Tag: Foreign

Oh wow, with The Gatekeepers, I believe it is the first documentary that I have seen in the theaters.

The first one not based on a musical act, that is.

Either way, local theater probably got it by accident, and despite never hearing about it, I decided to give it a spin. Not to mention it was nominated for an academy award! (It lost to Searching For Sugar Man).

Long story short, Shin Bet is the main intelligence agency for Israel since the Six-Day War. Basically it was a surprise attack by Israel, thus a quick war, which expanded its borders to include the West Bank and Gaza strip. After that, the territory they had just gained was full of Palestinians, so they had to make sure they didn’t try to revolt or cause trouble. This lead to occupation, and the Shin Bet being an important tool to protect Israel from terrorism.

The Gatekeepers is a documentary interviewing the last six heads of Shin Bet, to talk about the last four decades, prod them into telling secrets or what have you. You know, since they are now all out of the organization for various reasons. Yay secrets! Yay terrorists talk!

Yep, an actual picture from the documentary about people talking. Looks entertaining as fuck, right?

Well, the information gained from these men was neat. Seeing them talk about torture, sketch propositions, morality, and regrets in their life. Very very interesting.

But it could have been laid out WAY better and more coherently.

I didn’t know this documentary would be all subtitles, but that makes sense and is fine. However, the subtitle work was shit. Over 10 occasions I couldn’t read the subtitles clearly or at all, which is kind of really fucking annoying. The least they could do is make it not a challenge to figure out what is being said. After all, documentaries tend to be about gaining and sharing information. If you fail at the most basic levels, then what the hell.

I think it also could have been ordered a lot better. When each man first is shown in the movie, they show up a quick graphic telling me their name, and when they were head of the Shin Bet, but never again. Although it is pieced together chronologically, it isn’t just an interview with one and then the next and so on. No, they all talk about all six events. After all, they all were in Shin Bet doing things before being the head, and afterwards they still paid attention to the events. It is great getting multiple perspectives on events, but you know what would have been even better? Knowing which man was in charge at which point in time the entire movie, not just the few seconds they showed it to me.

Despite going chronologically, I never knew when in time every event they talked about occurred, so even if I can somehow remember who was head and when, I still wouldn’t know who was in charge. These are simple problems to fix that would amplify getting the information out there better. Heck, even a permanent placard in the top right hand corner just having their name/years on it permanently would be preferable.

Finally, the strange CGI graphics implemented in the movie, to show multiple TVs in a control (Or Intelligence like) room to transition between scenes just felt tacky.

Although I think the information is interesting, despite knowing practically nothing myself, I think they put together a piece of shit documentary on most of the technical angles to feature it.

So, I really didn’t want to write this review for Confucius, and it probably will show!

Accidentally, for my website, I guess I also reviewed three foreign movies in a row. One Japanese, One French, and now Chinese. This was entirely unintentional. When the fuck did I become so culturally diverse with my movies? Seriously, I feel like a European.

I picked up this one because I could see it in Blu-Ray and hell, I knew who Confucius was. Maybe I could learn a lot from it? Tai Chi Zero from earlier in the week was a preview watch and something I had to see, unfortunately on DVD. The Intouchables was recommended by a European and an Australian.

I feel the need to explain myself in great detail. I promise, no more foreign films for the rest of this month!

But seriously, I just want to see a movie about people thinking of good advice. Hard.

So this movie is about Confucius. The man, the myth, the legend.

It takes place a long time ago, and I don’t know how much of it is true.

It must be true! They wouldn’t just ramp up the accolades of an ancient philospher/leader, right? Right.

Well. Confucius did a lot, and was wise, and had some trials. But he passed them, with a can do attitude and elbow grease. I believe that is a Confucius saying. He lead wars, made laws, became a wandering scholar, and saved lives. But he was also played by Yun-Fat Chow. What!? Yeah. That guy who is in all those movies. He had a serious role as one of the most popular Chinese historical figures of all time (After Mulan of course), and isn’t well known for being serious I wouldn’t say.

