories for what they are really worth. As it is, everything in the film has a faint trace of pretension, a show cleverly put together in the name of art instead of haunting portrayals of real life tragedies.
The film boasts some big names, but you’ll find them surprisingly modest – Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are immediately likable as a couple trying to patch up their marriage on a exotic Middle East tour. What really steals the show, though, aren’t the familiar faces (including Gael García Bernal from The Motorcycle Diaries), but the ensemble cast as the Moroccan goatherd family – the two kids, their father – who are at once truly believable. The rest of the cast, in the separate stories, also deserve praise for their efforts.
As for the cinematography and editing, it is equally excellent. There are some great sequences here and there throughout the film, making the film technically speaking hard to criticize. However, this only further emphasizes the film’s shortcomings in its content and theme.
In the end, Babel is still a decent effort and a fine film. It is technically brilliant to watch, but it doesn’t really tell us much in its lengthy (it’s a long film that feels long, long) prose.
7/10

My interest in Banlieue 13 arose from the particular sport it featured: free-running. By that I’m referring to the fast paced stunts that are getting more and more screen exposure in recent years (the latest and perhaps most famous being the the first half hour stunts in the Casino Royale, the latest Bond flick).
According to Wikipedia, Banlieue 13 stars some of the sports’ most famous athletes. And since the film is produced by Luc Besson, I was expecting some grossly over-the-top stunts. In that aspect, I’ve to say I was somewhat disappointed at the shortage of long running sequences. That’s not to say there aren’t many action sequences – indeed, there’s a boatload of them – but I was looking for specifically the fluid free-running sequence. Perhaps I should check out some sports videos instead.
That being said, the film is interesting enough to provide some good solid entertainment, Luc Besson style. While I’m not a huge fan of the charismatic French film-maker, his films that I’ve stumbled across are generally fun to watch, and this one is no exception. The plot is irrelevant, as usual, and just creates enough excuses for the protagonists to fight their way through all sorts of chaos. Most of the stunts are finely choreographed and well-executed, but my main complaint would be that truly memorable stunts are far and few between.
In the end, this film is simply good action entertainment, and it seldom pretends to be otherwise. Worthwhile watching.
7/10

At a glance, Little Miss Sunshine seems very ordinary. It’s a road film. It’s about a family with communication barriers, each member of the family immersed in their specific problems and issues. And by the end of this road trip, they will ultimately find what their family means to them, through a series of bizarre and comical events.
All that sounds like a load of cliche, but this film is far from that. Little Miss Sunshine builds on those very familiar themes, and manages to bring some new flavour to them. The result is a film that is at once funny and sad, sarcastic yet emotional, and undoubtedly a enriching film experience.
At the heart of this family, we have Olive (aka Little Miss Sunshine), a darling young girl played by Abigail Breslin. Don’t be fooled by Ms. Breslin’s youthfulness – she easily steals the show from her adult contemporaries. Olive isn’t the typical slim little beauty pageant (in fact, she has a bit of a pouting belly), but that doesn’t stop her from madly enthusiastic about the Little Miss Sunshine competition. She has a teenage brother, Dwayne (Paul Dano), who reads Nietzsche and wants to be an air force pilot, and who by the way has taken a vow of silence until he achieves that goal.
The father of those two kids, Richard (Greg Kinnear) is sort of a success guru, with his own original 9 steps of success. Unfortunately, his own career can’t exactly be called a success. Still, he’s happily married to Sheryl (Toni Collette), who’s brother Frank (Steve Carrell) is a renowned Proust scholar and also a gay who had just attempted suicide (unsuccessfully). Olive’s grandpa, the last member of the family, is deftly played by Alan Arkin, and still has a taste for drugs and porn.
When you mix this bizarre assortment of personalities together, the result is a recipe for chaos and disaster. To make it short, the family goes on a road trip to sunny California, so that Olive could attend the Miss Sunshine competition. The timing is quite bad though, because the family is in the middle of a financial and emotional crisis (due to myriad reasons). They eventually decide to go, though, for the sake of Olive, and the trip becomes a emotional roller-coaster, full of the flavours of life.
As I mentioned earlier, this film takes many familiar recipes and cooks out some refreshingly new flavours with them. For one thing, the characters are not just your average weird family – they are both eccentric and flawed, and despite their eccentricity we can connect with them. And secondly, the plot is certainly not afraid of spoiling the family picture mood (since it’s not a family picture), and there are several quite unexpected developments along the way. Thirdly, the film contains some great humour, whether it’s the deeply sarcastic look at children’s beauty contests, or the hilarious events along the road (an encounter with a dirty – in the porn sense – police officer, for instance).
In the end, not much needs to be said about this film – it’s a film that needs to be experienced, to feel the variety of flavours it offers. Just be prepared to be really emotionally stirred.
8/10

