Reviews

(originally posted on my blog: www.deadendfollies.com)

Teenager movies make me freakin' cynical, because they're so profoundly meaningless. I used to watch them piled on a bed with a handful of my fellow adolescent friends and love interests, in a bedroom seeping with hormones, and they filled me with unexplainable existential sadness. I later found out that it's because they all say the same thing: ''everything is going to be all right. You're going to get the girl and everybody's admiration and you're awesome at the core of your being, it's just that everybody else is too immature to see it''.

It's that kind of thinking that transformed Occidental society into an jerk factory. IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY is kind of a teenage movie, but only kind of. It's a movie with a beating heart, written by talented people, and yet it lacks the assertiveness and the commitment to make a powerful point about its theme, mental illness.

Craig (Keir Gilchrist) is a kid suffering from clinical depression. One morning, he first the courage to check himself in the psychiatric ward, but immediately regrets when he's confronted to the suffering of others. You can't just walk away from that place once you're admitted though. There is a minimal 5 days evaluation you have to go through. So Craig is going to have to face himself, and he discovers that when you put your shoulders into it sometimes, things aren't so bad. People in the ward are used to be judged, so none of them are particularly keen on judging others. Ward veteran Bobby (Zach Galifianakis) takes Craig under his wing and shows him that there is a fine line between being crazy and ill.

IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY had been destroyed by the critics and yet it's been a hit with the audiences. Why is that so? It's a well written movie about mental illness. If you've been anywhere around the issue yourself, you'll understand. For example, when Craig checks himself in at the E.R, he's trying to explain the doctor that he fears what he can do to himself. He doesn't have the precise words, but his latent fear is palpable.

Another example is the absolute dissonance and incomprehension that goes in between what's happening inside and outside the ward. Mental illness is still a misunderstood issue and Craig gets into every layer of misunderstanding with the people in his life outside, from his friends who are intrigued to his family who has difficulty assessing the seriousness of the situation. IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY story does a good job at displaying that if it's not happening to you, it's extremely difficult to understand, and that the best thing you can do is not judge.

Zoë Kravitz made me feel like a pervert scumbag in this movie, and she's like 25 years old!

The best way I can possibly explain the viewing experience of IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY is watching a friend of yours draw something beautiful, only to tear it to shreds after your complimented him/her. It's a coming-of-age movie that ultimately trivializes the issue of mental illness and this angers me to no end. IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY takes all this time to depict mental illness in a proper light, only to conclude that MAYBE you just need a little love to get better, that MAYBE you just need the proper friends and to express yourself. Maybe you need to channel that negativity. Blah blah blah. I know IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY doesn't mean harm, but it's bound by the shackles of its genre and sends the wrong freaking message. Plenty of mentally ill people have all the love they can get and still choose oblivion over life because they have a problem with their brain, you condescending pricks.

Mental health is a sensitive issue for me. If you want to know what it is to live with this affliction, I invite you to read this piece, by the talented Sam Hawken. I'm all for mainstream movie to discuss the issue, and I think it's fair to say that IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY does its part. Especially for a teenager movie that's supposed to make you feel cuddly. I suppose it's a movie with an interesting dual nature, but the laziness it showed in order to stay in the proper tone of its target audience angered me enough to make me shake my fist at my television screen. You cannot catch a mental illness like you catch the flu and clear yourself forever with 5 days of quarantine. You're not helping if you say everything will forever be OK again

Don't get me wrong, I thought this film was great. It's one of the best melodramas i've ever seen about Spanish war. It's a very sensitive movie with a lot of close ups and analytic editing surrounding the life of the orphans. It gets you into their universe and makes you feel what it was about to be an orphan in times like these. There is also a metaphorical level of political and historical denonciation in this. That's how you make a melodrama interesting, you clearly put up history into the roles of your film. Eduardo Noriega did a great job being the conceptualization of war, totalitarism and hate. Frederico Luppi as the protecting father was once again awesome(he always shines in Del Toro's works).