But hey, its a movie about Confucius for China to love, not me to judge (too bad, its the job).

YES! EVEN MORE LARGE HEAD THINKING SHOTS!

Here is something funny about the release of this movie. It came out in 2010, a few weeks after Avatar. You know the one, the record breaking movie. Well, China wanted everyone in China to like Confucius, not a western movie like Avatar. So Avatar would be pulled from over 1500 2D Screens in China for this film, and that made people mad. Too bad no one cared, because everyone saw Avatar in 3D anyways. After a week or so, Confucius still wasn’t being watched, and they returned the 2D Avatar to a bunch of screens. James Cameron fucked over the Chinese nationals pretty hard.

The reason it bombed probably isn’t because Avatar was awesome, but mostly because it was boring as shit. Confucius is such a big important cool dude, and watching his movie made me feel incredibly bored. Hell, I watched it while laying down shirtless probably eating Pringles, and seeing his great life didn’t even make me feel bad about my own. I just didn’t care. It was nice visually, but didn’t entertain me on any noticeable levels. Huh, I guess I accidentally made another Avatar comparison.

Foreign movie! This time, by the French. There was a lot of potential Oscar buzz around The Intouchables, at least for Best Foreign Film this last year, and it was France’s official selection to the competition. But it didn’t crack the top 5 and got jack shit. That’s not a good sign, but maybe it got 6th place? Are their trophies for sixth place?

Eternal Friendship. That is your sixth place trophy.

Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a rich motherfucker. Why? Don’t worry about that. But he is loaded and now super into artwork. Unfortunately for him, he is also paralyzed from the neck down. He might have some finger use, not sure, but outside of talking and waggling his eyebrows, he is stuck, yo!

Because of that, he needs attendants 24/7, but not your normal attendant. They just treat him like a piece of shit, don’t let him do anything fun, and well, acknowledge his disabilities. But along comes Driss (Omar Sy), who doesn’t try to get the job. He just needs to get rejected to get his wellfare on, living with his family, no succeeding.

Unfortunately for him, Philippe likes his spunk and that he is different. Whether that is because has no training, talks mostly about music, or just entirely skin color, unsure of. But Philippe gives him a shot.

Of course, as expected, both men influence the others lives in positive ways, where they both learn to love, live, and take chances. Make mistakes. Get messy. That’s right, they go full Ms. Frizzle.

But more R, less G.

Alright, so describing the movie outloud (err, as I typed it I guess), I realized this movie sounded cliche as fuck. But it isn’t. Because its french! And uhh…french!

Shit. Regardless of potential clicheness, I still enjoyed it a lot. Not top of the world, but still quite a lot. They had great chemistry together, based on a true story, and Audrey Fleurot was pretty hot.

I laughed, and teared up a bit, and the film offers a nice message without getting weirdly preachy. Basically, it is YOLO in a nutshell, even if you can’t move your legs.

I don’t remember /why/ I know about Tai Chi Zero, but damn was I interested. It said steampunk and martial arts! Why not! Seems cool! I like some of those things.

Especially since currently, martial art movies seem to have left realism behind to focus on better things. More exciting things. Like unrealism. Yes. The best type of fights are unreal, we all know that. I assume that every fight type has already happened, so we have to start bending physics to make it interesting again.

This has nothing to do with this movie.

But I am glad that it features Thwaps!

So this takes place sometime in the past in China, like normal. Our main character is a freak. Really. That is his nickname The Freak (Yuan Xiaochao). That is because when he was born he had a tiny mini-horn on his head. He grew up wanting to learn how to fight, but no one took him seriously. That is until he beat up a bunch of kids his age after they hit him in his horn. Once he gets hit in the horn, he goes all demonic on people, gaining skill and destroying everyone.

Well, long story short, his town gets destroyed when he is older and his former master tells him to go learn the Chen Kung Fu, in a town on a mountain outside of civilization. But when he finally gets there, no one will teach him because he is an outsider! Some old laborer (Tony Leung Ka Fai) tries to help him learn it anyway, through repitition. Yay fake Kung Fu Styles!