Happy Feet, for the most part, is a charming animation feature film. It is a jovial, boisterous adventure, and it packs quite a few moral themes. It also asks some very hard questions. Unfortunately, it only gives some very easy answers.
The film is about that adorable bunch of emperor penguins. The proud tribe has been living in Antarctica for ages, and they have formed honorable traditions. One such tradition, is that every emperor penguin must have a “heart song”, a song which not only defines its character, but also plays a crucial part in finding its true love. Mumble, our protagonist penguin in question, suffers a fatal flaw in this respect: he’d rather dance than sing, and his dancing skills are so much better than his broken voice. As is true with many truly talented individuals in our human society, Mumble’s special talents are not appreciated by his fellow peers, except his childhood friend (and love interest), Gloria, who possesses the best singing skills the tribe has seen in some time.
To keep it short, Mumble’s eccentricity eventually results in him being outcast from his tribe, getting blamed as the cause of the food shortage along the way (it’s troubled times for the tribe as their fish supply is drastically declining). Mumble decides to embark on a quest to find the real cause of the fish drought, and therefore clear his name. He suspects that “aliens” which are far more intelligent than them are behind all this. His suspicions are soon validated, as he encounters the “aliens” (humans, of course). Mumble defiantly and somewhat naively hopes to explain to the aliens that their actions are hurting his species, but ends up in a zoo instead.
Up to this point, Happy Feet is at its triumphant best. The hard questions asked about our morality and selfishness are inescapable, and the “quest” sequence is beautifully executed, with some epic scenes (somehow reminding me of Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King, as Fredo begins his final march upon Mount Doom).
What goes from there, however, is a let-down. Indeed, the film-makers could hardly be scrutinized for offering a series of childish answers building up to the happily ever after ending – this is a children’s film, and there are no easy answers to those questions, after all – but it does leave a strong taste of disappointment.
Despite the let-down, Happy Feet deserves applause. It is a proud achievement, and you’ll undoubtedly be thinking about some of those questions hours after the film has ended.
7/10

《落叶归根》被称作是贺岁喜剧，我看完后多少感到费解。如果说春节档期的上映时间，一方面与电影的“归根”有着时间上的相似处，姑且被贴上贺岁的称号还是合理的，那么称其为喜剧在我看来则比较离谱了。
这 并不是说这部影片没有幽默的元素；相反，片子里的幽默题材有很多，无论是以“假仗义”为教训的郭德刚，抑或其他出场的各个名角大腕，还是各式各样的代步工 具，情节和场景的设计上都有着几分搞笑和讽刺的意味。然而对我来说，故事本身的悲剧性，主人公一而再、再而三地被生活戏耍，已经超出了喜剧的范畴，而实实 在在地就是悲剧。
大概从假哭丧真吃喝那一幕开始，我便再也笑不出来了（之前觉得真正好笑的地方也不多）。情节本身的悲剧性，从那里已经完全压过了其荒诞性，因而任何更进一步的发展对我来说就只是加深其悲剧程度。
影 片有很多值得商榷的地方，比如那些龙套角色，大多给我的感觉是流于形式的肤浅。无论是夏雨的喜欢喝咖啡的户外爱好者，还是胡军的那个莫名其妙的为爱昏了头 脑的货车司机，他们的角色都是彻头彻尾的“跑龙套主义”，只是给这些明星一个出场的机会而已。从这个层面来说，如果这些角色不是这些名角来演的，反倒可能 会真有些意思，因为那时我们会关注的不是夏雨胡军之流，而是那些角色本身。当然了，如果我们评价的眼光是局限在喜剧幽默层面，那么那些龙套角色倒也无可非 议了。
7/10