Thing is...what was billed as a horror movie isn't really horror. I mean there is what? Four scenes with the dead boy? Best thing yet is that when he's not there they are not even talking about him! This film could have got on without the use of a ghost story. Sad thing in this is that the special ghost effects are great, Santi is a creepy young fella. Del Toro is so scare to burn every away with horror like Hollywood does, that he only puts some here and there. I know it's a great film but I feel frustrated because handled better, it could have been the best film I ever seen in my life. It has nothing to envy to American classics of New wave europeans.

See it.

The film kicks off with Nekes telling us that cinema in the summit of many inventions, and that he's gonna show us during the film how is it a crossroad.

He does explain...some things, but the major part of the movie is the unilateral showing of Werner Nekes pictural toys collection. I mean he has a great collection, but he presents them here & there, nothing is organized, structured of rigorous. He seems to have more fun playing with his toys than explaining what role it had into the road to cinema.

It goes like this: -Shows a random pictural toys that has an ingenuous moving image mechanism.

-He says:"This thing had a pivotal role into the pictural tradition that leads to the cinema invention" -Then he plays with it while we're listening to crap music.

Not denuded of interest...not at all in fact. It could've been lot better though if Nekes had the ambition to make a decent documentary.

Hi folks,

I watched "Donnie Darko" for the first time last Saturday. I was expecting some kind of teen movie with stupid bunny jokes. Hang me, I was wrong. Damn wrong. I'm gonna review the movie, but not in the way it usually is. I'm going to go over the scenario, this scenario I would've loved to think about.

Donnie Darko is written on three levels of interpretations. On the first level it is, an high school movie with a kid talking to a giant bunny. On this first level, I saw some thirteen years old kids finding it funny, but being somewhat uncomfortable with the movie. On the second level is about this science fiction physics-a-go-go riddle that Richard Kelly is proposing us. I am an aficionado of riddle movies. Donnie receives messages from a giant bunny in his sleep, ordering him to do stuff like flooding a school or burning a pervert's house...in order to save the world. This bunny in fact announced the end of the universe after a jet engine fell from nowhere on Donnie's house...while he was curiously sleepwalking. What is this all about? Well watch this movie and find out. I gotta say it's one of the most challenging riddle movie i've seen.

The third level of narration is in my opinion the most important one, and it struck me right in the heart. I think that most of all, Donnie Darko is a critic of conformism..and a powerful one. Donnie Darko, by being the "choosen one" who receives the big bunny messages gets to feel solitude and difference in his ultra-conformist religious school. Take a good look at every scene where the confrontation with Jim Cunningham, the epitome of conformism in this movie are somewhat touching. I felt the pain of Darko's solitude and fear or what he didn't understood.

Great great movie from a very young director. Everyone should love it.

Don't get me wrong, I like puzzling movies, I like them to death, but this short film is...beyond puzzling, I'd need to see this like thirty times to really understand the underlying philosophy in there.

The whole film is about some "anxiety" treatment. I don't know, but I think this movie is breathing Kierkegaardian "anxiety". Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who said that anxiety was caused by the projection in a future state of being....

So...we got a guy, on a treatment table and a girl who seems to be a doctor....but everything she really does it shooting the guy in the head with some kind of...experimental gun...clever ain't it? It sure does stop the anxiety from going.

That said, the movie seemed primarily a big excuse to experiment. I have nothing against it, it was very cool. The blood stains from the gun wound were constantly moving and morphing into memories (or prjections?) The photographer for this movie did an awesome job of blending the whites together in the "treatment scence".

An extra-prop for the "show" scenes where the guy talks about his experience. I feel the keys for the movie are in his speech, but...like I said i'll have to see it again. Big ups for the music too, keeps you in that mood of "anxiety"..pretty enjoyable short film.

I went to see Ashura as 2005 Fantasia Festival Kickoff. Man, that was one cool kick off. The director was supposed to be in Montreal for the Canadian premiere, but due to health reasons, he's still in Japan...oh lord I hope he gets better and makes plenty of other movies.

The plot is pretty simple, but somewhat original...the demons are roaming in Edo in Japan and Swordsmans called "Demon Wardens" are slaying them and fearing the rebirth of Ashura, the demon goddess who's sleeping and supposedly is very kick-ass.

It brings us to Izumo...some kind of elite swordsman called "Demon Slayer" and his buddy Jaku who's the typical violent jealous asshole...