But the plot comes when a former townsfolk guy Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng) has returned from college! He wants to bring the railroad to their town and increase profits. The town doesn’t like electricity, they shun him, he gets mad, and vows vengeance. We also have Mandy Lieu as his white-ish girlfriend, and Angelababy as the future love interest of the Freak, who knows the Kung Fu Style!

But first, he has to fight this little girl. True story.

That is about it plot wise! This stranger might be able to help save their town from the evil western capitalist machine ways! So the story might be super anti-America without explicitly saying it, but I am still fine with it as long as the fights are cool.

And they are cool! But they are also amusing. Easiest way to describe amusing fight to me is a Jackie Chan fight, but they take amusing fight in a new way. Through specia effects! Like some video game shit. Stage 1, Stage 2 stuff. It helps invigorate the experience!. Tons of tiny additional features to add that add to the fights, and well, they are hard to explain, and I find it funny.

What I found annoying? He went Freak mode in the first scene in the movie, before the plot, and never did the rest of the movie. Huh. Why? This might be a planned trilogy, because it doesn’t end with the plot resolved, and the sequel, Tai Chi Hero, comes out to America in June. Also, I should note, that this movie is far from steampunk in any way or form. Even stranger, this movie has Tai Chi in the title, but of course, he has to go learn Kung Fu. Who am I to question that shit. Maybe they are all the same?

Again, with the random Redbox rentals, I usually try to find something that might give me a good review. Shitty movies can lead to great reviews, so picking things I’ve never heard of can be amazing. That is what happened with 1313 Cougar Cult. But with The Loved Ones, it looked like a random prom based horror. Could be hilarious accidentally. Not to mention it is foreign. Australia? Heck yes.

I mean, she is cute I guess. Kind of creepy with the power tool.

Prom is a wonderful time for everyone, except maybe those who don’t get dates. Take Lola (Robin McLeavy), she is a nice girl, but a bit lonely. She tries to ask out Brent (Xavier Samuel), but he turns her down. Not for any malicious reason, but because he has a girlfriend Holly (Victoria Thaine). Makes sense, no harm no fowl.

Well, unless you are Lola. She isn’t a fan of that. When Brent is on a self hike in Australia, he finds himself knocked out, and yes, awakening in a house, tied to a chair. Oh joy! Oh hey, he is in a tuxedo now, and Lola is there, in a dress. What in the hell?

Looks like he is indeed going to prom with Lola, and her crazy family, but prom is now going to be inside. Her dad (John Brumpton) is there to help with the festivities, and grandma to be all weirdly lobotomized and awkward. Can Brent escape from the date from hell, before he get tortured to death in this hell house?

It is important to note that not everyone has a bad prom night. His good friend Jamie (Richard Wilson) asks out a hot goth chick Mia (Jessica McNamee) and has the time of his life. She has a missing brother too. Interesting indeed.

This is what you get for not cheating on your long term serious girlfriend.

I know what you are thinking. This film is stupid. Well, thankfully I am here to tell you that it is much better than the plot makes it see.

It is kind of a torture porn, featuring one guy, but some serious fucked shit ends up happening, including that power drill, and a few attempts at escape. But really it is an interesting and kind of unique stuff happens. The ending basically blew my mind, when the secrets of the family and her past issues came to fruition.

But it is also easy to feel uncomfortable during this movie. Lot of screaming, and slow pain. The best pain? Not sure.

I wouldn’t call this a scary horror, jut uncomfortable. But there are also some comedic elements thrown in to break the tension at important points. I will put this under the win column for random foreign Red Box films.

Hooray hooray! I have finally got a chance to see Amour, the last movie I needed to see for all the Best Picture nominees this year. BEFORE the award, not several months after.

Plus, it is a foreign film, from Austria, in French!

I must be growing up. I am an adult now, watching adult movies, in adult speeds.

Adults watch their form of adults (old people) do things, right?

Amour means love, but you knew that. Bitches love amour, and surely if it is about old people, we will get to see a wonderful, blossoming relationship despite their limiting factors. Crap. It could also go the other way. The super sad way.

Studies have shown that old people have a higher chance of dying soon, than say, teenagers. Are we going to see the end of a life, and how sad it is to lose someone you love? Especially if you lose them very very slowly? I should move the above picture ahead a few seconds just to check.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Look at how sad she is! Fuck, we are in a drama folks! Prepare the ship! Tears are incoming!

Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) have lived long and prosperous lives. They love music, and have helped musicians with sponsorships (Alexandre Tharaud). They are rich, for whatever reason, and live in luxury. They have a beautiful daughter, Eva (Isabelle Huppert), who is married with kids off in another part of Europe, and life is sweet.

But one morning, during a normal breakfast, Anne becomes unresponsive, just staring out into space, unable to respond to any sort of stimuli from her husband. Eventually she snaps out of it, but it still puts him into quite a scare and he takes her to the doctor. Something is blocking something else in her brain, and if they don’t take care of it, it could happen again but worse.

Well, the surgery goes wrong. A 5% chance, but now Anne finds it hard to walk, and she is forced to live in her own home, bound by a wheelchair. She might get better, or it might get worse. But you already know which way it is going to go.

She starts to move much slower, eventually half of her body gets paralyzed, and she becomes entirely bed ridden. The pain is unbearable, it causes her to scream out in pain throughout the day. She. Wants. To. Die.

But Georges can’t just let her kill herself, can he? The love of his life?

Oh no! It just keeps zooming! I can’t stop, we have crashed straight into sad land!

Whew. That is all I can really say, just whew. I can also say that this film is perfect. I often dislike films for not being realistic enough, in terms of character actions and dialogue, but this one might be on the other extreme side of the scale. /Too real/ and not enough, I guess…entertainment? Even when I go to a drama, and even if it is sad and I cry my eyes out, I still expect to be entertained by the story.

But Amour doesn’t really let me do that. The scenes in this movie are quite long, so the acting was clearly there. But they are too long. They are too slow. Many minutes of watching the husband try and feed his halfway paralyzed wife. Despite feeling the feels that were given to me on the screen, I was still combating sleep the first half of the movie. It was just far too incredibly slow, perhaps perfectly mimicking the slow death of a loved one.

But again, the acting is incredible. If the Oscars are based on talent, I think Emmanuelle Riva wins the best Actress award. The things she did in that movie were incredible and honestly no one else came close to her sort of delivery.

Sometimes the Japanese don’t produce their own original content. Seriously, did you know that? I learned that last night. I never even considered that fact! But damn, it can happen.

So we have The Secret World Of Arrietty (or just Arietty if you have the fancy non American version), which is based on The Borrowers! And maybe I also just learned that they were a series of books before that movie in the 90s. Holy crap, there are like three Borrowers movies.

Fuck it, today is a day of learning and facts. It has been declared!

Don’t spray your house for bugs ever. Might end up killing a tiny human, you monster.

Shawn (David Henrie, some 23 year old who was a Wizard in a Disney show and the SON in How I Met Your Mother), is a 12 year old boy with a bad heart. So he goes off to live with his aunt for a week before his surgery, in the nice peaceful countryside.

At the same time, we have Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler who was…also a Wizard in a disney show?), who has just turned 14 but you know, is only a few inches tall, a borrower who lives in the house with her father and mother (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, who formed an incestuous relationship in Blades Of Glory).

Well on her first borrowing mission, she ends up dropping a sugar cube and accidentally waking up the delirious Shawn, who wants her to stay, quite creepily. But she runs away, and her parents are freaking out. Especially when he leaves the sugar cube near their home with a note “You Forgot Something”. Shit, this might turn into a horror movie soon, or the weirdest relationship ever.

Either way, she becomes more and more curious about the human, despite the parent warnings. Humans kill Borrowers, or other evil things. Especially that shady housekeeper, Hara (Carol Burnett, who I have nothing clever to add here for your knowledge), who thinks they exist but has no proof (yet). But if their shenanigans continue, they might have to move anyways. Especially if Hara gets involved. Hopefully they meet some savage Borrower who can help them find a new home, like that Spiller guy (Moises Arias, who was someone on a Miley Cyrus show and…maybe a wizard. What the fuck?).