Seems boring? Well now it thickens....

Izumo took his retirement from killing demons since he slayed a young kid on the "impression" that he was the demon, he never knew, but he did killed her. So Izumo went on with his life and recycled himself in Kabuki theater. In a boat joyride on a nice night, Izumo spots a girl hiding on a bridge and it changes his life and restart to slay demons...for the good cause, the cause of love...and damn...the guy knows how to handle a sword and to pull an entertaining massacre.

Izumo carries the movie as far as playing goes...he is the total package...he knows how to fight(hell yeah he knows), he's witty, he's intelligent and he has that grit. You never have to yell :"NO IZUMO, IT'S A TRAP" The guy already knows it he has that common sense. He's really the perfect hero.

As far as cinematography goes, the esthetics are pretty interesting. It's by far, the movie that looks the most like a manga. It's creamed full of special effects and nothing, at all cost will prevent this movie to look realistic...it's pretty amazing. Lots of colours an "unreal" photography, other than that...it's pretty straightforward...but like I said, the main character is carrying the movie A must see, a tale lead by masterful hands

Well...I put this movie in the VCR without any expectations and it gave me a world of entertainment. This is how you do horror cinema in the 2000's. Sion Sono dosen't limit himself to the horror part. Having a bit of a weak storyline, he mixes it with a truckload of metaphors and interesting cinematography.

Subtle allusions to Dessart (AHEM...spoiler here) and filming with different camera angles and different filming techniques to entertain the viewer. The bowling alley scenes are very stylish too, reminiscent of Audition(which with American Beauty should be in the referenced movies in my opinion.) Sion Sono quotes the greatest cinematographers, but yet imposes his own style and a very strong photography who's a bit reminiscent of Shunya Tsukamoto's Tokyo Fist.

Quote more to get more original...that's what should be contemporary cinema motto..and I love it

It's my seventh Takashi Miike movie. I recognize the talent of the man, but here i'll make a statement. His pre-Audition era isn't that interesting. His obsession with the Yakuza theme made a lot of his movies look similar in my opinion.

But...even if Fudoh is similar to others like Dead Or Alive or Full Metal Yakuza, it has the merit of being treated in an original way. The teenage mafia, trying to take advantage of that innocent image to fight and ultimately kill the bosses of the current mafia brought my attention into this film. Although I felt this movie was just a series of generic killings and gross sexuality scenes (well, the hermaphrodite scene is something), the whole violent teenagers and influencing alpha personalities things are yet interesting.

Miike shows glimpses of his cinematographical talent in this movie, but the best was still to be seen.

Don't take this too seriously though, i'm severely bored with the gangster movie genre and I'll move on to something else pretty soon. This movie was mildly entertaining, mildly violent and gross for a Miike and mildly well shoot. It has no real flaw and a few good surprises, so if you like the director, well...you can give it a try

Wow! That was bad....and long.People here says that there is a few sequels, but i'll rate what I saw...and what I saw was sh*t. Believe me people, i'm no stranger to Japanese contemporary film, anime or violence in cinema. But, I know where to draw the line between funny and boring violence.

This anime is the constant repeat of a sex scene, of somebody morphing into a demon and the apocalypse-over-Tokyo scene. Sex,morphing, apocalypse, peppered with some pseudo-philosophical cheesy scenes. Serious, i'm not joking here, I went to see this movie to a midnight presentation with friends and we caught two weirdos wanking off between the rows (Believe me people I'm still under complete shock).

I might have understood more if I seen the sequel, but from what I've seen of this movie, you can't really be a sane person and enjoy it.

Violence and gore to a certain amount are fun, past that...it's boring, like alchool

The further I go into Japanese animation cinema, the more I find surprisingly good things. Satoshi Kon is one of those good things. After watching Perfect Blue 97 times(almost) and thinking of having an idea how to interpret this movie, I moved on to Millennium Actress, which is, in my opinion, more straightforward, but richer, more poetic and more inspired, don't get me wrong, both movies are awesome, but very different. To give you an idea, Kon moved from a Alfred Hitchcock inspired movie, to something GREATLY more inspired by Orson Wells.

That's one of the main interesting thing about Millennium Actress. It's an upside down Citizen Kane. I can't believe it's not a "referenced" in the "movie connections". First of all it's about the life of a great public person, but now it's a women, an actress, then there is an interesting connection between the present moment & the past trought an narrator, BUT unlike Kane, she's alive and the journalist has the key(in every sense of the term)...and we know the key of the story in the end and not the actress(opposite in Citizen Kane).

Where Kon innovates and distant himself from the copycats is his BLENDING of film past, real past and present moment. You go up into Chiyoko's past, into her film-making and past life without understanding where to draw the line. Funny thing, Kon presents glimpses of Japanese cinema past in Chiyoko's career. She plays into Kurosawa like movies and is seen in Godzilla and Ozu like productions. Pretty interesting. There is also winks to Stanley Kubrick's work.

Every cinephile should see it, like they all seen Citizen Kane.

As far as big a HUGE Takashi Miike fan, I had yet to see Dead Or Alive or any of his Yakuza series that never really tempted me. But, being a loyal fan, I did took a look at one of his many yakuza movie. I find it suspicious when a director is obsessed with a theme... I listened to that movie with some suspicious in the back of my mind.

Before the movie I found an interview with Miike on the DVD where I thought he was childish about the violence in his movies. Fact is, Takashi Miike discovered himself as an intelligent filmmaker..it all started up with the very Hitchcockian Audition. Dead Or Alive was before that...

As far as a genre movie goes it's pretty good. It has the best damn gun fights i've ever seen. The opening sequence is mind blowing and shows a lot about Miike's INCREDIBLE talent to film violence and make it larger than life. Sadly, it gets a bit slow and lazy after that. Miike is offering looong shots, trying to be an unorthodox filmmakers, but except for his shots taken into the corner of the rooms, it cuts the rhythm bad. Usually I like Miike for pissing on Antonioni's style, but this one seem to recreate the comtemplativity of the old Italian.

And...my major upset...

The sh*t bath scene.SPOILERS. OK...I think there is a way to film everything...INCLUDING A WAY TO FILM P**P YES! He brilliantly achieved it in Bizita Q, making the necrophilia scene even more grime. But this one is just a childish disgusting scene of a prostitute drowning in her sh*t. It has no meaning in the move and it sucks. If I want scat porn i'm gonna get it trough the internet. If you are and intelligent film maker like Miike and film this kind of atrocity...FILM IT GOOD GODD*MIT and not like an amateur internet porn camera.

...I feel relieved maybe i'll stop nightmaring about it now...

The ending scene gets the movie into the cult zone, damn this is a contemporary western dual with incredible weapons. This is AWESOME! The opening and the ending sequence makes me happy that i've seen it...but it wasn't one of the best Miike...

...In fact, for his standard it was ordinary

Sorry I don't get it.

Explain it to me. Why does this guy had any kind of success. I've been studying cinema in university for more than a year and stumbled across two Jean Renoir films including this one who was particularly painful.

It might be my suspension of disbelief being the problem, but i've watched some movies from this era(including Citizen Kane that I loved) and never hated'em with so much passion. Everything in that movie is overplayed and annoying. The music is damn horrible, the acting is BEYOND overplayed and the editing ain't anything special.

The ones who knows semio-pragmatic, I might agree that it contains some interesting twists of that theory, but the movie is way too damn boring for the 40 minutes it last. It looks like a theater play with comedians on mushroom Very bad

You like to solve mysteries? You like complex narrations? This is for you. Brilliant, clever movie by Francis Leclerc(son of a legendary french Canadian signer Felix Leclerc). Flashy photo and clever editing is the word of Leclerc, strongly helped by Roy Dupuis who's dythirambic in the lead role.

The plot is about Alexandre Tourneur, veterinary in his 40's who just woke up from a coma after being unplugged by somebody unknown. Tourneur is struggling to remember who hit him as he was ending a deer's sufferings on the road. Throughout the struggling, he has weird behavior and it seems like something took over him.

Not spooky, but very mysterious and well played movie. I have my hypothesis on the ending(I think the Indian caused the accident) but this ending was open to any explanations.

I strongly recommend it 9.5/10