To me this whole movie, her crazy mean face reminded me a bit of Stich’s face.

Now I am going to base this off the dubbed version of course, but I think unintentionally they made a lot of this really creepy. Like, having a 23 year old male voice a 12 year old kid. His voice was strangely deep, and spoke super slow. I felt scared that he’d turn out to be a serial killer or, you know, worse.

That with the ending are really my only complaints. It kind of left it super open ended, and didn’t really do much for my plot questions.

But outside of that, loved pretty much everything else. Especially the animation. I watched it on DVD and was still floored away with it. Obviously it wasn’t CGI, but it was just really really well done and processed I guess. If I had seen it on Blu-Ray I wouldn’t have believed it possible.

But the characters were nice, the music was nice, and the story was simple and only slightly felt stolen. Hey, its all good.

I think the only thing I heard about The Raid: Redemption was to watch it. Maybe it was “watch the fuck out of it”. And I might have heard that from multiple sources before I was able to see that. Pretty strong of a recommendation for some Indonesian film (my first on the site, woo?) that I have never heard of.

Hopefully it is nothing like Tactical Force. I want my SWAT teams to actually be effective, and not you know, shitty. Fighting skills plus guns seems like a violent bonus.

The bodies? They kind of hit the floor in this movie.

In the heart of (Big City Indonesia) is an apartment complex, that is no where near normal. It is home to a lot of drug lords, criminals, murderers, people good at fighting, and the most corrupt thing ever. No one could take it down. Not until today. A SWAT team of 20 some men is sent in to stealthily take the apartment, floor by floor, hopefully with no murders. Just you know, arrests. Big ballsy idea, but one that might work.

Lead by Team Leader Jaka (Joe Taslim), the raid initially goes off without a hitch until they reach the sixth floor. During the mission, a young lookout spots them causing a tense momenet. He is able to escape and tell the next lookout before he is killed, alerting the head boss on the top floor, Tama Riyadi (Ray Sahetapy) of their arrival.

Our actual hero is young Rama (Iko Uwais), a soon to be father, who really really just wont die. Needless to say, shit hits the fan soon after. Snipers take out the ground floor crew, and some of the team members. The power is shut off, and free rent promised to any individual who takes out a SWAT team member. Jaka soon finds out that the raid is not officially sanctioned by the department, just Lieutenant Wahyu (Pierre Gruno), meaning the last five swat members (who are split up) are now on their own and must survive the onslaught.

They also have to worry about Tama’s right hand man, Andi (Donny Alamsyah) who is the head of the logistics and narcotics, and Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian), an incredibly incredibly great fighter, who can pretty much fuck all the people up.

Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute. WHOA. What is this!? Just wow.

Well first off, if you are like Hank Hill, and hate foreign movies (because if they are good they will get remade here anyways), then no worries, because that is totally what is happening. Similarly, a sequel and maybe third are already planned, with the rights bought my Sony. So if you like this movie, there is that to look forward to as well. I believe the same fight choreographers are involved for the US remake, but really, we will see what happens.

Despite my best attempts, the plot was actually pretty weak in this movie, and hard to grasp. Lots of betrayal. Lots of death.

BUT LOTS OF KICK ASS FIGHT SCENES. Holy crap! What all action movies try to do, basically, is have enough cool stuff happen that the plot doesn’t matter. And generally most of the time I find myself bored with them, and start analyzing the plot, and picking it apart. Really didn’t have that luxury with this movie. Was bad ass pretty much start to finish, and some of the sickest fight scenes I’ve ever seen. And lots of crazy death.

What a horrible way to recommend it I feel, but fuck the rest, just pay attention to the action.

Oh shit, we got a potential bad ass over here. Biutiful, nominated for best foreign film…AND BEST ACTOR for 2011? Say Whaaa. That seems rare. Usually they put the foreign films into a category and then ignore the shit out of them. This puts a lot of pressure on the film to live up to hype.

A joint Mexican/Spain film, 100% spanish, by the guy who brought us Babel. Which I still haven’t seen so whatever.

“Oh jeeeez, I hate pressure.”

Life is raining down shit on Uxbal (Javier Bardem). He is a single father, living with two younger kids, who cannot see their mother (Maricel Alvarez) because she is an alcoholic and bipolar, and a danger to them. He himself is an orphan, only having a brother Tito (Eduard Fernandez). He works with illegal immigrants, namely a bunch of Chinese people who make stuff, and a bunch of African people who sell the stuff. Oh, then he gets a terminal cancer and only has a few months to live.

And fuck it, why not, he can talk to the dead, or at least recently deceased, and passes on messages at funerals.

So he is going to die, guess time to fix up relationship with wife. Nope, she is crazy, and he has to leave his children in better hands! A lot of the Africans get arrested, and he ends up taking in the wife (Diaryatou Daff) and child of one of his (now arrested) friends in order to give them shelter. Hopefully she doesn’t screw him over too.

Speaking of screwing over, he is also able to find all the Chinese immigrants jobs. There is no way that can backfire! (This is funny, if you know what happens. Also sad. Also what in the fuck).

Fine. You can have a picture of someone else who isn’t Javier.

Most of this movie is Javier Bardem with a solemn look on his face, and just being super depressed about his life. He obviously really wants to make sure his kids are safe before he goes, but shit, everyone is making that so damn hard. No one is trustworthy, and in the part of Spain he lives, everyone just sketches me out. There is a scene in this movie that I couldn’t get a picture for, of a strip club, where they wore weird masks to look like more boobs on their heads. And fake nipples on their butt cheeks to make them look like nipples too.

Wasn’t even a hallucination! That shit came out of no where, and he didn’t do coke until a bit later in the club!

Personally, I thought the movie dragged on really hard. It is about 145 minutes long, and only in subtitles. It was a long almost 2.5 hours of my life, having to read the subtitles and all, too afraid to try to multi task. I think it moved too slowly, and was clearly too long. Shit, I think it would have conveyed just as much emotion and heart that they wanted if they cut out like 45 minutes. But I just didn’t care about the story anymore.

Not to take anything away from Javier Bardem, because he clearly put his all into that character and trying to resonate its humanness (that sounds intelligent yeah?). But uhh, I don’t want to see it again.

If you have no idea who Mesrine is, then you should probably read the review of part one, of this two part movie series. That way you knowledge can increase by about 3% on the subject!

Knowledge, it makes you happy.

After the events of the first film, Mesrine (Vincent Cassel) found himself alone, on the run, and mad. How does Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 begin? Shit, with Mesrine dying. Spoilers? Not really. Hopefully you would guess a nationwide gangster ended his career in prison or in death. Why they started with his body, not sure.

Last time we got to see kidnapping, killing, some extortion and breaking away from the police twice.

Well this movie is really no different. Some more escapes, some more kidnapping. He has different lovers in this film (Ludivine Sagnier). Some notable police workers (Oliver Gourmet and Christophe Vandevelde). And of course new accomplices and criminals (Gerard Lanvin, Mathieu Amalric, and Samuel Le Bihan).

Why be vague? I explained that last time. Because its all about the experience, damn it.

There must be some kind of way out of here, said the gangster to the thief. In prison.

But is it ust as good? To me, it didn’t feel as good. It is a bit longer, but I think a lot could have been cut out. Overall, it just felt like more of the same.

Maybe my problem is considering it two movies (you know, because it was released that way…) and not as one super really long movie. But in that case, overall it might have been better to just make it like a long three hour movie instead of a little bit over four hours overall. I guess it is because it became more of a biography and really did want to talk about all of his exploits. Not just the cool shit. I respect that, but I didn’t care about most of it.

I will say his death was kind of bad ass, as were his escapes. I also loved that everytime he got caught he was generally happy. Posing for the press, making great courtroom stands and what not. Then you know, escaping. Well done Mesrine.